And still Mozilla doesn't get a clue that some of the recent changes are driving away users
Actually, I switched BACK to Firefox during this last year from several years of Chrome recently, and I couldn't be happier. Extensions have been a big part of that. So have the recent changes.
Noscript and Ghoster have shown me how truly pervasive Google is. The majority of websites that I ever visit run some sort of Google scripting. I'm not being a hater here. I like Google. That aren't evil, right? I just like having some control. Or at least the illusion of it. And I know, Mozilla gets funding from Google. I hope that doesn't mean that FF reports every click back to the Google mothership, but you never know.
I also run Chrome, IE, and Opera, but of the bunch, I'm the happiest with Firefox.
If government didn't stick its nose into this kind of business interference, businesses wouldn't need to lobby government about the kind of interference. When government no longer sees itself as limited, then businesses and others have to form lobbies in order to try to protect themselves from the government.
Waddaminite.
Your theory is that if we didn't regulate business so much, then they wouldn't seek government protection?
Here's my theory. Businesses spend money where they see a potential return on investment. If they think they can use money to increase profitability, they'll do so. Nothing wrong with it. That's Capitalism. That's the American Way. Spending money to get favorable legislation is just a particular case. Businesses have done it since there have been businesses and governments.
One of the reasons government expands is because businesses successfully lobby for legislation they think will increase profitability.
The hardest to explain is probably #4. My proposal here is that, if someone has never heard of the concept of existential risk, it’s easier to focus on these first four before even daring to mention the latter ones. But here they are anyway:
5. runaway self-replicating machines (“grey goo” not recommended because this is too narrow of a term)
6. destructive takeoff initiated by intelligence-amplified human
7. destructive takeoff initiated by mind upload
8. destructive takeoff initiated by artificial intelligence
Did you know that Faecesbook provides a special interface just to assist three-letter agencies search the huge collection of data they are keeping about you?
Citation needed. Seems pretty likely to me, but I'd love to see your source.
like it or not, Facebook has become part of life for almost every human on earth
Not even close. According to Facebook, "More than 800 million active users" (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics). That's barely over 10%.
Don't get me wrong, 800 million is a lot of people. But it could disappear overnight and most humans on earth would not suddenly find a part of their life missing.
They probably consider me an active user. I don't recall the last time I logged in.
I don't get the FB thing. I mean, I know what people use Facebook for. I don't know what I would use it for. I don't want to broadcast details of my life to my dozens of relatives, acquaintances, and, yes, friends, that are on FB. Why would I? I most of what they post, I'm not interested in.
If the traditional resume route isn't doing it for you, perhaps consider rebuilding your resume to focus on skills. Google "skills resume" for some examples. Also, maybe make a web site. If you've got rad Drupal and PShop skills, perhaps you could make a small web site that displays your resume, but in a creative way. Last suggestion, maybe you could focus on finding someone who just needs one assignment done as a free-lancer. You could consider under-bidding more experienced competitors, then once you have that assignment, you can add it to your resume and start looking for another. Also, maybe submit to Slashdot. I bet some people there know some people who do Drupal.
I knew a renegade IT professional once. Man he was good. You could set your system on fire and he'd restore it from the ashes using a spare hard drive he had in his back pocket, the old monitor that you didn't know was gathering dust behind the file cabinet, the backup you didn't know had been run, a piece of gold duct tape, and a penny.
He fought for the users. He wouldn't dress the dress code and he sneered at standardization. He'd install VMS on your sneakers or Linux on a pocketwatch if he thought you needed it, and if he didn't think you needed it, you didn't actually need it.
He read everyone's email, knew everyone's passwords, and kept everyone's secrets. Asset Management had to just trust him, because they certainly weren't ever going to get him to actually explain where everything went. Once he touched a piece of equipment, he owned its soul, and it was his. You could take a system across the country and lock it in a closet and when he whistled, it would gnaw off the security cable and brave mountains, deserts, snow, and rain to make its way home to him.
There was no better person to have on your side when the chips were down. He'd repair a crucial DVD by licking it just right, recover a crashed drive with a precision tap, and restore a cluster by whispering secret endearments to it in a forgotten language. He once kept the CEO's presentation running by bypassing the failed router with his body.
Did I mention? He fought for the users. Stuff worked in his wake. It usually wasn't pretty, it usually wasn't the standard answer, but dammit, it worked.
