Wouldn't an illuminated switch/toggle be more useful if it was illuminated when the device was OFF so it's easier to know how to turn it on? I'm particularly thinking of light switches here.
Not if they're located in a central (control) room and you need to know at a glance what machinery / electronic devices are running/powered and which are not.
The illuminated off state switches are good for single room light switches, not machinery that would generally require a toggle switch.
There's your problem. You've got to do it at night. The 401 is clear enough at 3:00am to hit those speeds. Not that I've tried it.
During my commute to and from work my normal speed is 140kph (in broad daylight, no less!). Sometimes people even pass me. With the new laws on the books and being enforced, however, I avoid the 150kph boundary by atleast 5kph as often as possible, but 120-140 is definitely the normal speed on that conduit.
Here's a better one for you; I quite often manage to do 120 on the DVP.:P
It's a "Very Bad Thing" because it restricts overall economic activity, which prevents development which keeps Africa dirt poor. Endemic bribery might be the norm in large parts of Africa, however that does not make it a good idea.
I'm not just talking about Africa, which has larger problems than bribery holding back much of its development; economic and otherwise.
Credit cards and ever increasing personal household debt also hamper healthy economic growth and development but North America is riddled with it. Hell, our governments are even better at it than we are!
Endemic bribery is the norm in almost every country around the world in some form or another. A poster somewhere mentioned that in the USofA and Canada it takes the form of perks, plane tickets, seats at sporting events, golf clubs / golf trip, boats, cars, favours political and economical, campaign "contributions", etc. ad nauseum. Many things just wouldn't get done without a little back scratching taking place. Hell, I've even been known to slip an installer a $20 or a $50 to do that little extra thing for me on occasion.
I think the only thing worse than bribery that takes place in third world countries is us condemning it as if our own house is clean.
But that's the reason bribery has such a stronghold. "Everyone does it, so I must do it myself."
Many westerners, myself included, just don't understand "how it works" in many countries. Thankfully I've been educated by people who come from many of these countries in question so I have a bit better understanding than many.
Bribes do not carry the same negative connotations as they do here. For example, if you want your eaves cleaned you slip a bribe to the contractor and it gets done. Salesmen bribe the customers to purchase products from them. Politicians, business, and even private citizens engage in routine bribery just as we pay our credit card bills. It's just something that happens, it's perfectly normal, and it's only a "Very Bad Thing" when viewed with our morality goggles.
What if, say, I have some friends over and they take turns playing games, while I'm finishing up some homework before leaving to go to a party?
...
Secondly, I have never heard of a minor studying in another room before going to a party while his friends are playing his Xbox.
It's called a straw man. See, the small percentage children this responsible would respect their parents and the necessity of their homework to the point where the parental controls would not be required. In all likelihood they would not be enabled in the first place which forms the man of straw you see above.
I've got a Bic lighter at my desk if you don't have any matches handy.
I have to agree. I'm looking at the pictures and asking how anyone in their right mind would confuse a Wii-mote with one of these, let alone an entire Wii. They don't look the same, they just use the same styling.
As so many examples have been posted already, what about parents who believe they've found a third party Wiimote controller for their child's gaming system that costs significantly less than the real thing? Does a MadCatz X-Box controller look exactly the same as a genuine Microsoft S-Type controller or does it just borrow design/style cues from it? Do some third party X-Box controllers have little LCD screens on them? You bet they do!
If you're doing an 80-hour week, you're getting *fucked*. Either there's something wrong with your job skills, or something wrong with your country's economy.
Excrement occurs. I've done it myself and I wasn't even supporting any children; just myself, my rented appartment, and my assortment of bills.
Could I have worked less? Sure, but then I'd have had to give up high speed Internet, cable television, and the occasional 12 pack of beer in the fridge.
But that's what you get when you don't have any qualifications or real-world experience and you need to support yourself on your own. It's quite common in North America for people to either work lots of over time or just plain work two full time jobs.
I will grant you that there is generally something wrong in the picture; these people will often have children way too early, decide to move out of their parents' houses anywhere between 16-19 when there's no real need to (except that they're being a sponge and mom and dad will have nothing more to do with them), a lot of them are high school dropouts who never even considered college.
However many of them come from broken homes where they weren't supporting their children, but their remaining parent and their brothers and sisters. Sometimes dropping out of school in grade 9 or 10 to get a job and provide food on the table now is more valuable than getting an education leading to a career and providing proper housing situation 5-10 years from now.
Of course I do put a lot of the blame on people who make rash decisions such as marrying the first partner that seems acceptable, especially after only a short period of courtship, which seems to inevietably lead to cheating, unhappiness, alcohol / drug problems and separation/divorce. The other end of that stick are the people who have lousy long-term "on and off" relationships that constantly fall apart who believe marriage is the magic bullet to ensure happiness. The situation is made worse when children are involved because now you've started your own family poverty cycle and virtually ensured that your children will steer towards the same path without some significant guidance.
This is what happens to a society where instant gratification, love and hormones are allowed to win out over critical thought and rationality. It sucks, but sometimes it's not the 80-hour-workweek employee's fault directly. Sometimes they just come from a bad situation and never learned any better.
Trite as it may seem, knowledge, education, experience and upbringing play a very large role in a person's ambitions later on in life. A former co-worker of mine came from a war torn country - he lived for some 6-7 years through the war traveling from place to place, never enough food to eat, always with the fear of soldiers barging in and shoving a rifle barrel down one of their throats for some reason or another. Consequently his ambitions are virtually non-existant. He has no interest in earning more money or owning a home because you have to pay more taxes. He's never earned so much as $30k/year, nor has his wife (who works retail) and as a result they live in a seedy bachelor apartment in a really crappy part of town.
