Alpacas. My fiancee and I really really really want to get an alpaca farm going some place in the country where we don't be bothered by anyone or anything electronic. I was frightened the first time I saw one of those alpaca commercials on TV- it almost seemed like a parody of something (Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man!!!!), but then I saw it again and realized it was legitimate.
Despite this first impression, I have to admit, I looked at the site and alpacas seem pretty cool.
I remember reading a similar story; possbily in Reader's Digest, a very long time ago. One day, a mysterious package was found on the General's porch. One bomb squad and a few hours later, the box was found to contain silk pajamas. I assume all involved parties thought this was pretty swell.
On the one hand, it's always good news that that wasn't a bomb on your doorstep. On the other hand, aside from the time and money wasted, that particular General probably got a few new fun nicknames.
Our modern diet is very different from what we evolved to eat. Better in some ways - few Westerners starve - but probably lower in many micronutrients than the ideal. So this type of report is not a surprise. Expect more.
QFT... the evolution of our dietary needs is exactly why so many of us do have weight issues. Everyone who's ever went on a diet or tried to eat healthier has one major complaint: all the stuff that tastes good is bad for you. But there's a reason for that! Cavemen didn't have Twinkies, Haagen-Dazs, and Big Macs. Protein, fat, and sugar/carbs were necessities to the developing human, and they were pretty scarce. Early man had green leafy stuff to eat as far as the eye could see, but it was work to kill something for food. So we evolved to have a greater affinity for these rare essentials.
Up until one or maybe two hundred years ago, this worked fine. Only the wealthy could afford to gorge themselves to dangerous levels of obesity. Today, for maybe $6, I can go to Burger King and get a Whopper, fries (King Size) and a Coke (King Size). According to BK's own meal-builder nutrition info, this meal has 1660 calories (650 from fat), 72 grams of fat, and 117g total sugars. And I didn't even put cheese on that Whopper. (And no Vitamin D as far as I can tell.) This is theoretically one out of three meals, supposedly totaling 2000 calories. In all likelihood, it's more like hald the day's calories than most. Meanwhile, the average modern American doesn't burn nearly as many calories Mr. Caveman did, since we survive by sitting in cubicles instead of hunting and gathering. Clearly, our ability to feed ourselves has improved to the point where the foods we naturally crave due to things coded in our genes thousands of years ago are actually harming us. For all the exotic things we can now eat because of technology, our range of nutrients sucks.
So it's hard to diet because as far as your body knows, that triple fudge brownie might be the the calories you burn not freezing to death tonight. And since you're body's so preoccupied with this now baseless fear of starvation, it forgets to make you want to eat things like broccoli or spinach, which our ancestors were probably eating to pass the time until some meat wandered close enough to kill. Call it evolutionary sabotage- what we needed before is not what we need now, and if we can't stay on top of those changes, we tend to die.
There are a lot of people with moral objections to cloning of any kind. They believe it is playing God. Whether you or I agree is neither here nor there. While I might disagree with many veiws of, say, a conservative Christian, I think they have as much right to know whether the food they buy conflicts with their beliefs as anyone else. Jews and Muslims don't eat pork, Hindus don't eat beef. This generally gets respected. Anyone remember McDonald's getting in trouble for not making it known they were using beef lard to fry their fries? I can't imagine how horrible it would feel to be Hindu and find out that your potatoes containted literal sacred cow. I think many people would feel the same about their meat being cloned, and they should have the choice not to eat it.
That's why I put faultless in quotes. It's still a result of a person's decisions. In some case, the person made what was obvious decision. In others, it's impossible to know at the time that a mistake is being made. I'm not offended because you didn't have enough information to know whether what you said applied to my example. In the case of my parents, my mom was unaware when she got married that my father is a sociopath and has no conscience. Obviously she would not have chosen to marry someone like that if she knew ahead of time. There's no easy way to determine antisocial personalties because they're good at blending in, so her decision to get married and have chldren with him was made with the best information she had at the time. In retrospect, sadly, it was not the best path to choose for her life, but I hardly think it qualifies as irresponsible.
A person's actions and choices can have a negative impact on their life, without it being their "fault." A pedestrian run over by a car on the sidewalk could have prevented that by not being on that sidewalk at that time, but it would be ridiculous to blame them for choosing to walk there, unless they could have reasonably known that there was a high probability of a car ending up on that particular stretch of sidewalk. It would be different if hypothetical pedestrian chose to jaywalk and then got hit by a car- they knowingly did something they shouldn't have, putting themself at greater risk.
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people in messes of their own making, and those people should take responsibility. I'm just pointing out there are people who aren't, and nobody has the right to judge which is which without knowing all the facts. Doing so is a slippery slope to blaming the victim.
