Umm, I hate to say it, but you sound to me like someone who either tried I.T. and failed, and now has a grudge to bear - or possibly someone who's still too young to be in a situation where it takes more than $7 or $8 an hour to make ends meet.
I've worked my share of near min. wage jobs, and I've worked in I.T. where I was paid well for what I did - and now, I can honestly say I work in computers (on-site PC service) where I feel like I truly choose my own destiny, salary-wise. (If I want to work late evenings, weekends and holidays, I can bill people time and a half and rake in some good money. But it's at the expense of my time to spend with my family - so I generally opt not to do so.)
All things considered, I think anyone truly performing well in I.T. completely DESERVES to be paid upwards of $10/hr. Look at it this way. The local CompUSA store is going to bill for repair work at rates exceeding $75/hr. (I think it's $85/hr. last I checked?) Meanwhile, the techs doing all of that work are earning maybe $10/hr. or so, tops? Where's the fairness in that??
I agree with your assertion that it's wrong to keep working in a field where you know full well that your labor is going to ends you disapprove of. Problem is, it's rarely that clear cut. Most large corporations have their hands in so many different things that it's near impossible to claim that the little piece of the "whole" you perform directly contributes to the decline of Western civilization. Take a company like Monsanto, for example. Sure, some folks say they produce horrible chemicals and pesticides that cause huge environmental problems. Is that going to stop you from accepting an I.T. job there? I wouldn't lose sleep over it if I worked for them (and I don't/never did - BTW). They're the same folks responsible for plenty of useful and even life-saving materials they developed. It all depends on which details you want to focus on, I guess.
Mmm... I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue. I tend to agree that it borders on the "insane" - but so do most "extreme sports" and loads of other things people do for entertainment, and the sake of record-breaking.
From the sake of the engineering challenge itself, it seems like a good exercise. If you read the whole article, you'd see where they had a very difficult time getting someone to construct the copper tube with the exact specifications needed. In the end, only one guy (a German coppersmith who does everything pretty much by hand) could provide what they needed. Then they had to take the time to calculate the additional power draw needed and modified the motherboard appropriately.
Practically speaking though, no - it's not too useful to have to have someone sitting there pouring liquid nitrogen down the tube while you use the computer.:)
Well, actually, I think often times, shareware programs eventually become public-domain freeware, after the author feels the code is no longer generating him/her enough profit to make it worthwhile to maintain it.
Not everybody wants to expend the effort required to write a piece of software and not even take a shot and seeing if "it's worth paying for". Shareware makes a decent "test bed" to find out if what you wrote is worth money to people or not.
Maybe so - but I suspect it's much more a question of priorities. When's the last time I blew money on going to see a movie, a concert, or a sporting event? It's literally been years. I prefer saving up my money to "splurge" on the occasional "big ticket" item, instead of blowing it on lots of the little things that add up to draining your finances.
I also only own one TV set, and it's a 27" I bought cheap as a damaged return model, 5 or 6 years ago.
True, except in the days of the Apple II, there were numerous personal computer makers. It wasn't the "Apple vs. IBM clone" world we have today.
I don't know that it's even fair to accuse Apple of making a poor decision when they opted to cater to the "high end" and keep higher profit margins? They made that choice in a world where it seemed like Atari, Radio-Shack, Commodore, and many others were all going to be competitors with fairly equal chunks of the "PC sales" pie.
Right.... I finally "bit the bullet" and got myself the big 40GB iPod - but damn, it is an expensive toy.
My only real justification for it is this: I figure I'll be doing much more with mine than just listening to music. I like the fact that you can actually put your entire OS on one, and boot from it via firewire as an external drive.
If you start using your iPod as a mass removeable storage device, buying the larger capacity models starts making more sense.
For the people who simply need a music player with a friendly interface, the new $115 or so offerings will be just the thing.
I've been in the category of "Apple hater" for quite some time. (Yes, I did briefly go the Apple route, back in '96 or '97, when I started feeling like I really needed to give one a chance instead of bashing something I never even owned. After 3 months with that Performa 6400 tower, I was back to Apple bashing, and unloaded the system A.S.A.P.!)
Well, 2003 has been the year that turned me around! Money has been pretty tight for me throughout this year, but I somehow managed to borrow and scrape up enough money to get a dual 2.0Ghz G5 tower, a Powerbook 15" laptop, 40GB iPod *and* iSight camera. So as you can see, I've VERY MUCH bought into the new Apple product line!
Here's the thing. I've been working in computers and I.T. for almost 14 years now. I can't remember the last time a new computer and/or OS offering really excited me since my first Timex/Sinclair 1000, and my Tandy Color Computer 2 and 3 I owned after that.
(Well, ok - I was pretty thrilled when OS/2 Warp and eventually 4.0 came out - but IBM quickly put a damper on that enthusiasm, with their horrible marketing of the OS.)
