Blah, blah, blah. I've been driving a stick since day one and if someone can't compensate for the extremely slight drift that might happen when shifting gears, they have an issue.
Second, reading comprehension is your friend. I said people were driving with their right hand at 10 or left hand at 2. In other words, they are crossing their arm in front of their body which limits movement and control. Further, this is exactly what the proposed new driving position is trying to prevent: people having their hands/arms in the way if the airbag deploys. This also applied to people ghetto driving: arm straight out, hand at the noon position.
Further, I watch people who drive like this and they are generally weaving from side to side going down a straight road because of the inherent push/pull of that driving position which endangers those around them. When they make turns, they go through all kinds of leaning and adjustments because they have no control with their arms across their bodies.
So when you're done frothing at the mouth, you can reread what I said and stop trying to justify people who believe they're the best drivers in the world and common sense doesn't apply to them. There's a reason professional drivers don't drive the way these people claim they're so good at. It's because there is little control driving with your arms across your body or having one hand at the top or bottom of the wheel.
Frankly, I have much more faith in a Google computer driving my car then I do the other humans on the road.
Normally I would disagree with such a statement, but after reading some of the comments from the recent poll about where your hands are on the steering wheel, I have to agree.
Some of the comments were downright frightening at how unsafe they were. Holding the wheel at the bottom (six o'clock) with one hand, left hand/right hand crossing the steering to the 10 or 2 position, respectively, driving with knees and bragging about making corners.
I am not for computers driving vehicles, for various reasons, but people such as the ones I mentioned NEED to have the computer do the driving if only to protect everyone else on the road from their malicious behavior.
they know a little and are ignorant of what they don't know.
While not a coder (I know I can't code), I recently said the opposite of what you said in an interview. I told them I know what I know but I also know what I don't know.
I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was being honest about the limits of what I know. That said, since I know what I don't know, I make sure to learn or at least understand what I don't know so my knowledge continues to increase and (hopefully) help me become more desirable.
As to the job, I don't hold out hope for a second interview or a job offer for various reasons (both theirs and mine). At least I got more experience!
that a majority of the consumers don't have a fast and reliable Internet connection.
While certainly there are large portions of the U.S. who for various reasons do not have fast or reliable net connections, there is also the issue of costs.
In my area, to get 25/25 by itself costs $70/month. That's if you have a verizon phone line. Without the line you can add another $5/month.
If you want 50/20, that will cost you $140/month ($145 without phone).
Even 15/5 is expensive at $50/month with a phone line).
So people have to think: do I want to shell out $70/month just to have a high speed connection? Do I need that high speed connection?
Right now, there is a large portion of the population who says no, that is too high and not worth the money.
Until some form of TRUE competition is injected into the marketplace (2 providers is not competition), the cost/benefit ratio is not consumer friendly.
The problem is not the number of trees, but the types. Once the clear cutting began, the trees that grew back were of one or two varieties, not the multiple varieties that used to exist.
Further, many of the replantings that take place now are for the forest industry (i.e. pine) and not oaks, ash, chestnut, etc that used to exist.
Certainly we had the blights which took their toll, but the diversity which used to exist no longer does in the vast majority of areas.
Think McDonalds on every corner rather than Bob's Bugers, Carol's Cakes, or Fred the Fishmonger.
Maybe if I come across it at a yard sale or another library sale I'll pick it up but for what they wanted at this place, I couldn't justify the price, especially considering it didn't do much for me.
As an aside, my current reading, Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonle Hans von Luck, is one I recommend to people not so much for the military aspect (it's mostly sidelined until the D-day invasion), but rather for the breath of the man's experiences. He knew (literally) everyone from Russia to Britain and down through Italy. He made friends and acquaintances as easily as you or I drink water.
He doesn't mince words about what he thought about the higher ups and doesn't hide or downplay what took place. It's his insight into what was really going on, his thought process, and how he carried out his orders despite the nonsense coming from on high that makes the book such a great read. Highly recommended for anyone who wants an inside look at one of the true honest soldiers from the German side (Rommel being the shining example that the U.S. military uses to this day in some training exercises.)
