This is why I laugh when I hear the news speak of aliens on UFOs being "more intelligent" than we are. They aren't smarter, they just may have a more advanced technology and|or society.
The question for those who suggested spreading|sharing the wealth is how to do it with a plutocracy, which has almost always been the underlying factor in any human government; i.e., as a minimum, it's like a minor or sub-major with a college major. If you've got a Democracy (D) or Republic (R), those are shorhand for Dp or Rp, as the money always turns the head of those in charge, even with kings or queens (who have had absolute power) when someone would present them with something of unexpected value.
This is where we get these phrases:
--Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.
--The Golden Rule: He|She who has the gold makes the rules.
There are Amish who will ride in someone else's car to a job (which may or may not use tech; some assembly line in the case of the former, housing construction, the latter). Some own cell phones but give them to a neighbor to charge them.
and:
the practice of rumspringa. The author of that page may be familiar some Amish, but not all. What that page doesn't say is you cannot become a member of the Amish church until you are an adult (usually twenty-one). As result, teens aren't members. Part of their maturing process places them in the world andin the world. This is counter to a lot of non-Amish beliefs which tell you to be in the world but not of the world. The kids may have cars, parked next to the barn, jobs, drink, have sex, etc. I know of guys who used to wait for the new girls, just because they had a particular fondness for them.
Once the kids get to be of age, they're expected to make a choice. Most join the church, but there are plenty which have seen the English world and don't go back. Not all make the decision at the specific time (taking a bit longer) but generally see the light after awhile.
But they do produce good craftsmanship. I have an exquisite Amish desk which took almost four of us to take it off of the truck wrapped up in the garage.
Oh, and there's a group which appears on Bob & Tom routinely known as The Electric Amish.
Any ideas when Richard Clayton will be extradicted to China [from the UK]?
And based upon this statedment:
Clayton, speaking at the Sixth Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies in Cambridge last week, said that the researchers had reported their findings to the Chinese Computer Emergency Response Team.
It appears acceptable when testing a government's resources if it's from an academic perspective and you report any findings.
I'm not trolling or tossing flamebait out here. I'd like to know why these jokers are any different, other than it'll be China's choice whether to pursue them, or not, and I'm guessing not will happen because they were nice about reporting their results in the interest of benefiting the object of their efforts. But who gets to decide the intent of the party performing the actions, and after the fact, no less?
I can see an exception if Cambridge volunteered to do this with China's approval or if China commissioned the activities, either of those in advance.
whey isn't necessarily a homonym of way and weigh (above). I'd use what's in the dictionary as the first [listed] pronounciation (hway). Then again, I don't have an accent which most people can detect.
Koreans had the same problem when they went to a phonetic alphabet.
Japanese has two phonetic alphabets: hiragana and katakana. The former for Japanese words, the latter for non-Japanese.
When I studied & learned Japanese & Chinese (together) many years ago (and subsequently lost virtually both of them via severe concussion in a car accident eleven years ago), I found them easier to learn that I think most foreign people woould find English. People wondered how I could do both (and work full time - I couldn't play club soccer any more, learned to juggle - 7 balls two hands, 5 balls, one hand (nowhere the level of Anthony Gatto (wiki page isn't current, BTW - see his web site for small clips of workouts), and discovered shogi and xiang-qi. At that time, all of the books were in the native languageas and I decided to learn the languages.
English is a million rules with a million exceptions. So many words have come from so many other languages and sources, and that creates the complexity.
The rules & exceptions made sense in those languages and they weren't tough to remember. The dropout rate for either language was 50% at fairly regular intervals for all of the classes and semester after semester they had to keep combining classes because people were frying. People asked how I kept them separate and I pointed out throughout all of the time I took the languages, Japanese was MW, and Chinese was TR. During that day, and until after the class, the only language I thought about was for that day, even if I thought I might not be ready for the following day, particularly a tough test. Kanji. People also would refer to drawing characters, I told them to think of writing. Also, when making flashcards, they'd review all of them, over & over. Go through them, remove the ones you guess right, and review and re-review the ones you can't get right, then go back and rebuild the deck to do a full review.
What killed people in Chinese was the four tones and larning to listen for them. (I believe the other tonal language is Vietnamese).
Also, many of the Kanji and Hanyu characters are used in the other language, because the Japanese Kanji is based upon the Hanyu characters for either pronounciation or meaning. The other thing which killed people was not understanding how to dissect the Kanji & Hanyu characters. e.g. The Kanji character for ocean has mother and water in it: the mother of all water is the ocean. House has roof at the top, pig at the bottom. Pigs were kept beneath the floors where the leftover food could be dropped or swept.
I think one of the problems with English for people is they don't understand the roots for many words and have no interest in doing so. This means a lot of rote memorization. Just like juggling, coding, and everything else, break things into their fundamental pieces, then put them together.
Personally, (see Romaji reference above) I thought it was as stupid thing to do. It was learn Romaji for reading & writing along with the verbal|hearing phrases as well as grammar. After that, it was replace Romaji with hiragana, then add katakana, and along the way somewhere, start seeding the process of learning Kanji. Basically, learning Romaji was a waste because it was a throwaway. People were already dropping,
have a pet theory that the reason our grandparents can't handle
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ahem.
