We all sacrificed and we all benefitted from it. In the long run, it led to my parents being able to send me to a prep school for high school and pay for the college of my choice, which would not have happened without what he gained from going back to school. It helped them pay off a house and now our family has an investment portfolio with a worth measured in millions.
None of that would have happened without his sacrifice.
But I can understand how, if you're into making excuses, you'd want to turn it around and make it sound like hard work and sacrifice are bad things.
I've found that on Slashdot there are a lot of people that claim to think logically yet get really emotional and respond with great passion and poor logic to a lot of posts. They seem completely unwilling or unable to listen to a point of view they don't want to hear.
When I posted that, I thought I'd get a ton of posts saying, "Oh, but it's so hard. You don't know how hard it is." I know what hard is. I went for years with no life and gaining over 100 lbs that I had to lose while starting my own business. I learned from experience that you can either complain about how hard it is or you can accept it and do what needs to be done to make it work. I have never seen the complainers who have thousands of reasons why they can't "just do it" doing anything more than following their bosses orders. The people that succeed are the ones that know excuses lead nowhere and the only solution is to "just do it." I thought I'd get a flood of people saying tha was too hard and to be nice to the poor guy.
What the poor guy needs to do is stop sitting on his ass and start busting it.
It is more complicated and it isn't. I didn't go into all the details of what my family went through, but it included no money when the car needed repairs, the same dinner for many nights because there wasn't money to pay for more and other problems. Life is complicated, but you've got a choice: you either make your life better or you don't. Nobody will do it for you. I have yet to hear someone successful say, "I wanted to take classes and learn more or get more qualifications, but I just could not afford it, or just didn't have the time, or just couldn't do it." Yet I often hear comments like this from people looking for jobs that can't do the work well or say they want to be in management in a few years, but don't know how to get there and think somehow they'll work it out.
Newsflash: life is not fair. You can complain about how complicated it is and not step up to the plate, or you can stop complaining and do it. So, in the long run it is that simple: you either find a way to make it work, or you can stop wasting your time dreaming because it won't happen without your effort.
Make excuses or make an effort and find a way. One makes thing better. One does not.
As one of three kids, I remember as a young kid, seeing my Father have to go off on his own some nights to study and other nights he would not be home or have to leave right after dinner for classes. Don't make excuses. If you don't want to go to school, don't. If you want to go, go. Just don't make up excuses or let excuses get in the way of bettering yourself.
Personally, it seems to me (as a business owner) that when I hear things like this, it is the same as the person saying, "I want something better, but how can I get it without extra work or sacrifice?" If you want an improved situation, you'll have to work for it and have to go through earning it through work and hardship. If that's too much, then don't dream if you won't work.
I would be very justified, as long as you're going to use ad hominem attacks, to point out that you don't even have the courage of your convictions to post as anything other than an AC.
Is that fair? Does whether or not you post as an AC effect the quality of or facts in your argument?
No, it doesn't.
Thank you, again, like a few others, for proving my point.
As for MS Word -- sorry, doesn't work on Linux. Overall, no, I've said what was enough. If that isn't enough for you, nothing will be and whatever I say, you will troll through it to continue to attack me instead of the points I made, which proves, in the first place, that you simply couldn't refute what I stated, so you had to find a way to attack me instead.
My specific jab at psychology ("based on cigars and violins") went unanswered.
Yes, it did. It was so absurd and so far from what psychology is that I felt that was one of the things that showed you had no idea what you were talking about. It's so far from fact and truth, there's no point in even addressing it. Honestly, it is so far from true psychology, I did not think anyone could be ignorane enough of the field to seriously mean such a statement. It would be like an astronomer hearing someone make a reference to the flat Earth and realize that comment is so out of date the person must be joking.
As to the old school test you bring up, it's old school. Psychology is a new science, especially compared to most others like physics. I can cite a lot of stuff that's old school in psychology, or in other sciences, that is crap and should be ignored. I never used the MMPI. I also know that tests are changed and updated over time. For example, I learned about (but didn't use directly) a WISC-R. When I was in college, the WISC was already outdated.
There is a difference in how you and I approach this topic. You have a passing and brief experience with some tests and feel that you know, from that little bit, enough to comment on it and its validity. You feel more than comfortable judging current testing methods on tests that even you admit are old school. That would be like me critizing physics for saying the atom was the smallest particle in existence. That is now recognized as not true, so it would be unfair for me to use that as a criticism against physics. Just as physicists started with ideas that were later proven wrong and replaced with someting research supported, so are psychological theories and tests.
I do not like commenting or supporting tools I have not used or am not familiar with. It's been over a decade since I was in the field, but I do try to stick to what I learned about. Again, this seems to be a difference between us: I don't want to make judgements on tools I never professional experience with, yet you seem to feel it is okay to judge tools in a field your posts show a strong ignorance in when you only have had a brief experience with that tool. You don't know the purpose of a question and, from your comments, show assumptions that you and a nurse think might be the question -- yet, you don't know why it was on the test or what it was tryign to establish. (I noticed you said she was a psych nurse, but you don't indicate whether she had actual training -- I know many nurses that knew the meds and regime in psych wards, but had no experience or training in treatment.) To be blunt, I, as a professional who was trained to give, score, and interpret tests, don't know why those questions are there, but I also know enough about the field to know I don't know enough to speculate.
This is why I compared the attitude hard science people, with you exemplifying that view, have of pyschology to an astrologer's view of science: An astrologer doesn't know the science of astronomy or other hard sciences, and what he does know is wrong. Yet he feels he is qualified to judge science, say what is good and bad about it and he doesn't know the first true and valid fact about it. Your attitude toward psychology is the same: your statements show you know nothing about it, what little you think you know is wrong, yet you feel that you are somehow smart enough to judge an entire field of study when you have no clue about it.
Now, as to each point of your comments, like the "cigar and violin" stuff, I'm not going to waste my time responding. It's absurd, it's wrong, and, to be honest, it is based so heavily on ingorance of the field, addressing it would be like trying to teach astronomy and starting with, "First, the world is not flat."
As to what you show on Myers-Briggs -- Why should I care about that? I don't care what my best friend shows up as. (I've even said, on this thread, I think it is way over used and over relied on). If I could just tell
Now, psychologists love to try and compartmentalize humans into manageable little segments, but unfortunately, that's not how we work.
Uh, none that I know. I have not seen compartmentalizing. I have not seen labelling. I have seen professionals describe traits and attitudes and behaviors people have, but I have not seen professionals categorizing people. I have seen IT people try to do things like that so they can process everything with software, but I have not seen psych people do it. Do you have examples, or do you just think they do it because that is how you think they work?
These two sentences mean VERY different things, yet if I answer them differently on a test, the psychologist will think I'm untruthful.
This is another interesting statement. You state how psychologists view people, and now you state how they will react to your test answers. I do feel it appropriate at this point to ask, again, if this is what you *know* they do because you've talked with them about the test and how it's scored, because you've scored tests yourself, or because that is your idea of what they do?
