The number of you people talking about how you enjoy the "extra" daylight, how it makes you happier, how you feel safer, etc, is somewhat disturbing, in the sense that so many of these comments seem like the poster is unable to look beyond their own personal preferences and see that perhaps not everyone feels that way.
There are huge numbers of people, myself included, who have an intense dislike for daylight hours. Bright light hurts my eyes, glares into windows, makes everything look pale and washed out. In the summer, when temperatures around here can get into the 100s, and all I want is for the sun to go down and give a little respite from the heat, and the days are already naturally longer than in winter, you suckers think it's a great idea to artificially tack on even more daylight so the sun is still up at, I shit you not, 9pm. Think about how unnatural that is when you're talking about your "psychological benefits".
And let's not forget how everyone seems to want to talk about how helpful and great it is that people drive home in daylight instead of in the dark, and surely that's safer. Safer until you can't see what the hell is going on because the sun is glaring off everything and making the windshield a white halo, I guess.
Give it a rest. Fine, you personally enjoy sunlight; I'm happy for you. But don't act like there's some definitive psychological or other benefit to daylight savings. What you personally enjoy is precisely what many of us despise. I see no reason to legislate arbitrary changes to our timekeeping which will appease some and piss off others. Just let nature deal with it as it has been doing for eons, and I promise I won't try to legislate that we knock the clocks back to get more darkness in our lives, since that's what makes me happy.
Yeah, I've listened to them before, and they seem to have kind of the same deal. no radio station in the US that I know of is going to play trance, certainly not the generally unknown stuff from afterhoursdjs -- as far as I can tell artists on that station aren't even signed to any major label. Why would the RIAA care about that? Utterly idiotic.
As the operator of an internet radio station myself, my response is "kiss my ass". Like most other stations, I broadcast things that aren't ever going to be heard on conventional radio, giving (relatively) niche or obscure artists that much more free exposure. I know this works for two reasons:
1. I myself have bought albums after hearing certain artists' songs on other net radio stations -- music I would never, ever, ever have heard otherwise except perhaps in the drunken haze of a goth club.
2. Several independent artists have sent me singles and even entire albums, encouraging me to put them in rotation. To quote the latest, after he sent me a few samples and I liked 'em:
Thanks I appreciate the exposure, it's hard to get the music out as an independent artist which is why I'm trying to get radioplay. The CD is the mail.
This has happened several times. It's good for the artists who are trying to get noticed; it's good for the audience who gets to discover new music; it's good for the broadcaster cause it's just fun. I get permission from many of the labels or artists to play their stuff, and when I don't, well, it's a freaking 96k broadcast that can't be copied without some technical know-how (certainly much more difficult than jamming a tape into your radio and hitting "record"). Exactly who is being harmed here?
The RIAA's outmoded and antiquated business models, and their continued attempts to strangle the life out of emergent technologies, is absolutely appalling. I'll continue to broadcast from my host in Germany and here's a big screw you to the suits. I don't make a single cent off my broadcast, and I don't play the kind of music that would come close to competing with the mass-appeal fare on the normal airwaves. You'll never get a dime from me.
But what I want is LESS features, LESS friendly nonsense, and LESS annoying menus and stuff to wade through. I wish phone makers and carriers would get on board with making phones less obnoxious all around, instead of worrying about absurd little trinkets and services of dubious value.
For example, when someone calls me, I usually ignore it because I'm a crotchety type who doesn't want to talk to you. You get my voicemail, and now I have to clear it out because I'm not interested in what you have to say. But I can't just hit a button that says "delete all voicemail", no. I have to call it and listen to an excruciating spiel: "You have... one... new voice message and... two.. old messages. To listen to... new.. messages.. press one. To--" Shut up. And when I press 7 to delete, just delete the damn thing and move on. I don't need "Your message has been deleted... to undelete... press... one..."
Oh, then when it's all done and I hang up, my phone tells me "1 missed call". ORLY? Now I have to go clear that out too.
How about for the slob leaving the message? "Hey, you've reached kitten, I'm not here, leave a message..... TO RECORD A MESSAGE, PRESS ONE, OR WAIT FOR THE BEEP. WHEN FINISHED, HANG UP, OR PRESS POUND FOR MORE OPTIONS." Shut the fuck up! Every single one of us has used answering machines or voicemail services for the past twenty years! I don't need instructions on how to do this; quit wasting my time, STFU, and let me just leave my damn message already.
And that's just part of what pisses me off about modern cellphones. I swear, if I could go back to old-style Zack Morris phones that cost ten dollars a minute and couldn't do shit except make and receive calls, I would
So, for all of those who dislike DST, try this: Just get up an hour later.