He got laid off. Upper management didn't see the value-add. They never do. Idiots.
How much do you want to learn about f-stops, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, off-camera flash and the like?
Now, for the sake of argument, let's break down cameras into 4 categories: 1) smartphone, 2) pocket-size point-n-shoot, 3) over-sized point-n-shoot, 4) DSLR. (You've already said 1) isn't good enough anymore, although always having a camera with you is a tremendous advantage.)
Closer to 1 is cheaper and easier to carry. Closer to 4 gives more control.
Depending on your budget and what you're willing to carry to where you want to take the picture, you can spend a couple hundred bucks and get a pretty decent point-and-shoot that you can carry in your pocket. On the other hand, if you're willing to throw a couple thousand into it, you can rock a pretty decent DSLR that will pretty surely exceed your knowledge, time, and interest for a long time.
Here's what I did, three years ago when I found myself some extra money from a special project. I bought the (then new) Nikon D90 body, an 18-200 lens, a 1.8f 50mm lens, SB-800 flash, a good tripod, remote control, remote cabled control, UV filter and spare, two light stands, two cheap photo bulbs and fixtures, a spare sunscreen, a spare LCD cover, and sundry supplies like filter paper, gaffer tape, and gray cards. Oh, and a Lowepro bag. And a few books. Oh, and I already had ThumbsPlus, Photoshop SE, and some other various software, plus a couple of Picasa accounts and a Flickr account. Total cost around $2500. Never looked back. I've carried some subset of that almost any place of any interest that I've been for the last 3 years and taken thousands of pictures. And although I would have to call myself a hobbyist, my photos are primarily "family, friends, and projects". But here's what you have to ask yourself, kid, do you feel lucky? No wait, that's not right. Where did that come from? I mean, here's what you have to ask yourself, do you have the money, are you willing to carry it around, and are you willing and interested in climbing the knowledge curve?
On the other hand, nothing wrong with a point-and-shoot you can stick in your pocket. You can get some great pix with that.
Oh, and on the DSLRs, I think the D90 is perfect. The successor is the D7000, which also rocks. Cheaper than that in the Nikon line and I don't think enough functions are surfaced into dedicated buttons. Bigger than the D90/D7000 and although more controls are surfaced, and you get better sensor and body, the camera also gets bigger and more expensive. I've carried the D90 a zillion places, including backpacking, and I know I personally don't want a bigger camera, but I'm willing to haul the D90 around.
I'm a Nikonist by religion. I think they're better. That's why I have one. But other brands rock too. Take a look at Flickr by camera model. Every camera you can imagine, someone has taken some awesome pictures with it.
re: #1 - OK, for example, explain consciousness within the atheistic worldview.
Strange loop. Self-referential pattern.
re: #2 - Note that I did qualify what I said in that way. You might find that none match and be theistic, but have to invent or modify an existing religion.
Perhaps if God is omnipotent, He exists in contradiction to any attempt to prove or disprove his existence. So maybe you can't get to religion through logic.
re: #3 - what don't you find plausible about Christianity?
Off the top of my head: TV preachers. Hucksters. Crusades. Slavery. Papal infallibility. Biblical inerrancy. Intelligent design. Teach the controversy. Creationism. Theocracy. Holy war. Female genital mutilation. Stoning adulterers. Pedophile priests.
I think it is possible to have a scientific outlook and still be willing to consider that there are ways of looking at the world which are worthwhile in which the nature of the human condition is examined in different terms than that of scientific exploration. The lens of scientific examination does not really work well for issues of human frailty, failure, death, grace, and forgiveness.
I submitted the following to Consumerist. I looked for somewhere to tell Dell, "thought you'd like to know, I've submitted the following to Consumerist" but couldn't find any place to submit it. Whatever happened to old-fashioned contact pages? It looks like all the many ways to contact them involve signing in to Dell, Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Bah.
=== submitted to Consumerist ===
Dell is engaging in faulty advertising. The image in the link is misleading. The different graphics cards would show a Windows desktop the same. There would be other differences between the cards, but that's not one of them. Here are links to Dell, Reddit, and Slashdot.
Oh, he's just starting from the religious tenent that "all rich peoplem, and all corporations, are evil and can do nothing but evil". Of course he doesn't make sense if you don't share his faith.
Ouch, that hurt.
