Why not find ways to unwind at your desk? Stand up, walk around, look out the window from time to time, or spend a few minutes reading tech news sites when you need to turn your brain off?
Regardless of where I take my break, it's a problem right now, since simply the act of taking a break reminds me of smoking; which causes more stress than it relieves (right now. As I said, I'm sure it'll get better with time).
It used to be that I'd take a break by looking out the window, or reading tech news sites, going outside, or whatever, and have a cigarette along with that activity. Now I simply have to try to take a break without smoking. That's the hard part.
If your boss has a problem with it, tell him it's take a few minutes to move around and get the blood flowing, or take a cigarette break, and that you were spending the same time on smoking as you are now.
That's simply not an issue. My direct boss works in a different country than I do, and I'm in charge of my department, so I see my boss extremely rarely. Plus, he smokes more than I ever used to (I think the MOST I ever smoked was around 25 to 30 a day (but on average it was more like 15 to 20 a day); whereas I don't think I've seen him smoke LESS than 30 a day).
I couldn't stand the highly technical coding I do for a job without my periodic "Cigarette Break". Every couple of hours I go outside into fresh air, light up a cig, see some daylight, and let my mind relax for a moment, to recharge for another 2 hour bout of the highly quantitative stuff I do.
I quit smoking just a bit over two weeks ago; and this is what I'm finding hardest so far.
I'm also a coder; and responsible for a lot of product planning matters as well. I used to use my cigarette breaks as "unwinding" time. Now that I'm not smoking, I take fewer breaks (generally just one in the morning; one for lunch; and one in the afternoon) and the lack of "unwinding" is really causing problems for me. I tried increasing my breaks back to the same as when I smoked, but since it's still so soon after quitting, each break reminds me too much of wanting to light up and it really stresses me out more than letting me relax.
If you ever decide to quit, be wary of this... I don't have a good solution - I'm just counting on that it'll get easier with time.
If smoking is so great and such a valuable right that others shouldn't be able to stop you doing it whenever and wherever you please, why do cigarette companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year just to keep convincing people they need to keep doing it?
They don't. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try to get people to start smoking (or re-start as the case may be). Current smokers basically ignore most cigarette advertising as the vast majority will stick to one brand once they're accustomed to it.
I smoked for over half of my life; and just quit two weeks ago. Cigarette advertising was something that I hardly noticed before - now I see it everywhere.
Or, do you also object to visiting all you can eat buffets just in case your modest consumption is "subsidising" the fat bastard who went back for a 2nd plate?
Personally... yeh.
I AM a fat bastard, but I know for a fact that I can get a better meal cheaper by not choosing the "all you can eat buffet" option. Last time I looked at one of those, I think I would've needed to eat 3 or 4 plates worth of the most expensive thing in the buffet in order to even MATCH the price of eating the same food at a regular cafe.
somewhat rare. gotta give it to her for Rockin an Orc, they are fun, and so are assassination rogues. it seems that its usually a fat smellly guy you picture behind the female in general chat swearing they are a chic and you and your buddy go, yea right lol
In my experience (limited first hand, since I don't play MMORPGs, but reasonably extensive second hand); males will happily play both male and female characters quite indiscriminately. Females on the other hand almost always play female characters.
I don't have any data, just anecdotes of friends and family (including my wife, who plays WoW with about 6 different characters and all of them female).
Will you fucking lemming-cunts stop modding everything up to +5 when it's wrong?
No. Because moderation is NOT about "right" or "wrong". It's about "Interesting", "Informative", "Insightful", "Funny", "Offtopic", "Troll", and "Flamebait".
Whilst having mod point, I've often disagreed entirely with what someone is saying and was quite certain that it was completely and utterly wrong. It was however extremely interesting, and so I modded it as such. As far as I can tell from reading the moderation guidelines, that is the correct thing to do.
This very post I'm now writing for example should probably get some "Offtopic" and some "Informative" mods. Maybe "Insightful" or "Interesting" if some people think so, but I personally don't.
Thanks for that - I just read through it and it really did help.
I planned this months in advance. My first attempt was before my daughter was born as I REALLY wanted her to have a non-smoking Dad. After one week though, my wife told me to buy cigarettes, since my mood was so foul, she just couldn't handle it.
This time, we planned it so that my wife and daughter (now 18 months old) would be on holiday without me. I've gone cold turkey - no patches, no gum, nothing. The first three days were AGONY... physical pain in all my joints and muscles, sweating, unable to sleep. It got a bit better though and by the end of the first week, when my family came back from their little holiday, I was reasonably okay. I'm now approaching the end of week 2 (in 6 hours, it'll be 14 days since my last cigarette) and I'm still horribly moody, not thinking particularly clearly and not particularly pleasant; but the worst of it is over.