My brother turned out OK; he is happily married and is a wonderful father to his three beautiful children. I stagnated in my oppressive small town for a long time, but I'm getting out of here now to what I hope will be a better life somewhere else.
I can guarantee that if there were cell phone videos when I was in school, I could point you to a web page with a video of a truckload of boys throwing rocks at me as I walked home from school. Naturally, these were the big strong tough guys who thought it was amusing to pick on a little (5'3") girl. Maybe a video would have been what it took to get an adult to do something about it, but it would have made the rounds before anything action was taken, and I probably would have taken more abuse first because of it. I was told at the time that the school could not discipline students for anything not taking place on school grounds, which is kinda funny since they had a policy suspending kids from sports if they got caught at a party with alcohol. (They didn't have to be drinking, just in the same building as the alcohol.) Nobody offered to call the cops, or suggested that I file a police report. Nobody's parents were called. I wasn't offered counseling. Nothing happened. This was in a "good" school district in a small "progressive" town. I suspect that they thought that I couldn't possibly be having problems with anyone since there weren't even any minorities in our lovely little town to cause trouble. *Their views, not mine! *
Not only did the adults never do anything, they participated in the emotional bullying. I recall one incident where a female friend had suffered a loss and I was taking her to the school pshychologist. As we sat in the front office waiting, I was hugging her and doing the supportive friend thing, and one of the office ladies made some remark to another office lady about us being lesbians, which we heard. When we complained to the principal, we were basically told he couldn't do anything about it since he didn't hear it. So I don't know why I thought they'd care about the damn stoning.
I applaud the effort to have some repercussions for *any* type of predatory behavior. I only hope they don't zero-tolerance policy the thing into persecution. I know TFA said they're taking out the ZTP, but sadly I see this potentially devolving into kids getting suspended for posting something on Myspace like "Jenny's a bitch she stole my boyfriend," or "I hate Mr. Smith, he's such a tool."
As far as just "getting over it," or developing a "thick skin" from it, as someone mentioned, I'll say this: My skin might be thicker for the experience, but it's scar tissue.
Although I do agree one reason people are so surly is the crap pay. My mom was telling me how when she was in college she was making like $2.75 an hour at her job. Sounds like crap pay but it ends up being $12-$15/hour in 2005 dollars (let alone 2007 dollars..). Retail jobs'll pay like minimum wage to $10/hour typically now. Really that extra $5 or so extra makes a pretty big difference to the amount of enthuism I'd put into a job, and I think it does for a lot of people. I say "Have a nice day" etc. but if someone is being rude or ridiculous style haggling* I'll certainly be rude back, I don't get paid enough to put up with any lip 8-).
I worked in food service for nearly 10 years. I had customers mean enough to make me cry. People get *cranky* when they're hungry. I had people call up complaining that their delivery was late because they gave the wrong address. I even had people who didn't know their address but expected us to deliver anyway. Seems hunger can make a person stupid as well as angry. For most of that time I wasn't making enough money, but I still didn't take it out on the customers. (Though it might affect how cheery I was to my boss!) But I was talking more about the employees who don't even try to be nice to the customers. As I sort of noted in my previous post, my politeness might not always have been sincere, but I put on the show anyway. My philosophy is that no matter what I'm doing, I should do it well and take pride in that. I guess there's not a lot of people left who share that view.
Another "faultless" poverty scenario, that I am intimately familiar with, is when mom stays home with the kids until dad moves in with his girlfriend, they get divorced, and he rarely if ever pays child support. That's how it went down with my partents. Between the mid-70s when she started being a stay at home mom and the mid-80s when she had to rejoin the workforce, the job market changed dramatically. She got a sucky job. She rotated which bill doesn't get paid that month (since there's never enough to pay all of them), usually managing to avoid shutoff. Around the same time, her father suffered a stroke and her elderly parents moved in so she could take care of them, too. When her car broke down, she went to the library and got a book, and fixed it herself if she could. We ate government peanut butter. I can assure you that we never had any magical emergency money hanging around. Quite the opposite: we had a backlog of "emergencies" waiting for money.
If something like this had happened to my brother or me, my mother couldn't have done anything about it, and my father probably wouldn't have. Hell, I failed classes for having too many unexcused absences, because we couldn't afford to go to a doctor (to be told it was the common cold, they can't do anything, and I should stay home a week), so I had no note.
I fail to see how any of this was due to a lack of responsibility on my mom's part. I'm sure there's plenty of single parents out there in the same boat. Sure, there are people who should probably not have kids when they know they can't take care of them, but that's not the only way to end up a parent without spare cash.
