That's because it's always easier to spread-out rip-offs over as many people as possible. The way the US is going, the majority of its people will be lawyers within 30-40 years, and *then* the lawyers will get their comeuppance as they sue each other into oblivion.
Some of the newer-fangled buildings now have sophistimicated clothes washers and dryers which require computerized cards to make them function. You get a "credit card" from the building management (inconvenient if your work hours preclude you from dropping in between 10AM and 4PM). Then you load the clothes card from another card (debit or credit) with whatever amount you want. Next, you follow the "simple instructions" printed on the card and on the washer and/or dryer.
I can tell you from personal experience that this system is, uh, annoying at best. The UI on the machines is very basic and unhelpful. Some machines take longer than others to recognize the already-paid-for card (sometimes they just barf, blinkingly) causing confusion for the user.
To top it all off, the phenomenon of people occupying all the available machines and leaving for an extended dinner still remains. This system is designed to help who, exactly?
Back when everyone was doing drafting and design on tables and not on display screens, work was done with two or more surfaces; the most important one was always adjustable for angle and often for height and light source. Even back in those 18th, 19th and 20th centuries employers knew how to make demanding, technical work a bit more comfortable.
And the jargon changes every few years, so older/non-tech folk become even *more* confused.
I am one of the last of a dying breed; a draftsman that can take a clean sheet of paper and make it worth something using not much more than a pencil, straightedge and a piece of string.
Today, CAD operators need tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and software just to get started. Leonardo must be rolling in his grave.
Wait, are you implying that the job of marketing has fundamentally changed from "figuring out what people want" to "trying to trick people into buying stuff they don't want"? Shame on you.
I've done some video encoding and have an older $800 dedicated card to do it. For the rest of your examples, no.
But my point was the speed of video display when I have to interact with the software and how it responds to my commands. Most of the examples you provide seem to be faster "push button and wait" situations. Doing complicated design work on a computer doesn't work like that because the system has to keep up with the designers' thoughts.
And, no, I'm not being a pompous asshole. I can sketch out a general idea and refine it to the point where it can be fabricated in about two minutes. With most software packages I end up waiting for the machine/software to ask how many microns I need when doing a general concept sketch.
I know I'm going to get modded down as a "sexist" for saying it, but this is hardly uncommon with women bosses.
Female engineers (i.e., not "office engineers" and definitely not software "engineers") tend to do quite well in industries where one has to wear a hard hat in order to visit the field. The stereotypical wolf-whistling construction worker, pipefitter or ironworker respects these women. It's all about professionalism.
WTF are you guys running that needs all that much speed?
Servers?
I currently use a client-provided machine to do 3D CAD work with AutoCAD and it pretty much sucks in the sense that regens of shaded models can take up to 5 seconds to finish and real-time viewing and rotation (so I can actually clearly see the part I need to edit) is a joke. Currently, we use third-party viewing software so we can visualize more easily, but editing must be done in AutoCAD. Based on the money being spent, one would think that one program could do it all.
Now, I'm not the sharpest hammer in the drawer, but when you lose focus due to machinery's limitations (I always compare CAD to old, efficient manual methods) that's not good. I would imagine that programming is similar in the sense that a creative person gets into a mental "zone" where all brain cylinder are firing, so to speak.
Why is CAD software (and CAD hardware) never independantly reviewed except in "professional" magazines who rely mostly on advertiser money and have deadlines?
Citizen polarization is the friend of professional politicians because it forces issues into a binary choice. The news media also finds advantages in clear-cut black vs. white stories since everyone can then takes sides and bitch about the other guy. It works out well for those in power, but not all those in power are cronies, yes-men or crooked.
On the other hand, lack of a clearly-defined agenda can cause endless waffling and indecision by "listening to everybody".
The price war that Intel has initiated seems to be taking its toll on the manufacturer.
I just put down some money for a new AMD X2 system (nothing all that special, but it'll have a lot of RAM and two video cards).
Since the store's online customization program was broken I ended up having to go there in person to place the order. Things were going fine until I realized that I was being set up for an Intel-based system, contrary to all my previous email and telephone communication. It made me wonder if there wasn't an advantage for the sales guy to push Intel by default.
