But the very worst thing about DST is that it's bad for your health. According to Stanley Coren, a sleep expert at the University of British Columbia, the number of traffic accidents and fatal industrial mishaps increase on the Monday after we spring forward. The reason, presumably, is because losing even a single hour of sleep over the weekend makes a lot of people a bit drowsier on what we might usefully call Black Monday. Unfortunately, there's no compensating effect of a super-safe Monday as we go off DST and "fall back" in the autumn."
Off the cuff, I'm inclined to say that it has a lot to do with people banging buttons like a retarded chimp trying to remember how to adjust the clock in their dash as they drive to work instead of watching the road. The quotage says the Monday after we go off DST isn't safer than usual. I wonder if it's more accident prone as well?
I went through much the same kind of thing in high school. In my biology class, I caught a nearby kid copying answers off of my tests. Naturally, snitching was out of the question due to the ethics of the playground... so instead, for the next several tests, I deliberately answered most questions incorrectly. After he handed his copy in, I changed my answers.
He cornered me after class one day to ask why I was getting A's and he was failing, to which I responded, "Dude... you're not copying off my tests are you? She hands out different tests to everybody. The questions are in a different order."
Escaped a beating and he stopped copying off my tests.
I imagine most of us here have similar stories. For some reason, pasty kids with glasses have to deal with people copying off their papers a lot. Damnedest thing.
Re:As a woman in IT, I somewhat agree with the par
on
Women Leaving I.T.
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· Score: 1
I'm not sure that I'd say women are "better in less geeky programming, where it is more business oriented," but I would say that (in general) women I've known tend to prefer that end of the field.
I've noticed this trend as well. The women programmers I've known have tended to be much more professional, serious, and frankly, reliable. I've generally perceived this to be a side effect of the need to prove themselves... given that they're in a traditionally male-dominated field, they've got to be on their game, no screwing around.
Whether this is true or not, I've no idea. I've never spoken to any of them about it. But if that's what it is, it certainly seems to pay off for my friends. They've done quite well and are well respected.
I've even started to steal a few pages from their books... when I was younger, having a pony tail, wearing sneakers and a comic book t-shirt, and not shaving were my de facto geek armor. Young kid dresses that way, everybody assumes he knows what he's doing. You don't have to prove it, you just have to not screw up. Worked great when I was consulting.
Now that I'm a little older, those things don't set off the "kid is a computer god" prejudice any more. They set off the "is dude still living in his mom's basement?" prejudice instead. So I got a hair cut, shave occasionally, and dress a little better. Sure, it's still jeans and a t-shirt, but jeans don't have holes in them any more, and the shirts don't have logos. I'm not that old yet:)
Re:You're modded as +3 funny but...
on
Women Leaving I.T.
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I was trying to explain male geekery to my wife the other day.
Her: "Women aren't encouraged to be nerds. If they are interested in geeky things, they are teased and degraded."
Me: "What do you think happens to male nerds?"
I think the difference is that male geeks can usually depend on their geek peers for support. Girl geeks frequently take shit off their peers as well.
If anyone has a silly pun about "open-saucing" hot dogs
Naw... you already beat us to the best pun, in that the companies who jack their prices up and screw us all over are "sausage vendors." Quite the P.C. name, there, and a term I intend to use from now on at every opportunity:)
But, suppose that of those hundred million people, ten million clicked the link and a million responded. The S/N ratio goes from 10:1 to 1:1000 or 1:10000. It's no longer going to be economical for the spammer to sort through so much static. It should be possible to respond to, perhaps, 1/10 or 1/20 of the spam you get. It won't take much... Just something like "I'm very intrigued by your offer. Please tell me more." You can't use a computer script to generate responses, because they can easily be filtered out just like you filter 99% of spam. You'll maybe spend 30 minutes a day to respond to 60 spams.
I've been doing exactly that for a while now. I even get a response periodically. I doubt it really helps much, but it's certainly cathartic to try and string them on as long as possible.
One thing... simply hitting the reply button really isn't enough. They're almost invariably faked. You have to do a little work to track down a real address you can email.
It's not that hard. At the very least, you can usually get one by doing a whois lookup on the website they're trying to get you to visit. But it does slow you down just a tad.