I don't think ALL rich people or ALL corps are evil. Evil doesn't even enter into it.
I was responding to the post further up the chain that suggested that running a startup on government funding was to risk financial ruin. That would be the case if you are using your own funding and borrowing on your own credit such that a failure would result in personal bankruptcy. However, I think the more typical scenario is to set up an LLC or an S-Corp so that you can walk away if your corp goes belly up. As an example, I cite Solyndra.
I'm willing to listen to reason. It sounds like your argument is that NO corporate leadership EVER benefits from government funding even if the funding fails to develop worthwhile results. Is that right?
Humanity can not evolve a biological defense against a bullet to the brain.
Oh, yeah?
I guess you've never heard of Wolverine, then. Hello: mutant! Mutant = EVOLUTION.
"Among the more extreme depictions of Wolverine's healing factor include fully healing after being caught near the center of an atomic explosion." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine_(comics) )
In this case "small businesses" translates roughly to "those crazy enough to risk economic ruin when they fail".
I think the people you describe are doing it wrong.
I think the business model goes like this:
1) use your connections to secure funding from the government
2) pay yourself a hefty salary, spend your days playing golf with your cronies putting together future deals
3) hire some wonks to do the work
4) if you hit paydirt and make a zillion dollars, awesome, retire early! If you don't, no problem. Declare bankrupcy, stiff your investors (the government), and return to step 1.
Also probably not so hot:
An Shi Rebellion (China, 755–763)
Qing dynasty conquest of Ming dynasty (1616–1662)
Taiping Rebellion (China, 1850–1864) (see Dungan revolt)
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)
Warring States Era (China, 475 BC–221 BC)
Dungan revolt (China, 1862 –1877)
Yellow Turban Rebellion (China, 184–205)
> How does frequent gaming affect people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.?
I can answer that for someone ~50.
At times, I've spent 60-80 hours a week playing games, back in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. It can be done. There are 168 hours in a week. If you work 40, that leaves 128. Assume 10-20 hours for eating, commuting, calling for pizza. That leaves 108. If you sleep 6 hours a night that's still 70 hours left. If you trim a few hours of sleep, or take a take a day off from work, you can get near 80. I would binge on a game for a few months then give it up. A year or two later I'd do it again.
At 60-80 hours a week, whatever you're playing becomes reality, or pretty darn close to it. I used to play DragonRealms. Awesome game. There were a few months where that's where I lived. Even if I were walking around the real world I was playing in my head. Reality was a gray pale lifeless place.
I tried rationing. Turns out for me it's not much fun a few hours a week. YMMV. But for me, if I'm not all in, it's just not as much fun.
I use that voice-recognition thing occasionally. It works fairly well. If you say "Is it going to snow today?", then it produces the text "is it going to snow today", but it doesn't give you a weather report.
I have no idea who actually uses a TV tuner any more with on-demand services being infinitely more convenient
I use a TV tuner. Not very often, but it's part of my disaster plan. When disaster strikes, such as a power outage, or traveling, it's still possible to plug in the TV tuner and get digital broadcast TV. That way my wife doesn't miss DWTS. It's all about continuity of service, dude.
I run Ubuntu in a VM on Windows 7 and have you SEEN that Unity thing? OMG. I needed to do a script to manipulate some image files and popped over to Ubuntu because it appeared to have some command-line tools I could use. Couldn't get past the Unity thing. One of these days I guess I'll take the time to figure out how to get rid of Unity but until then, Linux isn't a serious contender, even for occasional use.
Documentation. Have you tried to look up anything on Linux or Ubuntu lately? You're in version and repost hell. You've got to be an expert in it just to figure out what documentation is valid.
Windows keystrokes. I have Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc, Alt-F4, and Windows-R and a million others built into my nervous system. Not only do I have to learn new twitches for Linux, they seem to change all the time.
Total Commander. If you use Windows, you should use Total Commander. I don't believe there is anything as good on Linux. Sure, there are two-panel file managers, but nothing anywhere near as good as TC.
QuickBooks. I don't use it, but a friend says that's the only thing he needs Windows for, and there isn't a creditable alternative on Linux.
ThumbsPlus. If you manage thousands of image files, even as a hobby, ThumbsPlus is pretty good. I have yet to find anything as good as ThumbsPlus, at less than hundreds of dollars. If there is a Linux alternative that's as good or better, please let me know.
