Heh heh... I had to read your post three times before I got it. I can assure you that I take a much closer look at my resumes and cover letters than I do a slashdot post! But your point is taken.
As a MA in English degree holder, the only place I'm in demand is overseas. Not that I'm complaining; working on my thesis was one of the most challenging experiences of my life, specifically with regard to people management skills (I'm proud to say that there are several people still alive today that I could have cheerfully strangled while doing thesis work). It's sort of depressing, however, that after seven years in school, even entry level positions in my desired field (publishing) are out of my reach.
I graduated with 44K (CAD) in debt and not a single job offer in site here in Canada. In a post 9/11 world, US employers didn't want me either. In South Korea, however, they practically trip over themselves to offer me a lot more cash than I could possibly hope to make back home, esp. considering the paid accommodations.
Is it worth it? Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. It'll definitely pay off ten to fifteen years from now, if not tomorrow, but it was still a rewarding experience.
"The (relatively cheap) public school I go to advised me to buy a $1500 IBM Thinkpad, and will be turning that 'advisory' into a requirement in the coming years so that they can give them away to in-state kids getting lots of financial aid for next to nothing."
Think about this for a second: a $1500 Lenovo Thinkpad will get you a machine with pretty decent specs; I just costed a T60 with a T2400 chip (1.83GHz), 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, optical, and Office 2003 Basic. For arts majors, this will get you through eight years of school, well into your doctorate. For engineers and math folk, this system will definitely last you through a 4 year BS. So, it would seem to me that the school you go to requires this machine to save students massive headaches in their senior years because the expensive laptop they bought in Year 1 no longer runs Mathematica 9.0.
And there weren't guest stars on Futurama? Let's see... Beastie Boys, Leonard Nemoy, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Richard Nixon's head, Hypnotoad... if you want to get down on The Simpsons for using guest stars, you've got to take down Futurama a notch too. Bam!
I started core french when I was 12; my wife was 9. Not exactly apples to oranges, but I don't know a single person who took core french who can actually speak the language.
"I guess it's analagous to something we have in Canada known as "French immersion" - they put you into a French school where no one speaks (or is allowed to speak) English and supposedly you'll learn French much faster. This allows you to learn touch-typing faster? Dubious."
"Supposedly"? In which instance do you think that you'll pick up French faster: taking it for one hour a day, or for five hours a day? I took core French in high school and can construct two or three sentences. My wife went through French Immersion starting in Grade 4 and she's functionally bilingual (works at a French day care). So, not exactly a great example.
"I've thought for a long, long time that someone needs to develop a free and open competitor for the proprietary Windows OS. As long as Microsoft owns it, it's not as useful as it could be. It has become ubiquitous because it's so darned handy. But why can't the open source community come up with something new that's competitive?"
Sasktel is the provincial teleco of the province of Saskatchewan in Canada. I've currently got 1500 ADSL that runs at 188 KB/s. Sasktel doesn't have a listed upstream speed, but it's consistently around 35-40 KB/s. In other words, they're right on the mark when it comes to rated speed - for $35 CAD per month with no downtime. So, not all ISPs lie about bandwidth or oversell it.
I wonder if this is part of a legal strategy on Warner's part. They offer movie downloads at the same price as retail DVDs. Then, after a few months, they start to sue pirates who "illegally" download Warner films: "My client offered digital downloads, your honour, but the defendent continued to illegally download bootleg copies of Harry Potter 4. Since he had the choice to legally purchase and download this film, he should definitely be found guilty."
"If any manufacturers are listening... I want a set that has large image size, and high resolution. 1280x1024 is barely acceptable, and 1920x1280 would be good. Then you can watch HD, and have enough real estate for a bunch of terminal windows. And yeah, that would be expensive, but surely not nearly as expensive as a 50 inch physical display using LCD, plasma, OLED, or whatever."
Don't you think that, if it was technologically possible, it would have been done already, and tiny school children in Korea would be mailing in cereal box UPCs for them as a prize?
"Jumping the shark" originates in the show Happy Days when the Foz is waterskiing. He's not looking where he's going, and all of a sudden a shark is in his path. Next, in what was intended as a serious moment (the gang is all looking scared), the Foz hits a ramp and... jumps the shark. It was absolutely ridiculous, but the show tried to portray it as a scary and dramatic moment.
So the jump itself *is* the crash - at least, so long as we're using Happy Days as a model.
As someone who believes that the Genesis accounts are as close to being literal as possible (inasmuch as it's possible to describe the creation of the universe using mere words), I'm very much looking forward to Spore. Yes, it's based on the concept of religion, but I've happily played games such as Mechwarrior 2, based on the concept of galactic warfare in the 31st century, or UFO, based on the concept that we're not alone in the universe and either we kill the aliens or the aliens kill us. It's a game, one that's not even particularly offensive, as far as I'm concerned. Somebody who plays Spore isn't being converted to believe in evolution.
