Yes, some of those guys were pretty bad techs. But this reporting was horrid. "This repair should cost 60 dollars" my ass. A skilled tech will run you 40/hr minimum often 60/hr, that's "friendly free lance" prices. When I would do house calls, the clock starts when I start heading that way with a minimum of 1 hr. So even at friendly prices your looking at 40 not counting parts. If you think these kind of hourly rates are too expensive, then please compare to any other skilled labor. Try calling your local mechanic and see what he wants for a house call. Still sure it should be cheaper so you go out and find someone for 1/2 the price....you get what you pay for.
I'd also note that I've often recommended customers just buy a new computer for anything over the most trivial repair. Why? Because they paid like $200 for it with rebates and discounts and the thing is several years old. In other words, it's worth is somewhere near zero Take the deleted file, that's not a problem...that's a symptom of a problem. Files don't just disappear. If someone came up to me and asked "what's wrong with my computer", I'd have to say I wasn't sure at this point. I need to run some diagnostics and then a virus scanner. All of that takes time and costs money, in fact it could cost more then a new pc would depending on what the problem is. Say you discover a bad hard disk...so after the initial cost of diagnosis, now you have a hard disk and installation costs on top of it. Simply replacing the file and sending the customer on their way would be equivalent to a mechanic simply replacing some burnt out wires he found without attempting to figure out *why* they burnt out. That might cut it for your local, salaried, work study employed university help desk "tech expert" job, but anywhere else it's just downright unprofessional.
What's more shady? Charging some poor old lady 100's of dollars to fix a piece of hardware that is worth nothing or informing her of her choices, the possibility of repair cost exceeding value, and that an e-machine that's 10x faster then the 3 year old one they need repaired for a small cost over what the repair would be.
And finally, anyone who comes in with a 4-5 yr/old computer that needs repair I recommend replacement before I even look at it. Why? Because anyone familiar with hardware MTTF trends knows that parts just start failing around then. Any honest mechanic would do the same thing if they saw a vehicle with a few hundred thousand miles on it...especially if the customer could get a new one for a marginal increase over the repair.
Conspiracy theories are always entertaining. Though I don't think there was any sort of committee meeting where they laid out their nefarious plans for world domination, Microsoft does have a pretty damned bad track record when it comes to "good faith".
I find it much more likely that some of the reasons you laid out, or others equally benign, precipitated this move. I also find it completely within the realm of possibility that it may be mis-used in the future. With their past as a reference, I try to stay away from the companies products. Not because I think they all suck (some do, some don't). But because their an abusive company with a knack for abusing their monopoly status to stifle competition using any means possible. Illegal, unethical, and just down right under handed (*cough* SCO *cough*).
I believe I made explicit mention of the one restriction here:)
I completely agree with the contention that if the authors/relicensers of the GPL code didn't comply with the one restriction of the BSD license (attributing the original author), they should get called on it.
BSD asks that derived works keep with the spirit of BSD (but you are free to walk in peace if you choose not to).
Seems to be in contradiction with this one:
I'm glad Theo de Raadt is challenging the moral superiority of the GPL in a public way and not giving these guys a free pass.
The GPL contributers tried to walk away....but they sure didn't get a free pass as Theo threw a hissy fit. I completely agree with the contention that if the authors/relicensers of the GPL code didn't comply with the one restriction of the BSD license (attributing the original author), the should get called on it. However, I find it the epitome of hypocrisy of the BSD advocates to release their code under a "do what you will" license, but turn around and cry wolf when someone takes them up on their offer.
The "resolution" above does not address any of the core issues (attribution or license conflict), rather it looks as if the GPL authors just gave the dog a bone and sent it to the shed.
That would be funny if it weren't sad. You demonstrate with your own words the censorship that occurred there. You don't have a clue as to the question he was asking. All you know is what you've been told to think -- that some dumbshit disobeyed authority and rightfully got his ass tasered.
I'm so liberal it makes socialists blush. And I have to say, that kid was out of line. I watched the YouTube video and it was quite clear what he was asking. Some conspiracy theory about Kerry and Bush being in cahoots since college via a secret society. Ok, he as a right to his opinions. However, Kerry answered his question then the kid went on some long drawn out diatribe and refused to give the mic up.
That's not free speech or "asking a question", that's protesting and staging a filibuster. We've never had that "right" in the U.S. and rightly so. If you wish to protest an event you can't just storm the room, grab the mics, and exclude everyone else from their peaceful gathering. There are laws that lay out how far from the entrance you have to stand, no harassment or obstruction of the assembly, etc. etc. These laws are here specifically to prevent actions like this kid's.
Should he have been tased? That's up for debate. However, there is no doubt that his monologue, refusal to give up the mic, resistance to being escorted, and crazy antics, thrashing on the ground, and so on brought the actions onto himself.
Again, this is a bias in the whole culture and we're all soaking in it. I would guess that it has a lot more to do with that than "natural differences." And ask yourself this--where is this research on "natural differences?" Where's the data? All we're operating on when we make suppositions like that is--drum roll--cultural bias. Bigotry. Sexism.
I was fairly careful to leave those propositions. I don't have the answers, but what I find interesting is that even the question is forbidden. For example, on average men are stronger then women. There are very obviously physiological differences between men and woman. It's certainly not sexist or bigotry to honestly wonder just where they end and social conditioning/bias begins. A platitude is empty no matter which side the claim supports. I'm making no claim, I'm asking a question: It seems woman overall are happy with their lives. . . perhaps we should investigate other possible reasons for common career choices?.
