I can say I personally went through this. Once I realized what was happening (not going out as much anymore, gaining weight/getting out of shape, neglecting my family, etc) I ended up shedding a lot of these things over the course of about a year. First cable tv went (hell, I only watched 3 channels most of the time and quitting would save me money), then WoW (again, would save me money, and was getting stale).
However, these weren't my biggest addictions in the slightest, but I wasn't quite ready to give up on facebook and similar social networking things. It didn't seem like much at the time. Afterall, I was still being "social" and wasn't becoming reclusive. It was essentially a substitute for hanging out with real people in real life. And besides - a lot of us got together on Fridays for movie night. Thing was - even during these movie nights I'd still be checking facebook despite everyone close to me was right in front of me.
The straw that broke the camel's back was over a benign status I posted: "Aww snap, time for daddy day care!" as my wife was going out with some friends and it was going to be one of my first times watching our baby daughter solo. Two women somehow took offense to this comment and proceeded to man-bash like crazy, nevermind that I'm actually sticking around and being a father. It boiled down to one woman basically calling her husband worthless and both of them saying I was a shitty father ("It's not daycare, it's PARENTING!"). And I know, I know - I should know better than to get riled up over trolling - but these are people I know in real life - straight up being offensive. The only person who could have came to my rescue was my wife. She sees all this when she gets home and is like "wtf is wrong with those bitches?" I reply "well, do something!". I needed help. I was getting attacked by two angry hens!
She replies "LOL" in the facebook thread.
I fucking LOST it.
I counted on the one person who could get me out of this mess - save my name on the internets - and she didn't pull through. How dare she?...
The next morning I felt like such a goddamned tool once I put all this into perspective. I came to the conclusion that I was far too invested in things like facebook and virtual people that I promptly initiated the processes for deleting most of my online identity.
Around the same time I was reading a book (How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom) that really forces you to think about how you put value into the things around you. So I had to ask "does x add value to my life?" As a result, here I am still on slashdot, still have my cellphone, but I'm outside damned near everyday, starting getting back into playing hockey and taking it more seriously, seeing more of family, and in way better shape than I was.
Overall, I'm much happier and feel like I've gained a much higher quality of life. I'd say anyone thinking about the same - go for it and never look back.
Don't forget to include benefits. Pretty much consider your benefits to match your salary. At 60k/yr salary you may cost the company a total of 120k, for example.
"Microsoft is expanding a program to give government organizations access to some of its tightly guarded software blueprints amid growing competition from rivals who make such source code freely available. Beginning Monday, Microsoft will offer more than 60 governments and international organizations the option of viewing the proprietary source code for the latest version of its ubiquitous Office software, including the Outlook e-mail program, Microsoft Word and Excel spreadsheet application."
Same thought here, but there are some things to be aware of:
"What effect will this have on my monthly download cap?
Our units involved in the FCC project transfer a large amount of data, which varies according to the speed of your connection. The usage on a 10Mbps connection will be around 20GB/month, and will likely be around 60GB on a 50Mbps connection. The amount that's downloaded is speed dependant (so a slower connection will use less traffic than a faster connection).
If you're on a product with a low cap then we'd advise against signing up, or at least informing us beforehand so that we can apply a different testing profile (we can run smaller speed tests on a per-device if necessary)."
"How long will the testing period last?
The initial testing period is scheduled to last three years."
"Information collected We may collect personal information about you which you give to us when you use our website, for example, to receive our exchange updates and regular website updates. For the purpose of the FCC and Ofcom studies we will collect your personal information and information about the performance of your internet connection."
"Your data Users of SamKnows.com have certain rights under the your country’s Data Protection Legislation. You can, for instance, ask to be told what information we hold about you in our databases. SamKnows.com will provide you with all of the details that we hold about you, both online and offline, upon request. In order to request this information, please contact us by sending an email to team@samknows.com."
about:blank = all white screen. I'm not entirely schooled in the science of LCDs but with CRTs that meant much more energy required to produce that image. Is that a possible reason for the power draw?
And you story is precisely why courts need to proceed with more caution. People don't seem to think of what the scale of time really is. What all have we accomplished in the past year? 5 years? 10 years? The entire course of a life can be broken with one false conviction.