If, however, Toyota does in fact treat its workers as well or better than unionized autoworkers, the point is proved: better treatment of workers = better products.
Except that the point was that union products = better products. Actually, it was "they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies". So, literally translated it means non-unionized products are "absolute crap".
The respondent (sarcastically) mentioned that Toyotas are built in non-union shops and have consistently outclassed General Motors products in quality over the years. It was later pointed out that in a recent JD Power study of initial quality (note: NOT long term reliability) a single General Motors nameplate (out of the dozen or more they produce) ranked top spot in a single category.
Where I come from, "k" is an acceptable abbreviation of "kilo"
Ok, so I messed up the numerical equivalent of milli and the case of the 'k', however as usual around here the point was completely missed in favour of pointing out minor errors.
I don't see why we can't reuse the lowercase half of the alphabet for the purpose the parent described. And yes, I believe I've seen it before.
Have you ever been the only English speaker in a room full of, say, Cantonese? Really difficult to communicate, no? Try explaining your theory to a room full of NON geeks and see what their reactions are. Hint: Usually it's a combination of confusion, bewilderment and bemusement. "Sure, whatever, a small k means a thousand and like twenty eight or something. Whatever you say."
"{SIGH!} And people wonder why geeks are ostracized."
That statement is strange on several levels.
The point, and the underlying point to my posting, was that geeks like to re-invent things as convenient to them but that are completely outside the level of understanding of the rest of the civilized world. It's apparent that a contingent of geeks (and, apparently, lawyers) would like hard drive storage re-defined but refuse to accept any of the standard notations that have been proposed which would do exactly that.
Mega, kilo, giga, etc. have existed for quite some time both in and out of the computer industry as base-10 notations - even with the measure of network bandwidth, CPU Hz and other forms of measurement but when it comes to disk drive storage capacity suddenly the rules change and an exception is formed?!? Nonsense. Pure nonsense.
BTW - please feel free to come up with more trite references to Wikipedia. It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you, too, can use a search engine.
This same numbering scheme continued well into the era of commodity parts including retail hard drives until some nitwit realized they could make more money by selling according to the base 10 numbering system definitions which are smaller.
The real truth here is that what the hdd makers did was attempt to deliberately create a false impression of size by relying on the fact the for computers mega meant 2^20 and yet changing what they meant by it (after years of using the de-facto standard).
Going back a few years ago (well, ok, like more than a dozen or more) when I was considering the purchase of a 40MB hard drive, I realized and understood that said drive was 40,000,000 bytes. When partitioned and formatted, it reported some 38MB available. So it's not like this "problem" is new - it's just on a much larger scale because now the difference between 1,000,000,000,000 and 1*1024*1024*1024*1024 is rather larger than the difference between 40,000,000 and 40*1024*1024 so it's way more noticeable.
Hint: the general public doesn't feel shorted by the base-10 measurements, they feel generally confused by the computer industry's steadfast reliance on reporting base-2 capacities when they bought a base-10 storage unit. They just don't know how to put it into context so we get confused members of lawsuits fighting for their stolen bytes! (Even though most of them wouldn't know a bit from a byte if one bit them in the arse).
and so on, where a lowercase prefix denotes base-10, an uppercase prefix denotes base-2, a lowercase b denotes bits, and an uppercase B denotes bytes. Has anybody else heard of this?
{SIGH!} And people wonder why geeks are ostracized. Think back to physics class. Think reeeal hard. Remember when standard units of measurement were covered? Ok, that in mind, remember this;
Lower case (eg; 'm') equates to less-than such as "mm = millimetres", or one millionth of a metre.
Upper case (eg; 'K') equates to greater-than such as "Km = Kilometres", or one thousand metres.
This is how it works in the scientific community, the grocery store, the gas station, all products/services sold by weight and/or capacity EXCEPT computer hard drives? Come on people. Get over the stigma and just accept that sometimes conforming to the way the rest of the world does things is actually a very good thing.
Suppose you're downloading a digital representation of music -- an MP3, say -- from the Internet. Now, we all know that an MP3 is just a series of bits, and as long as those bits arrive unmodified the song is going to sound exactly the same.
Except that I don't "download" my movie soundtracks from my DVD player to my receiver and then to my speakers before pressing "play" - this has to happen in real-time and reach each of my six speakers in the proper order and without interference at any level.
People consider cables to be unimportant with digital signals because they confuse ages old analog "snow" with a series of digital 1s and 0s. The "snow" doesn't go away when you convert to digital, instead it turns into pixelization or blocky bits on the screen, motion blur, etc. As for the sound arena it turns into hums, pops, crackles or gaps in the sound when the signal is interrupted by any of the hundreds of sources of RFI / EMI in a residential setting. (That, or the power shifting as a major appliance is turned on/off during the viewing period).
People like to jump on the "Monster is evil!" bandwagon because the cables are horrifically over priced. I'll admit that their margins are absurd, but to compare a proper THX grade monster cable to a $10-15 store-bought jobbie? Please.
As to the laughable post I saw further down that indicated gold was akin to snake oil? Somebody needs to take an electrical refresher course. Gold IS a better conductor than copper, it just costs too damn much to wire everything with so we go with the next best alternative. However in high(er) end theatre setups (mine tops $10k without the cables) gold connectors are the way to go.
People ask me what benefeit I have, what extra I'm getting by having Monster cables and power filtering for my rig. I always tell them the same thing; it's not what I gain it's what I lose. I lose the distortion, pixelization and interference in my signals that would otherwise interrupt my enjoyment of my purchase.
