Or some other way to easily kill themselves? I know this probably isn't high up on the planning list but the thought of dying of starvation/dehydration eventually on a distant planet may make some a little uneasy. Letting them take the "easy way out" once the food and water supplies are exhausted seems like the most humane thing to do.
I think I would it.....if I were 30-35 years older than I am now. After living a pretty full life, having children, seeing the places I want to see, after I've accomplished most of the things I want to accomplish this would be an excellent way to "Ride off into the sunset". Saddle my kids with the emotional, physical, and financial burden of taking care of me as my body starts to break down or do something really awesome and give the Grand Kids an opportunity to bring some Pictures to "Show and Tell" and say "This is Grandpa. He went on vacation to Mars."
Of course, they probably don't want to be sending 60+ year old people who aren't in rigorously good shape on a mission like this.
I don't know, CIO's liking to go yell at someone in their own office may be something for really really large companies, but my experience has been different. I have worked for mainly small to medium sized organizations and I have found that in general the higher ups have more faith in what a large company like Google tells them and their ability to fix the problem than they do the guys under their control. They can yell at said guy and fire him but that is about it. With a big corporation backing a service, they can yell at an entire chain of command and threaten to switch away from their product and sue for lost revenue. You can't really sue a guy you just fired for lost revenue and expect to actually get money for it.
Even a few years ago when it started to be the norm to walk into a Best Buy and find laptops for $600 and less, I remember the low end Sony's being something like $1000 and always $300-$400 more costly than an equivalent notebook of a different brand. You certainly weren't paying for quality, as most of those laptops were not nearly as nice as their cheaper rivals.
For kicks I looked at the Best Buy website just now (Not that I advocate making your laptop purchases at Best Buy but I find them a good baseline for checking relative prices and such). A Sony Vaio with a Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 14.1" screen, and the usual stuff is going for $779. An HP Laptop with the same specs is $749. A $30 differential is not that large. I think Sony is realizing that their name alone is no longer compelling gullible shoppers to lay down hundreds more for their products.
Although, I do know a few people that are Sony freaks. They have their Sony Flat Screen TV, Sony Desktop, Sony Laptop, Sony Camcorder, and special Sony flash cards. They refuse to consider any other brand despite the fact that they are always calling me because their crap is busted. Apple fanboys have nothing on them...mostly because most Apple products are, you know, pretty good.
This may be a really stupid question...in fact...I'm almost certain that it is a really stupid question. I've never served in the military and have no idea. Do you have any choice whatsoever in the gear you are issued? If you felt safer with the old Kevlar helmet could you ask for that type instead or did they pretty much toss all of them in the garbage?
I hate to even compare it to the military, but in the NFL you can opt to get one of the new "Anti-Concussion" helmets but the rules do not require you to get one as some players feel there are other drawbacks to the "Safer" model and the evidence of the safety of the new helmet is somewhat questionable. I know in most cases you do not get a heck of a lot of choices in the military but I would think that being asked to wear something shaking around on your head would definitely impair a person's abilities on the field of combat.
Maybe you did RTFA, but you didn't read it closely. The relevant points are....
(The start of the "Enterprise Readiness" section) "Windows is the business standard -- and the release of Snow Leopard won't change that."
(The "Winner" section, where you grabbed that quote) "Windows 7. Windows remains the enterprise standard. No change appears imminent."
He does not say that Windows 7 is the Enterprise standard. Maybe he should have been more clear in the conclusion but he is using "Windows" as a general term for "Microsoft Architecture", as he essentially marries the two when he says "Many enterprises have standardized not just on Windows but on the entire Microsoft architecture, including Office, SharePoint, Exchange, custom-built applications for Windows and so on."
Seeing as how this section was really the only part of the article that I thought was reasonable, I figured I'd correct you.;)
I agree that you cannot expect Microsoft to have every driver from every manufacturer on the installation disk, I am quite surprised that it did not have a driver for a Dell Inspiron E1505. It is a notebook I see around quite often and has a ATI 6400 graphics card...also pretty common. If they want the upgrade experience to be pain free for a pretty common user, they need to make sure that most of the time LAN/WLAN and Graphics drivers load the majority of the time. Network is self explanatory but I can't begin to count the number of times I've seen a Windows computer get set back to 640x480 with 256 colors (or end up in safe mode) and seen users absolutely freak that "MY SCREEN IS BROKEN!" I understand that Windows Update found the driver and installed it but by that point the user may have died of a heart attack.
I don't know that I would call Madden a crap franchise. I have not purchased a Madden game since Madden 99 or Madden 2000 and it was pretty darn fun to play. I know that some version since then have been a little bit broken by player statistics (I think the year Michael Vick was on the cover he was unstoppable) but most people I know that do play the newer versions think they are great. They certainly sell enough copies of it.
The problem with the ad budget here is (I'd imagine) the cost of advertising during NFL games. Super Bowl Ads are of course insanely expensive, but I am not sure about regular games. What they get in return is some pretty awesome targeted marketing. Again, no stats, but I'd have to guess that people who would be interested in playing a football video game are the same people who watch football on TV. Not to mention that most people watching are a sporting event will be watching it live which means that the ads will acually be seen.
I don't know if life expectancy is the be all end all of quality of health care, either. There may be a myriad of other factors at work here. I don't want to go trying to find these stats right now but someone else might and try to compare them in a sensible way....
What is rate of murder in Canada, UK, and the US? Health Care doesn't help when the symptom is "brains splattered on floor". What is the rate of fatal traffic accidents in those three countries? Next we have the percentage of smokers, alcoholics, hard drug users, and obesity per country. Maybe some of those are affected by health care (access to smoking cessation medications/programs, access to proper alcohol/drug treatment) but by and large I think they stand alone. What type of air quality to does the typical person from each of those countries have to breathe? How many deaths come as the result of natural disasters such as Earthquakes and Hurricanes?
