Some people use the password as an ego boost, like the name of an author or classical composer. When they type in that password, they feel good about themselves for being "associated" with such greatness, even though that connection wouldn't even exist if they hadn't chosen to create it.
Umm.. riight. My father uses passwords in this vein, but I think it's because it's easy for him to remember, especially since we have to change once a month here. It's not any sort of ego-trip to "associate [himself] with greatness". Simplest explanation, etc., etc?
And that's why all of the sudden the discussion about automotive black boxes has gone from "How dare you?" to "This guy should lose his licence for life". "Big Brother" type technology is never feared when it is used to harrass or penalize law-breaking individuals. Most of us don't think that the FBI using Echelon or other data sifting systems to find terrorists is a bad thing. However, when those systems begin to be used outside of the original domain, the problems start. Some people are against "Big Brother" technology before it is even used on the 'bad guys' because history has shown that it has never been limited to the original domain. Social Security numbers were never meant to be used as a national identification number. RICO statutes were never meant to be used against anyone except drug dealers. Then it was the mafia, now its even politicians and other criminals. I'm not exactly arguing that these are bad things, but the fact of the matter is that it is very rare that a "Big Brother" technology or law never extends outside the domain it was originally designed for.
It's all about the jury. Most people are much more likely to believe what they can see, rather than what they can read. It is the prosecution's job to make the jury believe that the events occurred as described by the prosecution. Using a video achieves this goal much better than a transcript. I'm well aware that the video can be faked, but it's clear to just about anybody that faking a transcript is much easier than faking a whole video, thus making a video more believeable. This isn't exactly sound logic, but humans are rarely logical creatures, especially those on juries.
Easier, yes, but investigators need their evidence to hold up in court. When you present a text transcript, the defense lawyer is going to try to introduce reasonable doubt on that piece of evidence. I would imagine that a video tape is much harder to debunk as fabricated.
What about private msg/notices or an invite only room with one other person? Should those be construed as public just because it took place on a public server? Are my comments to someone public because we were outside when we talked about it? (Yes, I realize they are, if someone overhears, but we're talking in the context of recording a two-party conversation, where the recorder is one of the parties.)
That's a pretty lame reason to still use IE, considering that backing up your bookmarks is as simple as copying a file. I agree about the profiles, but I have had success backing up my profiles and dropping them back in whenever they get deleted/changed (which, btw, has only happened on version upgrades for me, never random). Some preferences and extensions still need to be reset, but it's better than starting from scratch.
Why is it that people look at a project, which someone else has put a ton of time and effort into, and think they can find flaws in less than a minute. Is your opinion of your fellow man that low, or your opinion of yourself that inflated?
Because most people find it easier and more self-assuring to point out a minor flaw instead of saying, "Why did I think of that?"
Its the same requirement that requires Exxon to minimalize the public relations disaster caused by a rupturing oil tanker, rather than the moral one which says "clean it up".
Actually, the law says clean it up. Polluters are, in most cases, responsible for the messes they make. There are cases, such as where the company has gone bankrupt, where this is not always possible.
In most cases, yes. However, as with advance leaks and the like, we know that there are insiders and people at retail stores who are essentially stealing copies of the CDs before they are released. The other reply refutes your point on a more logical front.
Calculating numbers.. yes. But from what? Where do you get these numbers?
My largest spreadsheet project was created to calculate the airflow required to maintain the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) of a mixture of plasticizers, polymers, stabilizers, etc, as they cured in an oven. The LEL is the minimum concentration of a substance required to support combustion. LELs are specified on MSDS sheets for raw materials. However, in my case, the substances being examined were all mixtures of materials. There were approximately 30 different formulae, made up of about 30 different raw materials. On top of that, there were about 30 different products each of which was made up of a combination of 2 formulae.
So, what was required? The LEL had to be calculated for each formula. This is done using a weighted average of the raw material LEL values. Also, the amount of primary vs. secondary plasticizers was determined.
