stereotyping is bad. Oh, wait, that's a generalisation- generalisations are- oh, wait... darn. Never mind that, i'm going in cirles...
Stereotypes are there because they are perceived, whether the perceptions are actually accurate is another question. I'm the chick who hides in the kitchen at parties, (first grab at food and the company of those creative enough to be putting things together and not just consuming the results.)Not all non-geeks are living it up. They have hobbies, too, they have everyday obsessions. I've asked.
I'm not really a geek. Do i have an active social life? Yes, although it probably isn't 'active' in the college coed sense. Do i game? yes, occasionally, although see above re: college coed. I'm just not as into the social games, EITHER kind, and it would never occur to me to pay for an online group game. My point is that i agree with Saige: 'social' needs to be a little more clearly defined here. (i can hear bill watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame... 'Define "well adjusted."')
For me, a lot of my social does get done online. Group conversations (not random chatrooms), posting boards, things like that, because that's where my mobility lies. I do get out, i do meet people, but i don't go to bars and clubs like my work peers do. I do have an S/O and we did meet in a bookstore. (A science fiction bookstore. Technically, right outside a science fiction bookstore.)
I think we had this discussion somewhere about the stereotype against girls playing pinball, too. There are girls who hide in basements reading comic books and playing computer games and there are some of them who are fantastic and some of them who aren't. Not all girl geeks are alike, either. Stereotypes by nature only describe a spectrum, not an individual (that's a generalisation again. *sigh*) Adding 'girl' to a label might shock some people, but it won't shock girls, because we know that we're people, and that we do things. Some girls play football, some girls play rugby (and tend to be even tougher than the girls who play football, in my opinion, and i mean BOTH kinds of football) some girls can sew renaissance costumes and then wear them to beat the tar out of some unfortunate SCAdian, some girls play video games. some do all or none of the above. (My rugby days are over.) The world works that way.
So i see no reason why the geek world should work any differently, namely why it should consist, well, completely of geeks. There isn't some threshold at which point the robot trundles up and stamps your forehead with the secret seal- (and if it were, i wouldn't tell you what the threshold was it was or what the seal looked like, although i will say that it's only visible by the light of a monitor, a flexible worklamp, or a librarian's special geekreader lenses) so while the rest of the world gasps in shock, the geeks will peacefully keep on with what they were doing. Including the girls.
Oke. As a WOMAN who did her time working apartment maintenance for a housing complex, all i can say is
I wouldn't mind having a wallet-sized strip of duct tape
But i'd save it for events when i can't bring my Backpack, which has the full roll in it.
No, duct tape is not suitable for every job. However, I'm in Boston and was there for the fireworks last night with 2 plastic chairs, 2 ordinary (small) umbrellas, one roll of duct tape, and a 6'x4' piece of cloth, and we were one of the only groups not getting torched by the sun as we staked out our spot on the esplanade. And A lot of people had duct tape envy, but we're nice, and we share. The glue rubbed right off the metal and plastic surfaces.
There are, as noted in other posts, a LOT of places not to use duct tape, and one of them is any situation involving heat. Or ducts, for that matter. But another is any place that you need a real, permanent solution. (stress on the word need. If you need a permanent fix on something in the home, fix it right the first time. But the best use i've recommended it for on a short term basis is rodent control- in the sense that is someone before you got to the building left gaping holes next to the pipes, cover them with duct tape until i can get to them. We have well-sealed hardwood floors, the glue will come off when we're done, and i can't be everywhere at once. If they can't find a way in- and the least folks can do is close off the obvious- i buy time to get to the store and get supplies.
(and for that crack about women and wingnuts, well, may you end up making a comment like that at 4 in the morning by the side of the road when a female mechanic is your only hope... )
Dave Letterman would drop tv sets out windows, yes. And water coolers, office chairs or other equipment, whatever was handy. But by far the coolest Dave Letterman Destruction was the time when he called GE's consumer help line, and asked them what would happen if he put a bowl full of their light bulbs into one of their microwaves.
Dave: So, what do you think would happen? (woman's voice): Umm.... we don't recommend that you do that, Sir.... Dave: But you don't know what would happen? (Woman's Voice): Hold on, let me get my supervisor. (Supervisor) : Hello? Dave: Hi there! What would happen if we put a bowlful of your lightbulbs into one of your microwaves?
It was a fairly long conversation, with the GE fellow hemming and hawing and Dave asking questions such as, Will it blow up? Will the lightbulbs explode first, or the microwave?The supervisor finally said look, we can't be held responsible for anything that happens, because we're telling you not to, that's not an appropriate use of the equipment, etc... and then, with the GE supervisor still on the phone, Dave put them in and hit the start button, describing every step as he went. The microwave caught fire, i recall (i don't remember which blew up first) and the whole mess had to be put out with fire extinguishers. It was a nightmare for GE, they never lived it down. People were calling for months.
Here is a good page of random tilley stuff, including his ad hominem attacks on his critics. here are photos of a Tilley Vehicle from various angles.
the photos of the various parts and signage for his 'building power system' are here. I think it's the book 'Voodoo Science' that includes a chapter on it, also? (i think. Have to go home and check.) But this guy's a treat. I'm not surprised to find out about the heist. I AM alarmed that this guy has any credibility at all, but i guess there's always someone willing to believe...
Health Information Privacy Accountability Act... wouldn't the school be in violation for not locking down student's health data? This is a real issue here in the Northeast US, where everybody who has so much as a note from a doctor by a student or employee has to keep it carefully under the regulation-approved locks and deadbolts...
