Re:Leave them "dead"
on
Abandoned Games
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Do you really think that the people who worked on and made Gunship actually got any semblance of a reasonable cut of that $40-$50 back then?
At any rate, you obviously missed the point of the parent's post. It wasn't to financially compensate the developers. What exactly was he supposed to do? Hunt them all down (since they've all undoubtedly changed jobs many, many times since) and pay them individually? If any have died, should he write a check to their estate for the 2 cents that they would have earned back then from his purchase plus interest?
The point is that he did his best to make right now what he screwed up then, thus the karmic balance.
I won't judge whether his efforts are admirable or not or whether it truly makes things "right" enough, but it's more than I'm guessing 99.9% of other people have done. God knows I probably still owe Sid Mieir some money for Civilization that I'll likely never make any effort to repay. (But I don't feel so guilty about that since I paid way too much for Civilization III.)
I 100% agree. Anyone who thinks that Dell is bad should try dealing with Gateway. Actually, to be fair, I haven't dealt with them since, oh, 1995 I think it was? Here's why.
At the time, I was trying to establish that I knew enough about PCs to be a PC technician for any company that was willing to hire me. I didn't have much experience on paper, but I knew that I knew the stuff well. So I convinced my mom to convince her boss, who ran her company, to let me do a consulting job for them. I knew computers really well, but unfortunately, I didn't know computer companies that well, so I went with Gateway. At the time, they and Dell were pretty neck-and-neck in the mail-order computer business, but I read that Gateway was about to start opening those stores up, and I thought it would be better if they had a local presence also.
Long story short, it was a tragedy. I managed to get them set up, but two of the five network cards in the PCs were screwed up. They had that stupid, "We'll only send you a replacement part after we receive the defective one" policy back then, and I ended up sucking up paying some of my consulting fees to go buy a couple of network cards myself so that I could keep the client happy. (And telling him, "I know you spent around $15,000, but two of the computers won't work until late next week" wouldn't have made him very happy.) They also ended up charging the company twice for the computers, almost $30,000. They wouldn't take the charge off until my mom, who handled the book and the credit card payments, wrote a formal complaint to American Express.
I never admitted this to the guy that paid me, but it turns out that the computers were pretty crappy, too. For the next couple of years, I was constantly having to go out and fix one thing here, another thing there. In the meantime, I did get another job with another company who used Dell, and I did several more small consulting jobs on the side that I used Dell for. Of all of the jobs I've had, I've supported around 20 times more Dells than those Gateways, but those stupid Gateways took up around 20 times more time than the Dells. I've bought several Dells over the years for myself and my family members, and I've always been happy with their sales, support, and products.
And no, I don't work for Dell. I just like their stuff, and have since, oh, around 1995 or so when I learned that all computer companies aren't equal. it's no wonder that Dell is so big and Gateway is... Wait, are they even still around? The reviews for this new machine look great, I'm thinking about getting one.
Oh, and a couple more things I forgot to mention. (Damn, they're things I say a lot, too. I don't know how I forgot it.)
I am much more afraid of the danger my own government poses to my freedom and liberty than any threat the terrorists pose. If you were smart, after reading articles like this, you would be, too. How many people have died over the centuries to protect our freedom? While I certainly sympathize with the victims' families, are those 3,500 that died on September 11, 2001, really worth giving it all up for? Are all the other lives that have been lost that meaningless?
The other thing is that even if you do trust George W. Bush to read your e-mail, see what web sites you visit, wiretap your phones without warrants, arrest you as an "enemy combatant" and hold you for years without charging you or letting you see a lawyer, and whatever the hell else he's doing, let me ask you this: How much do you trust Hillary Clinton? Because if she's our next president, and it's looking like she may stand a decent chance, those are exactly the powers that you're giving her by letting your government goobers abuse you like they are now.
I don't give a damn who is president. Even if Jesus Christ came down from heaven and won as a third-party candidate, I wouldn't want Him to have the executive powers that George W. Bush have been claiming.
You know what the irony in this is? We make hideous fun of countries like China where this kind of thing is standard operating procedure, but when we do it, it's supposedly to protect us from the terrorists. How does something like this come about?
I can't repeat this quote enough:
Of course the people don't want war...But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.
—Hermann Goering
The question burning in my mind is this: How much will it take? How far does the government have to go before everyone says, "Enough!" and finally recognizes the greater danger that we're all in? How badly does our government have to act before people take up the call to arms and start rioting in the streets of this outrageous behavior?
For all the I-have-nothing-to-hiders out there, let me make it clear: I do have things that I'd rather stay hidden, and it's none of your damn business, and none of George W. Bush's damn business, what they are. And whenever a government goober tells me, "Trust me," that's the first sign that I shouldn't. We shouldn't have to blindly trust the government, that's why we friggin' fought England over 200 years ago!
Needless to say, I'm sure as hell glad I don't have AT&T, because it saves me the trouble of cancelling my account and writing a nasty letter about why.
Not that I care whether this guy makes 5 cents or $5 million from this referral, but if his post made you say to yourself, "Hmmm, sounds interesting, I think I'll pick that book up," can you please explain to me how exactly that's not a legitimate referral? He got you interested in a book that you otherwise would not have known about, and if Amazon is willing to give him something for that, something which doesn't cost you a thing, then I say more power to him.
Are you really so petty that you don't want anyone to ever get any kind of perk for doing something for you? If you don't want to read the book, don't buy it. And before you go spouting off about how this will lead to people trying to make Slashdot their own personal marketplaces, I don't buy your slippery slope argument. The ability to do this as been around all along, and so far, it hasn't happened yet, and the link that was posted was directly relevant to the subject matter at hand.
In other words, DON'T mod this comment's grandparent down, but instead, mod this comment's parent down as a troll! And after that, go ahead and mod this comment down as offtopic, since at that point, it will be (and I have some pretty good karma to burn...)