I came across Ender's Game at a used collectibles place and started to read it. Maybe it's just me (yeah, go ahead and say it), but I read the first several pages and just couldn't get into the story. My interest wasn't piqued.
Having said that, I picked up Ringworld at a library sale (50 cents) and it took until page 68 for me to get involved with the story.
Maybe the same thing with EG. Comments? Suggestions? Flames? Heresy attacks?
You obviously haven't been to New York or you would know a true New Yorker doesn't notice anything as they whip by at 40 mph. The only thing that slightly slows a New Yorker is the crowd of tourists waiting on the corner to cross.
Just because you're a cute, geeky, gamer chic does not absolve you of the necessity to not use the words, "Uh", "Um", or "Ah" every two seconds when speaking.
I realize geeks are not necessarily the most extroverted or conversationally eloquent, but when trying to describe what your League is about, not using the above words will make you a much better speaker.
Sidenote: yeah Obama, get your act together as well. Saying "Um" every five seconds is just as disconcerting. You're the President after all though at least you can form coherent sentences or read prepared speeches, unlike the last guy.
That is, that we don't have to pay for our transgressions because they were paid for by God Himself.
This is one of the many things that ticks me off about Christianity. What transgression does a newborn have other than being born? Unless I'm mistaken, everyone is screwed from birth and to find salvation has to accept God (or Jesus) to be saved.
Saved from what? The kid was just born! What possible transgression can they have?! Or are you saying God screwed things up so badly that he had to put in a hack to correct his mistake?
That could be a helpful step toward the kind of preventative health care we need as a people.
When you say preventative health care, you mean like telling people if they smoke, they will most likely get emphysema, cancer and a host of other issues.
Or did you mean telling people they need to eat a variety of fruits and veggies every day because doing so provides one with fiber, vitamins and minerals which help ones health?
Or maybe you meant telling people they can't be fat, that they need to do some sort of exercise every day, even just a walk around the block.
People don't listen now. What makes you think more granular analytics will have any effect?
It also illustrates that Chrome's much lauded sandboxing is not a silver bullet for browser security."
When I made a comment a few weeks back that the fact that Chrome could be installed without admin privileges is a huge security hole, I was told by the "experts" on here that because Chrome was sandboxed, my comment was completely without merit.
Repeat after me: there is no such thing as a secure application. Given enough time, someone, somewhere, will find a way to circumvent any security you may have in your software.
So yeah, fuckers, allowing Chrome to be installed without admin privileges IS a gaping security hole waiting to happen. And here it is.
Hogwash. Sticks get better fuel mileage than automatics. Still. To this day. I routinely get better mileage than what the manufacturer says I should. Always have when driving a stick.
Those fuel numbers you see touted when advertising a car? Those are the numbers for a manual. There's a reason they do that.
Automatics, by virtue of how they have work, will always be less fuel efficient than a comparably driven stick. Speed or efficiency of shifting can't change that.
that people should make an effort to expose themselves to bright sunlight or bright indoor lighting when they cannot get outdoors
In neither case does bright lighting come into the equation. There's a reason geeks are thought of as pasty white,* though at least Sheldon has a set schedule of going outside to get sunlight once a week.
*Yes, I do realize there are many geeks who get outside for various activities. It's a joke.
The threat to the hunters was invasion of privacy. It's a real and present threat.
I'm sure, being in the South, these hunters follow the Republican dogma of, "If you have nothing to hide..." so there is no issue of privacy. Right?
For the record, shooting at pigeons who are kept in cages, then released from a standing start is not hunting or sport. It's just shooting for the sake of shooting. It has no relevance to people who go out and hunt deer, turkey, etc.
I don't care if people hunt so long as they do it safely (obviously), kill what they shoot and eat what they kill. Killing for the sake of killing isn't sport. If you want to shoot something, use clays.
