On the other hand, it's great that we'll all be living by the seaside with lovely warm weather.
Seriously, it's so easy for people to become complacent, thinking the warmer weather's going to be lovely, and who cares if the beach moves a little closer to the fish and chips shop?
Perhaps it's time to change the message to: "Just a half a degree change means that all your food will be laced with horrible poisins and chemicals and millions of less fortunate people will die" but then, so many people happily chow down on poptarts and hamburgers, and who cares what happens to a few africans?
People's lack of imagination and forethought is quite frightening sometimes.
Well of course your CIO didn't want to have all his support dry up, but I'm convinced there's a flaw in this thinking.
Novell are not the biggest sellers or best known name around. But they are behind the biggest networks around, raking in the cash, and were never in danger of failing.
Why do people feel the need to get into fashionable computing? To be in the latest and greatest trend? Why didn't the CIO realize that there are niche players like Sun and Apple who are never going away?
There's this all or nothing mentality about computers (and lots of things) and it's so annoying. You don't need to do what everyone else is doing!
that's what I love about Linux. It doesn't matter that I run SuSE, someone else runs RedHat, another guy has Ubuntu and the third did LFS. We can all interoperate if we want to, because there are open standards like HTML and TeX. Each just chooses a setup that will work best for him/her. So why aren't business players savvy enough to do likewise?
In my Australian high school computers were taught very poorly. In year 7 we spent a bit of time learning to touch type QWERTY. That was fine, then after that an excursion to the computer room would occur so we could type our essays before submitting them. These were essays that had been drafted and written longhand, and we were simply typing the assignments that were neatly written out in front of us.
Our library trips would sometimes include jumping on a library computer to see what the "Intermanet" had to say about the topic. Not much since the internet is a bunch of hardware, not an encyclopedia. But wait! They had Microsoft Encarta! Wow, revolutionary!
There was nothing that we were supposed to do on computers that we couldn't do better with books OR hadn't done already in the case of typing essays. When people want to send their old computers to schools in Uganda this point comes up all the time - they have no books! So what do you expect them to do with a computer?
So I'm all for using computers in the classroom *search online journals *read an old text on project gutenberg *capture the "buzz" by looking on appropriate websites
But when it doesn't happen, I get very cranky about the wasted time, money and opportunity. It seems ridiculous that so many schools have computers but don't teach programming or computerised maths. That they don't properly help kids to see what the Internet can do.
But it's so much easier to buy a bunch of stuff than to address the holes in their curriculum.
I'm 21. I've had computers since I was 8, regular internet since about 12. I assume most people do. So why are some people naturally well disposed to figure out how to use search engines and email while others think of a computer as a magical device they cannot use?
I'd rather see a real assessment of the skills required to successfully use a computer as part of regular life - then test for these skills such as pattern matching, ability to follow complex instructions...
It's much more fair on people who have less computer access and more to the point, weeds out those who have real potential to do the job with a bit of instruction from those who will never do these things particularly well.
I'm also working on the idea of putting together a primer for people who don't understand what computers are for. They're often sold as appliances but with the multitude of functions they are supposed to have now, they obviously must be quite complex. Explaining the basics in clear language (including why we need such weird jargon) might help get people started on the right track instead of confusing themselves into a frenzy.
Just a few quick answers to the parent who has asked a few questions about my original post...
Yes it takes effort to convince most commercial radio stations to play a song. But the principle is the same. If they want to play it they can in exchange for a small royalty payable to somebody else. I'm not impressed by that.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a non-commercial radio station. Triple J is a unique youth radio station designed to bring music to the kids of Australia. Hence nobody's trying to sell them anything. They routinely seek out new acts and play their songs.
I'm not bitter about lip-synching. It's an artifact of the acoustics of large halls and stadiums that you just can't expect to sing there. If I sign with a recording company I can expect to earn nothing but lose control of my work. Perhaps I will be billed for their work recording and promoting me. I'm happy to spend a night lip-synching if that's the appropriate performance for the venue. I believe that circulating my music is the best way to draw a crowd.
