I don't have a cell phone -- yup, I'm THAT guy. The only one without a cellphone.
I plan on traveling during the holidays and I usually call in to my family whenever I go from one rest stop to another. I talk for an average of 5 minutes which is about $0.50 on my calling card which includes the cost of the phone surcharge. I do this once or twice a year and make about 4 rest stop calls along the trip so I'm out a couple bucks each way.
According to your logic, I should be "happy" to spend $100 for a phone for the year when I can get by just fine with $4.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that we are slowly being squeezed into bankruptcy due to all of these "got to have-its" including DSL, Cell phones, home phones, etc which all include taxes that are larger than the original cost of the plans.
Anyhow, it just shouldn't be that expensive to live on-the-cheap.
I was part of a group discussion regarding education about 18 mos ago, 1 black 1 asian 1 white girl (from a poor W. VA coal mining community) 1 Puerto Rican 1 white male - me (a son of poor Italian immigrants who came over about 40 yrs ago)
we started talking about race and education and I quickly learned that being a white male can be a liability, no matter what is said. The interesting thing is that nobody else in the room except the other white girl understood that ALL of us felt "left out," "different" and excluded from the normal population. I can't say that I've EVER felt that I fit in - part of it is because of my upbringing and part of it is that most people I know don't think like I do about things. Anyhow, the white girl felt outside the "safe zone" because of her upbringing and coal-mining history. All of my examples of alienation or feelings of discomfort were met with the general attitude of "you have no idea, your white." This will continue for as long as we continue to group people together and use labels without actually listening to people.
I think that ALL of us have some inner voice wondering if we fit in. This should be understood before having any discussions. My pet peeve is quickly becoming using labels to group types of people.
It's amazing how many people who call themselves "Republicans" (yes, I did it) hear a couple of my questions about healthcare costs and quickly jump to the conclusion that I'm a "Democrat" and from that point on tune me out - no matter that I believe in lowering tax rates, shrinking gov't, and many other ideas that "Democrats" would use to call me a "Republican." The fact of the matter is that I'm an individual that believes in some of _these_ ideas and some of _those_ ideas. How I vote depends on who more closely aligns with the sum total of my ideas. I get lumped into a group of people called "Democrats" because I think it is outrageous to pay $18,000 to deliver a baby with NONE, ZERO, ZIP complications. God forbid you ask the question - How is the average American, earning $45k/yr, supposed to pay for a post-tax delivery of $18k? What, work for 6 mos to pay for 3 days in the hospital??? Something isn't right with the system.
Didn't mean to get political but that seems to be an area where labels get thrown around quickly.
Well, let me - an "unreasonable" customer - tell you a story.
This past weekend I purchased something from an e-tailer - one of the largest in the computer business.
I was torn between shipping to my house or my parents as I'm heading there for Christmas and didn't know which would be easier. I checked the shipping to both places and determined to have the components sent here so that I could save money and install the OS and such. Well, when I actually placed the order - after checking to ship it to me - it chose to ship it to my parents place AND charge the larger fee. So what did this "unreasonable" customer do?
I called and had them make the correction by hand but they refused to adjust the shipping rate. After explaining that I should get credited the difference they told me they had no proof. I sent them screenshots and STILL they were defiant. They said that it showed the same rate on their systems no matter what they did - to which I replied, "something must be wrong with your systems then." So, I tried again with a fictitious purchase to verify the steps and took screenshots all along the way. They STILL wouldn't credit the amount. All of this took hours...
I sent multiple complaint requests and was actually harassed by some of the employees UNTIL one decent fellow wrote back and asked for the screenshots. I worked with him for another 40 minutes or so, trying this and that, and documenting it all.
Conclusion: They had some bad Javascript code that wouldn't look for special characters in the identifying addresses. This would cause the system to bork and not process the changes.
So after about 4 hours of free tech support FOR THEM, name-calling, being made to feel like a total loser.... turns out I was right.
I'm still waiting for the credit to post for my shipping and almost feel like sending them a bill for my services.
Peter,
Great post. The one thing that all countries trying to become a democracy need is something like our constitution (even if some are trying to shit all over it these days). Seriously, our forefathers were BRILLIANT. They understood human nature and TRIED (oftentimes successfully) to create rules and laws that would use that human nature for the betterment. Surely, they couldn't forsee the technology and devices that we have today but they did a pretty darned good job for several hundred years. That being said, almost nobody will try to take the constitution head-on. Eventually, they will and I worry when that day arrives as I think our forefathers had more common sense and decency in their pinky then most politicians do today - I would not sleep at night knowing that these guys were writing something so powerful.
In short, for a democracy to succeed, IMHO, it needs something that can't be circumvented (by current and potentially future means) that is written in true democratic fashion and for total equality. If a gov't is trying to just add voting to a current political practice, then I don't believe that it will succeed. Just my opinion.
Sanitation engineer Sound engineer (not a real acoustic engineer or vibrations engineer but the ones that do sound checks at concerts) and more from garfoods.com/coffee/coffee.engineer.htm
1. Engineer: any one driving or operating a gas powered car, truck, train, boat, ship, plane, or generator.
2. Army Core of engineers: those who drive heavy land grading equipment for the army.
3. Chemical engineer: one who drives a cement truck gas truck, milk truck, or transports chemicals.
4. Janitorial engineer: one who drives a street sweeper.
5. Mechanical engineer: one who operates a device powered by an engine.
6. Electrical engineer: one who operates a gas powered electric generator.
7. Rocket engineer: one who flies a rocket car or ship.
8. Software engineer: one who operates a rototiller.
9. Custodial engineer: one who drives a moving van.
10. Grading engineer: one who drives a dirt grader.
11. Mining engineer: one who drives a gas powered mine train or gas powered drill.
12. Petroleum engineer: one who drives a gas truck.
13. Aeronautical engineer: one who flies a plane.
14. Hydraulics engineer: one who operates a water truck or gas powered water pumps.
15. Nautical engineer: one who operates a ship's or boat's engine.
16. Audio engineer: one who operates a gas powered jack hammer or pile driver.
17. Optical engineer: one who operates search lights typically at big sales events.
18. Nuclear engineer: one who presses the button detonating an atomic bomb.
19. Civil engineer: one who drives a Honda Civic.
20. Technical engineer: one who is confused.
21. Architectural design engineer: one who is insecure.
22. Electronic engineer: one who sucked too much lead based solder in a public college.
Great video - just wasted 1.5 hrs from that one and then all of the other links.