The fact that women can get the same salary for the same job is a huge leap in equality over the past 50 years. When any random teenage girl looking at career paths is totally free to choose among "fashion model" or "chemical engineer" then we'll be a hell of a lot closer.
This I don't get. They are perfectly free to choose either of these and as I noted, once the choice is made they do equally well as a chemical engineer as their male counterparts. There's also a lot of incentives out there for woman in science, financial and otherwise. The *only possible thing* that may be preventing woman from entering these fields are internalized social biases or actual male/female differences in desirable job types. And most likely, it's a combination of both.
Why the followon question? If you accept that sexism exists and that society pressures women to avoid risk and long hours, then there's work to be done. We don't need to convince women that answering phones is just as "fulfilling" as being a heart surgeon, we need to convince them that, if they want to be, they probably can become a heart surgeon.
The key is the double negative. I'm not denying its existence, but I'm not asserting that it plays a significant role either. What I am saying is that it could be sexist on our part to think that women *should* go for male oriented jobs. Are we perhaps advocating pushing them into being more "man like" instead of accepting their natural preferences? Again, I don't know. Lots of empty assertions on how things should be rather then how things are.
I think you may have missed my point, it's hard to say "why" they make such choices. It *could* be due to some sort of stereotyping, it *could* be due to biological differences and stress coping, it *could* be due to most of society still thinking men should be the bread winners (which leave woman more open to pursuing vocations rather the avocation with good pay).
What was made apparent is that a) woman are paid the same for the same work b) that no clear discrimination towards woman is reflected in pay or career advancement and c) woman tended to have overall higher "satisfaction with life" indicators. If they're happier in their jobs/careers overall then men, why are we even worried? What, is it unfair that they are happier then the average male? Must we make sure to close the "hate my damned job, but love my check" gap? Happiness is the true measure of success in every case. Money can make it a bit easier, but it's not absolutely necessary. . . as woman are showing us every day in their career choices.
I use whistles and fog horns for repeat callers. You just answer and talk in a kinda whisper for the first couple of sentences. Then just pop off a really loud whistle or blast a fog horn in the receiver.
It doesn't always keep them from calling back, but for some reason I don't mind the repeat calls so much.
You can't stop terrorists or terrorism. Yep, that's the long and short of it. Harassing folks in situations like this is completely out of line, why: because a real terrorist with a real bomb would have blown it up as soon as she got in a crowd. You can "foil" terrorist plans, you can arrest them before the act, but you can't stop a suicide bomber unless you want a completely fascist "you must have your papers visible or be shot on site" society. And even in this case, you still can't stop them completely and have no hope of stopping suicide bombings of public places.
Countries suffering from consistent bombings should ask themselves why the hell such a large organized group of people are willing to die as long as they can kill as many of you as possible in the process. If your answer is "because they're evil", then please go fix yourself another glass of cool aid and leave the big decisions to the grown ups. When you find the answer to that, you have two choices: Stop what your doing (or actively attempt to get your government to do so) or accept it as a consequence and stfu, but don't use it as a lead pipe of paranoia to beat over the public's head. Because you can't stop it. You can slow it, but if a group of people really want to blow up public target X, are willing to die to do so, and have the materials to make it happen....it'll happen.
The reason terrorism is to popular amongst poorer militant activists and governments alike is because it's so damned effective and impossible to stop.
Warren Farrel is a 3 time member of the National Organization for Women NY chapter board and feminist champion. He began researching the biases of pay and employment between men and women. He came to some very interesting conclusions which he discusses in this book.
One of the more controversial was that, in fact, women do not earn less for the same work and in some cases/fields earn more. Previous researched was too vague in job descriptions according to Farrell. For example, previous surveys would lump heart surgeons and foot surgeons into a general category of "surgeon". After taking a closer look, he found that woman often ended up in professions that payed less.
By assessing what women and men were looking for in a job (through surveys and such), he found that woman usually avoided jobs with long work hours, dangerous environments, frequent travel, or personal confrontation (like sales) preferring flexible work hours, no overtime, safe work environments, no travel, etc. It just so happens that these are the very professions that pay the most. Incidentally, Farrell thinks we men should take a page out of woman's book in career choices as they also had higher rates of job satisfaction, lower stress, and overall life satisfaction.
It would seem that though there may be various social road blocks that they don't lie in the employers or necessarily in the environment. . . unless we start getting really nit picky such as "the foot surgeon community is less sexist then the heart surgeon community"...since they probably just work on different floors of the same hospital.
And anecdotally, for every woman I've known who had obvious familial pressures to "get married and raise a family" or some other stereotypical career path, I've known a male who was pressured into some career that he neither wanted nor enjoyed. . . . often in the non-science, blue collar genre.
I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist or that social norms don't push people toward certain career paths, but what's more sexist? Thinking woman are the ones being socially discriminated/pressured because more of them don't choose higher paying, more stressful jobs or that jobs which provide greater personal and career satisfaction, low stress, and flexible work hours are "lesser work" because they don't pay more? By many measures, these woman are far more successful then their higher earning male counterparts.
If you're a really a good engineer, perhaps you don't need to stay all night.
Let's say I'm the best engineer in the world...except for one other who is an equal but not superior. I'm willing to stay up all night working in the lab AND I enjoy the hell out of it because I love my work. The other guy works 8-5, no variation.
