is the word trainspotting SOLELY associated with the movie in the states now? i wonder how many people actually realize that trainspotting is a past time where people actually spot trains. damn...
I turned down a job at Microsoft in 1997. I was working at a local Redmond computer retailer, in charge of designing and producing all their marketing materials, web page, print ads, in store flyers, hold music, radio and television commercials. A great number of our customers were Microsoft employees.
One day I was approached by one of these employees, who wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for an interview. I was going to be working with one of their research teams, documenting, interpreting, and packaging their findings into easily understandable mediums, the web, presentations, and other marketing materials.
Being 18 at the time and riding the ever growing.com wave, I decided to check it out. I went through the typical gauntlet of interviews and logic puzzles. About halfway through the process I started losing interest. Not because the interview was hard to exhausting (it wasn't either), but because I didn't care enough about what I was going to be doing.
When it came time to actually meet the people I would be working with that totally cemented my decision not to take the job. I have never been fond of the kind of geek/nerd who is socially maladjusted, the people that don't shower, brush their teeth, and can only talk about computers. Sure, there were plenty of those types at my current job, but I had an office with a door that locked, so it was easy to stay away from them.
I was eventually offered the job, and I promptly turned it down with no regrets. A couple years later when it became obvious to me that what I was doing wouldn't be profitable for much longer I quit working the 60 hour weeks and went to college.
I am currently applying to graduate schools. One of the schools I applied to, University of Minnesota, called me at the end of January letting me know that I has been accepted to the program, with a full tuition waiver, plus a stipend. Two weeks later I got a letter saying basically the same thing and letting me know that if I accepted their offer to respond by April 1st at the latest or my position would be offered to somebody else. Now, this struck me as strange because every other school I applied to says that they will notify you of your admission status on April 1st.
I did a little research and discovered that April 1st is the accepted standard to notify people of admission of nearly all major graduate programs. April 15th is the accepted standard to inform of nearly all major graduate programs of your choice whether to accept or not.
I emailed University of Minnesota about this, to let them know that I planned on hearing back from ALL the schools I had applied to before making my decision and asked if they would push the deadline back to match the standard deadline that all other schools use. (In fact, University of Minnesota is one of the schools in the list of programs that have decided to make the 15th the standard notification deadline). They emailed me back and said that they would "see if they could work something out."
This was about a month ago now and I still haven't gotten a response. Unless I don't get accepted to any other schools I applied to, I will not attend University of Minnesota solely based what I think is an attempt to make graduate applicants make a hasty decision.
In your case, it seems like you had a gut feeling and acted on it. This is probably in your best interest. You could probably make the switch, but since your initial reaction was negative, and so strongly negative it forced you to quit, there's no realistic way that I could imagine you ever being comfortable in that situation.
If you try to find a business it'll come up with results that are totally unrelated. They aren't labeled as advertisements, but they certainly look suspicious.
The best thing about MapQuest was it's excellent trip planner, which they took offline about a year ago for no apparent reason.
Specify starting point, specify end point, and then choose all the places you want to go in between. Incredibly useful... There are a couple others available, but they are all pretty clunky and slow, hopefully Google will add this feature soon...
normally when apple releases new products everyone gushes about them and i'm normally pretty disappointed. i know when you buy apple, you pay for the industrial design, but i've never really been impressed with what they do. the ipod and ipod mini don't do it for me... and i've always thought the computers are way overpriced.
i have to say that at first glance i'm pretty impressed with what i see here. the ipod shuffle looks to be a pretty good idea. not much more than a usb thumb drive, the price is a little much, but not absurd.
the mac mini is somewhat the same thing. the price isn't super hot, but it looks to be a step in the right direction in terms of apple's product line. good size, good value...
i hope to see apple keep going in this direction and broadened their horizons by marketing to everyone, not just people that want to be trendy and to those that think the whole "it just works" thing still applies.
Still not worth it... yeah, the G-series architecture is fun to play around with, but the OS just doesn't do it for me, I'd be running Gentoo with IceWM on it. But let's do a little cost comparison...
