Eh. If gambling isn't fun for you then don't do it. In fact if you don't like gambling Vegas is just about the ideal destination for you: all of that food, all of those shows, all of the hotel rooms, all of everything subsidized by people gambling.
Well, what do you expect for what they charge?
I was expecting what they advertise. Nothing more, nothing less. There's cheaper hosting out there that's honest and up front about having "email only" support with charges per-incident on phone support. I'd love to be able to shell out $$ for real phone support right now instead of the "no help at all desk" 1and1 provides. I'd love to be able to LEAVE 1and1 right now, but their control panel is so fucked up I can't even publish a new DNS record delegating authority to another name server let alone authorize a transfer of the domains away. As soon as they get me fixed enough to do that I'm out of there.
And it has been like this with these guys all along. I should have cut and run after my first support nightmare but I thought "Oh, teething issues, once we get this one worked out I'll never need support again...."
Yeah, 1and1 is great -- until you need support. And then you learn that their 24x7 support doesn't actually exist. What you get instead is "Steve" in Hyderabad reading you the error that is disabling your domain control panel. 20 minutes of explaining the problem to him and he'll finally admit that he doesn't have access to the tools to help you resolve the problem but that he'll be happy to send mail to the department that does support and they'll try to get back to you in the next seven business days.
They've got great support as long as all you need is someone to read the screen to you. But if you have a real issue, like a problem on their end, it is worse than an answering service -- at least an answering service will quickly and accurately transcribe your support request.
It'd make a hell of a lot more sense to know the cable is even possible before giving away million dollar prizes for the robot.
No. Not really.
A million dollars is chump change and you (should?) know it. None of the labs involved in this are competing for the prize money. The reward they seek is their name having been listed as participating, or having won the purse. Even if the cable is proven impossible then the engineering efforts committed to having participated aren't simply wasted -- if you can't think of even a half-dozen ways they might be applied you should probably consider giving up engineering and taking up a career in accounting or some such.
lastly, this is all a waste of time until they have a material they can make the cable out of -
Waste of time? Only if it happens that a material suitable for making the cable out of is proven to be impossible or another technology obviates the need for it. Until then this would best be described as time-saving (think: predictive branching and parralellism).
1 turn was 6 rounds, right? So when the party hit trouble (mage in the back, of course) you start casting magic missile every round so they're hovering over you. Then as each monster gets wounded enough for a magic missile to take it down you point at each of them and they die, freeing the fighters' attacks for the remaining monsters.
Rank and organization: Private, United States Army, 148th Infantry, US 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: On New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Clyde, Ohio. Birth: Tiffin, Ohio. G.O. No.: 3, 6 January 1944.
Medal of Honor Citation: On 31 July 1943, the infantry company of which Pvt. Young was a member, was ordered to make a limited withdrawal from the battle line in order to adjust the battalion's position for the night. At this time, Pvt. Young's platoon was engaged with the enemy in a dense jungle where observation was very limited. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machine gun concealed on higher ground only 75 yards away. The initial burst wounded Pvt. Young. As the platoon started to obey the order to withdraw, Pvt. Young called out that he could see the enemy emplacement, whereupon he started creeping toward it. Another burst from the machine gun wounded him the second time. Despite the wounds, he continued his heroic advance, attracting enemy fire and answering with rifle fire. When he was close enough to his objective, he began throwing hand grenades, and while doing so was hit again and killed. Pvt. Young's bold action in closing with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire, permitted his platoon to disengage itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.
I can point at games on the C64 and at pen and paper gamed in the '90s (when I was into P&P gaming -- other folks can probably point at older ones) that had this mechanic. This is not a Halo invention even if Halo implemented it well.
This seems like as good a place as any to ask for info on a couple of shareware titles I played back in the day on my 8088.
The first was, a pretty normal dungeon crawler done up with ASCII graphics. The only thing that really sticks out in my head about this game was a command on the order of "Activate your mad uncle Aleister's device...". I had a lot of fun with the game but lost the disc when my house burned and never managed to find it again. (The device, when activated, was a random teleport which could save your ass -- or leave you dead embedded in solid rock).
The other game was all text and as annoying as hell. It threw you randomly from prompt to prompt, event to event, and you'd have a few options at each prompt. Eventually (if you didn't die of plague beforehand, which happened more often than not) you'd get the Staff of Power (I think it was called) which would convert all of your assets into armies and your army would do battle with the bad guy army and if you won it'd offer you a chance to print out a certificate showing you'd won.
I've had to interview folks for this position several times. The most important thing to me is that they don't create more work for me than they'll unload off of me.
I like to (in sight of the candidate) create a new account and login under that account. Then I reach back and unplug the keyboard right in front of them. "Can you browse to www.cnn.com now?" is the question after that setup.
The correct answer is for the tech to reach to plug the keyboard back in or ask if they can. That's full credit there. Tell them that, and then ask them if they can think of any other ways. Since its a new account it won't be in the browser history -- but seeing them check is extra credit. Finding a textfile and copy/pasting the characters out of it or using charmap is also good for extra credit, along with a remote desktop connection,... (as an interesting side-note I developed this test before being assigned a Pri1/Sev1/Blocking bug by an overzealous tester at Microsoft which I root-caused as her unplugging her keyboard cable).