Of course, any coffee maker has potential to cause trouble if it doesn't have water/coffee in it while it's heating. What I'm wondering is whether the timer was such that it would start at the same time every day unless disabled? Not having to remember to set it seems like a good idea, except that you might not remember to fill it. Considering that if I'm overtired from working late or something, it's easy to pass out on the couch watching TV and forget to do anything I'd usually do before bed (set the alarm, brush teeth, undress, go to an actual bed), I can see how that could quickly turn from a convenience into a conflagration.
I agree 100% that most customer support calls are because of something stupid the customer did, but customer support reps often seem to forget that they are literally there to support the customer. If I have my techie friend fix my computer for free, he can condescend and make me feel stupid all he wants. That sort of attitude is not appropriate in a business relationship. If I'm paying for electronics, software, and in some cases the customer suppport itself, the person on the phone could have the courtesy to at least *pretend* they don't think I'm a drooling moron. There's no reason to use the tone of voice you'd use when speaking to a developmentally challenged toddler. Even if I'm displaying the intelligence of one. I've never really believed that "the customer is always right." But I do think that though we all know the customer is probably wrong, the customer should still feel like you do accept that platitude.
It's not really fair to beat up on tech support, though, as I find all the various customer service industries are getting more and more rude. It seems like everyone is forgetting that it's your privilege that I'm your paying customer, not the other way around. Once upon a time people tried to earn your business, and people who had to interact with the public/customers were trained with some sucecss to be polite and friendly. It's OK if it's insincere, if it's just an act for my benefit. You don't have to mean it when you tell me to have an nice day, but it's unprofessional not to say it.
I have the same natural sleep schedule. (Made school very interesting, as I tended to just be falling asleep when I was supposed to be getting up.) Snooze buttons are usually 9 minutes, which seems random but I'm sure had some practical reason in the orignal wind-up analogue alarm clocks. Regardless of why it's 9 minutes, that's not enough for me to get back to sleep, so snooze buttons just make be angry in the morning. I keep a digital clock far but not super far from the bed, and I set it at least an hour earlier than I want to get up. When it goes off, I get up, set the alarm ahead an hour, and go back to sleep. (When it goes off again, I might use the normal snooze.) This works OK for the most part, but if I really need to be up for something my best bet is to have my boyfriend sit on the edge of the bed and talk to me, making me respond but not being too annoying. 15 minutes of that works better than 3 hours of alarms. I tried using my cell phone since I can set it for 5 different times, thinking if I staggered them right I'd wake up easily. After a few days I managed to disable all 5 in my sleep when the first one went off, so I gave up on that. Having some light in the room helps, but if it's too bright I'll just stick my head under the pillow. I'd like to try one of those dawn-simulating clocks.
I also have had problems with someone else's alarm clock waking me up; my mom can sleep through her alarm till it stops, but it goes right through my head. Unless of course I try to borrow it to get myself up, then I can sleep right through it too.
If you ever find anything that really works, let me know!
I'm pretty sure they still make automatic timed coffee makers. I say "still" because I remember a while back (probably 10 years ago, now that I think of it) there were a few incidents with timer-equipped Mr. Coffee machines that helped you get up in the morning by burning down your house. Unfortunately they may have phased out that added functionality, and now you have to settle for waking up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee in the morning without that pleasant furniture-roast aroma. The good features always disappear.
At least in that scenario, there's an option to make the programs stop.
Once upon a time, we had a computer that it didn't seem wise to leave running unattended for fear that it might catch on fire and burn down the house. (We had to keep the case off and a fan pointed towards that corner. That was a fun machine.) I would come home from school around 3, and log in to AOL to check my mail and all that other nifty internet stuff before leaving for work by 4. With obnoxious frequency, AOL would decide to forcibly download an update. We were on dialup. This could take over 20 minutes. I was afraid to Ctrl-Alt-Del it, because it might break AOL, and my mom would kill me if she couldn't log on when she got home. So I'd stand there staring daggers at the screen while it took it's sweet ass time downloading, and then forced a restart of AOL and/or Windows. AOL took a minute or two to load; Windows took around on 5 a good day. After Windows started, there was still the wait while all the swell little tray icons loaded and whatever else it was doing. After all of that, THEN I could shut down Windows, which took a long time, and then I could finally wait for it to give me permission to hit the power button. Add in about a 1 in 10 chance of getting a BSOD at some point in the process.