For the record; when you're on the cusp of making a $5000 equipment purchase it's quite easy at that point to convince the salesman to throw in some Monster cabling gratis. That's how I get the quality of the Monster cables without suffering the ridiculous markup.
The same is, for the most part, true with digital audio as well. You're either going to get a perfect signal or horrible pops and static. There really isn't an in-between, and you're certainly not going to get harmonic distortion. Admittedly digital audio does not feature error correction, so marginal connections are more likely to give you problems, but it's not going to be subtle.
This seems to be at odds with the rest of your post. I'm confused; you admit that you can suffer pops and static using cheap cables for digital audio, but you don't believe in high-end shielded digital audio cables?!?
However, some people actually do leave to think about it (although having worked in retail, I would assume that this is the exception rather than the rule). Some people are actually looking at different cars and don't want to get ripped off by accepting the first offer.
Oh absolutely; a lot of people have to think about it. It's the second largest purchase most people will make in their lifetime right behind their home.
My point was specifically about people who mis-represent their intentions to the salesperson. When "think about it" means any one of going to a third party leasing company, a used car lot, across the border, or even shopping for a good price ("the best price") but they decide instead to take up all of that salesman's time only to go down the road to buy the car for a couple hundred dollars less that's dishonest and frankly despicable. The same applies for computers, cameras, electronics, music equipment, etc.
I know similar stories, for example, from a Mom & Pop music store that's been open for some 80+ years but who have higher prices than the big box (generic) retail outlets. So customers go to Mom & Pop's Music to get fully detailed breakdown on different makes and models, make their selection based on their Needs, Wants and Desires, then "think about it" while really going to the generic retail outlet to save 20%. Well, that 20% difference paid for the knowledge and expertise of the guy whose time they wasted and hopes they dashed.
If you're shopping prices, tell the salesperson, or even just work with the salesperson. If your intention was to learn about another model before making your (her) final decision that's great! I love and in fact prefer informed customers. If you buy my product and are genuinely satisfied with your decision you're a much better customer all around. You're also more likely to refer friends and family to me as well as come to me for your next vehicle purchase.
The key here is this. When you meet your salesperson at ${Dealer_A}, tell him/her what your intentions are. We're not mind readers. If you're in our dealership, unless and until you tell us otherwise we believe you're here to buy a car today. Tell the salesperson that you're in the early stages of your buying decision, that you're comparing his ${Product_A} to ${Product_B} and ${Product_C}, that you'd like to get a breakdown of the packages and options available and relevant to you, test drive the vehicle to get a proper feel of it, and that you have a budget you're trying to acheive and you'd like to know if they can make their product fit within that budget.
Watch what happens next. If the salesperson was well trained (as I train all my guys) they'll show you the vehicle pointing out all relevant features, controls and their benefeits to you. If they're knowledgeable, they'll knock your socks off. If they don't do this for you, find another salesman or another dealership to show you the vehicle properly. Remember that you should be making an informed decision here. If they do their job properly you shouldn't really be able to say no; right?
Naturally, the salesperson is going to try to 'close' you when you're all done with the proceedings. You're going to gently remind them of your intentions and at that point they should back off. If, on the other hand, you're genuinely impressed and everything fits what you want and need go right ahead and finalize a deal if you're comfortable with it. If they haven't done the preceeding steps properly, however, they may push harder because it's the only way they know how, and in the car industry of the future they won't have jobs waiting for them so don't pay them too much mind.
Also, for all those of you who think you can outsmart a car salesperson know this - when a salesperson knows your intention is to shop his/her prices, they go into a different mode. By the time you leave the store you won't know what you can actually buy the car for, or if the price includes t
I'd expect there to be a lot less of that these days. It used to be that, to find out anything about a product, you had to go face-to-face with a salesmen. Now you can read online reviews, get all the specs and compare them, download the manuals, etc., all pre-purchase.
Yes, of course you can read online reviews - but what good do they really do you? They can't tell you about how the camera (or steering wheel) feels in your hands, how's the shutter response, how easy it is to reload (film / memory cards), swap out batteries, etc. With cars, how do you look in the car? How do you feel? How does the driver's seat feel? Do your children actually fit behind the front seats (really now - how many cubic feet is your son/daughter, and how does that relate to leg room, shoulder room and "He hit me again!!!" room?)
You can't test out a product in the flesh from an online review you can only read other peoples' experience and a whole bunch of numbers. You can't judge the weight of the camera on your own hip, judge the handling of the car around that curved road you used to dread on your morning commute, and more importantly you may not even be selecting the correct product to suit all your needs.
Do you know how many times I've had a client come into the dealership full of online research and knowing exactly which make, model, transmission, option package and colour they wanted only to answer a couple questions and find themselves behind the wheel of a different vehicle altogether? See, the person who works at the store and lives and breathes his/her product is generally a better judge of which product matches which needs requirement than an online reviewer.
It's the level of personal service you get when you walk into a retail establishment ("Hey Joe! How's that Pentaslam B-360 working out for you?"), the knowledge of your individual needs, wants, and desires, the level of attention they can give you because you're a valued client and in some cases perhaps a friend. I'd much rather talk to a familiar face rather than a canned e-mail response template when I have a concern about my product.