How does naan fit into this? I thought naan bread was the "standard" in India (it's quite delicious, cooked in a tandoor). A "roti" (crusty pastry stuffed with ingredients) is something I usually associate with carribbean cuisine, but this impression is only from experience with restaurants in Montreal.
All this typing has made me hungry and I've got some rogan josh and a garlic naan in the fridge. Yum.
"Cell phone data" (depending on the device) could also mean stored info used to help with tests (as opposed to actual studying and learning) or "texting" answers to other students. Anti-drug/violence has nothing to do with this, but perhaps local, state or federal funding comes into play when schools get strapped for cash, so this is one way to get the money.
This is a somewhat odd story, does Framingham have a serious drug-dealer problem or are they trolling for funding and government money?
I just Goog...uh, searched [Kyle MacDonald paper clip cbc] because I knew that CBC had covered this before. Google replied: "Did you mean: Kyle MacDonald paper clip abc".
From 2005, CBC News, unformatted for your reading pleasure:
Montreal man trading paper-clip for house
Last Updated Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:50:27 EST
CBC News
A Montreal man is grabbing international attention for his increasingly successful quest to barter a single red paper-clip for a house.
Five months ago, Kyle MacDonald looked at a red paper-clip on his desk and decided to trade it on an internet website. He got a response almost immediately - from a pair of young women in Vancouver who offered to trade him a pen.
"It was a fish-shaped pen. And I got it from a pair of vegans. So it was a great exchange. They didn't want anything to do with fish," he said.
MacDonald, 25, then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle.
"It was a ceramic doorknob that had been hand-shaped by, I believe the person I traded with, her son, and she had been trying to get rid of it for quite some time," said MacDonald.
Annie Robbins, the Seattle potter who now owns the fish pen, says she loves the idea.
"I think the whole concept really flips the idea of consumerism around. How we value things, and what things are really worth," she said.
In Massachusetts, MacDonald traded the doorknob for a camp stove. He traded the stove to a U.S. marine sergeant in California for a 100-watt generator.
In Queens, N.Y., he exchanged the generator for the "instant party kit" - an empty keg of beer and an illuminated Budweiser beer sign.
On Thursday, MacDonald traded the keg and sign for a Bombardier snowmobile, courtesy of a Montreal radio host.
"If I get up to larger items, I'm going to need a larger base of people to pick from. There is someone out there with a surplus house. I just have to find them," said MacDonald.
Saskatchewan is one of those places where you can watch your dog run away for a couple of weeks. This is not so with cats or hamsters (too disorganized and buffalo food respectively). Fish still refuse to live in the province.
Getting to be a decision-maker in the entertainment-related industry probably takes more "street smarts", schmoozing and bean-counting kow-towing than most Slashdot readers are accustomed to. Don't expect many of them to have much of a clue other than "what worked before", and it's not as if executives or actors earning $2.5 million per year have ever done anything of real importance (of course there are exceptions) in their lives.
My brain wires must be messed-up. After *I* saw that particular TV commercial I subscribed to Slashdot and then bought the Reservoir Dogs DVD (extra gore edition).
It seems to me that the TV networks and advertisers themselves are not quite as guilty as are the faceless ad agencies and marketers. It all comes down to some ad exec pulling out the old saw, "half of your ad dollars are wasted, but which half? I can make you more money if you pay me." Everything tends to go downhill from there for consumers of mass media (this theory also might explain spam).
Some percentage of expenses are always dedicated to advertising or promotion. If sales go down for a long enough period to warrant serious attention, the first "fix" should not be, "let's get louder and more annoying".
Also, it would be nice to see credits displayed on TV ads so that the viewer knows which ad agency is responsible for good and bad commercials.
Re:Al Queda, witches, devil worshippers, and gangs
on
Gangs on the Internet
·
· Score: 1
Does it make much difference if something was completely made-up out of thin air 50 or 100 years ago, or thousands of years ago?
Slashdot Mirror
1) Wrong spelling
2) Maybe he was posting from Calgary
That's because it's always easier to spread-out rip-offs over as many people as possible. The way the US is going, the majority of its people will be lawyers within 30-40 years, and *then* the lawyers will get their comeuppance as they sue each other into oblivion.