10) The impossible experience listing. 20 years of linux, 7 years of.NET. Always a favorite of the job search critic, somewhat more uncommon than traditionally believed.
Back in 2002, when I was conducting my own frantic just-been-laid-off-have-a-kid-on-the-way job search, I found a listing demanding 10 years of experience developing J2EE applications.
One the other hand, if there are indigenous inhabitants (future-speak) found on a planet, they trump the visitors.
That's a lovely ideal, but past history says otherwise.
Maybe they're wising up to it. A friend of mine was having a hell of a time with a lovely piece of spyware her husband had installed. Ad-Aware and Spybot wouldn't touch it. I found instructions for getting rid of it by hand on symantec's site. Fortunately, she's fairly geeky herself and more than capable of performing the regedits necessary without hosing her machine:)
Would be nice if ol' Norton would start picking these things up as part of the normally scheduled virus scan...
Seeing little abbreviations like 'plz' makes baby Jesus cry when I see them used in instant messages... but in a review?
Something like a review strikes me as being at least somewhat formal. You expect people to read it and form opinions based on your experience with the product. Is it so much to ask that you invest a little time to write carefully, spell out entire words, and run a spell-check?
Actually, I rather like the MPAA's model. Rather than simply whining about people stealing their shit, they release DVD's with several commentary tracks available, behind the scenes featurettes, etc. The extras are rather hit or miss at times, but I almost invariably enjoy the commentary tracks.
Buying the DVD costs me less than taking my wife out to see a movie in the theater, I get more, and I get to keep it. I buy more movies today than I ever did.
Amen to that. I always chuckle a little when I see the guys at work coming in with their umpteen thousand dollar bike that's 3 ounces less than their old bike.
Meanwhile, had they actually ridden their old bike, they'd have cut a great deal more weight (not to mention the greater strength and efficiency they'd have developed).
Lower tech but worth a look
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Running for Geeks
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've found these guys to be really helpful. There's plenty of advice on all things running... choosing the right gear, where to run, how to run, how to deal with strains & sprains... how to avoid strains & sprains. There's also a nice community of people there for advice and support.
I started their beginner program last year... aptly named the "Couch to 5K" program. I've dropped 20 pounds, and I'm still going down. Good stuff.
As pointed out in another post, the hardest thing for me to learn for me the right pace to run. I run significantly slower than I originally thought was optimal. After a while, you learn to listen to your body and keep a pace you can maintain. Running 30 minutes at a pace you can maintain does you a hell of a lot more good than running 5 minutes at a pace you can't.
I find this to be a very exciting idea, especially if a reasonable amount of the available texts are actually good. Yeah, I'm a dork... but here, at least, I ought to be in good company.
So now that I'm aware of the existence of free textbooks, my next questions, naturally, are: are there more? On other subjects? And most importantly, how can I find them on my own?
Word processors have destroyed my ability to spell. So now call centers will destroy my ability to speak without profanity, right?
Wait... working in software has already done that.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Alas... I've mocked someone for being a dumbass only to be proven a dumbass myself. Truly, this day I am a slashdotter.
Spoken like... well, like a man who didn't get the joke.
Off the cuff, I'm inclined to say that it has a lot to do with people banging buttons like a retarded chimp trying to remember how to adjust the clock in their dash as they drive to work instead of watching the road. The quotage says the Monday after we go off DST isn't safer than usual. I wonder if it's more accident prone as well?
If you think that's bad, you should see the state of things now. That was 15 years ago... things haven't improved since...
He cornered me after class one day to ask why I was getting A's and he was failing, to which I responded, "Dude... you're not copying off my tests are you? She hands out different tests to everybody. The questions are in a different order."
Escaped a beating and he stopped copying off my tests.
I imagine most of us here have similar stories. For some reason, pasty kids with glasses have to deal with people copying off their papers a lot. Damnedest thing.
I've noticed this trend as well. The women programmers I've known have tended to be much more professional, serious, and frankly, reliable. I've generally perceived this to be a side effect of the need to prove themselves... given that they're in a traditionally male-dominated field, they've got to be on their game, no screwing around.