Sure, I'll just let my boss know I'll be showing up an hour late every day for several months, shall I? Get real.
I'm not sure if you noticed this, but the daylight hours are already longer in summer than in winter. Screwing with the clocks just means that it's still sunny and hot as hell at 8pm, during what is already the hot season, when all some people want is for the damn sun to go down and cool off a little.
And you're missing the point for all of that anyway, which is that we should pick one and stick with it. If more people like DST, fine. If more people like standard time, fine. But it is utterly ridiculous to screw with the clocks twice a year. It messes up people's schedules, it causes problems like the one we're facing now, and serves no useful purpose. There are several states in the US which just refuse to bother with it, and gee, somehow they manage.
What, exactly, is this supposed to do to "fight terror"? The only thing I'm terrified of is how easy it would be for an invasive, looming government with no regard for privacy and individual rights -- such as the one we have now -- to abuse this. "The terrorists" aren't getting ID cards. The law-abiding citizens are. And the citizens are the ones who will pay the consequences.
Oh for crying out loud! The accountants are whinging about 4.8 billion over twenty or more years?!
Have they LOOKED at the US budget? In 2006, 406 billion went to interest payments alone for the debt. And they're griping at a price that is 1/200th of that per annum. Absolutely unfuckingbelievable.
It's this kind of funding that is the reason NASA can barely ever get anything done. We give them a pittance and then complain when they can't build freaking spaceships with it, which gives us an excuse to cut their budget even more cause they never do anything anyway, right?
A large part of what we remember as memorable characters and roles is coming not from some brainless actor dutifully reciting lines, but from improvisation and other random, unexpected things that neither the writer nor the director had in mind. Do you recall Hannibal Lector's slurpy-gross noise when he was trying to intimidate Starling? Unscripted. Spur of the moment from Anthony Hopkins.
For that matter, I think we are a long, long way off from replacing truly gifted actors. CGI is far from being able to reproduce the nuances of Hopkin's performance that brought Hannibal to life and made him such a convincingly real character, or the particular cadence of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith that made him seem so calculating and machinelike. Some of us still go to the movies to appreciate the artistry of the work, and that artistry includes the actors and how they interpret and modify the role.
Even if (when) CGI can reproduce the human likeness with absolute perfection, notice that today, people still go to plays and musicals where there are few special effects, no multiple takes and retries, relatively simple backdrops, and no whiz-bang computer graphics: Just stage, a solid script, a good crew, and talented actors. There's something to be said for the art of performance.
Guys, I hate to break this to you, but "most users" can't install the drivers on Windows either. You ever walk someone through that process?
"Okay, so go to nvidia.com and find the driver for your card." "How do I do that?" "Click Downloads, select your operating system..." "Is that Windows?" "Yes. So select that and--" "It says.. Windows XP slash 2000... Windows 98 slash 95..." "You're on Windows XP. So select that." "Okay." "Now which video card do you have?" "I don't know." "Right click on the desktop. Go to properties. Go to Advanced. Do you see it?" "No." "Right above the colorful thing." "Oh. Okay.. uh.." "..it'll say Nvidia something, or maybe GeForce something." "Ohhhh. GeForce 5200?" "Okay, select that then." "Where?" "On the WEBSITE." "Exit out of this?" "YES, EXIT OUT OF THE PROPERTIES THING AND GO BACK TO THE WEBSITE." "Okay." "..." "..." "..." "Did you select the 5200 yet?" "No, am I supposed to?" "YES. Click that. Click next." "Do-I-want-to-download-the-following-file: installer dot exe." "Yes. Download that." "Where should I save it?" "ANYWHERE. The desktop, okay?" "Okay... it's downloading." "..." "Do-I-want-to-run-the-following-application: installer dot exe." "Yesssss." "It says.. warning-some-software-can-damage-your-computer-are -you-sure-you--" "Yes." "Accept terms and conditions?" "...yes..." "This-will-install-nvidia-drivers-blah-blah-blah, continue?" "...yes..." "Setup is preparing the... uh, install..shield.. wizard?" "That's fine, just let it go." "Do I click Next?" "YES. YES. JUST KEEP HAMMERING NEXT UNTIL IT SAYS FINISHED." "Okay....it says finished, do I click Ok?" "YES FOR GOD'S SAKE ALREADY!" "Okay, now it says I must reboot. Should I do that?" "@#%"
Yeah. That's much, much easier for most people. The CLI looks intimidating but, to most people, both Windows and Linux CLI are incomprehensible gibberish anyway, so what's the difference?