Needless to say, my boss was amused. But I'd rather get in trouble at work than burn my house down. There may have been ways around part or all of that, but I wasn't aware of any and I was NOT willing to risk messing up the computer and having my mom break my fingers. So I resentfully submitted to this process that sometimes took 45 minutes. Why couldn't they just give me a diologue box? Sure they're annoying when they ask essentially rhetorical questions, but I *much* prefer being given a choice to having my computer hijacked. All of this stuff was supposed to be making my life easier, but instead it did its best to define annoying. I think I'm gonna go call my therapist now... sigh.
It's just becoming more accurate. I actually find it slightly refreshing, because this type is less insulting. Let's say I wax nostalgic and flip over to Lifetime to see The Amy Fisher Story.(We'll assume I've been drinking.) Just because I'm viewing "television for women" doesn't mean I want to see 3 ads for Lysol Disinfectant Spray and the Gerber Life Grow-Up Plan during each commercial break. I do happen to be a woman, but I'm not a soccer mom, and I feel like I'm being pandered to when they shove that down my throat. ("Buy these housecleaning and childcare supplies, little lady!") On the othere hand it IS a good channel to run the ads featuring tampons for your heavy-flow but active days, and women who spontaneously discuss how "fresh" they feel. Similarly on target would be certain commercials during, for instance, The Man Show. There's a lack of feminine hygiene awareness in those commercials; some demographics are relatively easy to peg.
Others are not so clear. According to some statistics somewhere, if I'm watching Comedy Central at 2 a.m., I'm probably a young straight male. I'll accept that more males are watching than females, but I find it hard to believe that the numbers are skewed so heavily in that direction that I need to see several hundred Girls Gone Wild ads in 90 minutes. I have perfectly good boobs of my own and don't need or want to be asked to buy videos of drunken girls flashing a camera; I could go take off my shirt and hop in front of a mirror if I really just had to see some bouncing titties. (Not to mention the wonderful world of free online pr0n, which is better than those videos anyway.) I wouldn't mind Comedy Central knowing that I am watching reruns of South Park if it meant that they would show me only ads I might be interested in, or at the very least don't make me want to throw things at my television.
Obviously, it's not an exact science, and there will always be a certain amount of junk in with the rest, but I think it's nicer to be pigeonholed more a little more accurately. Like if they narrowed it down even to me being a female in my mid-twenties, instead the current assumption that I'm 18-35, and probably a guy. Or maybe take it one step further, that I'm a female but not much of a girly-girl, and I don't want to Bedazzle my favorite pair of jeans.
These were all examples from TV/Old Media, but there's a lesson there for New Media. A 36 year old may buy more like "18-35" than "36-45", and that's worth knowing. [semi-random rant]Even if I wanted to enlarge it, I don't *have* a penis. Stop promising me 3 inches. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You're polluting our internet tubes. All those enlarged penises tend to get stuck and clog up the works. I'm sitting here spamming refresh on the Random Kitten Generator, (which BTW is the cutest site ever) so maybe I would be interested in kitty toys or adopting a cat? A subscription to Cat Fancy magazine? As it turns out I'm not really looking for any of that, but it's an educated guess, and my kitten pictures wouldn't have to navigate so much penis congestion to get to me. I think we can all agree that's a good thing.[/rant] People aren't buying things from sites they don't go to or even look at. I actually look at the ads Google returns with the search, because sometimes it's what I'm looking for. I stop ignoring things when they stop being irrelevant and intrusive. For this reason, advertising that targets individuals rather than broad groups of people arbitrarily lumped together is bound to have positive results.
How far away do you have to sit?
on
$90,000 103in HDTV
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· Score: 2, Interesting
My boyfriend and I recently got a 61" DLP (which he NEEDED because he bought a PS3). According to both the manual and our experience, you should sit 7' to 10' away for optimal viewing pleasure. Sitting closer results in having to turn your head to follow the action (as well as the color looking a little off); this makes you very aware you are watching TV, ruining immersion. I don't really know how to go about the math for this, but it seems like you'd have to be something like 20" away to view anything properly on such a huge screen. So not only do you have to have a wall wide enough and tall enough to fit the thing on, the room needs to be long enough to sit that far away. As someone mentioned, this might not be a problem since a person who can afford this probably has the space for it, but it still makes my brain hurt a little.
Another impracticality that springs to mind is that this isn't even a very good investment- what's the average life of a plasma screen? Could you go back to a relatively normal size TV after you've had this, or will you be shelling out $90,000 every 5 years or so? At least our "little" DLP will still be usable in 10 years. We might have to spend $300 on a light bulb for it, but we'll be able to see the picture.