Well, I would definitely probably get my noggin' checked out if I really saw a burning bush, but even if it's not considered scientific evidence, yes, it would probably convince me.
I guess what it boils down to is that I'm a Doubting Thomas. I like to base my beliefs on what can be seen, touched, observed, repeated, predicted, and so on. If Doubting Thomas were alive today, according to most Christians, he'd probably go to hell because without being able to see and poke around on the evidence, he wouldn't have believed the story of the resurrection.
Now here's something to wrap your brain around. If I'm like Doubting Thomas, why is it that I go to hell for being the same type of person, when he got the proof he wanted and demanded, and that would also have convinced me?
I'm sorry, but it seems that the Christian god, as described in the Bible, has a nasty habit of playing favorites, capriciously sending people to heaven or hell based on whim and when and where they happened to be alive. Moses gets a burning bush, and all I get are "mysterious ways."
If God wants me to give up rational thought and to reject well over a century of thought, research, and evidence, it's going to cost Him more than 2000-year-old stories about His only begotton Son.
I disagree, I think the Creationism vs. Evolution debate is alive and strong. There are two contradictory views: one, that mankind was created by God as described in Genesis, and the other, that mankind evolved from a lower species. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask, I guess), one's viewpoint on this issue and the rationale behind arriving at it is important for developing viewpoints on other scientific theories and moral stances on other seemingly non-related issues.
Now I will admit that there are a lot of intelligent Christians (and of other religions, for that matter) out there who believe in evolution as a tool used by God and that the book of Genesis is metaphorical, not a literal and historically accurate accounting of man's creation. Still others (an interesting set of folks, honestly) believe that God is nature, and that evolution is His spirit at work.
Me, I don't believe either of those philosophies, but at any rate, I still think your anology is incorrect. I'd word it more like the following.
Evolutionist:
I know how a PC works and how it is put together, therefore under the right circumstances, PCs can be made without the necessary intervention of Dell.(A valid conclusion, even if the exact manufacturing processes required for putting PCs together without Dell isn't known.)
Creationist:
I don't know how PCs are put together and according to Dell ads, they're the only ones that can do it, therefore my PC must have been created by Dell.(An invalid conclusion based on false premeses and a possibly inaccurate higher authority.)
Cue evolution vs. creationism debate in 5... 4... 3... 2...
Seriously, I almost dread stories like this for a couple of reasons:
- Talking about "missing links" puts the idea in creationists' minds that the evolution from apes to man took place in discrete steps, and that the fact that such "missing links" exist is proof that the Theory of Evolution is still just a hunch unsupported by proof. The fact is that the evolution from apes to man is a continuum, and there are a lot of fossils from lots of time periods along that continuum.
- Because this discovery is relatively recent, there's a chance that it still may turn out to be something other than what this article purports it to be. The real research is just starting. If it turns out that it's for real, it will be valuable insight into our species's evolution, though creationists will still refuse to believe it. If it turns out to not be an intermediary between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, the creationists will accuse the scientists of everything from fabricating evidence to trying to pull a hoax as part of some weird conspiracy. The irony is that if it is discovered that this fossil is not the intermediary that it is suspected to be, it is scientists who will determine that, and unlike creationists who have a nasty habit of wanting to dismiss or even repress evidence, those scientists will let us know as soon as they find any inconsistencies, and the data will be there in the open for us to evaulate and form our own opinions.
I still say that this is the true test for whether a creationist can actually be open-minded or not. Ask them this one question:
What piece or pieces of evidence will it take to convince you that the Theory of Evolution is, in fact, true and that creationism is not?
If the answer is "None," as it is with almost every creationist I've ever met, then don't bother wasting your time arguing with them. Nothing you say will ever convince them, as they have deliberately closed themselves off to any kind of rational conclusion based on reality instead of blind faith.
The nice thing about the question is that it's not a double standard. There are several things that would convince me that creationism is true and not evolution. The most obvious would be if God came and spoke to me in a burning bush. I know that sounds facetious, but it's really not; that really would do it. Or, if compelling scientific evidence were to arise that evolution is a crock, such as discovery of a natural chimera skeleton. These are just a couple of examples, I'm sure there are many more.
I'm always amused at creationists who think that scientists are in some kind of dark conspiracy to push "the agenda" of evolution. What they don't realize is that if a scientist could discover some piece of incontrovertible proof that the Theory of Evolution is all just a bunch of hooey, he would undoubtedly be one of the most famous people in the world, winning all sorts of Nobel Prizes and recognition in his field. Proving the Theory of Evolution wrong would be one of the greatest, not notorious, scientific finds ever, on the level of Michaelson-Morley experiment that proved that there is no aether and set the stage for Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and you'd better believe that any decent scientists would kill to disprove the Theory of Evolution.
I question the seriousness of a test that's clearly there as a marketing aid for some dubious $500 "Brain Fitness" training software.
Sure, go ahead and question it. I didn't submit the story to earn money for Posit Science, though I certainly don't care if they get fantastically rich off of it. And I'll be the first to admit that I don't know beans about neuroscience, except what I've seen on Nova now and then. I'm totally unqualified to make a judgement on whether or not the $500 "Brain Fitness" training software is dubious, though it does seem to have some pretty big brains behind it, if you believe their reference page with over 50 neuroscientists and researchers.
But really, the main reason I submitted the story is because I thought it was a cool little diversion for 10 minutes, I thought it would be fun to see Slashdotters post their scores, and I thought it was an interesting concept that auditory processing speed may be linked to how your brain works.
P.S. 25ms and 20ms on the first and second times I took the test, respectively.;-)
I'm seriously considering copying and pasting this into about a hundred responses to posts here... RTFA!!!