I witness it all the time. The closer analogy to the online retailer versus box store would be the third party leasing company versus the dealership. A lady came into our dealership complaining that her car didn't come with the alloy pedals it was supposed to and that we should replace them. See, when she brought this up to her leasing company they told her to go to the dealership (brushed her off). How are we to know what happened? Did they take the pedals off the car for something else? Did the cars come with no pedals? Either way, we're not in a position to just give out parts to people. Now, had it been a customer of the dealership we would have given her the pedals if only to maintain customer relations with one of our valued clients, even if we suspected malfeasance on her part.
What needs to happen in this world is a reversal of the addage "The customer is always right." or at the very least a fine-tuning of it. If you're getting quality, knowledgeable customer service from somebody for a product you're actually going to buy - buy it from them. Don't shop all other retailers and online outlets to find the best price - they don't care about you! They don't take time out of their day to make sure you're completely satisfied! They only care about numbers! You are nothing to them but a number on a line in a database. Period. When a person comes in who's purchased the product from another outlet - they are not a customer and don't deserve the personal attention and respect that should be reserved for actual customers. My line is "Talk to your leasing company. They're responsible for your happiness." and brushing them off. Seriously - why would I waste time playing 20 questions and giving the benefeit of my years of experience to somebody who doesn't have the respect to support me, my family, or my dealership? I'd much sooner serve a real client, thankyouverymuch.
My guess is you are probably spending 12-18% more in your purchases than you would with cash. You don't feel the pain when you make that Credit Card purchase.
No, it's not your guess, it's part of the quote from the website you provided earlier.
It's also not only false but patently ridiculous. The people who have trouble with credit cards typically do so because they apply for the cards out of desperation because they're already in financial trouble and that makes the cards a bailout tool. At that point it's too late and the cards only add to their misery. Or there are the people who get credit cards either before they become gainfully employed, before they live on their own, or just plain before they learn fiscal responsibility.
As to your point about spending more, no, that's not at all true. Money is money and if you treat the medium different from one form to the next you're a fool and deserve what you get (high debt load, reduced enjoyment of life). If you research your major purchases and are mindful of the small purchases and always negotiate the price before discussing the method of payment you can't lose. If they ask me "How will you be paying?" before the final price comes out, I ask why. If they're a deep-discounting store who charge more for AmEx than MasterCard, or offer a cash discount, sure, I'll take them up on it - but it'll be on my terms. You'll note that I ask "why?" before I answer. Always.
Further; I've found that the people most vehemently opposed to credit cards (or personal debt / financing) are the people who either don't understand it, or more specifically whose lack of understanding has found them in serious trouble. To which category do you belong, sir?
On that front, I had many customers come in, get my recommendations for software, have me give demo's, even have me train them on the basics of the software, then not buy. That's all fine. But then they would come back in, clearly having bought the software mail order, and have the nerve to ask me more questions. I like helping people, but that's just insulting!
That's just the nature of people. I work in car sales now and I get the same thing. Somebody comes in to the dealership, spends a whole bunch of my (or one of my co-workers') time going through the car, the options, etc. then has to leave to "think about it". Some time later they return with the very car they were looking at from one of those wholesale lots (usually salvage cars from accidents, floods, power of sale auctions, etc.) and asks the very same salesman more questions about the operation and handling of the car.
The worst, by far, are the ones who do this then complain to the service department about how horrible this car is, and about how ${manufacturer} produces garbage cars, should be sued off the face of the earth, etc. etc.
One of the worst parts of my job is informing customers that their trade in had been involved in an accident before they bought it. When customers like this come in, it can be the most fulfilling part of my job. (Case in point; SUV came in with "ABC Wholesalers" plate frames on it, customer complained it was pulling to the left. Our body shop manager estimated the damage repaired to the car to be in excess of $14,000 - including straightening of the frame. But hey, they got it for a Really Low Price. Surely that just means they're good bargain hunters, better negotiators - right?)
The worst way to teach a kid to type is a IM Client. Seriously, i have seen it work for a lot of kids and some of these kids have learning disabilities (like ADD).
There, fixed that for you.
Kids who use IM clients, text messaging on cell phones, etc. develop a very early crutch on short forms, symbols, letters in place of words, acronyms for anything common, a complete lack of syntax and a dozen other nightmares preventing the proper development of language skills. The younger they're exposed to this the worse off they are.
My younger brother is guilty of all of the above and I insist that when he talks to me via IM he use proper sentence structure or I'll ignore him. I don't want to hear about "2day wen i went 2 da part wit ma bffls... " and it serves no educational purpose to him or his friends to continue in that fashion.
What would motivate such a person to make the post at all?
Haven't you ever known somebody who speaks mostly because they like the sound of their own voice? Same principle applies to the text from their fingers.
Ok, so you believe that a skilled software engineer and Apple employee with experience in SVN and CVS, PHP and Python who is unfamiliar with Linux, yet makes detailed false claims about it on a tech website, is just misinformed?
I don't see anything in the individual's list of experience that implicitly requires Linux usage.
Occam's razor's looking a bit blunt today, don't you think?
Here's one for you; perhaps the poster has never actually had the need to locate/install such applications on a Linux computer, or perhaps made a cursory search from a Windows desktop and decided it was too much effort and just went ahead with the Windows variants and never looked back? Or perhaps the person actually has no children and has never actually even investigated said software and was speaking out the side of his face and hoping not to get caught?
Ahhhhhhh, so you're one of the idiot moderators who defines "trolling" as "I don't agree with your point".
No, the OP was trolling because they said something inflammatory and decidedly incorrect in order to incite a large thread of responses. Their post skirts the line between troll and flamebait. It certainly was not a "point" (otherwise "opinion") that can be agreed or disagreed with; they made a statement of fact without any effort to provide supporting documentation or research.
