Offering an extended warranty as an extra? Sure, go ahead. But refusing a sale to a customer who doesn't want the extended warranty? Then you're just begging to go out of business.
By the way, aren't there any laws about false advertising in whatever country Office Depot operates in?
No, science is supposed to be a process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. You can discard theories that don't fit hypotheses, but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.
Note that this was an observation that was impossible to reproduce. It's impossible to rule out error or coincidence, so you simply don't have enough to throw out the current theory.
Of course you're free to develop a theory that fits the observation anyway, but nobody did that. Until now, apparently. But we still need a lot more observations to be sure. A single incident is just not enough.
Managers have *a duty* to give a damn about things that may interfere with the job. Drug use is among top culprits, because users need money for drugs and may steal big.
There's rather a big difference between pot and hard drugs here. I've had Italian co workers who loved working in Amsterdam exactly because of the availlability of pot. They were excellent programmers, very profressional, highly knowledgable, and I often asked them for help on something.
Worrying about someone smoking a joint after work is like worrying about someone drinking a beer at dinner. It's not like you're hiring a junkie or anything like that.
Although depending on where you live, the legalities could matter quite a lot, of course. But even then I'd be more worried about hiring a known thief than a known pot user.
Well, how would you like to be the manager responsible for hiring someone who subsequently (...) investigated for having one single marijuana plant at home and who has blogged about the virtues of said weed for relaxation?
I don't see a problem with that, although that might be because it's socially accepted and practically legal here. Now if he'd been blogging about stealing electricity for his giant weed farm, it'd be a different matter.
In the end, though, people have a right to their own opinion, even if it's an unpopular one. You can't blame a manager for hiring someone who has unpopular ideas, as long as he's not militant about those ideas in the workplace. Also, anyone can make a mistake, so people deserve second chances. There are plenty of highly successful people who have made some pretty terrible mistakes in their lives.
The problem is that you might do some really stupid stuff when 18 in College and end up paying for it at 35.
Companies that don't hire someone for something they did 17 years ago aren't being very smart. Then again, if something from 17 years ago is the first thing an employer finds when he googles you, then it looks like you haven't done anything interesting in the last 17 years.
But you can turn this around: Get a blog. Everytime you think of something profound or you solve a technical problem, blog about it. Have your friends link to it with your real name. Now when an employer googles you, he's bound to find a blog where you say lots of smart stuff.
No sane person posts that sort of stuff under their own name, unless they want it to be known.
If a prospective employer were to google for my name, he'd find dozens of other people with the same name, and maybe some posts from me on programming-related mailinglists. Nothing I should be worried about.
Do any of you guys reading or posting on Slashdot ever think to yourselves that you might be, in broad intellectual terms, at or below average? Like me, you enjoy tinkering with computer hardware or software, and like me, you may have one or more good academic qualifications. Like me, you probably can quote some self-aggrandizing metric which claims to prove your intelligence. But do you actually think, in the scheme of things, that you're all that great?
No, ofcourse not. Intelligent people know that IQ only really measures your ability to solve the kind of problems featured in IQ tests, and that intelligence in general isn't as valuable as simply hard work, nor as important for success as ruthlessness.
It does mean we're pretty smart, though. It's all some of us have, so please don't take that away from us too.
You see, Xboxlive is a gaming service, it's not a sexual orientation advertising service.
So you mean Microsoft should make it more clear that you're only allowed to put game-related info in your profile? Anything else is clearly irrelevant for a gaming service.
If I understand correctly, this field in your profile is labeled: "tell something about yourself", which sounds like an invitation for background info that's not necessarily relevant to gaming. If that's not what Microsoft intended, then they should be more clear about it.
Is this a general trend, where lesbians are more likely to be interested in technology than the average girl, or perhaps a girl who is interested in technology more likely to be a lesbian than average?
No idea, but I do know a lesbian transsexual who has automated her home to the point that she can open her front door through a webpage.
I don't really think that she should be advertising on her gamer profile that she's a lesbian, but I don't exactly make a secret of my sexuality when I'm playing WoW, either. If I get hit on, I politely decline and explain that I like girls. *shrugs*
Also... do you have any idea how often girls get hit on by horny retards in games?