Who would you hire? (hint: if you picked the second guy, the competitor that hires me will put you out of business)
I was hired under the job description of "basic IT and user support". In practice, this turned out to encompass everything from web application development, designing/managing backup systems, computational programing, back porting of analysis suites, matlab programming, pretty much anything that has to do with a computer. Those not in computers assume that everything that has to do with a computer falls under "IT" and this simply isn't the case. This assumption is as out of wack as expecting a veterinarian to perform a heart transplant.
On top of it all, any decision I make is followed by a string of "why, why, why". A fair amount of this expected and healthy, but to use the heart surgeon analogy again there should come a certain point when you defer to the expertise of.....the expert (that point should be right about when you cease to understand what the hell he's talking about). Luckily, I've been there long enough and when I prohibit something for security reasons I can qualify my answer to the "why" questions with things like "Because before I made these policies your web server was hacked 2 to 3 times a year compared to none in the 2 years I've been here."
So I can sympathize with where these IT departments are coming from prohibiting some of the "Web 2.0" technologies or restricting them. However, one thing that is assured is that if you don't provide some kind of solution the user is assuredly going to find a way around your road blocks and will probably choose the "worst case" solution. So as IT, I've learned to never say no. That's right. Never. Rather, I say yes with qualifications such as: "This solution will not meet HIPAA requirements and will put any sensitive user data at risk of compromise due to security concerns a), b), and c)." I ensure these caveats are well documented and I provide suggestions for alternatives that are superior yet supply the same service and why they are superior.
I view my job as that of making recommendations rather then decisions (in this specific arena, of course there are cases where the decision is mine and mine alone). In general, management usually makes the right choice but when they don't, you just pull up the assessment document and say "Yes, that was one of the risks listed. It's unfortunate that it came to fruition." I'm sure there are managers out there who would fire you anyway, but really who wants to work for a manager that can't accept responsibility for his/her own decisions? A manager like that is going to find a way to off-load his own stupidity on you sooner or later. At least this way you discover sooner and have clear document trail that says otherwise (which can be quietly given to *his/her* superiors on your way out the door).
You read right. I'm not bright. Yeah, I'm in the top 98 or 99 or whatever percentile but that's just sharp enough to realize just how goddamned hard the world is to really understand. It also means that about 85% of the world comes off as at least kinda slow and about 50-60% downright dumb. I also recognize raw intelligence, I work with a few. The kind that casually mention reading the matlab book on a sunday afternoon and are putting out code better then experienced programmers by wednesday.
But here's the rub: the world is run by the 95% not the 1%. Just as I cannot fathom the depth of understanding and intuitive logic it takes to pick up advanced matlab programming like they're as trivial as the rules of checkers, I can imagine that the vast majority of the world "just doesn't get it". And why should I expect them to?
The fact is, there is only one person responsible for your intellectual enrichment and that's yourself. The more intelligent you are the more this is true. All the knowledge of the world is available (barring incredibly impoverished nations, but that's not the issue here).
I read books my entire school years up to college. The entire class, every class. I read anything I wanted classics, philosophy, mathematics. And no, I wasn't a recluse. I also played football, baseball, track, wrestling, and on the debate & speech teams. I could afford the time for those activities because school was so trivial. I had an opportunity to go to an "advanced" high school that pooled gifted children from around the state....sort of a mini university. I turned it down because of the lack of extra curricular activities, particularly sports. Many here would call me crazy, but I learned plenty from the books I read. Enough to get into the same colleges, equal and often exceed the accomplishments.
I'm not saying the education system is fine or doesn't need improvement by any means. But honestly, who *needs* more help? The disabled student trying to learn to not be a drag on society or the genius student that is a sponge for knowledge?Let them progress at their own pace without obstacles, but that's as far as I'd go.
Sometimes I think "gifted" who were also unfortunate enough to suffer various social issues have a tendency to blame those problems on "the system".
I wouldn't call the Monkees legendary in the sense of the beatles. When the folks that grew up with them die off, their music will go to dust except a a foot note. The Beatles will probably be a prominent marker in music history for the foreseeable future, more on the level of a Bach or Beethoven. Let the flames begin, but The Beatles (and lennon) have pretty much cinched that level of musical status.
Figured that one would come up. Yes, the beatles started out as a bubblegum band. But quickly evolved into a much more complex group due in large part to the contributions of Lennon. They also brought to popularity the electric 12 string guitar which was an entirely new sound.
Early beatles is generally viewed as entertaining and amusing in light of their later musical releases and generally only played in cheesy oldies bits on the radio.
The amazing "compression" of backuppc isn't any better then other backup systems. Where it shines is its pooling abilities. If the same files resides on 5 machines, it only backs it up once. So in a homogenous client environment where folks collaborate and the same data is spread across many clients, it can really kick ass.
I'm currently backing up almost 1TB of user data on less then 1/2 of that in physical disk space (about 300gb).
My point was actually more that even in the 70's, parents of kids listening to Led Zeppelin declared that Led Zeppelin was crap compared to whatever they had decided was "real" music.
What your forgetting is that in the 50's, 60's, and to an extent the 70's were delving into completely new areas of music. In large part this was a result of an entirely new way of producing music (electronically) as well as an entirely new sound. Heck, many of the rock bands were using blues riffs that were truly revolutionary. So the older generations alive then wailing against this new genre of music are more akin to those that rejected the powerful and revolutionary concert musics brought about by amazing new instrumentation such as the piano and differing opinions on the role it should play.
The difference is that today's 30+ year olds know very well what this new fangled thing called "rock" is. Electric guitars. Electronica. We grew up with it our entire lives. When we comment on the quality of contemporary music we aren't speaking from nearly the same "old foggy commenting on revolutionary new way of making music" that those railing against rock did a few decades ago or the sounds of Beethoven 100's of years ago.