FWIW, had the OP stated that their personal experience with pre/grade school applications under Linux was poor and therefore Linux had a long way to go before it was a plausible alternative educational platform, that would be an opinion that could be countered with alternate experiences and discussed. However a snide remark implying rather overtly that "doodling software, trivia games, and all that stuff you would find in a primary school computer lab" do not exist for Linux is a troll no matter how you slice it.
Sorry pardner, but making a snide remark about how unfair and biased the Slashdot moderation system is is also kinda trollish.:) (Not to mention tired and just a little whiny.:P )
Take it from me; teachers don't administrate, and when they do all they do is mess things up. Usually pretty horribly at that. Teachers in public (elementary, secondary) schools tend towards the computer illiterate side of the fence. Some to the degree of simple uncertainty, some to the degree where they'll order a student suspended because they changed their desktop background - that's the outright fear category right there.
We've had teachers inform us, the lowly know-nothing network administrators (see, we weren't University Edumucated so what could we really know anyways?) that their lab was working PERFECTLY the day before, that NOTHING had changed, except somehow the computers wouldn't turn on anymore. Yes, of course they're plugged in! I checked it personally!
Yes, the power bars were unplugged from the wall outlets. He was correct though; the computers were in fact plugged into the power bars.
As for software administration, hoo-boy, you don't even want to go near that one.
Security? What of the teacher who used to perpetually walk from his math class to the computer lab across the hall and leave his online bank and investment site LOGGED IN all through 2nd period?
Or even common sense. Like why I, a male network administrator, would want access to the girl's phys-ed office (not the change room, the office, where the computer connected to the dead printer was).
I remember in High School they disabled access to C: via My Computer. Well you could open the properties of any shortcut and click Find Target and you're in. Or getting into Control Panel via Windows Help's "Show Me" feature.
One student at the high school I was administering discovered that even with our more prohibitive settings (many/most of those alternatives were disabled) he could simply create a shortcut to C: on a floppy disk and he was home free.
Sure, I was pissed at him, but at the same time I was impressed with the elegant simplicity of it all.
Slashdot Mirror
Not if they're located in a central (control) room and you need to know at a glance what machinery / electronic devices are running/powered and which are not.
The illuminated off state switches are good for single room light switches, not machinery that would generally require a toggle switch.
During my commute to and from work my normal speed is 140kph (in broad daylight, no less!). Sometimes people even pass me. With the new laws on the books and being enforced, however, I avoid the 150kph boundary by atleast 5kph as often as possible, but 120-140 is definitely the normal speed on that conduit.
Here's a better one for you; I quite often manage to do 120 on the DVP. :P
I'm not just talking about Africa, which has larger problems than bribery holding back much of its development; economic and otherwise.
Credit cards and ever increasing personal household debt also hamper healthy economic growth and development but North America is riddled with it. Hell, our governments are even better at it than we are!
Endemic bribery is the norm in almost every country around the world in some form or another. A poster somewhere mentioned that in the USofA and Canada it takes the form of perks, plane tickets, seats at sporting events, golf clubs / golf trip, boats, cars, favours political and economical, campaign "contributions", etc. ad nauseum. Many things just wouldn't get done without a little back scratching taking place. Hell, I've even been known to slip an installer a $20 or a $50 to do that little extra thing for me on occasion.
I think the only thing worse than bribery that takes place in third world countries is us condemning it as if our own house is clean.
Many westerners, myself included, just don't understand "how it works" in many countries. Thankfully I've been educated by people who come from many of these countries in question so I have a bit better understanding than many.
Bribes do not carry the same negative connotations as they do here. For example, if you want your eaves cleaned you slip a bribe to the contractor and it gets done. Salesmen bribe the customers to purchase products from them. Politicians, business, and even private citizens engage in routine bribery just as we pay our credit card bills. It's just something that happens, it's perfectly normal, and it's only a "Very Bad Thing" when viewed with our morality goggles.
...
It's called a straw man. See, the small percentage children this responsible would respect their parents and the necessity of their homework to the point where the parental controls would not be required. In all likelihood they would not be enabled in the first place which forms the man of straw you see above.
I've got a Bic lighter at my desk if you don't have any matches handy.
As so many examples have been posted already, what about parents who believe they've found a third party Wiimote controller for their child's gaming system that costs significantly less than the real thing? Does a MadCatz X-Box controller look exactly the same as a genuine Microsoft S-Type controller or does it just borrow design/style cues from it? Do some third party X-Box controllers have little LCD screens on them? You bet they do!
Excrement occurs. I've done it myself and I wasn't even supporting any children; just myself, my rented appartment, and my assortment of bills.
Could I have worked less? Sure, but then I'd have had to give up high speed Internet, cable television, and the occasional 12 pack of beer in the fridge.
But that's what you get when you don't have any qualifications or real-world experience and you need to support yourself on your own. It's quite common in North America for people to either work lots of over time or just plain work two full time jobs.
I will grant you that there is generally something wrong in the picture; these people will often have children way too early, decide to move out of their parents' houses anywhere between 16-19 when there's no real need to (except that they're being a sponge and mom and dad will have nothing more to do with them), a lot of them are high school dropouts who never even considered college.
However many of them come from broken homes where they weren't supporting their children, but their remaining parent and their brothers and sisters. Sometimes dropping out of school in grade 9 or 10 to get a job and provide food on the table now is more valuable than getting an education leading to a career and providing proper housing situation 5-10 years from now.