This past July I gave a one day tour of New York City to a group of German tourists as a favor to my aunt (long story how this came about).
Once everyone was in the car, I reached down to put my car in reverse and the guy in the front looked at me with a surprised expression and pointed to the stick shift.
I looked at him and smiled, saying, "Yes, it's a stick shift. I'm not a lazy American." He chuckled at the comment.
I've seen as well and when I realized that you don't need to be an admin to install Chrome, I was ticked off. To put it mildly.
That is a gigantic security hole just waiting to be exploited. Further, there's a reason corporate machines are locked down. We don't want people, especially IT people, installing every random piece of software that asks the user to install it.
Rule #3 of IT that should never be broken: Never, ever, ever, EVER give a regular user administrative rights on their machine. Ever. Chrome breaks this rule with a wrecking ball.
It's bad enough that as an admin I am constantly harassed by Windows 7, "Do you want to allow...?" Yes, I'm a fucking admin, just install the damn thing! Now we have to put up with companies making it so every user can install whatever they want and expect us to figure out what they did.
Aside from their search engine, I will never use any product of Google, and this crap especially so.
Full stop. That's the issue. People are not honest. Sure, I am and you are, but your neighbor Bob isn't. Or his neighbor Sally.
If people were honest, we wouldn't have half the laws we do. But people, being animals, aren't honest. If there is some way to game the system or make their life better by cheating someone else, humans will find a way. Not everyone, but enough to make the rest of us have to deal with their failure to be honest.
Don't you listen to House? People lie. That's why there is this sudden surge to legalize marijuana because, *cough* *cough*, you know, like I'm, um, sick, you know, and uh, stuff like that.
To paraphrase Men In Black: A person is honest. People are dishonest animals and you know it.
Just found out today that you have to enable javascript to be able to see your account settings. In the past, this worked perfectly to change the threshold of posts if you have mod points.
Now, either a programmer or web designer, or both, was allowed to futz with the design of a web site when they had no reason to do so, a violation of Rules 1 and 2 of IT That Should Never Be Broken.
The continuing downgrading of functionality of this site is getting bad. Simplicity is the key. There was no reason to add bells and whistles. There was no reason to make things more inconvenient for the user.
This is why programmers and web designers should never be allowed to design applications or web sites. They should be told what to do and not left to their own thoughts as to how things should be done.
Infoworld had an article about the fallacies of IT metrics which I copied and have saved. If you want to read why measuring code in lines per day/month is the wrong metric (even if you already know why it's wrong), this article gives more reasons.
All of these sub-genres have their merits, and all have their hack writers who should never have been published.
*nods* I got it in my head to attempt to write a sci-fi based story partially because of boredom and partly to see if I could do it. I got two pages in and realized:
a) I really need to work on my science part
and
b) what I was contemplating has already been done to death.
It's one thing to have an imagination about sci-fi things. It's quite another to put them to paper and have some form of coherency for the story. That said, I do have idea for a short story that I may flesh out over the next year or so (I have other smaller writings to work on at the same time). But I wouldn't hold my breath at seeing me getting the story (if completed) published.
Slashdot Mirror
Blah, blah, blah. I've been driving a stick since day one and if someone can't compensate for the extremely slight drift that might happen when shifting gears, they have an issue.
Second, reading comprehension is your friend. I said people were driving with their right hand at 10 or left hand at 2. In other words, they are crossing their arm in front of their body which limits movement and control. Further, this is exactly what the proposed new driving position is trying to prevent: people having their hands/arms in the way if the airbag deploys. This also applied to people ghetto driving: arm straight out, hand at the noon position.
Further, I watch people who drive like this and they are generally weaving from side to side going down a straight road because of the inherent push/pull of that driving position which endangers those around them. When they make turns, they go through all kinds of leaning and adjustments because they have no control with their arms across their bodies.