I know the exception doesn't disprove the rule [entirely], but my grandmother (retired 1st-grade/kindergarden teacher) will be eighty-nine in another three or four months and grew up the spouse of a chicken farmer. (my parents are the first generation of either side who wasn't in farming) She is largely self-taught on the PC (Windows). If I send email (during reasonable hours), I'll generally get a reasonably quick response and it's not just a sentence or two. It's not because she's sitting there by the window, waiting for someone to send something. She's usually busy. She's got surfing & browsing to a science, as much for research as anything, and is using the literacy skills which go lacking in places such as this to document family things - pictures, antiques, etc. There's a massive family history she's put together which blends better than just a biography. If it's things she's been affiliated with; e.g., at a gathering with photos, she documents who else was there, perhaps why they weren't in a picture, if someone showed an injury (cast for a broken bone), how it happened, any complications, etc. Everything she can remember, she's put through the keyboard and when something doesn't come to her or she knows someone who remembers more, she reaches out to them. They may not be tech savvy, but a relative relatively chose will be and will get the information to her.
When she's not busy doing that, she's outside doing greenery. She left her old house for a zero property-line, thinking it would relieve her of mowing, although my cousins have occasionally stepped in if they catch her at it. She didn't stay there long because there wasn't enough room for all of the rhubarb, raspberries, etc. she started putting together. Considering it takes 3-4 years for rhubarb starts to grow to something useful, she didn't lose much time because of the transition.
And...she does manage to squeeze in daily exercise. She's walked three miles (minimum) every day for years, including about two years ago when she had both knees replaced (she lives in the orthpedic capital of the world - Zimmer, Biomet, Depuy, Othy, et al. and the orthopods are more than familiar with the local product). She didn't do them at the same time. Just far enough apart to recover from the first one. I made sure she asked the doc in advance if there was anything she could do physically; i.e., get certain muscles toned, to make PT (physical therapy) easier, making recovery easier. He told her that if all of his patients were walking three miles daily they either wouldn't have joint issues, or, if they were like her and did need them, the general recovery time for all patients would be a small fraction of what it normally is. He only let her walk the inside of her house at first and relented when he found out she was measuring her time walking instead of how many steps. If the weather prevents walking, she hops on the stationary bike and puts twenty miles (minimum) on it.
Now, for a support anecdote. Many years of experience as a systems programmer & tech support mainframes as well as dealing with executives & general mangement on an office automative system (pre-Microsoft Office) of 235 users should produce scads.
A couple in particular come to mind, but I could some up with some real rib-breakers if I greased the brain first. The ones I like the best are:
It was my first job after college. I'd had my own business during summer & school breaks and had more than enough clients to sock away some money by staying very busy working and coaching a client's kids' soccer team (this was the '80-'84 timeframe, so soccer was coming into vogue with kids. Those of us who were playing in college & willing to coach kids were considered premium meat & treated like gold. My team's parents finally got used to seeing me sit on the gro
Has someone been sniffing the fireworks smoke a little early and a bit too much?
Hover your mouse over MattPE and see what is displayed:
http://www.eefoof.com/
Some bonehead (I won't go back and read who the editor was) that let that message go through without checking an obvious connection). I demand a recount on the editorial elections to see if he really received enough votes. Besides, you'd think MattPE would have an id other than eefoof.com when he submitted his message.
The problem is he's going to get a Slashdot effect just because people are going to jump the gun instead of walking away from his site entirely.
I've said many times [that] Microsoft's strategy (so far) has been to keep Google labelled a search engine, and only a search engine, (albeit covertly) as long as possible to keep Google hemmed in and avoid letting people begin to see what's up Google's shirt sleeves. This has been a stall tactic. Microsoft has got to have a lot of gerbils running on the wheels to come up with ways to find the silver bullet to put right between Google's eyes. Do they think they'll find it? Probably. Will they? Probably not. Should they be scared? Yes.
I don't think it's worked, but it's the only tactic Microsoft knows. After all, their primary arsenal has always been Huey, Dewey and Louie (Marketing, Sales, and PR). When Microsoft runs out of arrows in its quiver, it'll become the one thing it has thought would never happen: become just another company, just as IBM became when Microsoft didn't renew their contract ('89? '90?)for a joint OS and it became Windows & OS/2. IBM just wasn't able to get the sell-through Microsoft got with Windows, and Microsoft was the new king of the mountain.
What's hurting Microsoft isn't they came late to the show (avoided during the most infamous "Summer of Bill" but they've had to grow from the desktop up to a global perspective, but that Google hasn't even worried about the desktop (so far). They got started at the global level and just focused upon information management, leaving a browser, essentially any browser, as the interface. I see it to be what happened to Encyclopædia Britannica when everything was electronic and they were left thinking about their next hardcopy print run, then trying to get an electronic format (and people buying CDs and DVDs) vs. something such as Wikipedia which started online.
I'm not saying every company or product which starts online will always be better, but the odds are against a hard world company|product being able to prevent or leapfrog a company which doesn't have to worry about a bridge from the past to the future and not lose sight of both balls in the air.
Another good example is BlockBuster and Netflix. Blockbuster's underlying algorithm (business model) was based upon late return fees. NetFlix comes along such that brick & mortar means nothing, reducing all of the financial obligations which go along with it, including a dependence upon those late fees. BlockBuster suddenly realized they were getting dusted in all but impulse rentals and had to do something. First, they tried to pull a fast one over everyones' eyes by declaring "no late fees" whilst slipping a hand into your wallet. When they got caught, they realized they'd better do something...and fast. So they picked the most successful video rental business model they could find on short notice: NetFlix. Just a price war.