Now, every time I feel I desperately NEED a cigarette (the triggers you mentioned are all there for me, definitely...), I just think of two things - the reason I'm doing it (my wife and daughter); and the agony I went through to quit, knowing I don't ever want to have to do that again.
Tomorrow is my first day back at work and it's worth mentioning that where I live, you CAN smoke in the office at work - there'll be noone smoking in my office (you can't smoke when others in the same office room object) but I do visit other people's offices quite frequently who smoke like trains, so it'll be harder/impossible to avoid others smoking. So tomorrow's going to be a very hard day for me; but I'm totally sure I'll manage it - AND every day after it for the rest of my life.
I recommend Germany. People often say Germans are "harsh" and "direct", but that's what I love about living here. When someone screws up at work, you can say "hey, you screwed up" (and expect the same from them when you screw up). And when I was dating here before I met my wife; I had women straight up tell me, "sorry, I won't go out with you because I think you're ugly". But others (including the woman who is now my wife) straight up told me, "I think you're really cute". The brutal honesty of the former is more than made up for the fact that it makes it much easier to believe the latter when you hear it. Similarly, I feel a lot closer to my friends here than I did when living in other countries (note however, there are fewer of them), purely because they're so honest that they tell me when they've got a problem with me. I know they're not holding anything back or saying bad things behind my back (they'd just say it to my face).
Note that this is just "in general" and "in comparison to other places I've lived". There most certainly are deceptive backstabbing dickheads here in Germany as well; but in my 5 years here, I've met very few of them.
Perhaps you should make yourself aware of both of them, before attempting to correct others who know what they mean to say
Perhaps you should read that I apologised twice for my mistakes already - it was due to reading comprehension failure (which I attribute to nicotine withdrawal - I'm quitting smoking) and not due to a lack of knowledge of the books. Regardless of the cause, it was my failure though, and I apologised for it.
I hadn't heard of it until reading these comments but there is a 'last answer' by Asimov as well. The common mistake seems to be people correcting those who mention it..!
I am aware of the story "The Last Answer", but didn't think it has much at all to do with the topic at hand, and had just replied to someone else about "The Last Question" so mistakenly assumed the reference here should also be to it. Totally my fault on lack of comprehension, since re-reading the GP post; he clearly did mean "The Last Answer" and was wondering about the relationship between the stories...
You're right... it's my fault for not reading the GGP fully. I only skimmed it, saw the premise of "The Last Question" and assumed that's what the GP meant. I am aware of the story "The Last Answer", but don't think it has much at all to do with the topic at hand, so assumed the AC suggesting it really meant The Last Question.
But what if you build the computer outside the Universe so it is not part of the Universe. The AC was in hyperspace... BTW, is the One in the Last Answer story the cosmic AC?
The story is called "The Last Question", not "The Last Answer"... seems to be a common mistake; but completely defeats the point of the story. The point is that the question remains the same throughout the ages and is always answered the same way; until the very end when there is finally a way to answer to the last question - however the answer is never given since only through demonstration of the answer can there be someone to give the answer to.
As for the name of the computer, it changes for each "time period"... "AC" is the only stable part. The first one is "Multivac", the very last one is just "AC". "Cosmic AC" is, IIRC, the second last one.
On a different note, on the.TLD front, why not require that every generic TLD we currently have -.com,.org,.net,.gov,.edu,.mil be preceded by the country TLD to which it belongs? Thereby, one would have things like nasa.us.gov, mit.us.edu, oxford.eng.edu, dod.us.mil and so on. For the ones that already exist, alias them to such a new system, so that those handful of TLDs are generic. After that, there should be less of a proliferation of TLDs. And they all get to be managed by different countries. Only exceptions would be international organizations, like un.gov, nato.mil and so on.
With the large amount of international companies, you don't really gain much. The company I work for, Konica Minolta, has the following:
- Global headquarters, company based in Japan and website hosted in Japan, but NOT specifically for Japan.
- Japanese domestic company, company based in Japan, website hosted in Japan, and intended for Japanese market. Reports to Global headquarters.
- European headquarters, company based in Germany, website hosted in Germany, but intended for entire European market, not just Germany. Reports to Global headquarters.
- German domestic company, company based in Germany, website hosted in Germany (by EU HQ), and intended for German market. Reports to European Headquarters.
- French domestic company, company based in France, website hosted in Germany (by EU HQ), and intended for French market. Reports to European Headquarters.