Each product could be pulled through the oven at different speeds, and each product had different amounts of the coating formulas applied to it. The amount of coating, speed, percentages of primary vs. secondary in the coatings, and LEL of the coatings were all taken to determine the airflow required to maintain 25% of the LEL. Then, all the results were compared to determine the worst case product. That number was then checked against operational parameters to ensure that the process was being run safely.
My spreadsheet consists of many sheets, and is about a 900k excel file. There is an inventory sheet for the raw materials, formulae, and products, where general information is kept (densities, molecular weights, batch sizes, formulas used, line speeds, etc.). Each formula then had its own sheet where the LEL was calculated for the formula. Each product had its own sheet where the airflow was calculated. Then there were a few summary sheets which basically pulled in the most important bits and determined the desired airflow.
Could I have used another tool to do this? Yes. Would it have been any faster? Doubtful. While the excel approach was very difficult to QC, we worked to QC the sheets before applying it to all of the products. The formula sheets were designed so that the only user entry was the formula name and the raw material names and weights. All other information was calculated or pulled from reference tables. The product sheets were designed so only the product name had to be entered. This reduced the amount of data entry and reduced the amount of QC required. Once the formula and product sheets passed QC, they were copied and the applicable fields were changed.
So what did I use my spreadsheet for? Did I calculate numbers? Yes. Did I also list things? Yes. In fact, in its most basic form, the spreadsheet takes in a list of raw materials, formulae and products, and spits out a list of airflows required. I can imagine many other ways to do this, but cannot imagine one that would be as easy to QC (this is an engineering firm, not a programming shop), as easy to transfer between us and the client, and, well, as simple. While some of the excel formulas are 5 or 6 lines, they are not very complex. Because I used lookup tables, the code does get a little confusing to look at, but it is not very complicated.
..and in 99% of the cases the spreadsheets don't even use the SUM function.
As well they shouldn't. SUBTOTAL(9,...) is a much better function as it avoids duplication. This makes cost estimates, and QC'ing cost estimates, very easy. For each type of work (Structural, Civil, etc.), you can SUBTOTAL(9,) the values in that area. Then at the bottom, you just SUBTOTAL(9,) all the values, including the already calculated subtotals. SUBTOTAL(9,) will not double the result like a SUM() would. When I get to a Total line and see "=F15+F32+F47+F84" etc., summing all the subtotals, it makes my blood boil.
In New Jersey, it's even worse. Just a minor traffic ticket will get you a flood of mail from lawyers and lawyer referral services. And somehow, my parents still didn't realize what happened (the insurance bill hasn't arrived yet).
Completely free, since most library cards are free.
Yeah, just like walking on the sidewalk is free. If you pay taxes, you pay for the library. It simply is not free. Why Americans have this idea that just because you don't pay in person at the library that means it is free, I really don't know. I think it's where our anti-tax mantra comes from, along with our roots of "No taxation!" (modern right-wing politicians seem to have forgotten the last part of the historical exclamation). The sooner you get the idea out of your head that roads, sidewalks, sewers, parks and libraries are free, the better.
Doesn't this same thing occur every time you listen to the radio?
You might say no because there are advertisers who are paying for the space, which the radio station then gives a portion to the music industry, thus paying the artist back...a pittance.
The answer to your original question is not "You might say no". It is a flat no. Record companies are compensated for songs that are played on the radio, tv, etc. Just because the record company passes very little of that on to the artist is no justification for file sharing. I'm not going to get into the record company monopoly thing. What they do to artists is wrong, but, again, is no justification.
Another example, you can go check out a book from the library for free and read it in its entirety. For free! Not a single cent goes to the author. Yet, you're still enjoying the fruits of the author's labor without paying for it.