The test does not measure your response time! It is playing sounds of pre-rendered duration and pitches, and you have to determine the nature of those sounds. Whether you almost instantly hit the button or take a few hours to ponder it, your score will be exactly the same! (Unless, of course, you take so long that you forget what your answer is...)
Again, RTFA, or better yet, take the test! It is not necessary for the script at any time to accurately record any kind of timing, and your response time in no way affects the results of the test!
For what it's worth, I don't know anything about neuroscience, although I've caught a few shows now and then on PBS about the brain and thought it was interesting. I knew accusations would probably fly that I'm trying to sell your software, but that really wasn't my intention. I just saw the article on CNet, took the online test twice, thought that whether or not the science behind it was valid it was nifty concept, and thought that fellow Slashdotters would enjoy taking a brief diversion to see how they do.
In fact, the last sentence of my submission text was stripped off before it got posted. It read: "So fire up your headphones or speakers and see how your test score compares to the average, or more importantly, to your fellow Slashdotters!" I submitted the story for amusement, not commercialism. My intention wasn't to help you sell your software, although if that happens because of the resultant interest, I'm ecstatic for you, because I think the test is a nifty marketing tool and you deserve some attention and yes, even sales for coming up with it. But more than anything else, I really posted it just because I thought the test was an interesting 10-minute diversion that others here like me would think was kind of cool.
But I've got to say, you coming here and responding to folks is most excellent, and your coolness factor just went up a notch or two with me and probably a lot of other folks, too.
Oh, and my two scores were 28ms and 25ms, which is way below (i.e. better than) the average and even the best of the best performers. I figure I'm either a super-genius, I've played way too much Halo, I have some sort of autism, or I'm just a reeeeally good guesser. If the first option is not the case, please don't explain because right now, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.;-)
The following story is true, though extraordinarily sad.
At the company where I used to work, they registered all TLDs for their name. We had.com,.net,.org,.biz, etc.
One day, our chief marketing goober decided that.biz was going to be the next "in" thing on the Internet, and we would be one of the first companies to capitalize on it. So we had all of our business cards chaged, our mailers, our letterhead... everything. We were explicitly told never to use the.com domain name in our business dealings, it was.biz. We, the IT gurus, begged and implored them not to do this, that it would cause more trouble in the end than it was worth, and that the only companies that use.biz are fly-by-night companies that grab the.biz equivalent of famous.com names so that they can rip people off.
Who do you think they listened to?
Long story short: Within a few months, after our customers, suppliers, vendors, and lots of other really, really important people started complaining that their e-mails to us were bouncing back and e-mails from us were not being received because spam blockers were automatically assuming that our.biz address either weren't valid, our chief marketing goober decided to "spend more time with his family," our old business cards, letterhead, etc. was dug out, and we were instructed never to use the.biz domain name again.
2) Face it, the Democrats here in America have made some really boneheaded moves when it comes to this issue also, while the Republicans have largely remained silent. Lest we forget, President Clinton, one of the best presidents we've ever had in spite of his constant slander, signed the Communications Decency Act into law. (Republicans don't get off the hook on this; a Republican House of Representatives passed it, too.) Just because they're Democrats doesn't make them perfect. Sometimes even they succumb to misguided public pressure to do the wrong thing when faced with the harsh realities of needing the vote of soccer moms at election time.
If the Australian Labor Party is Australian Democrats, that makes the Liberal Party of Australia the Australian Republicans. It's true, just kind of funny that liberal is such a dirty word here in America, but it's the one that the center-right party just happened to choose to describe themselves in the Land Down Under.:-)
Seriously, though, if Australia is anything like the United States, it doesn't matter much who proposed it. Here, both Democrats (unfortunately) and Republicans are totally boneheaded about this issue, because they're all trying to appeal to the same group of soccer moms that are scared shitless that bad things on the Internet are going to get their kids raped, killed, or worse, turn them into killers themselves by them playing those violent video games.
I'm sure Australia's probably very similar. So don't worry, if it weren't the Australian liberals proposing it, I'm sure it would have been, well, the Liberal Australians.;-)
Of course, I'm not Australian, so that's just pure speculation. Any Aussies want to pass me the vegemite and throw their 2's worth in?
First of all, let me start by saying that for 90% of what I do, I love OpenOffice. However, I'm one of these constructively lazy people who would rather spend twenty minutes writing up a macro to save me a couple of hours than spending, well, a couple of hours doing it the manual way.
Unfortunately, I detest the macro creation/editing facility in OpenOffice. Just as a side-by-side test, I just popped open a document, recorded a macro to insert the words "This is a test!" and went in the edit (presumably, to customize) the macro.
Here's what I get in OpenOffice:
sub TestMacro
rem -
rem define variables
dim document as object
dim dispatcher as object
rem -
rem get access to the document
document = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelpe r")
rem -
dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "Text"
args1(0).Value = "This is a test!"
Jesus, that's a lot of lines just to insert a few words of text! And if I wanted to customize it, I wouldn't have a clue where to begin! Microsoft Word, on the other hand, gives me this:
Sub TestMacro()
'
' TestMacro Macro
' Macro recorded 3/21/2006
'
Selection.TypeText Text:="This is a test!"
End Sub
Wow! I'm really not just cherry-picking one rare example. As the tasks get more difficult, the macro code gets exponentially harder in OpenOffice than in Microsoft's apps. In my experience, macro editing in OpenOffice is like pulling teeth, but so easy that even I can do it in Microsoft Office applications.
Like I said, in my day-to-day dealings, I use OpenOffice. The applications work just as well for almost all of my uses as Microsoft Office, and the price just can't be beaten unless Uncle Bill comes to my house and pays me money to use his applications. But whenever I'm doing something that involved more than just popping it open and tossing out a quick letter, Microsoft Word is the way to go.