Anyway, my point was that you need a bunch of things for people in space. You need a lot of individuals to think that outer space (which is pretty bleak) is better than Earth. Then you need some organization to think there's some benefit. For example - You buy a ticket away from Earth's radiation and your family live in an underground cave like Total Recall. You buy into a biosphere scheme and accept certain responsibilities for a mostly mechanized, well planned environment. Which was built by some company that's doing such stuff.
As a musician I believe that music ought to be free. I can't bear the thought of my work only going to horrible radio stations that are going to try to make the kids buy things they don't want.
But I'm powerless to stop it.
When my album is recorded my preference will be to make it available for download from a simple website. This will provide excellent exposure for my performance and encourage people to visit my performance. Very few musicians make good money from CD sales - they traditionally kept the public enjoying the performance and sparked enthusiasm for visiting a show. The very best of us perform in large stadiums, earning thousands of dollars in a single night (of lip-synching).
I'll be encouraging the kids to build up nice big playlists so they don't have to listen to the radio tell them what to buy. I don't think that AOL internet radio is a useful step at this point.
If you enjoy radio, then I suggest you listen to Triple J - available from the ABC website www.abc.net.au.
This is great! Now we can all research beer without those sarcastic Fark headlines. We can move to Paris and start smoking. And I plan to save money by drinking Ukranian mineral water instead of Italian. Who's with me?
Australia doesn't have TIVO yet. I think if it ever took over, there would be even more ads just over the top of the show like we are starting to get now.
Also, there are plenty of ads that are part of the show. The cool kids head to the beach. Pesicoka. The punk girl listens to music.
Product placement has NOT yet come of age. Why it could be everywhere! Yeah!
It made sense. I don't know how much longer we can stand the advertiser as customer, consumer as commodity mentality. Basically, they do work (make a show) which allows them to procure a commodity (your time and attention) which they then sell to advertisers.
There are two different movements. Some want to become the customer, others want to alter the method used to procure their time (become a willing and active member of this trade).
Perhaps we need a different idea, or maybe one of these things will work. Perhaps you can buy a DVD and select one of these options - option 2 means you install ads on your computer or your brochure comes with ads or you agree to interact with a program designed to flash corporate images with you.
Imagine: "I will pay for my own copy of this video" and the ads go away and you get your DVD for say $5. In the mail or download the MPEG file.
"Yes please advertise to me for 5 minutes". Program pops up: "Do you like soft drinks" Yes "Do you find them fun or tasty?" Fun -Animation of cool people surrounded by bubbles and cans of Pepsoka cola "Hey, dude, did you know about the cool new competition under the lid of pepsoke?" Yes -Animation showing cool people looking very excited as they open their drink "What prize are you interested in winning? The car or the holiday?" Holiday "Yes, New Caledonia is excellent this time of year - don't forget to keep buying Pepsoka Cola!" Yes! I will enjoy a fun, cold Pepsoke. "Thankyou for taking the time to watch this advertising. Your copy of Farscape#23 is on it's way. Don't forget to check back regularly for more cool programs you can enjoy!"
Here is the real model for TV distribution and why your proposal doesn't work:
1. Some studio makes a TV show. 2. They sell it to national TV channels who distribute it to their local broadcasters 3. Local and national advertisers pay the local and national TV stations to run the show.
Now if you were to watch over the Intermanet, it wouldn't have the same local ads in it, now, would it? Perhaps the TV could advertise - "Did you miss a show? Watch it streaming on www.ChannelNineCanberra.com.au!" and you could get your own ads for porno and fireworks (or whatever sells in your local area). But then the USA channels are going to be mighty miffed that you're robbing them of their potential viewers by broadcasting this stuff on the Intermanet. As are the local distributers in Finland, for example.
But most of all, the people who actually make and sell the TV show are going to be highly dubious about changing their distribution model in this way.