If brittany spears invented a instrument or was the first to use an electric guitar. If she used her own musical chords that were a different way of making harmony and progression. If then I took a step back and said "that sounds like shit to me". I'd have to begrudgingly admit that has harsh to my ears as her sound is, it is as least innovative. New.
But our judgments on music doesn't need to be so conflicted. She making the same "type" of music I've heard all my life. A little more 90's and a little less 80's, but still the same old stuff I've been hearing since I can remember.
And it sounds like tripe. Is not innovative or unique. It's a cookie cutter one woman "boy band" style music. It's entertainment backed by a bit of vocal talent and a flare for the stage...but nothing else.
Please point me to a single bubble gum pop boy band that has withstood the test of time as anything more then a chuckle and a laugh to those that listened to them as children?
Re:I work in an FDA-regulated environment,...
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Vista is Watching You
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· Score: 1, Insightful
I'm not sure which reaction is stronger:
that I'm pleased that someone working in my government is concerned about this and intends to put in the man hours to get to the bottom of it
Or disgust that my government is wasting money by first purchasing an operating system, then putting in the man hours to try and reverse engineer the security risk so they can put more man hours into figuring out how to circumvent said security risk so they can continue to buy this really expensive spyware.
I love this arguement, because it is one of the more nonsensical things I see on Slashdot, and I see ALL THE DAMN TIME.
I've worked in PR areas before. It is very common to have someone frequent various areas of public discussions and forums to post "the company view". So I would not be surprised in the least if this were true. If I worked for MS, I'd have a couple of people do it...
I also find the fact that your own post gaining 4 mod points (insightful) while being very loosely pro-micrsoft or at the very least anti-anti-microsoft serves as its own rebuttal for such posts being reflexively modded down by slashdoters.
Cheers!
what is bad about gold farming? well, it allows some rich asshole to buy his way into a game he should have worked hard at. it destroys the concept of a meritocracy, and replaces it with aristocracy. hwever, there is no financial replacement for real skill. and so any such bad player behind a high level avatar will rapidly become apparent: a joke
You make a few assumptions here that are completely erroneous.
The first assumption is that you should work hard at games. The vast majority of folks play games for fun and as such they should not have to work hard simply because developers wish to increase the game cycle and cannot produce a game whose worth lies solely in its content.
The second assumption you make is that you have to be "rich" to buy gold. Going price is about 10 dollars per 100g if bought in bulk. 100g per hour is a very decent grinding rate to say the least (pipe in uber farmings who make much more, whatever). Since just about any educated professional makes at least two to three times that....simple economics says, buying gold is much cheaper then actually working. And since you yourself admit that what we're talking about here is "working", it can only be seen as an inherent flaw in game design that some virtual sword required 3x as much or more "virtual work" then "real world work". Basically, anything but a minimum wage employee is working harder for virtual money then if he just bought the money online and that's just stupid.
The third fallacy is that grinding for gold somehow improves your skills as a player. AI controlled world mobs are stupid. Farming involves mashing the same buttons with no thought repeatedly for hours on end. I would argue that grinding for gold decreases your skills as a player. That time spent mindlessly grinding for gold could have been spent participating in activities that increase your skills dramatically such as participating in PvP or practicing challenging PvE encounters.
So in summary, the entire concept of "requiring work to have fun" as implemented in online gaming a) Is directly counter to why the majority of people play games, b) Requires significantly more effort then simply purchasing the gold, and c) creates a system where by the very best, most skilled players who excel the most at the game MUST buy gold to attain that level of skill.
I realize in the end you endorsed gold buying as ok, I just used your initial negative quote as a launching point since it expresses many a common opinion.
That is an excellent illustration of the difference between physical and psychological addiction. Nonetheless, it does not disprove the existance of psychological addiction.
The point I was trying to drive home is that pyschological addiction is, to a much greater extent, in the actor and not the act. There's no denying that many a physical addiction came about due to excessive escapism on the part of the actor. Yet they are distinct. We should not control substances, identified as attractive or not, that do not possess an inherent addictive property.
Moreover, there is nothing inherently wrong with escapism; the problem is taking things to excess, to the detriment of life obligations or personal development
Again, it seems we are in agreement. Someone who participates in escapism, but not to the extent of being clinically abnormal in that behavior is "just a hard partier". The distinct difference between the two cases I presented is that one can participate in *behavior* that in itself is abnormally escapist can inadvertantly lead to an abnormal addiction due to the uncontrollably physical nature of the addiction. Whereas, with the other one could participate in normal, acceptable, non-socially detrimental behavior indefinately with no side effects. First case: someone is being acted on, in the second one is solely responsible for their actions.
There is a tendency to overclassify and differentiate within psychology. If "gaming addiction", "pokeno addiction", "abnormal isolationism", and "acute and/or chronic depression" are all expressions of the same generalized condition little benefit is served by overly focusing on the expression. Rather focus should be concentrated on the treatment of the source.
RE: the correlation between denying the existence of "innate homosexuality" with denying the existence of "gaming addiction".
I respond equally to both. I do not deny either, rather I request objective proof above and beyond idle assertion via replicable, peer reviewed experiments with consistent results to a high degree of significance. I have not looked into this with homosexuality, mainly because I am unconcerned with other people's attractions. However, I have taken a casual interest in the proposal of connections between media and violence as well as gaming addiction. I have run across several interesting correlations between media and violence and none that corroborate any uniqueness to gaming addiction. Nor have any been overwhelmingly definitive enough to make policy.