Right now I have a Compaq Presario R3000T. It has a P4 2.8ghz CPU, a gig of RAM, a DVD-RW drive, 30gb hard drive (I have two external 120gb drives), and comes with a 15.4" LCD with 1920x1200 resolution. The whole thing cost $1050 after rebates, FatWallet, etc.
Now, if I were to get this new Mac I'd spend $400 on the base price, another $100 on the RAM, another $100-200 to get a superdrive, an extra $2000 to get an LCD screen with similar resolution, plus 8.2% tax (is there anywhere that has sales tax where Apple doesn't charge it?)...
So in the end I'd be spending at least $2813 for a pretty computer that isn't portable... $1763 more than a comparable PC... plus 1920x1200 looks *awesome* at 15.4" and kinda pixely at 23"
a little sidenote... I've never had any problems with Windows not "just working." In my fifteen years of computer experience I've had far more problems with Linux (hardware compatibility, and the first time I installed RedHat in the mid 90s the toolbar kept crashing over and over and over) with MacOS (somehow the OS got wiped when I installed the Digi001 PCI card, multiple "computer with question mark" start ups, and undecipherable "bomb icon" errors.) Windows might occasionally boot into start mode for no reason and need to be rebooted more often, but I've never experienced any overwhelmingly frustrating issues like I have with other operating systems.
With due respect,trust and humanity,I write this letterto you seeking your help and assistance,though its difficult since we have not met before.I got your address from the SOUTH AFRICA INFORMATION EXCHANGE (S.A.I.E)regarding your business profile and sincerity.I believe that you are capable and reliable in handling this urgent international transaction of this sort.
I am MR.RUFUS MUKHENZE,the first and only son of COMRADE.BORDER D.MUKHENZE,the Zimbabwean former Minister for Youth & Gender Equality who is also a businessman and politician,in the Zimbabwean political arena.My father was the famous politician who stood firm against President Mugabes idea of continuous fight in Democratic Republic of Congo and my father also stood against the seizure of white owned farms and the distribution of it to the blacks without Compesiation to the white owners.Before my father's death, in his "WILL"he specifically drew my attention to this sum of US$21,320Million,(TWENTY ONE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLAR)which he deposited in a safe box of a private security company in south Africa,INFACT MY FATHER SAID IN HIS WILL AND QUOTE:-
"MY beloved son,I wish to draw your attention to the sum of US$21,320,000.00(TWENTY ONE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLAR), which I deposited in a box with a security company in Johannesburg,South Africa. Incase of my absence on earth caused by death,only you should solicit for reliable foreign partner to assist you to transfer this money out of south Africa for investment purpose.I deposited the money in your name and it can be claimed by you alone with the deposit code.Your mother has all the document.Take good care of your mother and sister
From the above,you will understand that the lives and future of my family depends on this money,I will be very grateful if you can assist us,we are now living in South Africa as political asylum seekers and the financial laws of south Africa does not allow asylum seeker certain financial rights to such huge amount of money.In view of this,I cannot invest this money here in south africa,hence I am asking you to assist me transfer this money out of south africa for investment purpose.
For your efforts,am prepared to offer you 25%of the total fund, while 5%will be set aside for local and international expenses and 70%will be kept by my family and me.All I want you to do is to furnish me with your entire personal phone and fax numbers for easy communication. Note that this transaction is 100% Risk free and absolutely confidential.
I don't really see anything wrong with this. Companies should be able to participate in any legal activity they want to, they just need to make it explicitly clear to the customers before they purchase, a large sign would do.
When I go into the convenient store on the corner it has a large sign that says, "No shirt, no shoes, no service." So I already know the consequence of entering the store without shoes.
The problem occurs when stores don't do a good job of letting their customers know their policies... if the store policies are available to customers (which they are often not) it's typically printed on a receipt, or even worse, in that light blue writing some receipts have on the back.
Most stores probably think that something like putting a large sign that says, "We track all your purchases and you are only allowed X number of returns per year." would be bad for business, but when people realize the store policies by getting surprised by them like the lady in the story, that sort of things is absolutely horrible for business.
Bruce Brace has been doing this forever with his 12hr ISBN-JPEG project, in fact the 10th anniversay is December 30th. He's been posting a photo to alt.12hr, alt.binaries.pictures.12hr, alt.binaries.pictures.misc, alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc every 12 hours since 1994. Here's a link to more info.