This is actually a good example of different questions that can be used to determine what is going on. The two questions about suicide you cite can be interpreted quite differently. You answer them differently because, in the context you read them, they can seem to have different meanings. Answering them differntly does not mean you're lying, but it can give insight to your perceptions of suicide. But before anyone tries to take this literally, we are talking about an example and we are oversimplifying things.
As to the issue of lying, I don't know if you had a recent test that bothered you or if this is just something that had a strong impact on you. However, there are other points: 1) Did they use the word liar, or is that how you remember it? I've seen many cases of people hearing things they don't want to hear (and I'm not accusing you of anything) and not paying attention to what was actually said and interpreting what they think was being said. 2) There could have been more evidence to support the conclusion but it would have involved a high amount of detail that wasn't necessary to the discussion. 3) It may be (and you don't say why you were being tested with something involving suicide or why you were talking to a psychologist about it) that you were in a situation where they were concerned about your attitudes about suicide and that your inconsistencies pointed out that you were not being entirely honest with the psych. or possibly with yourself. 4) You may have let your passion about the situation interfere with your perceptions of it and may have a highly flawed interpretation of the events. 5) The psych. may have been incompetent or inept.
As to your point about compassion and logic: I gave an example. I never said it was from a test, I never even indicated it was a question actually used on a test. A person can be compassionate and logical, yes, but, again, the point was an example, not that particular issue. However, the entire point of such a question is to force people to make a choice between the two possibilities. They make a choice on that question, then on a number of similar questions. From the answers in all those questions, it is possible to figure out if the person is being consistent or inconsistent. It is also possible to check the philosphical leanings, as you put it, of the test taker.
As to your last statement, you went through a lot of trouble to create a poorly supported ad hominem attack. Thank you for proving my point about personal attacks in my first point.
I know what you mean about role playing. One exercise I participated in while in different groups is to fake it on tests. Some people can do it well, some can't. It's like the one someone pointed out somewhere in this topic about asking if most people steal office supplies. If you're smart enough to know most people would rather hire Wally Cleaver than Eddie Haskell, you simply answer the question the way Wally would answer it (sorry for the inane example -- the first that came to mind and I'm terrified about what that says about me!).
Yet do you really think that a psychologist who has spent years studying human behavior is not aware of that something like that? It would be like a newbie to Linux thinking, "Oh, the password file is easy to see, so I can use it to get passwords." After a while he learns that the designers were way ahead of him. There are some very subtle tests I've seen that can catch almost anyone. There's also other techniques, like rapid fire verbal questions that don't give a respondant time to make up answers and timing a test so people have to move through it quickly. No test will catch 100% of the bad apples, but some can be highly effective.
And, of course, there are the test that just plain suck. For example, I think many people place way too much emphasis on Myers-Briggs. It's helpful, especially in understanding people in general, but it is not the first and last word in personality types. I had a principal once say I shouldn't be teaching because I didn't fit the type. That was just her being a small person and trying to manipulate me. The truth is, and a person experienced with it, would say that *most* teachers are of a particular type, but would also point out that it benefits the students to have teachers of different types and that one's personality type does not define what job they *should* do.
As to whether or not I think a method works, all I can say is that I was professionally trained to administer different tests and batteries of tests. I have professional experience scoring and ranking tests (not always as in best or worst) and professional experience in seeing when the tests work and fail. I can tell you what I learned from years working in treatment and what those I worked with, including professional psychologists, social workers, and others found, and that is that a lot more people think they can fake it on tests than can actually do so and that a lot more people think they've sussed a test out than ever do.
So, again, draw your own conclusion. Is the opinion of someone who claims to know how to fake it on tests right or is it more likely those with experience in the field know how to deal with and test around people who spot tests?
Which shows how little you know about the entire situation. Spellcheck helps in some ways, but even with one, there are still enough problems that crop up that it is of only limited advantage.
But it would be really great if all problems had such simplistic solutions.
I can't speak to the tests you're talking about, and it seems you're across the pond from me (just guessing since you use the term "maths" and in US we use "math", but that doesn't prove anything), so it's also possible that you are dealing with tests I've never seen, never heard of, and would never have anything to do with. From what you say, it sounds like the problem isn't that they were made by a 12 year old, but by someone so intensely focused in his field he had no idea how to communicate with people overall. If that's the case, that's pretty bad.
There could be a number of reasons you don't do well at the tests. (BTW, I'd never use the term "fail" when referring to personality tests.) Maybe you're passive agressive. Maybe you have a lot of repressed anger. Maybe you present one side to the boss and the other to the rest of the world. I'm not saying any of this to hurt you, but to indicate that there may be issues within yourself you are not aware of. I've worked heavily in tech fields and treatment fields. It was hard for me to move from treatment to tech because in treatment everyone *has* to have a very high level of self awareness. You cannot survive working in treatment if you're not aware of all your strengths and weaknesses. That made it hard for me to adjust to techies. In both fields there is always a desire to learn. In treatment the desire is to learn about people and one's self. In tech, it is to learn about the tools of the trade. There are a large number of people in tech who are unaware of their faults or difficulties in handling social graces -- so many so that we have stereotypes of techies like that. There is a subset of this group that is not only unaware of their personal weaknesses, but don't have the strength to see and accept such things in their own personality.
I'm not, by ANY means, implying that you are that way. Your post itself shows enough curiosity about psychology to indicate you are able to learn about yourself and are willing to examine yourself. It may very well be that there are parts of your self you don't see clearly or passions you are not aware of (or that you have mislabelled logical attitudes) that control you more than you currently realize.
I can't give you a perfect answer. I'm just bringing up some possibilities -- and, at that, mainly the ones I see over and over, which is people who think they are a perfect example of good behavior, but are unable to see their own faults. Again, I'm not saying, or even trying to imply that this describes you. I'm just pointing out SOME possibilities.
You seem to want to pick on everything you can to take apart something you disagree with. Just as an side, I'm struggling with a high level of pain in my hands from way too much time spent coding recently. It makes typing rather difficult, but if I work quickly, it doesn't hurt as much. Going back and moving around to the arrow keys and other keys, moving back and forth to make corrections, though, is quite painful.
But you are welcome to judge me on whatever criteria you prefer, since it seems important to you.
I think you have that backwards. The stereotype among hard science people about psychology is that psychology is something akin to astrology, but based on cigars and violins rather than signs of the zodiac and planets.
Actually that was my point, that hard science people view it that way, but that by taking that view, they are showing the same level of ignorance, in themselves, of psychology than an astrologer would show of astronomy. In both cases, though, you are often dealing with someone who is so sure he is right that he can't see beyond his own nose and can't see that he is doing the very thing he accuses others of doing.
Since you prefer to use the ad hominem argument and attack me and my typos, rather than deal with the point of the post, I really should thank you for backing up what I said in the first place:
I've seen that many times here, on./, where most people think they know logic and have a better grasp of it than others, but if you challenge a point they don't want to know is weak, sometimes you'll get a vicious attack that is written up as a logical argument, but instead focuses on name calling and other ad hominem attacks. That is a case of someone who thinks he is strong on logic, yet does not realize how much passion blinds him to it and does not realize just how strong his emotions are.