Lots of other stories could be listed as well (e.g., Amazon vs. B&N, Border's, etc.)
I was thinking along the lines of the older Mummenschanz performances which had tubes flopping about the stage.
As for those wondering about the various qualifications to be elected to a position (previous messages), let's not also forget we still have a KKK Senator and despite coming from W. Va of all places, he's found a relatively high degree of influence. When Tom Brokaw used to present The Fleecing of America, they'd fail to indicate who was behind some of the monkey business. It's incredible how a little research indicated it was a particular group of nitwits who seemed to fulfill the Pareto Principle.
Perhaps so, but he'll beat you hands down in a spelling bee.;)
Back to topic.
Stevens is known to be very powerful in the Senate ("Dances with Bottomless War Chest"). Despite Alaska's low population (let alone population density), it makes you wonder how it happens...unless you know about this:
I don't know if this is still the practice, but in college (early 80s), my roommate and his brother were from Juneau|Douglas, AK.[1] When it came time to memorialize the Sinking of the Titanic (IRS - April 15), it turned out they didn't have to pay state taxes. Instead, they were the recipients of oil rebate checks; in essence, profit-sharing. I think they were receiving [at least] $1'500/year [each]. One would think there would have to be graduated degrees of monies received considering how much money+oil is flowing up there. And where there's money passed around...there are politicians.
Because there aren't many voters up there, it doesn't take all that many votes to elect someone, e.g., to the Senate. With a well-oiled machine, why stop?
As far as N^2 goes, I think it's a foregone conclusion as to what the outcome will be but that doesn't mean everyone has to give in without a fight. It took awhile for taxation to grasp an inevitable hold. (I suppose they could assess some fixed Internet tax against all who have the ability to shop online, encouraging them to shop online as much as possible. That obviously wouldn't help the brick & mortar stores.)
If he was going to get up & deal with Internet-related stuff, why not disassemble the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM act which the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) wrote and Congress rubber stamped? That would have shown true insight into how the Internet works. And if it's going to seem like too much work (despite the fact those Congress Critters who have been willing to chat about it have admitted it was a mistake), then add something to it: make it illegal to hire a spammer and illegal to solicit someone for the purpose of spamming. That stops spammers from having a reason to send anything: people can't hire them. That leaves them with spamming everyone for the purpose of solicitation to be a customer of their services, and I just covered that.
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[1]
We slept with the windows open every night with a 24" fan for white noise. (They weren't the only polar bears.) But imagine what it was like for someone who answered a floor-common phone walking into our room in single digit temperatures whilst in nothing but their boxers to get me up to function as one of three EMTs within a twenty minute drive of the nearest hospital.
Even if ICANN was to be replaced / restructured / whatever, I have some serious doubts if its actions will change.
I'll trump your doubts with some tough love of reality.
As things continue to be plugged into everything else, more & more restrictions are applied & enforced until & unless that resource (person, place, or thing) provides the US Gov't with a peephole to collect data at any time of their choosing, for any reason, then make use of it in any way they choose. (actually, they may want something active, not a passive, say the ability to interrupt or filter undesired material once they see something which they don't want circulated. Think of China's shenanigans on a global scale.
The slippery slope says unlicensed[1] encryption will then become treated just as exported encryption is now. And a Supreme Court fight will ensue regarding 1st Ammendment vs. the right of the gov't to protect itself, not unlike the justification for our Cuban Scout Camp.
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[1] unlicensed == no backdoor. The war over this isn't over.
Re:How would Cringely's model work?
on
Own the Last Mile
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· Score: 1
Step back from software & the 20th & 21st centuries, look at what continues to be a constant discussion: privatization of the postal system - sell it out and let the gov't deal with the last mile.
It hasn't happened there despite the most Herculean efforts of the biggest checkbooks.
Why do you think it'll change with a lot of glass & copper?
My general phrase is: "It's a bird! it's a plane! It's a pig!"
I've already submitted it to Mythbusters, hoping they'll get a look at it sooner [rather than later] as it would be excellent for this to be debunked ten or twelve days by someone claiming to be an authority but not having run any tests. Consider how those guys enjoying play with electricity & fire -- cranking things up considerably beyond the expectated value just to see how fast or how far they really will go, the setups they've used before shoot make for an interesting setup. They did something like this on one episode, but I don't remember what it was. And they had to crank it to the max to even get it close to working as expected.
They are also known as 800-lb gorillas in the antispam market.
Some might think otherwise, but their presence in the anti world & proper actions indicate otherwise.
The big question I was curious about as I read through the transcript is: was it Charlie, Delores, Mike, or Chris, all with a very strong accent, but when you ask them where they are, "In America, just like you!"
I don't speak Hindi or Urdu, but I know such an accent when I hear one.
If a loud ssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh doesn't work, do what I tried once (with success): call the theater and ask for someone on duty to come to that particular theater because someone is talking on their cell, won't get off or leave, and is ruining the movie. "If you don't come get them in the next two minutes, we will deal with it on our own."
{standing ovation}
The moron stepped out, figuring it was safer to leave than to find out what an angry crowd might do to him and the movie continued.