So, wouldn't it make sense for MS to ban sexual harrassment? And by that I mean actually banning anyone who behaves like a horny retard.
I think that should solve most of the problems here.
That's the real reason, I think. They only allow words like "gay" to be used in an offensive way (namecalling), and people identifying themselves as gay voluntarily undermined that well-accepted use of the word.
If they called someone else gay in their profile, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.
That is an RTS and a completely different market. Not to be insulting but comparing a RTS to a FPS is like comparing the latest Wario to CoD. I am someone who LOVES RTS games, and until EA turned into giant bastards I bought every C&C the second it came out. But with a good RTS you have SO many different things to keep up with and plan that really strong AI would make those games TOO tough.
I'm not talking about RTS (which, as you say, are more about speed than strategy), but about real strategy games: turn based. Time to actually think about strategy, and all that. In most turn-based strategy games, the AI takes no time to think while the player does, which puts the AI at a severe disadvantage. In Galactic civilizations, the AI does take time to think and is not entirely stupid, and that makes a huge difference.
It's still pretty easy to beat, though.
And all we are asking for here is bad guys in a FPS that aren't total fucking morons. Because when "the elite commandos trained in the art of war" sent to kill you don't even notice the huge pile of bodies of their comrades in front of them and don't have the slightest clue it might be a trap? Kinda blows the suspension of disbelief, at least for me.
And even that problem isn't all that hard to solve. I once played this really cute Robin Hood game (isometric, not FPS), where you could sneak around, knock out guards, kill them or tie them up, and trying to avoid being noticed by other guards. When a guard thought he saw something, he'd come over to investigate. If he saw you, he'd run to his commander and raise the alarm, after which everbody would start looking for you. When a guard found a knocked out guard, he'd wake him up (though usually not raise the alarm), but if he found bodies, he'd definitely would.
It was really simple and cartoonish, but at the same time extremely clever. Use those simple mechanisms in a FPS or RPG, and everybody would be blown away by the intelligence of the AI.
I was being scapegoated at one job, and brought in a recorder for my exit interview - and when I asked them to state the reason for their action, the HR guy reached over and turned off my recorder, and when I turned it back on, he said that he would not say anything further while being recorded.
Let him turn it off, but have the real recorder hidden in a pocket.
Isn't there an iPhone app that acts as a simple recorder? Sounds well within its capabilities.
That's why you should keep in touch with your contacts through non-corporate channels. Never leave a company without having traded personal email addresses and cell numbers with colleagues you got along with.
Oh, please. That old argument is crap. Let me show how easy it would be to sell AI.
"Tired of the same old stupid enemies that run straight at you every time? (snip)
See how easy that was? Guys playing games WANT a good fight.
Well, there are games that are marketed for their good AI. Galactic Civilizations is an example that always crop up, and although the AI is far from brilliant, it's still far better than that of any other strategy game, and it's good enough that a lot of players complain that it's too good, and Brad Wardell dumbed down the AI.
The problem is: most people don't want good AI. Most people want to win, and they don't like it when they get beaten by mediocre AI, because then they have to admit that they're crap.
There was actually also a WW2 FPS that was rumoured to have pretty good AI, where if you stayed put, the enemy would outflank you. (I've considered buying it, but I'm not an FPS player, and I forgot which game that was.)
The problem is that the standard of game AI is so low, that even mediocre AI can be advertised as "Great AI!". Because it is, in comparison to all the other crap out there.
I've read a theory that Plato's description of Atlantis is based on memories of the Minoans. The description fits, except for the location (Crete is in the Mediterranean, while Plato thought Atlantis was in the Atlantic.)
The date is also off by a factor 10. Even so, I agree that this is the most likely origin of the myth.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the margins on electronics, and in particular notebooks, are so low
Then maybe they should increase those margins. Drawing customers with low prices and then charging them much higher prices is (or should be) illegal.
Offering an extended warranty as an extra? Sure, go ahead. But refusing a sale to a customer who doesn't want the extended warranty? Then you're just begging to go out of business.
By the way, aren't there any laws about false advertising in whatever country Office Depot operates in?
They rued this day, and rued it hard.