There's the old adage to the effect of "I'd rather X guilty men go free than imprison a single innocent one". Is this lost on people these days? Quit focusing so damned much on incarceration and work towards prevention and rehabilitation. Holing people up in a jail over some of the stuff we do is insane.
Anywho- I can't do much of a damn thing to fix or undo your experience, but you do have my sympathies. Sometimes I wish my calling was law to defend people in your shoes but I'm honestly just not built for that line of work.
This is actually a topic I've been recently getting more and more interested in, but I'm not 100% sure what field of study this type of stuff would fall under in particular. Sounds like it covers quite a few disciplines, but perhaps you'd have more insight?
I thought that was a really good question so I researched it a bit. I would have speculated that it could have been pure chance. For both L and R to exist the processes that created the more advanced molecules would have had to have been duplicated for both sets. In a way it almost makes sense that one simply randomly won out.
There are millions of cars. Some of them wind up catching on fire from time to time. The occupants would not stand a chance. I think the solution is going to have to involve avoiding getting in situations that'd blow up the car than storing power as a fuel in a tank.
Really - I do see your concern, but I don't think it's beyond our engineering capabilities to accomodate for such.
Correction: That's a negative - unless you're willing to spend hours on a phone chasing your way up the management chain until you *maybe* get your way.
Slashdot Mirror
I can say I personally went through this. Once I realized what was happening (not going out as much anymore, gaining weight/getting out of shape, neglecting my family, etc) I ended up shedding a lot of these things over the course of about a year. First cable tv went (hell, I only watched 3 channels most of the time and quitting would save me money), then WoW (again, would save me money, and was getting stale).
However, these weren't my biggest addictions in the slightest, but I wasn't quite ready to give up on facebook and similar social networking things. It didn't seem like much at the time. Afterall, I was still being "social" and wasn't becoming reclusive. It was essentially a substitute for hanging out with real people in real life. And besides - a lot of us got together on Fridays for movie night. Thing was - even during these movie nights I'd still be checking facebook despite everyone close to me was right in front of me.
The straw that broke the camel's back was over a benign status I posted: "Aww snap, time for daddy day care!" as my wife was going out with some friends and it was going to be one of my first times watching our baby daughter solo. Two women somehow took offense to this comment and proceeded to man-bash like crazy, nevermind that I'm actually sticking around and being a father. It boiled down to one woman basically calling her husband worthless and both of them saying I was a shitty father ("It's not daycare, it's PARENTING!"). And I know, I know - I should know better than to get riled up over trolling - but these are people I know in real life - straight up being offensive. The only person who could have came to my rescue was my wife. She sees all this when she gets home and is like "wtf is wrong with those bitches?" I reply "well, do something!". I needed help. I was getting attacked by two angry hens!
She replies "LOL" in the facebook thread.
I fucking LOST it.
I counted on the one person who could get me out of this mess - save my name on the internets - and she didn't pull through. How dare she? ...
The next morning I felt like such a goddamned tool once I put all this into perspective. I came to the conclusion that I was far too invested in things like facebook and virtual people that I promptly initiated the processes for deleting most of my online identity.
Around the same time I was reading a book (How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom) that really forces you to think about how you put value into the things around you. So I had to ask "does x add value to my life?" As a result, here I am still on slashdot, still have my cellphone, but I'm outside damned near everyday, starting getting back into playing hockey and taking it more seriously, seeing more of family, and in way better shape than I was.
Overall, I'm much happier and feel like I've gained a much higher quality of life. I'd say anyone thinking about the same - go for it and never look back.
Ok, that makes more sense now. Thanks!
I'll take a bite out of some humble pie - why isn't cmd considered a CLI?
Or, *gasp*, raise taxes.
Don't forget to include benefits. Pretty much consider your benefits to match your salary. At 60k/yr salary you may cost the company a total of 120k, for example.
Well here's just one example from a quick search:
"Microsoft is expanding a program to give government organizations access to some of its tightly guarded software blueprints amid growing competition from rivals who make such source code freely available.
Beginning Monday, Microsoft will offer more than 60 governments and international organizations the option of viewing the proprietary source code for the latest version of its ubiquitous Office software, including the Outlook e-mail program, Microsoft Word and Excel spreadsheet application."