Instead of dealing with the issues, you attack me personally and my typing. Granted, you could not know the pain I am in and how that effects my typing, but that just goes to show that sometimes it's best not to judge without knowing all the facts and it's best not to call names or indulge in ad hominem attacks without knowing the full story. You are probably also unaware that I have a learning disability (and no, I'm not making that up and tossing it in for good measure) that sometimes, like dyslexia, makes it hard for me to visually recognize typos and other similar problems. Just for your benefit, a learning disability is a difference in the way a person's brain processes information. It often has nothing to do with intelligence, as has been shown by many high achievers with learning disabilities.
Behavioural interviewing is a very dodgy 'science'. It is based on the premise that if you ask someone what they would do in a certain situation, then assess their reply. Obviously there may well be a difference between what they say they would do, and what they would do.
WHile a lot of what you say has been well though out, this statement is a perfect example of a major problem amoung hard science people in their view of psychology. It is like an astrologer who says they understand asstronomy because they know astrology. In short, it is a statement that, to those who know much about the field, contains within itself an admission of complete ignorance of the field, yet continues to judge that field from that stand of complete ignorance.
Testing does not always ask what someone would do. There is more to it than that. Often tests do ask what one will do, but what people don't realize is that many times the same essential questions are asked in different ways and the results are compared. If they are inconsistent, that can indicate the person is lying on the test or has ethical issues or perceives himself as being one kind of person when, in reality, he is not. A test can also ask people to pick which term out of 2 or 3 or more applies to them. One set of terms may make the person pick between compassion and logic. Another may make them pick between compassion and fairness. A few other questions with choices like that, when put together can tell that the testee THINKS they value logic over compassion and passion, but may show that they are more likely to react passionately than logically.
I've seen that many times here, on./, where most people think they know logic and have a better grasp of it than others, but if you challenge a point they don't want to know is weak, sometimes you'll get a vicious attack that is written up as a logical argument, but instead focuses on name calling and other ad hominem attacks. That is a case of someone who thinks he is strong on logic, yet does not realize how much passion blinds him to it and does not realize just how strong his emotions are. Testing can be invaluable in finding such people that claim to funciton logically and do well in teams, but who, in reality, may have ego problems that make them poor team players and unresponsive to logic on some topics.
And to the point where a person may say they will do one thing but, in reality would do another -- did you think that a person who has several degrees in a science that studies human behavior (you don't see tests with credibility designed by someone with a B.S. only) and who has spent years in that field would not know this little detail you are sure of? Do you give psychologists credit for that little intelligence? Serioulsy -- think about it. It's to their benefit, when you're being tested, that you do not see beyond that. Tests are often designed to show what you say you'll do, yet also tell the evaluator what you'll really do.
Maybe I'm wrong, since it's been 10 years, but I think you can train the systems for new words. It'll be a pain at first, but in the long run, it'll help. It might be a mess coding in something like Java, though, where so many methods are made up of 3-4 distinct words.
No. Not true, even in English. For example, "c" does not make a sound distinctly different from all other characters. Some letters, such as "x" make sounds that can easily be made from a combination of other letters. Including pairings and such, linguists say that the English language includes something closer to 45 single sounds.
I used to teach Special Ed and saw software that could recognize entire words and use them in writing in a word processor. I have not used voice rec software in the 10 years since I left the field, but I don't see how, if it could be done by some of the pioneering programs 10 years ago, why many programs now would recognize only individual letters and not words.
I have also heard about some writers that were using voice rec to do a lot of their writing as long ago as when we were using the software in sp.ed. (again, that was about 10 years ago).
MS doesn't work that way. Never has and as long as it's run by the current guys, it never will. You've got nothing but braggadocios at the top, laced with (as Susan Ivanova said) testesterone poisoning. These are not people who have ever understood subtlity and have taken every chance they can to tell everyone else how great their next product is. If they're silent, it's because they've got diddly. Even with their "secret" projects they start blabbing early.
Your time might not be worth anything to me but I spend a lot of money to save time. That's why I have a can opener and not just a knife, why I have a washer and dryer and not just a flat rock and a round rock, why I have an oven and not a firepit and sticks to rub together...
Actually, last time I had any chance to work out a direct value of my time, I was paid $500 for 1 hour of work. My work isn't billed at an hourly rate often. I was a bit surprised because before that, the last time there was a need to set a direct price on my time, it was only about $350/hour. I run my own business, which means my time is quite valuable. Unlike you, I have a sense of proportion. You use extremes, such as either a can opener or a knife. Personally I don't tend to need either much, but then again, I'm not the one that does most of the food prep (and no, I don't mean my wife or girlfriend does it -- I'm just doing well enough to be able to hire domestic help). There are degrees, though, such as a knife or can opener or electric can opener. There's a flat rock for laundry, a wash tub, and different types of washers and driers.
Last I counted, well over 10 years ago, I had well over 2,000 books. That was after I took many I didn't want over to the used bookstore for credit. Since then I've not given any up, but added a good number. I organized once and that has lasted me over a decade without needing to re-organize. All books are still easy to find without me looking, checking a computer, or needing to play with high end toys like bar code scanners.
On the other hand, you admit to only having a small collection, indicating you don't have the experience of a moderate or large sized personal library. You say you'll spend a lot to save time, but you overlook the point I made that using a scanner means extra work every time you buy books, as well as the extra work of keeping up with placement every time you put a book back on the shelf or need to check it.
There is such a concept as the right tool for the right job. If a screw has one slot, use a flathead, if it has two crossing slots, use a phillips. If you're adding a few numbers that you can't do in your head, use a calculator, not a computer with a 500 GB hard drive and 2 GB RAM.
I did, at one point, catalog my books. To keep up, every time I bought new books, I had to enter each one into a db, which is not easy to do when you bring back 10 books or more from a trip to the store (and that isn't an overly rare event). I tried to keep up every time someone borrowed a book. Then I found out that in real life, you don't always have time to enter a book when someone borrows it, much less every time it comes back in or every time you put it back on the shelf. To use your system, it means not only paying more upfront (organizing costs nothing, or possibly some new bookshelves), but spending extra time continuously every time you're working with books. You say you'd do it with a cuecat, but still, you've got to set it up and enter all the books. For even 1,000 that takes time.
Why use high tech solutions and let them control how you do things when a low tech one can be set up faster and does not take time to use, as yours does? Unless you'd rather give up the responsibility of sorting and keeping things in order yourself and turn it over to a computerized system that takes more time and resources.
As to rearranging, if you've got 3,500 books -- if you've even got 1,000 books, then books are of some priority to you. It'll cost far less, in time and money, to invest in some appropriate bookshelves. You mention funky bookshelves, but I have never seen, in any catalog, book shelves that are that unusual or unique. If size is a problem, and that's about the only issue one is going to run into, as I said, you can have a special section for your oversized books.