There is a distinct difference between someone who is participating in escapist behavior and a particular substance or activity being addictive. In the first case, whatever the focus or expression of the escapist behavior is largely incidental. Take the video games away and the person will find some other way of escaping. That may turn out to be reading all day and refusing to interact socially, self cutting, huffing glue, or whatever else may appeal to their personalities. Further, it is very arbitrary in what we would term "destructive" escapism and "constructive" escapism. For example, the socially defunct or depressed teenager who chooses books is viewed as a studios bookworm even though the root cause of the behavior is not any different nor ultimately any more beneficial to the individual.
For anyone who cannnot clearly see the difference I have a case study. Take a completely average, well adjusted, completely within the bounds or normalcy guy or gal from the street. Now force them to injest considerable quantities of Nicotine, Alcohol, Cocaine or Heroin over an extended period of time. That "extended period" might only need to be a week or two. Now take it away. What happens? You got it, this completely well adjusted individual will go through severe withdrawal. It will be physical, it will be accompanied but not limited to a significant mental craving, and it will be extremely unpleasant and in some cases life threatening. Take the same well adjusted individual and force them to play Warcraft and nothing of the sort will occur. Nada, ziltch. Depending on his general disposition toward games they may even dislike it quite a bit and be very thankful and relieved when they're allowed to discontinue their doses.
I've known first hand a good amount of people with this so called "game addiction" and in every single case they were running from life not toward games. Conversely, I've interacted with people with real addictions and though many were running from life there was a not insignificant number who were just hard partiers who woke up one day and realized they had a monkey on their back that they couldn't shake without help.
If only these nut jobs who want to term anything and everything under the sun as "addictive" could be brought to realize the truth of this they'd see that not every negative human behavior can be blamed on an external cause.
Which also means that these armed citizen analogies were with people living in fundamentally different situations than say the current USA. So we have the same problem, lack of good historic analogies and lack of evidence to date.
True, but I'm making a prediction of future behavior based on the overwhelmingly consistent past behavior regardless of government type.
Why would they never war? I'm not sure I understand the logic behind this.
Me either, same as I don't understand the logic of "Democracies can never be oppressive or devolve into a repressive form of government", which is the case your making. If you'd like more details on the theory of Democratic Peace you can check it out at your local Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace
There has not been a mass shooting since.
This is largely anecdotal, for example the Columbine shooters planned for months and even created a wide array of home made explosives. Even without guns they could have done some serious damage. And who knows, maybe they would blown up the whole school?
We can also look at Canada, a very well armed society with none of the mass shootings problems faced by the U.S. Could it be possible this is a societal problem and not a gun problem?
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Yes, some of those guys were pretty bad techs. But this reporting was horrid. "This repair should cost 60 dollars" my ass. A skilled tech will run you 40/hr minimum often 60/hr, that's "friendly free lance" prices. When I would do house calls, the clock starts when I start heading that way with a minimum of 1 hr. So even at friendly prices your looking at 40 not counting parts. If you think these kind of hourly rates are too expensive, then please compare to any other skilled labor. Try calling your local mechanic and see what he wants for a house call. Still sure it should be cheaper so you go out and find someone for 1/2 the price....you get what you pay for.
I'd also note that I've often recommended customers just buy a new computer for anything over the most trivial repair. Why? Because they paid like $200 for it with rebates and discounts and the thing is several years old. In other words, it's worth is somewhere near zero Take the deleted file, that's not a problem...that's a symptom of a problem. Files don't just disappear. If someone came up to me and asked "what's wrong with my computer", I'd have to say I wasn't sure at this point. I need to run some diagnostics and then a virus scanner. All of that takes time and costs money, in fact it could cost more then a new pc would depending on what the problem is. Say you discover a bad hard disk...so after the initial cost of diagnosis, now you have a hard disk and installation costs on top of it. Simply replacing the file and sending the customer on their way would be equivalent to a mechanic simply replacing some burnt out wires he found without attempting to figure out *why* they burnt out. That might cut it for your local, salaried, work study employed university help desk "tech expert" job, but anywhere else it's just downright unprofessional.
What's more shady? Charging some poor old lady 100's of dollars to fix a piece of hardware that is worth nothing or informing her of her choices, the possibility of repair cost exceeding value, and that an e-machine that's 10x faster then the 3 year old one they need repaired for a small cost over what the repair would be.
And finally, anyone who comes in with a 4-5 yr/old computer that needs repair I recommend replacement before I even look at it. Why? Because anyone familiar with hardware MTTF trends knows that parts just start failing around then. Any honest mechanic would do the same thing if they saw a vehicle with a few hundred thousand miles on it...especially if the customer could get a new one for a marginal increase over the repair.
Conspiracy theories are always entertaining. Though I don't think there was any sort of committee meeting where they laid out their nefarious plans for world domination, Microsoft does have a pretty damned bad track record when it comes to "good faith".
I find it much more likely that some of the reasons you laid out, or others equally benign, precipitated this move. I also find it completely within the realm of possibility that it may be mis-used in the future. With their past as a reference, I try to stay away from the companies products. Not because I think they all suck (some do, some don't). But because their an abusive company with a knack for abusing their monopoly status to stifle competition using any means possible. Illegal, unethical, and just down right under handed (*cough* SCO *cough*).
So, no thank you. I'll pass.