You can have the greatest health care system in the world but if your citizens are all smoking, drinking, hard drug using maniacs driving around shooting at each other while trying to flee nature's wrath the life expectancy stat would make it look terrible.;)
I Would like to add that it is not just Dell who is guilty of this...it is (nearly) all of the major OEMs. If this were true for consumer class products, fine. HP markets things under the term "Business Desktop" and "Business Laptop". The default Windows install of an HP business unit has something like 6-10 items found in the "Add/Remove Programs" window that are specifically HP. HP Support Adviser. HP Upgrade Assistant, HP Security Thingy, HP Wireless Lan Utility, HP Backup Utility..whatever. Half of those programs don't work or don't work very well. Since we are discussing Microsoft Word here...how about Microsoft Office Home Edition 30-day Trial. What a fantastic help for Business. Most companies of any size are probably going to image every machine that comes through the door anyway, but keeping all of that nonsense off might let some smaller companies stay away from imaging software if they are getting boxes in with really clean and minimal Windows installs.
Honestly, we need more congress-people who pay less attention to party directives and think for themselves, not less.
I completely agree with you but it actually filters down all the way to private citizens. All too often these days citizens in the United States treat the two political parties like rival sports teams...nay...rival professional wrestlers. People defend their party no matter how ridiculous the ideas and deride the other no matter how brilliant the ideas. With your constituents acting like this, what incentive do you have to Cross Party Lines? At best nobody will notice. Likely she'll be derided as "one of them god damn hippies with their god damn socialist agendas".
The partisan system gets its support from the masses. Until we the people start to act otherwise there is no way politicians will.
- About 10% of the American population consists of people like me - we are wealthy enough to buy insurance, but we voluntarily choose NOT to buy insurance. There are a number of reasons for this. Mine is that I think insurance is a scam and it's cheaper for me to simply pay my ~$200 a year doctor visit.
Man, it is your prerogative but I think you need to realize that insurance isn't about your $200 a year doctor visit.
Insurance is basically a lottery that you essentially do not want to win. To win means you have suffered an injury or illness well in excess of what you (or you and your company) have put into it. I don't know HOW wealthy you are but money can get chewed up really really fast if you suffer any kind of major medical issue. You just got cancer? After doctors visits, specialists visits, tests, scans, medications, chemo, surgery, rehab, hospital stays, and costs I am failing to mention....you are going to be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars.Maybe you are young, active, eat well, don't smoke, don't drink, and do everything right but that does not mean you are immune to cancer. Hell, even a good compound leg fracture is likely to cost you nearly $50,000.
Insurance companies make their money, no doubt. Most of the time you are essentially paying lots of money for other people to get treated and for the insurance companies to show a profit...but if you do happen to need it the ROI is extremely high.
I guess that comes down to how you want to define "wrong". I myself do not have perfect grammar. My rampant and usually misplaced use of commas, parentheses, and.......lines of dots would probably make someone really anal about grammar cringe. Sometimes I try to eliminate that sort of thing (especially when typing a formal business related message) but it is a habit I can't break. On the flip side, despite my apparent defending of misuse of language, I absolutely cannot stand getting messages that barely resemble the English Language as I know it.
Another thing I have considered is if it is possible that people that usually write the messages I despise look at my messages and think I come off as a pompous ass and tell other people that "His Shit is all fucked up and he talks like a fag."
I would say that right now the use of shortcuts is wrong. When I say "your", everyone knows what I am saying. If they do not, they can hit a standard dictionary. If I say "ur" to a person who is not familiar with this type of slang they may be really confused. In the future this could shift the other direction leaving those that try to use "proper" English have a hard time getting ideas across to those they communicate with. At that point the shortcuts become more "right".
It is an interesting question and we may very well be seeing very rapid evolution of language. No doubt that shorter words leads to fewer keystrokes and thus faster communications in the technology driven world. Will people who prefer well constructed sentences eventually be considered old dinosaurs holding back efficiency because of some archaic thoughts about proper speech being beautiful and professional? It will take some time but could turn out that way.
I wonder though, how much of the devolution of language that you have witnessed on boards and in games may have other reasons behind it than someone not knowing proper English.
When people speak English they pretty much do so at a rate pretty close to everyone else (yeah, there are people like auctioneers and people with very slow "spit it out already or I will punch you in the face" speaking cadence). Writing probably has greater variations in speed than speech does but I think most people, when they need to, can turn it up a notch and bang out a few paragraphs on paper faster than they usually do.
Now take a look at typing as a method of communicating. A person like my father who has not touched a typewriter in 30 years and probably was never a very good typist is getting on forums and using EMAIL to communicate with friends and family. My 80-100 words per minute is going to make it much easier for me to type out long messages and use somewhat proper spelling/grammar/punctuation. My father's inability to type more than maybe 25 WPM is going to hinder him and probably deter him from paying close attention to what he is typing, especially since he is staring at the keyboard instead of the screen. The amount of time it takes for him to type a message is going to drastically increase if he needs to use symbols like , ' " ! () ? - $ all of which can be used reasonably often in communicating. Looking up and noticing that four words ago he used their instead of there would force him to grab the mouse, click the end of the word, locate the backspace key, retype the word, grab the mouse, and finally go to where he left off. I myself could just backspace to my misused word and retype all four words in ten seconds.
Unless a poor typist wants to spend even more time getting their idea across (Which is truly the important part of communication) before moving on to the next idea, they r gonna take shortcuts to get there ideas a X.
A few toys and free drinks are not going to be as good as money in actual quantifiable numbers. No doubt...but think of it this way. Let's say a company provides free Soda for employees. The average employee drinks...I don't know...8 cases of soda a year. I don't drink much soda so I don't really know the cost but we'll just say $7 a case. That is $56 a year. Assuming 52 weeks of 40 hours per week, giving the money straight to the employees would net them something like a $.02 raise. That is hardly going to boost the morale of the company.