But scanning and having to do that every time you take a book out or put it back? Why waste all that time and effort instead of just sorting them and later returning them to their place? Why bother with a sledge hammer that takes a lot of effort when you're only using a thumback and not a railroad spike?
We're talking about a moderate sized home library. Just how many bells and whistles do you want to add? How much do you want to spend to make sure that every time you put a book back, you've got to scan it and scan a shelf and keep track of it? I'm just really having a hard time understanding why all that is necessary. I'm known to be quite spacey, but I ordered my books once, and have moved some sections to other shelf units, and have moved some shelves around. Yet whenever I need a book, I don't have to think about it. Science is in one area, fiction in another, sf in another, other types in different places. Somehow, even a space case like me has no trouble keeping up.
On the other hand, adding a scanner means every time a book is put on a shelf, it and the shelf need scanning, which means getting the scanner from wherever it is, scanning, putting it back, and at some point, uploading to the computer. Then, when a book is needed, it means pulling up a db, finding it, then getting the book. I've heard of people trying stuff like this, but I've never heard of anyone who set it up and actually could remember to keep up with the scanning and after a few months ended up with a mess. In those cases, it wasn't scanning, but a simple notation system. I and friends tried cataloging, and found it can be hard just to keep up with entering new books, vids, and cds into a db whenever you come home late one night, with a stack of new purchases, over time, that stack is less and less likely to get cataloged.
Generally a system that requires less work after setup is more likely to last for a long time.
It just sounds to me like you're ready to spend a lot of money and time to set up something so you don't have to spend less time doing a one time sort and organizing the books so all you have to do is pick one off the shelf and put it back when needed, instead of getting the scanner, scanning the book and shelf, putting it back, returning the scanner, uploading the data, and checking the computer when you need a book.
My closet is about 2 1/2 feed deep and about 4 feet wide. I used heavy duty hinges. Forgot the specs, but large hinges, as in the kinds you'd see on a fence gate that might stretch across a driveway. I considered making a set of shelves for a closet closer to what you're describing. I think I considered 3 doors. The two on the sides would be bulletinboards on the outside, would open up with shelves on their backs, and the center door would slide left and right on the old closet door tracks and would be a bookshelf from the front, but would not be accessible from the back. I remember playing with that design and the sliding doors, and considering putting sliding doors for the 2nd level back, and the third would have been for the large books and against the closet wall.
Mine does stick out about 6-8 inches from the front of the closet. I used some molding around the edges for finishing, to make it look like it wasn't just stuck in there.
I think I found, when I played with designs, that the 3 door (middle one sliding) design was not that good, since it created other limits. Your idea of 2 or 3 side by side would probably work best. After a year or so, I added wheels on the outisde doors to keep them from sagging. On the inside it was't a problem because the two inner doors rested on blocks when they were closed, which, of course, is most of the time.
I'd love to do that. I also want to do a project page for a 1973 Mercedes 450SL I just bought and am restoring, but I have to get a digital camera -- and I'm just too stuck in getting some programming done.
Basically you see a 2 section bulletin board instead of a closet. The top left of the bb has a small bookshelf. Pull back a book and the bb swings open. The back is bookshelves. Then there's another layer with hinged "doors" that have bookshelves on both sides. Then, behind that is the major shelf with big books.
I had a similar problem and did what libraries do. I put most of my books in an order that made sense to me, then included a section for the larger books, which turned out to only need a few shelves. I also, after a while, made my own bookshelf. I took a spare closet I cleaned out and built some shelves in there. I even made hinged shelves. The front looks like a bulletin board, which I use for notes, and when I'm writing, for plotting. There's one shelf of books at the top of this bulletin board area and if you pull back on the outdated Writer's Market, it trips the switch and opens the bulletin board and reveals it to be a door with bookshelves on the back. When that is out of the way, there's two more shelves on hinges. Open them and they have shelvs on the back as well, with one last set of shelves where I have the largest books stored.
Not everyone can do all that, but with that many books, if space is a problem, then some of the shelves may need to go and be replaced by shelves designed to hold a lot of books.
Why start using barcodes and scanners? It's extra money. Sure it's nice toys, but in the long run, just sorting them works great. It may mean adjusting shelves, but organizing it once and keeping it that way saves a lot of time over typing things in and using bar codes and "all that mucking about in hyperspace" stuff.
This is a good point. There's no reason in going hi-tech with scanners and bar codes when simpler solutions can do the job. Maybe that's the problem -- you're looking for a hi-tech solution to a lo-tech problem, so you're forgetting things like sorting by category and alphabetizing by the author's last name. I don't use the Dewey Decimal System, but I sorted my books years ago. I have fiction divided into several groups (sf & fantasy, literature, drama...) and the rest are grouped by subject matter and eact section is sorted by author's last name. I made sure the shelving arrangement allowed for adding a lot of books along the way. When done, I also had a good sized pile of books that were left over from college or from my ex-wife that were ones I'd never need or want to read, so I took them to the used book store for credit and that helped, as well.
Who needs scanners and bar codes? Libraries have kept much bigger book collections organized for centuries with less tech than that.
Considering Microsoft's track record, particularly in the press with all the vulnerabilites
That was close to my thoughts, as well. The other point that I was thinking about was that it seems that MS does not tend to do too well with trying to break into other markets. I know it's a cliche, but it seems that unless a market is tied directly to Windows or Office, they have a very hard time doing much in it. The only market I've heard about them being noticed in, other than those mentioned, is with the XBox. It seems if they can't rely on a user base that will start using their products because they're included in Windows or because they're forcing everyone to use office doc formats, people tend to be wary of them.
That's what I was wondering. I can understand them not showing the atmosphere making plants for security, but I'd think they'd at least show Helium, or the Valley of Dor.
It can't do that but so much, due to storage limitations.
It can't hide all files, that would be a clue that something is wrong. There are also way too many files on the drive that have to change regularly so making a drive always look the same would be a problem. As I mentioned in another post, the check program could be designed so when it is installed, it could have a different name on each system and could morph so it wouldn't be easily recognized from system to system.
There's also the live CD option. When the OS is installed, it burns a simple live CD that would have ways of verifying that when it boots, it is itself (it wouldn't change at all and a rootkit can't memorize every CD ever inserted) and can do checksums on the BIOS and boot block. Both of these are updated rarely enough there isn't a frequent need to make new CDs.
I'm just pointing out a simple solution. By responding to your concern, I'm also pointing out that there are ways around some of the issues. I'm not trying to lay out an entire process here. You and I both know that there's the constant "one upmanship" that is part of the security game, and there are many factors that need to be taken into account. I'm not trying to take them all into account, but just point out that while MS makes this sound like a dire threat, there are much easier solutions to it than some major DRM thing.
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We all sacrificed and we all benefitted from it. In the long run, it led to my parents being able to send me to a prep school for high school and pay for the college of my choice, which would not have happened without what he gained from going back to school. It helped them pay off a house and now our family has an investment portfolio with a worth measured in millions.