This year, Apple has brought out what I consider the near perfect OS, the near-perfect laptop to run it on, and an amazing desktop system to run it on. The iPod speaks for itself, and the iSight.... well, frankly, it's just an "impulse buy" because at $149, you may as well own a well-made camera that matches your multi-thousand dollar Mac systems.
If there's one thing I can justify sinking my money in, it's computer technology. I use the stuff all day long and most evenings too. I make all my money from it. Why wouldn't I want to own hardware and software that impresses me and makes me proud, rather than the same old beige boxes everyone else uses?
It appears it's not just me, either. Two of my ex co-workers from a previous I.T. job both made the switch to Macs and OS X this year - and both would have NEVER considered an Apple system before. (I had no say in their decisions either. I was shocked to hear they both had Macs now!)
Yeah... you make very good points, but I have to admit, I'm a bit "put off" by several coffee houses I visited in the past in my area. They seem much too interested in enforcing rules about buying drinks while you're there. I mean, let's face it. Posting signs about a "2 drink minimum" might be socially acceptable at a comedy club, but it's not something we're accustomed to seeing at a food/drink establishment. Imagine if the corner bars started pressuring the people playing darts or billiards to "buy another beer in the next 5 minutes, or you're out, pal!".
If you run a coffee house and you're having problems making ends meet because all the teens come in and play games all night and don't buy anything - the best solution isn't to make them feel unwelcome. Instead, redesign things to resolve the problem. Perhaps, set up a "gaming area" where everyone is required to pay some sort of fee for admittance, and then they're welcome to play as long as they want. (Give them a wrist bracelet after they pay or something?)
If you have crowds of people who like your place enough to come in and hang around, you're only one small step away from using that to your advantage. Kicking them out/running them off puts you back at square 1, by contrast.
I think a lot of folks are like myself.... I know the basics of the VoIP concept - but I'm still a little fuzzy on just why this technology would be beneficial to the home user at this time?
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of tools around to allow voice chatting over the net. I guess the idea of having a standard protocol for the purpose is a good thing - but realistically, it doesn't seem like it's offering much value for the end-user just yet.
The telephone is popular mainly because it's dead reliable and EASY to use.
Believe it or not, one of the most original/unique games I've played this year is on the Apple Mac platform!
It's called "Enigmo", and it's sort of a "real-time puzzle game", in the tradition of something like Lemmings. You have falling drops of water, oil and lava which must be captured in the proper containers at the bottom of the screen. You're given a set of objects you can place anyplace on the screen to attempt to achieve this goal. (Of course, there are lots of interesting little catches. If a stream of drops of lava intersect a stream of water drops, the water drops evaporate, for example.) As you complete levels, you get more interesting challenges and new tools in your arsenal of objects to direct the flow of the droplets.
It's a very well done little game, and can be quite addictive.
I think I miss the hypocricy - even IF I download RIAA sponsored music from iTunes music store! Wouldn't this simply be showing them that this digital music model does work? I don't think it's all that realistic to expect the RIAA to vanish into thin air. Therefore, it's illogical to think you're winning the "war on the RIAA" by simply refusing to ever buy anything that gives them some profit.
The best you can do is protest the problems they cause, and support the distribution methods you do believe in. Then, hopefully, the revenue from the new business models will convince them that change is due.
Yes, but the question is always whether it was really an unavoidable accident, or blatant negligence. Even in wartime, we understand MANY soldiers will lose their lives - but it doesn't mean we tolerate an officer ordering his troops into certain mass death because of bad planning or decision-making.
I think the recent hold-ups with NASA have been largely because folks are concerned they're cutting corners on safety -- choosing to save a few dollars rather than do what's most prudent.
The astronauts may be willing to risk their lives for the sake of the space program, but I think they want to do so as heros, not casualties of NASA cost-cutting gone wrong.
It's all relative, really. Every dry cell battery I've ever seen says someplace on it (or on the bubble-pack container it comes in) that it could explode if tossed into an open flame/incinerated.
Shorting out any battery creates large amounts of heat, and you're dealing with the core of it being encased in some type of metal or plastic lining... so sure, the expansion from the heat and boiling chemicals inside might burst said container and "explode".
How big an issue is it? Well, not enough of one that anybody I know feels unsafe having batteries lying around in their house, car, or devices.
I'm not denying that the handful of shootings by postal workers is a tragedy -- but it's only a video game. I played Postal 2 quite a bit, and it pokes fun at all sorts of things, including groups against violence in games, life in the trailer parks, and a whole slew of sterotypical figures (arab grocery store owners, etc. etc.).
I think it's fairly obvious that the authors take nothing in the game too seriously. (Heck, one of the weapons is the guy throwing an unlimited supply of scissors at people. How realistic is that?)
IMHO, it's really a pretty humorous little game, if you don't get all worked up and offended over parts of it.
I've been recommending Targus bags for years. Pretty much everything they make is good quality. (Well, I'd probably avoid their most basic nylon bag for a nice laptop, but it's just the thing, at $29 or so, to carry around an old "beater" laptop in.)
The "Universal Air" is a good option.... Under $100 and lots of padding.