Not to mention that companies doing some nice little things like providing Soda may be indicative of how they treat their employees as a whole. The benefits to someone of being treated well at work is hard to measure. Yes, people with families need to make money but it is not the be all end all. Is $3,000 more a year worth it if you come home every single days pissed off, tired, and hating life so much that you don't even want to do stuff with your kids compared to coming home the majority of days feeling content with the energy to start tossing a ball around in the back yard with the family? Is $5,000 worth it if the company expects 65 hours every week compared to a job that expects 40 and occasionally 50? Making money is important for your family but so is having time and energy to spend with them
I wouldn't say that "Things like work life balance, 9-5, utility bills, banking rules, corporate hierarchy, living to work, etc will never work for anyone with higher cognitive function." I myself have tested out several times on IQ tests at the top end of "Genius" (For whatever that is worth...I know I'm bright but I don't know how much stock I put into the IQ numbers) and struggle with those things. My brain simply doesn't work 9-5. It works when it works and I have little control over it. I do consulting now for the last five years and make my own hours, but when I was working 8-4:30 the prospect of being punished/losing my job for punching in at 8:07 kept me anxious and awake at nights....leading me to punch in at 8:07. On the other hand I have a friend that has tested out well into the 170's which is "High Genius" and when we work on problems together it is clear that he is more intelligent than me. He has no problems with the 9-5 world. He doesn't have the psychological problems I do. He's a HAPPIER person in general.
Maybe he is an outlier, maybe not. I've considered for awhile that there is a sweet spot in the "Genius" range where people are too smart to cope, not smart enough to figure out how to cope with being too smart. Of course, with the small amount of people who qualify for high genius status it is probably pretty hard to make that determination.
I just read back on my post and frankly, I'd imagine that anyone reading this is probably thinking "Genius my ass..this guy isn't making sense." I apologize. I had a hard time putting into words what I was trying to say, but hopefully some of you can understand it.;)
In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).
I don't know of any news sources that are 100% objective 100% of the time.... While I don't partcularily care for Fox News, claiming that they are not credible is a little overboard. They will report actual factual news and they will have opinion pieces. The factual news...credible. Opinions? Maybe you don't like them but everyone is entitled to their own. The problem that most people seem to have is that they lack the ability to parse the facts from opinion....that goes for information that comes from Left AND Right wing sources.
Let me first say that I don't really even know how technology the iPass type solution actually uses or how expensive it is to implement, but how about this idea for metered parking?
Leave curbside meters up. Have them take cash still for occasional visitors but for people who commonly use the cities' metered parking get something like the iPark with an "On/Off" switch. When you park, you hit the "On" switch. The meter flips to "Paid". Your account is debited for the duration of your stay. When you drive away and are out of range of the meter, the IPark turns "off".
Something along these lines seems like a really easy way to handle this problem.
The thing is, to be reasonably technologically savvy takes quite a bit of time energy. I'd imagine most of the people on this board of spent years to decades working in a tech related field or spending a pretty good deal of time doing computer stuff as a hobby.
One of the greatest contributors to overall suspicion of tech and the tech savvy is sensationalized media claims. "New Vulnerability will allow super virus to infect 99% of all computers in the world! Super Virus will immediately destroy your computer, drain all of your bank accounts, and violently deflower your virgin daughter while you watch!"
Next in line is probably Best Buy and their Geek Squad. Someone goes to buy a new computer and they are told that unless they fork over $150 to get their computer set up by a certified Geek Squad technician, they are doomed. And no, you can't set it up yourself. It is too difficult....as is adding more RAM. You are likely to shock yourself, burn out your hard drive, and start your house on fire.
This guy stuck to his guns, and that is fine....but I think IT people would do to realize that this suspicion DOES exist and they are likely to be treated a bit differently by the non-tech group. You can take steps to try to diminish these tech/non-tech barriers. I always try to be as open as possible with everyone as far as what I am doing. Most of the time they don't care to hear it. Sometimes they sit and listen and ask intelligent questions trying to understand computers a little better. I always offer to write documentation for processes if they would feel more comfortable if I did so. I do not try to hold information back to make sure my job is secure. This has gotten me a lot of bored looks but quite a bit of respect from non-tech people. I think as a result I have even gotten some of them at least marginally interested in tech where there was zero interest before.
I totally agree with you. I try to use correct spelling and grammar, full sentences, and capital letters. I admit that sometimes I use punctuation poorly (I use way too many commas and have fallen into the habit of using several periods.....I guess to indicate that I am pausing and thinking. I could probably do much better but at least I make an effort to make myself sound coherent.
One thing that I have wondered is what people on the other end of communications are thinking. When they see my lengthy message full of an assortment of proper words is their reaction "This guy is a pompous ass!" in Idiocracy style "His shit is all fucked up and he talks like a fag" fashion? Since the quality of the responses rarely mirrors the quality of my messages it certainly does not make them consider responding in a more formal manner.
I have no evidence to back this up, but my hunch is part of the lifestyle has to do with employment in America (as far as being employed, obviously unemployment and poverty bring a new set of problems...) The amount of vacation time the average American receives is really low. I'd guess the average full time job in America consists of (At a minimum) 8 hours of work and a 30 minute unpaid lunch with a large fraction of salaried workers doing 10 hours a day. Add 30 minute each way commute times and you are looking at 9.5 to 11 hours a day at work.
This leads to a pretty low amount of time for leisure activities which is going to lead to cutting corners. Spend 45 minutes preparing a decent meal or hit the drive through on the way home? Hit the gym or spend some time relaxing before doing household chores and going to sleep? With children involved you suddenly have more things you absolutely have to get done (Get them to and from school/sports practice/music recitals) and hopefully want to spend some time with them. A healthy lifestyle looks pretty difficult at that point.
I switched from a regular job to consulting about four years ago. Consulting carries its own levels of stress but being able to make my own schedule (for the most part) has done a lot of good for me. I lost 45 pounds (I was starting to get near the top end of "overweight"), I rarely touch fast food, I walk/bike/lift some weights so I am reasonably toned, best of all I don't feel like death in the morning. People used to tell me they were worried about me because I looked gray and sickly..now I have people telling me how healthy I look.