The project has all sorts of different kind of photographs, the last time I was keeping track of it it was all black and white, most of it was very subjective, pictures of people, pictures of things, then all of a sudden it changed to abstractions and non-subjective images. I have no idea what it's up to now...
I'm constantly surprised that George Lucas was lucid and creative enough to create American Graffiti... it's a film that has not only withstood the test of time, quite an achievement for what could have easily been just a nostalgia piece, but has the perfect balance of comedy and drama, and manages to develop many different storylines (most multi-threaded films tend to skimp on any sort of real character and story development and the crossover between storylines is often very poor).
The ultimate music store would let each individual artist choose the format of the songs, the cost of the songs (per song, per album, or a subscription), how the songs are to be previewed, hard copy, merch, etc.
I love the MouseMan series of mice... but I feel like the design has been going downhill since around the time they introduced the cordless ball MouseMan mouse, and the MX700 I found to be quite odd to use... the thumb button was no longer where my thumb was, I had to move my thumb in an awkward way to reach the button, also, they introduced two buttons by the scroll wheel, one in front and one behind, the front button was easy to click, but the one behind was, again, awkward... I'd love to see a better design, until then I'll be using my first edition blue MouseMan Optical USB.
The Securia.com link in the profile says that only Winamp 3.x and 5.x. But doesn't mention 2.x... the vast majority of Winamp users I know don't use 3.x or 5.x due to the massive feature bloat.
Is 2.x actually susceptible or is the submitter incorrect?
I was listening to NPR a couple months ago and some guys who were at Xerox PARC in the 70s were on talking about various things, I can't remember specifics but they all individually, and as a team, invented most of the fundamental portions of the DARPA/internet. The host asked one of the guys to define what the internet was and he said it was two more more networks that were connected.
So, we have "internets" all over the place. Now, in general reference, when somebody says "the internet" they are talking about a specific internet, the one we are using here. But that does not neccessitate capitalization (there are many houses on this street, I live at the house (not House) on the corner.
I wonder if this will force the voice recognition software industry to finally deliver on it's promises of functional voice recognition to combat this type of spam.:)
A lot of the cheaper plans offered by VoIP companies, like cell phones, have a certain number of minutes you have per month. Some of the companies, foolishly, make you listen to an entire voicemail message before deleting it (in the cell phone world Cingular does this too), now if you have even 5% or 10% the amount of voicemail spam that you do email spam and you're forced to listen to entire messages before deletion this is going to take up a pretty significant chunk of your minutes... that's bad bad news.
Guarantees replacement of any locked laptop that's stolen
Sounds pretty specific, huh? ANY locked laptop that's stolen... Which is quite different than what it says when you click the warranty link on the page...
If theft of your laptop computer results from the Kensington Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver computer lock being broken or opened by forceful means Kensington Technology Group will pay you the replacement value of your laptop up to US $1,500.00.
It goes on to say:
Kensington Technology Group will NOT be liable if the theft occurred because:......
D. The laptop was stolen by any means other than violating or breaking the Kensington brand Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver Lock.
Now... that seems pretty vague to me. Are they talking specifically about the locking device? Or are they talking about the entire thing and calling it the Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver Lock because that's the name of the product? Vague vague vague...
Come on now... does ANYONE think this thing is secure? Sure, you can pick the lock, but any pair of decent wire cutters could snip this thing no problem.
Think about how strongly people lock up their bikes, their bikes that, typically, cost much much less than their computers. I see $300 bikes around here with two of those super tough U-locks, and some 00 gauge cable locks. Total cost? About $40.
At $55 that thing is not only incredibly overpriced, but flimsy as hell. Anyone that buys that and gets their laptop stolen shouldn't be surprised.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you mean "OMG i bet u luz 20 pts 4 im?"
is the word trainspotting SOLELY associated with the movie in the states now? i wonder how many people actually realize that trainspotting is a past time where people actually spot trains. damn...
anyone else remember a suit at macromedia saying this? i wonder what's going to happen with that...