If you live in a magic land where you pay no taxes, yes. However, books in a library are purchased from the publisher, and some of that money gets back to the author. It's not about who pays the money, it's about whether or not the money is actually being paid. With radio, tv, libraries, video rentals, etc., someone is still paying the publishers. With file sharing, no one is getting paid, except the bandwidth providers.
You don't even have to schedule a night for The Shield. They replay it many, many times over the course of the week. Many other cable channels do this, but it's something you rarely see out of the networks. The networks are starting to do it somewhat, although in a convoluted fashion. For instance, 24 used to be replayed a lot on FX last season. I haven't seen them doing it this season, though that may be because 24 hasn't been on in what feels like 3 months (although it is finally back tonight!).
No one is saying not to talk about 9/11. The issue at hand is the use of images from 9/11 in political ads. Those political ads were approved personally by George Bush in accordance with new campaign finance laws. The moveon.org ads were submitted by amateurs and were not approved by any candidate or moveon.org, and were removed from the site.
Anecdotes aside, I think the OP is correct. I worked at a Dunkin Donuts, and while there were one or two customers that were way out of line, for the most part there was nothing that we couldn't do for the customer. The fact that you only have a few examples after 'putting yourself through college' at a 7-11 shows this. If you had worked at a helpdesk, you would probably have had hundreds of tales.
Another job I worked was helpdesk/tech support for my uni's dorm networking. I really only worked there for about 8 months, and on just about any day you could go through the active tickets and come up with a gem. One I recall vividly, "User claims room does not have electricity outlets." Mind you, this isn't a networking problem, but when I called back, the user told me, "Yeah.. we.... found them.." Several times, I went all the way out to a user's place only to find out that something was unplugged (and, yes, I always asked them to check while on the phone). They were lucky that dorm support comes for free.
The solution to "Get me a large with milk and sugar" is easy and routine. The solution to "get me on the internet" isn't always easy and routine, and this is how helpdesk is different from more traditional service jobs.
US unemployment is probably about on par with EU unemployment. However, the US does not keep accurate unemployment statistics so it is impossible to verify. For example, in the US, if you are unable to find work for a period of time, and "stop looking for work", you are no longer considered unemployed. Also, the US considers "under-employed" people (people who want a full-time position but are currently working a part-time position) to be fully employed.
The way they acted on IRC, and talked about events that happened on IRC as if they happened out in the real world leads me to believe it has utterly destroyed any social skills they had before.
Why is this? It appears you assume that people act exactly the same IRL as they do on IRC. From my experience, this is mostly wrong. What is so wrong with talking about events on IRC "as if they happened out in the real world"? Are you suggesting events that transpire on IRC did not actually occur? Or that they shouldn't be discussed?
I understand that there are people that take IRC too seriously. I was a channel service admin for the Undernet for a while, and the people that we would get coming to us for help "taking their channel back" were at times so serious that they involved lawyers in the whole thing. Yes, lawsuits over IRC channels. However, just because some people take IRC that seriously does not mean all IRC users do this, nor does it mean that some people who take IRC a little more serious than others necessarily "destroy any social skills they had before [IRC]."
I recently joined a channel on IRC that I used to go to years back. To my surprise it was there. Then I realised it wasn't really surprising considering how seriously these people took IRC.
To some people, especially seasoned users of the internet, IRC is/was used like most people use IM. Most (chat) users today will sit down, dial up if needed, and then start their IM client(s). To me, and others, this includes an IRC client. Would you be surprised if you logged on a IM client in 3 years and saw the same people? Would you think they took IM too seriously? Why or why not?
Sports cheating: communicate perfectly to coach when you are not supposed to.
It's very rare to have communication illegal in a sport. The only situation I can think of where communication is illegal is in football. While in the huddle, the quarterback can recieve headset instructions from the sideline or booth. However, the headset gets shutoff when the huddle is broken. I don't think this device would help to get around the regulation, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people use the password as an ego boost, like the name of an author or classical composer. When they type in that password, they feel good about themselves for being "associated" with such greatness, even though that connection wouldn't even exist if they hadn't chosen to create it.