I'm not sure how this applies to an accidental WiFi transmission (IANAL), but i'm pretty sure that it would be grounds for serious fees and fines if it happened at any other kind of institution. i'm wondering whether the school will be in major trouble on this account alone. Under the rule, only health providers would face penalties for disclosing medical records- but if the school is a healthcare provider, for example, if they have an on-campus medical unit, they might be held liable.
These cameras are already placed everywhere. Since they have great deterrent and follow-up trial value for crimes such as shoplifting, etc., and really very little for things such as one-time major events (bank robberies, terrorism) will CamChalking be a crime? If it isn't marked by the sign they're talking about, it must belong to some secret organisation (i.e. CIA, FBI, RIAA) and wouldn't they want to make public disclosure of their location an illegal act?
I think that the sigil should include an indication not only of surveillance, but from which direction and if possible, by whom. Certainly the signs should include by whom, and i agree with the idea that anyone should have access to a public camera's recordings. Just look how much mess has happened with the stoplight cameras (remember the ones where the timing was switched so that more accidents would happen, rather than less, with more running red lights for the camers to snap photos of? Boy, did THAT ever not work in California.) *sigh* Anyway, i'm digressing- my point is that we'd also need to make it stay legal to mark such surveillance for ourselves where the signs fail to do it. i kind of like the idea of an eye, with an arrow indicating the direction of the camera's location.
regardless of whether you think it's real or not, the license is a real one, and the MIOR where my studies are based is a licensed& registered non-profit school... the course material is difficult and requires actual comparative theological study, so it's real enough for me. What religion are you, so we can argue this out good? (mostly kidding; i don't intend to continue a flamewar- i just thought i might mention that it's recognised as an actual church here in the US, and there are some silly beliefs out there, even among our followers, but that's true of just about every faith everywhere, and even among atheists and agnostics. The moron percentage is ubiquitous among societies. So you leave my faith alone, or go for real discussion, thank-you-very-much... )
Write a letter. Send it to charter. List at the end the OTHER people to ewhom you are sending it, and you'll need to send them all snail mail, with the two (yes, two- one to the folks you spoke to, one addressed to the CEO, which will be read by a secretary and passed on to someone whose job it is to keep these things quiet) to Charter certified mail, return receipt requested. Those others will go to:
Your US congressional reps- both houses, whether you voted for them or not; (i'm assuming you're in the US, if not go for the nearest equivalent of these)
The Better Business Bureau;
the state attorney general's office
the FBI office that you contacted;
The FCC;
Anyone and Everyone whom you think might be interested, NOT counting the media. Why not? Because you want to be able to prove that you gave them a chance to correct the problem before you take it further. You are certainly allowed to suggest that it might be possible, but mention first that you need a written response from them telling what they plan to do about this (tell them what you want this to be), and mention that you will seek the assistance of a lawyer if this clear threat to you as their customer is not immediately remedied.
Keep a copy of the letter. Offer to send supporting evidence AS SOON AS they have officially begun their remedial actions and you have received initial results. (or you may wish to send it sooner, at least the info that you feel comfortable having random secretaries seeing.)
IANAL, but I have good reason to recommend this method. Incidentally, it works for a LOT of customer issues, and you have to be sure to send out copies of follow-up letters to the same set of people. Make sure to document hours spent working on it, and all the people whom you've spoken with and when. Media is for after their failure to remedy the matter after 1 letter, just add it to the CC list. You might try writing the second letters as two- one to the company, one to the attorney general or congressional folks, and the other to the company, and include copies of both in the envelope to the company. Their failure to help is against entirely different laws. Use the words "acted in bad faith."
Going to be a licensed, for real (not send-in-your-box-tops) minister, able to marry people by making them jump over brooms... I used to work silver a lot more than i do now, but i still make jewellery. I make strung-bead lace, wirework, and other forms of non-welded work as well. I don't have a lot of energy, for health reasons, but before this latest phase, i did six years of martial arts (hapkido, kenpo and tai chi)...
i write stories, poetry, and songs (had a band, sang, for said band...) play a reasonably nice guitar at an abysmal skill level, and read when the neuro problems ease up enough to let me. Oh, and i paint, with enthusiasm (and acrylics) if not with talent... I have a lot of houseplants (some of which are in good health) and a cat.
I'm giving up the option to mod in this conversation just to add to that... Here in Boston, the hoax was about Chinatown, and he Mayor finally had to go have lunch there just to shut people up. There was no covered up mini-epidemic swweeping across Chinatown. It was frightening, how even when the local health authorities talked about it as a hoax, people started taking subway lines that didn't run by it, if they could.
A lot of excellent restaurants got extra health inspections and red-tape harrassment for the first week- and then, after the hoax was demonstrated to be a hoax email alert that someone sent (probably a variant on your california one) they still faced weeks of harassment- at the hands of the general public. It's been a bad time in Boston for the gainfully employed, and they had it even worse for a time. I'm betting that there are an awful lot of small-regional economic crunches because of hoaxes like these. (this was before the public pan on smoking in Boston went through, so now they've just been hit again, while everyone adjusts.)
Is this (sars hoax) affecting other cities? (I'm sure that it is; i'm just curious which ones...)
Or maybe we'll go with the Simpsons "chocolate Cod..." (a chocolate covered cod on a stick...) But does anybody remember sesame street from about 24 years ago, they had descriptions of the character's favourite flavours and oscar the grouch chose "Anchovy and pickle"? My mum never made ice cream again after we watched that. Not only did we request all of theirs, including the birdseed one (not to parents out there, if your kids ask for this use vanilla with shelled sunflower seeds) but we started telling her the flavours WE wanted... (Peanut butter and jam, blueberry/cinnamon, pancake and butter and syrup and sausage, and our best never-made flavour, the "banana split" one that we wanted to use: orange 'jello' powder, red food colouring, nuts, bananas, and mum's homemade beef stew.) Hey, I was three, my sister was four, we figured it would work. Mum flat-out refused, and started making layered juice popsicles instead.
the problem already exists with wheat
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Corn-Based Plastic
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...especially for people like me, and i was the one submitting the article. They even use wheat starch in some of the waxes on foods. SO my ideal solution would be to have corn packaging- yours would be to have waxed paper make a comeback as the packaging of choice, i guess, or for them to come up with a packaging that's relatively hypoallergenic but still biodegradeable.