Here's some math I can do: for the same amount of money, you could buy 30-40 61" TVs and put one on every wall; which would be kind of scary but pretty awesome. (And on a moral, "isn't there anything worthwhile you could do with your obscene sums of money?" note, I looked up one of those sponsor-a-child charities I see on TV and you could sponsor 312 children for one year, or 20 children for 15 years each, or of course one child for 312 years. I am *NOT* judging anyone, I just got to thinking about the numbers.)
I can't deny it would be cool to have, but for several reasons I can't imagine buying one, even if I could afford to.
Heck, by those sales metrics, people a couple of years ago were just clamoring for the AOL cd... In fact, I suspect it was the hottest cd of all times... Certainly, by that logic, AOL was the all-time favorite artist in my family. I've never owned 15+ copies of any other CD at once. Not that I was TRYING to own 15+ copies of the AOL CD; it just somehow happened. Between mass mailing, and copies included with every computer publication my mom brought home in the 90's, they just sort of accumulated. I can't say that I regret it, though: how else would I have found out what happens to CD's when you put them in the microwave- repeatedly?
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My fiancee and I really really really want to get an alpaca farm going some place in the country where we don't be bothered by anyone or anything electronic. I was frightened the first time I saw one of those alpaca commercials on TV- it almost seemed like a parody of something (Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man!!!!), but then I saw it again and realized it was legitimate.
Despite this first impression, I have to admit, I looked at the site and alpacas seem pretty cool.
I remember reading a similar story; possbily in Reader's Digest, a very long time ago. One day, a mysterious package was found on the General's porch. One bomb squad and a few hours later, the box was found to contain silk pajamas. I assume all involved parties thought this was pretty swell.
On the one hand, it's always good news that that wasn't a bomb on your doorstep. On the other hand, aside from the time and money wasted, that particular General probably got a few new fun nicknames.
Wow, you just gave me a flashback. I miss the Trojan Room coffee cam.
Up until one or maybe two hundred years ago, this worked fine. Only the wealthy could afford to gorge themselves to dangerous levels of obesity. Today, for maybe $6, I can go to Burger King and get a Whopper, fries (King Size) and a Coke (King Size). According to BK's own meal-builder nutrition info, this meal has 1660 calories (650 from fat), 72 grams of fat, and 117g total sugars. And I didn't even put cheese on that Whopper. (And no Vitamin D as far as I can tell.) This is theoretically one out of three meals, supposedly totaling 2000 calories. In all likelihood, it's more like hald the day's calories than most. Meanwhile, the average modern American doesn't burn nearly as many calories Mr. Caveman did, since we survive by sitting in cubicles instead of hunting and gathering. Clearly, our ability to feed ourselves has improved to the point where the foods we naturally crave due to things coded in our genes thousands of years ago are actually harming us. For all the exotic things we can now eat because of technology, our range of nutrients sucks.
So it's hard to diet because as far as your body knows, that triple fudge brownie might be the the calories you burn not freezing to death tonight. And since you're body's so preoccupied with this now baseless fear of starvation, it forgets to make you want to eat things like broccoli or spinach, which our ancestors were probably eating to pass the time until some meat wandered close enough to kill. Call it evolutionary sabotage- what we needed before is not what we need now, and if we can't stay on top of those changes, we tend to die.
I was curious about the error message, so I tried to go to movielink, which caused Firefox to crash. Fun fun fun!
There are a lot of people with moral objections to cloning of any kind. They believe it is playing God. Whether you or I agree is neither here nor there. While I might disagree with many veiws of, say, a conservative Christian, I think they have as much right to know whether the food they buy conflicts with their beliefs as anyone else. Jews and Muslims don't eat pork, Hindus don't eat beef. This generally gets respected. Anyone remember McDonald's getting in trouble for not making it known they were using beef lard to fry their fries? I can't imagine how horrible it would feel to be Hindu and find out that your potatoes containted literal sacred cow. I think many people would feel the same about their meat being cloned, and they should have the choice not to eat it.
That's why I put faultless in quotes. It's still a result of a person's decisions. In some case, the person made what was obvious decision. In others, it's impossible to know at the time that a mistake is being made. I'm not offended because you didn't have enough information to know whether what you said applied to my example. In the case of my parents, my mom was unaware when she got married that my father is a sociopath and has no conscience. Obviously she would not have chosen to marry someone like that if she knew ahead of time. There's no easy way to determine antisocial personalties because they're good at blending in, so her decision to get married and have chldren with him was made with the best information she had at the time. In retrospect, sadly, it was not the best path to choose for her life, but I hardly think it qualifies as irresponsible.