I don't know about all chapters of AA, but from what I have seen they can be quite harmful... My mother was a heavy drink and then a heavy user of prescription opiates. She finally was in such poor condition that she checked herself in, went through a 2 week detox, and left the clinic with a prescription of Suboxone, a therapist, a psychiatrist, and heavy encouragement to attend one of several AA (It is alcoholics anonymous but they pretty much welcome all substance abusers) clubs in the area.
AA members take on "Sponsers"...someone who has been sober for a year or more. My mom was sponsored by a nurse 15 years younger then her who was also addicted to pain killers and had been attending AA for two years. A month into it I met the sponser for the first time. Within a minute of meeting her I knew she was higher than a kite. Two weeks later, sponser was in jail for writing herself scripts for oxycontin. Her second sponsor was a woman 4 years clean from alcohol. She started taking my mom down to the Casino where they both continually lost thousands of dollars and both became horribly addicted to gambling. That sponsor flew off the deep end so my mom decided she would try a male sponsor. He tried to sexually assault her. It came out he had assaulted about 9 AA newcomers in the last 5 years. He faked an alcohol addiction to attend meetings to feed his sex addiction. Four years later, my mom is clean of drugs but her life is pretty messed up overall.
Sometimes I wonder if it is such a good idea to bring people who have self destructive tendencies in this manner. I imagine when people leave the Internet Addiction Camp that they will be encouraged to keep in touch with others whom they have met there in order to support each other. I can't think of a better way to do this offhand but establishing a support network of people with severe problems seems to be a recipe for disaster. On one hand you might have "Bob over there has stayed away from the Internet/Drugs/Alcohol...If he can do it so can I!"....but on the other you have "Bob confided in me that he has started playing WoW again but has it under control. I'll start playing and make sure to moderate my time just like bob!
Often times the Paypal "Dispute Process" can be really messed up.
I used to sell a lot of stuff on EBAY when I was unemployed for a period of time. I'd buy things in bulk and sell them off on EBAY. It wasn't making me rich and it was a lot of work but it was helping me get by a hard time....until they started making things difficult for me.
The worst problem was a $27 transaction. The buyer paid and a day later my account was locked. The reason? Apparently at some time the buyer was a victim of credit card fraud so they decided it was fraud again....and because I was receiving the money I MUST be involved. Both of our accounts would be locked pending a paypal investigation.
I had about 60 packages I had to ship out very shortly and the money to do that was...in my Paypal account. Being poor and unemployed, I didn't have nearly enough money to cover it outside of that account. I talked to the guy with the $27 transaction on the phone and we decided to just call Paypal and get them to cancel it. No way. We were both under suspicion of criminal activity. In the meantime, I had another 70-80 auctions end but the Buyers could not send me money because of my frozen account. Obviously "Paypal froze my account" didn't inspire confidence so few of those people worked with me and I got stuck with EBAY seller fees.
I tried to explain the situation to the other people I owed goods. Some asked if I could just refund their money. I agreed to that but...guess what? I couldn't! As time wore on, they started getting mad and filing more complaints. By the time the original was cleared up 23 days later I had another 30 or so complaints where.....I couldn't refund the money. Ebay Fees hit (That money could come out) which left me with not enough money for all the refunds anyway. Of course, they started hammering my bank account after that. Luckily I got a job shortly after and was able to make sure everyone got their merchandise or money....but Paypal just destroyed me, my once spectacular Ebay reputation, and my bank account. It was absolutely ridiculous.
You don't need voice service on your landline for DSL. If Qwest told you this(they tried to tell me this), they lied.
While you are absolutely correct, and I know people in different cities that have DSL with no phone service but in some areas (I am in Milwaukee) it is nearly imposssible to get them to cave in and just install DSL. When I moved a little over 2 years ago I decided I was going to try to save some money and get DSL instead of Cable for internet (DSL was $24.99 (3 megabit, Cable was $39.99 (8 megabit).
I talked to several customer service reps and three managers. Not a single one would admit they could give me DSL without giving me phone service. I asked them to tell me the price of their most basic phone package and DSL together. My Bill would have been about $38. I explained to them that for that price I'd get Cable because it was nearly triple the speed. I made it clear that they would not be getting my business unless they provided DSL only at the advertised price.
They simply did not care. They went over some of the "virtues" of DSL over Roadrunner which was mostly nonsense. Finally I just gave up and went to Roadrunner. Perhaps they think that if they give DSL without phone to one person, word will get out and more people will start calling to cancel the land line. That is the only reasonable explanation why they would not want to take my money.
There is one thing to take into consideration....what happens to the members of the IT Department involved in tracking licenses when a big fat fine comes down on the company that is getting audited/sued?
This is only what I have heard but I believe that for every illegal copy of software the business has to purchase a legal retail copy from the BSA's chosen vendor AND pay a "fine" equal to that price. Let us just say that 5 big time power user boxes got lost in the license shuffle. Each Workstation has a copy of Windows XP Pro (~$300 MSRP), Office 2007 Pro (~$500 MSRP), Adobe CS4 Master Collection (~$2500 MSRP), and Autocad 2009, and Autocad 2010 Mechanical (~$4500 MSRP), Solidworks + Cosmosworks 2009 (~$6000 MSRP), and Visual Studio 2009 Professional (~$800). Yes, that is an odd collection of software to be on a single machine but possibly not unheard of...and heck...maybe it is spread over several machines. The company is going to be shelling out close to $150,000. I don't know about you, but I don't think most places forgive $150,000 mistakes.
So....heads will probably roll. Maybe these people just made honest mistakes in tracking...maybe they were told "We need this software loaded, we'll get it purchased next month"...whatever the reason they are going to be out of a job. So, although on the surface it seems that only the corporation is getting hurt individual workers can find themselves out on the street real quick.