Actually I think it's silly. Given that an hour of your time spent watching ads costs about $1, you'd think you could just pay the people who make the stuff $1 for every hour of TV you watch over your computer using their streamer-viewer or some login account or who knows what. Porno manages to sell just videos and many of them keep in business, so why can't the TV people sell videos?
But simply expecting TV channels to take the feed you would have got and stick it on the internet is not going to work. How many times did you watch it? What targeted ads did you see? The advertisers aren't going to pay for this loss of control. Local streamed downloads seem easier, but there will be licensing issues as the internet broadcaster tries to convince all the other broadcasters that it's still worth them buying in (the studio will not be convinced that the internet broadcaster will make more money than all the world's TV channels).
Please remember that you are not the customers of this industry - you are consumers whose behaviour is legislated for the economic benefit of the TV channels and advertisers. They are going to do what works best for them and you are going to comply or else. Disagree? Don't watch TV!
I am not an expert in theoretical uses of bizarro quasiparticles with cool names, but I've enjoyed watching CleverNickName play one on TV.
Now what we have here is a data transportation technology that allows us to move a lot of information around on the motherboard. It might speed up computation time by giving the CPU faster cache access. In a quantum computing scenario, what is it exactly that you suggest would occur? Do quantum computers need to access outside information much? Would they need to access entangled information and thus require transport that will maintain the entanglement? Just that you don't seem to have said much, and the link you posted is definitely gobbeldygook worthy of Mister Crusher.
Tshirts are a little unoriginal. I'm more a frustrated wannabe artist than a proper clothing maker... but I've done a halter top with "rocket scientist" because I didn't want to wear "porn star" I've added starry sequins and embroidery to various trousers and I've done some gorgeous painting on some denim overalls for a baby girl (weren't feminine enough - or sparkly enough!) Send original tshirt ideas to rocketgirl@myrealbox.com
Oddly, I don't have that one. I'll go to the belconnen mall today, get a pink boob tube from Supre and some pearlescent white paint from the art shop and make one.
I've never met a 4-digit slashdotter before.
If you have trouble telling me from all the other girls in Kepler boob tubes (as it's sure to become an instant trend), I'll be the girl drinking espresso in Calypso cafe.
Ask and ye shall receive! I'm an 18-28 female in Canberra. Tomorrow I'm going to a maths lecture just metres from where the Linux conf will be.
Hmm... guess that and washing my hair will keep me busy for the next 10 years.... sorry Bob.
That's amazing. Most Australian shops won't take a cheque. They'll take cash, credit, debit or eftpos. Even market stalls usually take credit/debit cards - some even have eftpos.
In Australia you have to pay some stupid OTT government tax to even have the ability to write a cheque from your account. My account is just a normal one and hence has no cheque priveleges. Companies use them to create a stupid paper trail because they don't have enough people that know how to use a computer.
If we want the grocery shop to give us cash, they just punch $100 extra in the eftpos transaction. Instantly the money comes out of your account and goes into the shop's!
It never occured to me that people do it differently.
Odd, isn't it? I always think ads should be there to make people aware of a product, not to try to create an emotional connection.
Example: I google something and get "X on ebay". Excellent! Now I'm reminded that ebay is a good place to look for things I want.
I always look at the junk mail in my letterbox but delete SPAM straight away. One difference nobody discusses? Junk mail contains useful product data! When did kmart send you a piece of paper that said "come to kmart because you look horrible in those clothes"? How about "Kmart! Affordable! Fashionable! Fun!" with a swoosh?
It makes sense to show a picture of something being sold as cute - like an ipod or hello kitty. But otherwise... it's just taking too long!
There is a great way to visualize this. Take two globs of play-dough about golf-ball sized. Or golf balls if you're less inclined to play with the play-dough afterwards. So these globs - they're stars. Put them at their correct distance so as to maintain the scale (guess the average distance of stars).
You're wrong. They're 17 000 km apart.