Picasa. I don't love Picasa. I would like a good alternative. But until then, I'm stuck with it. Is there a Picasa client for Linux?
Photo Editors. Is there anything even remotely as good as Photoshop Elements? I don't even like Elements, but I don't think there are any reasonable alternatives on Linux. Last time I checked, GIMP wasn't baked all the way.
Editors. And don't tell me vim or emacs, please. I spent a lot of time in vi 20 years ago and I have no desire to go back. Every now and then I try vim and emacs. I suppose for those who grew up with them they're like oxygen, but not me. I use TextPad. I need line numbers, RE search and replace, column editing, and cursing and selection that work with cursor keys and variants of the metakeys. I would love a sensible alternative to TextPad on Linux, or on Windows for that matter.
Utilities. I use Ditto, Greenshot, Freemind, Resophnotes, Stickies, QuickMonth Calendar, Horas, and a bunch of other small utilities that I can't even think of all the time. Hard to replicate in Linux.
Did I mention Unity? A user interface should be discoverable, with sensible defaults. The default terminal is full-screen and transparent? Really? You can't make it un-transparent with a right-click? Really? It takes 5 seconds after clicking the whatever-it-is button in Unity to get the whatever-it-is to pop up. Really? Typing term makes term show up, but then a down cursor doesn't do anything, but a second one does. Really? The default is to find the little red x? Really? I am sure the Unity people are very smart folks who did what they did for good reasons, but they set back my personal use of Linux by a year, and overall adoption by a decade.
That might not be the best plan. If you get a management position, you *might* get some decent pay and hours for awhile, but you'll be spending an ever-increasing amount of time with upper management, which is usually not a rewarding way to spend the day, and on status reports, progress reports, plans that no one reads or follows, and evaluations. There is *always* some other shlub with delusions of climbing the corporate ladder who's willing to spend more of his life kissing ass than you. Management sucks. And the best part is, nothing, *nothing* is more expendable than a mid- or low-level manager, and once you're on the street, you'll realize that your tech skills have atrophied and before you know it, you'll be standing on the street corner with a sign that says "Will install Office for food".
If you're technical, stay technical. Get more technical.
I was a longtime Chrome user having been a Firefox user years ago, before Chrome. I switched to Firefox because I got tired of having my every mouse-click tracked by Google.
Here's the thing about Firefox. I like it. I think it really rocks. I'm running eleven add-ons and I'm happy.
And, yeah, the Firefox updates come quickly, but the Big G updates Chrome pretty frequently too.
Where else can you stream the entire run of Battlestar Galactica (in HD, no less) for $8 a month? Louie, The X-files, Family Guy, Firefly, Lexx, BSG--my queue is filled with many days worth of geek greatness. And some of the content on there isn't available in HD in any other format.
Actually, I got Battlestar Galactica for free, in HD. From the library. And Firefly. And Deadwood. And I don't remember what else. Actually, my county library is a bit thin on this stuff. I had to drive 10 minutes into the city to use the city library system, where I have reciprocal privileges. Rip that stuff to my drive, and lots of TV goodness. Although Battlestar lost me somewhere around season 2.5. I just lost my disbelief, try as hard as I might to hold onto it. I just couldn't lose the notion that Cylons are biological because it makes an easier story for the "robots" to bleed. Too contrived. Nice chicks, though.
And streaming? I must be doing it wrong. Poor quality, poor controls, can't burn to a dvd for taking on a road trip, have to be connected to the internet, have to be connected. I don't get it.
I like Netflix though. Of course, with all this publicity, maybe I should examine my Netflix habit. Add it up over the months and it turns out to be quite a piece of change. Turns out the library has movies, too . . . .
Slashdot Mirror
And still Mozilla doesn't get a clue that some of the recent changes are driving away users
Actually, I switched BACK to Firefox during this last year from several years of Chrome recently, and I couldn't be happier. Extensions have been a big part of that. So have the recent changes.
Noscript and Ghoster have shown me how truly pervasive Google is. The majority of websites that I ever visit run some sort of Google scripting. I'm not being a hater here. I like Google. That aren't evil, right? I just like having some control. Or at least the illusion of it. And I know, Mozilla gets funding from Google. I hope that doesn't mean that FF reports every click back to the Google mothership, but you never know.