I think that, if anybody plays the game (or watches the video), they'd agree with me regardless of their religious affiliation.
I didn't really like the first game, but I bought the second because of their distribution model & lack of DRM. It's a pleasant sidenote that the game is actually half-decent, but more important than the game itself, I wanted to support a company that provides games without DRM. Another news item on galciv.com says that they sold more copies of GalCiv2 in 10 days than they ever sold of GalCiv1, which says to me that their method certainly isn't *hurting* sales.
But if I ever needed a tangible reason to not use Starforce products, this would be enough.
"IMO, the only thing more stupid than porting a PC FPS to console is playingany FPS on a console."
Would you consider the Metroid Prime games to be FPSs? What about the GBA port of Doom, where a keypad and a few buttons are all that's needed anyway?
Slashdot Mirror
Heh heh... I had to read your post three times before I got it. I can assure you that I take a much closer look at my resumes and cover letters than I do a slashdot post! But your point is taken.
I graduated with 44K (CAD) in debt and not a single job offer in site here in Canada. In a post 9/11 world, US employers didn't want me either. In South Korea, however, they practically trip over themselves to offer me a lot more cash than I could possibly hope to make back home, esp. considering the paid accommodations.
Is it worth it? Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. It'll definitely pay off ten to fifteen years from now, if not tomorrow, but it was still a rewarding experience.
Think about this for a second: a $1500 Lenovo Thinkpad will get you a machine with pretty decent specs; I just costed a T60 with a T2400 chip (1.83GHz), 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, optical, and Office 2003 Basic. For arts majors, this will get you through eight years of school, well into your doctorate. For engineers and math folk, this system will definitely last you through a 4 year BS. So, it would seem to me that the school you go to requires this machine to save students massive headaches in their senior years because the expensive laptop they bought in Year 1 no longer runs Mathematica 9.0.
And there weren't guest stars on Futurama? Let's see... Beastie Boys, Leonard Nemoy, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Richard Nixon's head, Hypnotoad... if you want to get down on The Simpsons for using guest stars, you've got to take down Futurama a notch too. Bam!
How about a P133 with a VESA-compatible video card?
I started core french when I was 12; my wife was 9. Not exactly apples to oranges, but I don't know a single person who took core french who can actually speak the language.
"Supposedly"? In which instance do you think that you'll pick up French faster: taking it for one hour a day, or for five hours a day? I took core French in high school and can construct two or three sentences. My wife went through French Immersion starting in Grade 4 and she's functionally bilingual (works at a French day care). So, not exactly a great example.
Why indeed.
Sasktel is the provincial teleco of the province of Saskatchewan in Canada. I've currently got 1500 ADSL that runs at 188 KB/s. Sasktel doesn't have a listed upstream speed, but it's consistently around 35-40 KB/s. In other words, they're right on the mark when it comes to rated speed - for $35 CAD per month with no downtime. So, not all ISPs lie about bandwidth or oversell it.
The story with DNA confirmation is five days old.
I wonder if this is part of a legal strategy on Warner's part. They offer movie downloads at the same price as retail DVDs. Then, after a few months, they start to sue pirates who "illegally" download Warner films: "My client offered digital downloads, your honour, but the defendent continued to illegally download bootleg copies of Harry Potter 4. Since he had the choice to legally purchase and download this film, he should definitely be found guilty."
"Man and Nintendo! Say man and Nintendo!"
Don't you think that, if it was technologically possible, it would have been done already, and tiny school children in Korea would be mailing in cereal box UPCs for them as a prize?
So the jump itself *is* the crash - at least, so long as we're using Happy Days as a model.
This is an urban myth, but I get your point.
The Last Wish, one of his short story collections, is due out next year.
Question: What do you call an electronic copy of an elongated pastry filled with custard and iced with chocolate?
Same "word," different spelling.
I think that, if anybody plays the game (or watches the video), they'd agree with me regardless of their religious affiliation.
Yes, but you're comparing apples to oranges: newsprint isn't "Quality, heavy bond, acid-free paper."
But if I ever needed a tangible reason to not use Starforce products, this would be enough.
"IMO, the only thing more stupid than porting a PC FPS to console is playing any FPS on a console." Would you consider the Metroid Prime games to be FPSs? What about the GBA port of Doom, where a keypad and a few buttons are all that's needed anyway?
...on Batman!
Heh, just about made me snort coffee onto my monitor! I'd give you "+1 Funny" if I had the mod points!