No, science is supposed to be a process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. You can discard theories that don't fit hypotheses, but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.
Note that this was an observation that was impossible to reproduce. It's impossible to rule out error or coincidence, so you simply don't have enough to throw out the current theory.
Of course you're free to develop a theory that fits the observation anyway, but nobody did that. Until now, apparently. But we still need a lot more observations to be sure. A single incident is just not enough.
Managers have *a duty* to give a damn about things that may interfere with the job. Drug use is among top culprits, because users need money for drugs and may steal big.
There's rather a big difference between pot and hard drugs here. I've had Italian co workers who loved working in Amsterdam exactly because of the availlability of pot. They were excellent programmers, very profressional, highly knowledgable, and I often asked them for help on something.
Worrying about someone smoking a joint after work is like worrying about someone drinking a beer at dinner. It's not like you're hiring a junkie or anything like that.
Although depending on where you live, the legalities could matter quite a lot, of course. But even then I'd be more worried about hiring a known thief than a known pot user.
Well, how would you like to be the manager responsible for hiring someone who subsequently (...) investigated for having one single marijuana plant at home and who has blogged about the virtues of said weed for relaxation?
I don't see a problem with that, although that might be because it's socially accepted and practically legal here. Now if he'd been blogging about stealing electricity for his giant weed farm, it'd be a different matter.
In the end, though, people have a right to their own opinion, even if it's an unpopular one. You can't blame a manager for hiring someone who has unpopular ideas, as long as he's not militant about those ideas in the workplace. Also, anyone can make a mistake, so people deserve second chances. There are plenty of highly successful people who have made some pretty terrible mistakes in their lives.
The problem is that you might do some really stupid stuff when 18 in College and end up paying for it at 35.
Companies that don't hire someone for something they did 17 years ago aren't being very smart. Then again, if something from 17 years ago is the first thing an employer finds when he googles you, then it looks like you haven't done anything interesting in the last 17 years.
But you can turn this around: Get a blog. Everytime you think of something profound or you solve a technical problem, blog about it. Have your friends link to it with your real name. Now when an employer googles you, he's bound to find a blog where you say lots of smart stuff.
No sane person posts that sort of stuff under their own name, unless they want it to be known.
If a prospective employer were to google for my name, he'd find dozens of other people with the same name, and maybe some posts from me on programming-related mailinglists. Nothing I should be worried about.
But what about the information other people have put out about me?
If you don't want them publishing it, ask them not to. Politely or by Cease & Desist, depending on your relationship.
He mostly goes on about how stupid some of his non-customers are, and my impression is he's in a pretty good position to judge that.
Hell some of the early popes had mistresses.
According to the bible apostles, including Peter (Cephas) who the Catholics count as the first pope, were married.
The Catholic celibate (like most oddities of Roman Catholic dogma) stems from the middle ages. It was probably to prevent papal dynasties.
Do any of you guys reading or posting on Slashdot ever think to yourselves that you might be, in broad intellectual terms, at or below average? Like me, you enjoy tinkering with computer hardware or software, and like me, you may have one or more good academic qualifications. Like me, you probably can quote some self-aggrandizing metric which claims to prove your intelligence. But do you actually think, in the scheme of things, that you're all that great?
No, ofcourse not. Intelligent people know that IQ only really measures your ability to solve the kind of problems featured in IQ tests, and that intelligence in general isn't as valuable as simply hard work, nor as important for success as ruthlessness.
It does mean we're pretty smart, though. It's all some of us have, so please don't take that away from us too.
You see, Xboxlive is a gaming service, it's not a sexual orientation advertising service.
So you mean Microsoft should make it more clear that you're only allowed to put game-related info in your profile? Anything else is clearly irrelevant for a gaming service.
If I understand correctly, this field in your profile is labeled: "tell something about yourself", which sounds like an invitation for background info that's not necessarily relevant to gaming. If that's not what Microsoft intended, then they should be more clear about it.
Is this a general trend, where lesbians are more likely to be interested in technology than the average girl, or perhaps a girl who is interested in technology more likely to be a lesbian than average?
No idea, but I do know a lesbian transsexual who has automated her home to the point that she can open her front door through a webpage.