I also run Chrome, IE, and Opera, but of the bunch, I'm the happiest with Firefox.
If government didn't stick its nose into this kind of business interference, businesses wouldn't need to lobby government about the kind of interference. When government no longer sees itself as limited, then businesses and others have to form lobbies in order to try to protect themselves from the government.
Waddaminite.
Your theory is that if we didn't regulate business so much, then they wouldn't seek government protection?
Here's my theory. Businesses spend money where they see a potential return on investment. If they think they can use money to increase profitability, they'll do so. Nothing wrong with it. That's Capitalism. That's the American Way. Spending money to get favorable legislation is just a particular case. Businesses have done it since there have been businesses and governments.
One of the reasons government expands is because businesses successfully lobby for legislation they think will increase profitability.
The Easier-to-Explain Existential Risks (remember an existential risk is something that can set humanity way back, not necessarily killing everyone):
1. neoviruses
2. neobacteria
3. cybernetic biota
4. Drexlerian nanoweapons
The hardest to explain is probably #4. My proposal here is that, if someone has never heard of the concept of existential risk, it’s easier to focus on these first four before even daring to mention the latter ones. But here they are anyway:
5. runaway self-replicating machines (“grey goo” not recommended because this is too narrow of a term)
6. destructive takeoff initiated by intelligence-amplified human
7. destructive takeoff initiated by mind upload
8. destructive takeoff initiated by artificial intelligence
Did you know that Faecesbook provides a special interface just to assist three-letter agencies search the huge collection of data they are keeping about you?
Citation needed. Seems pretty likely to me, but I'd love to see your source.
like it or not, Facebook has become part of life for almost every human on earth
Not even close. According to Facebook, "More than 800 million active users" (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics). That's barely over 10%.
Don't get me wrong, 800 million is a lot of people. But it could disappear overnight and most humans on earth would not suddenly find a part of their life missing.
They probably consider me an active user. I don't recall the last time I logged in.
I don't get the FB thing. I mean, I know what people use Facebook for. I don't know what I would use it for. I don't want to broadcast details of my life to my dozens of relatives, acquaintances, and, yes, friends, that are on FB. Why would I? I most of what they post, I'm not interested in.
If the traditional resume route isn't doing it for you, perhaps consider rebuilding your resume to focus on skills. Google "skills resume" for some examples. Also, maybe make a web site. If you've got rad Drupal and PShop skills, perhaps you could make a small web site that displays your resume, but in a creative way. Last suggestion, maybe you could focus on finding someone who just needs one assignment done as a free-lancer. You could consider under-bidding more experienced competitors, then once you have that assignment, you can add it to your resume and start looking for another. Also, maybe submit to Slashdot. I bet some people there know some people who do Drupal.
I hope people can see Poe's Law in my comments
Man, you really know how to go for the low blow, making fun of Poe's Law like that.
Are you sure you're on the right web site?
I knew a renegade IT professional once. Man he was good. You could set your system on fire and he'd restore it from the ashes using a spare hard drive he had in his back pocket, the old monitor that you didn't know was gathering dust behind the file cabinet, the backup you didn't know had been run, a piece of gold duct tape, and a penny.
He fought for the users. He wouldn't dress the dress code and he sneered at standardization. He'd install VMS on your sneakers or Linux on a pocketwatch if he thought you needed it, and if he didn't think you needed it, you didn't actually need it.
He read everyone's email, knew everyone's passwords, and kept everyone's secrets. Asset Management had to just trust him, because they certainly weren't ever going to get him to actually explain where everything went. Once he touched a piece of equipment, he owned its soul, and it was his. You could take a system across the country and lock it in a closet and when he whistled, it would gnaw off the security cable and brave mountains, deserts, snow, and rain to make its way home to him.
There was no better person to have on your side when the chips were down. He'd repair a crucial DVD by licking it just right, recover a crashed drive with a precision tap, and restore a cluster by whispering secret endearments to it in a forgotten language. He once kept the CEO's presentation running by bypassing the failed router with his body.
Did I mention? He fought for the users. Stuff worked in his wake. It usually wasn't pretty, it usually wasn't the standard answer, but dammit, it worked.
He got laid off. Upper management didn't see the value-add. They never do. Idiots.
Ask yourself some questions:
How much do you have to spend?
How much are you willing to carry around?
How much do you want to learn about f-stops, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, off-camera flash and the like?