Some of the newer-fangled buildings now have sophistimicated clothes washers and dryers which require computerized cards to make them function. You get a "credit card" from the building management (inconvenient if your work hours preclude you from dropping in between 10AM and 4PM). Then you load the clothes card from another card (debit or credit) with whatever amount you want. Next, you follow the "simple instructions" printed on the card and on the washer and/or dryer.
I can tell you from personal experience that this system is, uh, annoying at best. The UI on the machines is very basic and unhelpful. Some machines take longer than others to recognize the already-paid-for card (sometimes they just barf, blinkingly) causing confusion for the user.
To top it all off, the phenomenon of people occupying all the available machines and leaving for an extended dinner still remains. This system is designed to help who, exactly?
Back when everyone was doing drafting and design on tables and not on display screens, work was done with two or more surfaces; the most important one was always adjustable for angle and often for height and light source. Even back in those 18th, 19th and 20th centuries employers knew how to make demanding, technical work a bit more comfortable.
Same idea as if you come home, and there's a cop rifling through your shit.
I asked this before and got stupid/non-useful replies:
Why are not more webcams advertising that they can do motion detection and auto-upload movement-triggered photos and/or video?
AKA tacking?
That's why most new large ships are now designed with rotatable thrusters instead of propellors and rudders.
Where's the Chuck Norris-style ass-kicking when we really need it?
And the jargon changes every few years, so older/non-tech folk become even *more* confused.
I am one of the last of a dying breed; a draftsman that can take a clean sheet of paper and make it worth something using not much more than a pencil, straightedge and a piece of string.
Today, CAD operators need tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and software just to get started. Leonardo must be rolling in his grave.
Wait, are you implying that the job of marketing has fundamentally changed from "figuring out what people want" to "trying to trick people into buying stuff they don't want"? Shame on you.
I've done some video encoding and have an older $800 dedicated card to do it. For the rest of your examples, no.
But my point was the speed of video display when I have to interact with the software and how it responds to my commands. Most of the examples you provide seem to be faster "push button and wait" situations. Doing complicated design work on a computer doesn't work like that because the system has to keep up with the designers' thoughts.
And, no, I'm not being a pompous asshole. I can sketch out a general idea and refine it to the point where it can be fabricated in about two minutes. With most software packages I end up waiting for the machine/software to ask how many microns I need when doing a general concept sketch.
I know I'm going to get modded down as a "sexist" for saying it, but this is hardly uncommon with women bosses.
Female engineers (i.e., not "office engineers" and definitely not software "engineers") tend to do quite well in industries where one has to wear a hard hat in order to visit the field. The stereotypical wolf-whistling construction worker, pipefitter or ironworker respects these women. It's all about professionalism.
WTF are you guys running that needs all that much speed?
Servers?
I currently use a client-provided machine to do 3D CAD work with AutoCAD and it pretty much sucks in the sense that regens of shaded models can take up to 5 seconds to finish and real-time viewing and rotation (so I can actually clearly see the part I need to edit) is a joke. Currently, we use third-party viewing software so we can visualize more easily, but editing must be done in AutoCAD. Based on the money being spent, one would think that one program could do it all.
Now, I'm not the sharpest hammer in the drawer, but when you lose focus due to machinery's limitations (I always compare CAD to old, efficient manual methods) that's not good. I would imagine that programming is similar in the sense that a creative person gets into a mental "zone" where all brain cylinder are firing, so to speak.
Why is CAD software (and CAD hardware) never independantly reviewed except in "professional" magazines who rely mostly on advertiser money and have deadlines?
Maybe it's time for cad.slashdot.org.
Citizen polarization is the friend of professional politicians because it forces issues into a binary choice. The news media also finds advantages in clear-cut black vs. white stories since everyone can then takes sides and bitch about the other guy. It works out well for those in power, but not all those in power are cronies, yes-men or crooked.
On the other hand, lack of a clearly-defined agenda can cause endless waffling and indecision by "listening to everybody".
The price war that Intel has initiated seems to be taking its toll on the manufacturer.
I just put down some money for a new AMD X2 system (nothing all that special, but it'll have a lot of RAM and two video cards).