- UK domestic company, company based in UK, website hosted in Germany (by EU HQ), and intended for UK market. Reports to European Headquarters.
- New Zealand domestic company, company based in New Zealand, website probably hosted in New Zealand and intended for New Zealand market. Reports to Global headquarters.
And of course many many more for each country where we have a direct presence.
Under the system you propose, we'd have to keep our Global HQ site as is; and then simply add a ".com" after each of the others (and since countries like NZ with ".co.nz", AU with ".com.au" and UK with ".co.uk" already have this sort of system; you're essentially just proposing to change from ".co.nz" to ".nz.com" and from ".com.au" to ".au.com" which is annoying to the people there and also kind of pointless). Also, what do you propose be done for the "eu" situation? Should for example German companies become ".de.eu.com"? or just ".de.com"? If the former; what happens when new countries join the EU or countries leave? And if the latter, how do you propose current ".eu" are handled? As ".eu.com"? And if so, how is it any more clear under this system than the one we currently have?
Basically speaking, I think the system you're proposing would be a huge pain to implement and then offer absolutely no benefits whatsoever over the current messy system we already have.
Of course if you live in a country were the local bird life like to dive bomb passing cyclists in spring time, this is another good reason to wear a helmet.
Actually, when I lived in Amsterdam (a good 12 or 13 years ago now), I found the pigeons in the inner city pretty evil when cycling around (actually, significantly worse in the vicinity of coffeeshops which had open windows; so I do believe they might in fact have been stoned pigeons). Still didn't make me wear a helmet though.
If you define "a good 30 minutes" as "quite some time" I shudder for the future of your attention span.
Put your hand on a hot stove for two seconds and it seems like two hours. Sit with a beautiful girl for two hours and it seems like two minutes. That's relativity.
But seriously, when talking about drinking something; yes 30 minutes is "quite some time". I generally knock back a cold drink in a matter of a minute or two and a hot drink like coffee in about 10.
And I'll guarantee my attention span is better than the average - I'm a software developer.
Seriously? I would agree that 16 ounces of soda is nothing to laugh at given the calories involved, but 16 ounces of liquid is nothing. Eight ounces is hardly even worth the time it takes to get the drink. Have you ever physically exerted yourself in a hot/humid environment? When working outside during the summer I frequently go through about two to three liters of water an hour.
I tend to avoid exerting myself in hot/humid environments; but yes, I'll grant that under extreme circumstances, one can (and should) drink significantly more.
However, going on a ferris wheel (the activity mentioned in reference to the drink size) is hardly a strenuous task that requires significant liquid intake.
Per day, I tend to drink about 2 to 3 litres of cold drinks (soda/pop/fizz/whatever-you-call-it (however, the sugar-free varieties) or plain water), and about half a litre of coffee (with sugar and milk). The cold drinks are fairly evenly spaced throughout the day in the general, so I drink about "a cup" of something every hour and a half or so (assuming 8 hours sleep where I'm not drinking anything).
Your tourist website sadly seems to agree with you. It really doesn't look to be a great deal there that would interest me as a tourist. However reading up on it, if I HAD to live in New York City for whatever reason, it seems like a good choice on places to live.
I am honestly appalled that anyone could call 237ml a "tiny" drink. 16 oz is 473ml - more than I would usually consider purchasing to drink in one go unless ridiculously thirsty or planning to drink it over the course of quite some time (e.g. a sipper bottle; or a beer with friends (I buy beer at pubs by the half-litre, but it usually takes me a good 30 minutes to drink one)).
In fact, I was thinking about that I generally treat recipes that say "1 cup" to be "just a bit under 250ml" and so looked it up on a converter. It turns out 8 fluid ounces is exactly "1 cup". I fail to understand how someone could consider the standard unit for holding a drinkable liquid (a cup) to be an inadequate amount of liquid for drinking!
You have a "boat anchor." You are invaluable until the day the company decides to move, then you are a liability.
Yes and no... since the chance of us replacing ALL our proprietary technologies simultaneously is basically zero (breaking backwards compatibility on our software to our hardware would be VERY painful to the company), we tend to migrate slowly from one to another, phasing one out as we phase another in.
I'm the guy who learns the new one as it gets phased in, so the only way I'm getting fired is if we hire someone new as we phase in new technologies, then I get fired after the last technology that I was responsible for gets phased out. And I'd of course see that coming.
Don't forget that as I said I've been with the company for 10 years now - we've already gone through several technology changes in that time.