I turned down a job at Microsoft in 1997. I was working at a local Redmond computer retailer, in charge of designing and producing all their marketing materials, web page, print ads, in store flyers, hold music, radio and television commercials. A great number of our customers were Microsoft employees.
.com wave, I decided to check it out. I went through the typical gauntlet of interviews and logic puzzles. About halfway through the process I started losing interest. Not because the interview was hard to exhausting (it wasn't either), but because I didn't care enough about what I was going to be doing.
One day I was approached by one of these employees, who wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for an interview. I was going to be working with one of their research teams, documenting, interpreting, and packaging their findings into easily understandable mediums, the web, presentations, and other marketing materials.
Being 18 at the time and riding the ever growing
When it came time to actually meet the people I would be working with that totally cemented my decision not to take the job. I have never been fond of the kind of geek/nerd who is socially maladjusted, the people that don't shower, brush their teeth, and can only talk about computers. Sure, there were plenty of those types at my current job, but I had an office with a door that locked, so it was easy to stay away from them.
I was eventually offered the job, and I promptly turned it down with no regrets. A couple years later when it became obvious to me that what I was doing wouldn't be profitable for much longer I quit working the 60 hour weeks and went to college.
I am currently applying to graduate schools. One of the schools I applied to, University of Minnesota, called me at the end of January letting me know that I has been accepted to the program, with a full tuition waiver, plus a stipend. Two weeks later I got a letter saying basically the same thing and letting me know that if I accepted their offer to respond by April 1st at the latest or my position would be offered to somebody else. Now, this struck me as strange because every other school I applied to says that they will notify you of your admission status on April 1st.
I did a little research and discovered that April 1st is the accepted standard to notify people of admission of nearly all major graduate programs. April 15th is the accepted standard to inform of nearly all major graduate programs of your choice whether to accept or not.
I emailed University of Minnesota about this, to let them know that I planned on hearing back from ALL the schools I had applied to before making my decision and asked if they would push the deadline back to match the standard deadline that all other schools use. (In fact, University of Minnesota is one of the schools in the list of programs that have decided to make the 15th the standard notification deadline). They emailed me back and said that they would "see if they could work something out."
This was about a month ago now and I still haven't gotten a response. Unless I don't get accepted to any other schools I applied to, I will not attend University of Minnesota solely based what I think is an attempt to make graduate applicants make a hasty decision.
In your case, it seems like you had a gut feeling and acted on it. This is probably in your best interest. You could probably make the switch, but since your initial reaction was negative, and so strongly negative it forced you to quit, there's no realistic way that I could imagine you ever being comfortable in that situation.
If you try to find a business it'll come up with results that are totally unrelated. They aren't labeled as advertisements, but they certainly look suspicious.
The best thing about MapQuest was it's excellent trip planner, which they took offline about a year ago for no apparent reason.
Specify starting point, specify end point, and then choose all the places you want to go in between. Incredibly useful... There are a couple others available, but they are all pretty clunky and slow, hopefully Google will add this feature soon...
yeeahh dawg
normally when apple releases new products everyone gushes about them and i'm normally pretty disappointed. i know when you buy apple, you pay for the industrial design, but i've never really been impressed with what they do. the ipod and ipod mini don't do it for me... and i've always thought the computers are way overpriced.
i have to say that at first glance i'm pretty impressed with what i see here. the ipod shuffle looks to be a pretty good idea. not much more than a usb thumb drive, the price is a little much, but not absurd.
the mac mini is somewhat the same thing. the price isn't super hot, but it looks to be a step in the right direction in terms of apple's product line. good size, good value...
i hope to see apple keep going in this direction and broadened their horizons by marketing to everyone, not just people that want to be trendy and to those that think the whole "it just works" thing still applies.
Still not worth it... yeah, the G-series architecture is fun to play around with, but the OS just doesn't do it for me, I'd be running Gentoo with IceWM on it. But let's do a little cost comparison...
Right now I have a Compaq Presario R3000T. It has a P4 2.8ghz CPU, a gig of RAM, a DVD-RW drive, 30gb hard drive (I have two external 120gb drives), and comes with a 15.4" LCD with 1920x1200 resolution. The whole thing cost $1050 after rebates, FatWallet, etc.