I leave my phone turned on -- but on vibrate only. If it goes off, I just get up and head for the foyer. The same for restaurants. Besides, it makes an easy way to screen calls. If CallerID shows someone you really don't want to talk to at that moment, let it ring over to voicemail. You can tell them you had to turn it off at mealtime later. Now, if we could get rid of screaming kids in the theatres and restaurants...(because Mom & Dad won't get a sitter and inflict (yes, inflict their kids on everyone else before the kids are ready to be in public in places which aren't equipped with a PlayPlace)
Speaking of PlayPlace...McDonald's was in the news a year or two ago, stating they were looking for ways to increase the number/percentageo adult customers. Um, yeah. What they meant, but were afraid to say, was, "increase the number/percentage of childless adults". Right. Those places are salt licks for carpet crawlers. Why would adults willing subject themselves to this when they don't have any or are getting away from them for the night? This is the same McDonald's who pondered a promo for the Big Mac priced at $0.55. "People will drive down the road, see "Speed Limit 55" and associate 55 with "Big Mac, 55".
I made a contribution to a free overseas web service, being a good guy, supporting it, etc. Looking at the PayPal trail of breadcrumbs, they determined the exchange rate[*], rounded up, made the payment, then returned the difference to my account.
About ten days later, I get a nifty envelope from GE, managing a "PayPal Credit Service" for the amount of the exchange rate[*] with a minimum charge, deadline, service charge if it's late ($15), everything you'd expect to see from a credit card service. My only means of communication with this "GE" service which is handling the PayPal credit service is a PO Box.
I've never seen a credit service mentioned on the PayPal site and the fact everything balanced in the exchange rate process tells me something something smells.
Does anyone else have info on this type of garbage?
I'm halfway tempted to make the ten mile drive to the county seat and make a filing in Small Claims and find out what they're up to.
You are obviously unaware of simple Microsoft trivia/history. (which might be a very good thing)
The program manager of Microsoft Bob was Melinda French, who we now know to be Mrs. William Henry Gates, III.
Microsoft Bob's progeny includes Clippy. Clippy may not have any direct redeeming features, but something important/notable has occurred in his family history.
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Gates has defined his exit strategy. Why can't Bush?
Actually, they are. (seriously) It's said that women are messy (things out of place), but what's under it is clean. Guys frequently have things in order, but what's underneath is dirty.
My wife is a serious, but self-taught cross-stitcher. Many believe the reverse side should be as nice as the front (no jibes from the peanut gallery) and her work is. I forgot to warn her the first time my mother & grandmother wanted to take a look at her work -- the first thing they did was flip it over. Along those lines, I believe code should be just as clean as the way it appears (or performs). And not just running it through a prettyprint. If you do structure it so it looks and feels right, those things which look out of place are usually wrong. (although formatting shows plenty of errors as well)
Bad code is part of why I've long asserted a minimum of 95% (it's probably closer to 98%) of the people in the IT/IS/MIS industry who write code for a living aren't qualified to do so. Were mechanical engineers, architects, or physicians to make a tiny percentage of the errors coders make, chaos would ensue. If you want your code to look better [by contrast], however, place it side-by-side with overshored code.
I went to a small school in the Midwest which is trying desperately to increase the estrogen content in the CompSci department. They (the dept) has become very persistent about putting the bite on everyone who might be willing to contribute in some way to get more women into the program (pun intended).
I think it was '93 or '94 when asked what he intended to do with his money (long-term) and he said he planned to give away at least 95% of it [vs. leaving it as an inheritance]. Even retaining 5% for "the rest of your life" living expenses is a substantial sum.
There was an article in Forbes(?)|Fortune(?) about five years ago about his financial manager and the limits he had (big, interesting article). I think it also confirmed his intentions of off-loading his monies. His financial manager (at that time) was selling an average of 80'000 MS shares/day. There were only two restrictions for this guy re: his investments with the money he was making:
1) Tiptoe around any companies Microsoft might purchase or compete with; simply to save money and legal headaches
2) No biogen - this has been reserved for Bill to play with.
at the time of the article, there was one segment of time where he'd taken $800'000 of MS stock sales and turned it into a decent sum of money - $4B?, $8B?, $12B?
Members of BODs are paid, which is why they protect each other. Chairmen & CEOs sit on each others' boards, pay each other, and protect each other.
Those who said (above), "it's time to sell stock", better be ready to hurry. Odds are, there will be a run, even if brief, tomorrow morning. A better strategy would be to sell short, then flip it when it stablizes.
The NBC Nightly News just flashed a mic in front of someone who said without Gates, "we wouldn't have the Internet." (gasp, choke, sputter) "Paging Dr. Henry Heimlich" Many of the people currently on the Internet may not be have there, but the fact Gates has admitted many times they almost missed the boat indicates there was already a lot happening online. It's the web which made the Internet accessible to John Q. Public, not Microsoft+Gates. OS/2 was just as available as Windows, so Windows wasn't necessarily a requirement.
Prior to Krol's book (Fall '92), which was really the first book to make the 'net accessible to the public, I referred to the 'net as The World's Biggest Secret Club. (Think about it). Gates+MS certainly wasn't a member and there were plenty of others who joined long before they did.
Slashdot Mirror
Author! Author!
This is why I laugh when I hear the news speak of aliens on UFOs being "more intelligent" than we are. They aren't smarter, they just may have a more advanced technology and|or society.
The question for those who suggested spreading|sharing the wealth is how to do it with a plutocracy, which has almost always been the underlying factor in any human government; i.e., as a minimum, it's like a minor or sub-major with a college major. If you've got a Democracy (D) or Republic (R), those are shorhand for Dp or Rp, as the money always turns the head of those in charge, even with kings or queens (who have had absolute power) when someone would present them with something of unexpected value.
This is where we get these phrases:
--Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.