Now, for the sake of argument, let's break down cameras into 4 categories: 1) smartphone, 2) pocket-size point-n-shoot, 3) over-sized point-n-shoot, 4) DSLR. (You've already said 1) isn't good enough anymore, although always having a camera with you is a tremendous advantage.)
Closer to 1 is cheaper and easier to carry. Closer to 4 gives more control.
Depending on your budget and what you're willing to carry to where you want to take the picture, you can spend a couple hundred bucks and get a pretty decent point-and-shoot that you can carry in your pocket. On the other hand, if you're willing to throw a couple thousand into it, you can rock a pretty decent DSLR that will pretty surely exceed your knowledge, time, and interest for a long time.
Here's what I did, three years ago when I found myself some extra money from a special project. I bought the (then new) Nikon D90 body, an 18-200 lens, a 1.8f 50mm lens, SB-800 flash, a good tripod, remote control, remote cabled control, UV filter and spare, two light stands, two cheap photo bulbs and fixtures, a spare sunscreen, a spare LCD cover, and sundry supplies like filter paper, gaffer tape, and gray cards. Oh, and a Lowepro bag. And a few books. Oh, and I already had ThumbsPlus, Photoshop SE, and some other various software, plus a couple of Picasa accounts and a Flickr account. Total cost around $2500. Never looked back. I've carried some subset of that almost any place of any interest that I've been for the last 3 years and taken thousands of pictures. And although I would have to call myself a hobbyist, my photos are primarily "family, friends, and projects". But here's what you have to ask yourself, kid, do you feel lucky? No wait, that's not right. Where did that come from? I mean, here's what you have to ask yourself, do you have the money, are you willing to carry it around, and are you willing and interested in climbing the knowledge curve?
On the other hand, nothing wrong with a point-and-shoot you can stick in your pocket. You can get some great pix with that.
Oh, and on the DSLRs, I think the D90 is perfect. The successor is the D7000, which also rocks. Cheaper than that in the Nikon line and I don't think enough functions are surfaced into dedicated buttons. Bigger than the D90/D7000 and although more controls are surfaced, and you get better sensor and body, the camera also gets bigger and more expensive. I've carried the D90 a zillion places, including backpacking, and I know I personally don't want a bigger camera, but I'm willing to haul the D90 around.
I'm a Nikonist by religion. I think they're better. That's why I have one. But other brands rock too. Take a look at Flickr by camera model. Every camera you can imagine, someone has taken some awesome pictures with it.
re: #1 - OK, for example, explain consciousness within the atheistic worldview.
Strange loop. Self-referential pattern.
re: #2 - Note that I did qualify what I said in that way. You might find that none match and be theistic, but have to invent or modify an existing religion.
Perhaps if God is omnipotent, He exists in contradiction to any attempt to prove or disprove his existence. So maybe you can't get to religion through logic.
re: #3 - what don't you find plausible about Christianity?
Off the top of my head: TV preachers. Hucksters. Crusades. Slavery. Papal infallibility. Biblical inerrancy. Intelligent design. Teach the controversy. Creationism. Theocracy. Holy war. Female genital mutilation. Stoning adulterers. Pedophile priests.
What is truth?
I think it is possible to have a scientific outlook and still be willing to consider that there are ways of looking at the world which are worthwhile in which the nature of the human condition is examined in different terms than that of scientific exploration. The lens of scientific examination does not really work well for issues of human frailty, failure, death, grace, and forgiveness.
Most religion isn't about that, though.
I submitted the following to Consumerist. I looked for somewhere to tell Dell, "thought you'd like to know, I've submitted the following to Consumerist" but couldn't find any place to submit it. Whatever happened to old-fashioned contact pages? It looks like all the many ways to contact them involve signing in to Dell, Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Bah.
=== submitted to Consumerist ===
Dell is engaging in faulty advertising. The image in the link is misleading. The different graphics cards would show a Windows desktop the same. There would be other differences between the cards, but that's not one of them. Here are links to Dell, Reddit, and Slashdot.
Dell:
http://content.dell.com/uk/en/business/d/help-me-choose/hmc-video-card-vostro-dt.aspx?ref=CFG
Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/mle4f/is_this_image_on_the_dell_website_complete_bcks/
PC Pro:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/11/23/dells-unhelpful-graphics-card-buying-advice/
Slashdot:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/24/022247/dells-misleading-graphics-card-buying-advice
Oh, he's just starting from the religious tenent that "all rich peoplem, and all corporations, are evil and can do nothing but evil". Of course he doesn't make sense if you don't share his faith.
