I was interested to read this news (when it was news, a few days ago) but this is not nerd news, and slashdot must be the last place on earth to carry the story. Really poorly chosen, editors.
Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.
Nihilism is a political leaning? I find the whole left/right distinction to be fairly empty. Does is mean authoritarian/libertarian, or socialist/capitalist? If I was pro-choice, pro-decriminalisation of heroin, anti-war, economically liberal but anti-welfare, an anarchist and a Randian Objectivist (I *think* I could be all of those at once) would that make me left- or right-wing?
I agree that the summary above is utterly horrendous, but I just took a very simple, very readable email and ran it through the same tests, and got almost identical scores. Syllabic intensity and sentence length aren't everything.
I have a friend in Sweden who justifies his downloading of usenet movies by explaining that it takes 4 times as long to walk to the video store as it does to download the film, and damn it's cold out!
This is what amazes me...at the same time as piracy was first accused of driving down CD sales, what else happened? DVDs, that's what happened. Does Sony BMG ever complain that they've lost a billion in CD sales, but oh by the way, we made two billion in DVDs that same quarter? I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, buying a $20 DVD means not buying a $20 CD with the same $20 note. Sure CD sales have dropped, but the same companies are making enormous DVD sales, which they weren't ten years ago, when CD sales were still high. It's a bullshit argument made by greedy pricks. End of story.
If your headline ends in a question mark, it's not news.
But by ending your headline with a question mark, you can guarantee having your story tagged "yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud" - and who in this crazy world couldn't use a bit of that sort of predictability?
The mistake a lot of people make is expecting morality from something that isn't a human. Corporations, businesses in general aren't people, and therefore aren't moral. They don't get to vote (although they can buy votes from those that do), they aren't allowed to consume alcohol when they turn 21, and they can't be plaintiffs in paternity suits. A business doesn't care about morals, and most businesses these days don't have a single person able to rule completely, whose morals will be publicly tied to the company's behavior. Those companies where such a person is at the helm, throwing chairs at people...sorry, getting off-topic there, are generally ruled by a person rich enough not to have to give a crap about public perception, which goes a long way in making people behave morally.
As far as I can tell, the closer to the CEO end of the hierarchy you are, the less of a stigma is attached to it. If you've taken six different busboy jobs in a year, you're fucked. Six senior management positions in a year, you're just ambitious.
I'm an Aussie, and I download TV. One of the shows I download is 30 Rock. One thing I like about it is that it's very topical, a sit-com with Obama references, etc. It's really very current when I watch it, a few hours later than US viewers. I hate to think how funny Obama jokes will be in two years when an Aus network picks it up.
I guess that's why I'm handing over a dozen dvds a week to co-workers, full of Heroes, Prison Break etc....shows that you'll end up seeing a spoiler for if you don't get the new episodes yourself.
Oh yeah, and I really like that Hiro guy...he's so cute!
I'm not trying to run down the guys, but the kind of insight we're talking about here appears at face value to require a long academic tradition. It's not the kind of thing you're likely to stumble on.
Um....the Muslims did have a long academic tradition, silly!
In my office, internal phone calls and emails are strongly discouraged - we are asked to IM each other to communicate. Being able to pop a box up straight in front of a co-worker who's on a phone call letting them know there's a client waiting to see them is extremely useful, as is being able to contact IT with a query while I'm on the phone.
Time wasting is easily achieved with or without any particular piece of technology. Once people played wastepaper basketball in the office to waste time, we've just made it hi-tech
I had exactly the same experience buying a notebook for a non-techy friend. It was a pre-configured HP, and a week later he called me to tell me that he 'had a virus, or some ad program' which kept giving him 'popups and windows that interrupt me all the time' and wanted me to clean the infection. That infection was indeed Norton Internet Security.
Amazing how different their corporate versions are to their 'clueless sucker' versions.
I'm exactly the same, every time I've played an audiobook, I find myself actually reading something else within five minutes, as there's no focus on an audiobook, too easy to multitask and lose the thread.
Ever since Google put a huge bag of cash into YouTube, the content's been getting weaker and weaker, thanks to takedowns. It won't be long until all that's left are camwhores, idiots getting hurt & mentos/coke videos. You know, all that "person of the year" winning material.
I make no claim to knowledge of the actual numbers, but I've never met an IT pro who'd never broken a license, or used some dodgy software at work at SOME point.
I have one. She's teaching a class while I'm having drinks on Friday afternoons. Beer O'Clock only happens on Fridays. Thanks for your concern, though!
Dude, you have a deal. I have a 1.2ghz beige box I pinched from work, I'll give mandriva a try, and you get your inbox ready. A promise of a better experience with some help if needed, that's the spirit.
No. I last installed ubuntu three weeks ago, then reformatted and went back t xp three days later. XP is easier, lots easier to install. You put the cd in, click ok a lot, then you're good.
So what says the Windows way of doing it is the best one just because people are used to it? (OS X once makes much more sense then right clicking on the desktop: System Preferences -> Displays -> There you are, choose your resolution...
Hmm, where to start? Who says that using a few clicks is better than manually editing a conf file? I do, and anyone else with more IQ than zealotry. As for the OSX option, you can also get to your display settings in Windows via Control Panel--->Display. As a guy who's been waiting for lunix to become viable on the desktop for years, (and I realise that I'm making no contribution to the project)it frustrates me how much time linux devs spend denying the OS's obvious shortcomings instead of working on them...a fantastic, easily adopted linux distro isn't going to get made by dudes sitting in various #linux-help channels responding to every question with "RTFM" or "The users are idiots".