I'm aware that this is somewhat beside the point, but why hasn't anyone called Michael Chrichton on the fact that his plots always follow the same formula? That is, humans develop an exciting breakthrough technology, and then it goes horrible awry since we lack the wisdom needed to temper ourselves.
Westworld: Animatronic robots blow a fuse and eliminate people Jurassic Park: Dinosaurs, brought back via genetic engineering, get lose and wreak havoc Running Man: The Governator engages androids in battle; our own inventions bite us in the ass. This thread: It began in a farcical way but becomes trite and tired. Don't you agree?
If you have further examples at your disposal, please post in reply.
isn't being paid to know how to drive. Users often are. Walk into any office (or worse, support any office) and witness the hundreds of clueless twits who haven't the slightest idea how to use their computer properly, or even effectively, or even competently, or even just without breaking something.
These people have jobs that require the use of a computer. If they cannot perform basic -- and I do mean basic -- tasks, they aren't qualified to hold that position, no matter what else they can do. There's always someone else who can do what they do and manage to send email without wiping out their own inbox. In this day and age, "I'm not a computer person" holds no more validity than saying you won't photocopy something because "I'm not a copy machine person", and it's not like you're being asked to repair the thing on your own, just use it competently and effectively. Own up to the responsibilities of your job, and learn.
So when it was the big, dumb kids tormenting the quiet geek on the playground, in the locker room, in the hallways...nobody cared. Some lip service was paid but no one ever really got in trouble, no one cared, and administrators would wring their hands and go "Well, we didn't see it happening, so..."
But now the quiet geeks are the tormentors, on their own turf. And that's when the schools start caring and blithering about how something must be done. Astounding.
In high school some idiot senior football player had a beef with me -- I don't even remember what anymore. Something he basically made up. Tough guy that he was, he confronted my girlfriend in the hallway between classes, screaming in her face about how he was gonna mess me up. When I found her she was in tears.
Brought this to the attention of the principal, who cared for little other than the football team. His response was to make typical polite noises until we went away. A few hours later the kid approaches me in the lunchroom, ready to end my life, and probably would have if my much larger friend hadn't stepped in to tell him to piss off.
The ruckus was noticed by a science teacher who came over to ask what was going on. Dumb jock shoves the teacher, who hauls his ass down to the principal. The punishment? Sent home for the day. Oooh.
On his way out the kid kicked a huge dent in the side of my car. I noticed at the end of the day when I was leaving. (The moron kicked it in the side of the trunk compartment, though, so all I had to do was reach into the trunk and pop it back out from that side.)
The school did nothing about the vandalism to my car, the threats towards me or my girlfriend, and it was only when he put his hands on a teacher that anything was done -- and then, a slap on the wrist.
But everyone can now rest assured that had I blogged about what a douchebag the guy was, I would have been put in my place as a cyber bully.
The study has been done dozens of times here in the US, by various state and federal agencies. They ALL say the exact same things, which are, briefly --
- Speed limits are set artificially low from the 85th percentile (the universally agreed-upon standard).
- Raising and lowering posted speed limits has no significant effect on driver speed.
- Usually (as in, well more than half), lowering the posted limit increases the number of accidents in an area. The reason is because there's always one or two doofuses who actually obey the limit, so they're going 40mph while everyone else is going 60mph and those slow-moving people now constitute a very unexpected obstacle. You can argue that they are being lawful but the law is still stupid.
- Raising the limit, likewise, tends to decrease the number of accidents.
"What do you think of users who know absolutely nothing about computers?"
Well, I think you -- the employer -- need to seriously re-examine your employee base, then. This is the twenty first century. Computers in the business environment have been around for a good twenty years, and really started gettinng huge ten years ago with Windows 95. In today's modern workplace, if you really know nothing about computers, you aren't qualified for the job. It doesn't matter that you're a brialliant loan officer or whatever else -- part of the job involves using computers. Period. The excuse "I'm not a computer person" or "It's not my area" no longer holds water. This isn't the 70s.
I'm not asking users to know how to examine their TCP/IP properties or perform network diagnostics. I'm not asking them to open the box and replace bad memory, or how to mount an image as a device, or anything else remotely complicated or nonintuitive.
I am asking them to know how to do the basic, fundamental things that are required of them in their job, and do these things competently. You need to know how to open Word and grab a document off your coworker's shared folder. You need to know how to save things in sane, organized places so you can find them later. You need to understand that not everything is safe to arbitrariliy download and run, so don't do it. Basic stuff.