The GPL contributers tried to walk away....but they sure didn't get a free pass as Theo threw a hissy fit. I completely agree with the contention that if the authors/relicensers of the GPL code didn't comply with the one restriction of the BSD license (attributing the original author), the should get called on it. However, I find it the epitome of hypocrisy of the BSD advocates to release their code under a "do what you will" license, but turn around and cry wolf when someone takes them up on their offer.
The "resolution" above does not address any of the core issues (attribution or license conflict), rather it looks as if the GPL authors just gave the dog a bone and sent it to the shed.
I'm so liberal it makes socialists blush. And I have to say, that kid was out of line. I watched the YouTube video and it was quite clear what he was asking. Some conspiracy theory about Kerry and Bush being in cahoots since college via a secret society. Ok, he as a right to his opinions. However, Kerry answered his question then the kid went on some long drawn out diatribe and refused to give the mic up.
That's not free speech or "asking a question", that's protesting and staging a filibuster. We've never had that "right" in the U.S. and rightly so. If you wish to protest an event you can't just storm the room, grab the mics, and exclude everyone else from their peaceful gathering. There are laws that lay out how far from the entrance you have to stand, no harassment or obstruction of the assembly, etc. etc. These laws are here specifically to prevent actions like this kid's.
Should he have been tased? That's up for debate. However, there is no doubt that his monologue, refusal to give up the mic, resistance to being escorted, and crazy antics, thrashing on the ground, and so on brought the actions onto himself.
The key is the double negative. I'm not denying its existence, but I'm not asserting that it plays a significant role either. What I am saying is that it could be sexist on our part to think that women *should* go for male oriented jobs. Are we perhaps advocating pushing them into being more "man like" instead of accepting their natural preferences? Again, I don't know. Lots of empty assertions on how things should be rather then how things are.
I think you may have missed my point, it's hard to say "why" they make such choices. It *could* be due to some sort of stereotyping, it *could* be due to biological differences and stress coping, it *could* be due to most of society still thinking men should be the bread winners (which leave woman more open to pursuing vocations rather the avocation with good pay).
What was made apparent is that a) woman are paid the same for the same work b) that no clear discrimination towards woman is reflected in pay or career advancement and c) woman tended to have overall higher "satisfaction with life" indicators. If they're happier in their jobs/careers overall then men, why are we even worried? What, is it unfair that they are happier then the average male? Must we make sure to close the "hate my damned job, but love my check" gap? Happiness is the true measure of success in every case. Money can make it a bit easier, but it's not absolutely necessary. . . as woman are showing us every day in their career choices.
I use whistles and fog horns for repeat callers. You just answer and talk in a kinda whisper for the first couple of sentences. Then just pop off a really loud whistle or blast a fog horn in the receiver.
It doesn't always keep them from calling back, but for some reason I don't mind the repeat calls so much.
You can't stop terrorists or terrorism. Yep, that's the long and short of it. Harassing folks in situations like this is completely out of line, why: because a real terrorist with a real bomb would have blown it up as soon as she got in a crowd. You can "foil" terrorist plans, you can arrest them before the act, but you can't stop a suicide bomber unless you want a completely fascist "you must have your papers visible or be shot on site" society. And even in this case, you still can't stop them completely and have no hope of stopping suicide bombings of public places.
Countries suffering from consistent bombings should ask themselves why the hell such a large organized group of people are willing to die as long as they can kill as many of you as possible in the process. If your answer is "because they're evil", then please go fix yourself another glass of cool aid and leave the big decisions to the grown ups. When you find the answer to that, you have two choices: Stop what your doing (or actively attempt to get your government to do so) or accept it as a consequence and stfu, but don't use it as a lead pipe of paranoia to beat over the public's head. Because you can't stop it. You can slow it, but if a group of people really want to blow up public target X, are willing to die to do so, and have the materials to make it happen....it'll happen.
The reason terrorism is to popular amongst poorer militant activists and governments alike is because it's so damned effective and impossible to stop.
Our flags on the moon, we own it. I say we nuke 'em.
Warren Farrel is a 3 time member of the National Organization for Women NY chapter board and feminist champion. He began researching the biases of pay and employment between men and women. He came to some very interesting conclusions which he discusses in this book.
One of the more controversial was that, in fact, women do not earn less for the same work and in some cases/fields earn more. Previous researched was too vague in job descriptions according to Farrell. For example, previous surveys would lump heart surgeons and foot surgeons into a general category of "surgeon". After taking a closer look, he found that woman often ended up in professions that payed less.
By assessing what women and men were looking for in a job (through surveys and such), he found that woman usually avoided jobs with long work hours, dangerous environments, frequent travel, or personal confrontation (like sales) preferring flexible work hours, no overtime, safe work environments, no travel, etc. It just so happens that these are the very professions that pay the most. Incidentally, Farrell thinks we men should take a page out of woman's book in career choices as they also had higher rates of job satisfaction, lower stress, and overall life satisfaction.
It would seem that though there may be various social road blocks that they don't lie in the employers or necessarily in the environment. . . unless we start getting really nit picky such as "the foot surgeon community is less sexist then the heart surgeon community"...since they probably just work on different floors of the same hospital.
And anecdotally, for every woman I've known who had obvious familial pressures to "get married and raise a family" or some other stereotypical career path, I've known a male who was pressured into some career that he neither wanted nor enjoyed. . . . often in the non-science, blue collar genre.
I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist or that social norms don't push people toward certain career paths, but what's more sexist? Thinking woman are the ones being socially discriminated/pressured because more of them don't choose higher paying, more stressful jobs or that jobs which provide greater personal and career satisfaction, low stress, and flexible work hours are "lesser work" because they don't pay more? By many measures, these woman are far more successful then their higher earning male counterparts.