None of that would have happened without his sacrifice.
But I can understand how, if you're into making excuses, you'd want to turn it around and make it sound like hard work and sacrifice are bad things.
Thank you.
I've found that on Slashdot there are a lot of people that claim to think logically yet get really emotional and respond with great passion and poor logic to a lot of posts. They seem completely unwilling or unable to listen to a point of view they don't want to hear.
When I posted that, I thought I'd get a ton of posts saying, "Oh, but it's so hard. You don't know how hard it is." I know what hard is. I went for years with no life and gaining over 100 lbs that I had to lose while starting my own business. I learned from experience that you can either complain about how hard it is or you can accept it and do what needs to be done to make it work. I have never seen the complainers who have thousands of reasons why they can't "just do it" doing anything more than following their bosses orders. The people that succeed are the ones that know excuses lead nowhere and the only solution is to "just do it." I thought I'd get a flood of people saying tha was too hard and to be nice to the poor guy.
What the poor guy needs to do is stop sitting on his ass and start busting it.
It is more complicated and it isn't. I didn't go into all the details of what my family went through, but it included no money when the car needed repairs, the same dinner for many nights because there wasn't money to pay for more and other problems. Life is complicated, but you've got a choice: you either make your life better or you don't. Nobody will do it for you. I have yet to hear someone successful say, "I wanted to take classes and learn more or get more qualifications, but I just could not afford it, or just didn't have the time, or just couldn't do it." Yet I often hear comments like this from people looking for jobs that can't do the work well or say they want to be in management in a few years, but don't know how to get there and think somehow they'll work it out.
Newsflash: life is not fair. You can complain about how complicated it is and not step up to the plate, or you can stop complaining and do it. So, in the long run it is that simple: you either find a way to make it work, or you can stop wasting your time dreaming because it won't happen without your effort.
Make excuses or make an effort and find a way. One makes thing better. One does not.
As one of three kids, I remember as a young kid, seeing my Father have to go off on his own some nights to study and other nights he would not be home or have to leave right after dinner for classes. Don't make excuses. If you don't want to go to school, don't. If you want to go, go. Just don't make up excuses or let excuses get in the way of bettering yourself.
Personally, it seems to me (as a business owner) that when I hear things like this, it is the same as the person saying, "I want something better, but how can I get it without extra work or sacrifice?" If you want an improved situation, you'll have to work for it and have to go through earning it through work and hardship. If that's too much, then don't dream if you won't work.
I would be very justified, as long as you're going to use ad hominem attacks, to point out that you don't even have the courage of your convictions to post as anything other than an AC.
Is that fair? Does whether or not you post as an AC effect the quality of or facts in your argument?
No, it doesn't.
Thank you, again, like a few others, for proving my point.
As for MS Word -- sorry, doesn't work on Linux. Overall, no, I've said what was enough. If that isn't enough for you, nothing will be and whatever I say, you will troll through it to continue to attack me instead of the points I made, which proves, in the first place, that you simply couldn't refute what I stated, so you had to find a way to attack me instead.
My specific jab at psychology ("based on cigars and violins") went unanswered.
Yes, it did. It was so absurd and so far from what psychology is that I felt that was one of the things that showed you had no idea what you were talking about. It's so far from fact and truth, there's no point in even addressing it. Honestly, it is so far from true psychology, I did not think anyone could be ignorane enough of the field to seriously mean such a statement. It would be like an astronomer hearing someone make a reference to the flat Earth and realize that comment is so out of date the person must be joking.
As to the old school test you bring up, it's old school. Psychology is a new science, especially compared to most others like physics. I can cite a lot of stuff that's old school in psychology, or in other sciences, that is crap and should be ignored. I never used the MMPI. I also know that tests are changed and updated over time. For example, I learned about (but didn't use directly) a WISC-R. When I was in college, the WISC was already outdated.
There is a difference in how you and I approach this topic. You have a passing and brief experience with some tests and feel that you know, from that little bit, enough to comment on it and its validity. You feel more than comfortable judging current testing methods on tests that even you admit are old school. That would be like me critizing physics for saying the atom was the smallest particle in existence. That is now recognized as not true, so it would be unfair for me to use that as a criticism against physics. Just as physicists started with ideas that were later proven wrong and replaced with someting research supported, so are psychological theories and tests.
I do not like commenting or supporting tools I have not used or am not familiar with. It's been over a decade since I was in the field, but I do try to stick to what I learned about. Again, this seems to be a difference between us: I don't want to make judgements on tools I never professional experience with, yet you seem to feel it is okay to judge tools in a field your posts show a strong ignorance in when you only have had a brief experience with that tool. You don't know the purpose of a question and, from your comments, show assumptions that you and a nurse think might be the question -- yet, you don't know why it was on the test or what it was tryign to establish. (I noticed you said she was a psych nurse, but you don't indicate whether she had actual training -- I know many nurses that knew the meds and regime in psych wards, but had no experience or training in treatment.) To be blunt, I, as a professional who was trained to give, score, and interpret tests, don't know why those questions are there, but I also know enough about the field to know I don't know enough to speculate.
This is why I compared the attitude hard science people, with you exemplifying that view, have of pyschology to an astrologer's view of science: An astrologer doesn't know the science of astronomy or other hard sciences, and what he does know is wrong. Yet he feels he is qualified to judge science, say what is good and bad about it and he doesn't know the first true and valid fact about it. Your attitude toward psychology is the same: your statements show you know nothing about it, what little you think you know is wrong, yet you feel that you are somehow smart enough to judge an entire field of study when you have no clue about it.
Now, as to each point of your comments, like the "cigar and violin" stuff, I'm not going to waste my time responding. It's absurd, it's wrong, and, to be honest, it is based so heavily on ingorance of the field, addressing it would be like trying to teach astronomy and starting with, "First, the world is not flat."
As to what you show on Myers-Briggs -- Why should I care about that? I don't care what my best friend shows up as. (I've even said, on this thread, I think it is way over used and over relied on). If I could just tell
Now, psychologists love to try and compartmentalize humans into manageable little segments, but unfortunately, that's not how we work.
Uh, none that I know. I have not seen compartmentalizing. I have not seen labelling. I have seen professionals describe traits and attitudes and behaviors people have, but I have not seen professionals categorizing people. I have seen IT people try to do things like that so they can process everything with software, but I have not seen psych people do it. Do you have examples, or do you just think they do it because that is how you think they work?
These two sentences mean VERY different things, yet if I answer them differently on a test, the psychologist will think I'm untruthful.
This is another interesting statement. You state how psychologists view people, and now you state how they will react to your test answers. I do feel it appropriate at this point to ask, again, if this is what you *know* they do because you've talked with them about the test and how it's scored, because you've scored tests yourself, or because that is your idea of what they do?
