Well, if you were wrong, then you argue with the other group of people about how THEY are trouts of epic proportion.
The whole point is that you don't give up your belief unless you are proven wrong. If another group comes along with a contrary viewpoint, take it into consideration. If it holds merit, try to find a happy medium that works with both camps. If you can find it, problem solved. If not, you can easily admit "yes, this isn't for you" to the new camp and leave the first group happy, or you can switch groups and which you're catering to. As long as you state who you're catering to, you shouldn't have problems.
The only times people get pissy is when you cater to one group but say it should be good enough for everybody (Gnome's UI paradigm seems to fit this perfectly). If they're developing for idiots, only idiots will want to use it. It's as simple as that.
It's not what she says, it's the actual training materials she brought home with her that I read. Whether it makes sense to you - even from a business standpoint - I'm telling you the way it is.
This company is somewhat different from other companies. Their customer service reps are not gauged by how many calls they take, but rather how often they are on the phone. In effect, their time spent on the phone is "safe time" - all the metrics system logs is that a call is being completed. It is the time spent between calls (if there is a queue), whether on bathroom breaks or in "order wrap-up" that they get measured on. One of the slides put in the manual on customer service stated "Customer Satisfaction is extremely important to our company. - It is not important to rush your calls. - If a customer strikes up an idle conversation, engage with them. - The primary goal is happy customers - Ex: If a customer brings up her Sharpeis, talk with her about them! Forming a one on one bond promotes our company image and is the most effective way for customer retention!"
So that's how her company is run. They have major problems (they're growing entirely too fast and don't have the resources or management of resources in place to handle it), and for my fiancee, her hours completely suck, but as a company, they are a good one to be customers of (at least for me). They have essentially achieved that blissful utility status that electric companies and gas companies have achieved: completely unobtrusive, I never have to call them unless I'm moving, and the bill is (was) reasonable.
I can't speak for all Cable companies, but my fiancee works for the local one (which is super sweet for us, since pretty much all of our cable needs are free), and unless you're running your own business, you don't need a business connection. They specifically state (and train their employees) that using a personal connection to VPN in to their work place, even if it uses an obscene amount of bandwidth, is completely acceptable.
Of course, this is a company that also only offers us 3mbps/384kbps connections at most. At the same time, we are allowed to use them, in their entirety, for the entire month. No bandwidth caps. No throttling. No prioritization. Your pipe, as fast as they can give it to you. They didn't bump up their numbers without upgrading their capacity, and so while it sucks when I compare it to some of the comcast connections seemingly available, the fact that I get every last smidgen of it is worth it to me, even if I had to pay for it again.
Then shouldn't the people who use 10 or 15 a year pay considerably less than they are now?
After all, the only reason pricing is at this point is because they reasoned that the people using the service at only 5% capacity would effectively subsidized the others who use it at 100% capacity.
If you're now making those who would use it at 100% capacity pay more for service, shouldn't those who are only using a fraction of the network capacity get a major discount to their connectivity?
In my experience, a company who is not organized attempting to become ISO certification just slathers a lot of lipstick on a pig, and it's also my experience that the ISO auditors fall for it every damned time.
As an engineer who has to pay lip service to a few ISO standards, but is given no resources to actually fulfill the spirit of the processes, it's all a bunch of bullshit.
(CMMI is even worse - that takes a ton more effort and I've yet to see a company really do it correctly. I'm sure some of them have to exist, but most either document every nanosecond of work (and can't use it in any meaningful way) or don't document anything but still try to get through their audit with a level 3 or 4 and then stop doing it again for another 2 years until they need recertified. Christ I need a new job.)
I never said they couldn't be punished, but there's a huge difference between being in a juvenile facility until their 18th or 21st birthday, and being sentenced to life in prison.
I don't know why it is I only get mod points on weekends. It seems like all the good comments (such as yours) are only made whenever I don't have a modpoint to spare. I usually have to end up rating things as +5 LOL(cat) just to get rid of them.
Oh hush, it isn't that bad. Protective services barely does jack shit about stuff like that. It took my mother literally beating my brother until they had to call and ambulance (broken ribs, broken jaw, all because he, at age 10, argued with her about having to drive her home from the bar because she was too drunk).
Until then, the bruises didn't count for shit, and what's more, she was never charged with anything. And it wasn't until she failed her drug test that the court grudgingly gave my father sole custody, even though he had been fighting for it for years.
If anything, Child Services doesn't do a fucking thing until things get ridiculously bad, so stop yelling about the sky falling.
The problem is we spend so much time in our schools telling our kids that our rights are absolute and unalienable, and then we go around and put limitations and boundaries on them.