Of course I do put a lot of the blame on people who make rash decisions such as marrying the first partner that seems acceptable, especially after only a short period of courtship, which seems to inevietably lead to cheating, unhappiness, alcohol / drug problems and separation/divorce. The other end of that stick are the people who have lousy long-term "on and off" relationships that constantly fall apart who believe marriage is the magic bullet to ensure happiness. The situation is made worse when children are involved because now you've started your own family poverty cycle and virtually ensured that your children will steer towards the same path without some significant guidance.
This is what happens to a society where instant gratification, love and hormones are allowed to win out over critical thought and rationality. It sucks, but sometimes it's not the 80-hour-workweek employee's fault directly. Sometimes they just come from a bad situation and never learned any better.
Trite as it may seem, knowledge, education, experience and upbringing play a very large role in a person's ambitions later on in life. A former co-worker of mine came from a war torn country - he lived for some 6-7 years through the war traveling from place to place, never enough food to eat, always with the fear of soldiers barging in and shoving a rifle barrel down one of their throats for some reason or another. Consequently his ambitions are virtually non-existant. He has no interest in earning more money or owning a home because you have to pay more taxes. He's never earned so much as $30k/year, nor has his wife (who works retail) and as a result they live in a seedy bachelor apartment in a really crappy part of town.
Except that the point was that union products = better products. Actually, it was "they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies". So, literally translated it means non-unionized products are "absolute crap".
The respondent (sarcastically) mentioned that Toyotas are built in non-union shops and have consistently outclassed General Motors products in quality over the years. It was later pointed out that in a recent JD Power study of initial quality (note: NOT long term reliability) a single General Motors nameplate (out of the dozen or more they produce) ranked top spot in a single category.
Ok, so I messed up the numerical equivalent of milli and the case of the 'k', however as usual around here the point was completely missed in favour of pointing out minor errors.
Have you ever been the only English speaker in a room full of, say, Cantonese? Really difficult to communicate, no? Try explaining your theory to a room full of NON geeks and see what their reactions are. Hint: Usually it's a combination of confusion, bewilderment and bemusement. "Sure, whatever, a small k means a thousand and like twenty eight or something. Whatever you say."
The point, and the underlying point to my posting, was that geeks like to re-invent things as convenient to them but that are completely outside the level of understanding of the rest of the civilized world. It's apparent that a contingent of geeks (and, apparently, lawyers) would like hard drive storage re-defined but refuse to accept any of the standard notations that have been proposed which would do exactly that.
Mega, kilo, giga, etc. have existed for quite some time both in and out of the computer industry as base-10 notations - even with the measure of network bandwidth, CPU Hz and other forms of measurement but when it comes to disk drive storage capacity suddenly the rules change and an exception is formed?!? Nonsense. Pure nonsense.
BTW - please feel free to come up with more trite references to Wikipedia. It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you, too, can use a search engine.
Going back a few years ago (well, ok, like more than a dozen or more) when I was considering the purchase of a 40MB hard drive, I realized and understood that said drive was 40,000,000 bytes. When partitioned and formatted, it reported some 38MB available. So it's not like this "problem" is new - it's just on a much larger scale because now the difference between 1,000,000,000,000 and 1*1024*1024*1024*1024 is rather larger than the difference between 40,000,000 and 40*1024*1024 so it's way more noticeable.
Hint: the general public doesn't feel shorted by the base-10 measurements, they feel generally confused by the computer industry's steadfast reliance on reporting base-2 capacities when they bought a base-10 storage unit. They just don't know how to put it into context so we get confused members of lawsuits fighting for their stolen bytes! (Even though most of them wouldn't know a bit from a byte if one bit them in the arse).
{SIGH!} And people wonder why geeks are ostracized. Think back to physics class. Think reeeal hard. Remember when standard units of measurement were covered? Ok, that in mind, remember this;
This is how it works in the scientific community, the grocery store, the gas station, all products/services sold by weight and/or capacity EXCEPT computer hard drives? Come on people. Get over the stigma and just accept that sometimes conforming to the way the rest of the world does things is actually a very good thing.
Except that I don't "download" my movie soundtracks from my DVD player to my receiver and then to my speakers before pressing "play" - this has to happen in real-time and reach each of my six speakers in the proper order and without interference at any level.
People consider cables to be unimportant with digital signals because they confuse ages old analog "snow" with a series of digital 1s and 0s. The "snow" doesn't go away when you convert to digital, instead it turns into pixelization or blocky bits on the screen, motion blur, etc. As for the sound arena it turns into hums, pops, crackles or gaps in the sound when the signal is interrupted by any of the hundreds of sources of RFI / EMI in a residential setting. (That, or the power shifting as a major appliance is turned on/off during the viewing period).
People like to jump on the "Monster is evil!" bandwagon because the cables are horrifically over priced. I'll admit that their margins are absurd, but to compare a proper THX grade monster cable to a $10-15 store-bought jobbie? Please.
As to the laughable post I saw further down that indicated gold was akin to snake oil? Somebody needs to take an electrical refresher course. Gold IS a better conductor than copper, it just costs too damn much to wire everything with so we go with the next best alternative. However in high(er) end theatre setups (mine tops $10k without the cables) gold connectors are the way to go.
People ask me what benefeit I have, what extra I'm getting by having Monster cables and power filtering for my rig. I always tell them the same thing; it's not what I gain it's what I lose. I lose the distortion, pixelization and interference in my signals that would otherwise interrupt my enjoyment of my purchase.
For the record; when you're on the cusp of making a $5000 equipment purchase it's quite easy at that point to convince the salesman to throw in some Monster cabling gratis. That's how I get the quality of the Monster cables without suffering the ridiculous markup.