So when you're done frothing at the mouth, you can reread what I said and stop trying to justify people who believe they're the best drivers in the world and common sense doesn't apply to them. There's a reason professional drivers don't drive the way these people claim they're so good at. It's because there is little control driving with your arms across your body or having one hand at the top or bottom of the wheel.
Frankly, I have much more faith in a Google computer driving my car then I do the other humans on the road.
Normally I would disagree with such a statement, but after reading some of the comments from the recent poll about where your hands are on the steering wheel, I have to agree.
Some of the comments were downright frightening at how unsafe they were. Holding the wheel at the bottom (six o'clock) with one hand, left hand/right hand crossing the steering to the 10 or 2 position, respectively, driving with knees and bragging about making corners.
I am not for computers driving vehicles, for various reasons, but people such as the ones I mentioned NEED to have the computer do the driving if only to protect everyone else on the road from their malicious behavior.
they know a little and are ignorant of what they don't know.
While not a coder (I know I can't code), I recently said the opposite of what you said in an interview. I told them I know what I know but I also know what I don't know.
I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was being honest about the limits of what I know. That said, since I know what I don't know, I make sure to learn or at least understand what I don't know so my knowledge continues to increase and (hopefully) help me become more desirable.
As to the job, I don't hold out hope for a second interview or a job offer for various reasons (both theirs and mine). At least I got more experience!
that a majority of the consumers don't have a fast and reliable Internet connection.
While certainly there are large portions of the U.S. who for various reasons do not have fast or reliable net connections, there is also the issue of costs.
In my area, to get 25/25 by itself costs $70/month. That's if you have a verizon phone line. Without the line you can add another $5/month.
If you want 50/20, that will cost you $140/month ($145 without phone).
Even 15/5 is expensive at $50/month with a phone line).
So people have to think: do I want to shell out $70/month just to have a high speed connection? Do I need that high speed connection?
Right now, there is a large portion of the population who says no, that is too high and not worth the money.
Until some form of TRUE competition is injected into the marketplace (2 providers is not competition), the cost/benefit ratio is not consumer friendly.
The problem is not the number of trees, but the types. Once the clear cutting began, the trees that grew back were of one or two varieties, not the multiple varieties that used to exist.
Further, many of the replantings that take place now are for the forest industry (i.e. pine) and not oaks, ash, chestnut, etc that used to exist.
Certainly we had the blights which took their toll, but the diversity which used to exist no longer does in the vast majority of areas.
Think McDonalds on every corner rather than Bob's Bugers, Carol's Cakes, or Fred the Fishmonger.
or even adults with less... shall we say, confidence in their reading abilities?
Heh, touché! I wouldn't call myself a heavy reader, but having slogged through the History of the Peloponnesian War, Life and Work in Medieval Europe (4th to 14th centuries), the first two Ringworld books (third is in the wings), Ever Since Darwin (Gould), Rendezvous with Rama, and the one that I know is going to be tough going, Command Decisions (a book describing decisions made in WWII on both sides put out by the U.S. Army), along with the usual suspects such as Hawking and Greene, I can at least say I'm well read on numerous subjects.
Maybe if I come across it at a yard sale or another library sale I'll pick it up but for what they wanted at this place, I couldn't justify the price, especially considering it didn't do much for me.
As an aside, my current reading, Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonle Hans von Luck, is one I recommend to people not so much for the military aspect (it's mostly sidelined until the D-day invasion), but rather for the breath of the man's experiences. He knew (literally) everyone from Russia to Britain and down through Italy. He made friends and acquaintances as easily as you or I drink water.
He doesn't mince words about what he thought about the higher ups and doesn't hide or downplay what took place. It's his insight into what was really going on, his thought process, and how he carried out his orders despite the nonsense coming from on high that makes the book such a great read. Highly recommended for anyone who wants an inside look at one of the true honest soldiers from the German side (Rommel being the shining example that the U.S. military uses to this day in some training exercises.)