I'm not a programmer, so unfortunately, all I can do is sit around and wish and hope that at some point, the OpenOffice development team, folks a lot smarter than I am, comes up with something a bit easier to use in automating the suite.
You think there were social programs in the ancient world?
Yes. Who do you think built the ancient aqueducts, colisseums, roads, cathedrals and temples, bath houses, etc.? (Clue: It wasn't private investors.) And yes, many of these advanced ancient civilizations had government sanctioned and supported programs to take care of the poorer members of society. Even cavemen had that. Almost all ancient tribes would take care of their elderly, their sick, and their weak. Even many advanced animal species have social structures kind of like "governments" to do this to some extent.
The idea that it's okay to toss out people who either can't take care of themselves or who don't have the resources to take care of themselves, leaving them to fend for themselves with whatever pitiable scraps they can muster, is a relatively recent and deplorable development in human history. There is very little basis for this kind of attitude in ancient history.
Yes, I want to be rich, but not at the expense of our society's welfare. If me being rich means that a thousand others are poor, I'll settle for somewhere in the middle, thank you very much. "But it's not a zero-sum game," you say? True, but unfortunately, that only means that the wealthy in this country are getting richer faster than if it were a zero-sum game. Open your eyes, man, the poor are getting poorer, and as long we as a nation keep blaming that on the poor and not actually addressing the underlying problems, we're going to continue our death spiral downward, just as many of those aforementioned civilized nations did.
Read the actual document, not just the summary. The actual document isn't that bad.
The stuff inside isn't that big a secret to most folks. It mainly boils down to, "Using open source software under licenses we've reviewed is okay, but be careful if you're developing code using open source software that we don't want released to the masses, because under some licenses, we may be obligated to."
In fact, this document is probably a good thing, in spite of a somewhat badly written summary. Check out Chapter 2:
(a) Only use open source licences that have been legally reviewed, including the GPL, LGPL, CAL, MBSD, MIT, which have been reviewed and are recommended by SSC for use in accordance with this guide.
(b) Obtain performance and intellectual property warranties from the supplier of the open source software, where appropriate and available.
This only makes sense. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing, saying that you should use software with a license we're not familiar with, or to disregard the IP of open source authors.
Also, look just below it. It says that for software development that is for open distribution, it's okay to use open source software. For software that is for limited or closed distribution, don't. Is this new? Am I missing something? If anything, people who are interested in open source software can look at this document as permission to go forward, not as a hinderance!
I mean, I realize that the words "infectious" has negative connotations, but I just don't see this document in and of itself as a bad thing. And even though I'm a strong FOSS advocate, the stuff that's in there is stuff that I would recommend to any company, government or organization to consider in their decision whether to use closed- or open source software.
You're exactly right, and I think that's one of the problems in America today: Businesses are exerting more and more pressure on its workers to accomplish more in less time.
But U.S. workers have to some extent let them get away with it. Once some people went on call 24x7 with their pagers, then cell phones, then Blackberries, it put a lot of pressure on the rest of us to do so. In spite of the fact that no one's really doing their job very well, no one's pushing back and saying, "Enough!" And, of course, the vast majority of CEOs and upper-level managers are either too stupid to recognize what's happening or they just don't care as long as they get their fat bonus.
I don't know what the answer to that problem is, but as far as my job goes, when I'm working on something really important, the pager goes off, the instant message service is put into "Do not disturb" mode, the cell phone stays on but will mostly be ignored, the work phone is forwarded to voice mail, and I focus on the task at hand. I don't have an office door, but people who try to talk to me have been told, "I can't talk right now, I'm working on something very important. I'll come see you later."
If you're trying to get in touch with me, it can be irritating, but if yours is the problem I'm working on, you'd better damn well believe that I'm your best friend.
If more people would do that instead of just sucking it up and trying to process six things at once, not only would they do their job better, but they would start seeing people respect them more as you showed positive results.
Or you may get fired for blowing off the wrong person, in which case you have my sympathy and I sincerely hope that you manage to find another job where management is just a little less stupid.
Well, without technology, I'd be unemployed, so in that sense, I guess I really am working harder because of it.
We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you're on to the next thing.
This sounds more like a self-discipline problem than a problem with technology to me. When I have an important task to work on, somehow, I manage to concentrate on it. It's called prioritization, and it's something that people have had to deal with since a naked ape was put in charge of making sure the fire stays lit.
You'll have to PRY my original XBox controller from my COLD DEAD HANDS.
The original XBox controller is still the best I've ever used. I loathe the S-controller. The reason I don't have a cordless XBox controller is because I haven't found one yet that is the same size and format as the original. And whenever I go over to someone else's house to game, I take my original controllers with me just in case they got one of the wussy new models.
Standardization. The corporate standard will probably stay something non-Google-related on servers. I can't imagine that Google will put out a distribution that has any kind of server-side software worth note other than what's necessary to run desktop Linux. On corporate desktops, I suspect Windows will remain the standard because it's so damned entrenched right now, and I doubt that corporate bigwigs would like any kind of advertising model that Google may include with their desktop distribution. Who knows, though, maybe Google will be able to work something out so that it will take over corporate desktops.
However, I disagree that people like diversity. I mean, computer geeks may like diversity, but the public at large all want the same thing. I know that if any of my non-computer-expert family members and friends uses a computer that they're not used to, they're freaked out if an icon isn't right where it is on their own machine at home. The more that one distribution can take market share, the more likely people will jump on its bandwagon and use it. Hell, I can imagine Google tweaking their distribution so that all of your desktop settings are stored at http://settings.google.com/ and you can log into your friend's computer and have your icons right where they are on your computer at home! Why do most people buy Windows machines these days instead of a Mac? Honestly? Because most other people have Windows machines, not Macs, and they want to have the same thing their friends, family, workmates, and neighbors have. After all, the software that people use 99.9% of the time (e-mail, Web browser, office suite) is available on both platforms.