In my opinion, a right is not a right if it has boundaries and exceptions. It's nothing special at all, then.
But I'm okay with that. I can accept that I can't yell fire in a crowded theatre, claim someone is a sexual predator, etc. Quite simply, it's essential in the real world.
However, I object to these laws are termed "unalienable rights" when they are clearly not. There are times when they apply, and times when they don't, and while it may be self-evident to all but the most idealistic that this is necessary, make "Rights" (capital R) into something less; "rights" (lower-case R).
But that's okay, too. It is what it is and there is no use getting fired up about it. Just stop acting like our rights make us the greatest country in teh univarse!!11oneone and I'll be happy. Otherwise you're just bullshitting on an epic level.
As soon as we started prosecuting minors as adults, this entire concept got chucked out the window (in my mind). If a child isn't old enough to make a decision concerning sex, alcohol, voting, staying in school, etc, then they aren't old enough to know the ramifications of breaking and entering and murdering someone when they get found out.
Either they can consciously make such a decision knowing the far reaching effects of their actions, or they can't. You can't fucking have it both ways.
It's not moving fast because there is, as of yet, no real need for it.
It's not as if we're down to our last can of IP addresses and after that, the entire world is going to collapse on us.
Necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, we projected that at one point necessity would dictate we need more IP addresses. So we invented. But that doesn't mean we need them yet.
When that time comes, it'll happen. It's good that we planned in advance and started putting the pieces in place. But until we really need it, calm the fuck down and relax. It'll happen when it happens and there's no need to be all doom and gloom about it.
It's funny how most parents spend a considerable amount of time telling their kids "it doesn't matter what other people think" when it comes to things like peer pressure or social interaction, and then we go right back around and tell them it's important what other people think and your life is ruined if you make a fool out of yourself, whether on the street or online.
It's either one or the other, people. Either it doesn't matter what people think, and you can wear a toga when you're sweeping your lawn with a vacuum cleaner, or it matters what people think and you should be devastated that Kristen thinks you're a retard because you won't spend 150$ on a pair of jeans.
Or maybe, just maybe, parents should be telling their kids the truth: "it always matters what important people think, but determining importance is an exercise in good judgment. Since you're a teenager, your judgment sucks, so I'll decide for you who should be important to you."
I'm sure this wouldn't come over so well stated precisely like that, but I'm sure someone could come up with a better way of saying it.
I've gotten to that point already as well, but I've also maintained the "I have to turn it off" part as well.
If I don't, even if I don't hear it, I feel antsy, like I left something cooking on the stove too long.
I also always check my turn signal even if it *should* have clicked off by itself. I just give it a feel and let it go.
It's not even a conscious effort on my part.
Hopefully this is something I can maintain into my older years.
Also, hopefully, we'll have cars that navigate themselves by the time I'm too old to drive. Or maybe tricycle mopeds for old timers so I can just menace the bikers on the bike paths instead of the other drivers on the road.
I've found that elderly drivers in a city area are much better than those in a suburban or rural area. I've also found that younger drivers in a city area are mind bogglingly more of a problem than those in a suburban or rural area (though all tend to suffer from speeditis).
Elderly drivers either keep their turn signals on for miles at a time or not use them at all. I've yet to see an elderly driver concern themselves with checking their blindspots before merging. They also tend to stop in the middle of intersections when making a left hand turn. This causes problems because the people-behind-them's anticipation is that they'll continue moving, and thus they will also be able to make the turn in ample time and safety. But when the car in front of them comes to a complete stop then moves forward at approximately 5 miles per hour, it then leaves the car behind them in the unfortunate position of being tboned, zipping along behind them, or ramming the car in front to get out of the way (or, more likely, just barely making it successfully).
Now, you could argue that you should never assume the car in front of you is going to follow the projected course with the projected speed. But when 99% of the cars on the road DO follow the rule of thumb of "when making a turn, do it as quickly as one can safely manage", then when you get surprised by the 1% who follow the "I'll do whatever I damn well please because I'm old and too afraid to take a standard, no-nonsense, no complications turn at any more than 10 miles an hour", then they *are* a problem.
I can handle the teenager zipping past me at 95, flying from lane to lane.
I can't handle cars that just stop in the middle of the road for no reason or merge directly into your car because they didn't even BOTHER to look in their mirror, much less out their side window.
Actually, in some city areas there are ramps to the left, but they're relatively few and far between. And usually, they're not just ramps to the left, but the road actually splitting.
Well, in PA, you'd never be where you needed to be for good reason. Ramps are *only* on the right hand side of the road, and "driving" on the left while not engaged in a passing manuever is also illegal.