It's sad to watch the behavior of people hearing the truth and ignoring it because it doesn't fit with the reality that they've created in their minds.
Well, the fact that they don't have any idea what people use Outlook for is exactly why they are well suited to start this project.
They've had OO for years and they have no idea what people use a word processor, spreadsheet, etc for either - so why should they stop now?
I just reported a bug AGAIN that has been FIXED about 3 times that causes the document to create extra _5f entries in the XML if tables are used. This bug will render the document useless as the entries grow at an exponential rate and eventually corrupt the document in such a way that it can't be opened unless the file is unzipped and the offending entries removed.
How's THAT for a group of people beating the drum about claiming that they can take on MSO?!
In what GALAXY do these guys live in? I wouldn't trust them to code ANYTHING anymore. What's really got me going about these guys are the following, 1) Crappy coding 2) claiming bugs are fixed WITHOUT EVEN TESTING THEM! Seriously, they have a bug that is extremely repeatable and hoses the word processor and they claim it is "fixed." 3) calling requirements "enhancements" and postponing the work for YEARS 4) splitting up an integrated desktop environment under the guise of cleaning up "bloat" only to find that the individual apps now run slower and require more memory. 5) ADVERTISING THAT THEY'LL KICK MS's BUTT!
Please, stop the rhetoric and see that OO is at least a decade behind MSO.
Sure, they've got some nice features but guess what.... MS just added bibliography ability with 2007 - one less reason for me to use OO. Now, just give me an equation editor where I can "type" the equation in (like OO) and OO will have nothing to offer me. I'm just finished with these guys.
I feel like a kid with a workaholic Dad. Dad keeps saying "not today son, maybe tomorrow." Sooner or later, the son will see the reality for what it is... Is that "Cat's in the Cradle" that I hear?????
Yup, I feel your pain. GOD FORBID you want to make that edit AFTER you've created the chart, no way to go back.
I'm convinced that, not only are the programmers completely removed from using Calc, but they have no idea how a user would choose to use it. This has been proven over and over to me with regards to statistics and plotting.
It's like - "look, we created a spreadsheet where you can put numbers into boxes" and they have no clue that those numbers actually MEAN something and that the user might actually want a good way to visualize that meaning.
I keep using it for no other reason than to ride their @$$e$. I'm at a university so MSO is essentially free but the OO guys are playing European football on an American football field - i.e. they aren't even in the same game as their competitors. I just wish they'd get a clue.
SUN would have been much better off just paying the original programmers to add whatever features they wanted to the original SO 5.2 instead of taking ownership and seriously F-ing it up! Absolutely clueless. It's as if they have 2 coders working on the whole thing. I just HATE giving up hope on them though - no matter the numerous examples as to why I should.
The Silmarillion (sp?) is a MUST read for TRUE fans. It covers the time of the world creation, the creation of the individual races (elf, man, etc), it covers the reasons why people like Aragorn live longer, etc. It covers the creation of Sauron (sp?) and the rings.
Maybe I'm the only one asking the question WHY but to me, I'd rather see that than what happened between the Hobbit and Fellowship.
The Silmarillion was a great read and it was well written and filled in so many holes. I'm sure Jackson will go back to the archives to find out what Tolkien wrote about the time between Hobbit and Fellowship so it should be pretty interesting.
Either way, the Silmarillion is a movie that really needs creating!
they couldn't even bother to confirm the latter one because it is mind-numbingly easy to verify. I would rather trust a bunch of monkeys at a typewriter than to put faith into the programmers behind this project. I used to think SUN might be a decent investment, ROFLMAO now!
Are you kidding me? I've used SO since 5.0 - when it was actually quick and nimble. In a nutshell,
1) It's much slower now - even though they told us they were breaking into components to make it faster - the joke is on you. 2) listening to feedback - yeah - look at their response on basic statistical analysis. Search their bugs for statistics, error bars and regression and you'll see that it's been 5-6 yrs and STILL no ability to put the equation on the chart. 3) They are SO far behind MS it's ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not an MS lover by any stretch but I use OO day-to-day and I recently sat down in front of Word 2007 and thought, 1) this will really make it easy for newbies to create nice documents 2) creating nice documents is really easy 3) too bad they won't adopt ODF as they'd clean house with Office '07.
Seriously, I've lost faith/hope in OO. Just look into GO-OO and you'll understand that things move glacially slow with OO development. Maybe IBM's 35 person addition will help but I forsee more pissing contests than actual work getting done.
Vista is a joke but Office '07 is a really nice product because it DOES make it REALLY easy to create nice looking documents. I added a picture to a test.doc that I was working on and was blown away with all the cool things that I could do with the image. In short, really easy to create nice looking documents - Isn't THAT what a good word processor should do???
Anyhow, I've lost faith that Sun will actually listen to the users of their software and, if they do, it'll be after the user has left out of frustration due to waiting.
I don't know... look at the features that go-oo already has compared to oo. It's been driving me nuts that I can't get animation to work in OO (linux). It's a joke. Sun doesn't seem to be doing anything about it and go-oo already has it working. If SUN were serious about making their Java implementation work then it'd be working by now - at least adopt the gstreamer version for now until you get java working properly; give us SOMETHING.
I'm pretty tired of the snail-pace development of OO and their working on low-impact items. Go-oo have very tangible features that should be incorporated... as of yesterday.
I don't know what SUN is doing but they are quickly spending their goodwill currency.
More importantly, 90% of American engineering students realize that the only reason for getting an MS in engineering is to teach. I'm yet to find someone who thinks he learned something worthwhile in post-grad engineering school.
Well, then - I'll be the first. Grad school has DEFINITELY made me a better engineer!
I actually have gotten a chance to DIGEST the material; the usually rigorous engineering undergraduate curriculum hardly allows time for that.
It's true! The U.S. despite their rhetoric does NOT value scientific degrees - heck, this admin doesn't even respect science - in any form.