Improvements. There's a huge difference in sponsoring amateurs to write code and throwing a non-trivial budget at hiring professional developers to write code. Don't get me wrong, I admire RedHat's and Novell's efforts, but I just think that Google as a company is in a lot better position to get the job done.
Integration. That was kind of my point, the tools right now aren't integrated, but Google has the power—and the opportunity, if they're serious about releasing a desktop OS—to make them integrated. Shoot, some more ideas off the top of my head would look nice in a bulleted sub-list, don't you think? Here are some wild thoughts of how Google applications can be integrated with, oh, say, GMail as a simple example:
Your contacts all have a map with directions to their house on their contact page.
You can view pictures of this person stored on your computer
Find files this person sent to you that you've stashed (and probably forgotten about) somewhere on your machine
Shop for this person a birthday gift. (Because his birthday is in a week!)
Have a link from a Google video clip that you really liked to "Send this to... (select contact)"
...and so on.
Seriously, those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure the clever folks at Google probably have tons more clever ideas that I would probably never dream of. (If not, hire me, Google. Seriously.)
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really think that the people who worked on and made Gunship actually got any semblance of a reasonable cut of that $40-$50 back then?
At any rate, you obviously missed the point of the parent's post. It wasn't to financially compensate the developers. What exactly was he supposed to do? Hunt them all down (since they've all undoubtedly changed jobs many, many times since) and pay them individually? If any have died, should he write a check to their estate for the 2 cents that they would have earned back then from his purchase plus interest?
The point is that he did his best to make right now what he screwed up then, thus the karmic balance.
I won't judge whether his efforts are admirable or not or whether it truly makes things "right" enough, but it's more than I'm guessing 99.9% of other people have done. God knows I probably still owe Sid Mieir some money for Civilization that I'll likely never make any effort to repay. (But I don't feel so guilty about that since I paid way too much for Civilization III.)
I 100% agree. Anyone who thinks that Dell is bad should try dealing with Gateway. Actually, to be fair, I haven't dealt with them since, oh, 1995 I think it was? Here's why.
At the time, I was trying to establish that I knew enough about PCs to be a PC technician for any company that was willing to hire me. I didn't have much experience on paper, but I knew that I knew the stuff well. So I convinced my mom to convince her boss, who ran her company, to let me do a consulting job for them. I knew computers really well, but unfortunately, I didn't know computer companies that well, so I went with Gateway. At the time, they and Dell were pretty neck-and-neck in the mail-order computer business, but I read that Gateway was about to start opening those stores up, and I thought it would be better if they had a local presence also.
Long story short, it was a tragedy. I managed to get them set up, but two of the five network cards in the PCs were screwed up. They had that stupid, "We'll only send you a replacement part after we receive the defective one" policy back then, and I ended up sucking up paying some of my consulting fees to go buy a couple of network cards myself so that I could keep the client happy. (And telling him, "I know you spent around $15,000, but two of the computers won't work until late next week" wouldn't have made him very happy.) They also ended up charging the company twice for the computers, almost $30,000. They wouldn't take the charge off until my mom, who handled the book and the credit card payments, wrote a formal complaint to American Express.
I never admitted this to the guy that paid me, but it turns out that the computers were pretty crappy, too. For the next couple of years, I was constantly having to go out and fix one thing here, another thing there. In the meantime, I did get another job with another company who used Dell, and I did several more small consulting jobs on the side that I used Dell for. Of all of the jobs I've had, I've supported around 20 times more Dells than those Gateways, but those stupid Gateways took up around 20 times more time than the Dells. I've bought several Dells over the years for myself and my family members, and I've always been happy with their sales, support, and products.
And no, I don't work for Dell. I just like their stuff, and have since, oh, around 1995 or so when I learned that all computer companies aren't equal. it's no wonder that Dell is so big and Gateway is... Wait, are they even still around? The reviews for this new machine look great, I'm thinking about getting one.
Oh, and a couple more things I forgot to mention. (Damn, they're things I say a lot, too. I don't know how I forgot it.)
I am much more afraid of the danger my own government poses to my freedom and liberty than any threat the terrorists pose. If you were smart, after reading articles like this, you would be, too. How many people have died over the centuries to protect our freedom? While I certainly sympathize with the victims' families, are those 3,500 that died on September 11, 2001, really worth giving it all up for? Are all the other lives that have been lost that meaningless?
The other thing is that even if you do trust George W. Bush to read your e-mail, see what web sites you visit, wiretap your phones without warrants, arrest you as an "enemy combatant" and hold you for years without charging you or letting you see a lawyer, and whatever the hell else he's doing, let me ask you this: How much do you trust Hillary Clinton? Because if she's our next president, and it's looking like she may stand a decent chance, those are exactly the powers that you're giving her by letting your government goobers abuse you like they are now.
I don't give a damn who is president. Even if Jesus Christ came down from heaven and won as a third-party candidate, I wouldn't want Him to have the executive powers that George W. Bush have been claiming.
You know what the irony in this is? We make hideous fun of countries like China where this kind of thing is standard operating procedure, but when we do it, it's supposedly to protect us from the terrorists. How does something like this come about?
I can't repeat this quote enough:
The question burning in my mind is this: How much will it take? How far does the government have to go before everyone says, "Enough!" and finally recognizes the greater danger that we're all in? How badly does our government have to act before people take up the call to arms and start rioting in the streets of this outrageous behavior?
For all the I-have-nothing-to-hiders out there, let me make it clear: I do have things that I'd rather stay hidden, and it's none of your damn business, and none of George W. Bush's damn business, what they are. And whenever a government goober tells me, "Trust me," that's the first sign that I shouldn't. We shouldn't have to blindly trust the government, that's why we friggin' fought England over 200 years ago!