Plus of course, there's absolutely no sensible reason for the company to do such a thing - they've expressed their happiness with keeping me; and I've expressed my happiness to stay there basically indefinitely (also having turned down several offers for "promotion" to management, since I'm a pretty good developer but quite likely a very crappy manager).
There is not a single job someone is doing right now that somebody else couldn't do.
My job is not particularly special or amazing, but there are only about 10 people worldwide who could walk in and do it straight away with comparable quality to the way I do it (and I know all of them; and since they're all already doing basically the same job, but somewhere else, they couldn't just jump in and replace me).
There are of course millions of people who could walk in and start doing it with 3 to 6 months of hard-core study. It's not special; or amazingly difficult; it's just that my job requires knowing the inner workings of several different technologies, of which about 50% are "reasonably well known" and the other 50% are totally and completely proprietary to the company I work for.
I've spent 10 years working in my job; and almost daily learn something new with at least one of these technologies. So, am I replaceable? Absolutely I am. Would it however be a serious pain in the arse for the company to do so? Most definitely.
While I wouldn't call McDonald's "high quality" food anywhere, I do notice distinct quality difference in different countries.
Their burgers in Australia and New Zealand tend to both be quite high quality, with good meat; fresh lettuce / salad parts; and fries that are recognisably made from potato. Here in Germany, the standard is somewhat lower; but still not so bad. France seems somewhat lower than here in Germany - bordering on "I'm not sure I want to eat that". And the UK is even lower at "I'm quite sure I don't want to eat that". For the absolute bottom of the scale though, the one time I ate McDonalds in the US, I was absolutely unable to eat more than a couple of bites due to the poor quality. The bun was literally sweet with the amount of sugar used in it; the meat was over-salted and tasted more like a beef/pork mix than pure beef (which is fine when it is really a mix, but when it is supposed to be beef, that's a bit of a concern); and the fries were more fat/oil than potato matter. Even the drink tasted syrupy and weird (I found that in bottled drinks there also though; so I'm assuming it's the difference between the HFCS based versions and the sugar-cane based versions that I'm used to)
It might not always be like that there, and indeed may vary from state to state or store to store even; but that one time (which was at LAX airport for the record) has turned me off the idea of trying it there ever again.
I'm running Fusion 5.0.1 with the same setup (only 57.6 gig on the desktop tho) on a laptop, so 2.5' platter drive. Not seeing that CPU issue but getting lots of slowdowns when both OSes hit the drive at the same time. If you install MenuMeters it will be invaluable in seeing what your mac is doing when it grinds to a halt and at least give you a fighting chance to diagnose the problem.
Oddly, I don't find simultaneous access to be much of a problem. This is also a 2.5" inch drive of course; being in my MacBook Pro.
I hadn't heard of MenuMeters - it looks useful for quick "at a glance" overviews of the system; however for this particular case, I already took a look at what it's doing using top on the command-line and only saw that (as somewhat expected by the performance) VMWare was using an excessive amout of CPU and there was a lot of disk activity in general.
Just as a test, I tried it out on a different Mac right now and couldn't replicate the problem. Both are Mountain Lion; both are VMWare 5.0.1; both have Windows 7 as the hosted OS. On the Mac I just tested, MSE is set to "Limit CPU usage during scan to 50%"; and it appeared to do so. On the MacBook Pro however, with this set to 20%, it still seems to choke the CPU completely. Right now, I'm still assuming it's a problem with VMWare failing to pass the correct information about CPU usage over to the hosted OS for this particular CPU/Motherboard/System.
MSE has always been good for me on Windows systems with one exception:
On my Windows 7 VM on my work laptop (a Mac) it chokes badly whenever it tries to perform a full scan. Even set to use minimal CPU, it somehow still seems to clog the complete system (I assume it's method for determining CPU usage doesn't work nicely under that VM scenario).
Since I'm using the VMWare option to "share" folders so my desktop, documents, etc are virtual locations shared from the real Mac folders, the scan attempts to go through the complete structure on the Mac side, which is up to around 750GB or so at the moment; including many large archives (I've read reports that this is also a known problem for MSE, but I haven't encountered it on any other systems).
Overall, I'm still very much in favour of it compared to other systems, but this one case is annoying me somewhat at the moment.
I completely agree with you on all points except the last.