Here's the most accurate response you'll get...
Most of these other countries TRULY value science/engineering. They don't have a huge salary disparity between engineers, doctors, and lawyers. From what I'm told, an MD in India or Asia "might" make about 50% more than an engineer. It's more like 500% in this country.
If you are bright and could handle a scientific degree, medicine, or law then why not take the profession that will pay more, especially if you have a valid interest in the other disciplines. I find that many engineers like medicine so why NOT head there. I find many engineers like patents so why NOT become a patent lawyer. The salary difference is ridiculous!
I have family members in medicine making 5-6x what I will in engineering. I hope to get my PhD in M.E. very shortly. I _almost_ became a doctor and sometimes regret not going to med school. All nighters have NEVER been a problem...even in my 30s.
I'm still waiting for ASME to create an IP department whereby they provide lawyers for ME members for IP reasons. That way, we'll get paid for our ideas and ASME can license the ideas to the corporations - like the universities are doing. Why work for a corporation if you're the creative type?
Anyhow, just about anyone makes more than an engineer with a PhD (where you cap out around $100k) The following START at about that... - Doctors - Lawyers - MBAs
I've used it and quickly went back to XP. Here's something to think about. Computers using XP have been more than fast enough since about 2001. A 1ghz (PIII) system with 512MB of RAM can actually run XP effectively for day-to-day tasks. We've spent the past 6 yrs enjoying 1.5, 2 Ghz, 2.5Ghz, 3Ghz and now dual-core systems running XP. For each CPU upgrade, we've noticed a diminished performance boost - there is only so much fast WE can operate.
So..I'm going to say that anything over 1 Ghz was overkill. Vista, on a dual core 1.6Ghz system isn't really that great. So, MS has wiped away any performance gain going to a higher processor and it STILL stinks. It's like you need a dual-core 2.4 Ghz system with a buttload of RAM to run effectively.
In the history (as I know it) of the introduction of an OS, I've _never_ seen an OS created that required hardware that would be common in 1-2yrs after the OS introduction. Typically, the OS pushes the envelopes of what is already out there but runs pretty snappy on what it is being packaged with. I just don't know how the programmers could have squandered that much _reserve_ processing power and _still_ be demanding more.
SP1 better have some serious recoding done to optimize their code for performance or it still won't catch on.
It's sad, that I can take my 1ghz machine with 512mb of RAM running PCLOS and Compiz-fusion and have it be REAL responsive.
I'm TIRED of Seamonkey doing this to me. There I am, late night, surfing some research papers but I'm too tired to finish the reading. I put the laptop into hibernate mode to resume the next day. Almost, without exception, Seamonkey will hang and drive my cpu usage up to 100% upon resuming the surfing.
I'm getting VERY tired of this and I'll be off to install Opera. At first I wasn't sure if it was my system but the fact that someone else knows about this to assures me that I'm not an isolated incident. Time to give Opera a go.
Anyhow, I'm tired of going back through my history and re-opening the read and the not-read pages in search of the sites that I didn't get to. Thanks for the ride Mozilla but enough is enough!
China only depends on the US to buy their products until India (300 Million US vs 1 Billion Indians) starts buying Chinese products; usually the first thing that a growing middle class does is buy "stuff." So, China won't "need" the US nearly as much in about a decade or two.
China only depends on the US to buy their products until Europe starts buying more CHinese stuff. Currently, they don't buy as much as the Europeans I know tend to buy quality hardware and keep it in the family for as long as they can - not the US way of doing things (e.g. typically buy & dump and buy again). But that's the Western Europeans that I know. I wonder if the Eastern Europeans are the same or not.
Anyhow, to me - I'd bet that China will start calling in their "loans" over the next couple decades. I've seen India growing and seen the wealth spreading. It won't be long before China gets tired of the US and moves on to other nations.
Then I'd like to use your system;-). OO and SO definitely don't open THAT quickly for me and I've used just about every version. Here are some places to try out 5.2 and note that it hasn't been supported since Sun picked it up so it's dated but the speed is still there...
Anyhow, I hope that a project like LSB gains acceptance - I use PCLinuxOS - a great distro. #2 on Distrowatch after Ubuntu and with a fraction of the support. It doesn't look like LSB is doing that much to me though - great idea but as you've already stated, the implementation isn't working out all that well, just because everyone has their own ideas on how to do things "better."
[quote]I've noticed StarOffice 8 (Based on OOo) opens up pretty instantly. Looks like you have your wish.[/quote]
with or without the preloader? Feel free to try 5.2 and let me know what you think.
I'm not sure which distros are using LSB at all. Feel free to educate me as to the percentage of Linux distributions that are using LSB compared to the ones that are not.
I've been using linux for 7 yrs now and after 5 yrs of hardcore use and then one yr of moderate use, I'm now finding myself also using Windows more often and here's why...
Programs!
I've had this theory that the porting of FOSS programs from Linux/Unix to windows will hurt Linux and those on the opposite side of the fence said "but wait, if we create the programs for Windows then that's good; when they switch to linux they will be able to use the same apps and feel at home." It's believable but it isn't factual. The truth is that linux changes too quickly and there are too many changes within distros.
The beauty of Windows - I need program A so I just go to the developer's site and download it - thanks to FOSS software. Try that with Linux - it can't be done; there are too many distros and versions out there for an rpm, deb, etc to get built even within a single distro.
Before you go out and tell me about apt, synaptic, etc - I'm aware. Each and every one of these tools relies on a developer to create the package and add it to the repo - this is another obstacle. Remember, in Windows - I go directly to the developer and take the package and install. In linux, I'm waiting and hoping that a developer will hear my plea to add the package to the repo before I can install it. Sure, I could build it myself BUT that's provided my distro doesn't do anything funky with file locations, versions, etc.