I know some states are different, and everytime I'm in MD it blows my mind when a ramp shoots off to the left. So if he's coming from a state like PA, you genuinely never will have an excuse to be driving on the left hand side of the road. It's a passing lane and only a passing lane, and if you're not engaged in passing, you are breaking the law:)
Yes, actually. I have some fantastic friends who work there.
Not everyone who works at Microsoft is a cocksucker, you know. Sure, once you get higher up in the food chain, they kind of morph into tremendous dbags, but so far in my life, I've found that's true with every manager, everywhere.
I'm thinking he's saying "stop trying to protect the idiots who can't take responsibility for their own actions by fucking reading what it says on the fucking screen".
It's pretty simple, really. If people fail at reading comprehension or are too lazy to bother with it, then they fucking deserve everything they get.
I find it exceptionally hard to maintain chaotic neutral in my day to day work. Every time I hold the door open for someone, I have to shut it in someone else's face. That act itself is one of "evil", meant to offset the "good".
Google must not do much of *anything* if they're going to maintain chaotic neutral for any meaningful period of time.
Especially if they make the mistake of being good from time to time:O
If your theory is that the earth is flat, and I provide evidence to the contrary and then submit the hypothesis that the earth is, in fact, shaped like a torus, that does not mean that my hypothesis has any more validity than it did 20 seconds before I submitted evidence to the contrary to your theory. My hypothesis is just as crap as yours.
In this case, we're talking about "here is a tested hypothesis that is true in most cases but has a few holes here and there", vs. "here is something we just came up with because we so DESPERATELY want to believe we weren't the result of billions of years of trial and error, and that god REALLY does love us, so very, very much".
(I know, some people just want to posit the idea that some creature somewhere out yonder created some spores that got pulled into Earth's atmosphere and life started that way - that's fine. I can deal with that. But it still dodges the question of how that other life form was created. Somewhere out there, some shit went down, and I'd much rather entertain hypothesis that are able to be tested and verified than some bright shiny bobbles and jangly keys, thanks.)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if you were wrong, then you argue with the other group of people about how THEY are trouts of epic proportion.
The whole point is that you don't give up your belief unless you are proven wrong. If another group comes along with a contrary viewpoint, take it into consideration. If it holds merit, try to find a happy medium that works with both camps. If you can find it, problem solved. If not, you can easily admit "yes, this isn't for you" to the new camp and leave the first group happy, or you can switch groups and which you're catering to. As long as you state who you're catering to, you shouldn't have problems.
The only times people get pissy is when you cater to one group but say it should be good enough for everybody (Gnome's UI paradigm seems to fit this perfectly). If they're developing for idiots, only idiots will want to use it. It's as simple as that.
It's not what she says, it's the actual training materials she brought home with her that I read. Whether it makes sense to you - even from a business standpoint - I'm telling you the way it is.
This company is somewhat different from other companies. Their customer service reps are not gauged by how many calls they take, but rather how often they are on the phone. In effect, their time spent on the phone is "safe time" - all the metrics system logs is that a call is being completed. It is the time spent between calls (if there is a queue), whether on bathroom breaks or in "order wrap-up" that they get measured on. One of the slides put in the manual on customer service stated "Customer Satisfaction is extremely important to our company. - It is not important to rush your calls. - If a customer strikes up an idle conversation, engage with them. - The primary goal is happy customers - Ex: If a customer brings up her Sharpeis, talk with her about them! Forming a one on one bond promotes our company image and is the most effective way for customer retention!"
So that's how her company is run. They have major problems (they're growing entirely too fast and don't have the resources or management of resources in place to handle it), and for my fiancee, her hours completely suck, but as a company, they are a good one to be customers of (at least for me). They have essentially achieved that blissful utility status that electric companies and gas companies have achieved: completely unobtrusive, I never have to call them unless I'm moving, and the bill is (was) reasonable.
"Only trust those who are 25i" - Imaginary 25 year olds
It's funny 'cos he's insane!
No, and you're not expected to.
I can't speak for all Cable companies, but my fiancee works for the local one (which is super sweet for us, since pretty much all of our cable needs are free), and unless you're running your own business, you don't need a business connection. They specifically state (and train their employees) that using a personal connection to VPN in to their work place, even if it uses an obscene amount of bandwidth, is completely acceptable.
Of course, this is a company that also only offers us 3mbps/384kbps connections at most. At the same time, we are allowed to use them, in their entirety, for the entire month. No bandwidth caps. No throttling. No prioritization. Your pipe, as fast as they can give it to you. They didn't bump up their numbers without upgrading their capacity, and so while it sucks when I compare it to some of the comcast connections seemingly available, the fact that I get every last smidgen of it is worth it to me, even if I had to pay for it again.