This seems to be at odds with the rest of your post. I'm confused; you admit that you can suffer pops and static using cheap cables for digital audio, but you don't believe in high-end shielded digital audio cables?!?
Oh absolutely; a lot of people have to think about it. It's the second largest purchase most people will make in their lifetime right behind their home.
My point was specifically about people who mis-represent their intentions to the salesperson. When "think about it" means any one of going to a third party leasing company, a used car lot, across the border, or even shopping for a good price ("the best price") but they decide instead to take up all of that salesman's time only to go down the road to buy the car for a couple hundred dollars less that's dishonest and frankly despicable. The same applies for computers, cameras, electronics, music equipment, etc.
I know similar stories, for example, from a Mom & Pop music store that's been open for some 80+ years but who have higher prices than the big box (generic) retail outlets. So customers go to Mom & Pop's Music to get fully detailed breakdown on different makes and models, make their selection based on their Needs, Wants and Desires, then "think about it" while really going to the generic retail outlet to save 20%. Well, that 20% difference paid for the knowledge and expertise of the guy whose time they wasted and hopes they dashed.
If you're shopping prices, tell the salesperson, or even just work with the salesperson. If your intention was to learn about another model before making your (her) final decision that's great! I love and in fact prefer informed customers. If you buy my product and are genuinely satisfied with your decision you're a much better customer all around. You're also more likely to refer friends and family to me as well as come to me for your next vehicle purchase.
The key here is this. When you meet your salesperson at ${Dealer_A}, tell him/her what your intentions are. We're not mind readers. If you're in our dealership, unless and until you tell us otherwise we believe you're here to buy a car today. Tell the salesperson that you're in the early stages of your buying decision, that you're comparing his ${Product_A} to ${Product_B} and ${Product_C}, that you'd like to get a breakdown of the packages and options available and relevant to you, test drive the vehicle to get a proper feel of it, and that you have a budget you're trying to acheive and you'd like to know if they can make their product fit within that budget.
Watch what happens next. If the salesperson was well trained (as I train all my guys) they'll show you the vehicle pointing out all relevant features, controls and their benefeits to you. If they're knowledgeable, they'll knock your socks off. If they don't do this for you, find another salesman or another dealership to show you the vehicle properly. Remember that you should be making an informed decision here. If they do their job properly you shouldn't really be able to say no; right?
Naturally, the salesperson is going to try to 'close' you when you're all done with the proceedings. You're going to gently remind them of your intentions and at that point they should back off. If, on the other hand, you're genuinely impressed and everything fits what you want and need go right ahead and finalize a deal if you're comfortable with it. If they haven't done the preceeding steps properly, however, they may push harder because it's the only way they know how, and in the car industry of the future they won't have jobs waiting for them so don't pay them too much mind.
Also, for all those of you who think you can outsmart a car salesperson know this - when a salesperson knows your intention is to shop his/her prices, they go into a different mode. By the time you leave the store you won't know what you can actually buy the car for, or if the price includes t
Yes, of course you can read online reviews - but what good do they really do you? They can't tell you about how the camera (or steering wheel) feels in your hands, how's the shutter response, how easy it is to reload (film / memory cards), swap out batteries, etc. With cars, how do you look in the car? How do you feel? How does the driver's seat feel? Do your children actually fit behind the front seats (really now - how many cubic feet is your son/daughter, and how does that relate to leg room, shoulder room and "He hit me again!!!" room?)
You can't test out a product in the flesh from an online review you can only read other peoples' experience and a whole bunch of numbers. You can't judge the weight of the camera on your own hip, judge the handling of the car around that curved road you used to dread on your morning commute, and more importantly you may not even be selecting the correct product to suit all your needs.
Do you know how many times I've had a client come into the dealership full of online research and knowing exactly which make, model, transmission, option package and colour they wanted only to answer a couple questions and find themselves behind the wheel of a different vehicle altogether? See, the person who works at the store and lives and breathes his/her product is generally a better judge of which product matches which needs requirement than an online reviewer.
It's the level of personal service you get when you walk into a retail establishment ("Hey Joe! How's that Pentaslam B-360 working out for you?"), the knowledge of your individual needs, wants, and desires, the level of attention they can give you because you're a valued client and in some cases perhaps a friend. I'd much rather talk to a familiar face rather than a canned e-mail response template when I have a concern about my product.
I witness it all the time. The closer analogy to the online retailer versus box store would be the third party leasing company versus the dealership. A lady came into our dealership complaining that her car didn't come with the alloy pedals it was supposed to and that we should replace them. See, when she brought this up to her leasing company they told her to go to the dealership (brushed her off). How are we to know what happened? Did they take the pedals off the car for something else? Did the cars come with no pedals? Either way, we're not in a position to just give out parts to people. Now, had it been a customer of the dealership we would have given her the pedals if only to maintain customer relations with one of our valued clients, even if we suspected malfeasance on her part.
What needs to happen in this world is a reversal of the addage "The customer is always right." or at the very least a fine-tuning of it. If you're getting quality, knowledgeable customer service from somebody for a product you're actually going to buy - buy it from them. Don't shop all other retailers and online outlets to find the best price - they don't care about you! They don't take time out of their day to make sure you're completely satisfied! They only care about numbers! You are nothing to them but a number on a line in a database. Period. When a person comes in who's purchased the product from another outlet - they are not a customer and don't deserve the personal attention and respect that should be reserved for actual customers. My line is "Talk to your leasing company. They're responsible for your happiness." and brushing them off. Seriously - why would I waste time playing 20 questions and giving the benefeit of my years of experience to somebody who doesn't have the respect to support me, my family, or my dealership? I'd much sooner serve a real client, thankyouverymuch.