Slashdot Mirror
Or some other way to easily kill themselves? I know this probably isn't high up on the planning list but the thought of dying of starvation/dehydration eventually on a distant planet may make some a little uneasy. Letting them take the "easy way out" once the food and water supplies are exhausted seems like the most humane thing to do.
I think I would it.....if I were 30-35 years older than I am now. After living a pretty full life, having children, seeing the places I want to see, after I've accomplished most of the things I want to accomplish this would be an excellent way to "Ride off into the sunset". Saddle my kids with the emotional, physical, and financial burden of taking care of me as my body starts to break down or do something really awesome and give the Grand Kids an opportunity to bring some Pictures to "Show and Tell" and say "This is Grandpa. He went on vacation to Mars."
Of course, they probably don't want to be sending 60+ year old people who aren't in rigorously good shape on a mission like this.
I don't know, CIO's liking to go yell at someone in their own office may be something for really really large companies, but my experience has been different. I have worked for mainly small to medium sized organizations and I have found that in general the higher ups have more faith in what a large company like Google tells them and their ability to fix the problem than they do the guys under their control. They can yell at said guy and fire him but that is about it. With a big corporation backing a service, they can yell at an entire chain of command and threaten to switch away from their product and sue for lost revenue. You can't really sue a guy you just fired for lost revenue and expect to actually get money for it.
Even a few years ago when it started to be the norm to walk into a Best Buy and find laptops for $600 and less, I remember the low end Sony's being something like $1000 and always $300-$400 more costly than an equivalent notebook of a different brand. You certainly weren't paying for quality, as most of those laptops were not nearly as nice as their cheaper rivals.
For kicks I looked at the Best Buy website just now (Not that I advocate making your laptop purchases at Best Buy but I find them a good baseline for checking relative prices and such). A Sony Vaio with a Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 14.1" screen, and the usual stuff is going for $779. An HP Laptop with the same specs is $749. A $30 differential is not that large. I think Sony is realizing that their name alone is no longer compelling gullible shoppers to lay down hundreds more for their products.
Although, I do know a few people that are Sony freaks. They have their Sony Flat Screen TV, Sony Desktop, Sony Laptop, Sony Camcorder, and special Sony flash cards. They refuse to consider any other brand despite the fact that they are always calling me because their crap is busted. Apple fanboys have nothing on them...mostly because most Apple products are, you know, pretty good.
This may be a really stupid question...in fact...I'm almost certain that it is a really stupid question. I've never served in the military and have no idea. Do you have any choice whatsoever in the gear you are issued? If you felt safer with the old Kevlar helmet could you ask for that type instead or did they pretty much toss all of them in the garbage?
I hate to even compare it to the military, but in the NFL you can opt to get one of the new "Anti-Concussion" helmets but the rules do not require you to get one as some players feel there are other drawbacks to the "Safer" model and the evidence of the safety of the new helmet is somewhat questionable. I know in most cases you do not get a heck of a lot of choices in the military but I would think that being asked to wear something shaking around on your head would definitely impair a person's abilities on the field of combat.
Maybe you did RTFA, but you didn't read it closely. The relevant points are....
(The start of the "Enterprise Readiness" section) "Windows is the business standard -- and the release of Snow Leopard won't change that."
(The "Winner" section, where you grabbed that quote) "Windows 7. Windows remains the enterprise standard. No change appears imminent."
He does not say that Windows 7 is the Enterprise standard. Maybe he should have been more clear in the conclusion but he is using "Windows" as a general term for "Microsoft Architecture", as he essentially marries the two when he says "Many enterprises have standardized not just on Windows but on the entire Microsoft architecture, including Office, SharePoint, Exchange, custom-built applications for Windows and so on."
Seeing as how this section was really the only part of the article that I thought was reasonable, I figured I'd correct you. ;)
I agree that you cannot expect Microsoft to have every driver from every manufacturer on the installation disk, I am quite surprised that it did not have a driver for a Dell Inspiron E1505. It is a notebook I see around quite often and has a ATI 6400 graphics card...also pretty common. If they want the upgrade experience to be pain free for a pretty common user, they need to make sure that most of the time LAN/WLAN and Graphics drivers load the majority of the time. Network is self explanatory but I can't begin to count the number of times I've seen a Windows computer get set back to 640x480 with 256 colors (or end up in safe mode) and seen users absolutely freak that "MY SCREEN IS BROKEN!" I understand that Windows Update found the driver and installed it but by that point the user may have died of a heart attack.
I don't know that I would call Madden a crap franchise. I have not purchased a Madden game since Madden 99 or Madden 2000 and it was pretty darn fun to play. I know that some version since then have been a little bit broken by player statistics (I think the year Michael Vick was on the cover he was unstoppable) but most people I know that do play the newer versions think they are great. They certainly sell enough copies of it.
The problem with the ad budget here is (I'd imagine) the cost of advertising during NFL games. Super Bowl Ads are of course insanely expensive, but I am not sure about regular games. What they get in return is some pretty awesome targeted marketing. Again, no stats, but I'd have to guess that people who would be interested in playing a football video game are the same people who watch football on TV. Not to mention that most people watching are a sporting event will be watching it live which means that the ads will acually be seen.
I don't know if life expectancy is the be all end all of quality of health care, either. There may be a myriad of other factors at work here. I don't want to go trying to find these stats right now but someone else might and try to compare them in a sensible way....
What is rate of murder in Canada, UK, and the US? Health Care doesn't help when the symptom is "brains splattered on floor". What is the rate of fatal traffic accidents in those three countries? Next we have the percentage of smokers, alcoholics, hard drug users, and obesity per country. Maybe some of those are affected by health care (access to smoking cessation medications/programs, access to proper alcohol/drug treatment) but by and large I think they stand alone. What type of air quality to does the typical person from each of those countries have to breathe? How many deaths come as the result of natural disasters such as Earthquakes and Hurricanes?
