Hard to take seriously someone who gets confused by a "cel phone plan" but here is my apple experience.
Cell phone plans are deliberately made to be confusing, so that it is harder to compare different plans. So while most people have no problem with understanding a plan (and no great claim to fame), comparing between different plans and different networks is not easy.
No Duke-Nukem, which bought a bit of humour, better levels (layering of levels on top of each other), and great attention to detail (you could actually play pool).
It depends whether they get rid of a random cross-section of people, or just all the crappy ones. That is what I would do, if I was put in this situation.
I think Intel has more class than some other companies.
But this is still a huge number of people to get rid off. Don't they do these sort of checks all the time, on a department basis. This sound more like a simple reaction to we can't do anything better, so we will fire people. A bad solution to a problem if you ask me.
1. Be yourself. The age-old adage rings true once again. The more exposure they get to a normal girl the better they will be with other girls.
I used to say this to people who were quiet, and suggest that they speak up more... but regretted it everytime. I found out there is often a reason people are quiet, or are not themselves, because they are idiots and they learn't to supress their idoicy was they way to be accepted. Coming up to them to tell them different is a stupid thing to do.
2. Be approachable. Put a nice sign on your door reminiscent of the websites they frequent. "Come in and get to know me." "Send me an email if you want to chat." "Hi, I'm Audj."
Who the hell would do that - I would be seriously worried about someone who tried to hard to be my friend. You appear desperate and needy, something not that attractive.
3. Bring food. Cookies, pizza, and caffinated soda will make instant friends.
Once again, don't go out of your way to be friendly, don't try to suck up to people. Nobody liked that little kid who would let you borrow his best toys at school, he was still an annoying brat. Don't try to buy people.
4. Be nice. If they're annoying, take a deep breath and say kindly, "Oh really?" Continue the conversation and remember that you're doing women around the world a favor by introducing them to the female gender.
YES, exactly. Be nice to people, is that so hard. This is all it takes. Don't be a fruit cake, people don't like fruit cakes. Don't be a bitch for no reason, or start shouting at people in the workplace for whatever stupid reason.
Just be friendly, smile, and be more concerned about your work than making friends - friends will come along, if you are a good person to work with.
Who cares if women hang around if you are not going to hit on them? What difference does it make who is around, as long as they are decent people. And there is nothing wrong with hitting on women (or men) in the work place as long as you don't get silly about it. Ask someone out, if they make an excuse give up, there is nothing wrong with that. Don't go crazy because you are rejected - not everybody is attracted to everybody else.
So that HR department was spending a huge amount of time and money lying to the employees. You may feel like you're part of a family, but you're not. Just because they're making you feel like a valued employee, doesn't mean you are.
Companies are made up of people, and people make these decisions - you can have cases were your boss fights, I have also had this before. So sure, the company doesn't care about you because a company doesn't have feelings. But the people working there and who make decisions can have feelings, so it isn't always as bleak as you suggest (although it is often enough). Maybe you just haven't worked for any of the good companies.
They are not your family. They are not your friends.
Well, there are many situations were this is not true. And if you have not made any friends at work, ever, then that is sad for you.
Moving on, a 60GB drive is hardly remarkable, with iPods around everywhere that can carry 60GB. They must mean a 60GB USB flash drive. Pretty bad editing.
What are you talking about. They are releasing a 16GB drive, not a 60gb drive. They mentioned a 64GB drive in the article, but no one is talking about a 60GB drive except you.
It will be at least $400 I would say, since they mention at 64gig drive for $1600 in the article. It will possibly be more, since it is smaller and a "limited edition".
Not sure why it is "limited edition", since surely we are just going to see bigger and bigger USB drives, as we have in the past.
Depends, are you a tech person? If you are not, then you shouldn't be here, or you will be given bad advice. If you are a tech person, you have a better idea about what is safe and what isn't, and you now to stop a program from running, and you now how to fix a mistake.
I was once sent a rejection form letter for a job that stated "We decided not to hire you for the following reason(s)", and then there were several checkboxes to choose from. Let me tell you...that does not make one feel good, or give a professional image to the company.
You are right, it doesn't feel great, but there is nothing that will change that. You are being rejected, there is no way to make it feel better. THe one positive to your letter, is that you got some feedback. All my letters provide no information at all.
Think about this for a second - how does it make the rest of the people who still work for you feel. When I worked at a US corporation, HR was spending huge amount of time and money getting everyone to feel like a part of a family - all the better to get people to work hard, and not steal things. I guess Radio Shack doesn't have this sort of ethos.