That's the number 1 reason I find myself in the Windows world these days. I'm tired of waiting to have them built and added and I'm tired of the warning that if I do it myself that I could "break" something. Just fire up WinXP and download/install to XP - now that my favorite Linux apps are available on XP;-)
1) SOOO - my vote goes to the linux distros unify how their distros work so that developers can build packages.
other than that, 2) decent filesystem - looking in/mnt for partitions isn't intuitive; having to go "here" for the executable and "there" for the config file is pretty lame too. Oh, you want a config file - go check in/etc/, you wan't a networking config file, go to/etc/sysconfig/netwo.... - It's not THAT bad but it's not nearly as easy as it could be. 3) get ACPI/APM to just work and stop forking around! There are so many tools out there and each with their own special niche - it's maddening. What does my distro do? Add them all and hope the user figures them out! Just maddening. 4) updating the look of programs - the old unix X-window styling is still around on many programs. XFig for 1 but it isn't alone; great program but being ignored due to the ugly interface. It would be nice if X took care of updating the interface.
In short, here's how I'd define linux progress "2 steps forward, 1 step back."
Unless we're talking about OO speed then it's "1 step forward, 2 steps back." Funny how the "individual" program Swriter takes longer to load than "Staroffice 5.2" which was this integrated desktop environment and deemed "bloatware" by the OO developers. They blew their horn and claimed that they were going to strip it down and speed it up - LMFAO - 6 yrs later and SO 5.2 wipes the floor with OO, in terms of speed. I'm praying that someone comes along and rewrites OO such that it performs only twice as slow as MS Word - as opposed to the 5-7x slowdown currently enjoyed.
OK, well... here's my story and hopefully after reading it you'll see why I think that this is a bad idea...
1) My parents are Italian immigrants 2) Their speaking Italian/screwed-up-English resulted in me having poor english skills 3) they were both blue-collar workers 4) I didn't know "what" I wanted to do and believed that the gold ring was out of my reach 5) I took some AP courses AND autoshop! My Dad was an autobody guy and I was into engines. I purchased and started rebuilding my '66 Mustang when I was 15 - My passion has _always_ been cars... 6) I went and got a BSME and talked about getting a MSME to my profs in the automotive areas and they scoffed 7) I went to work as a process engineer for a few years - really great design job involving automation. I took night school courses involving organic chem and bio w/lab.... I was also thinking about becoming an MD. I grew up in the NE and there aren't any real automotive businesses to do work in... I aced both courses which were considerably easier than any of my past or future ME courses. 8) I applied for the MCATs and MSME programs and got a great offer from Purdue's MSME program. I took the Purdue offer... 9) I received my MSME and am about 9 months away from my PhD in ME... area of expertise... automotive engineering with an emphasis on efficient design... 10)I hope to be a prof at a university designing ultra-cool and ultra-efficient cars for at least 6-10 yrs (read, to get tenure) before I switch into a biomed, nano-whatever, or some OTHER field. Yes, being a prof allows me the luxury to chase my interests and switch AS THE DEMANDS OF SOCIETY CHANGE ---- big clue!
The short of it... 1) I'm getting higher than I ever thought I could in HS 2) I have spent _forever_ in school and still wonder about the ME over MD choice. I figure I'll be successful at either. 3) I was ready for cars before the industry or gov't were... my passion, cars, has now come full circle as the gov't is _finally_ interested in efficiency whereas Europe and Asia have been for at least a decade. 4) I have been exposed to more areas in ME that are IT, EE, BioMed, Education, etc that I wouldn't have if I was "career-tracked" 5) I still don't know how long I'll be doing this before I switch areas
I think it is a HUGE mistake to think kids know what they should be doing at this age as they are terribly prepared to know what a skilled professional in WHATEVER field does. Their teachers have no idea and neither do their guidance counselors, of what a professional in that field does; sure, they might have the "pamphlet version" but nowhere near the full scope. The schools don't have the time nor the money to truck kids to places of work nor have professionals come in.
More importantly, professions change, careers change, and interests change as we age so we're sending a terrible message to the kids by telling them that they must chose NOW and that's THAT! C'mon, I doubt any of the people that are making these rules knew at the age of 14-15 that they'd have their existing job title - umm... hypocrisy.
Oh yeah, the kicker... my guidance counselor told me that I should be a cop or something more civil but DEFINITELY not anything mechanical - based on how I scored on some military aptitude test. To this day, I swear they have my results mixed with someone elses as I'd been elbow deep in mechanical items for about 5yrs by the time I took that test...
I gave student tours through M.E. labs this summer. We went into our DAQ labs and we talked about the need to use proper sampling frequencies and the trade-offs of over/under sampling. I tailored the conversation to reflect what goes on with MP3s and I asked,
"How many of you encode your own MP3s?" and was ABSOLUTELY shocked to see 1/30 kids actually knew what I was talking about.
They don't know records, They don't know that CDs represent a loss of quality in comparison to records, They don't know that MP3s represent a loss of quality in comparison to CDs They don't even know what an MP3 IS (i.e. a lossy way of encoding music)
The music industry has now created a generation of kids that think MP3 = Recorded Music IMHO, this is a mistake and does the recording artist no favors. This could ultimately lead to cheaper recordings by the artists because if certain frequencies are going to be lost due to encoding then they don't have to build such elaborate recording studios. I'm not sure if this is by design or not but it really does stink.
Ultimately, it doesn't even matter as they (dem young kids) listen to their music on earbuds which stink anyway. They won't notice the difference until they compare it to the original with a good speaker system.
seriously, it isn't that bad of a package. It has really nice templates and works out well for someone that is new to computing and guides a person to create their first set of documents, banners, calendars, etc...
the only SERIOUS flaw that prevents a person from actually continuing to use it is when they need to share that information. SURE, that person could install a free PDF creator and email the PDF to their friends BUT that isn't exactly the crowd that Works is intended for.
If a person needs a computer and never needs to share a file then Works is quite a nice package.
As soon as that person needs to share that information they are pushed to MS Office... by design...
That being said, not everyone needs/cares to share their documents as their documents are for personal/home use...
My impression is that the Shuttle either gets to orbit on auto-pilot, entirely computer controlled, or it explodes. It's not like anyone is "steering" the thing manually, or pushing buttons in carefully timed sequences.
EXACTLY - a _perfect_ reason to be drunk when a rocket is strapped to your @$$
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have a cell phone -- yup, I'm THAT guy. The only one without a cellphone.
I plan on traveling during the holidays and I usually call in to my family whenever I go from one rest stop to another. I talk for an average of 5 minutes which is about $0.50 on my calling card which includes the cost of the phone surcharge. I do this once or twice a year and make about 4 rest stop calls along the trip so I'm out a couple bucks each way.