You can have the greatest health care system in the world but if your citizens are all smoking, drinking, hard drug using maniacs driving around shooting at each other while trying to flee nature's wrath the life expectancy stat would make it look terrible. ;)
I Would like to add that it is not just Dell who is guilty of this...it is (nearly) all of the major OEMs. If this were true for consumer class products, fine. HP markets things under the term "Business Desktop" and "Business Laptop". The default Windows install of an HP business unit has something like 6-10 items found in the "Add/Remove Programs" window that are specifically HP. HP Support Adviser. HP Upgrade Assistant, HP Security Thingy, HP Wireless Lan Utility, HP Backup Utility..whatever. Half of those programs don't work or don't work very well. Since we are discussing Microsoft Word here...how about Microsoft Office Home Edition 30-day Trial. What a fantastic help for Business. Most companies of any size are probably going to image every machine that comes through the door anyway, but keeping all of that nonsense off might let some smaller companies stay away from imaging software if they are getting boxes in with really clean and minimal Windows installs.
Honestly, we need more congress-people who pay less attention to party directives and think for themselves, not less.
I completely agree with you but it actually filters down all the way to private citizens. All too often these days citizens in the United States treat the two political parties like rival sports teams...nay...rival professional wrestlers. People defend their party no matter how ridiculous the ideas and deride the other no matter how brilliant the ideas. With your constituents acting like this, what incentive do you have to Cross Party Lines? At best nobody will notice. Likely she'll be derided as "one of them god damn hippies with their god damn socialist agendas".
The partisan system gets its support from the masses. Until we the people start to act otherwise there is no way politicians will.
- About 10% of the American population consists of people like me - we are wealthy enough to buy insurance, but we voluntarily choose NOT to buy insurance. There are a number of reasons for this. Mine is that I think insurance is a scam and it's cheaper for me to simply pay my ~$200 a year doctor visit.
Man, it is your prerogative but I think you need to realize that insurance isn't about your $200 a year doctor visit.
Insurance is basically a lottery that you essentially do not want to win. To win means you have suffered an injury or illness well in excess of what you (or you and your company) have put into it. I don't know HOW wealthy you are but money can get chewed up really really fast if you suffer any kind of major medical issue. You just got cancer? After doctors visits, specialists visits, tests, scans, medications, chemo, surgery, rehab, hospital stays, and costs I am failing to mention....you are going to be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars.Maybe you are young, active, eat well, don't smoke, don't drink, and do everything right but that does not mean you are immune to cancer. Hell, even a good compound leg fracture is likely to cost you nearly $50,000.
Insurance companies make their money, no doubt. Most of the time you are essentially paying lots of money for other people to get treated and for the insurance companies to show a profit...but if you do happen to need it the ROI is extremely high.
I guess that comes down to how you want to define "wrong". I myself do not have perfect grammar. My rampant and usually misplaced use of commas, parentheses, and.......lines of dots would probably make someone really anal about grammar cringe. Sometimes I try to eliminate that sort of thing (especially when typing a formal business related message) but it is a habit I can't break. On the flip side, despite my apparent defending of misuse of language, I absolutely cannot stand getting messages that barely resemble the English Language as I know it.
Another thing I have considered is if it is possible that people that usually write the messages I despise look at my messages and think I come off as a pompous ass and tell other people that "His Shit is all fucked up and he talks like a fag."
I would say that right now the use of shortcuts is wrong. When I say "your", everyone knows what I am saying. If they do not, they can hit a standard dictionary. If I say "ur" to a person who is not familiar with this type of slang they may be really confused. In the future this could shift the other direction leaving those that try to use "proper" English have a hard time getting ideas across to those they communicate with. At that point the shortcuts become more "right".
It is an interesting question and we may very well be seeing very rapid evolution of language. No doubt that shorter words leads to fewer keystrokes and thus faster communications in the technology driven world. Will people who prefer well constructed sentences eventually be considered old dinosaurs holding back efficiency because of some archaic thoughts about proper speech being beautiful and professional? It will take some time but could turn out that way.
I wonder though, how much of the devolution of language that you have witnessed on boards and in games may have other reasons behind it than someone not knowing proper English.
When people speak English they pretty much do so at a rate pretty close to everyone else (yeah, there are people like auctioneers and people with very slow "spit it out already or I will punch you in the face" speaking cadence). Writing probably has greater variations in speed than speech does but I think most people, when they need to, can turn it up a notch and bang out a few paragraphs on paper faster than they usually do.
Now take a look at typing as a method of communicating. A person like my father who has not touched a typewriter in 30 years and probably was never a very good typist is getting on forums and using EMAIL to communicate with friends and family. My 80-100 words per minute is going to make it much easier for me to type out long messages and use somewhat proper spelling/grammar/punctuation. My father's inability to type more than maybe 25 WPM is going to hinder him and probably deter him from paying close attention to what he is typing, especially since he is staring at the keyboard instead of the screen. The amount of time it takes for him to type a message is going to drastically increase if he needs to use symbols like , ' " ! () ? - $ all of which can be used reasonably often in communicating. Looking up and noticing that four words ago he used their instead of there would force him to grab the mouse, click the end of the word, locate the backspace key, retype the word, grab the mouse, and finally go to where he left off. I myself could just backspace to my misused word and retype all four words in ten seconds.
Unless a poor typist wants to spend even more time getting their idea across (Which is truly the important part of communication) before moving on to the next idea, they r gonna take shortcuts to get there ideas a X.
A few toys and free drinks are not going to be as good as money in actual quantifiable numbers. No doubt...but think of it this way. Let's say a company provides free Soda for employees. The average employee drinks...I don't know...8 cases of soda a year. I don't drink much soda so I don't really know the cost but we'll just say $7 a case. That is $56 a year. Assuming 52 weeks of 40 hours per week, giving the money straight to the employees would net them something like a $.02 raise. That is hardly going to boost the morale of the company.