This is actually a good example of different questions that can be used to determine what is going on. The two questions about suicide you cite can be interpreted quite differently. You answer them differently because, in the context you read them, they can seem to have different meanings. Answering them differntly does not mean you're lying, but it can give insight to your perceptions of suicide. But before anyone tries to take this literally, we are talking about an example and we are oversimplifying things.
As to the issue of lying, I don't know if you had a recent test that bothered you or if this is just something that had a strong impact on you. However, there are other points: 1) Did they use the word liar, or is that how you remember it? I've seen many cases of people hearing things they don't want to hear (and I'm not accusing you of anything) and not paying attention to what was actually said and interpreting what they think was being said. 2) There could have been more evidence to support the conclusion but it would have involved a high amount of detail that wasn't necessary to the discussion. 3) It may be (and you don't say why you were being tested with something involving suicide or why you were talking to a psychologist about it) that you were in a situation where they were concerned about your attitudes about suicide and that your inconsistencies pointed out that you were not being entirely honest with the psych. or possibly with yourself. 4) You may have let your passion about the situation interfere with your perceptions of it and may have a highly flawed interpretation of the events. 5) The psych. may have been incompetent or inept.
As to your point about compassion and logic: I gave an example. I never said it was from a test, I never even indicated it was a question actually used on a test. A person can be compassionate and logical, yes, but, again, the point was an example, not that particular issue. However, the entire point of such a question is to force people to make a choice between the two possibilities. They make a choice on that question, then on a number of similar questions. From the answers in all those questions, it is possible to figure out if the person is being consistent or inconsistent. It is also possible to check the philosphical leanings, as you put it, of the test taker.
As to your last statement, you went through a lot of trouble to create a poorly supported ad hominem attack. Thank you for proving my point about personal attacks in my first point.
I know what you mean about role playing. One exercise I participated in while in different groups is to fake it on tests. Some people can do it well, some can't. It's like the one someone pointed out somewhere in this topic about asking if most people steal office supplies. If you're smart enough to know most people would rather hire Wally Cleaver than Eddie Haskell, you simply answer the question the way Wally would answer it (sorry for the inane example -- the first that came to mind and I'm terrified about what that says about me!).
Yet do you really think that a psychologist who has spent years studying human behavior is not aware of that something like that? It would be like a newbie to Linux thinking, "Oh, the password file is easy to see, so I can use it to get passwords." After a while he learns that the designers were way ahead of him. There are some very subtle tests I've seen that can catch almost anyone. There's also other techniques, like rapid fire verbal questions that don't give a respondant time to make up answers and timing a test so people have to move through it quickly. No test will catch 100% of the bad apples, but some can be highly effective.
And, of course, there are the test that just plain suck. For example, I think many people place way too much emphasis on Myers-Briggs. It's helpful, especially in understanding people in general, but it is not the first and last word in personality types. I had a principal once say I shouldn't be teaching because I didn't fit the type. That was just her being a small person and trying to manipulate me. The truth is, and a person experienced with it, would say that *most* teachers are of a particular type, but would also point out that it benefits the students to have teachers of different types and that one's personality type does not define what job they *should* do.
As to whether or not I think a method works, all I can say is that I was professionally trained to administer different tests and batteries of tests. I have professional experience scoring and ranking tests (not always as in best or worst) and professional experience in seeing when the tests work and fail. I can tell you what I learned from years working in treatment and what those I worked with, including professional psychologists, social workers, and others found, and that is that a lot more people think they can fake it on tests than can actually do so and that a lot more people think they've sussed a test out than ever do.
So, again, draw your own conclusion. Is the opinion of someone who claims to know how to fake it on tests right or is it more likely those with experience in the field know how to deal with and test around people who spot tests?
Which shows how little you know about the entire situation. Spellcheck helps in some ways, but even with one, there are still enough problems that crop up that it is of only limited advantage.
But it would be really great if all problems had such simplistic solutions.
I can't speak to the tests you're talking about, and it seems you're across the pond from me (just guessing since you use the term "maths" and in US we use "math", but that doesn't prove anything), so it's also possible that you are dealing with tests I've never seen, never heard of, and would never have anything to do with. From what you say, it sounds like the problem isn't that they were made by a 12 year old, but by someone so intensely focused in his field he had no idea how to communicate with people overall. If that's the case, that's pretty bad.
There could be a number of reasons you don't do well at the tests. (BTW, I'd never use the term "fail" when referring to personality tests.) Maybe you're passive agressive. Maybe you have a lot of repressed anger. Maybe you present one side to the boss and the other to the rest of the world. I'm not saying any of this to hurt you, but to indicate that there may be issues within yourself you are not aware of. I've worked heavily in tech fields and treatment fields. It was hard for me to move from treatment to tech because in treatment everyone *has* to have a very high level of self awareness. You cannot survive working in treatment if you're not aware of all your strengths and weaknesses. That made it hard for me to adjust to techies. In both fields there is always a desire to learn. In treatment the desire is to learn about people and one's self. In tech, it is to learn about the tools of the trade. There are a large number of people in tech who are unaware of their faults or difficulties in handling social graces -- so many so that we have stereotypes of techies like that. There is a subset of this group that is not only unaware of their personal weaknesses, but don't have the strength to see and accept such things in their own personality.
I'm not, by ANY means, implying that you are that way. Your post itself shows enough curiosity about psychology to indicate you are able to learn about yourself and are willing to examine yourself. It may very well be that there are parts of your self you don't see clearly or passions you are not aware of (or that you have mislabelled logical attitudes) that control you more than you currently realize.
I can't give you a perfect answer. I'm just bringing up some possibilities -- and, at that, mainly the ones I see over and over, which is people who think they are a perfect example of good behavior, but are unable to see their own faults. Again, I'm not saying, or even trying to imply that this describes you. I'm just pointing out SOME possibilities.
You seem to want to pick on everything you can to take apart something you disagree with. Just as an side, I'm struggling with a high level of pain in my hands from way too much time spent coding recently. It makes typing rather difficult, but if I work quickly, it doesn't hurt as much. Going back and moving around to the arrow keys and other keys, moving back and forth to make corrections, though, is quite painful.
./, where most people think they know logic and have a better grasp of it than others, but if you challenge a point they don't want to know is weak, sometimes you'll get a vicious attack that is written up as a logical argument, but instead focuses on name calling and other ad hominem attacks. That is a case of someone who thinks he is strong on logic, yet does not realize how much passion blinds him to it and does not realize just how strong his emotions are.
But you are welcome to judge me on whatever criteria you prefer, since it seems important to you.
I think you have that backwards. The stereotype among hard science people about psychology is that psychology is something akin to astrology, but based on cigars and violins rather than signs of the zodiac and planets.
Actually that was my point, that hard science people view it that way, but that by taking that view, they are showing the same level of ignorance, in themselves, of psychology than an astrologer would show of astronomy. In both cases, though, you are often dealing with someone who is so sure he is right that he can't see beyond his own nose and can't see that he is doing the very thing he accuses others of doing.