The real question is when the standards will shift to include individual needs- can i walk in and get my gluten-and-chemical-additive-free (whatever food product can be made thus) in a corn-tastic plastic container, and can she walk in right after me and get the same food CORN-free, in a non-corn biodegradeable container? When that can happen, we'll have made it. I'm all for more options and more labelling. Lactose is another real problem for a lot of people, and it's used in lots of things, without putting any word on the label about it. Your GF probably knows to avoid anything labelled 'natural flavours,' right?
I"m glad folks are working towards biodegradeable materials; it's going to take some serious lawsuits before they start thinking about individual issues. (this is, after all, the states....)
Age Bias and Pension Burdens
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Ageism in IT?
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Right now, we're heading into crisis times for things like social security, public assistance, and yes- hiring and pensions. We have a smaller workforce being outbalanced on every side by an ever-increasing aging population. Yes, this is on-topic, especially for every company over 500 employees or over 20 years old. You get retirees, disbility cases, sick leave, and so on. It's hard enough to pay benefits for the workers, let alone the no-longer-working. So a lot of managers do, unfortunately, see the older worker as an upcoming liability, whereas a twenty-year-old is someone to be exploited to take care of the older group.
what this means is that not only are older folks being put out of work, they're going to be faced with other changes in the years to come: higher retirement ages, lower health coverage, smaller pensions, and a greater likelihood of being fired in discriminatory fashion. Anyone who's been watching the healthcare crisis knows about what's happening with the lengthening human lifespan- where now it could be 120, it's possible it could be 150 by 2050 AD. An extra thirty years pension plan coming out of the pockets of- not the company, but the younger workers, because their income is taxed and their healthcare premiums jump and the company contribution to the 401(k) drops by 75%- in order to fund what the company has to pay out.
I have no solution to offer to this, just the obsevation that there's more than the debated power of the brain at certain ages being the deciding factor. Companies are going to have every incentive to hire cheaper workers, give lower bonuses, and outsource to foreign companies everything that they can, in the coming years.
I'm 26, and at the point where i'm realising that what i'm paying in social security and so on will probably not be there for me when i'm old enough to need it. And what's more, when i'm older the state will be demanding that i get a job when i will have almost no job prospects because of my age.
When i was living in MA, USA: Box was sent to me by my mother. Insured. They let someone across town sign for it, with a different name and a different address. And what was worse, my mother had to fight (and i think she lost) at getting the insurance for it, since "It was signed for."
Foster, RI, USA: The mailman was a raging alcoholic. We'd see him drive up the hill on one side of the road, put mail in the mailboxes, drive down our side of the road, put mail in the mailboxes, drive up the other side of the road again and take the mail out, throw it in the backseat, and put other mail in the box. We compared notes, once we discovered that the letters he was putting in the second time were a random handful from the mail bag. One time someone on our street got an empty beer bottle, a flyer from some store or other, and a copy of a magazine addressed to someone else.
Vermont, USA: Every personal letter going out made it to destination within three days. Every personal letter coming IN took at least three weeks. That was a few years ago, i hope it's better now. But you could also put cash in your mailbox and the letter carrier would leave you stamps. AND CHANGE, when your cash exceeded the amount of a multiple of stamp price. If you specified what stamps- 2 cents, 29 cents, whatever, they'd do their best to accommodate, or they'd take the cash, leave a receipt and a note stating what you needed and had paid for, and deliver it the next day. You could also take the note into the post office, where it could be redeemed. Brandon Vermont was a very honest town. (one time a gas attendent further north walked off his job, leaving the pumps on and the office closed. When the proprieter came by the next day -and i am not joking- there was money piled inside the door. $0.99 more than what was taken from the pumps. It made the news.)
Boston, MA. Not only do they randomly forward mail, I frequently get mail sent from inside Boston to an address here in Boston- with postmarks from towns far away, From western Mass., twice from other states. Does anybody remember the mailman from the movie, "Funny Farm"?
There's a reason that the sterotype carries on...
Oh. In Britain, do you have volunteers to answer the Dear Santa letters?
oke. I like the/. format. I don't want them to get out an' i don't want to see them go slick journalism. I would like to see more substance on the read more page. I would also like to see changes in the rejected stories system. I like the basic colours and i think that there should be heavier penalties for trolls, overall penalties, not just filter points. I would like to see a mod UP point for statement coherency, as i've seen a lot of arguments that i furiously disagreed with, didn't think were all that insightful, but had to mod up for being well-put-together arguments. For those who think those don't exist on/., I've marked some of them as my friends.
I agree that a lot of posts that are merely disagreement, sometimes with cogent argument behind them, get moderated as flamebait, etc., and this is not corrected nearly often enough in metamod.
I have never dared submit anything conneted to stuff my geekfriends work with here in Boston, because i don't want to see them slashdotted. Fix that, get more off-beat interesting stuff.
I won't be able to attend, so i redundantly request PUHLEEEEZE post the discussion the next day....?
I do not want a motor roach; I do not want them near my boat... It's bad enough on Land and Beach- Keep that insect out of reach!!!
I do not want electric roach, Nor the real thing to approach! Don Marquis, entombed, is spinning- And now, you say, the roachbot's... swimming?