Not to mention that companies doing some nice little things like providing Soda may be indicative of how they treat their employees as a whole. The benefits to someone of being treated well at work is hard to measure. Yes, people with families need to make money but it is not the be all end all. Is $3,000 more a year worth it if you come home every single days pissed off, tired, and hating life so much that you don't even want to do stuff with your kids compared to coming home the majority of days feeling content with the energy to start tossing a ball around in the back yard with the family? Is $5,000 worth it if the company expects 65 hours every week compared to a job that expects 40 and occasionally 50? Making money is important for your family but so is having time and energy to spend with them
I wouldn't say that "Things like work life balance, 9-5, utility bills, banking rules, corporate hierarchy, living to work, etc will never work for anyone with higher cognitive function." I myself have tested out several times on IQ tests at the top end of "Genius" (For whatever that is worth...I know I'm bright but I don't know how much stock I put into the IQ numbers) and struggle with those things. My brain simply doesn't work 9-5. It works when it works and I have little control over it. I do consulting now for the last five years and make my own hours, but when I was working 8-4:30 the prospect of being punished/losing my job for punching in at 8:07 kept me anxious and awake at nights....leading me to punch in at 8:07. On the other hand I have a friend that has tested out well into the 170's which is "High Genius" and when we work on problems together it is clear that he is more intelligent than me. He has no problems with the 9-5 world. He doesn't have the psychological problems I do. He's a HAPPIER person in general.
Maybe he is an outlier, maybe not. I've considered for awhile that there is a sweet spot in the "Genius" range where people are too smart to cope, not smart enough to figure out how to cope with being too smart. Of course, with the small amount of people who qualify for high genius status it is probably pretty hard to make that determination.
I just read back on my post and frankly, I'd imagine that anyone reading this is probably thinking "Genius my ass..this guy isn't making sense." I apologize. I had a hard time putting into words what I was trying to say, but hopefully some of you can understand it. ;)
In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).
I don't know of any news sources that are 100% objective 100% of the time.... While I don't partcularily care for Fox News, claiming that they are not credible is a little overboard. They will report actual factual news and they will have opinion pieces. The factual news...credible. Opinions? Maybe you don't like them but everyone is entitled to their own. The problem that most people seem to have is that they lack the ability to parse the facts from opinion....that goes for information that comes from Left AND Right wing sources.
Let me first say that I don't really even know how technology the iPass type solution actually uses or how expensive it is to implement, but how about this idea for metered parking?
Leave curbside meters up. Have them take cash still for occasional visitors but for people who commonly use the cities' metered parking get something like the iPark with an "On/Off" switch. When you park, you hit the "On" switch. The meter flips to "Paid". Your account is debited for the duration of your stay. When you drive away and are out of range of the meter, the IPark turns "off".
Something along these lines seems like a really easy way to handle this problem.
The thing is, to be reasonably technologically savvy takes quite a bit of time energy. I'd imagine most of the people on this board of spent years to decades working in a tech related field or spending a pretty good deal of time doing computer stuff as a hobby.
One of the greatest contributors to overall suspicion of tech and the tech savvy is sensationalized media claims. "New Vulnerability will allow super virus to infect 99% of all computers in the world! Super Virus will immediately destroy your computer, drain all of your bank accounts, and violently deflower your virgin daughter while you watch!"
Next in line is probably Best Buy and their Geek Squad. Someone goes to buy a new computer and they are told that unless they fork over $150 to get their computer set up by a certified Geek Squad technician, they are doomed. And no, you can't set it up yourself. It is too difficult....as is adding more RAM. You are likely to shock yourself, burn out your hard drive, and start your house on fire.
This guy stuck to his guns, and that is fine....but I think IT people would do to realize that this suspicion DOES exist and they are likely to be treated a bit differently by the non-tech group. You can take steps to try to diminish these tech/non-tech barriers. I always try to be as open as possible with everyone as far as what I am doing. Most of the time they don't care to hear it. Sometimes they sit and listen and ask intelligent questions trying to understand computers a little better. I always offer to write documentation for processes if they would feel more comfortable if I did so. I do not try to hold information back to make sure my job is secure. This has gotten me a lot of bored looks but quite a bit of respect from non-tech people. I think as a result I have even gotten some of them at least marginally interested in tech where there was zero interest before.
I totally agree with you. I try to use correct spelling and grammar, full sentences, and capital letters. I admit that sometimes I use punctuation poorly (I use way too many commas and have fallen into the habit of using several periods.....I guess to indicate that I am pausing and thinking. I could probably do much better but at least I make an effort to make myself sound coherent.
One thing that I have wondered is what people on the other end of communications are thinking. When they see my lengthy message full of an assortment of proper words is their reaction "This guy is a pompous ass!" in Idiocracy style "His shit is all fucked up and he talks like a fag" fashion? Since the quality of the responses rarely mirrors the quality of my messages it certainly does not make them consider responding in a more formal manner.
I have no evidence to back this up, but my hunch is part of the lifestyle has to do with employment in America (as far as being employed, obviously unemployment and poverty bring a new set of problems...) The amount of vacation time the average American receives is really low. I'd guess the average full time job in America consists of (At a minimum) 8 hours of work and a 30 minute unpaid lunch with a large fraction of salaried workers doing 10 hours a day. Add 30 minute each way commute times and you are looking at 9.5 to 11 hours a day at work.
This leads to a pretty low amount of time for leisure activities which is going to lead to cutting corners. Spend 45 minutes preparing a decent meal or hit the drive through on the way home? Hit the gym or spend some time relaxing before doing household chores and going to sleep? With children involved you suddenly have more things you absolutely have to get done (Get them to and from school/sports practice/music recitals) and hopefully want to spend some time with them. A healthy lifestyle looks pretty difficult at that point.
I switched from a regular job to consulting about four years ago. Consulting carries its own levels of stress but being able to make my own schedule (for the most part) has done a lot of good for me. I lost 45 pounds (I was starting to get near the top end of "overweight"), I rarely touch fast food, I walk/bike/lift some weights so I am reasonably toned, best of all I don't feel like death in the morning. People used to tell me they were worried about me because I looked gray and sickly..now I have people telling me how healthy I look.