Who would you hire? (hint: if you picked the second guy, the competitor that hires me will put you out of business)
On top of it all, any decision I make is followed by a string of "why, why, why". A fair amount of this expected and healthy, but to use the heart surgeon analogy again there should come a certain point when you defer to the expertise of.....the expert (that point should be right about when you cease to understand what the hell he's talking about). Luckily, I've been there long enough and when I prohibit something for security reasons I can qualify my answer to the "why" questions with things like "Because before I made these policies your web server was hacked 2 to 3 times a year compared to none in the 2 years I've been here."
So I can sympathize with where these IT departments are coming from prohibiting some of the "Web 2.0" technologies or restricting them. However, one thing that is assured is that if you don't provide some kind of solution the user is assuredly going to find a way around your road blocks and will probably choose the "worst case" solution. So as IT, I've learned to never say no. That's right. Never. Rather, I say yes with qualifications such as: "This solution will not meet HIPAA requirements and will put any sensitive user data at risk of compromise due to security concerns a), b), and c)." I ensure these caveats are well documented and I provide suggestions for alternatives that are superior yet supply the same service and why they are superior.
I view my job as that of making recommendations rather then decisions (in this specific arena, of course there are cases where the decision is mine and mine alone). In general, management usually makes the right choice but when they don't, you just pull up the assessment document and say "Yes, that was one of the risks listed. It's unfortunate that it came to fruition." I'm sure there are managers out there who would fire you anyway, but really who wants to work for a manager that can't accept responsibility for his/her own decisions? A manager like that is going to find a way to off-load his own stupidity on you sooner or later. At least this way you discover sooner and have clear document trail that says otherwise (which can be quietly given to *his/her* superiors on your way out the door).
You read right. I'm not bright. Yeah, I'm in the top 98 or 99 or whatever percentile but that's just sharp enough to realize just how goddamned hard the world is to really understand. It also means that about 85% of the world comes off as at least kinda slow and about 50-60% downright dumb. I also recognize raw intelligence, I work with a few. The kind that casually mention reading the matlab book on a sunday afternoon and are putting out code better then experienced programmers by wednesday.
But here's the rub: the world is run by the 95% not the 1%. Just as I cannot fathom the depth of understanding and intuitive logic it takes to pick up advanced matlab programming like they're as trivial as the rules of checkers, I can imagine that the vast majority of the world "just doesn't get it". And why should I expect them to?
The fact is, there is only one person responsible for your intellectual enrichment and that's yourself. The more intelligent you are the more this is true. All the knowledge of the world is available (barring incredibly impoverished nations, but that's not the issue here).
I read books my entire school years up to college. The entire class, every class. I read anything I wanted classics, philosophy, mathematics. And no, I wasn't a recluse. I also played football, baseball, track, wrestling, and on the debate & speech teams. I could afford the time for those activities because school was so trivial. I had an opportunity to go to an "advanced" high school that pooled gifted children from around the state....sort of a mini university. I turned it down because of the lack of extra curricular activities, particularly sports. Many here would call me crazy, but I learned plenty from the books I read. Enough to get into the same colleges, equal and often exceed the accomplishments.
I'm not saying the education system is fine or doesn't need improvement by any means. But honestly, who *needs* more help? The disabled student trying to learn to not be a drag on society or the genius student that is a sponge for knowledge?Let them progress at their own pace without obstacles, but that's as far as I'd go.
Sometimes I think "gifted" who were also unfortunate enough to suffer various social issues have a tendency to blame those problems on "the system".
I wouldn't call the Monkees legendary in the sense of the beatles. When the folks that grew up with them die off, their music will go to dust except a a foot note. The Beatles will probably be a prominent marker in music history for the foreseeable future, more on the level of a Bach or Beethoven. Let the flames begin, but The Beatles (and lennon) have pretty much cinched that level of musical status.
Early beatles is generally viewed as entertaining and amusing in light of their later musical releases and generally only played in cheesy oldies bits on the radio.
I'm currently backing up almost 1TB of user data on less then 1/2 of that in physical disk space (about 300gb).
What your forgetting is that in the 50's, 60's, and to an extent the 70's were delving into completely new areas of music. In large part this was a result of an entirely new way of producing music (electronically) as well as an entirely new sound. Heck, many of the rock bands were using blues riffs that were truly revolutionary. So the older generations alive then wailing against this new genre of music are more akin to those that rejected the powerful and revolutionary concert musics brought about by amazing new instrumentation such as the piano and differing opinions on the role it should play.
The difference is that today's 30+ year olds know very well what this new fangled thing called "rock" is. Electric guitars. Electronica. We grew up with it our entire lives. When we comment on the quality of contemporary music we aren't speaking from nearly the same "old foggy commenting on revolutionary new way of making music" that those railing against rock did a few decades ago or the sounds of Beethoven 100's of years ago.
If brittany spears invented a instrument or was the first to use an electric guitar. If she used her own musical chords that were a different way of making harmony and progression. If then I took a step back and said "that sounds like shit to me". I'd have to begrudgingly admit that has harsh to my ears as her sound is, it is as least innovative. New.
But our judgments on music doesn't need to be so conflicted. She making the same "type" of music I've heard all my life. A little more 90's and a little less 80's, but still the same old stuff I've been hearing since I can remember.
And it sounds like tripe. Is not innovative or unique. It's a cookie cutter one woman "boy band" style music. It's entertainment backed by a bit of vocal talent and a flare for the stage...but nothing else.