If I still worked at Radio Shack, why should I give a shit about the company - and stuff like that shows.
I hear stories like this all the time, from people who expect everybody to know exactly what they know. They often have an inability to explain things properly. I used to work with a guy like this, and whenever he need help with an source code problem, it would take a few minutes for me to question him on what he was talking about. He had problems seeing that I hadn't been working on what he had just been working on, so I didn't know what he was talking about - he would do this with everybody, everytime.
Surely you have dealt with people before who don't know as much as you, you need to find a way to communicate your problem simply. What do you expect a salesman to know everything in the store, especially one like radio shack with thousands of hobbiest/expert products.
There is nothing wrong with getting a job application rebuffed by a form letter (and I speak as one who has had many), so this is definately worse.
But I really believe that these mass firings are something that can be avoided in most cases. Unless there has been a huge shift in the marketplace, or what the company wants to do, then there is no need for letting 400 people go. Unless management is incompetent - which they seem to be.
There should be a constant monitoring of the state of a company, and people should be let go in small groups, due to models of the business. There is no need to wake up one day, and say we have 400 employess too many.
Sure, good point, Sony could have done this. But I really believe that Sony are taking a much longer view. They are not worried about the present, because the PS2 is still selling well, better than the new Xbox. So they are still raking in money from that sale, and the PS2 games.
The PS3 is a future product, they could probably hold of selling it for a while - the longer you leave it, the more people will be interested in buying a new console if they just bought an xbox, and the cheaper they should be able to make it. But they have gone for a better strategy, start selling it soon, at a really high price tag, to get those few people who are willing to pay for it. The market for the PS3 will really hit big in a year or two, when the price comes down, and everybody is hungry for a blu-ray machine.
This is the Movie business, where profits have to be recooped in the first few weekends. They are still making moeny from the PS2 year after it was released, they are looking at a similar strategy for the PS3.
1. The Playstation 3 will Fail Huh? What's the difference between this playstation and the last one? This scenario is exactly like when the PS2 was introduced: nothing really ground-breaking, better graphics, new media options, better controllers... and people still bought the PS2. I see no reason the PS3 won't do just as well.
Right? So you have never heard anything negative about the PS3? This is your first visit to Slashdot is it. Lots of people here think the PS3 will fail (and Slashdot is not alone), because it is too expensive mainly, but also because they are trying to push Bluray, the are appearing arrogant, they are trying to copy Nintendo, etc...
2. PC Games are Doomed Who the hell ever said that? I can't even fathom where that idea came from.
So you have never heard this one either? I hear this every now and again, usually when the latest console comes out. The basic idea is that the console is better because it is produced for games, cheaper, games just run out of the box (not so much of a problem these days), there are less bugs and crashes. This idea is a commmon one, even makes certain sense, but the fact that PCs are superior for certain types of games (Strategy, FPS, Net play) means that this might not come about for a while.
5. Handheld Games are for Kids I've heard "video games are for kids" but nothing about handheld games specifically. Why would handheld games (the majority of which are styled after, or are remakes of, old console games) be treated differently than a TV-based console game?
This probaly comes about because of the Gameboy - which was the only handheld system for a while (or at least the main one), and was clearly aimed at kids. Did you really see many people playing gameboy who weren't kids? ANd a kid isn't just someone aged 8, it is 8-14 year old in my book. Personally, i still think that they are for kids, but have seen a few older people playing PSP at the airport.
6. Console Games are Too Simple Huh? You mean the few console-only games? Most games on consoles are ports of PC games, or vice versa.
Firstly, if a console game is ported to the PC, then it doesn't mean that it isn't simple. And this myth comes about because of the controller - it is a lot harder to have a complex game with such a simple controller. This seems like a reasonable myth.
10. I'm Embarrassed About Gaming I can't imagine anyone being embarrassed about playing video games. Perhaps there's some shame in 14-hour WoW sessions, but with the general "coolness" regarded to video games over the last five years or so, I can't see anyone hiding the fact that they play Mario on occasion.
The fact that you think there is a general coolness about playing games, is more a reflection on your beliefs, than anything to do with society. If you are playing games, you are considered to be a loner, with nothing better to do in your life. You are thought that you need to escape reality because you can't handle it, that you don't have any friends, that you are scared to leave your house, that you are simple, etc... These are not my beliefs (although I would think some of these are true, about a 26-year old WOW player), but general society. If you reall think it is so cool, when you are next at a club or pub and see a pretty girl, go up to her and talk about the games you like to play. See her immediate reaction - that is the reaction of most people in the general public, who never played games when they were kids. This is still a lot of people. Dent it all you want, because you mates are similar to you, and think each other is cool, but that is reality. Around 50% of the population (women) is pretty much guaranteed to have not got into video games.