Now imagine they're galaxies. No, this isn't a trick question this time. You don't even need a partner to hold the other glob. They're about a metre apart.
So, yeah, galaxies collide. But stars don't.
However, if you watch some simulations of colliding galaxies, you'll see that they are very well stirred up by the event. Unless the collision is a very fast one and the galaxies' spins are properly aligned, the galaxies end up different shapes. They may merge and if not, there will probably be great trails of stars between them (looks great!)
I love it when galaxies collide! I could talk about it all day (see my user description).
There are some rude anonymous replies to the parent comment and I'd like to set the record straight. Perfectionism comes with pressure to achieve - it's not automatically a trait that comes with intelligence, it appears when a person judges his or her self worth by what is achieved. The perfectionist feels like "not a real person" and feels a constant need to prove himself or herself.
For many young women, this means a possibly fatal eating disorder. The parent poster is failing classes and generally ensuring an unhappy life. Psychologists can help with this problem. There are psychologists that specialize in eating disorders who would find this sort of thing quite familiar. Also, many universities have counselling centres or psychologists in the area who are familiar with student issues.
Perfectionism is usually a problem for young people, but if you are a grown-up who is currently in a downward spiral because of perfectionism, you may be able to find someone by asking around in the abovementioned places, or by asking your doctor.
The other problem mentioned was performance anxiety. Anxious disorders can be treated with drugs (from a psychiatrist, not your personal physician) but you should also undergo some form of psychoanalysis or counselling to try and get off the drugs. If anxiety is left untreated it can turn into panic and get you hospitalized thinking that you are dying. Not my idea of a good Saturday afternoon.
In Australia we have a compulsory version of your ESRB. You typically get referred by competitors who don't want your game to be available to kids. So they present a case (including the really gory stuff in level 37) and the board review it and decide. By the way, it's only supposed to be a guide. It's for families to decide whether their particular kid is old enough and balanced enough to handle the violence. That's why it's called "classification" and includes advice about the reason, like "extreme violence".
Re:hondas, ferraris and ebay
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Hondas in Space
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· Score: 1
Look, I can only hope so. Designing a wedding dress is a pretty hit and miss affair. You can't get the right roses so you go for ones a different shade of pinky wihte. You can't get the tanzanite crystals so you go for the amethyst ones and mix them in with light sapphire. I'd expect a rocket to be built as designed. If Gaudi needed to build an upside-down model covered in weights just to get the design right for a cathedral, then a rocket should be even more carefully planned.
It's not really an illicit trade. There are plenty of good video games. Tell a kid "you can't have X but have any of A, B, C, D, E, or F" then that's usually fine!
But you've got to remember that the current parents don't care much for censorship any more. I have a daughter and my wall and bookshelf have plenty of nudes on them. I don't plan to remove them. If she wants to read pornography... I don't want to censor the net for her. Her dad feels a need to protect her from some of the violence on the net.
Most sales of violent video games are stopped by the Australian censorship law... and that's all you can really hope for.
The definition of mature content is done by the "office of film and literature classification" guys. These people screen all movies, and many magazines, books and games, to classify literature. Our movies all say things on them like: "drug themes" "sex themes" "sex references" "violence" "drug references" Then there's a rating: C G PG M R X
If you try to sell a violent video game you are likely to get reported and instantly your video game has to be reviewed before it can be sold.
If it's a bit violent (like Duke Nukem or Doom or whatever the kids play nowadays) it's likely to be slapped with M which means you should be 15 to buy it and in practice, the shopkeep won't sell it to an 8 year old. If it's quite violent (particularly if it has a real aspect to it) then it may be marked R and you have to prove you're 18.
This isn't particularly hard, and there's no invasion of privacy. Unless you think that showing a proof of age is invasion of privacy, in which case I guess you don't go to many swank bars...?