According to your logic, I should be "happy" to spend $100 for a phone for the year when I can get by just fine with $4.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that we are slowly being squeezed into bankruptcy due to all of these "got to have-its" including DSL, Cell phones, home phones, etc which all include taxes that are larger than the original cost of the plans.
Anyhow, it just shouldn't be that expensive to live on-the-cheap.
I was part of a group discussion regarding education about 18 mos ago,
1 black
1 asian
1 white girl (from a poor W. VA coal mining community)
1 Puerto Rican
1 white male - me (a son of poor Italian immigrants who came over about 40 yrs ago)
we started talking about race and education and I quickly learned that being a white male can be a liability, no matter what is said. The interesting thing is that nobody else in the room except the other white girl understood that ALL of us felt "left out," "different" and excluded from the normal population. I can't say that I've EVER felt that I fit in - part of it is because of my upbringing and part of it is that most people I know don't think like I do about things. Anyhow, the white girl felt outside the "safe zone" because of her upbringing and coal-mining history. All of my examples of alienation or feelings of discomfort were met with the general attitude of "you have no idea, your white." This will continue for as long as we continue to group people together and use labels without actually listening to people.
I think that ALL of us have some inner voice wondering if we fit in. This should be understood before having any discussions. My pet peeve is quickly becoming using labels to group types of people.
It's amazing how many people who call themselves "Republicans" (yes, I did it) hear a couple of my questions about healthcare costs and quickly jump to the conclusion that I'm a "Democrat" and from that point on tune me out - no matter that I believe in lowering tax rates, shrinking gov't, and many other ideas that "Democrats" would use to call me a "Republican." The fact of the matter is that I'm an individual that believes in some of _these_ ideas and some of _those_ ideas. How I vote depends on who more closely aligns with the sum total of my ideas. I get lumped into a group of people called "Democrats" because I think it is outrageous to pay $18,000 to deliver a baby with NONE, ZERO, ZIP complications. God forbid you ask the question - How is the average American, earning $45k/yr, supposed to pay for a post-tax delivery of $18k? What, work for 6 mos to pay for 3 days in the hospital??? Something isn't right with the system.
Didn't mean to get political but that seems to be an area where labels get thrown around quickly.
Well, let me - an "unreasonable" customer - tell you a story.
.... turns out I was right.
This past weekend I purchased something from an e-tailer - one of the largest in the computer business.
I was torn between shipping to my house or my parents as I'm heading there for Christmas and didn't know which would be easier. I checked the shipping to both places and determined to have the components sent here so that I could save money and install the OS and such. Well, when I actually placed the order - after checking to ship it to me - it chose to ship it to my parents place AND charge the larger fee. So what did this "unreasonable" customer do?
I called and had them make the correction by hand but they refused to adjust the shipping rate. After explaining that I should get credited the difference they told me they had no proof. I sent them screenshots and STILL they were defiant. They said that it showed the same rate on their systems no matter what they did - to which I replied, "something must be wrong with your systems then." So, I tried again with a fictitious purchase to verify the steps and took screenshots all along the way. They STILL wouldn't credit the amount. All of this took hours...
I sent multiple complaint requests and was actually harassed by some of the employees UNTIL one decent fellow wrote back and asked for the screenshots. I worked with him for another 40 minutes or so, trying this and that, and documenting it all.
Conclusion: They had some bad Javascript code that wouldn't look for special characters in the identifying addresses. This would cause the system to bork and not process the changes.
So after about 4 hours of free tech support FOR THEM, name-calling, being made to feel like a total loser
I'm still waiting for the credit to post for my shipping and almost feel like sending them a bill for my services.
"unreasonable customers" - hmphhhh
Peter,
Great post. The one thing that all countries trying to become a democracy need is something like our constitution (even if some are trying to shit all over it these days). Seriously, our forefathers were BRILLIANT. They understood human nature and TRIED (oftentimes successfully) to create rules and laws that would use that human nature for the betterment. Surely, they couldn't forsee the technology and devices that we have today but they did a pretty darned good job for several hundred years. That being said, almost nobody will try to take the constitution head-on. Eventually, they will and I worry when that day arrives as I think our forefathers had more common sense and decency in their pinky then most politicians do today - I would not sleep at night knowing that these guys were writing something so powerful.
In short, for a democracy to succeed, IMHO, it needs something that can't be circumvented (by current and potentially future means) that is written in true democratic fashion and for total equality. If a gov't is trying to just add voting to a current political practice, then I don't believe that it will succeed. Just my opinion.
Now you know how engineers feel - the REAL ones
Sanitation engineer
Sound engineer (not a real acoustic engineer or vibrations engineer but the ones that do sound checks at concerts)
and more from garfoods.com/coffee/coffee.engineer.htm
1. Engineer: any one driving or operating a gas powered car, truck, train, boat, ship, plane, or generator.
2. Army Core of engineers: those who drive heavy land grading equipment for the army.
3. Chemical engineer: one who drives a cement truck gas truck, milk truck, or transports chemicals.
4. Janitorial engineer: one who drives a street sweeper.
5. Mechanical engineer: one who operates a device powered by an engine.
6. Electrical engineer: one who operates a gas powered electric generator.
7. Rocket engineer: one who flies a rocket car or ship.
8. Software engineer: one who operates a rototiller.
9. Custodial engineer: one who drives a moving van.
10. Grading engineer: one who drives a dirt grader.
11. Mining engineer: one who drives a gas powered mine train or gas powered drill.
12. Petroleum engineer: one who drives a gas truck.
13. Aeronautical engineer: one who flies a plane.
14. Hydraulics engineer: one who operates a water truck or gas powered water pumps.
15. Nautical engineer: one who operates a ship's or boat's engine.
16. Audio engineer: one who operates a gas powered jack hammer or pile driver.
17. Optical engineer: one who operates search lights typically at big sales events.
18. Nuclear engineer: one who presses the button detonating an atomic bomb.
19. Civil engineer: one who drives a Honda Civic.
20. Technical engineer: one who is confused.
21. Architectural design engineer: one who is insecure.
22. Electronic engineer: one who sucked too much lead based solder in a public college.
Great video - just wasted 1.5 hrs from that one and then all of the other links. It's sad to watch the behavior of people hearing the truth and ignoring it because it doesn't fit with the reality that they've created in their minds.