What really impressed me with Targus was their willingness to honor their claimed "lifetime warranty". I had a bag that was years old and obviously well worn. The strap finally tore off on one side, and the zipper broke. Targus let me send it in, and they actually re-sewed all the torn stitching and replaced the worn inner panels with new ones, and returned it for free within a couple weeks.
Well, I really *tried* to get into the MMORPG thing via Shadowbane when it first came out. After 2 hours or so, I just didn't like it at all - but my wife REALLY got into it. Now, she plays the thing addictively every day, and I uninstalled it from my computer.
I love the idea of a massive multiplayer online world, but I don't love the D&D "hack/slash", "buy/sell weapons, spells, armor", "gain experience/levels" formula. I also don't care for the design of many of the MMORPGs where you're practically required to spend a certain amount of time "checked in" to the game, doing routine maintenance tasks and so on, or else everything you worked to build falls apart.
I think an MMORPG based on either modern times or the future would be just fine, as long as it didn't concentrate on warfare so much. I'm not advocating more of "The Sims" either -- but I guess I'm thinking of something where you get to do a lot of creative construction/development of parcels of property. The things you build should become permanent fixtures in the game, even if you cancel your user account. (Shadowbane makes a big deal about having this type of thing, but in reality, it's more of a manipulation tool to provoke battle and the taking of sides; EG. So much money is required to build and maintain a city and walls that you have to keep killing things to keep the money flowing in to maintain it.)
Just like the real world, there should be the potential for battle/conflict, but it should be VERY costly to undertake, and require more than just one player deciding he/she wants to "stir up some trouble".
I think there would be plenty of potential for fun in a game like this because A) you'd spend a lot of time exploring the things other people are actively building, and B) you'd build in some sort of loose, evolving storyline that allows your character to go on interesting missions. There should be plenty of useful objects to seek out, but they shouldn't necessarily be practical (or required) to obtain through battling/defeating the other players online.
Ok, first off - let me say I'm totally lost as to why some idiot labeled your post as a "troll"?! I guess they're just gung-ho about seeing the local record stores die, in favor of virtual online shops....
Ultimately, I think the entire landscape of music sales is changing. That means, retail music stores need to rethink how they sell their music, and online stores will do so too. (Does anyone really believe we need as many online music stores as we have popping up all over the place? It's just a "Quick! Hop on the bandwagon!" fad, which will soon end with only a few survivors.) The good part is, the survivors will truly be "best of breed" and ready for the "real world" of day to day retail sales.
To me, the core issue is much like sales of books. Amazon.com does a pretty good job of handling online book sales, yet it doesn't replace all of the local bookstores. In fact, we saw some merging of the real and the virtual (EG. Barnes & Noble) - which is arguably the most sensible thing for a business to do.
There's MUCH to be said for "instant gratification". Used properly, this concept can benefit either a web site or a real "brick and mortar" store. For online stores, this means realizing you'll ALWAYS lose a certain percentage of sales because people don't like waiting to receive product in the mail. They want it *immediately* after paying for it. It also means it's smart to make as many things available as "instant downloads" as possible (but even then, a percentage of folks won't be impressed, if they don't have the bandwidth to make a nearly instant download practical/possible). For the real stores, this means keeping a really good inventory of product in stock at all times. If the best you can tell a person is "We can order it for you!", it's little more than a nice way of saying "Nope! We don't carry it, and you may as well go elsewhere for it."
Retail stores have the potential advantage of winning almost all of those "instant gratification" purchases - but only if they have the selection *and* provide the pleasant experience that beats the online shopping experience.
So no, I don't think the "record store" has any reason to become extinct -- but it needs to understand the competition and what areas they're better/worse in.
Well, popular or not, I can tell you that quite a few co-workers expressed similar feelings on the salary issue. I certainly wasn't the "lone exception".
IMHO, there's a serious double-standard going on with regards to pay. People act like what they earn should be a highly-guarded secret, yet the same folks who are most concerned about this buy conspicuous, high-ticket items to show off their wealth. (EG. You don't *need* a new luxury sedan to get to and from work. A cheap Chevy or Ford would do just fine. But then, it wouldn't have the "impress my friends/acquaintances" factor... the "look at me - I'm really going places!" look of a new BMW or Lexus.)
By contrast, ask any retail, fast-food, or low-level factory shop floor worker what their co-workers make, and they're very likely to know almost the exact numbers. It's no big secret to them.
Yeah, what's with that?? The Hulk struck me (and my wife, who's not even all that much of a computer graphics conniseur) as, well, crappy CGI. It looked like they overlaid him on top of a projected backdrop most of the time, and he wasn't believable as part of the scene at all.
Having watched Matrix Reloaded 3 times now on DVD, I'd still say I considered the f/x as at least "excellent quality". The person nit-picking about the faces in the Smith fight scene is paying a little too much attention to small details, IMHO. If it looked a little bit "computer-generated", it's the perfect movie to have that "problem" anyway!