If you are a 25-30 year old male, still playing Nintendo and you are not embarrassed, then I say there is something wrong with you. I used to love playing games when I was young, but wouldn't want to waste my time these days.
There are far too many things to do in the real world. And games just can't hold their appeal over something in the real world.
Now the odd game at a mates house of some racing title is ok, but if you are going to be lining up for the Wii/PS3 at launch, then that is a little sad.
How is this any different? It's not a win for the web at all, but a win for people who complain en masse, and a win for negative publicity shocking a company into action.
It is a win for the web, because that is how people found out that it wasn't just them - it wasn't simply an isolated, freak case, and they didn't do anything wrong. The net helped people find other people with bad batteries, whereas is they simply called the company, where the first decision is to deny everything, they would have had nothing to go on. This is an example of the net bringing people together, and having a positive impact.
Maybe dell didn't have any real numbers, until they saw the number of people talking about this problem on the net. Maybe they thought that the negative publicity was starting to look bad. Who knows, but the net had an effect.
Exactly, he is just concerned about the Internet - You can have too much information you know. One more site and it would slow everything else down. It is possible that he really thinks like this.
I'm surprised this is being labelled censorship by some people -- it's complying with the law and ensuring that a very important trail isn't jeopordised.
Of course this is censhorship - they are censoring the article. Just because you have a reason for asking for censhorship, doesn't lesson the charge. People always have reasons for censhorship, otherwise they would care about something being censored.
Now, you have presented a better reason than most for censoring this material, but you are also trying to sensationalise it. , the people who tried to murder thousands by blowing up planes mid-flight - we don't know this at all, there has been no trial, some people have even been released. I am reminded of previous situations in the UK, where people were accused of being terrorists for no reason (even being real-murdered, not possible murdered).
Also, the Australian High Court only has precedence in Australia, no other country. Whatever ruling happens in Australia, does not automatically get carried to the rest of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Hard to take seriously someone who gets confused by a "cel phone plan" but here is my apple experience.
Cell phone plans are deliberately made to be confusing, so that it is harder to compare different plans. So while most people have no problem with understanding a plan (and no great claim to fame), comparing between different plans and different networks is not easy.
No Duke-Nukem, which bought a bit of humour, better levels (layering of levels on top of each other), and great attention to detail (you could actually play pool).
It depends whether they get rid of a random cross-section of people, or just all the crappy ones. That is what I would do, if I was put in this situation.
I think Intel has more class than some other companies.
But this is still a huge number of people to get rid off. Don't they do these sort of checks all the time, on a department basis. This sound more like a simple reaction to we can't do anything better, so we will fire people. A bad solution to a problem if you ask me.
1. Be yourself. The age-old adage rings true once again. The more exposure they get to a normal girl the better they will be with other girls.
I used to say this to people who were quiet, and suggest that they speak up more... but regretted it everytime. I found out there is often a reason people are quiet, or are not themselves, because they are idiots and they learn't to supress their idoicy was they way to be accepted. Coming up to them to tell them different is a stupid thing to do.
2. Be approachable. Put a nice sign on your door reminiscent of the websites they frequent. "Come in and get to know me." "Send me an email if you want to chat." "Hi, I'm Audj."
Who the hell would do that - I would be seriously worried about someone who tried to hard to be my friend. You appear desperate and needy, something not that attractive.
3. Bring food. Cookies, pizza, and caffinated soda will make instant friends.
Once again, don't go out of your way to be friendly, don't try to suck up to people. Nobody liked that little kid who would let you borrow his best toys at school, he was still an annoying brat. Don't try to buy people.
4. Be nice. If they're annoying, take a deep breath and say kindly, "Oh really?" Continue the conversation and remember that you're doing women around the world a favor by introducing them to the female gender.
YES, exactly. Be nice to people, is that so hard. This is all it takes. Don't be a fruit cake, people don't like fruit cakes. Don't be a bitch for no reason, or start shouting at people in the workplace for whatever stupid reason.
Just be friendly, smile, and be more concerned about your work than making friends - friends will come along, if you are a good person to work with.
Look, if you are a girl and you want to be accepted, find the biggest, strongest guy and sleep with him. Works everytime.
Or is that for prison?
And is that fighting not sleeping with?
Who cares if women hang around if you are not going to hit on them? What difference does it make who is around, as long as they are decent people. And there is nothing wrong with hitting on women (or men) in the work place as long as you don't get silly about it. Ask someone out, if they make an excuse give up, there is nothing wrong with that. Don't go crazy because you are rejected - not everybody is attracted to everybody else.