--The Golden Rule: He|She who has the gold makes the rules.
Apparently, you don't come from Amish country.
There are Amish who will ride in someone else's car to a job (which may or may not use tech; some assembly line in the case of the former, housing construction, the latter). Some own cell phones but give them to a neighbor to charge them.
and: the practice of rumspringa. The author of that page may be familiar some Amish, but not all. What that page doesn't say is you cannot become a member of the Amish church until you are an adult (usually twenty-one). As result, teens aren't members. Part of their maturing process places them in the world and in the world. This is counter to a lot of non-Amish beliefs which tell you to be in the world but not of the world. The kids may have cars, parked next to the barn, jobs, drink, have sex, etc. I know of guys who used to wait for the new girls, just because they had a particular fondness for them.
Once the kids get to be of age, they're expected to make a choice. Most join the church, but there are plenty which have seen the English world and don't go back. Not all make the decision at the specific time (taking a bit longer) but generally see the light after awhile.
But they do produce good craftsmanship. I have an exquisite Amish desk which took almost four of us to take it off of the truck wrapped up in the garage.
Oh, and there's a group which appears on Bob & Tom routinely known as The Electric Amish.
How soon we forget this story from the 4th:
Cambridge Breached the Great Firewall of China
Any ideas when Richard Clayton will be extradicted to China [from the UK]?
And based upon this statedment:
Clayton, speaking at the Sixth Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies in Cambridge last week, said that the researchers had reported their findings to the Chinese Computer Emergency Response Team.
It appears acceptable when testing a government's resources if it's from an academic perspective and you report any findings.
I'm not trolling or tossing flamebait out here. I'd like to know why these jokers are any different, other than it'll be China's choice whether to pursue them, or not, and I'm guessing not will happen because they were nice about reporting their results in the interest of benefiting the object of their efforts. But who gets to decide the intent of the party performing the actions, and after the fact, no less?
I can see an exception if Cambridge volunteered to do this with China's approval or if China commissioned the activities, either of those in advance.
Otherwise, what's the difference?
No. "Will you be putting that on your Discover card?"
Sears launched Discover.
They're also getting more restrictive about who works there.
see wsj.com:
PayPal President Jeff Jordan plans to leave eBay later this year, in the latest high-profile departure to plague the Internet auctioneer. 6:37 p.m.
Also, read items here, here.
to differentiate among the homonyms.
whey isn't necessarily a homonym of way and weigh (above). I'd use what's in the dictionary as the first [listed] pronounciation (hway). Then again, I don't have an accent which most people can detect.
Koreans had the same problem when they went to a phonetic alphabet.
Japanese has two phonetic alphabets: hiragana and katakana. The former for Japanese words, the latter for non-Japanese.
When I studied & learned Japanese & Chinese (together) many years ago (and subsequently lost virtually both of them via severe concussion in a car accident eleven years ago), I found them easier to learn that I think most foreign people woould find English. People wondered how I could do both (and work full time - I couldn't play club soccer any more, learned to juggle - 7 balls two hands, 5 balls, one hand (nowhere the level of Anthony Gatto (wiki page isn't current, BTW - see his web site for small clips of workouts), and discovered shogi and xiang-qi. At that time, all of the books were in the native languageas and I decided to learn the languages.
English is a million rules with a million exceptions. So many words have come from so many other languages and sources, and that creates the complexity.
The rules & exceptions made sense in those languages and they weren't tough to remember. The dropout rate for either language was 50% at fairly regular intervals for all of the classes and semester after semester they had to keep combining classes because people were frying. People asked how I kept them separate and I pointed out throughout all of the time I took the languages, Japanese was MW, and Chinese was TR. During that day, and until after the class, the only language I thought about was for that day, even if I thought I might not be ready for the following day, particularly a tough test. Kanji. People also would refer to drawing characters, I told them to think of writing. Also, when making flashcards, they'd review all of them, over & over. Go through them, remove the ones you guess right, and review and re-review the ones you can't get right, then go back and rebuild the deck to do a full review.
What killed people in Chinese was the four tones and larning to listen for them. (I believe the other tonal language is Vietnamese).
Also, many of the Kanji and Hanyu characters are used in the other language, because the Japanese Kanji is based upon the Hanyu characters for either pronounciation or meaning. The other thing which killed people was not understanding how to dissect the Kanji & Hanyu characters. e.g. The Kanji character for ocean has mother and water in it: the mother of all water is the ocean. House has roof at the top, pig at the bottom. Pigs were kept beneath the floors where the leftover food could be dropped or swept.
I think one of the problems with English for people is they don't understand the roots for many words and have no interest in doing so. This means a lot of rote memorization. Just like juggling, coding, and everything else, break things into their fundamental pieces, then put them together.
Personally, (see Romaji reference above) I thought it was as stupid thing to do. It was learn Romaji for reading & writing along with the verbal|hearing phrases as well as grammar. After that, it was replace Romaji with hiragana, then add katakana, and along the way somewhere, start seeding the process of learning Kanji. Basically, learning Romaji was a waste because it was a throwaway. People were already dropping,
have a pet theory that the reason our grandparents can't handle
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ahem.