Since the store's online customization program was broken I ended up having to go there in person to place the order. Things were going fine until I realized that I was being set up for an Intel-based system, contrary to all my previous email and telephone communication. It made me wonder if there wasn't an advantage for the sales guy to push Intel by default.
Nicely said and very likely correct.
...roti (Indian bread)...
How does naan fit into this? I thought naan bread was the "standard" in India (it's quite delicious, cooked in a tandoor). A "roti" (crusty pastry stuffed with ingredients) is something I usually associate with carribbean cuisine, but this impression is only from experience with restaurants in Montreal.
All this typing has made me hungry and I've got some rogan josh and a garlic naan in the fridge. Yum.
"Cell phone data" (depending on the device) could also mean stored info used to help with tests (as opposed to actual studying and learning) or "texting" answers to other students. Anti-drug/violence has nothing to do with this, but perhaps local, state or federal funding comes into play when schools get strapped for cash, so this is one way to get the money.
This is a somewhat odd story, does Framingham have a serious drug-dealer problem or are they trolling for funding and government money?
I just Goog...uh, searched [Kyle MacDonald paper clip cbc] because I knew that CBC had covered this before. Google replied: "Did you mean: Kyle MacDonald paper clip abc".
From 2005, CBC News, unformatted for your reading pleasure:
Montreal man trading paper-clip for house Last Updated Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:50:27 EST CBC News A Montreal man is grabbing international attention for his increasingly successful quest to barter a single red paper-clip for a house. Five months ago, Kyle MacDonald looked at a red paper-clip on his desk and decided to trade it on an internet website. He got a response almost immediately - from a pair of young women in Vancouver who offered to trade him a pen. "It was a fish-shaped pen. And I got it from a pair of vegans. So it was a great exchange. They didn't want anything to do with fish," he said. MacDonald, 25, then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle. "It was a ceramic doorknob that had been hand-shaped by, I believe the person I traded with, her son, and she had been trying to get rid of it for quite some time," said MacDonald. Annie Robbins, the Seattle potter who now owns the fish pen, says she loves the idea. "I think the whole concept really flips the idea of consumerism around. How we value things, and what things are really worth," she said. In Massachusetts, MacDonald traded the doorknob for a camp stove. He traded the stove to a U.S. marine sergeant in California for a 100-watt generator. In Queens, N.Y., he exchanged the generator for the "instant party kit" - an empty keg of beer and an illuminated Budweiser beer sign. On Thursday, MacDonald traded the keg and sign for a Bombardier snowmobile, courtesy of a Montreal radio host. "If I get up to larger items, I'm going to need a larger base of people to pick from. There is someone out there with a surplus house. I just have to find them," said MacDonald.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_MacDonald
Saskatchewan is one of those places where you can watch your dog run away for a couple of weeks. This is not so with cats or hamsters (too disorganized and buffalo food respectively). Fish still refuse to live in the province.
"Bending, Twist and Shear" - it's not a law firm.
Getting to be a decision-maker in the entertainment-related industry probably takes more "street smarts", schmoozing and bean-counting kow-towing than most Slashdot readers are accustomed to. Don't expect many of them to have much of a clue other than "what worked before", and it's not as if executives or actors earning $2.5 million per year have ever done anything of real importance (of course there are exceptions) in their lives.
I'm hungry, I want a taco.
My brain wires must be messed-up. After *I* saw that particular TV commercial I subscribed to Slashdot and then bought the Reservoir Dogs DVD (extra gore edition).
It seems to me that the TV networks and advertisers themselves are not quite as guilty as are the faceless ad agencies and marketers. It all comes down to some ad exec pulling out the old saw, "half of your ad dollars are wasted, but which half? I can make you more money if you pay me." Everything tends to go downhill from there for consumers of mass media (this theory also might explain spam).
Some percentage of expenses are always dedicated to advertising or promotion. If sales go down for a long enough period to warrant serious attention, the first "fix" should not be, "let's get louder and more annoying".
Also, it would be nice to see credits displayed on TV ads so that the viewer knows which ad agency is responsible for good and bad commercials.
Does it make much difference if something was completely made-up out of thin air 50 or 100 years ago, or thousands of years ago?
L. Ron Hubbard.