Now, if I were to get this new Mac I'd spend $400 on the base price, another $100 on the RAM, another $100-200 to get a superdrive, an extra $2000 to get an LCD screen with similar resolution, plus 8.2% tax (is there anywhere that has sales tax where Apple doesn't charge it?)...
So in the end I'd be spending at least $2813 for a pretty computer that isn't portable... $1763 more than a comparable PC... plus 1920x1200 looks *awesome* at 15.4" and kinda pixely at 23"
a little sidenote... I've never had any problems with Windows not "just working." In my fifteen years of computer experience I've had far more problems with Linux (hardware compatibility, and the first time I installed RedHat in the mid 90s the toolbar kept crashing over and over and over) with MacOS (somehow the OS got wiped when I installed the Digi001 PCI card, multiple "computer with question mark" start ups, and undecipherable "bomb icon" errors.) Windows might occasionally boot into start mode for no reason and need to be rebooted more often, but I've never experienced any overwhelmingly frustrating issues like I have with other operating systems.
"Cool" maybe... but hardly functional. Most of that stuff had been on Slashdot already. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.
...is going to be the bill from whoever hosts your web server!
/.ing a page with video files is never a good idea!
With due respect,trust and humanity,I write this letterto you seeking your help and assistance,though its difficult since we have not met before.I got your address from the SOUTH AFRICA INFORMATION EXCHANGE (S.A.I.E)regarding your business profile and sincerity.I believe that you are capable and reliable in handling this urgent international transaction of this sort.
I am MR.RUFUS MUKHENZE,the first and only son of COMRADE.BORDER D.MUKHENZE,the Zimbabwean former Minister for Youth & Gender Equality who is also a businessman and politician,in the Zimbabwean political arena.My father was the famous politician who stood firm against President Mugabes idea of continuous fight in Democratic Republic of Congo and my father also stood against the seizure of white owned farms and the distribution of it to the blacks without Compesiation to the white owners.Before my father's death, in his "WILL"he specifically drew my attention to this sum of US$21,320Million,(TWENTY ONE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLAR)which he deposited in a safe box of a private security company in south Africa,INFACT MY FATHER SAID IN HIS WILL AND QUOTE:-
"MY beloved son,I wish to draw your attention to the sum of US$21,320,000.00(TWENTY ONE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND UNITED STATE DOLLAR), which I deposited in a box with a security company in Johannesburg,South Africa. Incase of my absence on earth caused by death,only you should solicit for reliable foreign partner to assist you to transfer this money out of south Africa for investment purpose.I deposited the money in your name and it can be claimed by you alone with the deposit code.Your mother has all the document.Take good care of your mother and
sister
From the above,you will understand that the lives and future of my family depends on this money,I will be very grateful if you can assist us,we are
now living in South Africa as political asylum seekers and the financial laws of south Africa does not allow asylum seeker certain financial rights to such huge amount of money.In view of this,I cannot invest this money here in south africa,hence I am asking you to assist me transfer this money out of south africa for investment purpose.
For your efforts,am prepared to offer you 25%of the total fund, while 5%will be set aside for local and international expenses and 70%will be kept by my family and me.All I want you to do is to furnish me with your entire personal phone and fax numbers for easy communication. Note that this transaction is 100% Risk free and absolutely confidential.
Looking forward hearing from you.
Yours Faithfully
MR. RUFUS MUKHENZE
I don't really see anything wrong with this. Companies should be able to participate in any legal activity they want to, they just need to make it explicitly clear to the customers before they purchase, a large sign would do.
When I go into the convenient store on the corner it has a large sign that says, "No shirt, no shoes, no service." So I already know the consequence of entering the store without shoes.
The problem occurs when stores don't do a good job of letting their customers know their policies... if the store policies are available to customers (which they are often not) it's typically printed on a receipt, or even worse, in that light blue writing some receipts have on the back.
Most stores probably think that something like putting a large sign that says, "We track all your purchases and you are only allowed X number of returns per year." would be bad for business, but when people realize the store policies by getting surprised by them like the lady in the story, that sort of things is absolutely horrible for business.