A person's actions and choices can have a negative impact on their life, without it being their "fault." A pedestrian run over by a car on the sidewalk could have prevented that by not being on that sidewalk at that time, but it would be ridiculous to blame them for choosing to walk there, unless they could have reasonably known that there was a high probability of a car ending up on that particular stretch of sidewalk. It would be different if hypothetical pedestrian chose to jaywalk and then got hit by a car- they knowingly did something they shouldn't have, putting themself at greater risk.
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people in messes of their own making, and those people should take responsibility. I'm just pointing out there are people who aren't, and nobody has the right to judge which is which without knowing all the facts. Doing so is a slippery slope to blaming the victim.
My brother turned out OK; he is happily married and is a wonderful father to his three beautiful children. I stagnated in my oppressive small town for a long time, but I'm getting out of here now to what I hope will be a better life somewhere else.
I can guarantee that if there were cell phone videos when I was in school, I could point you to a web page with a video of a truckload of boys throwing rocks at me as I walked home from school. Naturally, these were the big strong tough guys who thought it was amusing to pick on a little (5'3") girl. Maybe a video would have been what it took to get an adult to do something about it, but it would have made the rounds before anything action was taken, and I probably would have taken more abuse first because of it. I was told at the time that the school could not discipline students for anything not taking place on school grounds, which is kinda funny since they had a policy suspending kids from sports if they got caught at a party with alcohol. (They didn't have to be drinking, just in the same building as the alcohol.) Nobody offered to call the cops, or suggested that I file a police report. Nobody's parents were called. I wasn't offered counseling. Nothing happened. This was in a "good" school district in a small "progressive" town. I suspect that they thought that I couldn't possibly be having problems with anyone since there weren't even any minorities in our lovely little town to cause trouble. *Their views, not mine! *
Not only did the adults never do anything, they participated in the emotional bullying. I recall one incident where a female friend had suffered a loss and I was taking her to the school pshychologist. As we sat in the front office waiting, I was hugging her and doing the supportive friend thing, and one of the office ladies made some remark to another office lady about us being lesbians, which we heard. When we complained to the principal, we were basically told he couldn't do anything about it since he didn't hear it. So I don't know why I thought they'd care about the damn stoning.
I applaud the effort to have some repercussions for *any* type of predatory behavior. I only hope they don't zero-tolerance policy the thing into persecution. I know TFA said they're taking out the ZTP, but sadly I see this potentially devolving into kids getting suspended for posting something on Myspace like "Jenny's a bitch she stole my boyfriend," or "I hate Mr. Smith, he's such a tool."
As far as just "getting over it," or developing a "thick skin" from it, as someone mentioned, I'll say this: My skin might be thicker for the experience, but it's scar tissue.
Another "faultless" poverty scenario, that I am intimately familiar with, is when mom stays home with the kids until dad moves in with his girlfriend, they get divorced, and he rarely if ever pays child support. That's how it went down with my partents. Between the mid-70s when she started being a stay at home mom and the mid-80s when she had to rejoin the workforce, the job market changed dramatically. She got a sucky job. She rotated which bill doesn't get paid that month (since there's never enough to pay all of them), usually managing to avoid shutoff. Around the same time, her father suffered a stroke and her elderly parents moved in so she could take care of them, too. When her car broke down, she went to the library and got a book, and fixed it herself if she could. We ate government peanut butter. I can assure you that we never had any magical emergency money hanging around. Quite the opposite: we had a backlog of "emergencies" waiting for money.
If something like this had happened to my brother or me, my mother couldn't have done anything about it, and my father probably wouldn't have. Hell, I failed classes for having too many unexcused absences, because we couldn't afford to go to a doctor (to be told it was the common cold, they can't do anything, and I should stay home a week), so I had no note.
I fail to see how any of this was due to a lack of responsibility on my mom's part. I'm sure there's plenty of single parents out there in the same boat. Sure, there are people who should probably not have kids when they know they can't take care of them, but that's not the only way to end up a parent without spare cash.
Of course, any coffee maker has potential to cause trouble if it doesn't have water/coffee in it while it's heating. What I'm wondering is whether the timer was such that it would start at the same time every day unless disabled? Not having to remember to set it seems like a good idea, except that you might not remember to fill it. Considering that if I'm overtired from working late or something, it's easy to pass out on the couch watching TV and forget to do anything I'd usually do before bed (set the alarm, brush teeth, undress, go to an actual bed), I can see how that could quickly turn from a convenience into a conflagration.
Aww, I was hoping for the news for the hard of hearing!