You know what? I think I *would* actually like to see annual reviews conducted "in the open". Hold a meeting for that purpose, and let the manager address each individual working for him/her, and go over what he/she sees as areas needing improvement, as well as areas each person is doing well in.
One of the biggest things that harbors distrust and resentment in the corporate environment is secret-keeping and subsequent rumor-mongering. Every time you see someone pulled into the bosses' office and the door shut, rumors start flying about what trouble the person got into. Usually, reality is much less of a "big deal" than the silly things people come up with on their own.
And as for salaries, that's another whole "can of worms". I understand each situation is different, and there may be very good reasons for keeping salaries a big secret. But as a rule, I'd prefer working for people who post their salary ranges for each job position clearly, so everyone knows (within a couple thousand bucks or so, anyway) what everyone else is earning. Companies that refuse to give you any idea what your co-workers are earning create more problems than it's worth, in the long run. Accusations fly about "the new guy that started out making more than the guy who worked there for 5 years to earn that much pay", and so on. It may or may not be true - but it doesn't matter. It hurts morale.
Nah, I've heard a number of well-founded comments on things lacking in Shrek. Personally, I enjoyed it - but only coming into it realizing it was just supposed to be entertainment for kids, with a few sight-gags and laughs thrown in for the adults to appreciate. I think it accomplished that goal (as well as having the interesting side-note that it was rendered using Linux-based systems).
Was Shrek a "masterpiece" of computer animation? No way.... But I don't think it had to be. It surely beat the quality of some of these non-animated kids' movies that Disney seems to crank out non-stop.
You make a great point, but I've personally been in situations where management actively discouraged attempts to break through this divide.
Sometimes, it's not the people on the "tech side" of the fence who have the communications problem. I recall wanting to bring up an issue directly with our company's C.E.O. - because I knew it was going to get buried or spun into some watered-down idea invented by my manager if I went through the usual "chain of command" with it. I finally had a good opportunity when I ran into him as he was going from one building to the other, and we were chit-chatting a bit. I went from the "small talk" to my idea. Know what? The C.E.O. stopped me after only a couple sentences, telling me he didn't want to hear any more about it - and that I needed to discuss it with my direct manager instead.
Management often does things that ensure they stay well seperated from the "rank and file" employees, except when they feel it's strategically important to make a personal appearance. I recall being in meetings where the managers and VP's of depts. all went out to lunch together, leaving everyone else to eat the catered lunches that were ordered for everyone.
In fact, the very idea that they get real offices with doors they can close automatically sends a message that the company thinks it's important that these people have a higher level of isolation than everyone else gets.
Also, while it's always more productive to have solutions than complaints, sometimes the complaints are generated because of co-workers generating *false* solutions, in attempts to look superior. I recall doing *plenty* of complaining at a couple of past jobs, yet I'm typically looked upon as one of the people who has "all the answers" or is good at coming up with "creative solutions". When I start complaining, it usually has a lot to do with implementation of poor ideas that are being pushed off as solutions by someone who doesn't have a clue (but who can "talk the talk" enough to sell his/her poor ideas to management anyway).
Along with a few very well-put replies to your post, I'd like to add another thought.
In the case of the "arts", and in this specific case, music - I don't necessarily understand why we should "care that some human beings paid for a studio and recorded the music for a record label that distributed it for them"?
Perhaps the entire process is twisted? Look at it this way: Someone who chooses a profession of making music is a big risk-taker. Instead of doing what most of us do to earn money (accepting someone's agreement for payment in return for doing a specific type of labor for them), they opt to create music, betting/hoping that the public will enjoy it enough to pay them for it. They're not providing a tangible good, and not even anything one could reasonably describe as a "necessity" or "needed service". It's simply a form of entertainment.
People with the notion that "artists *deserve* to be paid for their work" are simply wrong! They don't *deserve* anything, other than the right to freedom to compose anything they like and freedom to record it. Their music stands (or falls) on its own merit. If it's really good, then yes - they stand a good chance of profiting from it. If they can do that consistently, they can make a living of it. But to say they're automatically owed monetary compensation is ridiculous.
If I sit around and paint a bunch of paintings, that doesn't mean I deserve to profit from their sale - no matter how much I spent on paint and supplies. Maybe nobody likes my artwork enough to pay for it, and they'd only hang it up if it was given to them for free?
That's how the arts should be. Make music because you enjoy doing it. If you really have talent, profit will likely follow (but there's nothing saying it must). It may cost you quite a bit and then you lose it all, too. Real musicians make music because they *need* to do it. Wanna-be's make music because they think they can "get rich" from it.
Well, it might be worth noting that Microsoft also released a freeware Word document viewer utility - so one can always use it to view one of these files, rather than feeling forced to buy a copy of MS Word to do so.
I seem to recall loading a document into WordPad once that was larger than it could handle, and it let me know by giving me a dialog box error to that effect. (After that, I believe it still let me work with as much of the file as it was able to load in, but some was simply cut off.)