Then shouldn't the people who use 10 or 15 a year pay considerably less than they are now?
After all, the only reason pricing is at this point is because they reasoned that the people using the service at only 5% capacity would effectively subsidized the others who use it at 100% capacity.
If you're now making those who would use it at 100% capacity pay more for service, shouldn't those who are only using a fraction of the network capacity get a major discount to their connectivity?
I don't know, but I'm thirsty
Only on the surface.
In my experience, a company who is not organized attempting to become ISO certification just slathers a lot of lipstick on a pig, and it's also my experience that the ISO auditors fall for it every damned time.
As an engineer who has to pay lip service to a few ISO standards, but is given no resources to actually fulfill the spirit of the processes, it's all a bunch of bullshit.
(CMMI is even worse - that takes a ton more effort and I've yet to see a company really do it correctly. I'm sure some of them have to exist, but most either document every nanosecond of work (and can't use it in any meaningful way) or don't document anything but still try to get through their audit with a level 3 or 4 and then stop doing it again for another 2 years until they need recertified. Christ I need a new job.)
I never said they couldn't be punished, but there's a huge difference between being in a juvenile facility until their 18th or 21st birthday, and being sentenced to life in prison.
I don't know why it is I only get mod points on weekends. It seems like all the good comments (such as yours) are only made whenever I don't have a modpoint to spare. I usually have to end up rating things as +5 LOL(cat) just to get rid of them.
Oh hush, it isn't that bad. Protective services barely does jack shit about stuff like that. It took my mother literally beating my brother until they had to call and ambulance (broken ribs, broken jaw, all because he, at age 10, argued with her about having to drive her home from the bar because she was too drunk).
Until then, the bruises didn't count for shit, and what's more, she was never charged with anything. And it wasn't until she failed her drug test that the court grudgingly gave my father sole custody, even though he had been fighting for it for years.
If anything, Child Services doesn't do a fucking thing until things get ridiculously bad, so stop yelling about the sky falling.
The problem is we spend so much time in our schools telling our kids that our rights are absolute and unalienable, and then we go around and put limitations and boundaries on them.
In my opinion, a right is not a right if it has boundaries and exceptions. It's nothing special at all, then.
But I'm okay with that. I can accept that I can't yell fire in a crowded theatre, claim someone is a sexual predator, etc. Quite simply, it's essential in the real world.
However, I object to these laws are termed "unalienable rights" when they are clearly not. There are times when they apply, and times when they don't, and while it may be self-evident to all but the most idealistic that this is necessary, make "Rights" (capital R) into something less; "rights" (lower-case R).
But that's okay, too. It is what it is and there is no use getting fired up about it. Just stop acting like our rights make us the greatest country in teh univarse!!11oneone and I'll be happy. Otherwise you're just bullshitting on an epic level.
As soon as we started prosecuting minors as adults, this entire concept got chucked out the window (in my mind). If a child isn't old enough to make a decision concerning sex, alcohol, voting, staying in school, etc, then they aren't old enough to know the ramifications of breaking and entering and murdering someone when they get found out.
Either they can consciously make such a decision knowing the far reaching effects of their actions, or they can't. You can't fucking have it both ways.
It's not moving fast because there is, as of yet, no real need for it.
It's not as if we're down to our last can of IP addresses and after that, the entire world is going to collapse on us.
Necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, we projected that at one point necessity would dictate we need more IP addresses. So we invented. But that doesn't mean we need them yet.
When that time comes, it'll happen. It's good that we planned in advance and started putting the pieces in place. But until we really need it, calm the fuck down and relax. It'll happen when it happens and there's no need to be all doom and gloom about it.
It's funny how most parents spend a considerable amount of time telling their kids "it doesn't matter what other people think" when it comes to things like peer pressure or social interaction, and then we go right back around and tell them it's important what other people think and your life is ruined if you make a fool out of yourself, whether on the street or online.
It's either one or the other, people. Either it doesn't matter what people think, and you can wear a toga when you're sweeping your lawn with a vacuum cleaner, or it matters what people think and you should be devastated that Kristen thinks you're a retard because you won't spend 150$ on a pair of jeans.
Or maybe, just maybe, parents should be telling their kids the truth: "it always matters what important people think, but determining importance is an exercise in good judgment. Since you're a teenager, your judgment sucks, so I'll decide for you who should be important to you."
I'm sure this wouldn't come over so well stated precisely like that, but I'm sure someone could come up with a better way of saying it.