Whether this is true or not, I've no idea. I've never spoken to any of them about it. But if that's what it is, it certainly seems to pay off for my friends. They've done quite well and are well respected.
I've even started to steal a few pages from their books... when I was younger, having a pony tail, wearing sneakers and a comic book t-shirt, and not shaving were my de facto geek armor. Young kid dresses that way, everybody assumes he knows what he's doing. You don't have to prove it, you just have to not screw up. Worked great when I was consulting.
Now that I'm a little older, those things don't set off the "kid is a computer god" prejudice any more. They set off the "is dude still living in his mom's basement?" prejudice instead. So I got a hair cut, shave occasionally, and dress a little better. Sure, it's still jeans and a t-shirt, but jeans don't have holes in them any more, and the shirts don't have logos. I'm not that old yet :)
Her: "Women aren't encouraged to be nerds. If they are interested in geeky things, they are teased and degraded."
Me: "What do you think happens to male nerds?" I think the difference is that male geeks can usually depend on their geek peers for support. Girl geeks frequently take shit off their peers as well.
Naw... you already beat us to the best pun, in that the companies who jack their prices up and screw us all over are "sausage vendors." Quite the P.C. name, there, and a term I intend to use from now on at every opportunity :)
Antediluvian. I would suggest that antidiluvian civilizations are the ones that survived the flood :)
I've been doing exactly that for a while now. I even get a response periodically. I doubt it really helps much, but it's certainly cathartic to try and string them on as long as possible.
One thing... simply hitting the reply button really isn't enough. They're almost invariably faked. You have to do a little work to track down a real address you can email.
It's not that hard. At the very least, you can usually get one by doing a whois lookup on the website they're trying to get you to visit. But it does slow you down just a tad.
Not that I mind. It's great fun.
Back in 2002, when I was conducting my own frantic just-been-laid-off-have-a-kid-on-the-way job search, I found a listing demanding 10 years of experience developing J2EE applications.
It was beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye.
One the other hand, if there are indigenous inhabitants (future-speak) found on a planet, they trump the visitors. That's a lovely ideal, but past history says otherwise.
...given the amount of bullshit I'm handed while I'm producing code, do I count as a manure powered generator?
At work, where I have less control over the network, I do exactly as you suggest. My hosts file is getting huge :)
Would be nice if ol' Norton would start picking these things up as part of the normally scheduled virus scan...
Seeing little abbreviations like 'plz' makes baby Jesus cry when I see them used in instant messages... but in a review?
Something like a review strikes me as being at least somewhat formal. You expect people to read it and form opinions based on your experience with the product. Is it so much to ask that you invest a little time to write carefully, spell out entire words, and run a spell-check?
Buying the DVD costs me less than taking my wife out to see a movie in the theater, I get more, and I get to keep it. I buy more movies today than I ever did.
Meanwhile, had they actually ridden their old bike, they'd have cut a great deal more weight (not to mention the greater strength and efficiency they'd have developed).
I've found these guys to be really helpful. There's plenty of advice on all things running... choosing the right gear, where to run, how to run, how to deal with strains & sprains... how to avoid strains & sprains. There's also a nice community of people there for advice and support. I started their beginner program last year... aptly named the "Couch to 5K" program. I've dropped 20 pounds, and I'm still going down. Good stuff. As pointed out in another post, the hardest thing for me to learn for me the right pace to run. I run significantly slower than I originally thought was optimal. After a while, you learn to listen to your body and keep a pace you can maintain. Running 30 minutes at a pace you can maintain does you a hell of a lot more good than running 5 minutes at a pace you can't.
And here I thought that thingy on the front what comes out was a spit cup holder.
So now that I'm aware of the existence of free textbooks, my next questions, naturally, are: are there more? On other subjects? And most importantly, how can I find them on my own?
Indeed, my spam will begin to literally come from my toilet. How poetic.
Word processors have destroyed my ability to spell. So now call centers will destroy my ability to speak without profanity, right? Wait... working in software has already done that. :)
So that's what I need to do to make friends with the old man...
Is someone occupying our cities and towns, threatening our lives if our code fails to compile? My town? No. My cube? Yeah, pretty much. :)