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, it's great that we'll all be living by the seaside with lovely warm weather. Seriously, it's so easy for people to become complacent, thinking the warmer weather's going to be lovely, and who cares if the beach moves a little closer to the fish and chips shop? Perhaps it's time to change the message to: "Just a half a degree change means that all your food will be laced with horrible poisins and chemicals and millions of less fortunate people will die" but then, so many people happily chow down on poptarts and hamburgers, and who cares what happens to a few africans? People's lack of imagination and forethought is quite frightening sometimes.
"Novell as a 'dead' company"
Well of course your CIO didn't want to have all his support dry up, but I'm convinced there's a flaw in this thinking.
Novell are not the biggest sellers or best known name around. But they are behind the biggest networks around, raking in the cash, and were never in danger of failing.
Why do people feel the need to get into fashionable computing? To be in the latest and greatest trend? Why didn't the CIO realize that there are niche players like Sun and Apple who are never going away?
There's this all or nothing mentality about computers (and lots of things) and it's so annoying. You don't need to do what everyone else is doing!
that's what I love about Linux. It doesn't matter that I run SuSE, someone else runs RedHat, another guy has Ubuntu and the third did LFS. We can all interoperate if we want to, because there are open standards like HTML and TeX. Each just chooses a setup that will work best for him/her. So why aren't business players savvy enough to do likewise?
Why is Novell so underrated? Their stuff works and it's the only consistently supported software around!
In my Australian high school computers were taught very poorly. In year 7 we spent a bit of time learning to touch type QWERTY. That was fine, then after that an excursion to the computer room would occur so we could type our essays before submitting them. These were essays that had been drafted and written longhand, and we were simply typing the assignments that were neatly written out in front of us.
Our library trips would sometimes include jumping on a library computer to see what the "Intermanet" had to say about the topic. Not much since the internet is a bunch of hardware, not an encyclopedia. But wait! They had Microsoft Encarta! Wow, revolutionary!
There was nothing that we were supposed to do on computers that we couldn't do better with books OR hadn't done already in the case of typing essays. When people want to send their old computers to schools in Uganda this point comes up all the time - they have no books! So what do you expect them to do with a computer?
So I'm all for using computers in the classroom
*search online journals
*read an old text on project gutenberg
*capture the "buzz" by looking on appropriate websites
But when it doesn't happen, I get very cranky about the wasted time, money and opportunity. It seems ridiculous that so many schools have computers but don't teach programming or computerised maths. That they don't properly help kids to see what the Internet can do.
But it's so much easier to buy a bunch of stuff than to address the holes in their curriculum.
I'm 21. I've had computers since I was 8, regular internet since about 12. I assume most people do. So why are some people naturally well disposed to figure out how to use search engines and email while others think of a computer as a magical device they cannot use?
I'd rather see a real assessment of the skills required to successfully use a computer as part of regular life - then test for these skills such as pattern matching, ability to follow complex instructions...
It's much more fair on people who have less computer access and more to the point, weeds out those who have real potential to do the job with a bit of instruction from those who will never do these things particularly well.
I'm also working on the idea of putting together a primer for people who don't understand what computers are for. They're often sold as appliances but with the multitude of functions they are supposed to have now, they obviously must be quite complex. Explaining the basics in clear language (including why we need such weird jargon) might help get people started on the right track instead of confusing themselves into a frenzy.
Just a few quick answers to the parent who has asked a few questions about my original post...
Yes it takes effort to convince most commercial radio stations to play a song. But the principle is the same. If they want to play it they can in exchange for a small royalty payable to somebody else. I'm not impressed by that.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a non-commercial radio station. Triple J is a unique youth radio station designed to bring music to the kids of Australia. Hence nobody's trying to sell them anything. They routinely seek out new acts and play their songs.
I'm not bitter about lip-synching. It's an artifact of the acoustics of large halls and stadiums that you just can't expect to sing there. If I sign with a recording company I can expect to earn nothing but lose control of my work. Perhaps I will be billed for their work recording and promoting me. I'm happy to spend a night lip-synching if that's the appropriate performance for the venue. I believe that circulating my music is the best way to draw a crowd.