I agree 100% that most customer support calls are because of something stupid the customer did, but customer support reps often seem to forget that they are literally there to support the customer. If I have my techie friend fix my computer for free, he can condescend and make me feel stupid all he wants. That sort of attitude is not appropriate in a business relationship. If I'm paying for electronics, software, and in some cases the customer suppport itself, the person on the phone could have the courtesy to at least *pretend* they don't think I'm a drooling moron. There's no reason to use the tone of voice you'd use when speaking to a developmentally challenged toddler. Even if I'm displaying the intelligence of one. I've never really believed that "the customer is always right." But I do think that though we all know the customer is probably wrong, the customer should still feel like you do accept that platitude.
It's not really fair to beat up on tech support, though, as I find all the various customer service industries are getting more and more rude. It seems like everyone is forgetting that it's your privilege that I'm your paying customer, not the other way around. Once upon a time people tried to earn your business, and people who had to interact with the public/customers were trained with some sucecss to be polite and friendly. It's OK if it's insincere, if it's just an act for my benefit. You don't have to mean it when you tell me to have an nice day, but it's unprofessional not to say it.
I have the same natural sleep schedule. (Made school very interesting, as I tended to just be falling asleep when I was supposed to be getting up.) Snooze buttons are usually 9 minutes, which seems random but I'm sure had some practical reason in the orignal wind-up analogue alarm clocks. Regardless of why it's 9 minutes, that's not enough for me to get back to sleep, so snooze buttons just make be angry in the morning. I keep a digital clock far but not super far from the bed, and I set it at least an hour earlier than I want to get up. When it goes off, I get up, set the alarm ahead an hour, and go back to sleep. (When it goes off again, I might use the normal snooze.) This works OK for the most part, but if I really need to be up for something my best bet is to have my boyfriend sit on the edge of the bed and talk to me, making me respond but not being too annoying. 15 minutes of that works better than 3 hours of alarms. I tried using my cell phone since I can set it for 5 different times, thinking if I staggered them right I'd wake up easily. After a few days I managed to disable all 5 in my sleep when the first one went off, so I gave up on that. Having some light in the room helps, but if it's too bright I'll just stick my head under the pillow. I'd like to try one of those dawn-simulating clocks.
I also have had problems with someone else's alarm clock waking me up; my mom can sleep through her alarm till it stops, but it goes right through my head. Unless of course I try to borrow it to get myself up, then I can sleep right through it too.
If you ever find anything that really works, let me know!
I'm pretty sure they still make automatic timed coffee makers. I say "still" because I remember a while back (probably 10 years ago, now that I think of it) there were a few incidents with timer-equipped Mr. Coffee machines that helped you get up in the morning by burning down your house. Unfortunately they may have phased out that added functionality, and now you have to settle for waking up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee in the morning without that pleasant furniture-roast aroma. The good features always disappear.
At least in that scenario, there's an option to make the programs stop.
Once upon a time, we had a computer that it didn't seem wise to leave running unattended for fear that it might catch on fire and burn down the house. (We had to keep the case off and a fan pointed towards that corner. That was a fun machine.) I would come home from school around 3, and log in to AOL to check my mail and all that other nifty internet stuff before leaving for work by 4. With obnoxious frequency, AOL would decide to forcibly download an update. We were on dialup. This could take over 20 minutes. I was afraid to Ctrl-Alt-Del it, because it might break AOL, and my mom would kill me if she couldn't log on when she got home. So I'd stand there staring daggers at the screen while it took it's sweet ass time downloading, and then forced a restart of AOL and/or Windows. AOL took a minute or two to load; Windows took around on 5 a good day. After Windows started, there was still the wait while all the swell little tray icons loaded and whatever else it was doing. After all of that, THEN I could shut down Windows, which took a long time, and then I could finally wait for it to give me permission to hit the power button. Add in about a 1 in 10 chance of getting a BSOD at some point in the process.
Needless to say, my boss was amused. But I'd rather get in trouble at work than burn my house down. There may have been ways around part or all of that, but I wasn't aware of any and I was NOT willing to risk messing up the computer and having my mom break my fingers. So I resentfully submitted to this process that sometimes took 45 minutes. Why couldn't they just give me a diologue box? Sure they're annoying when they ask essentially rhetorical questions, but I *much* prefer being given a choice to having my computer hijacked. All of this stuff was supposed to be making my life easier, but instead it did its best to define annoying. I think I'm gonna go call my therapist now... sigh.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! did a skit on that.
You mix your metaphors so beautifully.
Ohhhhhhh! I thought the parent was trying to get the *dogs* drunk so they'd disrobe. Good luck with the girls thing, I hear it's harder.