Umm.. riight. My father uses passwords in this vein, but I think it's because it's easy for him to remember, especially since we have to change once a month here. It's not any sort of ego-trip to "associate [himself] with greatness". Simplest explanation, etc., etc?
Some people find reading in the car to cause motion sickness. Luckily, I never suffered from this on our family's drives from NJ to FL.
Maybe big brother got it right for once?
And that's why all of the sudden the discussion about automotive black boxes has gone from "How dare you?" to "This guy should lose his licence for life". "Big Brother" type technology is never feared when it is used to harrass or penalize law-breaking individuals. Most of us don't think that the FBI using Echelon or other data sifting systems to find terrorists is a bad thing. However, when those systems begin to be used outside of the original domain, the problems start. Some people are against "Big Brother" technology before it is even used on the 'bad guys' because history has shown that it has never been limited to the original domain. Social Security numbers were never meant to be used as a national identification number. RICO statutes were never meant to be used against anyone except drug dealers. Then it was the mafia, now its even politicians and other criminals. I'm not exactly arguing that these are bad things, but the fact of the matter is that it is very rare that a "Big Brother" technology or law never extends outside the domain it was originally designed for.
Marketing.
Please see my comment here.
It's all about the jury. Most people are much more likely to believe what they can see, rather than what they can read. It is the prosecution's job to make the jury believe that the events occurred as described by the prosecution. Using a video achieves this goal much better than a transcript. I'm well aware that the video can be faked, but it's clear to just about anybody that faking a transcript is much easier than faking a whole video, thus making a video more believeable. This isn't exactly sound logic, but humans are rarely logical creatures, especially those on juries.
It would mean they have to get a warrant first, not make it impossible to record chats.
Easier, yes, but investigators need their evidence to hold up in court. When you present a text transcript, the defense lawyer is going to try to introduce reasonable doubt on that piece of evidence. I would imagine that a video tape is much harder to debunk as fabricated.
What about private msg/notices or an invite only room with one other person? Should those be construed as public just because it took place on a public server? Are my comments to someone public because we were outside when we talked about it? (Yes, I realize they are, if someone overhears, but we're talking in the context of recording a two-party conversation, where the recorder is one of the parties.)
That's a pretty lame reason to still use IE, considering that backing up your bookmarks is as simple as copying a file. I agree about the profiles, but I have had success backing up my profiles and dropping them back in whenever they get deleted/changed (which, btw, has only happened on version upgrades for me, never random). Some preferences and extensions still need to be reset, but it's better than starting from scratch.
Why is it that people look at a project, which someone else has put a ton of time and effort into, and think they can find flaws in less than a minute. Is your opinion of your fellow man that low, or your opinion of yourself that inflated?
Because most people find it easier and more self-assuring to point out a minor flaw instead of saying, "Why did I think of that?"
Its the same requirement that requires Exxon to minimalize the public relations disaster caused by a rupturing oil tanker, rather than the moral one which says "clean it up".
Actually, the law says clean it up. Polluters are, in most cases, responsible for the messes they make. There are cases, such as where the company has gone bankrupt, where this is not always possible.
In most cases, yes. However, as with advance leaks and the like, we know that there are insiders and people at retail stores who are essentially stealing copies of the CDs before they are released. The other reply refutes your point on a more logical front.
Calculating numbers.. yes. But from what? Where do you get these numbers?
My largest spreadsheet project was created to calculate the airflow required to maintain the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) of a mixture of plasticizers, polymers, stabilizers, etc, as they cured in an oven. The LEL is the minimum concentration of a substance required to support combustion. LELs are specified on MSDS sheets for raw materials. However, in my case, the substances being examined were all mixtures of materials. There were approximately 30 different formulae, made up of about 30 different raw materials. On top of that, there were about 30 different products each of which was made up of a combination of 2 formulae.