Bruce Brace has been doing this forever with his 12hr ISBN-JPEG project, in fact the 10th anniversay is December 30th. He's been posting a photo to alt.12hr, alt.binaries.pictures.12hr, alt.binaries.pictures.misc, alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc every 12 hours since 1994. Here's a link to more info.
The project has all sorts of different kind of photographs, the last time I was keeping track of it it was all black and white, most of it was very subjective, pictures of people, pictures of things, then all of a sudden it changed to abstractions and non-subjective images. I have no idea what it's up to now...
I'm constantly surprised that George Lucas was lucid and creative enough to create American Graffiti... it's a film that has not only withstood the test of time, quite an achievement for what could have easily been just a nostalgia piece, but has the perfect balance of comedy and drama, and manages to develop many different storylines (most multi-threaded films tend to skimp on any sort of real character and story development and the crossover between storylines is often very poor).
at least you used to be able to count on somebody passing out...
The ultimate music store would let each individual artist choose the format of the songs, the cost of the songs (per song, per album, or a subscription), how the songs are to be previewed, hard copy, merch, etc.
I love the MouseMan series of mice... but I feel like the design has been going downhill since around the time they introduced the cordless ball MouseMan mouse, and the MX700 I found to be quite odd to use... the thumb button was no longer where my thumb was, I had to move my thumb in an awkward way to reach the button, also, they introduced two buttons by the scroll wheel, one in front and one behind, the front button was easy to click, but the one behind was, again, awkward... I'd love to see a better design, until then I'll be using my first edition blue MouseMan Optical USB.
The Securia.com link in the profile says that only Winamp 3.x and 5.x. But doesn't mention 2.x... the vast majority of Winamp users I know don't use 3.x or 5.x due to the massive feature bloat.
Is 2.x actually susceptible or is the submitter incorrect?
I was listening to NPR a couple months ago and some guys who were at Xerox PARC in the 70s were on talking about various things, I can't remember specifics but they all individually, and as a team, invented most of the fundamental portions of the DARPA/internet. The host asked one of the guys to define what the internet was and he said it was two more more networks that were connected.
So, we have "internets" all over the place. Now, in general reference, when somebody says "the internet" they are talking about a specific internet, the one we are using here. But that does not neccessitate capitalization (there are many houses on this street, I live at the house (not House) on the corner.
Mfourkthree yzerozeror wzeromfourn hfourppy, gthreet vonefourgrfour! Onet Mfourkthrees yzerour pthreenones grzerow!
I wonder if this will force the voice recognition software industry to finally deliver on it's promises of functional voice recognition to combat this type of spam. :)
A lot of the cheaper plans offered by VoIP companies, like cell phones, have a certain number of minutes you have per month. Some of the companies, foolishly, make you listen to an entire voicemail message before deleting it (in the cell phone world Cingular does this too), now if you have even 5% or 10% the amount of voicemail spam that you do email spam and you're forced to listen to entire messages before deletion this is going to take up a pretty significant chunk of your minutes... that's bad bad news.
From the Kensington product description page linked in the article:
... ...
D. The laptop was stolen by any means other than violating or breaking the Kensington brand Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver Lock.
Guarantees replacement of any locked laptop that's stolen
Sounds pretty specific, huh? ANY locked laptop that's stolen... Which is quite different than what it says when you click the warranty link on the page...
If theft of your laptop computer results from the Kensington Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver computer lock being broken or opened by forceful means Kensington Technology Group will pay you the replacement value of your laptop up to US $1,500.00.
It goes on to say:
Kensington Technology Group will NOT be liable if the theft occurred because:
Now... that seems pretty vague to me. Are they talking specifically about the locking device? Or are they talking about the entire thing and calling it the Guaranteed Notebook Replacement MicroSaver Lock because that's the name of the product? Vague vague vague...
Come on now... does ANYONE think this thing is secure? Sure, you can pick the lock, but any pair of decent wire cutters could snip this thing no problem. Think about how strongly people lock up their bikes, their bikes that, typically, cost much much less than their computers. I see $300 bikes around here with two of those super tough U-locks, and some 00 gauge cable locks. Total cost? About $40. At $55 that thing is not only incredibly overpriced, but flimsy as hell. Anyone that buys that and gets their laptop stolen shouldn't be surprised.