It's just becoming more accurate. I actually find it slightly refreshing, because this type is less insulting. Let's say I wax nostalgic and flip over to Lifetime to see The Amy Fisher Story.(We'll assume I've been drinking.) Just because I'm viewing "television for women" doesn't mean I want to see 3 ads for Lysol Disinfectant Spray and the Gerber Life Grow-Up Plan during each commercial break. I do happen to be a woman, but I'm not a soccer mom, and I feel like I'm being pandered to when they shove that down my throat. ("Buy these housecleaning and childcare supplies, little lady!") On the othere hand it IS a good channel to run the ads featuring tampons for your heavy-flow but active days, and women who spontaneously discuss how "fresh" they feel. Similarly on target would be certain commercials during, for instance, The Man Show. There's a lack of feminine hygiene awareness in those commercials; some demographics are relatively easy to peg.
Others are not so clear. According to some statistics somewhere, if I'm watching Comedy Central at 2 a.m., I'm probably a young straight male. I'll accept that more males are watching than females, but I find it hard to believe that the numbers are skewed so heavily in that direction that I need to see several hundred Girls Gone Wild ads in 90 minutes. I have perfectly good boobs of my own and don't need or want to be asked to buy videos of drunken girls flashing a camera; I could go take off my shirt and hop in front of a mirror if I really just had to see some bouncing titties. (Not to mention the wonderful world of free online pr0n, which is better than those videos anyway.) I wouldn't mind Comedy Central knowing that I am watching reruns of South Park if it meant that they would show me only ads I might be interested in, or at the very least don't make me want to throw things at my television.
Obviously, it's not an exact science, and there will always be a certain amount of junk in with the rest, but I think it's nicer to be pigeonholed more a little more accurately. Like if they narrowed it down even to me being a female in my mid-twenties, instead the current assumption that I'm 18-35, and probably a guy. Or maybe take it one step further, that I'm a female but not much of a girly-girl, and I don't want to Bedazzle my favorite pair of jeans.
These were all examples from TV/Old Media, but there's a lesson there for New Media. A 36 year old may buy more like "18-35" than "36-45", and that's worth knowing. [semi-random rant]Even if I wanted to enlarge it, I don't *have* a penis. Stop promising me 3 inches. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You're polluting our internet tubes. All those enlarged penises tend to get stuck and clog up the works. I'm sitting here spamming refresh on the Random Kitten Generator, (which BTW is the cutest site ever) so maybe I would be interested in kitty toys or adopting a cat? A subscription to Cat Fancy magazine? As it turns out I'm not really looking for any of that, but it's an educated guess, and my kitten pictures wouldn't have to navigate so much penis congestion to get to me. I think we can all agree that's a good thing.[/rant] People aren't buying things from sites they don't go to or even look at. I actually look at the ads Google returns with the search, because sometimes it's what I'm looking for. I stop ignoring things when they stop being irrelevant and intrusive. For this reason, advertising that targets individuals rather than broad groups of people arbitrarily lumped together is bound to have positive results.
My boyfriend and I recently got a 61" DLP (which he NEEDED because he bought a PS3). According to both the manual and our experience, you should sit 7' to 10' away for optimal viewing pleasure. Sitting closer results in having to turn your head to follow the action (as well as the color looking a little off); this makes you very aware you are watching TV, ruining immersion. I don't really know how to go about the math for this, but it seems like you'd have to be something like 20" away to view anything properly on such a huge screen. So not only do you have to have a wall wide enough and tall enough to fit the thing on, the room needs to be long enough to sit that far away. As someone mentioned, this might not be a problem since a person who can afford this probably has the space for it, but it still makes my brain hurt a little.
Another impracticality that springs to mind is that this isn't even a very good investment- what's the average life of a plasma screen? Could you go back to a relatively normal size TV after you've had this, or will you be shelling out $90,000 every 5 years or so? At least our "little" DLP will still be usable in 10 years. We might have to spend $300 on a light bulb for it, but we'll be able to see the picture.
Here's some math I can do: for the same amount of money, you could buy 30-40 61" TVs and put one on every wall; which would be kind of scary but pretty awesome. (And on a moral, "isn't there anything worthwhile you could do with your obscene sums of money?" note, I looked up one of those sponsor-a-child charities I see on TV and you could sponsor 312 children for one year, or 20 children for 15 years each, or of course one child for 312 years. I am *NOT* judging anyone, I just got to thinking about the numbers.)
I can't deny it would be cool to have, but for several reasons I can't imagine buying one, even if I could afford to.
Or, so as not to exclude YouTube, DoubleGooTube.
Sounds tasty.
Personally, I'm rooting for DoubleGoo.
Unfortunately I typed that up and then fell asleep before I hit submit. I see now that I'm not the only one to pick up on those points. Darn.