I know the exception doesn't disprove the rule [entirely], but my grandmother (retired 1st-grade/kindergarden teacher) will be eighty-nine in another three or four months and grew up the spouse of a chicken farmer. (my parents are the first generation of either side who wasn't in farming) She is largely self-taught on the PC (Windows). If I send email (during reasonable hours), I'll generally get a reasonably quick response and it's not just a sentence or two. It's not because she's sitting there by the window, waiting for someone to send something. She's usually busy. She's got surfing & browsing to a science, as much for research as anything, and is using the literacy skills which go lacking in places such as this to document family things - pictures, antiques, etc. There's a massive family history she's put together which blends better than just a biography. If it's things she's been affiliated with; e.g., at a gathering with photos, she documents who else was there, perhaps why they weren't in a picture, if someone showed an injury (cast for a broken bone), how it happened, any complications, etc. Everything she can remember, she's put through the keyboard and when something doesn't come to her or she knows someone who remembers more, she reaches out to them. They may not be tech savvy, but a relative relatively chose will be and will get the information to her.
When she's not busy doing that, she's outside doing greenery. She left her old house for a zero property-line, thinking it would relieve her of mowing, although my cousins have occasionally stepped in if they catch her at it. She didn't stay there long because there wasn't enough room for all of the rhubarb, raspberries, etc. she started putting together. Considering it takes 3-4 years for rhubarb starts to grow to something useful, she didn't lose much time because of the transition.
And...she does manage to squeeze in daily exercise. She's walked three miles (minimum) every day for years, including about two years ago when she had both knees replaced (she lives in the orthpedic capital of the world - Zimmer, Biomet, Depuy, Othy, et al. and the orthopods are more than familiar with the local product). She didn't do them at the same time. Just far enough apart to recover from the first one. I made sure she asked the doc in advance if there was anything she could do physically; i.e., get certain muscles toned, to make PT (physical therapy) easier, making recovery easier. He told her that if all of his patients were walking three miles daily they either wouldn't have joint issues, or, if they were like her and did need them, the general recovery time for all patients would be a small fraction of what it normally is. He only let her walk the inside of her house at first and relented when he found out she was measuring her time walking instead of how many steps. If the weather prevents walking, she hops on the stationary bike and puts twenty miles (minimum) on it.
Now, for a support anecdote. Many years of experience as a systems programmer & tech support mainframes as well as dealing with executives & general mangement on an office automative system (pre-Microsoft Office) of 235 users should produce scads.
A couple in particular come to mind, but I could some up with some real rib-breakers if I greased the brain first. The ones I like the best are:
It was my first job after college. I'd had my own business during summer & school breaks and had more than enough clients to sock away some money by staying very busy working and coaching a client's kids' soccer team (this was the '80-'84 timeframe, so soccer was coming into vogue with kids. Those of us who were playing in college & willing to coach kids were considered premium meat & treated like gold. My team's parents finally got used to seeing me sit on the gro
Possibly? But more likely it's a paid ad...
Has someone been sniffing the fireworks smoke a little early and a bit too much?
Hover your mouse over MattPE and see what is displayed:
http://www.eefoof.com/
Some bonehead (I won't go back and read who the editor was) that let that message go through without checking an obvious connection). I demand a recount on the editorial elections to see if he really received enough votes. Besides, you'd think MattPE would have an id other than eefoof.com when he submitted his message.
The problem is he's going to get a Slashdot effect just because people are going to jump the gun instead of walking away from his site entirely.
Microsoft won't change their stance on Google.
I've said many times [that] Microsoft's strategy (so far) has been to keep Google labelled a search engine, and only a search engine, (albeit covertly) as long as possible to keep Google hemmed in and avoid letting people begin to see what's up Google's shirt sleeves. This has been a stall tactic. Microsoft has got to have a lot of gerbils running on the wheels to come up with ways to find the silver bullet to put right between Google's eyes. Do they think they'll find it? Probably. Will they? Probably not. Should they be scared? Yes.
I don't think it's worked, but it's the only tactic Microsoft knows. After all, their primary arsenal has always been Huey, Dewey and Louie (Marketing, Sales, and PR). When Microsoft runs out of arrows in its quiver, it'll become the one thing it has thought would never happen: become just another company, just as IBM became when Microsoft didn't renew their contract ('89? '90?)for a joint OS and it became Windows & OS/2. IBM just wasn't able to get the sell-through Microsoft got with Windows, and Microsoft was the new king of the mountain.
What's hurting Microsoft isn't they came late to the show (avoided during the most infamous "Summer of Bill" but they've had to grow from the desktop up to a global perspective, but that Google hasn't even worried about the desktop (so far). They got started at the global level and just focused upon information management, leaving a browser, essentially any browser, as the interface. I see it to be what happened to Encyclopædia Britannica when everything was electronic and they were left thinking about their next hardcopy print run, then trying to get an electronic format (and people buying CDs and DVDs) vs. something such as Wikipedia which started online.
I'm not saying every company or product which starts online will always be better, but the odds are against a hard world company|product being able to prevent or leapfrog a company which doesn't have to worry about a bridge from the past to the future and not lose sight of both balls in the air.
Another good example is BlockBuster and Netflix. Blockbuster's underlying algorithm (business model) was based upon late return fees. NetFlix comes along such that brick & mortar means nothing, reducing all of the financial obligations which go along with it, including a dependence upon those late fees. BlockBuster suddenly realized they were getting dusted in all but impulse rentals and had to do something. First, they tried to pull a fast one over everyones' eyes by declaring "no late fees" whilst slipping a hand into your wallet. When they got caught, they realized they'd better do something...and fast. So they picked the most successful video rental business model they could find on short notice: NetFlix. Just a price war.