I have a laptop, would do I do smart guy??
Actually I just backup information as it comes in (or store it on DVD), so not such a problem.
So that HR department was spending a huge amount of time and money lying to the employees. You may feel like you're part of a family, but you're not. Just because they're making you feel like a valued employee, doesn't mean you are.
Companies are made up of people, and people make these decisions - you can have cases were your boss fights, I have also had this before. So sure, the company doesn't care about you because a company doesn't have feelings. But the people working there and who make decisions can have feelings, so it isn't always as bleak as you suggest (although it is often enough). Maybe you just haven't worked for any of the good companies.
They are not your family. They are not your friends.
Well, there are many situations were this is not true. And if you have not made any friends at work, ever, then that is sad for you.
Moving on, a 60GB drive is hardly remarkable, with iPods around everywhere that can carry 60GB. They must mean a 60GB USB flash drive. Pretty bad editing.
What are you talking about. They are releasing a 16GB drive, not a 60gb drive. They mentioned a 64GB drive in the article, but no one is talking about a 60GB drive except you.
It will be at least $400 I would say, since they mention at 64gig drive for $1600 in the article. It will possibly be more, since it is smaller and a "limited edition".
Not sure why it is "limited edition", since surely we are just going to see bigger and bigger USB drives, as we have in the past.
Why? He probably put it there. If you aren't with us, you are against us.
Depends, are you a tech person? If you are not, then you shouldn't be here, or you will be given bad advice. If you are a tech person, you have a better idea about what is safe and what isn't, and you now to stop a program from running, and you now how to fix a mistake.
I was once sent a rejection form letter for a job that stated "We decided not to hire you for the following reason(s)", and then there were several checkboxes to choose from. Let me tell you...that does not make one feel good, or give a professional image to the company.
You are right, it doesn't feel great, but there is nothing that will change that. You are being rejected, there is no way to make it feel better. THe one positive to your letter, is that you got some feedback. All my letters provide no information at all.
Think about this for a second - how does it make the rest of the people who still work for you feel. When I worked at a US corporation, HR was spending huge amount of time and money getting everyone to feel like a part of a family - all the better to get people to work hard, and not steal things. I guess Radio Shack doesn't have this sort of ethos.
If I still worked at Radio Shack, why should I give a shit about the company - and stuff like that shows.
I hear stories like this all the time, from people who expect everybody to know exactly what they know. They often have an inability to explain things properly. I used to work with a guy like this, and whenever he need help with an source code problem, it would take a few minutes for me to question him on what he was talking about. He had problems seeing that I hadn't been working on what he had just been working on, so I didn't know what he was talking about - he would do this with everybody, everytime.
Surely you have dealt with people before who don't know as much as you, you need to find a way to communicate your problem simply. What do you expect a salesman to know everything in the store, especially one like radio shack with thousands of hobbiest/expert products.
There is nothing wrong with getting a job application rebuffed by a form letter (and I speak as one who has had many), so this is definately worse.
But I really believe that these mass firings are something that can be avoided in most cases. Unless there has been a huge shift in the marketplace, or what the company wants to do, then there is no need for letting 400 people go. Unless management is incompetent - which they seem to be.
There should be a constant monitoring of the state of a company, and people should be let go in small groups, due to models of the business. There is no need to wake up one day, and say we have 400 employess too many.
Sure, good point, Sony could have done this. But I really believe that Sony are taking a much longer view. They are not worried about the present, because the PS2 is still selling well, better than the new Xbox. So they are still raking in money from that sale, and the PS2 games.
The PS3 is a future product, they could probably hold of selling it for a while - the longer you leave it, the more people will be interested in buying a new console if they just bought an xbox, and the cheaper they should be able to make it. But they have gone for a better strategy, start selling it soon, at a really high price tag, to get those few people who are willing to pay for it. The market for the PS3 will really hit big in a year or two, when the price comes down, and everybody is hungry for a blu-ray machine.
This is the Movie business, where profits have to be recooped in the first few weekends. They are still making moeny from the PS2 year after it was released, they are looking at a similar strategy for the PS3.
1. The Playstation 3 will Fail
Huh? What's the difference between this playstation and the last one? This scenario is exactly like when the PS2 was introduced: nothing really ground-breaking, better graphics, new media options, better controllers... and people still bought the PS2. I see no reason the PS3 won't do just as well.