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Umm, I hate to say it, but you sound to me like someone who either tried I.T. and failed, and now has a grudge to bear - or possibly someone who's still too young to be in a situation where it takes more than $7 or $8 an hour to make ends meet.
I've worked my share of near min. wage jobs, and I've worked in I.T. where I was paid well for what I did - and now, I can honestly say I work in computers (on-site PC service) where I feel like I truly choose my own destiny, salary-wise.
(If I want to work late evenings, weekends and holidays, I can bill people time and a half and rake in some good money. But it's at the expense of my time to spend with my family - so I generally opt not to do so.)
All things considered, I think anyone truly performing well in I.T. completely DESERVES to be paid upwards of $10/hr. Look at it this way. The local CompUSA store is going to bill for repair work at rates exceeding $75/hr. (I think it's $85/hr. last I checked?) Meanwhile, the techs doing all of that work are earning maybe $10/hr. or so, tops? Where's the fairness in that??
I agree with your assertion that it's wrong to keep working in a field where you know full well that your labor is going to ends you disapprove of. Problem is, it's rarely that clear cut. Most large corporations have their hands in so many different things that it's near impossible to claim that the little piece of the "whole" you perform directly contributes to the decline of Western civilization. Take a company like Monsanto, for example. Sure, some folks say they produce horrible chemicals and pesticides that cause huge environmental problems. Is that going to stop you from accepting an I.T. job there? I wouldn't lose sleep over it if I worked for them (and I don't/never did - BTW). They're the same folks responsible for plenty of useful and even life-saving materials they developed. It all depends on which details you want to focus on, I guess.
Mmm... I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue. I tend to agree that it borders on the "insane" - but so do most "extreme sports" and loads of other things people do for entertainment, and the sake of record-breaking.
:)
From the sake of the engineering challenge itself, it seems like a good exercise. If you read the whole article, you'd see where they had a very difficult time getting someone to construct the copper tube with the exact specifications needed. In the end, only one guy (a German coppersmith who does everything pretty much by hand) could provide what they needed. Then they had to take the time to calculate the additional power draw needed and modified the motherboard appropriately.
Practically speaking though, no - it's not too useful to have to have someone sitting there pouring liquid nitrogen down the tube while you use the computer.
Well, actually, I think often times, shareware programs eventually become public-domain freeware, after the author feels the code is no longer generating him/her enough profit to make it worthwhile to maintain it.
Not everybody wants to expend the effort required to write a piece of software and not even take a shot and seeing if "it's worth paying for". Shareware makes a decent "test bed" to find out if what you wrote is worth money to people or not.
Maybe so - but I suspect it's much more a question of priorities. When's the last time I blew money on going to see a movie, a concert, or a sporting event? It's literally been years.
I prefer saving up my money to "splurge" on the occasional "big ticket" item, instead of blowing it on lots of the little things that add up to draining your finances.
I also only own one TV set, and it's a 27" I bought cheap as a damaged return model, 5 or 6 years ago.
True, except in the days of the Apple II, there were numerous personal computer makers. It wasn't the "Apple vs. IBM clone" world we have today.
I don't know that it's even fair to accuse Apple of making a poor decision when they opted to cater to the "high end" and keep higher profit margins? They made that choice in a world where it seemed like Atari, Radio-Shack, Commodore, and many others were all going to be competitors with fairly equal chunks of the "PC sales" pie.
Right.... I finally "bit the bullet" and got myself the big 40GB iPod - but damn, it is an expensive toy.
My only real justification for it is this: I figure I'll be doing much more with mine than just listening to music. I like the fact that you can actually put your entire OS on one, and boot from it via firewire as an external drive.
If you start using your iPod as a mass removeable storage device, buying the larger capacity models starts making more sense.
For the people who simply need a music player with a friendly interface, the new $115 or so offerings will be just the thing.
I've been in the category of "Apple hater" for quite some time. (Yes, I did briefly go the Apple route, back in '96 or '97, when I started feeling like I really needed to give one a chance instead of bashing something I never even owned. After 3 months with that Performa 6400 tower, I was back to Apple bashing, and unloaded the system A.S.A.P.!)
Well, 2003 has been the year that turned me around! Money has been pretty tight for me throughout this year, but I somehow managed to borrow and scrape up enough money to get a dual 2.0Ghz G5 tower, a Powerbook 15" laptop, 40GB iPod *and* iSight camera. So as you can see, I've VERY MUCH bought into the new Apple product line!
Here's the thing. I've been working in computers and I.T. for almost 14 years now. I can't remember the last time a new computer and/or OS offering really excited me since my first Timex/Sinclair 1000, and my Tandy Color Computer 2 and 3 I owned after that.
(Well, ok - I was pretty thrilled when OS/2 Warp and eventually 4.0 came out - but IBM quickly put a damper on that enthusiasm, with their horrible marketing of the OS.)
This year, Apple has brought out what I consider the near perfect OS, the near-perfect laptop to run it on, and an amazing desktop system to run it on. The iPod speaks for itself, and the iSight.... well, frankly, it's just an "impulse buy" because at $149, you may as well own a well-made camera that matches your multi-thousand dollar Mac systems.