Needless to say, I'm sure as hell glad I don't have AT&T, because it saves me the trouble of cancelling my account and writing a nasty letter about why.
Not that I care whether this guy makes 5 cents or $5 million from this referral, but if his post made you say to yourself, "Hmmm, sounds interesting, I think I'll pick that book up," can you please explain to me how exactly that's not a legitimate referral? He got you interested in a book that you otherwise would not have known about, and if Amazon is willing to give him something for that, something which doesn't cost you a thing, then I say more power to him.
Are you really so petty that you don't want anyone to ever get any kind of perk for doing something for you? If you don't want to read the book, don't buy it. And before you go spouting off about how this will lead to people trying to make Slashdot their own personal marketplaces, I don't buy your slippery slope argument. The ability to do this as been around all along, and so far, it hasn't happened yet, and the link that was posted was directly relevant to the subject matter at hand.
In other words, DON'T mod this comment's grandparent down, but instead, mod this comment's parent down as a troll! And after that, go ahead and mod this comment down as offtopic, since at that point, it will be (and I have some pretty good karma to burn...)
Well, I would definitely probably get my noggin' checked out if I really saw a burning bush, but even if it's not considered scientific evidence, yes, it would probably convince me.
I guess what it boils down to is that I'm a Doubting Thomas. I like to base my beliefs on what can be seen, touched, observed, repeated, predicted, and so on. If Doubting Thomas were alive today, according to most Christians, he'd probably go to hell because without being able to see and poke around on the evidence, he wouldn't have believed the story of the resurrection.
Now here's something to wrap your brain around. If I'm like Doubting Thomas, why is it that I go to hell for being the same type of person, when he got the proof he wanted and demanded, and that would also have convinced me?
I'm sorry, but it seems that the Christian god, as described in the Bible, has a nasty habit of playing favorites, capriciously sending people to heaven or hell based on whim and when and where they happened to be alive. Moses gets a burning bush, and all I get are "mysterious ways."
If God wants me to give up rational thought and to reject well over a century of thought, research, and evidence, it's going to cost Him more than 2000-year-old stories about His only begotton Son.
I disagree, I think the Creationism vs. Evolution debate is alive and strong. There are two contradictory views: one, that mankind was created by God as described in Genesis, and the other, that mankind evolved from a lower species. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask, I guess), one's viewpoint on this issue and the rationale behind arriving at it is important for developing viewpoints on other scientific theories and moral stances on other seemingly non-related issues.
Now I will admit that there are a lot of intelligent Christians (and of other religions, for that matter) out there who believe in evolution as a tool used by God and that the book of Genesis is metaphorical, not a literal and historically accurate accounting of man's creation. Still others (an interesting set of folks, honestly) believe that God is nature, and that evolution is His spirit at work.
Me, I don't believe either of those philosophies, but at any rate, I still think your anology is incorrect. I'd word it more like the following.
Evolutionist:
Creationist:Cue evolution vs. creationism debate in 5... 4... 3... 2...
Seriously, I almost dread stories like this for a couple of reasons:
- Talking about "missing links" puts the idea in creationists' minds that the evolution from apes to man took place in discrete steps, and that the fact that such "missing links" exist is proof that the Theory of Evolution is still just a hunch unsupported by proof. The fact is that the evolution from apes to man is a continuum, and there are a lot of fossils from lots of time periods along that continuum.
- Because this discovery is relatively recent, there's a chance that it still may turn out to be something other than what this article purports it to be. The real research is just starting. If it turns out that it's for real, it will be valuable insight into our species's evolution, though creationists will still refuse to believe it. If it turns out to not be an intermediary between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, the creationists will accuse the scientists of everything from fabricating evidence to trying to pull a hoax as part of some weird conspiracy. The irony is that if it is discovered that this fossil is not the intermediary that it is suspected to be, it is scientists who will determine that, and unlike creationists who have a nasty habit of wanting to dismiss or even repress evidence, those scientists will let us know as soon as they find any inconsistencies, and the data will be there in the open for us to evaulate and form our own opinions.
I still say that this is the true test for whether a creationist can actually be open-minded or not. Ask them this one question:
What piece or pieces of evidence will it take to convince you that the Theory of Evolution is, in fact, true and that creationism is not?
If the answer is "None," as it is with almost every creationist I've ever met, then don't bother wasting your time arguing with them. Nothing you say will ever convince them, as they have deliberately closed themselves off to any kind of rational conclusion based on reality instead of blind faith.
The nice thing about the question is that it's not a double standard. There are several things that would convince me that creationism is true and not evolution. The most obvious would be if God came and spoke to me in a burning bush. I know that sounds facetious, but it's really not; that really would do it. Or, if compelling scientific evidence were to arise that evolution is a crock, such as discovery of a natural chimera skeleton. These are just a couple of examples, I'm sure there are many more.
I'm always amused at creationists who think that scientists are in some kind of dark conspiracy to push "the agenda" of evolution. What they don't realize is that if a scientist could discover some piece of incontrovertible proof that the Theory of Evolution is all just a bunch of hooey, he would undoubtedly be one of the most famous people in the world, winning all sorts of Nobel Prizes and recognition in his field. Proving the Theory of Evolution wrong would be one of the greatest, not notorious, scientific finds ever, on the level of Michaelson-Morley experiment that proved that there is no aether and set the stage for Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and you'd better believe that any decent scientists would kill to disprove the Theory of Evolution.
Sure, go ahead and question it. I didn't submit the story to earn money for Posit Science, though I certainly don't care if they get fantastically rich off of it. And I'll be the first to admit that I don't know beans about neuroscience, except what I've seen on Nova now and then. I'm totally unqualified to make a judgement on whether or not the $500 "Brain Fitness" training software is dubious, though it does seem to have some pretty big brains behind it, if you believe their reference page with over 50 neuroscientists and researchers.