So, what was required? The LEL had to be calculated for each formula. This is done using a weighted average of the raw material LEL values. Also, the amount of primary vs. secondary plasticizers was determined.
Each product could be pulled through the oven at different speeds, and each product had different amounts of the coating formulas applied to it. The amount of coating, speed, percentages of primary vs. secondary in the coatings, and LEL of the coatings were all taken to determine the airflow required to maintain 25% of the LEL. Then, all the results were compared to determine the worst case product. That number was then checked against operational parameters to ensure that the process was being run safely.
My spreadsheet consists of many sheets, and is about a 900k excel file. There is an inventory sheet for the raw materials, formulae, and products, where general information is kept (densities, molecular weights, batch sizes, formulas used, line speeds, etc.). Each formula then had its own sheet where the LEL was calculated for the formula. Each product had its own sheet where the airflow was calculated. Then there were a few summary sheets which basically pulled in the most important bits and determined the desired airflow.
Could I have used another tool to do this? Yes. Would it have been any faster? Doubtful. While the excel approach was very difficult to QC, we worked to QC the sheets before applying it to all of the products. The formula sheets were designed so that the only user entry was the formula name and the raw material names and weights. All other information was calculated or pulled from reference tables. The product sheets were designed so only the product name had to be entered. This reduced the amount of data entry and reduced the amount of QC required. Once the formula and product sheets passed QC, they were copied and the applicable fields were changed.
So what did I use my spreadsheet for? Did I calculate numbers? Yes. Did I also list things? Yes. In fact, in its most basic form, the spreadsheet takes in a list of raw materials, formulae and products, and spits out a list of airflows required. I can imagine many other ways to do this, but cannot imagine one that would be as easy to QC (this is an engineering firm, not a programming shop), as easy to transfer between us and the client, and, well, as simple. While some of the excel formulas are 5 or 6 lines, they are not very complex. Because I used lookup tables, the code does get a little confusing to look at, but it is not very complicated.
..and in 99% of the cases the spreadsheets don't even use the SUM function.
As well they shouldn't. SUBTOTAL(9,...) is a much better function as it avoids duplication. This makes cost estimates, and QC'ing cost estimates, very easy. For each type of work (Structural, Civil, etc.), you can SUBTOTAL(9,) the values in that area. Then at the bottom, you just SUBTOTAL(9,) all the values, including the already calculated subtotals. SUBTOTAL(9,) will not double the result like a SUM() would. When I get to a Total line and see "=F15+F32+F47+F84" etc., summing all the subtotals, it makes my blood boil.
In New Jersey, it's even worse. Just a minor traffic ticket will get you a flood of mail from lawyers and lawyer referral services. And somehow, my parents still didn't realize what happened (the insurance bill hasn't arrived yet).
Completely free, since most library cards are free.
Yeah, just like walking on the sidewalk is free. If you pay taxes, you pay for the library. It simply is not free. Why Americans have this idea that just because you don't pay in person at the library that means it is free, I really don't know. I think it's where our anti-tax mantra comes from, along with our roots of "No taxation!" (modern right-wing politicians seem to have forgotten the last part of the historical exclamation). The sooner you get the idea out of your head that roads, sidewalks, sewers, parks and libraries are free, the better.
Doesn't this same thing occur every time you listen to the radio? You might say no because there are advertisers who are paying for the space, which the radio station then gives a portion to the music industry, thus paying the artist back...a pittance.
The answer to your original question is not "You might say no". It is a flat no. Record companies are compensated for songs that are played on the radio, tv, etc. Just because the record company passes very little of that on to the artist is no justification for file sharing. I'm not going to get into the record company monopoly thing. What they do to artists is wrong, but, again, is no justification.
Another example, you can go check out a book from the library for free and read it in its entirety. For free! Not a single cent goes to the author. Yet, you're still enjoying the fruits of the author's labor without paying for it.