Well, the fact that they don't have any idea what people use Outlook for is exactly why they are well suited to start this project.
They've had OO for years and they have no idea what people use a word processor, spreadsheet, etc for either - so why should they stop now?
I just reported a bug AGAIN that has been FIXED about 3 times that causes the document to create extra _5f entries in the XML if tables are used. This bug will render the document useless as the entries grow at an exponential rate and eventually corrupt the document in such a way that it can't be opened unless the file is unzipped and the offending entries removed.
How's THAT for a group of people beating the drum about claiming that they can take on MSO?!
In what GALAXY do these guys live in? I wouldn't trust them to code ANYTHING anymore. What's really got me going about these guys are the following,
1) Crappy coding
2) claiming bugs are fixed WITHOUT EVEN TESTING THEM! Seriously, they have a bug that is extremely repeatable and hoses the word processor and they claim it is "fixed."
3) calling requirements "enhancements" and postponing the work for YEARS
4) splitting up an integrated desktop environment under the guise of cleaning up "bloat" only to find that the individual apps now run slower and require more memory.
5) ADVERTISING THAT THEY'LL KICK MS's BUTT!
Please, stop the rhetoric and see that OO is at least a decade behind MSO.
Sure, they've got some nice features but guess what.... MS just added bibliography ability with 2007 - one less reason for me to use OO. Now, just give me an equation editor where I can "type" the equation in (like OO) and OO will have nothing to offer me. I'm just finished with these guys.
I feel like a kid with a workaholic Dad. Dad keeps saying "not today son, maybe tomorrow." Sooner or later, the son will see the reality for what it is... Is that "Cat's in the Cradle" that I hear?????
Yup, I feel your pain. GOD FORBID you want to make that edit AFTER you've created the chart, no way to go back.
I'm convinced that, not only are the programmers completely removed from using Calc, but they have no idea how a user would choose to use it. This has been proven over and over to me with regards to statistics and plotting.
It's like - "look, we created a spreadsheet where you can put numbers into boxes" and they have no clue that those numbers actually MEAN something and that the user might actually want a good way to visualize that meaning.
I keep using it for no other reason than to ride their @$$e$. I'm at a university so MSO is essentially free but the OO guys are playing European football on an American football field - i.e. they aren't even in the same game as their competitors. I just wish they'd get a clue.
SUN would have been much better off just paying the original programmers to add whatever features they wanted to the original SO 5.2 instead of taking ownership and seriously F-ing it up! Absolutely clueless. It's as if they have 2 coders working on the whole thing. I just HATE giving up hope on them though - no matter the numerous examples as to why I should.
The Silmarillion (sp?) is a MUST read for TRUE fans. It covers the time of the world creation, the creation of the individual races (elf, man, etc), it covers the reasons why people like Aragorn live longer, etc. It covers the creation of Sauron (sp?) and the rings.
Maybe I'm the only one asking the question WHY but to me, I'd rather see that than what happened between the Hobbit and Fellowship.
The Silmarillion was a great read and it was well written and filled in so many holes. I'm sure Jackson will go back to the archives to find out what Tolkien wrote about the time between Hobbit and Fellowship so it should be pretty interesting.
Either way, the Silmarillion is a movie that really needs creating!
look at these two bugs...
46683
and
81839
they couldn't even bother to confirm the latter one because it is mind-numbingly easy to verify.
I would rather trust a bunch of monkeys at a typewriter than to put faith into the programmers behind this project. I used to think SUN might be a decent investment, ROFLMAO now!
Are you kidding me? I've used SO since 5.0 - when it was actually quick and nimble. In a nutshell,
1) It's much slower now - even though they told us they were breaking into components to make it faster - the joke is on you.
2) listening to feedback - yeah - look at their response on basic statistical analysis. Search their bugs for statistics, error bars and regression and you'll see that it's been 5-6 yrs and STILL no ability to put the equation on the chart.
3) They are SO far behind MS it's ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not an MS lover by any stretch but I use OO day-to-day and I recently sat down in front of Word 2007 and thought,
1) this will really make it easy for newbies to create nice documents
2) creating nice documents is really easy
3) too bad they won't adopt ODF as they'd clean house with Office '07.
Seriously, I've lost faith/hope in OO. Just look into GO-OO and you'll understand that things move glacially slow with OO development. Maybe IBM's 35 person addition will help but I forsee more pissing contests than actual work getting done.
Vista is a joke but Office '07 is a really nice product because it DOES make it REALLY easy to create nice looking documents. I added a picture to a test.doc that I was working on and was blown away with all the cool things that I could do with the image. In short, really easy to create nice looking documents - Isn't THAT what a good word processor should do???
Anyhow, I've lost faith that Sun will actually listen to the users of their software and, if they do, it'll be after the user has left out of frustration due to waiting.
I don't know... look at the features that go-oo already has compared to oo. It's been driving me nuts that I can't get animation to work in OO (linux). It's a joke. Sun doesn't seem to be doing anything about it and go-oo already has it working. If SUN were serious about making their Java implementation work then it'd be working by now - at least adopt the gstreamer version for now until you get java working properly; give us SOMETHING.
I'm pretty tired of the snail-pace development of OO and their working on low-impact items. Go-oo have very tangible features that should be incorporated... as of yesterday.
I don't know what SUN is doing but they are quickly spending their goodwill currency.
Well, then - I'll be the first. Grad school has DEFINITELY made me a better engineer!
I actually have gotten a chance to DIGEST the material; the usually rigorous engineering undergraduate curriculum hardly allows time for that.
It's true! The U.S. despite their rhetoric does NOT value scientific degrees - heck, this admin doesn't even respect science - in any form.
Here's the most accurate response you'll get...
Most of these other countries TRULY value science/engineering. They don't have a huge salary disparity between engineers, doctors, and lawyers. From what I'm told, an MD in India or Asia "might" make about 50% more than an engineer. It's more like 500% in this country.