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/09/65018
Same thought here, but there are some things to be aware of:
"What effect will this have on my monthly download cap?
Our units involved in the FCC project transfer a large amount of data, which varies according to the speed of your connection. The usage on a 10Mbps connection will be around 20GB/month, and will likely be around 60GB on a 50Mbps connection. The amount that's downloaded is speed dependant (so a slower connection will use less traffic than a faster connection).
If you're on a product with a low cap then we'd advise against signing up, or at least informing us beforehand so that we can apply a different testing profile (we can run smaller speed tests on a per-device if necessary)."
"How long will the testing period last?
The initial testing period is scheduled to last three years."
http://www.testmyisp.com/faq.html
"Information collected
We may collect personal information about you which you give to us when you use our website, for example, to receive our exchange updates and regular website updates. For the purpose of the FCC and Ofcom studies we will collect your personal information and information about the performance of your internet connection."
"Your data
Users of SamKnows.com have certain rights under the your country’s Data Protection Legislation. You can, for instance, ask to be told what information we hold about you in our databases. SamKnows.com will provide you with all of the details that we hold about you, both online and offline, upon request. In order to request this information, please contact us by sending an email to team@samknows.com."
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/privacy
Thanks!
You've single-handedly made me completely appreciate the widespread technology of the LCD SO much more. Seriously, that's crazy stuff.
You're absolutely right. My brain was going on some weird tangent with it that probably didn't make sense but who knows what that was.
about:blank = all white screen. I'm not entirely schooled in the science of LCDs but with CRTs that meant much more energy required to produce that image. Is that a possible reason for the power draw?
That's just absolutely painful. People like that ought to experience that kind of hell, even if just for a short while.
And you story is precisely why courts need to proceed with more caution. People don't seem to think of what the scale of time really is. What all have we accomplished in the past year? 5 years? 10 years? The entire course of a life can be broken with one false conviction.
There's the old adage to the effect of "I'd rather X guilty men go free than imprison a single innocent one". Is this lost on people these days? Quit focusing so damned much on incarceration and work towards prevention and rehabilitation. Holing people up in a jail over some of the stuff we do is insane.
Anywho- I can't do much of a damn thing to fix or undo your experience, but you do have my sympathies. Sometimes I wish my calling was law to defend people in your shoes but I'm honestly just not built for that line of work.
This is actually a topic I've been recently getting more and more interested in, but I'm not 100% sure what field of study this type of stuff would fall under in particular. Sounds like it covers quite a few disciplines, but perhaps you'd have more insight?
SECONDED. THIRDED. You know what I mean. :)
Interesting perspective. Thanks!
I'm more concerned about this darkness pollution. I hear they cause muggings and car accidents.
I thought that was a really good question so I researched it a bit. I would have speculated that it could have been pure chance. For both L and R to exist the processes that created the more advanced molecules would have had to have been duplicated for both sets. In a way it almost makes sense that one simply randomly won out.
Here's an article that goes into some more detail but is an equally sound hypothesis, IMHO: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7895-space-radiation-may-select-amino-acids-for-life.html
Compoopter.
There are millions of cars. Some of them wind up catching on fire from time to time. The occupants would not stand a chance. I think the solution is going to have to involve avoiding getting in situations that'd blow up the car than storing power as a fuel in a tank.
Really - I do see your concern, but I don't think it's beyond our engineering capabilities to accomodate for such.
"but why the hell would it run faster when everything else in the computer is still the same?"
Just a guess but it might allow for running the CPU faster as there's less external heat bringing up its temperature.
Question tangent to that: I'd imagine SSDs run MUCH cooler than HDDs - with that said, does anyone know first hand?
I'll be honest - I have no idea what you're referencing. But the 5 mod points for funny make me think it's worth asking.
Which aspect(s)? Support? Coverage? Etc?
Actually there are a few smaller ones that have sprouted up recently(ish). I have no experience with them but their prices seem more reasonable.
http://www.boostmobile.com/
http://www.mycricket.com/
Correction: That's a negative - unless you're willing to spend hours on a phone chasing your way up the management chain until you *maybe* get your way.