My house is currently invaded- I didn't want this thing created! Why not start with robot ants, or with spiders, tech advance-
I do Not LIKE the cockroach breed! I do not want them close to me! I'm scared of those alive and well- and these not even Flit can Kill!
My morning tribute to Dr. Suess and his earliy career, and Mr. Marquis, whose cockroach vers libre poet would have had quite a bit to say on this one. Those were the first things to leap to the forefront of my mind- Quick, henry- the flit! and oh lordy what would archy say.
And on the subject of the Masai, cattle are sacred to them, a gift from the god(s), and they generally don't kill them. In fact, they gave the USA fourteen cows in the wake of 9/11- a collective donation from many tribes, and (for them) a priceless gift. Our ambassador refused to accept it.
I don't know what happened to the cows. I do know that the Masai do, indeed, drink blood and milk mixtures. Having lived with a Jewish roommate, i can remember the look of horror on her face as she tried to interpret it into kosher food concepts.
Lactose Intolerance is not the only intolerance out there... Gluten intolerance hits 7% of the population (including me.) More women than men, mostly northern european descent. Me with my scottish pale skin and my german grey eyes, it's got my grandmum, my mum, my sister, and me. Skipped both brothers.
Part of my point being - there are genetic variations that are gender specific, there are genetic variations that are region-specific, and there are genetic variations that we're only just discovering. Another part of my point being- Lactose intolerance is unbelievably common. And i miss ice cream and milk. Lactase tablets aren't enough for a lot of people out there, that's how severe we're talking... I think maybe there are a number of changes that happened regionally, and now we're seeing the results as cultures blend. My dentist talked about it all the time, how asian teeth and african teeth and european teeth are similar but jawlines differ, and when you get different genes kicking in for jawbone and teeth it sometimes leads to really good combinations and sometimes leads to surgical correction so that the kid can chew. He said this in a completely nonracist way; he thought it was a great idea to blend genetic and cultural groups together, so he was more than happy to help correct the results of problem combinations, because they could usually be helped and their appearance meant that new combinations were always being created.
Oh, and about the Masai. Don't mess with a people who kill lions by hand. These are the people from the movie the ghost and the darkness- flushing out lions by shouting and beating the brush...
I wonder whether more people would go for that? A buy local artists day? I'm betting stores might go for it, just because it means that people would be coming in to buy things anyway... i bet if we walked into our local stores and said, hey, we were thinking about a one day boycott, but we thought maybe we'd instead have a buy local artists day- would you help that happen? they might say yes.
C'mon, folks- thoughts? Ideas? i'm going to do a journal entry on this so it doesn't just get archived away into closed-conversation...
it would have to be a group effort of awareness, and the record industry would have to know that it was being done, i think. Point out that we're not advocating piracy, (we're not, that's an individual decision)just AGAINST what they're doing. And i think it would spread out best through college students, etc. And should probably be a weekend day, because most of us who have the cash to buy CDs are in classes or work during the weekdays... and won't be able to hang flyers...
A BuyNoCDs day would be perfect. We should use a relevant date, either the date that CDs became available, or the date that Napster officially stopped functioning. But to do it we should look into making a lot of publicity, otherwise it won't work at all. (i.e. somebody's got to stand in front of the building with flyers) Ideas anyone? I think showing the industry just how 'up' sales have been is a good idea. Boycotts do get attention, if properly done...
Caffeine is a drug, of course, and like all drugs, there are interactions, side effects, and tolerance levels to think about in addition to addiction questions.
For example.
First, Caffeine- every/.er knows this- is a stimulant. This becomes an issue when you combine it with other things. Including things like basic pseudoephedrine, for some people. Blood pressure is an issue for a lot of people, and so is heart rate. This means that people with conditions ranging from vasovagal syncope to basic high blood pressure need to be careful. Why vasovagal syncope, when it's generally connected with low blood pressure events? Because it involves a sort of crosswiring where your blood pressure was meant to go up- and plummets instead. I know this because it's part of my daily experience.
People with Hypoglycemia need to be careful, because it's a stimulant and will change how your body processes sugars, along with everything else that you take in. People with fatigue issues need to be very careful, because it can leave you more fatigued than when you started.
And most interesting of all, RLS. Restless Limb Syndrome, where you feel as if your very skeleton itches, where there's a sensation far worse than not being able to find a comfy way to sleep, where the odd sensation is more unpleasant than pain- is one of the conditions which can be triggered (though not caused) by caffeine. Since RLS frequently goes along with other sleep disturbances, and caffeine tends to change the sleep cycle regardless, it's probably a good idea for people with sleep problems to at least be very aware of what they're taking in for caffeine.
Caffeine is also a diuretic, and it cuts off appetite the same way other stimulants do. It's a favourite among anorexics and diet-pill pushers.
So why do we drink it? Because it's Generally recognised as Safe- so much so that it's frequently used as the reference for benchmarking other substances, especially by phytopharmacologists. GRAS (generally Recognised As Safe) means that the person doing the reporting considers it as safe as coffee, where they would feel comfortable drinking up to three cups of tea made of the ingredient (at about the same concentration as coffee) in a day. So they must be pretty comfortable with coffee.
Caffeine does offer a painkilling boost; i can't put my finger on the article right now but it's one that i discussed with my doc when we were talking migraine treatments. The reason that excedrin, motrin migraine, and so on all contain caffeine is that there were studies showing it to boost the speed and efficiacy of NSAIDs (non-steroid anti-inflammatories) like ibuprofen, acetomenaphin, etc, by up to 80%. That's a LOT. Not every study claimed the same amount, some were 20%, so i think that the results were somewhat based on how the studies were done. But enough were done and the results were clear enough that the FDA seems to have given the green light for it as part of a migraine treatment protocol.