The Chevrolet Volt (called "Opel Ampera" in most of Europe, "Vauxhall Ampera" in England and "Holden Volt" in AU/NZ) is a low-end Luxury Vehicle and I think is a good move on their part compared to the likes of the Prius or Leaf. Definitely not up there with the Tesla vehicles as far as performance goes; but it's got the "looks" and "feel" of a luxury vehicle other than top speed (which other than here in Germany; you're not likely to notice in day to day driving). It definitely compares with the other low-end luxury sedans from the same manufacturer (I find it very similar in overall feel to the Holden Commodore Acclaim that I used to drive in Australia as a company car)
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Why not find ways to unwind at your desk? Stand up, walk around, look out the window from time to time, or spend a few minutes reading tech news sites when you need to turn your brain off?
Regardless of where I take my break, it's a problem right now, since simply the act of taking a break reminds me of smoking; which causes more stress than it relieves (right now. As I said, I'm sure it'll get better with time).
It used to be that I'd take a break by looking out the window, or reading tech news sites, going outside, or whatever, and have a cigarette along with that activity. Now I simply have to try to take a break without smoking. That's the hard part.
If your boss has a problem with it, tell him it's take a few minutes to move around and get the blood flowing, or take a cigarette break, and that you were spending the same time on smoking as you are now.
That's simply not an issue. My direct boss works in a different country than I do, and I'm in charge of my department, so I see my boss extremely rarely. Plus, he smokes more than I ever used to (I think the MOST I ever smoked was around 25 to 30 a day (but on average it was more like 15 to 20 a day); whereas I don't think I've seen him smoke LESS than 30 a day).
I couldn't stand the highly technical coding I do for a job without my periodic "Cigarette Break". Every couple of hours I go outside into fresh air, light up a cig, see some daylight, and let my mind relax for a moment, to recharge for another 2 hour bout of the highly quantitative stuff I do.
I quit smoking just a bit over two weeks ago; and this is what I'm finding hardest so far.
I'm also a coder; and responsible for a lot of product planning matters as well. I used to use my cigarette breaks as "unwinding" time. Now that I'm not smoking, I take fewer breaks (generally just one in the morning; one for lunch; and one in the afternoon) and the lack of "unwinding" is really causing problems for me. I tried increasing my breaks back to the same as when I smoked, but since it's still so soon after quitting, each break reminds me too much of wanting to light up and it really stresses me out more than letting me relax.
If you ever decide to quit, be wary of this... I don't have a good solution - I'm just counting on that it'll get easier with time.
If smoking is so great and such a valuable right that others shouldn't be able to stop you doing it whenever and wherever you please, why do cigarette companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year just to keep convincing people they need to keep doing it?
They don't. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try to get people to start smoking (or re-start as the case may be). Current smokers basically ignore most cigarette advertising as the vast majority will stick to one brand once they're accustomed to it.
I smoked for over half of my life; and just quit two weeks ago. Cigarette advertising was something that I hardly noticed before - now I see it everywhere.
Or, do you also object to visiting all you can eat buffets just in case your modest consumption is "subsidising" the fat bastard who went back for a 2nd plate?
Personally... yeh.
I AM a fat bastard, but I know for a fact that I can get a better meal cheaper by not choosing the "all you can eat buffet" option. Last time I looked at one of those, I think I would've needed to eat 3 or 4 plates worth of the most expensive thing in the buffet in order to even MATCH the price of eating the same food at a regular cafe.
somewhat rare. gotta give it to her for Rockin an Orc, they are fun, and so are assassination rogues. it seems that its usually a fat smellly guy you picture behind the female in general chat swearing they are a chic and you and your buddy go, yea right lol
In my experience (limited first hand, since I don't play MMORPGs, but reasonably extensive second hand); males will happily play both male and female characters quite indiscriminately. Females on the other hand almost always play female characters.
I don't have any data, just anecdotes of friends and family (including my wife, who plays WoW with about 6 different characters and all of them female).
Will you fucking lemming-cunts stop modding everything up to +5 when it's wrong?
No. Because moderation is NOT about "right" or "wrong". It's about "Interesting", "Informative", "Insightful", "Funny", "Offtopic", "Troll", and "Flamebait".
Whilst having mod point, I've often disagreed entirely with what someone is saying and was quite certain that it was completely and utterly wrong. It was however extremely interesting, and so I modded it as such. As far as I can tell from reading the moderation guidelines, that is the correct thing to do.
This very post I'm now writing for example should probably get some "Offtopic" and some "Informative" mods. Maybe "Insightful" or "Interesting" if some people think so, but I personally don't.
Thanks for that - I just read through it and it really did help.
I planned this months in advance. My first attempt was before my daughter was born as I REALLY wanted her to have a non-smoking Dad. After one week though, my wife told me to buy cigarettes, since my mood was so foul, she just couldn't handle it.