I don't really think that she should be advertising on her gamer profile that she's a lesbian, but I don't exactly make a secret of my sexuality when I'm playing WoW, either. If I get hit on, I politely decline and explain that I like girls. *shrugs*
Also... do you have any idea how often girls get hit on by horny retards in games?
So, wouldn't it make sense for MS to ban sexual harrassment? And by that I mean actually banning anyone who behaves like a horny retard.
I think that should solve most of the problems here.
That's the real reason, I think. They only allow words like "gay" to be used in an offensive way (namecalling), and people identifying themselves as gay voluntarily undermined that well-accepted use of the word.
If they called someone else gay in their profile, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.
That is an RTS and a completely different market. Not to be insulting but comparing a RTS to a FPS is like comparing the latest Wario to CoD. I am someone who LOVES RTS games, and until EA turned into giant bastards I bought every C&C the second it came out. But with a good RTS you have SO many different things to keep up with and plan that really strong AI would make those games TOO tough.
I'm not talking about RTS (which, as you say, are more about speed than strategy), but about real strategy games: turn based. Time to actually think about strategy, and all that. In most turn-based strategy games, the AI takes no time to think while the player does, which puts the AI at a severe disadvantage. In Galactic civilizations, the AI does take time to think and is not entirely stupid, and that makes a huge difference.
It's still pretty easy to beat, though.
And all we are asking for here is bad guys in a FPS that aren't total fucking morons. Because when "the elite commandos trained in the art of war" sent to kill you don't even notice the huge pile of bodies of their comrades in front of them and don't have the slightest clue it might be a trap? Kinda blows the suspension of disbelief, at least for me.
And even that problem isn't all that hard to solve. I once played this really cute Robin Hood game (isometric, not FPS), where you could sneak around, knock out guards, kill them or tie them up, and trying to avoid being noticed by other guards. When a guard thought he saw something, he'd come over to investigate. If he saw you, he'd run to his commander and raise the alarm, after which everbody would start looking for you. When a guard found a knocked out guard, he'd wake him up (though usually not raise the alarm), but if he found bodies, he'd definitely would.
It was really simple and cartoonish, but at the same time extremely clever. Use those simple mechanisms in a FPS or RPG, and everybody would be blown away by the intelligence of the AI.
I was being scapegoated at one job, and brought in a recorder for my exit interview - and when I asked them to state the reason for their action, the HR guy reached over and turned off my recorder, and when I turned it back on, he said that he would not say anything further while being recorded.
Let him turn it off, but have the real recorder hidden in a pocket.
Isn't there an iPhone app that acts as a simple recorder? Sounds well within its capabilities.
That's why you should keep in touch with your contacts through non-corporate channels. Never leave a company without having traded personal email addresses and cell numbers with colleagues you got along with.
You've got social networking sites for that now.
If they insist, take back the inch. Give them two weeks notice.
Oh, please. That old argument is crap. Let me show how easy it would be to sell AI.
"Tired of the same old stupid enemies that run straight at you every time? (snip)
See how easy that was? Guys playing games WANT a good fight.
Well, there are games that are marketed for their good AI. Galactic Civilizations is an example that always crop up, and although the AI is far from brilliant, it's still far better than that of any other strategy game, and it's good enough that a lot of players complain that it's too good, and Brad Wardell dumbed down the AI.
The problem is: most people don't want good AI. Most people want to win, and they don't like it when they get beaten by mediocre AI, because then they have to admit that they're crap.
There was actually also a WW2 FPS that was rumoured to have pretty good AI, where if you stayed put, the enemy would outflank you. (I've considered buying it, but I'm not an FPS player, and I forgot which game that was.)
The problem is that the standard of game AI is so low, that even mediocre AI can be advertised as "Great AI!". Because it is, in comparison to all the other crap out there.
How about AI that doesn't suck?
Doesn't show in screenshots and expensive advertisements.
They got around, those Atlanteans.
I've read a theory that Plato's description of Atlantis is based on memories of the Minoans. The description fits, except for the location (Crete is in the Mediterranean, while Plato thought Atlantis was in the Atlantic.)
The date is also off by a factor 10. Even so, I agree that this is the most likely origin of the myth.
Nowadays I read my PDFs with Preview.