But really, the main reason I submitted the story is because I thought it was a cool little diversion for 10 minutes, I thought it would be fun to see Slashdotters post their scores, and I thought it was an interesting concept that auditory processing speed may be linked to how your brain works.
P.S. 25ms and 20ms on the first and second times I took the test, respectively. ;-)
I'm seriously considering copying and pasting this into about a hundred responses to posts here... RTFA!!!
The test does not measure your response time! It is playing sounds of pre-rendered duration and pitches, and you have to determine the nature of those sounds. Whether you almost instantly hit the button or take a few hours to ponder it, your score will be exactly the same! (Unless, of course, you take so long that you forget what your answer is...)
Again, RTFA, or better yet, take the test! It is not necessary for the script at any time to accurately record any kind of timing, and your response time in no way affects the results of the test!
For what it's worth, I don't know anything about neuroscience, although I've caught a few shows now and then on PBS about the brain and thought it was interesting. I knew accusations would probably fly that I'm trying to sell your software, but that really wasn't my intention. I just saw the article on CNet, took the online test twice, thought that whether or not the science behind it was valid it was nifty concept, and thought that fellow Slashdotters would enjoy taking a brief diversion to see how they do.
In fact, the last sentence of my submission text was stripped off before it got posted. It read: "So fire up your headphones or speakers and see how your test score compares to the average, or more importantly, to your fellow Slashdotters!" I submitted the story for amusement, not commercialism. My intention wasn't to help you sell your software, although if that happens because of the resultant interest, I'm ecstatic for you, because I think the test is a nifty marketing tool and you deserve some attention and yes, even sales for coming up with it. But more than anything else, I really posted it just because I thought the test was an interesting 10-minute diversion that others here like me would think was kind of cool.
But I've got to say, you coming here and responding to folks is most excellent, and your coolness factor just went up a notch or two with me and probably a lot of other folks, too.
Oh, and my two scores were 28ms and 25ms, which is way below (i.e. better than) the average and even the best of the best performers. I figure I'm either a super-genius, I've played way too much Halo, I have some sort of autism, or I'm just a reeeeally good guesser. If the first option is not the case, please don't explain because right now, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. ;-)
The following story is true, though extraordinarily sad.
At the company where I used to work, they registered all TLDs for their name. We had .com, .net, .org, .biz, etc.
One day, our chief marketing goober decided that .biz was going to be the next "in" thing on the Internet, and we would be one of the first companies to capitalize on it. So we had all of our business cards chaged, our mailers, our letterhead... everything. We were explicitly told never to use the .com domain name in our business dealings, it was .biz. We, the IT gurus, begged and implored them not to do this, that it would cause more trouble in the end than it was worth, and that the only companies that use .biz are fly-by-night companies that grab the .biz equivalent of famous .com names so that they can rip people off.
Who do you think they listened to?
Long story short: Within a few months, after our customers, suppliers, vendors, and lots of other really, really important people started complaining that their e-mails to us were bouncing back and e-mails from us were not being received because spam blockers were automatically assuming that our .biz address either weren't valid, our chief marketing goober decided to "spend more time with his family," our old business cards, letterhead, etc. was dug out, and we were instructed never to use the .biz domain name again.
1) They're not banning porn. RTFA again.
2) Face it, the Democrats here in America have made some really boneheaded moves when it comes to this issue also, while the Republicans have largely remained silent. Lest we forget, President Clinton, one of the best presidents we've ever had in spite of his constant slander, signed the Communications Decency Act into law. (Republicans don't get off the hook on this; a Republican House of Representatives passed it, too.) Just because they're Democrats doesn't make them perfect. Sometimes even they succumb to misguided public pressure to do the wrong thing when faced with the harsh realities of needing the vote of soccer moms at election time.
If the Australian Labor Party is Australian Democrats, that makes the Liberal Party of Australia the Australian Republicans. It's true, just kind of funny that liberal is such a dirty word here in America, but it's the one that the center-right party just happened to choose to describe themselves in the Land Down Under. :-)
Seriously, though, if Australia is anything like the United States, it doesn't matter much who proposed it. Here, both Democrats (unfortunately) and Republicans are totally boneheaded about this issue, because they're all trying to appeal to the same group of soccer moms that are scared shitless that bad things on the Internet are going to get their kids raped, killed, or worse, turn them into killers themselves by them playing those violent video games.
I'm sure Australia's probably very similar. So don't worry, if it weren't the Australian liberals proposing it, I'm sure it would have been, well, the Liberal Australians. ;-)
Of course, I'm not Australian, so that's just pure speculation. Any Aussies want to pass me the vegemite and throw their 2's worth in?
First of all, let me start by saying that for 90% of what I do, I love OpenOffice. However, I'm one of these constructively lazy people who would rather spend twenty minutes writing up a macro to save me a couple of hours than spending, well, a couple of hours doing it the manual way.
Unfortunately, I detest the macro creation/editing facility in OpenOffice. Just as a side-by-side test, I just popped open a document, recorded a macro to insert the words "This is a test!" and went in the edit (presumably, to customize) the macro.
Here's what I get in OpenOffice:
Jesus, that's a lot of lines just to insert a few words of text! And if I wanted to customize it, I wouldn't have a clue where to begin! Microsoft Word, on the other hand, gives me this:
Wow! I'm really not just cherry-picking one rare example. As the tasks get more difficult, the macro code gets exponentially harder in OpenOffice than in Microsoft's apps. In my experience, macro editing in OpenOffice is like pulling teeth, but so easy that even I can do it in Microsoft Office applications.