I don't know about all chapters of AA, but from what I have seen they can be quite harmful... My mother was a heavy drink and then a heavy user of prescription opiates. She finally was in such poor condition that she checked herself in, went through a 2 week detox, and left the clinic with a prescription of Suboxone, a therapist, a psychiatrist, and heavy encouragement to attend one of several AA (It is alcoholics anonymous but they pretty much welcome all substance abusers) clubs in the area.
AA members take on "Sponsers"...someone who has been sober for a year or more. My mom was sponsored by a nurse 15 years younger then her who was also addicted to pain killers and had been attending AA for two years. A month into it I met the sponser for the first time. Within a minute of meeting her I knew she was higher than a kite. Two weeks later, sponser was in jail for writing herself scripts for oxycontin. Her second sponsor was a woman 4 years clean from alcohol. She started taking my mom down to the Casino where they both continually lost thousands of dollars and both became horribly addicted to gambling. That sponsor flew off the deep end so my mom decided she would try a male sponsor. He tried to sexually assault her. It came out he had assaulted about 9 AA newcomers in the last 5 years. He faked an alcohol addiction to attend meetings to feed his sex addiction. Four years later, my mom is clean of drugs but her life is pretty messed up overall.
Sometimes I wonder if it is such a good idea to bring people who have self destructive tendencies in this manner. I imagine when people leave the Internet Addiction Camp that they will be encouraged to keep in touch with others whom they have met there in order to support each other. I can't think of a better way to do this offhand but establishing a support network of people with severe problems seems to be a recipe for disaster. On one hand you might have "Bob over there has stayed away from the Internet/Drugs/Alcohol...If he can do it so can I!"....but on the other you have "Bob confided in me that he has started playing WoW again but has it under control. I'll start playing and make sure to moderate my time just like bob!
Often times the Paypal "Dispute Process" can be really messed up.
I used to sell a lot of stuff on EBAY when I was unemployed for a period of time. I'd buy things in bulk and sell them off on EBAY. It wasn't making me rich and it was a lot of work but it was helping me get by a hard time....until they started making things difficult for me.
The worst problem was a $27 transaction. The buyer paid and a day later my account was locked. The reason? Apparently at some time the buyer was a victim of credit card fraud so they decided it was fraud again....and because I was receiving the money I MUST be involved. Both of our accounts would be locked pending a paypal investigation.
I had about 60 packages I had to ship out very shortly and the money to do that was...in my Paypal account. Being poor and unemployed, I didn't have nearly enough money to cover it outside of that account. I talked to the guy with the $27 transaction on the phone and we decided to just call Paypal and get them to cancel it. No way. We were both under suspicion of criminal activity. In the meantime, I had another 70-80 auctions end but the Buyers could not send me money because of my frozen account. Obviously "Paypal froze my account" didn't inspire confidence so few of those people worked with me and I got stuck with EBAY seller fees.
I tried to explain the situation to the other people I owed goods. Some asked if I could just refund their money. I agreed to that but...guess what? I couldn't! As time wore on, they started getting mad and filing more complaints. By the time the original was cleared up 23 days later I had another 30 or so complaints where.....I couldn't refund the money. Ebay Fees hit (That money could come out) which left me with not enough money for all the refunds anyway. Of course, they started hammering my bank account after that. Luckily I got a job shortly after and was able to make sure everyone got their merchandise or money....but Paypal just destroyed me, my once spectacular Ebay reputation, and my bank account. It was absolutely ridiculous.
You don't need voice service on your landline for DSL. If Qwest told you this(they tried to tell me this), they lied.
While you are absolutely correct, and I know people in different cities that have DSL with no phone service but in some areas (I am in Milwaukee) it is nearly imposssible to get them to cave in and just install DSL. When I moved a little over 2 years ago I decided I was going to try to save some money and get DSL instead of Cable for internet (DSL was $24.99 (3 megabit, Cable was $39.99 (8 megabit).
I talked to several customer service reps and three managers. Not a single one would admit they could give me DSL without giving me phone service. I asked them to tell me the price of their most basic phone package and DSL together. My Bill would have been about $38. I explained to them that for that price I'd get Cable because it was nearly triple the speed. I made it clear that they would not be getting my business unless they provided DSL only at the advertised price.
They simply did not care. They went over some of the "virtues" of DSL over Roadrunner which was mostly nonsense. Finally I just gave up and went to Roadrunner. Perhaps they think that if they give DSL without phone to one person, word will get out and more people will start calling to cancel the land line. That is the only reasonable explanation why they would not want to take my money.
There is one thing to take into consideration....what happens to the members of the IT Department involved in tracking licenses when a big fat fine comes down on the company that is getting audited/sued?
This is only what I have heard but I believe that for every illegal copy of software the business has to purchase a legal retail copy from the BSA's chosen vendor AND pay a "fine" equal to that price. Let us just say that 5 big time power user boxes got lost in the license shuffle. Each Workstation has a copy of Windows XP Pro (~$300 MSRP), Office 2007 Pro (~$500 MSRP), Adobe CS4 Master Collection (~$2500 MSRP), and Autocad 2009, and Autocad 2010 Mechanical (~$4500 MSRP), Solidworks + Cosmosworks 2009 (~$6000 MSRP), and Visual Studio 2009 Professional (~$800). Yes, that is an odd collection of software to be on a single machine but possibly not unheard of...and heck...maybe it is spread over several machines. The company is going to be shelling out close to $150,000. I don't know about you, but I don't think most places forgive $150,000 mistakes.
So....heads will probably roll. Maybe these people just made honest mistakes in tracking...maybe they were told "We need this software loaded, we'll get it purchased next month"...whatever the reason they are going to be out of a job. So, although on the surface it seems that only the corporation is getting hurt individual workers can find themselves out on the street real quick.