Since you prefer to use the ad hominem argument and attack me and my typos, rather than deal with the point of the post, I really should thank you for backing up what I said in the first place:
I've seen that many times here, on
Instead of dealing with the issues, you attack me personally and my typing. Granted, you could not know the pain I am in and how that effects my typing, but that just goes to show that sometimes it's best not to judge without knowing all the facts and it's best not to call names or indulge in ad hominem attacks without knowing the full story. You are probably also unaware that I have a learning disability (and no, I'm not making that up and tossing it in for good measure) that sometimes, like dyslexia, makes it hard for me to visually recognize typos and other similar problems. Just for your benefit, a learning disability is a difference in the way a person's brain processes information. It often has nothing to do with intelligence, as has been shown by many high achievers with learning disabilities.
Behavioural interviewing is a very dodgy 'science'. It is based on the premise that if you ask someone what they would do in a certain situation, then assess their reply. Obviously there may well be a difference between what they say they would do, and what they would do.
./, where most people think they know logic and have a better grasp of it than others, but if you challenge a point they don't want to know is weak, sometimes you'll get a vicious attack that is written up as a logical argument, but instead focuses on name calling and other ad hominem attacks. That is a case of someone who thinks he is strong on logic, yet does not realize how much passion blinds him to it and does not realize just how strong his emotions are. Testing can be invaluable in finding such people that claim to funciton logically and do well in teams, but who, in reality, may have ego problems that make them poor team players and unresponsive to logic on some topics.
WHile a lot of what you say has been well though out, this statement is a perfect example of a major problem amoung hard science people in their view of psychology. It is like an astrologer who says they understand asstronomy because they know astrology. In short, it is a statement that, to those who know much about the field, contains within itself an admission of complete ignorance of the field, yet continues to judge that field from that stand of complete ignorance.
Testing does not always ask what someone would do. There is more to it than that. Often tests do ask what one will do, but what people don't realize is that many times the same essential questions are asked in different ways and the results are compared. If they are inconsistent, that can indicate the person is lying on the test or has ethical issues or perceives himself as being one kind of person when, in reality, he is not. A test can also ask people to pick which term out of 2 or 3 or more applies to them. One set of terms may make the person pick between compassion and logic. Another may make them pick between compassion and fairness. A few other questions with choices like that, when put together can tell that the testee THINKS they value logic over compassion and passion, but may show that they are more likely to react passionately than logically.
I've seen that many times here, on
And to the point where a person may say they will do one thing but, in reality would do another -- did you think that a person who has several degrees in a science that studies human behavior (you don't see tests with credibility designed by someone with a B.S. only) and who has spent years in that field would not know this little detail you are sure of? Do you give psychologists credit for that little intelligence? Serioulsy -- think about it. It's to their benefit, when you're being tested, that you do not see beyond that. Tests are often designed to show what you say you'll do, yet also tell the evaluator what you'll really do.
Maybe I'm wrong, since it's been 10 years, but I think you can train the systems for new words. It'll be a pain at first, but in the long run, it'll help. It might be a mess coding in something like Java, though, where so many methods are made up of 3-4 distinct words.
We only have 26 single sounds we can make
No. Not true, even in English. For example, "c" does not make a sound distinctly different from all other characters. Some letters, such as "x" make sounds that can easily be made from a combination of other letters. Including pairings and such, linguists say that the English language includes something closer to 45 single sounds.
I used to teach Special Ed and saw software that could recognize entire words and use them in writing in a word processor. I have not used voice rec software in the 10 years since I left the field, but I don't see how, if it could be done by some of the pioneering programs 10 years ago, why many programs now would recognize only individual letters and not words.
I have also heard about some writers that were using voice rec to do a lot of their writing as long ago as when we were using the software in sp.ed. (again, that was about 10 years ago).
MS doesn't work that way. Never has and as long as it's run by the current guys, it never will. You've got nothing but braggadocios at the top, laced with (as Susan Ivanova said) testesterone poisoning. These are not people who have ever understood subtlity and have taken every chance they can to tell everyone else how great their next product is. If they're silent, it's because they've got diddly. Even with their "secret" projects they start blabbing early.
Your time might not be worth anything to me but I spend a lot of money to save time. That's why I have a can opener and not just a knife, why I have a washer and dryer and not just a flat rock and a round rock, why I have an oven and not a firepit and sticks to rub together...
Actually, last time I had any chance to work out a direct value of my time, I was paid $500 for 1 hour of work. My work isn't billed at an hourly rate often. I was a bit surprised because before that, the last time there was a need to set a direct price on my time, it was only about $350/hour. I run my own business, which means my time is quite valuable. Unlike you, I have a sense of proportion. You use extremes, such as either a can opener or a knife. Personally I don't tend to need either much, but then again, I'm not the one that does most of the food prep (and no, I don't mean my wife or girlfriend does it -- I'm just doing well enough to be able to hire domestic help). There are degrees, though, such as a knife or can opener or electric can opener. There's a flat rock for laundry, a wash tub, and different types of washers and driers.
Last I counted, well over 10 years ago, I had well over 2,000 books. That was after I took many I didn't want over to the used bookstore for credit. Since then I've not given any up, but added a good number. I organized once and that has lasted me over a decade without needing to re-organize. All books are still easy to find without me looking, checking a computer, or needing to play with high end toys like bar code scanners.
On the other hand, you admit to only having a small collection, indicating you don't have the experience of a moderate or large sized personal library. You say you'll spend a lot to save time, but you overlook the point I made that using a scanner means extra work every time you buy books, as well as the extra work of keeping up with placement every time you put a book back on the shelf or need to check it.
There is such a concept as the right tool for the right job. If a screw has one slot, use a flathead, if it has two crossing slots, use a phillips. If you're adding a few numbers that you can't do in your head, use a calculator, not a computer with a 500 GB hard drive and 2 GB RAM.
I did, at one point, catalog my books. To keep up, every time I bought new books, I had to enter each one into a db, which is not easy to do when you bring back 10 books or more from a trip to the store (and that isn't an overly rare event). I tried to keep up every time someone borrowed a book. Then I found out that in real life, you don't always have time to enter a book when someone borrows it, much less every time it comes back in or every time you put it back on the shelf. To use your system, it means not only paying more upfront (organizing costs nothing, or possibly some new bookshelves), but spending extra time continuously every time you're working with books. You say you'd do it with a cuecat, but still, you've got to set it up and enter all the books. For even 1,000 that takes time.
Why use high tech solutions and let them control how you do things when a low tech one can be set up faster and does not take time to use, as yours does? Unless you'd rather give up the responsibility of sorting and keeping things in order yourself and turn it over to a computerized system that takes more time and resources.
As to rearranging, if you've got 3,500 books -- if you've even got 1,000 books, then books are of some priority to you. It'll cost far less, in time and money, to invest in some appropriate bookshelves. You mention funky bookshelves, but I have never seen, in any catalog, book shelves that are that unusual or unique. If size is a problem, and that's about the only issue one is going to run into, as I said, you can have a special section for your oversized books.