If there's one thing I can justify sinking my money in, it's computer technology. I use the stuff all day long and most evenings too. I make all my money from it. Why wouldn't I want to own hardware and software that impresses me and makes me proud, rather than the same old beige boxes everyone else uses?
It appears it's not just me, either. Two of my ex co-workers from a previous I.T. job both made the switch to Macs and OS X this year - and both would have NEVER considered an Apple system before. (I had no say in their decisions either. I was shocked to hear they both had Macs now!)
Yeah... you make very good points, but I have to admit, I'm a bit "put off" by several coffee houses I visited in the past in my area. They seem much too interested in enforcing rules about buying drinks while you're there. I mean, let's face it. Posting signs about a "2 drink minimum" might be socially acceptable at a comedy club, but it's not something we're accustomed to seeing at a food/drink establishment. Imagine if the corner bars started pressuring the people playing darts or billiards to "buy another beer in the next 5 minutes, or you're out, pal!".
If you run a coffee house and you're having problems making ends meet because all the teens come in and play games all night and don't buy anything - the best solution isn't to make them feel unwelcome. Instead, redesign things to resolve the problem. Perhaps, set up a "gaming area" where everyone is required to pay some sort of fee for admittance, and then they're welcome to play as long as they want. (Give them a wrist bracelet after they pay or something?)
If you have crowds of people who like your place enough to come in and hang around, you're only one small step away from using that to your advantage. Kicking them out/running them off puts you back at square 1, by contrast.
I think a lot of folks are like myself.... I know the basics of the VoIP concept - but I'm still a little fuzzy on just why this technology would be beneficial to the home user at this time?
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of tools around to allow voice chatting over the net. I guess the idea of having a standard protocol for the purpose is a good thing - but realistically, it doesn't seem like it's offering much value for the end-user just yet.
The telephone is popular mainly because it's dead reliable and EASY to use.
Believe it or not, one of the most original/unique games I've played this year is on the Apple Mac platform!
It's called "Enigmo", and it's sort of a "real-time puzzle game", in the tradition of something like Lemmings. You have falling drops of water, oil and lava which must be captured in the proper containers at the bottom of the screen. You're given a set of objects you can place anyplace on the screen to attempt to achieve this goal. (Of course, there are lots of interesting little catches. If a stream of drops of lava intersect a stream of water drops, the water drops evaporate, for example.) As you complete levels, you get more interesting challenges and new tools in your arsenal of objects to direct the flow of the droplets.
It's a very well done little game, and can be quite addictive.
I think I miss the hypocricy - even IF I download RIAA sponsored music from iTunes music store! Wouldn't this simply be showing them that this digital music model does work? I don't think it's all that realistic to expect the RIAA to vanish into thin air. Therefore, it's illogical to think you're winning the "war on the RIAA" by simply refusing to ever buy anything that gives them some profit.
The best you can do is protest the problems they cause, and support the distribution methods you do believe in. Then, hopefully, the revenue from the new business models will convince them that change is due.
Yes, but the question is always whether it was really an unavoidable accident, or blatant negligence. Even in wartime, we understand MANY soldiers will lose their lives - but it doesn't mean we tolerate an officer ordering his troops into certain mass death because of bad planning or decision-making.
I think the recent hold-ups with NASA have been largely because folks are concerned they're cutting corners on safety -- choosing to save a few dollars rather than do what's most prudent.
The astronauts may be willing to risk their lives for the sake of the space program, but I think they want to do so as heros, not casualties of NASA cost-cutting gone wrong.
It's all relative, really. Every dry cell battery I've ever seen says someplace on it (or on the bubble-pack container it comes in) that it could explode if tossed into an open flame/incinerated.
... so sure, the expansion from the heat and boiling chemicals inside might burst said container and "explode".
Shorting out any battery creates large amounts of heat, and you're dealing with the core of it being encased in some type of metal or plastic lining
How big an issue is it? Well, not enough of one that anybody I know feels unsafe having batteries lying around in their house, car, or devices.
I'm not denying that the handful of shootings by postal workers is a tragedy -- but it's only a video game. I played Postal 2 quite a bit, and it pokes fun at all sorts of things, including groups against violence in games, life in the trailer parks, and a whole slew of sterotypical figures (arab grocery store owners, etc. etc.).
I think it's fairly obvious that the authors take nothing in the game too seriously. (Heck, one of the weapons is the guy throwing an unlimited supply of scissors at people. How realistic is that?)
IMHO, it's really a pretty humorous little game, if you don't get all worked up and offended over parts of it.
I've been recommending Targus bags for years. Pretty much everything they make is good quality. (Well, I'd probably avoid their most basic nylon bag for a nice laptop, but it's just the thing, at $29 or so, to carry around an old "beater" laptop in.)
The "Universal Air" is a good option.... Under $100 and lots of padding.