If you live in a magic land where you pay no taxes, yes. However, books in a library are purchased from the publisher, and some of that money gets back to the author. It's not about who pays the money, it's about whether or not the money is actually being paid. With radio, tv, libraries, video rentals, etc., someone is still paying the publishers. With file sharing, no one is getting paid, except the bandwidth providers.
You don't even have to schedule a night for The Shield. They replay it many, many times over the course of the week. Many other cable channels do this, but it's something you rarely see out of the networks. The networks are starting to do it somewhat, although in a convoluted fashion. For instance, 24 used to be replayed a lot on FX last season. I haven't seen them doing it this season, though that may be because 24 hasn't been on in what feels like 3 months (although it is finally back tonight!).
No one is saying not to talk about 9/11. The issue at hand is the use of images from 9/11 in political ads. Those political ads were approved personally by George Bush in accordance with new campaign finance laws. The moveon.org ads were submitted by amateurs and were not approved by any candidate or moveon.org, and were removed from the site.
Anecdotes aside, I think the OP is correct. I worked at a Dunkin Donuts, and while there were one or two customers that were way out of line, for the most part there was nothing that we couldn't do for the customer. The fact that you only have a few examples after 'putting yourself through college' at a 7-11 shows this. If you had worked at a helpdesk, you would probably have had hundreds of tales.
Another job I worked was helpdesk/tech support for my uni's dorm networking. I really only worked there for about 8 months, and on just about any day you could go through the active tickets and come up with a gem. One I recall vividly, "User claims room does not have electricity outlets." Mind you, this isn't a networking problem, but when I called back, the user told me, "Yeah.. we.... found them.." Several times, I went all the way out to a user's place only to find out that something was unplugged (and, yes, I always asked them to check while on the phone). They were lucky that dorm support comes for free.
The solution to "Get me a large with milk and sugar" is easy and routine. The solution to "get me on the internet" isn't always easy and routine, and this is how helpdesk is different from more traditional service jobs.
US unemployment is probably about on par with EU unemployment. However, the US does not keep accurate unemployment statistics so it is impossible to verify. For example, in the US, if you are unable to find work for a period of time, and "stop looking for work", you are no longer considered unemployed. Also, the US considers "under-employed" people (people who want a full-time position but are currently working a part-time position) to be fully employed.
The way they acted on IRC, and talked about events that happened on IRC as if they happened out in the real world leads me to believe it has utterly destroyed any social skills they had before.
Why is this? It appears you assume that people act exactly the same IRL as they do on IRC. From my experience, this is mostly wrong. What is so wrong with talking about events on IRC "as if they happened out in the real world"? Are you suggesting events that transpire on IRC did not actually occur? Or that they shouldn't be discussed?
I understand that there are people that take IRC too seriously. I was a channel service admin for the Undernet for a while, and the people that we would get coming to us for help "taking their channel back" were at times so serious that they involved lawyers in the whole thing. Yes, lawsuits over IRC channels. However, just because some people take IRC that seriously does not mean all IRC users do this, nor does it mean that some people who take IRC a little more serious than others necessarily "destroy any social skills they had before [IRC]."
I recently joined a channel on IRC that I used to go to years back. To my surprise it was there. Then I realised it wasn't really surprising considering how seriously these people took IRC.
To some people, especially seasoned users of the internet, IRC is/was used like most people use IM. Most (chat) users today will sit down, dial up if needed, and then start their IM client(s). To me, and others, this includes an IRC client. Would you be surprised if you logged on a IM client in 3 years and saw the same people? Would you think they took IM too seriously? Why or why not?
Sports cheating: communicate perfectly to coach when you are not supposed to.
It's very rare to have communication illegal in a sport. The only situation I can think of where communication is illegal is in football. While in the huddle, the quarterback can recieve headset instructions from the sideline or booth. However, the headset gets shutoff when the huddle is broken. I don't think this device would help to get around the regulation, though.
Just looking at that URL reminded me of a Far Side..