Sorry if I was a bit vague.
Hey, I just blogged about this! Who copied?
Anyway, my point was that you need a bunch of things for people in space. You need a lot of individuals to think that outer space (which is pretty bleak) is better than Earth. Then you need some organization to think there's some benefit. For example - You buy a ticket away from Earth's radiation and your family live in an underground cave like Total Recall. You buy into a biosphere scheme and accept certain responsibilities for a mostly mechanized, well planned environment. Which was built by some company that's doing such stuff.
As a musician I believe that music ought to be free. I can't bear the thought of my work only going to horrible radio stations that are going to try to make the kids buy things they don't want.
But I'm powerless to stop it.
When my album is recorded my preference will be to make it available for download from a simple website. This will provide excellent exposure for my performance and encourage people to visit my performance. Very few musicians make good money from CD sales - they traditionally kept the public enjoying the performance and sparked enthusiasm for visiting a show. The very best of us perform in large stadiums, earning thousands of dollars in a single night (of lip-synching).
I'll be encouraging the kids to build up nice big playlists so they don't have to listen to the radio tell them what to buy. I don't think that AOL internet radio is a useful step at this point.
If you enjoy radio, then I suggest you listen to Triple J - available from the ABC website www.abc.net.au.
This is great! Now we can all research beer without those sarcastic Fark headlines. We can move to Paris and start smoking. And I plan to save money by drinking Ukranian mineral water instead of Italian. Who's with me?
Australia doesn't have TIVO yet. I think if it ever took over, there would be even more ads just over the top of the show like we are starting to get now.
Also, there are plenty of ads that are part of the show. The cool kids head to the beach. Pesicoka. The punk girl listens to music.
Product placement has NOT yet come of age. Why it could be everywhere! Yeah!
It made sense. I don't know how much longer we can stand the advertiser as customer, consumer as commodity mentality. Basically, they do work (make a show) which allows them to procure a commodity (your time and attention) which they then sell to advertisers.
There are two different movements. Some want to become the customer, others want to alter the method used to procure their time (become a willing and active member of this trade).
Perhaps we need a different idea, or maybe one of these things will work. Perhaps you can buy a DVD and select one of these options - option 2 means you install ads on your computer or your brochure comes with ads or you agree to interact with a program designed to flash corporate images with you.
Imagine: "I will pay for my own copy of this video" and the ads go away and you get your DVD for say $5. In the mail or download the MPEG file.
"Yes please advertise to me for 5 minutes".
Program pops up:
"Do you like soft drinks"
Yes
"Do you find them fun or tasty?"
Fun
-Animation of cool people surrounded by bubbles and cans of Pepsoka cola
"Hey, dude, did you know about the cool new competition under the lid of pepsoke?"
Yes
-Animation showing cool people looking very excited as they open their drink
"What prize are you interested in winning? The car or the holiday?"
Holiday
"Yes, New Caledonia is excellent this time of year - don't forget to keep buying Pepsoka Cola!"
Yes! I will enjoy a fun, cold Pepsoke.
"Thankyou for taking the time to watch this advertising. Your copy of Farscape#23 is on it's way. Don't forget to check back regularly for more cool programs you can enjoy!"
The above comment is not insightful!
Here is the real model for TV distribution and why your proposal doesn't work:
1. Some studio makes a TV show.
2. They sell it to national TV channels who distribute it to their local broadcasters
3. Local and national advertisers pay the local and national TV stations to run the show.
Now if you were to watch over the Intermanet, it wouldn't have the same local ads in it, now, would it?
Perhaps the TV could advertise - "Did you miss a show? Watch it streaming on www.ChannelNineCanberra.com.au!" and you could get your own ads for porno and fireworks (or whatever sells in your local area). But then the USA channels are going to be mighty miffed that you're robbing them of their potential viewers by broadcasting this stuff on the Intermanet. As are the local distributers in Finland, for example.