What really impressed me with Targus was their willingness to honor their claimed "lifetime warranty". I had a bag that was years old and obviously well worn. The strap finally tore off on one side, and the zipper broke. Targus let me send it in, and they actually re-sewed all the torn stitching and replaced the worn inner panels with new ones, and returned it for free within a couple weeks.
Well, I really *tried* to get into the MMORPG thing via Shadowbane when it first came out. After 2 hours or so, I just didn't like it at all - but my wife REALLY got into it. Now, she plays the thing addictively every day, and I uninstalled it from my computer.
I love the idea of a massive multiplayer online world, but I don't love the D&D "hack/slash", "buy/sell weapons, spells, armor", "gain experience/levels" formula. I also don't care for the design of many of the MMORPGs where you're practically required to spend a certain amount of time "checked in" to the game, doing routine maintenance tasks and so on, or else everything you worked to build falls apart.
I think an MMORPG based on either modern times or the future would be just fine, as long as it didn't concentrate on warfare so much. I'm not advocating more of "The Sims" either -- but I guess I'm thinking of something where you get to do a lot of creative construction/development of parcels of property. The things you build should become permanent fixtures in the game, even if you cancel your user account. (Shadowbane makes a big deal about having this type of thing, but in reality, it's more of a manipulation tool to provoke battle and the taking of sides; EG. So much money is required to build and maintain a city and walls that you have to keep killing things to keep the money flowing in to maintain it.)
Just like the real world, there should be the potential for battle/conflict, but it should be VERY costly to undertake, and require more than just one player deciding he/she wants to "stir up some trouble".
I think there would be plenty of potential for fun in a game like this because A) you'd spend a lot of time exploring the things other people are actively building, and B) you'd build in some sort of loose, evolving storyline that allows your character to go on interesting missions. There should be plenty of useful objects to seek out, but they shouldn't necessarily be practical (or required) to obtain through battling/defeating the other players online.
Ok, first off - let me say I'm totally lost as to why some idiot labeled your post as a "troll"?! I guess they're just gung-ho about seeing the local record stores die, in favor of virtual online shops....
Ultimately, I think the entire landscape of music sales is changing. That means, retail music stores need to rethink how they sell their music, and online stores will do so too. (Does anyone really believe we need as many online music stores as we have popping up all over the place? It's just a "Quick! Hop on the bandwagon!" fad, which will soon end with only a few survivors.) The good part is, the survivors will truly be "best of breed" and ready for the "real world" of day to day retail sales.
To me, the core issue is much like sales of books. Amazon.com does a pretty good job of handling online book sales, yet it doesn't replace all of the local bookstores. In fact, we saw some merging of the real and the virtual (EG. Barnes & Noble) - which is arguably the most sensible thing for a business to do.
There's MUCH to be said for "instant gratification". Used properly, this concept can benefit either a web site or a real "brick and mortar" store. For online stores, this means realizing you'll ALWAYS lose a certain percentage of sales because people don't like waiting to receive product in the mail. They want it *immediately* after paying for it. It also means it's smart to make as many things available as "instant downloads" as possible (but even then, a percentage of folks won't be impressed, if they don't have the bandwidth to make a nearly instant download practical/possible). For the real stores, this means keeping a really good inventory of product in stock at all times. If the best you can tell a person is "We can order it for you!", it's little more than a nice way of saying "Nope! We don't carry it, and you may as well go elsewhere for it."
Retail stores have the potential advantage of winning almost all of those "instant gratification" purchases - but only if they have the selection *and* provide the pleasant experience that beats the online shopping experience.
So no, I don't think the "record store" has any reason to become extinct -- but it needs to understand the competition and what areas they're better/worse in.
Well, popular or not, I can tell you that quite a few co-workers expressed similar feelings on the salary issue. I certainly wasn't the "lone exception".
IMHO, there's a serious double-standard going on with regards to pay. People act like what they earn should be a highly-guarded secret, yet the same folks who are most concerned about this buy conspicuous, high-ticket items to show off their wealth. (EG. You don't *need* a new luxury sedan to get to and from work. A cheap Chevy or Ford would do just fine. But then, it wouldn't have the "impress my friends/acquaintances" factor... the "look at me - I'm really going places!" look of a new BMW or Lexus.)
By contrast, ask any retail, fast-food, or low-level factory shop floor worker what their co-workers make, and they're very likely to know almost the exact numbers. It's no big secret to them.
Yeah, what's with that?? The Hulk struck me (and my wife, who's not even all that much of a computer graphics conniseur) as, well, crappy CGI. It looked like they overlaid him on top of a projected backdrop most of the time, and he wasn't believable as part of the scene at all.
Having watched Matrix Reloaded 3 times now on DVD, I'd still say I considered the f/x as at least "excellent quality". The person nit-picking about the faces in the Smith fight scene is paying a little too much attention to small details, IMHO. If it looked a little bit "computer-generated", it's the perfect movie to have that "problem" anyway!
Is that the deluxe version of "52 card pickup"?