This time, we planned it so that my wife and daughter (now 18 months old) would be on holiday without me. I've gone cold turkey - no patches, no gum, nothing. The first three days were AGONY... physical pain in all my joints and muscles, sweating, unable to sleep. It got a bit better though and by the end of the first week, when my family came back from their little holiday, I was reasonably okay. I'm now approaching the end of week 2 (in 6 hours, it'll be 14 days since my last cigarette) and I'm still horribly moody, not thinking particularly clearly and not particularly pleasant; but the worst of it is over.
Now, every time I feel I desperately NEED a cigarette (the triggers you mentioned are all there for me, definitely...), I just think of two things - the reason I'm doing it (my wife and daughter); and the agony I went through to quit, knowing I don't ever want to have to do that again.
Tomorrow is my first day back at work and it's worth mentioning that where I live, you CAN smoke in the office at work - there'll be noone smoking in my office (you can't smoke when others in the same office room object) but I do visit other people's offices quite frequently who smoke like trains, so it'll be harder/impossible to avoid others smoking. So tomorrow's going to be a very hard day for me; but I'm totally sure I'll manage it - AND every day after it for the rest of my life.
Where can you go IRL for that kind of honesty?
I recommend Germany. People often say Germans are "harsh" and "direct", but that's what I love about living here.
When someone screws up at work, you can say "hey, you screwed up" (and expect the same from them when you screw up).
And when I was dating here before I met my wife; I had women straight up tell me, "sorry, I won't go out with you because I think you're ugly". But others (including the woman who is now my wife) straight up told me, "I think you're really cute". The brutal honesty of the former is more than made up for the fact that it makes it much easier to believe the latter when you hear it.
Similarly, I feel a lot closer to my friends here than I did when living in other countries (note however, there are fewer of them), purely because they're so honest that they tell me when they've got a problem with me. I know they're not holding anything back or saying bad things behind my back (they'd just say it to my face).
Note that this is just "in general" and "in comparison to other places I've lived". There most certainly are deceptive backstabbing dickheads here in Germany as well; but in my 5 years here, I've met very few of them.
Perhaps you should make yourself aware of both of them, before attempting to correct others who know what they mean to say
Perhaps you should read that I apologised twice for my mistakes already - it was due to reading comprehension failure (which I attribute to nicotine withdrawal - I'm quitting smoking) and not due to a lack of knowledge of the books. Regardless of the cause, it was my failure though, and I apologised for it.
I hadn't heard of it until reading these comments but there is a 'last answer' by Asimov as well. The common mistake seems to be people correcting those who mention it..!
I am aware of the story "The Last Answer", but didn't think it has much at all to do with the topic at hand, and had just replied to someone else about "The Last Question" so mistakenly assumed the reference here should also be to it. Totally my fault on lack of comprehension, since re-reading the GP post; he clearly did mean "The Last Answer" and was wondering about the relationship between the stories...
You're right... it's my fault for not reading the GGP fully. I only skimmed it, saw the premise of "The Last Question" and assumed that's what the GP meant. I am aware of the story "The Last Answer", but don't think it has much at all to do with the topic at hand, so assumed the AC suggesting it really meant The Last Question.
But what if you build the computer outside the Universe so it is not part of the Universe. The AC was in hyperspace... BTW, is the One in the Last Answer story the cosmic AC?
The story is called "The Last Question ", not "The Last Answer"... seems to be a common mistake; but completely defeats the point of the story. The point is that the question remains the same throughout the ages and is always answered the same way; until the very end when there is finally a way to answer to the last question - however the answer is never given since only through demonstration of the answer can there be someone to give the answer to.
As for the name of the computer, it changes for each "time period"... "AC" is the only stable part. The first one is "Multivac", the very last one is just "AC". "Cosmic AC" is, IIRC, the second last one.
You should probably also read The Last Answer, also freely available online. An equally thought-provoking short story.
I believe the story you're referring to is "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov.
On a different note, on the .TLD front, why not require that every generic TLD we currently have - .com, .org, .net, .gov, .edu, .mil be preceded by the country TLD to which it belongs? Thereby, one would have things like nasa.us.gov, mit.us.edu, oxford.eng.edu, dod.us.mil and so on. For the ones that already exist, alias them to such a new system, so that those handful of TLDs are generic. After that, there should be less of a proliferation of TLDs. And they all get to be managed by different countries. Only exceptions would be international organizations, like un.gov, nato.mil and so on.
With the large amount of international companies, you don't really gain much. The company I work for, Konica Minolta, has the following:
And of course many many more for each country where we have a direct presence.