It also can be used to treat athsma, which can be life-threatening. In the event of an emergency attack, two cups of coffee can save your life (talk to your doc about it if you have athsma, just to get a sure dose, because i'm tiny so my dose is much lower. If you're big or have a tolerance, it may be higher.) You might not sleep that night, but you'll be alive.
Oh. Tolerance. As with any drug, tolerance can build up, and if you stop taking caffeine and go back to it later, you make find it leaves you even jumpier than before. On a personal note, i used to work with a girl who had cut down to ten cups a day because she had ceased to menstruate because of the sheer volume of caffeine that she was taking in, we're talking 20+ cups a day. She was finding it almost impossible, but it was either cut down or face even worse health issues. In some ways, caffeine is just another stimulant, after all...
Executive Security. it's a bizarre but good gig. And no, i don't want to talk about it, but i will say we use windows and I've only crashed- oh wait, we're still having system bugs since installation. Never mind... seriously for the most part it works out alright but we HAVE been having troubles since the start.
I felt it was a part of the peculiar/. ambience (yes, it's also spelt ambiance, and yes, spelt is in fact an appropriate spelling of the particular conjugation of "spell") that i wanted to carry on. Frankly, i think it's sort of a pleasant habit, and i've seen a lot of past threads where an acronym gets used in responses. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that mine is anything but a silly little use of the slashdot habit, but because of that, i didn't think anybody would make it such a big deal.
IAAMIT= (I am a minister in training) and i think the man in question did the right thing... (oh, i think i just opened this up for minister of information jokes)/me ducks and runs for the bunker...
Money is like health: Having it doesn't mean that you're definitely happy, but not having much of it greatly increases your odds of being unhappy.
There are poor people who are happy and rich who are unhappy. there are also starving people who are too busy looking for something to eat to discuss the question, and rich people who really do enjoy their lives and give back to the community. IANAM (i am not a millionaire) far far far FAR from it in fact, but i think that a person should choose their own path in such a way that it preferably doesn't leave them starving and gives them enough that they can share. And to do this by ethical means in the American culture is sometimes difficult, yes, but a good thing to aim for.
Will leaving make his life better? Probably. Will it make him poorer? In the short run, probably. In the long run, probably not- if he has the skills, there will be a way to apply them, and hopefully in an environment which better suits his temperament. Mind you, this is coming from someone who works a day job unrelated to any of her interests (but not against my ethics) in order to stay solvent. For the moment, it's where i'm at. I couldn't imagine doing it for the rest of my life, however.
May we all have jobs that we can live for, enough to live on and to share, and the good sense to appreciate both??
Slashdot Mirror
Stereotypes are there because they are perceived, whether the perceptions are actually accurate is another question. I'm the chick who hides in the kitchen at parties, (first grab at food and the company of those creative enough to be putting things together and not just consuming the results.)Not all non-geeks are living it up. They have hobbies, too, they have everyday obsessions. I've asked.
I'm not really a geek. Do i have an active social life? Yes, although it probably isn't 'active' in the college coed sense. Do i game? yes, occasionally, although see above re: college coed. I'm just not as into the social games, EITHER kind, and it would never occur to me to pay for an online group game. My point is that i agree with Saige: 'social' needs to be a little more clearly defined here. (i can hear bill watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame... 'Define "well adjusted."')
For me, a lot of my social does get done online. Group conversations (not random chatrooms), posting boards, things like that, because that's where my mobility lies. I do get out, i do meet people, but i don't go to bars and clubs like my work peers do. I do have an S/O and we did meet in a bookstore. (A science fiction bookstore. Technically, right outside a science fiction bookstore.)
I think we had this discussion somewhere about the stereotype against girls playing pinball, too. There are girls who hide in basements reading comic books and playing computer games and there are some of them who are fantastic and some of them who aren't. Not all girl geeks are alike, either. Stereotypes by nature only describe a spectrum, not an individual (that's a generalisation again. *sigh*) Adding 'girl' to a label might shock some people, but it won't shock girls, because we know that we're people, and that we do things. Some girls play football, some girls play rugby (and tend to be even tougher than the girls who play football, in my opinion, and i mean BOTH kinds of football) some girls can sew renaissance costumes and then wear them to beat the tar out of some unfortunate SCAdian, some girls play video games. some do all or none of the above. (My rugby days are over.) The world works that way.
So i see no reason why the geek world should work any differently, namely why it should consist, well, completely of geeks. There isn't some threshold at which point the robot trundles up and stamps your forehead with the secret seal- (and if it were, i wouldn't tell you what the threshold was it was or what the seal looked like, although i will say that it's only visible by the light of a monitor, a flexible worklamp, or a librarian's special geekreader lenses) so while the rest of the world gasps in shock, the geeks will peacefully keep on with what they were doing. Including the girls.
I wouldn't mind having a wallet-sized strip of duct tape
But i'd save it for events when i can't bring my Backpack, which has the full roll in it.
No, duct tape is not suitable for every job. However, I'm in Boston and was there for the fireworks last night with 2 plastic chairs, 2 ordinary (small) umbrellas, one roll of duct tape, and a 6'x4' piece of cloth, and we were one of the only groups not getting torched by the sun as we staked out our spot on the esplanade. And A lot of people had duct tape envy, but we're nice, and we share. The glue rubbed right off the metal and plastic surfaces.
There are, as noted in other posts, a LOT of places not to use duct tape, and one of them is any situation involving heat. Or ducts, for that matter. But another is any place that you need a real, permanent solution. (stress on the word need. If you need a permanent fix on something in the home, fix it right the first time. But the best use i've recommended it for on a short term basis is rodent control- in the sense that is someone before you got to the building left gaping holes next to the pipes, cover them with duct tape until i can get to them. We have well-sealed hardwood floors, the glue will come off when we're done, and i can't be everywhere at once. If they can't find a way in- and the least folks can do is close off the obvious- i buy time to get to the store and get supplies.