For my second question I like to (again, in plain view of the technician) edit the boot.ini file on a system in such a way that it rendered unbootable. Then shutdown/restart, and ask them how they'd fix it. Yank the HD and put it in another machine, alternate boot media,...
If there's any chance they'll ever work on hardware set them up in front of a junk PC (make sure it's an easy one to take apart/put together -- not some obscure system of latches to get the case off -- they can learn about those guys on the job and should not be graded on never having opened some vendor-specific box). Tell them to pretend that the simple NIC on the table is a prototype board the developers need installed, and as such is very expensive. Ask them to handle the physical install of the card, and talk you through what they're doing. The big thing is they should either ask for a static strap or mention that "it's just pretend so I'm going to just ground myself to the chassis before I pick up the card..."
If your entry level tech can get full credit on all of these they're probably safe to turn lose without supervision. Partial credit for good attempts and thinking aloud about the problem (ask them to when you give them these problems) should mean they need a minimum of supervision. If they bomb out on all three then they need a babysitter and you should probably move on to the next candidate since they're gonna break more than they fix.
He's probably thinking something more along the lines of "page alignment". I wouldn't try debating it if I were you: this sort of thinking is along the lines of an article of faith with ricers. Central to their belief is that there is a conspiracy between hardware and software manufacturers to make your PC run slower. Generally they rant with a) a mix of fact and fiction that can't be argued with on the surface with painful exagerations which when called upon they'll say something like "I was just making my point....", and then combine it with b) a mythology backed in unshakeable faith. Observe:
a) "Avoid walmart PCs. Especially the compaqs that take 20 minutes to boot up, and are substandard to a 10 year old machine. Then charge $80 an hour to work on them. The cheaper they are. The more i charge."
b)WHEN YOU ARE DONE. Ghost it to DVD or CD. Then boot from that CD/DVD, and re-ghost (I use ghost 7 corporate) the hard drive from the CD / DVD. This makes a huge difference because it aligns the data on the HD correctly. Try it, and you will see.
At this point it becomes nearly impossible to tell if the person in question actually has some information to share, is deluded into believing their vodoo works, or is posting a very elaborate troll.
But to get back to the point you were commenting on: if there was an organization of data on a hard drive which was magically able to give an asymptomatic increase in performance you can bet that it'd be rolled into defrag by now and not hidden as an unknown benefit in an old version of ghost and known only to Slashdot user AnyThingButWindows and his "repair shop" which removes their customer's antivirus software....
Slashdot Mirror
Eh. If gambling isn't fun for you then don't do it. In fact if you don't like gambling Vegas is just about the ideal destination for you: all of that food, all of those shows, all of the hotel rooms, all of everything subsidized by people gambling.
The single most important thing I learned while in the Casino industry is this: "Don't sleep with the pit bosses girl friend." Tell Cindy I say 'Hi'
My point was that you have to tackle problems one at a time
That's kind of a silly attitude. If we only worked on one thing at a time think about how long it would take to get everything done.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Nerf Pallies! /signed
...the expectations of the user. Newsflash: when you buy cheap crap it is going to perform like cheap crap.
With all of the other stuff they pile on recruits during boot wouldn't it be possible to teach them to practice safe hex?
Well, what do you expect for what they charge? I was expecting what they advertise. Nothing more, nothing less. There's cheaper hosting out there that's honest and up front about having "email only" support with charges per-incident on phone support. I'd love to be able to shell out $$ for real phone support right now instead of the "no help at all desk" 1and1 provides. I'd love to be able to LEAVE 1and1 right now, but their control panel is so fucked up I can't even publish a new DNS record delegating authority to another name server let alone authorize a transfer of the domains away. As soon as they get me fixed enough to do that I'm out of there. And it has been like this with these guys all along. I should have cut and run after my first support nightmare but I thought "Oh, teething issues, once we get this one worked out I'll never need support again...."
Yeah, 1and1 is great -- until you need support. And then you learn that their 24x7 support doesn't actually exist. What you get instead is "Steve" in Hyderabad reading you the error that is disabling your domain control panel. 20 minutes of explaining the problem to him and he'll finally admit that he doesn't have access to the tools to help you resolve the problem but that he'll be happy to send mail to the department that does support and they'll try to get back to you in the next seven business days. They've got great support as long as all you need is someone to read the screen to you. But if you have a real issue, like a problem on their end, it is worse than an answering service -- at least an answering service will quickly and accurately transcribe your support request.
spin-the-bottle or other completely random, unsupervised, goal-less games? Spin the bottle goal-less? You must have played differently than me...
Oh, they're so cute when they're so little!
No. Not really.
A million dollars is chump change and you (should?) know it. None of the labs involved in this are competing for the prize money. The reward they seek is their name having been listed as participating, or having won the purse. Even if the cable is proven impossible then the engineering efforts committed to having participated aren't simply wasted -- if you can't think of even a half-dozen ways they might be applied you should probably consider giving up engineering and taking up a career in accounting or some such.