Under the system you propose, we'd have to keep our Global HQ site as is; and then simply add a ".com" after each of the others (and since countries like NZ with ".co.nz", AU with ".com.au" and UK with ".co.uk" already have this sort of system; you're essentially just proposing to change from ".co.nz" to ".nz.com" and from ".com.au" to ".au.com" which is annoying to the people there and also kind of pointless).
Also, what do you propose be done for the "eu" situation? Should for example German companies become ".de.eu.com"? or just ".de.com"? If the former; what happens when new countries join the EU or countries leave? And if the latter, how do you propose current ".eu" are handled? As ".eu.com"? And if so, how is it any more clear under this system than the one we currently have?
Basically speaking, I think the system you're proposing would be a huge pain to implement and then offer absolutely no benefits whatsoever over the current messy system we already have.
Of course if you live in a country were the local bird life like to dive bomb passing cyclists in spring time, this is another good reason to wear a helmet.
Actually, when I lived in Amsterdam (a good 12 or 13 years ago now), I found the pigeons in the inner city pretty evil when cycling around (actually, significantly worse in the vicinity of coffeeshops which had open windows; so I do believe they might in fact have been stoned pigeons). Still didn't make me wear a helmet though.
If you define "a good 30 minutes" as "quite some time" I shudder for the future of your attention span.
Put your hand on a hot stove for two seconds and it seems like two hours. Sit with a beautiful girl for two hours and it seems like two minutes. That's relativity.
But seriously, when talking about drinking something; yes 30 minutes is "quite some time". I generally knock back a cold drink in a matter of a minute or two and a hot drink like coffee in about 10.
And I'll guarantee my attention span is better than the average - I'm a software developer.
Seriously? I would agree that 16 ounces of soda is nothing to laugh at given the calories involved, but 16 ounces of liquid is nothing. Eight ounces is hardly even worth the time it takes to get the drink. Have you ever physically exerted yourself in a hot/humid environment? When working outside during the summer I frequently go through about two to three liters of water an hour.
I tend to avoid exerting myself in hot/humid environments; but yes, I'll grant that under extreme circumstances, one can (and should) drink significantly more.
However, going on a ferris wheel (the activity mentioned in reference to the drink size) is hardly a strenuous task that requires significant liquid intake.
Per day, I tend to drink about 2 to 3 litres of cold drinks (soda/pop/fizz/whatever-you-call-it (however, the sugar-free varieties) or plain water), and about half a litre of coffee (with sugar and milk). The cold drinks are fairly evenly spaced throughout the day in the general, so I drink about "a cup" of something every hour and a half or so (assuming 8 hours sleep where I'm not drinking anything).
I really don't want tourists on my island.
And there's nothing to look at here anyway.
Your tourist website sadly seems to agree with you. It really doesn't look to be a great deal there that would interest me as a tourist. However reading up on it, if I HAD to live in New York City for whatever reason, it seems like a good choice on places to live.
tiny 8 oz. drinks
I am honestly appalled that anyone could call 237ml a "tiny" drink. 16 oz is 473ml - more than I would usually consider purchasing to drink in one go unless ridiculously thirsty or planning to drink it over the course of quite some time (e.g. a sipper bottle; or a beer with friends (I buy beer at pubs by the half-litre, but it usually takes me a good 30 minutes to drink one)).
In fact, I was thinking about that I generally treat recipes that say "1 cup" to be "just a bit under 250ml" and so looked it up on a converter. It turns out 8 fluid ounces is exactly "1 cup". I fail to understand how someone could consider the standard unit for holding a drinkable liquid (a cup) to be an inadequate amount of liquid for drinking!
You have a "boat anchor." You are invaluable until the day the company decides to move, then you are a liability.
Yes and no... since the chance of us replacing ALL our proprietary technologies simultaneously is basically zero (breaking backwards compatibility on our software to our hardware would be VERY painful to the company), we tend to migrate slowly from one to another, phasing one out as we phase another in.
I'm the guy who learns the new one as it gets phased in, so the only way I'm getting fired is if we hire someone new as we phase in new technologies, then I get fired after the last technology that I was responsible for gets phased out. And I'd of course see that coming.
Don't forget that as I said I've been with the company for 10 years now - we've already gone through several technology changes in that time.
Plus of course, there's absolutely no sensible reason for the company to do such a thing - they've expressed their happiness with keeping me; and I've expressed my happiness to stay there basically indefinitely (also having turned down several offers for "promotion" to management, since I'm a pretty good developer but quite likely a very crappy manager).
There is not a single job someone is doing right now that somebody else couldn't do.