(and for that crack about women and wingnuts, well, may you end up making a comment like that at 4 in the morning by the side of the road when a female mechanic is your only hope... )
the photos of the various parts and signage for his 'building power system' are here. I think it's the book 'Voodoo Science' that includes a chapter on it, also? (i think. Have to go home and check.) But this guy's a treat. I'm not surprised to find out about the heist. I AM alarmed that this guy has any credibility at all, but i guess there's always someone willing to believe...
I'm not sure how this applies to an accidental WiFi transmission (IANAL), but i'm pretty sure that it would be grounds for serious fees and fines if it happened at any other kind of institution. i'm wondering whether the school will be in major trouble on this account alone. Under the rule, only health providers would face penalties for disclosing medical records- but if the school is a healthcare provider, for example, if they have an on-campus medical unit, they might be held liable.
thoughts, ideas, am i way off base here?
I think that the sigil should include an indication not only of surveillance, but from which direction and if possible, by whom. Certainly the signs should include by whom, and i agree with the idea that anyone should have access to a public camera's recordings. Just look how much mess has happened with the stoplight cameras (remember the ones where the timing was switched so that more accidents would happen, rather than less, with more running red lights for the camers to snap photos of? Boy, did THAT ever not work in California.) *sigh* Anyway, i'm digressing- my point is that we'd also need to make it stay legal to mark such surveillance for ourselves where the signs fail to do it. i kind of like the idea of an eye, with an arrow indicating the direction of the camera's location.
regardless of whether you think it's real or not, the license is a real one, and the MIOR where my studies are based is a licensed& registered non-profit school... the course material is difficult and requires actual comparative theological study, so it's real enough for me. What religion are you, so we can argue this out good? (mostly kidding; i don't intend to continue a flamewar- i just thought i might mention that it's recognised as an actual church here in the US, and there are some silly beliefs out there, even among our followers, but that's true of just about every faith everywhere, and even among atheists and agnostics. The moron percentage is ubiquitous among societies. So you leave my faith alone, or go for real discussion, thank-you-very-much... )
Send it to charter. List at the end the OTHER people to ewhom you are sending it, and you'll need to send them all snail mail, with the two (yes, two- one to the folks you spoke to, one addressed to the CEO, which will be read by a secretary and passed on to someone whose job it is to keep these things quiet) to Charter certified mail, return receipt requested. Those others will go to:
Your US congressional reps- both houses, whether you voted for them or not; (i'm assuming you're in the US, if not go for the nearest equivalent of these)
The Better Business Bureau;
the state attorney general's office
the FBI office that you contacted;
The FCC;
Anyone and Everyone whom you think might be interested, NOT counting the media. Why not? Because you want to be able to prove that you gave them a chance to correct the problem before you take it further. You are certainly allowed to suggest that it might be possible, but mention first that you need a written response from them telling what they plan to do about this (tell them what you want this to be), and mention that you will seek the assistance of a lawyer if this clear threat to you as their customer is not immediately remedied.
Keep a copy of the letter. Offer to send supporting evidence AS SOON AS they have officially begun their remedial actions and you have received initial results. (or you may wish to send it sooner, at least the info that you feel comfortable having random secretaries seeing.)
IANAL, but I have good reason to recommend this method. Incidentally, it works for a LOT of customer issues, and you have to be sure to send out copies of follow-up letters to the same set of people. Make sure to document hours spent working on it, and all the people whom you've spoken with and when. Media is for after their failure to remedy the matter after 1 letter, just add it to the CC list. You might try writing the second letters as two- one to the company, one to the attorney general or congressional folks, and the other to the company, and include copies of both in the envelope to the company. Their failure to help is against entirely different laws. Use the words "acted in bad faith."
be persistent. It helps.
i write stories, poetry, and songs (had a band, sang, for said band...) play a reasonably nice guitar at an abysmal skill level, and read when the neuro problems ease up enough to let me. Oh, and i paint, with enthusiasm (and acrylics) if not with talent... I have a lot of houseplants (some of which are in good health) and a cat.
...er, make that a public "ban" on smoking...
A lot of excellent restaurants got extra health inspections and red-tape harrassment for the first week- and then, after the hoax was demonstrated to be a hoax email alert that someone sent (probably a variant on your california one) they still faced weeks of harassment- at the hands of the general public. It's been a bad time in Boston for the gainfully employed, and they had it even worse for a time. I'm betting that there are an awful lot of small-regional economic crunches because of hoaxes like these. (this was before the public pan on smoking in Boston went through, so now they've just been hit again, while everyone adjusts.)
Is this (sars hoax) affecting other cities? (I'm sure that it is; i'm just curious which ones...)
Or maybe we'll go with the Simpsons "chocolate Cod..." (a chocolate covered cod on a stick...) But does anybody remember sesame street from about 24 years ago, they had descriptions of the character's favourite flavours and oscar the grouch chose "Anchovy and pickle"? My mum never made ice cream again after we watched that. Not only did we request all of theirs, including the birdseed one (not to parents out there, if your kids ask for this use vanilla with shelled sunflower seeds) but we started telling her the flavours WE wanted... (Peanut butter and jam, blueberry/cinnamon, pancake and butter and syrup and sausage, and our best never-made flavour, the "banana split" one that we wanted to use: orange 'jello' powder, red food colouring, nuts, bananas, and mum's homemade beef stew.) Hey, I was three, my sister was four, we figured it would work. Mum flat-out refused, and started making layered juice popsicles instead.