I never much cared for that game....
You know what? I think I *would* actually like to see annual reviews conducted "in the open". Hold a meeting for that purpose, and let the manager address each individual working for him/her, and go over what he/she sees as areas needing improvement, as well as areas each person is doing well in.
One of the biggest things that harbors distrust and resentment in the corporate environment is secret-keeping and subsequent rumor-mongering. Every time you see someone pulled into the bosses' office and the door shut, rumors start flying about what trouble the person got into. Usually, reality is much less of a "big deal" than the silly things people come up with on their own.
And as for salaries, that's another whole "can of worms". I understand each situation is different, and there may be very good reasons for keeping salaries a big secret. But as a rule, I'd prefer working for people who post their salary ranges for each job position clearly, so everyone knows (within a couple thousand bucks or so, anyway) what everyone else is earning. Companies that refuse to give you any idea what your co-workers are earning create more problems than it's worth, in the long run. Accusations fly about "the new guy that started out making more than the guy who worked there for 5 years to earn that much pay", and so on. It may or may not be true - but it doesn't matter. It hurts morale.
Nah, I've heard a number of well-founded comments on things lacking in Shrek. Personally, I enjoyed it - but only coming into it realizing it was just supposed to be entertainment for kids, with a few sight-gags and laughs thrown in for the adults to appreciate. I think it accomplished that goal (as well as having the interesting side-note that it was rendered using Linux-based systems).
Was Shrek a "masterpiece" of computer animation? No way.... But I don't think it had to be. It surely beat the quality of some of these non-animated kids' movies that Disney seems to crank out non-stop.
You make a great point, but I've personally been in situations where management actively discouraged attempts to break through this divide.
Sometimes, it's not the people on the "tech side" of the fence who have the communications problem. I recall wanting to bring up an issue directly with our company's C.E.O. - because I knew it was going to get buried or spun into some watered-down idea invented by my manager if I went through the usual "chain of command" with it. I finally had a good opportunity when I ran into him as he was going from one building to the other, and we were chit-chatting a bit. I went from the "small talk" to my idea. Know what? The C.E.O. stopped me after only a couple sentences, telling me he didn't want to hear any more about it - and that I needed to discuss it with my direct manager instead.
Management often does things that ensure they stay well seperated from the "rank and file" employees, except when they feel it's strategically important to make a personal appearance. I recall being in meetings where the managers and VP's of depts. all went out to lunch together, leaving everyone else to eat the catered lunches that were ordered for everyone.
In fact, the very idea that they get real offices with doors they can close automatically sends a message that the company thinks it's important that these people have a higher level of isolation than everyone else gets.
Also, while it's always more productive to have solutions than complaints, sometimes the complaints are generated because of co-workers generating *false* solutions, in attempts to look superior. I recall doing *plenty* of complaining at a couple of past jobs, yet I'm typically looked upon as one of the people who has "all the answers" or is good at coming up with "creative solutions". When I start complaining, it usually has a lot to do with implementation of poor ideas that are being pushed off as solutions by someone who doesn't have a clue (but who can "talk the talk" enough to sell his/her poor ideas to management anyway).
Along with a few very well-put replies to your post, I'd like to add another thought.
In the case of the "arts", and in this specific case, music - I don't necessarily understand why we should "care that some human beings paid for a studio and recorded the music for a record label that distributed it for them"?
Perhaps the entire process is twisted? Look at it this way: Someone who chooses a profession of making music is a big risk-taker. Instead of doing what most of us do to earn money (accepting someone's agreement for payment in return for doing a specific type of labor for them), they opt to create music, betting/hoping that the public will enjoy it enough to pay them for it. They're not providing a tangible good, and not even anything one could reasonably describe as a "necessity" or "needed service". It's simply a form of entertainment.
People with the notion that "artists *deserve* to be paid for their work" are simply wrong! They don't *deserve* anything, other than the right to freedom to compose anything they like and freedom to record it. Their music stands (or falls) on its own merit. If it's really good, then yes - they stand a good chance of profiting from it. If they can do that consistently, they can make a living of it. But to say they're automatically owed monetary compensation is ridiculous.
If I sit around and paint a bunch of paintings, that doesn't mean I deserve to profit from their sale - no matter how much I spent on paint and supplies. Maybe nobody likes my artwork enough to pay for it, and they'd only hang it up if it was given to them for free?
That's how the arts should be. Make music because you enjoy doing it. If you really have talent, profit will likely follow (but there's nothing saying it must). It may cost you quite a bit and then you lose it all, too. Real musicians make music because they *need* to do it. Wanna-be's make music because they think they can "get rich" from it.
Well, it might be worth noting that Microsoft also released a freeware Word document viewer utility - so one can always use it to view one of these files, rather than feeling forced to buy a copy of MS Word to do so.
I seem to recall loading a document into WordPad once that was larger than it could handle, and it let me know by giving me a dialog box error to that effect. (After that, I believe it still let me work with as much of the file as it was able to load in, but some was simply cut off.)