My job is not particularly special or amazing, but there are only about 10 people worldwide who could walk in and do it straight away with comparable quality to the way I do it (and I know all of them; and since they're all already doing basically the same job, but somewhere else, they couldn't just jump in and replace me).
There are of course millions of people who could walk in and start doing it with 3 to 6 months of hard-core study. It's not special; or amazingly difficult; it's just that my job requires knowing the inner workings of several different technologies, of which about 50% are "reasonably well known" and the other 50% are totally and completely proprietary to the company I work for.
I've spent 10 years working in my job; and almost daily learn something new with at least one of these technologies. So, am I replaceable? Absolutely I am. Would it however be a serious pain in the arse for the company to do so? Most definitely.
While I wouldn't call McDonald's "high quality" food anywhere, I do notice distinct quality difference in different countries.
Their burgers in Australia and New Zealand tend to both be quite high quality, with good meat; fresh lettuce / salad parts; and fries that are recognisably made from potato. Here in Germany, the standard is somewhat lower; but still not so bad. France seems somewhat lower than here in Germany - bordering on "I'm not sure I want to eat that". And the UK is even lower at "I'm quite sure I don't want to eat that".
For the absolute bottom of the scale though, the one time I ate McDonalds in the US, I was absolutely unable to eat more than a couple of bites due to the poor quality. The bun was literally sweet with the amount of sugar used in it; the meat was over-salted and tasted more like a beef/pork mix than pure beef (which is fine when it is really a mix, but when it is supposed to be beef, that's a bit of a concern); and the fries were more fat/oil than potato matter. Even the drink tasted syrupy and weird (I found that in bottled drinks there also though; so I'm assuming it's the difference between the HFCS based versions and the sugar-cane based versions that I'm used to)
It might not always be like that there, and indeed may vary from state to state or store to store even; but that one time (which was at LAX airport for the record) has turned me off the idea of trying it there ever again.
I'm running Fusion 5.0.1 with the same setup (only 57.6 gig on the desktop tho) on a laptop, so 2.5' platter drive. Not seeing that CPU issue but getting lots of slowdowns when both OSes hit the drive at the same time. If you install MenuMeters it will be invaluable in seeing what your mac is doing when it grinds to a halt and at least give you a fighting chance to diagnose the problem.
Oddly, I don't find simultaneous access to be much of a problem. This is also a 2.5" inch drive of course; being in my MacBook Pro.
I hadn't heard of MenuMeters - it looks useful for quick "at a glance" overviews of the system; however for this particular case, I already took a look at what it's doing using top on the command-line and only saw that (as somewhat expected by the performance) VMWare was using an excessive amout of CPU and there was a lot of disk activity in general.
Just as a test, I tried it out on a different Mac right now and couldn't replicate the problem. Both are Mountain Lion; both are VMWare 5.0.1; both have Windows 7 as the hosted OS. On the Mac I just tested, MSE is set to "Limit CPU usage during scan to 50%"; and it appeared to do so. On the MacBook Pro however, with this set to 20%, it still seems to choke the CPU completely.
Right now, I'm still assuming it's a problem with VMWare failing to pass the correct information about CPU usage over to the hosted OS for this particular CPU/Motherboard/System.
MSE has always been good for me on Windows systems with one exception:
On my Windows 7 VM on my work laptop (a Mac) it chokes badly whenever it tries to perform a full scan. Even set to use minimal CPU, it somehow still seems to clog the complete system (I assume it's method for determining CPU usage doesn't work nicely under that VM scenario).
Since I'm using the VMWare option to "share" folders so my desktop, documents, etc are virtual locations shared from the real Mac folders, the scan attempts to go through the complete structure on the Mac side, which is up to around 750GB or so at the moment; including many large archives (I've read reports that this is also a known problem for MSE, but I haven't encountered it on any other systems).
Overall, I'm still very much in favour of it compared to other systems, but this one case is annoying me somewhat at the moment.
I completely agree with you on all points except the last.
The Chevrolet Volt (called "Opel Ampera" in most of Europe, "Vauxhall Ampera" in England and "Holden Volt" in AU/NZ) is a low-end Luxury Vehicle and I think is a good move on their part compared to the likes of the Prius or Leaf. Definitely not up there with the Tesla vehicles as far as performance goes; but it's got the "looks" and "feel" of a luxury vehicle other than top speed (which other than here in Germany; you're not likely to notice in day to day driving). It definitely compares with the other low-end luxury sedans from the same manufacturer (I find it very similar in overall feel to the Holden Commodore Acclaim that I used to drive in Australia as a company car)