If you are bright and could handle a scientific degree, medicine, or law then why not take the profession that will pay more, especially if you have a valid interest in the other disciplines. I find that many engineers like medicine so why NOT head there. I find many engineers like patents so why NOT become a patent lawyer. The salary difference is ridiculous!
I have family members in medicine making 5-6x what I will in engineering. I hope to get my PhD in M.E. very shortly. I _almost_ became a doctor and sometimes regret not going to med school. All nighters have NEVER been a problem...even in my 30s.
I'm still waiting for ASME to create an IP department whereby they provide lawyers for ME members for IP reasons. That way, we'll get paid for our ideas and ASME can license the ideas to the corporations - like the universities are doing. Why work for a corporation if you're the creative type?
Anyhow, just about anyone makes more than an engineer with a PhD (where you cap out around $100k)
The following START at about that...
- Doctors
- Lawyers
- MBAs
I've used it and quickly went back to XP.
Here's something to think about. Computers using XP have been more than fast enough since about 2001. A 1ghz (PIII) system with 512MB of RAM can actually run XP effectively for day-to-day tasks. We've spent the past 6 yrs enjoying 1.5, 2 Ghz, 2.5Ghz, 3Ghz and now dual-core systems running XP. For each CPU upgrade, we've noticed a diminished performance boost - there is only so much fast WE can operate.
So..I'm going to say that anything over 1 Ghz was overkill. Vista, on a dual core 1.6Ghz system isn't really that great. So, MS has wiped away any performance gain going to a higher processor and it STILL stinks. It's like you need a dual-core 2.4 Ghz system with a buttload of RAM to run effectively.
In the history (as I know it) of the introduction of an OS, I've _never_ seen an OS created that required hardware that would be common in 1-2yrs after the OS introduction. Typically, the OS pushes the envelopes of what is already out there but runs pretty snappy on what it is being packaged with. I just don't know how the programmers could have squandered that much _reserve_ processing power and _still_ be demanding more.
SP1 better have some serious recoding done to optimize their code for performance or it still won't catch on.
It's sad, that I can take my 1ghz machine with 512mb of RAM running PCLOS and Compiz-fusion and have it be REAL responsive.
Mod parent up as s/he's totally correct.
I'm TIRED of Seamonkey doing this to me. There I am, late night, surfing some research papers but I'm too tired to finish the reading. I put the laptop into hibernate mode to resume the next day. Almost, without exception, Seamonkey will hang and drive my cpu usage up to 100% upon resuming the surfing.
I'm getting VERY tired of this and I'll be off to install Opera. At first I wasn't sure if it was my system but the fact that someone else knows about this to assures me that I'm not an isolated incident. Time to give Opera a go.
Anyhow, I'm tired of going back through my history and re-opening the read and the not-read pages in search of the sites that I didn't get to. Thanks for the ride Mozilla but enough is enough!
I'd wager I'd get the following responses if I were to ask other professionals in their fields
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that physics makes the world go around. - said the physicist
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that chemistry makes the world go around. - said the chemist
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that engineering makes the world go around. - said the engineer
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that money makes the world go around. - said the economist
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that politics makes the world go around. - said the politician
I think it's great that the public is starting to realize that belly-button lint makes the world go around. - said G.W.
China only depends on the US to buy their products until India (300 Million US vs 1 Billion Indians) starts buying Chinese products; usually the first thing that a growing middle class does is buy "stuff." So, China won't "need" the US nearly as much in about a decade or two. China only depends on the US to buy their products until Europe starts buying more CHinese stuff. Currently, they don't buy as much as the Europeans I know tend to buy quality hardware and keep it in the family for as long as they can - not the US way of doing things (e.g. typically buy & dump and buy again). But that's the Western Europeans that I know. I wonder if the Eastern Europeans are the same or not. Anyhow, to me - I'd bet that China will start calling in their "loans" over the next couple decades. I've seen India growing and seen the wealth spreading. It won't be long before China gets tired of the US and moves on to other nations.
Then I'd like to use your system ;-). OO and SO definitely don't open THAT quickly for me and I've used just about every version. Here are some places to try out 5.2 and note that it hasn't been supported since Sun picked it up so it's dated but the speed is still there...
1 .htms /
I googled "download staroffice 5.2" and got the following hits,
http://www.trustmeher.net/freeware/staroffice-dn0
http://download.reitoria.ufsc.br/staroffice/ingle
Anyhow, I hope that a project like LSB gains acceptance - I use PCLinuxOS - a great distro. #2 on Distrowatch after Ubuntu and with a fraction of the support. It doesn't look like LSB is doing that much to me though - great idea but as you've already stated, the implementation isn't working out all that well, just because everyone has their own ideas on how to do things "better."
[quote]I've noticed StarOffice 8 (Based on OOo) opens up pretty instantly. Looks like you have your wish.[/quote]
with or without the preloader? Feel free to try 5.2 and let me know what you think. I'm not sure which distros are using LSB at all. Feel free to educate me as to the percentage of Linux distributions that are using LSB compared to the ones that are not.
Sorry but it's true...
;-)
/mnt for partitions isn't intuitive; having to go "here" for the executable and "there" for the config file is pretty lame too. Oh, you want a config file - go check in /etc/, you wan't a networking config file, go to /etc/sysconfig/netwo.... - It's not THAT bad but it's not nearly as easy as it could be.
I've been using linux for 7 yrs now and after 5 yrs of hardcore use and then one yr of moderate use, I'm now finding myself also using Windows more often and here's why...
Programs!
I've had this theory that the porting of FOSS programs from Linux/Unix to windows will hurt Linux and those on the opposite side of the fence said "but wait, if we create the programs for Windows then that's good; when they switch to linux they will be able to use the same apps and feel at home." It's believable but it isn't factual. The truth is that linux changes too quickly and there are too many changes within distros.
The beauty of Windows - I need program A so I just go to the developer's site and download it - thanks to FOSS software. Try that with Linux - it can't be done; there are too many distros and versions out there for an rpm, deb, etc to get built even within a single distro.