The real question is when the standards will shift to include individual needs- can i walk in and get my gluten-and-chemical-additive-free (whatever food product can be made thus) in a corn-tastic plastic container, and can she walk in right after me and get the same food CORN-free, in a non-corn biodegradeable container? When that can happen, we'll have made it. I'm all for more options and more labelling. Lactose is another real problem for a lot of people, and it's used in lots of things, without putting any word on the label about it. Your GF probably knows to avoid anything labelled 'natural flavours,' right?
I"m glad folks are working towards biodegradeable materials; it's going to take some serious lawsuits before they start thinking about individual issues. (this is, after all, the states....)
what this means is that not only are older folks being put out of work, they're going to be faced with other changes in the years to come: higher retirement ages, lower health coverage, smaller pensions, and a greater likelihood of being fired in discriminatory fashion. Anyone who's been watching the healthcare crisis knows about what's happening with the lengthening human lifespan- where now it could be 120, it's possible it could be 150 by 2050 AD. An extra thirty years pension plan coming out of the pockets of- not the company, but the younger workers, because their income is taxed and their healthcare premiums jump and the company contribution to the 401(k) drops by 75%- in order to fund what the company has to pay out.
I have no solution to offer to this, just the obsevation that there's more than the debated power of the brain at certain ages being the deciding factor. Companies are going to have every incentive to hire cheaper workers, give lower bonuses, and outsource to foreign companies everything that they can, in the coming years.
I'm 26, and at the point where i'm realising that what i'm paying in social security and so on will probably not be there for me when i'm old enough to need it. And what's more, when i'm older the state will be demanding that i get a job when i will have almost no job prospects because of my age.
Foster, RI, USA: The mailman was a raging alcoholic. We'd see him drive up the hill on one side of the road, put mail in the mailboxes, drive down our side of the road, put mail in the mailboxes, drive up the other side of the road again and take the mail out, throw it in the backseat, and put other mail in the box. We compared notes, once we discovered that the letters he was putting in the second time were a random handful from the mail bag. One time someone on our street got an empty beer bottle, a flyer from some store or other, and a copy of a magazine addressed to someone else.
Vermont, USA: Every personal letter going out made it to destination within three days. Every personal letter coming IN took at least three weeks. That was a few years ago, i hope it's better now. But you could also put cash in your mailbox and the letter carrier would leave you stamps. AND CHANGE, when your cash exceeded the amount of a multiple of stamp price. If you specified what stamps- 2 cents, 29 cents, whatever, they'd do their best to accommodate, or they'd take the cash, leave a receipt and a note stating what you needed and had paid for, and deliver it the next day. You could also take the note into the post office, where it could be redeemed. Brandon Vermont was a very honest town. (one time a gas attendent further north walked off his job, leaving the pumps on and the office closed. When the proprieter came by the next day -and i am not joking- there was money piled inside the door. $0.99 more than what was taken from the pumps. It made the news.)
Boston, MA. Not only do they randomly forward mail, I frequently get mail sent from inside Boston to an address here in Boston- with postmarks from towns far away, From western Mass., twice from other states. Does anybody remember the mailman from the movie, "Funny Farm"? There's a reason that the sterotype carries on...
Oh. In Britain, do you have volunteers to answer the Dear Santa letters?
I agree that a lot of posts that are merely disagreement, sometimes with cogent argument behind them, get moderated as flamebait, etc., and this is not corrected nearly often enough in metamod.
I have never dared submit anything conneted to stuff my geekfriends work with here in Boston, because i don't want to see them slashdotted. Fix that, get more off-beat interesting stuff.
I won't be able to attend, so i redundantly request PUHLEEEEZE post the discussion the next day....?
I do not want them near my boat...
It's bad enough on Land and Beach-
Keep that insect out of reach!!!
I do not want electric roach,
Nor the real thing to approach!
Don Marquis, entombed, is spinning-
And now, you say, the roachbot's... swimming?
My house is currently invaded-
I didn't want this thing created!
Why not start with robot ants,
or with spiders, tech advance-
I do Not LIKE the cockroach breed!
I do not want them close to me!
I'm scared of those alive and well-
and these
not even Flit can Kill!
My morning tribute to Dr. Suess and his earliy career, and Mr. Marquis, whose cockroach vers libre poet would have had quite a bit to say on this one. Those were the first things to leap to the forefront of my mind- Quick, henry- the flit! and oh lordy what would archy say.
I don't know what happened to the cows. I do know that the Masai do, indeed, drink blood and milk mixtures. Having lived with a Jewish roommate, i can remember the look of horror on her face as she tried to interpret it into kosher food concepts.
Lactose Intolerance is not the only intolerance out there... Gluten intolerance hits 7% of the population (including me.) More women than men, mostly northern european descent. Me with my scottish pale skin and my german grey eyes, it's got my grandmum, my mum, my sister, and me. Skipped both brothers.
Part of my point being - there are genetic variations that are gender specific, there are genetic variations that are region-specific, and there are genetic variations that we're only just discovering. Another part of my point being- Lactose intolerance is unbelievably common. And i miss ice cream and milk. Lactase tablets aren't enough for a lot of people out there, that's how severe we're talking... I think maybe there are a number of changes that happened regionally, and now we're seeing the results as cultures blend. My dentist talked about it all the time, how asian teeth and african teeth and european teeth are similar but jawlines differ, and when you get different genes kicking in for jawbone and teeth it sometimes leads to really good combinations and sometimes leads to surgical correction so that the kid can chew. He said this in a completely nonracist way; he thought it was a great idea to blend genetic and cultural groups together, so he was more than happy to help correct the results of problem combinations, because they could usually be helped and their appearance meant that new combinations were always being created.
Oh, and about the Masai. Don't mess with a people who kill lions by hand. These are the people from the movie the ghost and the darkness- flushing out lions by shouting and beating the brush...