Waste of time? Only if it happens that a material suitable for making the cable out of is proven to be impossible or another technology obviates the need for it. Until then this would best be described as time-saving (think: predictive branching and parralellism).
Wow. You're missing out. You need to read some Heinlein.
Nah. Beta hasn't meant that for years.
Uhm. Did you read the study? Or even the article?
Its not the author of the list's fault that you're ignorant. Now go to bed, little boy so the grownups can finish talking.
Populous gets the title.
1 turn was 6 rounds, right? So when the party hit trouble (mage in the back, of course) you start casting magic missile every round so they're hovering over you. Then as each monster gets wounded enough for a magic missile to take it down you point at each of them and they die, freeing the fighters' attacks for the remaining monsters.
Rank and organization: Private, United States Army, 148th Infantry, US 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: On New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Clyde, Ohio. Birth: Tiffin, Ohio. G.O. No.: 3, 6 January 1944.
Medal of Honor Citation: On 31 July 1943, the infantry company of which Pvt. Young was a member, was ordered to make a limited withdrawal from the battle line in order to adjust the battalion's position for the night. At this time, Pvt. Young's platoon was engaged with the enemy in a dense jungle where observation was very limited. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machine gun concealed on higher ground only 75 yards away. The initial burst wounded Pvt. Young. As the platoon started to obey the order to withdraw, Pvt. Young called out that he could see the enemy emplacement, whereupon he started creeping toward it. Another burst from the machine gun wounded him the second time. Despite the wounds, he continued his heroic advance, attracting enemy fire and answering with rifle fire. When he was close enough to his objective, he began throwing hand grenades, and while doing so was hit again and killed. Pvt. Young's bold action in closing with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire, permitted his platoon to disengage itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.
I can point at games on the C64 and at pen and paper gamed in the '90s (when I was into P&P gaming -- other folks can probably point at older ones) that had this mechanic. This is not a Halo invention even if Halo implemented it well.
The first was, a pretty normal dungeon crawler done up with ASCII graphics. The only thing that really sticks out in my head about this game was a command on the order of "Activate your mad uncle Aleister's device...". I had a lot of fun with the game but lost the disc when my house burned and never managed to find it again. (The device, when activated, was a random teleport which could save your ass -- or leave you dead embedded in solid rock).
The other game was all text and as annoying as hell. It threw you randomly from prompt to prompt, event to event, and you'd have a few options at each prompt. Eventually (if you didn't die of plague beforehand, which happened more often than not) you'd get the Staff of Power (I think it was called) which would convert all of your assets into armies and your army would do battle with the bad guy army and if you won it'd offer you a chance to print out a certificate showing you'd won.
I've had to interview folks for this position several times. The most important thing to me is that they don't create more work for me than they'll unload off of me.
I like to (in sight of the candidate) create a new account and login under that account. Then I reach back and unplug the keyboard right in front of them. "Can you browse to www.cnn.com now?" is the question after that setup.
The correct answer is for the tech to reach to plug the keyboard back in or ask if they can. That's full credit there. Tell them that, and then ask them if they can think of any other ways. Since its a new account it won't be in the browser history -- but seeing them check is extra credit. Finding a textfile and copy/pasting the characters out of it or using charmap is also good for extra credit, along with a remote desktop connection, ... (as an interesting side-note I developed this test before being assigned a Pri1/Sev1/Blocking bug by an overzealous tester at Microsoft which I root-caused as her unplugging her keyboard cable).
For my second question I like to (again, in plain view of the technician) edit the boot.ini file on a system in such a way that it rendered unbootable. Then shutdown/restart, and ask them how they'd fix it. Yank the HD and put it in another machine, alternate boot media, ...
If there's any chance they'll ever work on hardware set them up in front of a junk PC (make sure it's an easy one to take apart/put together -- not some obscure system of latches to get the case off -- they can learn about those guys on the job and should not be graded on never having opened some vendor-specific box). Tell them to pretend that the simple NIC on the table is a prototype board the developers need installed, and as such is very expensive. Ask them to handle the physical install of the card, and talk you through what they're doing. The big thing is they should either ask for a static strap or mention that "it's just pretend so I'm going to just ground myself to the chassis before I pick up the card..."
If your entry level tech can get full credit on all of these they're probably safe to turn lose without supervision. Partial credit for good attempts and thinking aloud about the problem (ask them to when you give them these problems) should mean they need a minimum of supervision. If they bomb out on all three then they need a babysitter and you should probably move on to the next candidate since they're gonna break more than they fix.
At this point it becomes nearly impossible to tell if the person in question actually has some information to share, is deluded into believing their vodoo works, or is posting a very elaborate troll.
But to get back to the point you were commenting on: if there was an organization of data on a hard drive which was magically able to give an asymptomatic increase in performance you can bet that it'd be rolled into defrag by now and not hidden as an unknown benefit in an old version of ghost and known only to Slashdot user AnyThingButWindows and his "repair shop" which removes their customer's antivirus software....
Dunno about nethack but there are multiplayer angbands.