I came across Ender's Game at a used collectibles place and started to read it. Maybe it's just me (yeah, go ahead and say it), but I read the first several pages and just couldn't get into the story. My interest wasn't piqued.
Having said that, I picked up Ringworld at a library sale (50 cents) and it took until page 68 for me to get involved with the story.
Maybe the same thing with EG. Comments? Suggestions? Flames? Heresy attacks?
created by the lack of effective metrics for productivity other than hours.
See this link for why metrics in IT (specifically) are not usually done well.
The author lays out why metrics are (usually) done poorly and don't (usually) measure what is trying to be done.
You obviously haven't been to New York or you would know a true New Yorker doesn't notice anything as they whip by at 40 mph. The only thing that slightly slows a New Yorker is the crowd of tourists waiting on the corner to cross.
It, obviously, is a highly advanced Starship fueling up on hydrogen plasma.
So Rama is fueling up before it heads "southward" and out of the orbital plane?
Just because you're a cute, geeky, gamer chic does not absolve you of the necessity to not use the words, "Uh", "Um", or "Ah" every two seconds when speaking.
I realize geeks are not necessarily the most extroverted or conversationally eloquent, but when trying to describe what your League is about, not using the above words will make you a much better speaker.
Sidenote: yeah Obama, get your act together as well. Saying "Um" every five seconds is just as disconcerting. You're the President after all though at least you can form coherent sentences or read prepared speeches, unlike the last guy.
That is, that we don't have to pay for our transgressions because they were paid for by God Himself.
This is one of the many things that ticks me off about Christianity. What transgression does a newborn have other than being born? Unless I'm mistaken, everyone is screwed from birth and to find salvation has to accept God (or Jesus) to be saved.
Saved from what? The kid was just born! What possible transgression can they have?! Or are you saying God screwed things up so badly that he had to put in a hack to correct his mistake?
That could be a helpful step toward the kind of preventative health care we need as a people.
When you say preventative health care, you mean like telling people if they smoke, they will most likely get emphysema, cancer and a host of other issues.
Or did you mean telling people they need to eat a variety of fruits and veggies every day because doing so provides one with fiber, vitamins and minerals which help ones health?
Or maybe you meant telling people they can't be fat, that they need to do some sort of exercise every day, even just a walk around the block.
People don't listen now. What makes you think more granular analytics will have any effect?
It also illustrates that Chrome's much lauded sandboxing is not a silver bullet for browser security."
When I made a comment a few weeks back that the fact that Chrome could be installed without admin privileges is a huge security hole, I was told by the "experts" on here that because Chrome was sandboxed, my comment was completely without merit.
Repeat after me: there is no such thing as a secure application. Given enough time, someone, somewhere, will find a way to circumvent any security you may have in your software.
So yeah, fuckers, allowing Chrome to be installed without admin privileges IS a gaping security hole waiting to happen. And here it is.
Stick wastes fuel.
Hogwash. Sticks get better fuel mileage than automatics. Still. To this day. I routinely get better mileage than what the manufacturer says I should. Always have when driving a stick.
Those fuel numbers you see touted when advertising a car? Those are the numbers for a manual. There's a reason they do that.
Automatics, by virtue of how they have work, will always be less fuel efficient than a comparably driven stick. Speed or efficiency of shifting can't change that.
that people should make an effort to expose themselves to bright sunlight or bright indoor lighting when they cannot get outdoors
In neither case does bright lighting come into the equation. There's a reason geeks are thought of as pasty white,* though at least Sheldon has a set schedule of going outside to get sunlight once a week.
*Yes, I do realize there are many geeks who get outside for various activities. It's a joke.
The threat to the hunters was invasion of privacy. It's a real and present threat.
I'm sure, being in the South, these hunters follow the Republican dogma of, "If you have nothing to hide..." so there is no issue of privacy. Right?