Please point me to a single bubble gum pop boy band that has withstood the test of time as anything more then a chuckle and a laugh to those that listened to them as children?
As long as I can pay with virtual money.
I've worked in PR areas before. It is very common to have someone frequent various areas of public discussions and forums to post "the company view". So I would not be surprised in the least if this were true. If I worked for MS, I'd have a couple of people do it...
I also find the fact that your own post gaining 4 mod points (insightful) while being very loosely pro-micrsoft or at the very least anti-anti-microsoft serves as its own rebuttal for such posts being reflexively modded down by slashdoters. Cheers!
You make a few assumptions here that are completely erroneous.
The first assumption is that you should work hard at games. The vast majority of folks play games for fun and as such they should not have to work hard simply because developers wish to increase the game cycle and cannot produce a game whose worth lies solely in its content.
The second assumption you make is that you have to be "rich" to buy gold. Going price is about 10 dollars per 100g if bought in bulk. 100g per hour is a very decent grinding rate to say the least (pipe in uber farmings who make much more, whatever). Since just about any educated professional makes at least two to three times that....simple economics says, buying gold is much cheaper then actually working. And since you yourself admit that what we're talking about here is "working", it can only be seen as an inherent flaw in game design that some virtual sword required 3x as much or more "virtual work" then "real world work". Basically, anything but a minimum wage employee is working harder for virtual money then if he just bought the money online and that's just stupid.
The third fallacy is that grinding for gold somehow improves your skills as a player. AI controlled world mobs are stupid. Farming involves mashing the same buttons with no thought repeatedly for hours on end. I would argue that grinding for gold decreases your skills as a player. That time spent mindlessly grinding for gold could have been spent participating in activities that increase your skills dramatically such as participating in PvP or practicing challenging PvE encounters.
So in summary, the entire concept of "requiring work to have fun" as implemented in online gaming a) Is directly counter to why the majority of people play games, b) Requires significantly more effort then simply purchasing the gold, and c) creates a system where by the very best, most skilled players who excel the most at the game MUST buy gold to attain that level of skill.
I realize in the end you endorsed gold buying as ok, I just used your initial negative quote as a launching point since it expresses many a common opinion.
The point I was trying to drive home is that pyschological addiction is, to a much greater extent, in the actor and not the act. There's no denying that many a physical addiction came about due to excessive escapism on the part of the actor. Yet they are distinct. We should not control substances, identified as attractive or not, that do not possess an inherent addictive property.
Again, it seems we are in agreement. Someone who participates in escapism, but not to the extent of being clinically abnormal in that behavior is "just a hard partier". The distinct difference between the two cases I presented is that one can participate in *behavior* that in itself is abnormally escapist can inadvertantly lead to an abnormal addiction due to the uncontrollably physical nature of the addiction. Whereas, with the other one could participate in normal, acceptable, non-socially detrimental behavior indefinately with no side effects. First case: someone is being acted on, in the second one is solely responsible for their actions.
There is a tendency to overclassify and differentiate within psychology. If "gaming addiction", "pokeno addiction", "abnormal isolationism", and "acute and/or chronic depression" are all expressions of the same generalized condition little benefit is served by overly focusing on the expression. Rather focus should be concentrated on the treatment of the source.
RE: the correlation between denying the existence of "innate homosexuality" with denying the existence of "gaming addiction".
I respond equally to both. I do not deny either, rather I request objective proof above and beyond idle assertion via replicable, peer reviewed experiments with consistent results to a high degree of significance. I have not looked into this with homosexuality, mainly because I am unconcerned with other people's attractions. However, I have taken a casual interest in the proposal of connections between media and violence as well as gaming addiction. I have run across several interesting correlations between media and violence and none that corroborate any uniqueness to gaming addiction. Nor have any been overwhelmingly definitive enough to make policy.
There is a distinct difference between someone who is participating in escapist behavior and a particular substance or activity being addictive. In the first case, whatever the focus or expression of the escapist behavior is largely incidental. Take the video games away and the person will find some other way of escaping. That may turn out to be reading all day and refusing to interact socially, self cutting, huffing glue, or whatever else may appeal to their personalities. Further, it is very arbitrary in what we would term "destructive" escapism and "constructive" escapism. For example, the socially defunct or depressed teenager who chooses books is viewed as a studios bookworm even though the root cause of the behavior is not any different nor ultimately any more beneficial to the individual.
For anyone who cannnot clearly see the difference I have a case study. Take a completely average, well adjusted, completely within the bounds or normalcy guy or gal from the street. Now force them to injest considerable quantities of Nicotine, Alcohol, Cocaine or Heroin over an extended period of time. That "extended period" might only need to be a week or two. Now take it away. What happens? You got it, this completely well adjusted individual will go through severe withdrawal. It will be physical, it will be accompanied but not limited to a significant mental craving, and it will be extremely unpleasant and in some cases life threatening. Take the same well adjusted individual and force them to play Warcraft and nothing of the sort will occur. Nada, ziltch. Depending on his general disposition toward games they may even dislike it quite a bit and be very thankful and relieved when they're allowed to discontinue their doses.
I've known first hand a good amount of people with this so called "game addiction" and in every single case they were running from life not toward games. Conversely, I've interacted with people with real addictions and though many were running from life there was a not insignificant number who were just hard partiers who woke up one day and realized they had a monkey on their back that they couldn't shake without help.
If only these nut jobs who want to term anything and everything under the sun as "addictive" could be brought to realize the truth of this they'd see that not every negative human behavior can be blamed on an external cause.