Ouch, that hurt.
I don't think ALL rich people or ALL corps are evil. Evil doesn't even enter into it.
I was responding to the post further up the chain that suggested that running a startup on government funding was to risk financial ruin. That would be the case if you are using your own funding and borrowing on your own credit such that a failure would result in personal bankruptcy. However, I think the more typical scenario is to set up an LLC or an S-Corp so that you can walk away if your corp goes belly up. As an example, I cite Solyndra.
I'm willing to listen to reason. It sounds like your argument is that NO corporate leadership EVER benefits from government funding even if the funding fails to develop worthwhile results. Is that right?
Humanity can not evolve a biological defense against a bullet to the brain.
Oh, yeah?
I guess you've never heard of Wolverine, then. Hello: mutant! Mutant = EVOLUTION.
"Among the more extreme depictions of Wolverine's healing factor include fully healing after being caught near the center of an atomic explosion." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine_(comics) )
So, bullet to the brain, no problem.
In this case "small businesses" translates roughly to "those crazy enough to risk economic ruin when they fail".
I think the people you describe are doing it wrong.
I think the business model goes like this:
1) use your connections to secure funding from the government
2) pay yourself a hefty salary, spend your days playing golf with your cronies putting together future deals
3) hire some wonks to do the work
4) if you hit paydirt and make a zillion dollars, awesome, retire early! If you don't, no problem. Declare bankrupcy, stiff your investors (the government), and return to step 1.
I'm sure if you want to read through the history of China, you'll find some pretty damn grim periods too.
For instance, 1966-1976 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolution).
Also probably not so hot:
An Shi Rebellion (China, 755–763)
Qing dynasty conquest of Ming dynasty (1616–1662)
Taiping Rebellion (China, 1850–1864) (see Dungan revolt)
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)
Warring States Era (China, 475 BC–221 BC)
Dungan revolt (China, 1862 –1877)
Yellow Turban Rebellion (China, 184–205)
Heck, that's 7 out of the top 16 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll.
Thinking of getting it. ;-)
But, like I said, I mostly stay clean these days.
> How does frequent gaming affect people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.?
I can answer that for someone ~50.
At times, I've spent 60-80 hours a week playing games, back in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. It can be done. There are 168 hours in a week. If you work 40, that leaves 128. Assume 10-20 hours for eating, commuting, calling for pizza. That leaves 108. If you sleep 6 hours a night that's still 70 hours left. If you trim a few hours of sleep, or take a take a day off from work, you can get near 80. I would binge on a game for a few months then give it up. A year or two later I'd do it again.
At 60-80 hours a week, whatever you're playing becomes reality, or pretty darn close to it. I used to play DragonRealms. Awesome game. There were a few months where that's where I lived. Even if I were walking around the real world I was playing in my head. Reality was a gray pale lifeless place.
I tried rationing. Turns out for me it's not much fun a few hours a week. YMMV. But for me, if I'm not all in, it's just not as much fun.
Mostly I stay clean these days. Mostly . . . .
I use that voice-recognition thing occasionally. It works fairly well. If you say "Is it going to snow today?", then it produces the text "is it going to snow today", but it doesn't give you a weather report.
I have no idea who actually uses a TV tuner any more with on-demand services being infinitely more convenient
I use a TV tuner. Not very often, but it's part of my disaster plan. When disaster strikes, such as a power outage, or traveling, it's still possible to plug in the TV tuner and get digital broadcast TV. That way my wife doesn't miss DWTS. It's all about continuity of service, dude.
I run Ubuntu in a VM on Windows 7 and have you SEEN that Unity thing? OMG. I needed to do a script to manipulate some image files and popped over to Ubuntu because it appeared to have some command-line tools I could use. Couldn't get past the Unity thing. One of these days I guess I'll take the time to figure out how to get rid of Unity but until then, Linux isn't a serious contender, even for occasional use.
Documentation. Have you tried to look up anything on Linux or Ubuntu lately? You're in version and repost hell. You've got to be an expert in it just to figure out what documentation is valid.