For the record, shooting at pigeons who are kept in cages, then released from a standing start is not hunting or sport. It's just shooting for the sake of shooting. It has no relevance to people who go out and hunt deer, turkey, etc.
I don't care if people hunt so long as they do it safely (obviously), kill what they shoot and eat what they kill. Killing for the sake of killing isn't sport. If you want to shoot something, use clays.
This past July I gave a one day tour of New York City to a group of German tourists as a favor to my aunt (long story how this came about).
Once everyone was in the car, I reached down to put my car in reverse and the guy in the front looked at me with a surprised expression and pointed to the stick shift.
I looked at him and smiled, saying, "Yes, it's a stick shift. I'm not a lazy American." He chuckled at the comment.
web developers just pick up and drop widgets all over the place,
Rule #2 of IT that should never be broken: Never let a web designer design your web page.
Giving free reign to a web designer to design a web site is like giving a two year-old a Faberge egg.
I've seen as well and when I realized that you don't need to be an admin to install Chrome, I was ticked off. To put it mildly.
That is a gigantic security hole just waiting to be exploited. Further, there's a reason corporate machines are locked down. We don't want people, especially IT people, installing every random piece of software that asks the user to install it.
Rule #3 of IT that should never be broken: Never, ever, ever, EVER give a regular user administrative rights on their machine. Ever. Chrome breaks this rule with a wrecking ball.
It's bad enough that as an admin I am constantly harassed by Windows 7, "Do you want to allow...?" Yes, I'm a fucking admin, just install the damn thing! Now we have to put up with companies making it so every user can install whatever they want and expect us to figure out what they did. Aside from their search engine, I will never use any product of Google, and this crap especially so.
and people can be honest,
Full stop. That's the issue. People are not honest. Sure, I am and you are, but your neighbor Bob isn't. Or his neighbor Sally.
If people were honest, we wouldn't have half the laws we do. But people, being animals, aren't honest. If there is some way to game the system or make their life better by cheating someone else, humans will find a way. Not everyone, but enough to make the rest of us have to deal with their failure to be honest.
Don't you listen to House? People lie. That's why there is this sudden surge to legalize marijuana because, *cough* *cough*, you know, like I'm, um, sick, you know, and uh, stuff like that.
To paraphrase Men In Black: A person is honest. People are dishonest animals and you know it.
the company profits are well on par with Ubisoft and EA.
Oh really? You might want to reconsider that comment.
Zynga recent earnings and prospects
EA recent earnings and prospects
The numbers between these two aren't even close, neither in revenue or earnings.
Just found out today that you have to enable javascript to be able to see your account settings. In the past, this worked perfectly to change the threshold of posts if you have mod points.
Now, either a programmer or web designer, or both, was allowed to futz with the design of a web site when they had no reason to do so, a violation of Rules 1 and 2 of IT That Should Never Be Broken.
The continuing downgrading of functionality of this site is getting bad. Simplicity is the key. There was no reason to add bells and whistles. There was no reason to make things more inconvenient for the user.
This is why programmers and web designers should never be allowed to design applications or web sites. They should be told what to do and not left to their own thoughts as to how things should be done.
Infoworld had an article about the fallacies of IT metrics which I copied and have saved. If you want to read why measuring code in lines per day/month is the wrong metric (even if you already know why it's wrong), this article gives more reasons.
The link to the article is this one.
It should be mandatory reading for anyone who utters the term 'metrics' in a meeting.
All of these sub-genres have their merits, and all have their hack writers who should never have been published.
*nods* I got it in my head to attempt to write a sci-fi based story partially because of boredom and partly to see if I could do it. I got two pages in and realized:
a) I really need to work on my science part
and
b) what I was contemplating has already been done to death.
It's one thing to have an imagination about sci-fi things. It's quite another to put them to paper and have some form of coherency for the story. That said, I do have idea for a short story that I may flesh out over the next year or so (I have other smaller writings to work on at the same time). But I wouldn't hold my breath at seeing me getting the story (if completed) published.