No, it's not your guess, it's part of the quote from the website you provided earlier.
It's also not only false but patently ridiculous. The people who have trouble with credit cards typically do so because they apply for the cards out of desperation because they're already in financial trouble and that makes the cards a bailout tool. At that point it's too late and the cards only add to their misery. Or there are the people who get credit cards either before they become gainfully employed, before they live on their own, or just plain before they learn fiscal responsibility.
As to your point about spending more, no, that's not at all true. Money is money and if you treat the medium different from one form to the next you're a fool and deserve what you get (high debt load, reduced enjoyment of life). If you research your major purchases and are mindful of the small purchases and always negotiate the price before discussing the method of payment you can't lose. If they ask me "How will you be paying?" before the final price comes out, I ask why. If they're a deep-discounting store who charge more for AmEx than MasterCard, or offer a cash discount, sure, I'll take them up on it - but it'll be on my terms. You'll note that I ask "why?" before I answer. Always.
Further; I've found that the people most vehemently opposed to credit cards (or personal debt / financing) are the people who either don't understand it, or more specifically whose lack of understanding has found them in serious trouble. To which category do you belong, sir?
That's just the nature of people. I work in car sales now and I get the same thing. Somebody comes in to the dealership, spends a whole bunch of my (or one of my co-workers') time going through the car, the options, etc. then has to leave to "think about it". Some time later they return with the very car they were looking at from one of those wholesale lots (usually salvage cars from accidents, floods, power of sale auctions, etc.) and asks the very same salesman more questions about the operation and handling of the car.
The worst, by far, are the ones who do this then complain to the service department about how horrible this car is, and about how ${manufacturer} produces garbage cars, should be sued off the face of the earth, etc. etc.
One of the worst parts of my job is informing customers that their trade in had been involved in an accident before they bought it. When customers like this come in, it can be the most fulfilling part of my job. (Case in point; SUV came in with "ABC Wholesalers" plate frames on it, customer complained it was pulling to the left. Our body shop manager estimated the damage repaired to the car to be in excess of $14,000 - including straightening of the frame. But hey, they got it for a Really Low Price. Surely that just means they're good bargain hunters, better negotiators - right?)
ROTFL! That's a good one! Now, here in the real world ...
There, fixed that for you.
Kids who use IM clients, text messaging on cell phones, etc. develop a very early crutch on short forms, symbols, letters in place of words, acronyms for anything common, a complete lack of syntax and a dozen other nightmares preventing the proper development of language skills. The younger they're exposed to this the worse off they are.
My younger brother is guilty of all of the above and I insist that when he talks to me via IM he use proper sentence structure or I'll ignore him. I don't want to hear about "2day wen i went 2 da part wit ma bffls ... " and it serves no educational purpose to him or his friends to continue in that fashion.
Haven't you ever known somebody who speaks mostly because they like the sound of their own voice? Same principle applies to the text from their fingers.
I don't see anything in the individual's list of experience that implicitly requires Linux usage.
Here's one for you; perhaps the poster has never actually had the need to locate/install such applications on a Linux computer, or perhaps made a cursory search from a Windows desktop and decided it was too much effort and just went ahead with the Windows variants and never looked back? Or perhaps the person actually has no children and has never actually even investigated said software and was speaking out the side of his face and hoping not to get caught?
No, the OP was trolling because they said something inflammatory and decidedly incorrect in order to incite a large thread of responses. Their post skirts the line between troll and flamebait. It certainly was not a "point" (otherwise "opinion") that can be agreed or disagreed with; they made a statement of fact without any effort to provide supporting documentation or research.
FWIW, had the OP stated that their personal experience with pre/grade school applications under Linux was poor and therefore Linux had a long way to go before it was a plausible alternative educational platform, that would be an opinion that could be countered with alternate experiences and discussed. However a snide remark implying rather overtly that "doodling software, trivia games, and all that stuff you would find in a primary school computer lab" do not exist for Linux is a troll no matter how you slice it.
Sorry pardner, but making a snide remark about how unfair and biased the Slashdot moderation system is is also kinda trollish. :) (Not to mention tired and just a little whiny. :P )
Take it from me; teachers don't administrate, and when they do all they do is mess things up. Usually pretty horribly at that. Teachers in public (elementary, secondary) schools tend towards the computer illiterate side of the fence. Some to the degree of simple uncertainty, some to the degree where they'll order a student suspended because they changed their desktop background - that's the outright fear category right there.
We've had teachers inform us, the lowly know-nothing network administrators (see, we weren't University Edumucated so what could we really know anyways?) that their lab was working PERFECTLY the day before, that NOTHING had changed, except somehow the computers wouldn't turn on anymore. Yes, of course they're plugged in! I checked it personally!
Yes, the power bars were unplugged from the wall outlets. He was correct though; the computers were in fact plugged into the power bars.
As for software administration, hoo-boy, you don't even want to go near that one.
Security? What of the teacher who used to perpetually walk from his math class to the computer lab across the hall and leave his online bank and investment site LOGGED IN all through 2nd period?
Or even common sense. Like why I, a male network administrator, would want access to the girl's phys-ed office (not the change room, the office, where the computer connected to the dead printer was).
One student at the high school I was administering discovered that even with our more prohibitive settings (many/most of those alternatives were disabled) he could simply create a shortcut to C: on a floppy disk and he was home free.
Sure, I was pissed at him, but at the same time I was impressed with the elegant simplicity of it all.
Oh YEAH? Well LILO has a bigger ... feet!
Welcome to 2000!