C'mon, folks- thoughts? Ideas? i'm going to do a journal entry on this so it doesn't just get archived away into closed-conversation...
it would have to be a group effort of awareness, and the record industry would have to know that it was being done, i think. Point out that we're not advocating piracy, (we're not, that's an individual decision)just AGAINST what they're doing. And i think it would spread out best through college students, etc. And should probably be a weekend day, because most of us who have the cash to buy CDs are in classes or work during the weekdays... and won't be able to hang flyers...
A BuyNoCDs day would be perfect. We should use a relevant date, either the date that CDs became available, or the date that Napster officially stopped functioning. But to do it we should look into making a lot of publicity, otherwise it won't work at all. (i.e. somebody's got to stand in front of the building with flyers) Ideas anyone? I think showing the industry just how 'up' sales have been is a good idea. Boycotts do get attention, if properly done...
For example.
First, Caffeine- every /.er knows this- is a stimulant. This becomes an issue when you combine it with other things. Including things like basic pseudoephedrine, for some people. Blood pressure is an issue for a lot of people, and so is heart rate. This means that people with conditions ranging from vasovagal syncope to basic high blood pressure need to be careful. Why vasovagal syncope, when it's generally connected with low blood pressure events? Because it involves a sort of crosswiring where your blood pressure was meant to go up- and plummets instead. I know this because it's part of my daily experience.
People with Hypoglycemia need to be careful, because it's a stimulant and will change how your body processes sugars, along with everything else that you take in. People with fatigue issues need to be very careful, because it can leave you more fatigued than when you started.
And most interesting of all, RLS. Restless Limb Syndrome, where you feel as if your very skeleton itches, where there's a sensation far worse than not being able to find a comfy way to sleep, where the odd sensation is more unpleasant than pain- is one of the conditions which can be triggered (though not caused) by caffeine. Since RLS frequently goes along with other sleep disturbances, and caffeine tends to change the sleep cycle regardless, it's probably a good idea for people with sleep problems to at least be very aware of what they're taking in for caffeine.
Caffeine is also a diuretic, and it cuts off appetite the same way other stimulants do. It's a favourite among anorexics and diet-pill pushers.
So why do we drink it? Because it's Generally recognised as Safe- so much so that it's frequently used as the reference for benchmarking other substances, especially by phytopharmacologists. GRAS (generally Recognised As Safe) means that the person doing the reporting considers it as safe as coffee, where they would feel comfortable drinking up to three cups of tea made of the ingredient (at about the same concentration as coffee) in a day. So they must be pretty comfortable with coffee.
Caffeine does offer a painkilling boost; i can't put my finger on the article right now but it's one that i discussed with my doc when we were talking migraine treatments. The reason that excedrin, motrin migraine, and so on all contain caffeine is that there were studies showing it to boost the speed and efficiacy of NSAIDs (non-steroid anti-inflammatories) like ibuprofen, acetomenaphin, etc, by up to 80%. That's a LOT. Not every study claimed the same amount, some were 20%, so i think that the results were somewhat based on how the studies were done. But enough were done and the results were clear enough that the FDA seems to have given the green light for it as part of a migraine treatment protocol.
It also can be used to treat athsma, which can be life-threatening. In the event of an emergency attack, two cups of coffee can save your life (talk to your doc about it if you have athsma, just to get a sure dose, because i'm tiny so my dose is much lower. If you're big or have a tolerance, it may be higher.) You might not sleep that night, but you'll be alive.
Oh. Tolerance. As with any drug, tolerance can build up, and if you stop taking caffeine and go back to it later, you make find it leaves you even jumpier than before. On a personal note, i used to work with a girl who had cut down to ten cups a day because she had ceased to menstruate because of the sheer volume of caffeine that she was taking in, we're talking 20+ cups a day. She was finding it almost impossible, but it was either cut down or face even worse health issues. In some ways, caffeine is just another stimulant, after all...
Executive Security. it's a bizarre but good gig. And no, i don't want to talk about it, but i will say we use windows and I've only crashed- oh wait, we're still having system bugs since installation. Never mind... seriously for the most part it works out alright but we HAVE been having troubles since the start.
I Am Not A Lawyer...
I Am Not Justin Quitting His Job...
I felt it was a part of the peculiar /. ambience (yes, it's also spelt ambiance, and yes, spelt is in fact an appropriate spelling of the particular conjugation of "spell") that i wanted to carry on. Frankly, i think it's sort of a pleasant habit, and i've seen a lot of past threads where an acronym gets used in responses. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that mine is anything but a silly little use of the slashdot habit, but because of that, i didn't think anybody would make it such a big deal.
IAAMIT= (I am a minister in training) and i think the man in question did the right thing... (oh, i think i just opened this up for minister of information jokes) /me ducks and runs for the bunker...
There are poor people who are happy and rich who are unhappy. there are also starving people who are too busy looking for something to eat to discuss the question, and rich people who really do enjoy their lives and give back to the community. IANAM (i am not a millionaire) far far far FAR from it in fact, but i think that a person should choose their own path in such a way that it preferably doesn't leave them starving and gives them enough that they can share. And to do this by ethical means in the American culture is sometimes difficult, yes, but a good thing to aim for.
Will leaving make his life better? Probably. Will it make him poorer? In the short run, probably. In the long run, probably not- if he has the skills, there will be a way to apply them, and hopefully in an environment which better suits his temperament. Mind you, this is coming from someone who works a day job unrelated to any of her interests (but not against my ethics) in order to stay solvent. For the moment, it's where i'm at. I couldn't imagine doing it for the rest of my life, however.
May we all have jobs that we can live for, enough to live on and to share, and the good sense to appreciate both??