Like I said, in my day-to-day dealings, I use OpenOffice. The applications work just as well for almost all of my uses as Microsoft Office, and the price just can't be beaten unless Uncle Bill comes to my house and pays me money to use his applications. But whenever I'm doing something that involved more than just popping it open and tossing out a quick letter, Microsoft Word is the way to go.
I'm not a programmer, so unfortunately, all I can do is sit around and wish and hope that at some point, the OpenOffice development team, folks a lot smarter than I am, comes up with something a bit easier to use in automating the suite.
Yes. Who do you think built the ancient aqueducts, colisseums, roads, cathedrals and temples, bath houses, etc.? (Clue: It wasn't private investors.) And yes, many of these advanced ancient civilizations had government sanctioned and supported programs to take care of the poorer members of society. Even cavemen had that. Almost all ancient tribes would take care of their elderly, their sick, and their weak. Even many advanced animal species have social structures kind of like "governments" to do this to some extent.
The idea that it's okay to toss out people who either can't take care of themselves or who don't have the resources to take care of themselves, leaving them to fend for themselves with whatever pitiable scraps they can muster, is a relatively recent and deplorable development in human history. There is very little basis for this kind of attitude in ancient history.
Yes, I want to be rich, but not at the expense of our society's welfare. If me being rich means that a thousand others are poor, I'll settle for somewhere in the middle, thank you very much. "But it's not a zero-sum game," you say? True, but unfortunately, that only means that the wealthy in this country are getting richer faster than if it were a zero-sum game. Open your eyes, man, the poor are getting poorer, and as long we as a nation keep blaming that on the poor and not actually addressing the underlying problems, we're going to continue our death spiral downward, just as many of those aforementioned civilized nations did.
That's because Toyota's don't randomly crash for no reason at all.
(Sorry, it had to be said.)
Having his minions secretly listening in on things that they have no legal right to? Nah, that reminds me of a different candidate.
Read the actual document, not just the summary. The actual document isn't that bad.
The stuff inside isn't that big a secret to most folks. It mainly boils down to, "Using open source software under licenses we've reviewed is okay, but be careful if you're developing code using open source software that we don't want released to the masses, because under some licenses, we may be obligated to."
In fact, this document is probably a good thing, in spite of a somewhat badly written summary. Check out Chapter 2:
This only makes sense. I can't imagine anyone disagreeing, saying that you should use software with a license we're not familiar with, or to disregard the IP of open source authors.
Also, look just below it. It says that for software development that is for open distribution, it's okay to use open source software. For software that is for limited or closed distribution, don't. Is this new? Am I missing something? If anything, people who are interested in open source software can look at this document as permission to go forward, not as a hinderance!
I mean, I realize that the words "infectious" has negative connotations, but I just don't see this document in and of itself as a bad thing. And even though I'm a strong FOSS advocate, the stuff that's in there is stuff that I would recommend to any company, government or organization to consider in their decision whether to use closed- or open source software.
That's the most intelligent thing I've read in quite some time.
You're exactly right, and I think that's one of the problems in America today: Businesses are exerting more and more pressure on its workers to accomplish more in less time.
But U.S. workers have to some extent let them get away with it. Once some people went on call 24x7 with their pagers, then cell phones, then Blackberries, it put a lot of pressure on the rest of us to do so. In spite of the fact that no one's really doing their job very well, no one's pushing back and saying, "Enough!" And, of course, the vast majority of CEOs and upper-level managers are either too stupid to recognize what's happening or they just don't care as long as they get their fat bonus.
I don't know what the answer to that problem is, but as far as my job goes, when I'm working on something really important, the pager goes off, the instant message service is put into "Do not disturb" mode, the cell phone stays on but will mostly be ignored, the work phone is forwarded to voice mail, and I focus on the task at hand. I don't have an office door, but people who try to talk to me have been told, "I can't talk right now, I'm working on something very important. I'll come see you later."
If you're trying to get in touch with me, it can be irritating, but if yours is the problem I'm working on, you'd better damn well believe that I'm your best friend.
If more people would do that instead of just sucking it up and trying to process six things at once, not only would they do their job better, but they would start seeing people respect them more as you showed positive results.
Or you may get fired for blowing off the wrong person, in which case you have my sympathy and I sincerely hope that you manage to find another job where management is just a little less stupid.
Well, without technology, I'd be unemployed, so in that sense, I guess I really am working harder because of it.
This sounds more like a self-discipline problem than a problem with technology to me. When I have an important task to work on, somehow, I manage to concentrate on it. It's called prioritization, and it's something that people have had to deal with since a naked ape was put in charge of making sure the fire stays lit.
You'll have to PRY my original XBox controller from my COLD DEAD HANDS.
The original XBox controller is still the best I've ever used. I loathe the S-controller. The reason I don't have a cordless XBox controller is because I haven't found one yet that is the same size and format as the original. And whenever I go over to someone else's house to game, I take my original controllers with me just in case they got one of the wussy new models.
However, I disagree that people like diversity. I mean, computer geeks may like diversity, but the public at large all want the same thing. I know that if any of my non-computer-expert family members and friends uses a computer that they're not used to, they're freaked out if an icon isn't right where it is on their own machine at home. The more that one distribution can take market share, the more likely people will jump on its bandwagon and use it. Hell, I can imagine Google tweaking their distribution so that all of your desktop settings are stored at http://settings.google.com/ and you can log into your friend's computer and have your icons right where they are on your computer at home! Why do most people buy Windows machines these days instead of a Mac? Honestly? Because most other people have Windows machines, not Macs, and they want to have the same thing their friends, family, workmates, and neighbors have. After all, the software that people use 99.9% of the time (e-mail, Web browser, office suite) is available on both platforms.
Seriously, those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure the clever folks at Google probably have tons more clever ideas that I would probably never dream of. (If not, hire me, Google. Seriously.)