I've gotten to that point already as well, but I've also maintained the "I have to turn it off" part as well.
If I don't, even if I don't hear it, I feel antsy, like I left something cooking on the stove too long.
I also always check my turn signal even if it *should* have clicked off by itself. I just give it a feel and let it go.
It's not even a conscious effort on my part.
Hopefully this is something I can maintain into my older years.
Also, hopefully, we'll have cars that navigate themselves by the time I'm too old to drive. Or maybe tricycle mopeds for old timers so I can just menace the bikers on the bike paths instead of the other drivers on the road.
I've found that elderly drivers in a city area are much better than those in a suburban or rural area. I've also found that younger drivers in a city area are mind bogglingly more of a problem than those in a suburban or rural area (though all tend to suffer from speeditis).
Elderly drivers either keep their turn signals on for miles at a time or not use them at all. I've yet to see an elderly driver concern themselves with checking their blindspots before merging. They also tend to stop in the middle of intersections when making a left hand turn. This causes problems because the people-behind-them's anticipation is that they'll continue moving, and thus they will also be able to make the turn in ample time and safety. But when the car in front of them comes to a complete stop then moves forward at approximately 5 miles per hour, it then leaves the car behind them in the unfortunate position of being tboned, zipping along behind them, or ramming the car in front to get out of the way (or, more likely, just barely making it successfully).
Now, you could argue that you should never assume the car in front of you is going to follow the projected course with the projected speed. But when 99% of the cars on the road DO follow the rule of thumb of "when making a turn, do it as quickly as one can safely manage", then when you get surprised by the 1% who follow the "I'll do whatever I damn well please because I'm old and too afraid to take a standard, no-nonsense, no complications turn at any more than 10 miles an hour", then they *are* a problem.
I can handle the teenager zipping past me at 95, flying from lane to lane.
I can't handle cars that just stop in the middle of the road for no reason or merge directly into your car because they didn't even BOTHER to look in their mirror, much less out their side window.
Actually, in some city areas there are ramps to the left, but they're relatively few and far between. And usually, they're not just ramps to the left, but the road actually splitting.
Well, in PA, you'd never be where you needed to be for good reason. Ramps are *only* on the right hand side of the road, and "driving" on the left while not engaged in a passing manuever is also illegal.
I know some states are different, and everytime I'm in MD it blows my mind when a ramp shoots off to the left. So if he's coming from a state like PA, you genuinely never will have an excuse to be driving on the left hand side of the road. It's a passing lane and only a passing lane, and if you're not engaged in passing, you are breaking the law :)
Yes, actually. I have some fantastic friends who work there.
Not everyone who works at Microsoft is a cocksucker, you know. Sure, once you get higher up in the food chain, they kind of morph into tremendous dbags, but so far in my life, I've found that's true with every manager, everywhere.
SuperProTip: Instead of searching, looking at Bungie, etc, just read this comic on how to best teabag: http://www.joeandmonkey.com/74
I'm thinking he's saying "stop trying to protect the idiots who can't take responsibility for their own actions by fucking reading what it says on the fucking screen".
It's pretty simple, really. If people fail at reading comprehension or are too lazy to bother with it, then they fucking deserve everything they get.
I find it exceptionally hard to maintain chaotic neutral in my day to day work. Every time I hold the door open for someone, I have to shut it in someone else's face. That act itself is one of "evil", meant to offset the "good".
Google must not do much of *anything* if they're going to maintain chaotic neutral for any meaningful period of time.
Especially if they make the mistake of being good from time to time :O
Dude, they're already trying Ubuntu. They already had to get over the fact that Ubuntu is a different word than Windows.
I'm sure they can fucking deal with IceWeasel.
That's patently absurd.
If your theory is that the earth is flat, and I provide evidence to the contrary and then submit the hypothesis that the earth is, in fact, shaped like a torus, that does not mean that my hypothesis has any more validity than it did 20 seconds before I submitted evidence to the contrary to your theory. My hypothesis is just as crap as yours.
In this case, we're talking about "here is a tested hypothesis that is true in most cases but has a few holes here and there", vs. "here is something we just came up with because we so DESPERATELY want to believe we weren't the result of billions of years of trial and error, and that god REALLY does love us, so very, very much".
(I know, some people just want to posit the idea that some creature somewhere out yonder created some spores that got pulled into Earth's atmosphere and life started that way - that's fine. I can deal with that. But it still dodges the question of how that other life form was created. Somewhere out there, some shit went down, and I'd much rather entertain hypothesis that are able to be tested and verified than some bright shiny bobbles and jangly keys, thanks.)