Before you go out and tell me about apt, synaptic, etc - I'm aware. Each and every one of these tools relies on a developer to create the package and add it to the repo - this is another obstacle. Remember, in Windows - I go directly to the developer and take the package and install. In linux, I'm waiting and hoping that a developer will hear my plea to add the package to the repo before I can install it. Sure, I could build it myself BUT that's provided my distro doesn't do anything funky with file locations, versions, etc.
That's the number 1 reason I find myself in the Windows world these days. I'm tired of waiting to have them built and added and I'm tired of the warning that if I do it myself that I could "break" something. Just fire up WinXP and download/install to XP - now that my favorite Linux apps are available on XP
1) SOOO - my vote goes to the linux distros unify how their distros work so that developers can build packages.
other than that,
2) decent filesystem - looking in
3) get ACPI/APM to just work and stop forking around! There are so many tools out there and each with their own special niche - it's maddening. What does my distro do? Add them all and hope the user figures them out! Just maddening.
4) updating the look of programs - the old unix X-window styling is still around on many programs. XFig for 1 but it isn't alone; great program but being ignored due to the ugly interface. It would be nice if X took care of updating the interface.
In short, here's how I'd define linux progress "2 steps forward, 1 step back."
Unless we're talking about OO speed then it's "1 step forward, 2 steps back." Funny how the "individual" program Swriter takes longer to load than "Staroffice 5.2" which was this integrated desktop environment and deemed "bloatware" by the OO developers. They blew their horn and claimed that they were going to strip it down and speed it up - LMFAO - 6 yrs later and SO 5.2 wipes the floor with OO, in terms of speed. I'm praying that someone comes along and rewrites OO such that it performs only twice as slow as MS Word - as opposed to the 5-7x slowdown currently enjoyed.
OK, well... here's my story and hopefully after reading it you'll see why I think that this is a bad idea...
.... I was also thinking about becoming an MD. I grew up in the NE and there aren't any real automotive businesses to do work in... I aced both courses which were considerably easier than any of my past or future ME courses.
1) My parents are Italian immigrants
2) Their speaking Italian/screwed-up-English resulted in me having poor english skills
3) they were both blue-collar workers
4) I didn't know "what" I wanted to do and believed that the gold ring was out of my reach
5) I took some AP courses AND autoshop! My Dad was an autobody guy and I was into engines. I purchased and started rebuilding my '66 Mustang when I was 15 - My passion has _always_ been cars...
6) I went and got a BSME and talked about getting a MSME to my profs in the automotive areas and they scoffed
7) I went to work as a process engineer for a few years - really great design job involving automation. I took night school courses involving organic chem and bio w/lab
8) I applied for the MCATs and MSME programs and got a great offer from Purdue's MSME program. I took the Purdue offer...
9) I received my MSME and am about 9 months away from my PhD in ME... area of expertise... automotive engineering with an emphasis on efficient design...
10)I hope to be a prof at a university designing ultra-cool and ultra-efficient cars for at least 6-10 yrs (read, to get tenure) before I switch into a biomed, nano-whatever, or some OTHER field. Yes, being a prof allows me the luxury to chase my interests and switch AS THE DEMANDS OF SOCIETY CHANGE ---- big clue!
The short of it...
1) I'm getting higher than I ever thought I could in HS
2) I have spent _forever_ in school and still wonder about the ME over MD choice. I figure I'll be successful at either.
3) I was ready for cars before the industry or gov't were... my passion, cars, has now come full circle as the gov't is _finally_ interested in efficiency whereas Europe and Asia have been for at least a decade.
4) I have been exposed to more areas in ME that are IT, EE, BioMed, Education, etc that I wouldn't have if I was "career-tracked"
5) I still don't know how long I'll be doing this before I switch areas
I think it is a HUGE mistake to think kids know what they should be doing at this age as they are terribly prepared to know what a skilled professional in WHATEVER field does. Their teachers have no idea and neither do their guidance counselors, of what a professional in that field does; sure, they might have the "pamphlet version" but nowhere near the full scope. The schools don't have the time nor the money to truck kids to places of work nor have professionals come in.
More importantly, professions change, careers change, and interests change as we age so we're sending a terrible message to the kids by telling them that they must chose NOW and that's THAT! C'mon, I doubt any of the people that are making these rules knew at the age of 14-15 that they'd have their existing job title - umm... hypocrisy.
Oh yeah, the kicker... my guidance counselor told me that I should be a cop or something more civil but DEFINITELY not anything mechanical - based on how I scored on some military aptitude test. To this day, I swear they have my results mixed with someone elses as I'd been elbow deep in mechanical items for about 5yrs by the time I took that test...
I gave student tours through M.E. labs this summer. We went into our DAQ labs and we talked about the need to use proper sampling frequencies and the trade-offs of over/under sampling. I tailored the conversation to reflect what goes on with MP3s and I asked,
"How many of you encode your own MP3s?" and was ABSOLUTELY shocked to see 1/30 kids actually knew what I was talking about.
They don't know records,
They don't know that CDs represent a loss of quality in comparison to records,
They don't know that MP3s represent a loss of quality in comparison to CDs
They don't even know what an MP3 IS (i.e. a lossy way of encoding music)
The music industry has now created a generation of kids that think MP3 = Recorded Music
IMHO, this is a mistake and does the recording artist no favors. This could ultimately lead to cheaper recordings by the artists because if certain frequencies are going to be lost due to encoding then they don't have to build such elaborate recording studios. I'm not sure if this is by design or not but it really does stink.
Ultimately, it doesn't even matter as they (dem young kids) listen to their music on earbuds which stink anyway. They won't notice the difference until they compare it to the original with a good speaker system.
Sooo, ultimately, it doesn't matter anyhow...
seriously, it isn't that bad of a package. It has really nice templates and works out well for someone that is new to computing and guides a person to create their first set of documents, banners, calendars, etc...
the only SERIOUS flaw that prevents a person from actually continuing to use it is when they need to share that information. SURE, that person could install a free PDF creator and email the PDF to their friends BUT that isn't exactly the crowd that Works is intended for.
If a person needs a computer and never needs to share a file then Works is quite a nice package.
As soon as that person needs to share that information they are pushed to MS Office... by design...
That being said, not everyone needs/cares to share their documents as their documents are for personal/home use...
EXACTLY - a _perfect_ reason to be drunk when a rocket is strapped to your @$$