Meh - I'm only an accountant in a relatively small business, but I've got a more spacious work area than any of the cube farmers at Google. We don't have a games room, but when the clock strikes Beer O'Clock on a Friday, the recycle bins become wickets, there's already a crease made from duct tape in the main office, and even the MD joins the weekly cricket match, brewski in hand.
It's great that they're trying, but once you're in the several thousand employee range, you've lost any genuinely communal feeling amongst the staff, and personally I find the attempts to be relaxed and groovy a bit forced in those corporate environments.
Slashdot Mirror
I was interested to read this news (when it was news, a few days ago) but this is not nerd news, and slashdot must be the last place on earth to carry the story. Really poorly chosen, editors.
Life by John Conway, or life by your mom?
Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.
Oh, yeah...and I'd totally be using an Amiga
Disclaimer - I am NOT a Randian anything.
I agree that the summary above is utterly horrendous, but I just took a very simple, very readable email and ran it through the same tests, and got almost identical scores. Syllabic intensity and sentence length aren't everything.
I can't wait for an 'adult' game to kill someone with a feedback loop of excitement and stimulation. That would be awesome.
Interesting comparison, he made Admin on Wikipedia, but has never been modded up on /.
I have a friend in Sweden who justifies his downloading of usenet movies by explaining that it takes 4 times as long to walk to the video store as it does to download the film, and damn it's cold out!
This is what amazes me...at the same time as piracy was first accused of driving down CD sales, what else happened? DVDs, that's what happened. Does Sony BMG ever complain that they've lost a billion in CD sales, but oh by the way, we made two billion in DVDs that same quarter? I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, buying a $20 DVD means not buying a $20 CD with the same $20 note. Sure CD sales have dropped, but the same companies are making enormous DVD sales, which they weren't ten years ago, when CD sales were still high. It's a bullshit argument made by greedy pricks. End of story.
But by ending your headline with a question mark, you can guarantee having your story tagged "yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud" - and who in this crazy world couldn't use a bit of that sort of predictability?
The mistake a lot of people make is expecting morality from something that isn't a human. Corporations, businesses in general aren't people, and therefore aren't moral. They don't get to vote (although they can buy votes from those that do), they aren't allowed to consume alcohol when they turn 21, and they can't be plaintiffs in paternity suits. A business doesn't care about morals, and most businesses these days don't have a single person able to rule completely, whose morals will be publicly tied to the company's behavior. Those companies where such a person is at the helm, throwing chairs at people...sorry, getting off-topic there, are generally ruled by a person rich enough not to have to give a crap about public perception, which goes a long way in making people behave morally.
As far as I can tell, the closer to the CEO end of the hierarchy you are, the less of a stigma is attached to it. If you've taken six different busboy jobs in a year, you're fucked. Six senior management positions in a year, you're just ambitious.
Hyundai had this ad pulled as well, a while back. Poor guys, I found both ads quite amusing. Wowsers run the world, though.
I guess that's why I'm handing over a dozen dvds a week to co-workers, full of Heroes, Prison Break etc....shows that you'll end up seeing a spoiler for if you don't get the new episodes yourself.
Oh yeah, and I really like that Hiro guy...he's so cute!
Um....the Muslims did have a long academic tradition, silly!
Time wasting is easily achieved with or without any particular piece of technology. Once people played wastepaper basketball in the office to waste time, we've just made it hi-tech
Amazing how different their corporate versions are to their 'clueless sucker' versions.
I'm exactly the same, every time I've played an audiobook, I find myself actually reading something else within five minutes, as there's no focus on an audiobook, too easy to multitask and lose the thread.
Ever since Google put a huge bag of cash into YouTube, the content's been getting weaker and weaker, thanks to takedowns. It won't be long until all that's left are camwhores, idiots getting hurt & mentos/coke videos. You know, all that "person of the year" winning material.
I make no claim to knowledge of the actual numbers, but I've never met an IT pro who'd never broken a license, or used some dodgy software at work at SOME point.
Dude, you have a deal. I have a 1.2ghz beige box I pinched from work, I'll give mandriva a try, and you get your inbox ready. A promise of a better experience with some help if needed, that's the spirit.
:)
I'll be in touch
No. I last installed ubuntu three weeks ago, then reformatted and went back t xp three days later. XP is easier, lots easier to install. You put the cd in, click ok a lot, then you're good.
Hmm, where to start? Who says that using a few clicks is better than manually editing a conf file? I do, and anyone else with more IQ than zealotry. As for the OSX option, you can also get to your display settings in Windows via Control Panel--->Display.
As a guy who's been waiting for lunix to become viable on the desktop for years, (and I realise that I'm making no contribution to the project)it frustrates me how much time linux devs spend denying the OS's obvious shortcomings instead of working on them...a fantastic, easily adopted linux distro isn't going to get made by dudes sitting in various #linux-help channels responding to every question with "RTFM" or "The users are idiots".
It's great that they're trying, but once you're in the several thousand employee range, you've lost any genuinely communal feeling amongst the staff, and personally I find the attempts to be relaxed and groovy a bit forced in those corporate environments.