But scanning and having to do that every time you take a book out or put it back? Why waste all that time and effort instead of just sorting them and later returning them to their place? Why bother with a sledge hammer that takes a lot of effort when you're only using a thumback and not a railroad spike?
Position independence?
Is this a joke?
We're talking about a moderate sized home library. Just how many bells and whistles do you want to add? How much do you want to spend to make sure that every time you put a book back, you've got to scan it and scan a shelf and keep track of it? I'm just really having a hard time understanding why all that is necessary. I'm known to be quite spacey, but I ordered my books once, and have moved some sections to other shelf units, and have moved some shelves around. Yet whenever I need a book, I don't have to think about it. Science is in one area, fiction in another, sf in another, other types in different places. Somehow, even a space case like me has no trouble keeping up.
On the other hand, adding a scanner means every time a book is put on a shelf, it and the shelf need scanning, which means getting the scanner from wherever it is, scanning, putting it back, and at some point, uploading to the computer. Then, when a book is needed, it means pulling up a db, finding it, then getting the book. I've heard of people trying stuff like this, but I've never heard of anyone who set it up and actually could remember to keep up with the scanning and after a few months ended up with a mess. In those cases, it wasn't scanning, but a simple notation system. I and friends tried cataloging, and found it can be hard just to keep up with entering new books, vids, and cds into a db whenever you come home late one night, with a stack of new purchases, over time, that stack is less and less likely to get cataloged.
Generally a system that requires less work after setup is more likely to last for a long time.
It just sounds to me like you're ready to spend a lot of money and time to set up something so you don't have to spend less time doing a one time sort and organizing the books so all you have to do is pick one off the shelf and put it back when needed, instead of getting the scanner, scanning the book and shelf, putting it back, returning the scanner, uploading the data, and checking the computer when you need a book.
But if that's your idea of organized, have fun.
My closet is about 2 1/2 feed deep and about 4 feet wide. I used heavy duty hinges. Forgot the specs, but large hinges, as in the kinds you'd see on a fence gate that might stretch across a driveway. I considered making a set of shelves for a closet closer to what you're describing. I think I considered 3 doors. The two on the sides would be bulletinboards on the outside, would open up with shelves on their backs, and the center door would slide left and right on the old closet door tracks and would be a bookshelf from the front, but would not be accessible from the back. I remember playing with that design and the sliding doors, and considering putting sliding doors for the 2nd level back, and the third would have been for the large books and against the closet wall.
Mine does stick out about 6-8 inches from the front of the closet. I used some molding around the edges for finishing, to make it look like it wasn't just stuck in there.
I think I found, when I played with designs, that the 3 door (middle one sliding) design was not that good, since it created other limits. Your idea of 2 or 3 side by side would probably work best. After a year or so, I added wheels on the outisde doors to keep them from sagging. On the inside it was't a problem because the two inner doors rested on blocks when they were closed, which, of course, is most of the time.
I'd love to do that. I also want to do a project page for a 1973 Mercedes 450SL I just bought and am restoring, but I have to get a digital camera -- and I'm just too stuck in getting some programming done.
Basically you see a 2 section bulletin board instead of a closet. The top left of the bb has a small bookshelf. Pull back a book and the bb swings open. The back is bookshelves. Then there's another layer with hinged "doors" that have bookshelves on both sides. Then, behind that is the major shelf with big books.
I had a similar problem and did what libraries do. I put most of my books in an order that made sense to me, then included a section for the larger books, which turned out to only need a few shelves. I also, after a while, made my own bookshelf. I took a spare closet I cleaned out and built some shelves in there. I even made hinged shelves. The front looks like a bulletin board, which I use for notes, and when I'm writing, for plotting. There's one shelf of books at the top of this bulletin board area and if you pull back on the outdated Writer's Market, it trips the switch and opens the bulletin board and reveals it to be a door with bookshelves on the back. When that is out of the way, there's two more shelves on hinges. Open them and they have shelvs on the back as well, with one last set of shelves where I have the largest books stored.
Not everyone can do all that, but with that many books, if space is a problem, then some of the shelves may need to go and be replaced by shelves designed to hold a lot of books.
Why start using barcodes and scanners? It's extra money. Sure it's nice toys, but in the long run, just sorting them works great. It may mean adjusting shelves, but organizing it once and keeping it that way saves a lot of time over typing things in and using bar codes and "all that mucking about in hyperspace" stuff.
This is a good point. There's no reason in going hi-tech with scanners and bar codes when simpler solutions can do the job. Maybe that's the problem -- you're looking for a hi-tech solution to a lo-tech problem, so you're forgetting things like sorting by category and alphabetizing by the author's last name. I don't use the Dewey Decimal System, but I sorted my books years ago. I have fiction divided into several groups (sf & fantasy, literature, drama...) and the rest are grouped by subject matter and eact section is sorted by author's last name. I made sure the shelving arrangement allowed for adding a lot of books along the way. When done, I also had a good sized pile of books that were left over from college or from my ex-wife that were ones I'd never need or want to read, so I took them to the used book store for credit and that helped, as well.
Who needs scanners and bar codes? Libraries have kept much bigger book collections organized for centuries with less tech than that.
Considering Microsoft's track record, particularly in the press with all the vulnerabilites
That was close to my thoughts, as well. The other point that I was thinking about was that it seems that MS does not tend to do too well with trying to break into other markets. I know it's a cliche, but it seems that unless a market is tied directly to Windows or Office, they have a very hard time doing much in it. The only market I've heard about them being noticed in, other than those mentioned, is with the XBox. It seems if they can't rely on a user base that will start using their products because they're included in Windows or because they're forcing everyone to use office doc formats, people tend to be wary of them.
I guess Slashdot's picture of Gates as a Borg is applicable more now than ever
Actually, I wasn't thinking Borg. My first thought was, "All your bases are belong to us."
But is basically an acknowledgement that *nix is providing things they aren't and that there are benefits to it.
That's what I was wondering. I can understand them not showing the atmosphere making plants for security, but I'd think they'd at least show Helium, or the Valley of Dor.
It can't do that but so much, due to storage limitations.
It can't hide all files, that would be a clue that something is wrong. There are also way too many files on the drive that have to change regularly so making a drive always look the same would be a problem. As I mentioned in another post, the check program could be designed so when it is installed, it could have a different name on each system and could morph so it wouldn't be easily recognized from system to system.
There's also the live CD option. When the OS is installed, it burns a simple live CD that would have ways of verifying that when it boots, it is itself (it wouldn't change at all and a rootkit can't memorize every CD ever inserted) and can do checksums on the BIOS and boot block. Both of these are updated rarely enough there isn't a frequent need to make new CDs.
I'm just pointing out a simple solution. By responding to your concern, I'm also pointing out that there are ways around some of the issues. I'm not trying to lay out an entire process here. You and I both know that there's the constant "one upmanship" that is part of the security game, and there are many factors that need to be taken into account. I'm not trying to take them all into account, but just point out that while MS makes this sound like a dire threat, there are much easier solutions to it than some major DRM thing.