Lots of other stories could be listed as well (e.g., Amazon vs. B&N, Border's, etc.)
I was thinking along the lines of the older Mummenschanz performances which had tubes flopping about the stage.
As for those wondering about the various qualifications to be elected to a position (previous messages), let's not also forget we still have a KKK Senator and despite coming from W. Va of all places, he's found a relatively high degree of influence. When Tom Brokaw used to present The Fleecing of America, they'd fail to indicate who was behind some of the monkey business. It's incredible how a little research indicated it was a particular group of nitwits who seemed to fulfill the Pareto Principle.
Perhaps so, but he'll beat you hands down in a spelling bee.
Back to topic.
Stevens is known to be very powerful in the Senate ("Dances with Bottomless War Chest"). Despite Alaska's low population (let alone population density), it makes you wonder how it happens...unless you know about this:
I don't know if this is still the practice, but in college (early 80s), my roommate and his brother were from Juneau|Douglas, AK.[1] When it came time to memorialize the Sinking of the Titanic (IRS - April 15), it turned out they didn't have to pay state taxes. Instead, they were the recipients of oil rebate checks; in essence, profit-sharing. I think they were receiving [at least] $1'500/year [each]. One would think there would have to be graduated degrees of monies received considering how much money+oil is flowing up there. And where there's money passed around...there are politicians.
Because there aren't many voters up there, it doesn't take all that many votes to elect someone, e.g., to the Senate. With a well-oiled machine, why stop?
As far as N^2 goes, I think it's a foregone conclusion as to what the outcome will be but that doesn't mean everyone has to give in without a fight. It took awhile for taxation to grasp an inevitable hold. (I suppose they could assess some fixed Internet tax against all who have the ability to shop online, encouraging them to shop online as much as possible. That obviously wouldn't help the brick & mortar stores.)
If he was going to get up & deal with Internet-related stuff, why not disassemble the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM act which the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) wrote and Congress rubber stamped? That would have shown true insight into how the Internet works. And if it's going to seem like too much work (despite the fact those Congress Critters who have been willing to chat about it have admitted it was a mistake), then add something to it: make it illegal to hire a spammer and illegal to solicit someone for the purpose of spamming. That stops spammers from having a reason to send anything: people can't hire them. That leaves them with spamming everyone for the purpose of solicitation to be a customer of their services, and I just covered that.
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[1]
We slept with the windows open every night with a 24" fan for white noise. (They weren't the only polar bears.) But imagine what it was like for someone who answered a floor-common phone walking into our room in single digit temperatures whilst in nothing but their boxers to get me up to function as one of three EMTs within a twenty minute drive of the nearest hospital.
Even if ICANN was to be replaced / restructured / whatever, I have some serious doubts if its actions will change.
I'll trump your doubts with some tough love of reality.
As things continue to be plugged into everything else, more & more restrictions are applied & enforced until & unless that resource (person, place, or thing) provides the US Gov't with a peephole to collect data at any time of their choosing, for any reason, then make use of it in any way they choose. (actually, they may want something active, not a passive, say the ability to interrupt or filter undesired material once they see something which they don't want circulated. Think of China's shenanigans on a global scale.
The slippery slope says unlicensed[1] encryption will then become treated just as exported encryption is now. And a Supreme Court fight will ensue regarding 1st Ammendment vs. the right of the gov't to protect itself, not unlike the justification for our Cuban Scout Camp.
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[1] unlicensed == no backdoor. The war over this isn't over.
Step back from software & the 20th & 21st centuries, look at what continues to be a constant discussion: privatization of the postal system - sell it out and let the gov't deal with the last mile.
It hasn't happened there despite the most Herculean efforts of the biggest checkbooks.
Why do you think it'll change with a lot of glass & copper?
My general phrase is: " It's a bird! it's a plane! It's a pig! "
I've already submitted it to Mythbusters, hoping they'll get a look at it sooner [rather than later] as it would be excellent for this to be debunked ten or twelve days by someone claiming to be an authority but not having run any tests. Consider how those guys enjoying play with electricity & fire -- cranking things up considerably beyond the expectated value just to see how fast or how far they really will go, the setups they've used before shoot make for an interesting setup. They did something like this on one episode, but I don't remember what it was. And they had to crank it to the max to even get it close to working as expected.
They are also known as 800-lb gorillas in the antispam market.
Some might think otherwise, but their presence in the anti world & proper actions indicate otherwise.
The big question I was curious about as I read through the transcript is: was it Charlie, Delores, Mike, or Chris, all with a very strong accent, but when you ask them where they are, "In America, just like you!"
I don't speak Hindi or Urdu, but I know such an accent when I hear one.
I knew this had come up before. Here's a cursory list of links discussing it on
Theaters vs. Camcorders, Round 27
Projectionists Using Night Vision Goggles in Theaters">
new nanotube paint that is able to block cell phone signals
If a loud ssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh doesn't work, do what I tried once (with success): call the theater and ask for someone on duty to come to that particular theater because someone is talking on their cell, won't get off or leave, and is ruining the movie. "If you don't come get them in the next two minutes, we will deal with it on our own."
{standing ovation}
The moron stepped out, figuring it was safer to leave than to find out what an angry crowd might do to him and the movie continued.