Windows keystrokes. I have Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc, Alt-F4, and Windows-R and a million others built into my nervous system. Not only do I have to learn new twitches for Linux, they seem to change all the time.
Total Commander. If you use Windows, you should use Total Commander. I don't believe there is anything as good on Linux. Sure, there are two-panel file managers, but nothing anywhere near as good as TC.
QuickBooks. I don't use it, but a friend says that's the only thing he needs Windows for, and there isn't a creditable alternative on Linux.
ThumbsPlus. If you manage thousands of image files, even as a hobby, ThumbsPlus is pretty good. I have yet to find anything as good as ThumbsPlus, at less than hundreds of dollars. If there is a Linux alternative that's as good or better, please let me know.
Picasa. I don't love Picasa. I would like a good alternative. But until then, I'm stuck with it. Is there a Picasa client for Linux?
Photo Editors. Is there anything even remotely as good as Photoshop Elements? I don't even like Elements, but I don't think there are any reasonable alternatives on Linux. Last time I checked, GIMP wasn't baked all the way.
Editors. And don't tell me vim or emacs, please. I spent a lot of time in vi 20 years ago and I have no desire to go back. Every now and then I try vim and emacs. I suppose for those who grew up with them they're like oxygen, but not me. I use TextPad. I need line numbers, RE search and replace, column editing, and cursing and selection that work with cursor keys and variants of the metakeys. I would love a sensible alternative to TextPad on Linux, or on Windows for that matter.
Utilities. I use Ditto, Greenshot, Freemind, Resophnotes, Stickies, QuickMonth Calendar, Horas, and a bunch of other small utilities that I can't even think of all the time. Hard to replicate in Linux.
Did I mention Unity? A user interface should be discoverable, with sensible defaults. The default terminal is full-screen and transparent? Really? You can't make it un-transparent with a right-click? Really? It takes 5 seconds after clicking the whatever-it-is button in Unity to get the whatever-it-is to pop up. Really? Typing term makes term show up, but then a down cursor doesn't do anything, but a second one does. Really? The default is to find the little red x? Really? I am sure the Unity people are very smart folks who did what they did for good reasons, but they set back my personal use of Linux by a year, and overall adoption by a decade.
I've been hoping for management
That might not be the best plan. If you get a management position, you *might* get some decent pay and hours for awhile, but you'll be spending an ever-increasing amount of time with upper management, which is usually not a rewarding way to spend the day, and on status reports, progress reports, plans that no one reads or follows, and evaluations. There is *always* some other shlub with delusions of climbing the corporate ladder who's willing to spend more of his life kissing ass than you. Management sucks. And the best part is, nothing, *nothing* is more expendable than a mid- or low-level manager, and once you're on the street, you'll realize that your tech skills have atrophied and before you know it, you'll be standing on the street corner with a sign that says "Will install Office for food".
If you're technical, stay technical. Get more technical.
I was a longtime Chrome user having been a Firefox user years ago, before Chrome. I switched to Firefox because I got tired of having my every mouse-click tracked by Google.
Here's the thing about Firefox. I like it. I think it really rocks. I'm running eleven add-ons and I'm happy.
And, yeah, the Firefox updates come quickly, but the Big G updates Chrome pretty frequently too.
Where else can you stream the entire run of Battlestar Galactica (in HD, no less) for $8 a month? Louie, The X-files, Family Guy, Firefly, Lexx, BSG--my queue is filled with many days worth of geek greatness. And some of the content on there isn't available in HD in any other format.
Actually, I got Battlestar Galactica for free, in HD. From the library. And Firefly. And Deadwood. And I don't remember what else. Actually, my county library is a bit thin on this stuff. I had to drive 10 minutes into the city to use the city library system, where I have reciprocal privileges. Rip that stuff to my drive, and lots of TV goodness. Although Battlestar lost me somewhere around season 2.5. I just lost my disbelief, try as hard as I might to hold onto it. I just couldn't lose the notion that Cylons are biological because it makes an easier story for the "robots" to bleed. Too contrived. Nice chicks, though. And streaming? I must be doing it wrong. Poor quality, poor controls, can't burn to a dvd for taking on a road trip, have to be connected to the internet, have to be connected. I don't get it. I like Netflix though. Of course, with all this publicity, maybe I should examine my Netflix habit. Add it up over the months and it turns out to be quite a piece of change. Turns out the library has movies, too . . . .