But most of all, the people who actually make and sell the TV show are going to be highly dubious about changing their distribution model in this way.
Actually I think it's silly. Given that an hour of your time spent watching ads costs about $1, you'd think you could just pay the people who make the stuff $1 for every hour of TV you watch over your computer using their streamer-viewer or some login account or who knows what. Porno manages to sell just videos and many of them keep in business, so why can't the TV people sell videos?
But simply expecting TV channels to take the feed you would have got and stick it on the internet is not going to work. How many times did you watch it? What targeted ads did you see? The advertisers aren't going to pay for this loss of control. Local streamed downloads seem easier, but there will be licensing issues as the internet broadcaster tries to convince all the other broadcasters that it's still worth them buying in (the studio will not be convinced that the internet broadcaster will make more money than all the world's TV channels).
Please remember that you are not the customers of this industry - you are consumers whose behaviour is legislated for the economic benefit of the TV channels and advertisers. They are going to do what works best for them and you are going to comply or else. Disagree? Don't watch TV!
I am not an expert in theoretical uses of bizarro quasiparticles with cool names, but I've enjoyed watching CleverNickName play one on TV.
Now what we have here is a data transportation technology that allows us to move a lot of information around on the motherboard. It might speed up computation time by giving the CPU faster cache access.
In a quantum computing scenario, what is it exactly that you suggest would occur? Do quantum computers need to access outside information much? Would they need to access entangled information and thus require transport that will maintain the entanglement?
Just that you don't seem to have said much, and the link you posted is definitely gobbeldygook worthy of Mister Crusher.
Tshirts are a little unoriginal. I'm more a frustrated wannabe artist than a proper clothing maker ... but I've done a halter top with "rocket scientist" because I didn't want to wear "porn star" I've added starry sequins and embroidery to various trousers and I've done some gorgeous painting on some denim overalls for a baby girl (weren't feminine enough - or sparkly enough!) Send original tshirt ideas to rocketgirl@myrealbox.com
Pure tshirt GOLD, leonbrooks (8043)! You and I should go into business together - you do the slogans and I'll do the pretty artwork.
Oddly, I don't have that one. I'll go to the belconnen mall today, get a pink boob tube from Supre and some pearlescent white paint from the art shop and make one.
I've never met a 4-digit slashdotter before.
If you have trouble telling me from all the other girls in Kepler boob tubes (as it's sure to become an instant trend), I'll be the girl drinking espresso in Calypso cafe.
Ask and ye shall receive! I'm an 18-28 female in Canberra. Tomorrow I'm going to a maths lecture just metres from where the Linux conf will be. Hmm... guess that and washing my hair will keep me busy for the next 10 years.... sorry Bob.
That's amazing. Most Australian shops won't take a cheque. They'll take cash, credit, debit or eftpos. Even market stalls usually take credit/debit cards - some even have eftpos.
In Australia you have to pay some stupid OTT government tax to even have the ability to write a cheque from your account. My account is just a normal one and hence has no cheque priveleges. Companies use them to create a stupid paper trail because they don't have enough people that know how to use a computer.
If we want the grocery shop to give us cash, they just punch $100 extra in the eftpos transaction. Instantly the money comes out of your account and goes into the shop's!
It never occured to me that people do it differently.
Odd, isn't it? I always think ads should be there to make people aware of a product, not to try to create an emotional connection.
Example: I google something and get "X on ebay". Excellent! Now I'm reminded that ebay is a good place to look for things I want.
I always look at the junk mail in my letterbox but delete SPAM straight away. One difference nobody discusses? Junk mail contains useful product data! When did kmart send you a piece of paper that said "come to kmart because you look horrible in those clothes"? How about "Kmart! Affordable! Fashionable! Fun!" with a swoosh?
It makes sense to show a picture of something being sold as cute - like an ipod or hello kitty. But otherwise... it's just taking too long!