I leave my phone turned on -- but on vibrate only. If it goes off, I just get up and head for the foyer. The same for restaurants. Besides, it makes an easy way to screen calls. If CallerID shows someone you really don't want to talk to at that moment, let it ring over to voicemail. You can tell them you had to turn it off at mealtime later. Now, if we could get rid of screaming kids in the theatres and restaurants...(because Mom & Dad won't get a sitter and inflict (yes, inflict their kids on everyone else before the kids are ready to be in public in places which aren't equipped with a PlayPlace)
Speaking of PlayPlace...McDonald's was in the news a year or two ago, stating they were looking for ways to increase the number/percentageo adult customers. Um, yeah. What they meant, but were afraid to say, was, "increase the number/percentage of childless adults". Right. Those places are salt licks for carpet crawlers. Why would adults willing subject themselves to this when they don't have any or are getting away from them for the night? This is the same McDonald's who pondered a promo for the Big Mac priced at $0.55. "People will drive down the road, see "Speed Limit 55" and associate 55 with "Big Mac, 55".
They're up to no good somehow.
I made a contribution to a free overseas web service, being a good guy, supporting it, etc. Looking at the PayPal trail of breadcrumbs, they determined the exchange rate[*], rounded up, made the payment, then returned the difference to my account.
About ten days later, I get a nifty envelope from GE, managing a "PayPal Credit Service" for the amount of the exchange rate[*] with a minimum charge, deadline, service charge if it's late ($15), everything you'd expect to see from a credit card service. My only means of communication with this "GE" service which is handling the PayPal credit service is a PO Box.
I've never seen a credit service mentioned on the PayPal site and the fact everything balanced in the exchange rate process tells me something something smells.
Does anyone else have info on this type of garbage?
I'm halfway tempted to make the ten mile drive to the county seat and make a filing in Small Claims and find out what they're up to.
You are obviously unaware of simple Microsoft trivia/history. (which might be a very good thing)
The program manager of Microsoft Bob was Melinda French, who we now know to be Mrs. William Henry Gates, III.
Microsoft Bob's progeny includes Clippy. Clippy may not have any direct redeeming features, but something important/notable has occurred in his family history.
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Gates has defined his exit strategy. Why can't Bush?
I forgot to add a straight line to this (before someone else does):
Gates has planned & made an exit strategy public, why can't the US?
Actually, they are. (seriously) It's said that women are messy (things out of place), but what's under it is clean. Guys frequently have things in order, but what's underneath is dirty.
My wife is a serious, but self-taught cross-stitcher. Many believe the reverse side should be as nice as the front (no jibes from the peanut gallery) and her work is. I forgot to warn her the first time my mother & grandmother wanted to take a look at her work -- the first thing they did was flip it over. Along those lines, I believe code should be just as clean as the way it appears (or performs). And not just running it through a prettyprint. If you do structure it so it looks and feels right, those things which look out of place are usually wrong. (although formatting shows plenty of errors as well)
Bad code is part of why I've long asserted a minimum of 95% (it's probably closer to 98%) of the people in the IT/IS/MIS industry who write code for a living aren't qualified to do so. Were mechanical engineers, architects, or physicians to make a tiny percentage of the errors coders make, chaos would ensue. If you want your code to look better [by contrast], however, place it side-by-side with overshored code.
I went to a small school in the Midwest which is trying desperately to increase the estrogen content in the CompSci department. They (the dept) has become very persistent about putting the bite on everyone who might be willing to contribute in some way to get more women into the program (pun intended).
I think it was '93 or '94 when asked what he intended to do with his money (long-term) and he said he planned to give away at least 95% of it [vs. leaving it as an inheritance]. Even retaining 5% for "the rest of your life" living expenses is a substantial sum.
There was an article in Forbes(?)|Fortune(?) about five years ago about his financial manager and the limits he had (big, interesting article). I think it also confirmed his intentions of off-loading his monies. His financial manager (at that time) was selling an average of 80'000 MS shares/day. There were only two restrictions for this guy re: his investments with the money he was making:
1) Tiptoe around any companies Microsoft might purchase or compete with; simply to save money and legal headaches
2) No biogen - this has been reserved for Bill to play with.
at the time of the article, there was one segment of time where he'd taken $800'000 of MS stock sales and turned it into a decent sum of money - $4B?, $8B?, $12B?
Um, no.
Members of BODs are paid, which is why they protect each other. Chairmen & CEOs sit on each others' boards, pay each other, and protect each other.
Those who said (above), "it's time to sell stock", better be ready to hurry. Odds are, there will be a run, even if brief, tomorrow morning. A better strategy would be to sell short, then flip it when it stablizes.
The NBC Nightly News just flashed a mic in front of someone who said without Gates, "we wouldn't have the Internet." (gasp, choke, sputter) "Paging Dr. Henry Heimlich" Many of the people currently on the Internet may not be have there, but the fact Gates has admitted many times they almost missed the boat indicates there was already a lot happening online. It's the web which made the Internet accessible to John Q. Public, not Microsoft+Gates. OS/2 was just as available as Windows, so Windows wasn't necessarily a requirement.
Prior to Krol's book (Fall '92), which was really the first book to make the 'net accessible to the public, I referred to the 'net as The World's Biggest Secret Club. (Think about it). Gates+MS certainly wasn't a member and there were plenty of others who joined long before they did.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! WRONG!; or rather, incomplete.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are their core competencies ( marketing, sales, and PR ).
I know the people from the UK have their own form of spelling, but "here" instead of "hear"? (I'll have to remember this one)
The big question is: will Google will apply for (and obtain) a patent akin to Microsoft's "How To Tell If A Baseball Game Is Interesting".