Right? So you have never heard anything negative about the PS3? This is your first visit to Slashdot is it. Lots of people here think the PS3 will fail (and Slashdot is not alone), because it is too expensive mainly, but also because they are trying to push Bluray, the are appearing arrogant, they are trying to copy Nintendo, etc...
2. PC Games are Doomed
Who the hell ever said that? I can't even fathom where that idea came from.
So you have never heard this one either? I hear this every now and again, usually when the latest console comes out. The basic idea is that the console is better because it is produced for games, cheaper, games just run out of the box (not so much of a problem these days), there are less bugs and crashes. This idea is a commmon one, even makes certain sense, but the fact that PCs are superior for certain types of games (Strategy, FPS, Net play) means that this might not come about for a while.
5. Handheld Games are for Kids
I've heard "video games are for kids" but nothing about handheld games specifically. Why would handheld games (the majority of which are styled after, or are remakes of, old console games) be treated differently than a TV-based console game?
This probaly comes about because of the Gameboy - which was the only handheld system for a while (or at least the main one), and was clearly aimed at kids. Did you really see many people playing gameboy who weren't kids? ANd a kid isn't just someone aged 8, it is 8-14 year old in my book. Personally, i still think that they are for kids, but have seen a few older people playing PSP at the airport.
6. Console Games are Too Simple
Huh? You mean the few console-only games? Most games on consoles are ports of PC games, or vice versa.
Firstly, if a console game is ported to the PC, then it doesn't mean that it isn't simple. And this myth comes about because of the controller - it is a lot harder to have a complex game with such a simple controller. This seems like a reasonable myth.
10. I'm Embarrassed About Gaming
I can't imagine anyone being embarrassed about playing video games. Perhaps there's some shame in 14-hour WoW sessions, but with the general "coolness" regarded to video games over the last five years or so, I can't see anyone hiding the fact that they play Mario on occasion.
The fact that you think there is a general coolness about playing games, is more a reflection on your beliefs, than anything to do with society. If you are playing games, you are considered to be a loner, with nothing better to do in your life. You are thought that you need to escape reality because you can't handle it, that you don't have any friends, that you are scared to leave your house, that you are simple, etc... These are not my beliefs (although I would think some of these are true, about a 26-year old WOW player), but general society. If you reall think it is so cool, when you are next at a club or pub and see a pretty girl, go up to her and talk about the games you like to play. See her immediate reaction - that is the reaction of most people in the general public, who never played games when they were kids. This is still a lot of people. Dent it all you want, because you mates are similar to you, and think each other is cool, but that is reality. Around 50% of the population (women) is pretty much guaranteed to have not got into video games.
If you are a 25-30 year old male, still playing Nintendo and you are not embarrassed, then I say there is something wrong with you. I used to love playing games when I was young, but wouldn't want to waste my time these days.
There are far too many things to do in the real world. And games just can't hold their appeal over something in the real world.
Now the odd game at a mates house of some racing title is ok, but if you are going to be lining up for the Wii/PS3 at launch, then that is a little sad.
How is this any different? It's not a win for the web at all, but a win for people who complain en masse, and a win for negative publicity shocking a company into action.
It is a win for the web, because that is how people found out that it wasn't just them - it wasn't simply an isolated, freak case, and they didn't do anything wrong. The net helped people find other people with bad batteries, whereas is they simply called the company, where the first decision is to deny everything, they would have had nothing to go on. This is an example of the net bringing people together, and having a positive impact.
Maybe dell didn't have any real numbers, until they saw the number of people talking about this problem on the net. Maybe they thought that the negative publicity was starting to look bad. Who knows, but the net had an effect.
Exactly, he is just concerned about the Internet - You can have too much information you know. One more site and it would slow everything else down. It is possible that he really thinks like this.
Well the good thing is that he can't throw very far.
Slow? Sounds like you were using it wrong. Maybe you were pushing the buttons too hard.
I'm surprised this is being labelled censorship by some people -- it's complying with the law and ensuring that a very important trail isn't jeopordised.
Of course this is censhorship - they are censoring the article. Just because you have a reason for asking for censhorship, doesn't lesson the charge. People always have reasons for censhorship, otherwise they would care about something being censored.
Now, you have presented a better reason than most for censoring this material, but you are also trying to sensationalise it. , the people who tried to murder thousands by blowing up planes mid-flight - we don't know this at all, there has been no trial, some people have even been released. I am reminded of previous situations in the UK, where people were accused of being terrorists for no reason (even being real-murdered, not possible murdered).
Also, the Australian High Court only has precedence in Australia, no other country. Whatever ruling happens in Australia, does not automatically get carried to the rest of the world.