There is a great way to visualize this. Take two globs of play-dough about golf-ball sized. Or golf balls if you're less inclined to play with the play-dough afterwards. So these globs - they're stars. Put them at their correct distance so as to maintain the scale (guess the average distance of stars). You're wrong. They're 17 000 km apart. Now imagine they're galaxies. No, this isn't a trick question this time. You don't even need a partner to hold the other glob. They're about a metre apart. So, yeah, galaxies collide. But stars don't. However, if you watch some simulations of colliding galaxies, you'll see that they are very well stirred up by the event. Unless the collision is a very fast one and the galaxies' spins are properly aligned, the galaxies end up different shapes. They may merge and if not, there will probably be great trails of stars between them (looks great!) I love it when galaxies collide! I could talk about it all day (see my user description).
There are some rude anonymous replies to the parent comment and I'd like to set the record straight. Perfectionism comes with pressure to achieve - it's not automatically a trait that comes with intelligence, it appears when a person judges his or her self worth by what is achieved. The perfectionist feels like "not a real person" and feels a constant need to prove himself or herself.
For many young women, this means a possibly fatal eating disorder. The parent poster is failing classes and generally ensuring an unhappy life. Psychologists can help with this problem. There are psychologists that specialize in eating disorders who would find this sort of thing quite familiar. Also, many universities have counselling centres or psychologists in the area who are familiar with student issues.
Perfectionism is usually a problem for young people, but if you are a grown-up who is currently in a downward spiral because of perfectionism, you may be able to find someone by asking around in the abovementioned places, or by asking your doctor.
The other problem mentioned was performance anxiety. Anxious disorders can be treated with drugs (from a psychiatrist, not your personal physician) but you should also undergo some form of psychoanalysis or counselling to try and get off the drugs. If anxiety is left untreated it can turn into panic and get you hospitalized thinking that you are dying. Not my idea of a good Saturday afternoon.
Geeks unite, stand up for your health!
In Australia we have a compulsory version of your ESRB. You typically get referred by competitors who don't want your game to be available to kids. So they present a case (including the really gory stuff in level 37) and the board review it and decide. By the way, it's only supposed to be a guide. It's for families to decide whether their particular kid is old enough and balanced enough to handle the violence. That's why it's called "classification" and includes advice about the reason, like "extreme violence".
Look, I can only hope so. Designing a wedding dress is a pretty hit and miss affair. You can't get the right roses so you go for ones a different shade of pinky wihte. You can't get the tanzanite crystals so you go for the amethyst ones and mix them in with light sapphire. I'd expect a rocket to be built as designed. If Gaudi needed to build an upside-down model covered in weights just to get the design right for a cathedral, then a rocket should be even more carefully planned.
It's not really an illicit trade. There are plenty of good video games. Tell a kid "you can't have X but have any of A, B, C, D, E, or F" then that's usually fine!
But you've got to remember that the current parents don't care much for censorship any more. I have a daughter and my wall and bookshelf have plenty of nudes on them. I don't plan to remove them. If she wants to read pornography... I don't want to censor the net for her. Her dad feels a need to protect her from some of the violence on the net.
Most sales of violent video games are stopped by the Australian censorship law... and that's all you can really hope for.
In Australia it is perfectly well enforced.
The definition of mature content is done by the "office of film and literature classification" guys. These people screen all movies, and many magazines, books and games, to classify literature. Our movies all say things on them like:
"drug themes" "sex themes" "sex references" "violence" "drug references"
Then there's a rating: C G PG M R X
If you try to sell a violent video game you are likely to get reported and instantly your video game has to be reviewed before it can be sold.
If it's a bit violent (like Duke Nukem or Doom or whatever the kids play nowadays) it's likely to be slapped with M which means you should be 15 to buy it and in practice, the shopkeep won't sell it to an 8 year old. If it's quite violent (particularly if it has a real aspect to it) then it may be marked R and you have to prove you're 18.
This isn't particularly hard, and there's no invasion of privacy. Unless you think that showing a proof of age is invasion of privacy, in which case I guess you don't go to many swank bars...?