And perhaps that's part of why IT professionals hold users in such contempt. They are hounded nonstop by people who somehow got jobs for which they clearly lack the necessary skills (because using a computer is a necessary skill, people). And instead of getting to do anything interesting they spend half their time doing what amounts to job training for clueless people who really should know better.
To make it worse, I can think of few other fields where the client base gets as demanding and unreasonable. You won't often catch someone who deliberately tinkers with their car engine for no reason, breaks it, then harrasses the mechanic every thirty minutes to "just fix it". When the mechanic says "It's going to take two days", that's the end of it, and most people realize that no amount of arguing will change that. Not so in the computer world -- users think it's perfectly okay to get snippy, and that the Magic IT Guy can just wave his Magic IT Wand and magically fix any problem (usually by "just dialing in").
IT is a tough field, especially when you deal with end users. I think we get jaded and snotty because really, you can only listen to the whines and insults of the users for so long before it affects you -- and make no mistake, users are every bit as insulting as they think we are.
1) An embryo is a collection of cells and has life (as much life as a bacterium, which I doubt you would deny).
Okay. But no one cares about whether it's alive. We kill living things all the time. We care about whether it's human...
2) At conception, the genetic structure is uniquely human.
Great definition! But wait, can't the same be said about every cell in my body? Am I committing mass murder of "human life" by pricking my finger and losing a drop of blood?
What makes a human a human isn't just genetics or "being alive". Our brain is the only thing that seperates us from any other living creature as far as we can tell. Let's talk about whether or not this thing has a brain.
Of course, the fundies will quickly argue that even though large-scale neuron linkup doesn't begin until the sixth or seventh month, the embryo has a "soul" or somesuch. Pure speculation with zero factual evidence behind it, but for the moment let's assume that's true.
Have they considered the implications of life being able to have a soul without a brain, or sentience? If they're willing to say that this brainless clump of cells has a "soul", how do they know animals don't have souls? Or plants? Or bacteria, for that matter? They're just as alive as the embryo, and the animals at least have developed, functional brains.
But it terrifies them to think that the hamburger they just ate may have come from a cow that had a soul just like theirs, so they dismiss it as nonsense. Eventually they'll fall back to some line about how God uniquely created humans in his image, not animals, so there.
The more you push the more weak their argument becomes. Of course, most people never get this far -- they just assert blind opinions as fact: "I believe abortion is morally wrong." Ask them why and you get standard-issue responses. Press a little more and they're left gibbering.
1) I got sick to death of having to run CD burning software with sudo.
Uh, what? You stick a blank CD in, it mounts, and you drag whatever you want to it, then click burn. You don't have to be root. What are you doing?
2) A lot of software I as a.NET hobbyist like is simply not there.
Well duh. But you can't criticize Linux for that really. If your goal is to mess with Microsoft stuff, of course you need Microsoft products.
3) I hate to say it, but Windows XP actually runs consistently faster under load on my laptop than Ubuntu. The GUI in particular is more responsive under load than GNOME or KDE.
Must be a hardware thing, cause I haven't noticed any difference on my two laptops, both of which have run Windows and Ubuntu.
4) Things like easily configuring wireless connections really do work out of the box better on Windows XP than they do in Linux.
That's somewhat fair. But to be even more fair you'd have to point out that there are plenty of times where wireless doesn't work at all in Windows, and it's not all that easy to get running. For the "average user", I don't see how scanning around Dell's site and finding obscure drivers is easier than using ndiswrapper.
5) Windows has far more good software options.
Now here, you have GOT to be kidding me.
You want software for Windows? You can either buy it, or you can search Google for keywords and hope to fucking god to find something that does what you want, is free, and isn't loaded with spyware and crap. Once it's installed you have to clean up after it and all the crappy desktop icons, systray garbage, extraneous start menu folders, and other nonsense it leaves behind.
Ubuntu? Add/Remove, or Synaptic. Type in something and you get a bunch of choices almost instantly. There are usually several choices so you're not locked into anything. Just pick whatever you like and click Install and a few seconds later, literally, it shows up in your Applications folder, installing only what was necessary to run the app, and already categorized into sane, organized menus. (Applications > Sound & Video > DVD Player, as opposed to Start > All Programs > Megatech > Megatech WinDVD > Run Megatech WinDVD).
This article explains why Ubuntu is ideal for new users, using criteria that users actually care about, instead of the usual holy wars surrounding distro of choice discussions amongst geeks. Check it out.
Despite the sort of hyperactive hand-wringing that surrounds issues like Myspace and privacy, there are always a couple of key issues people seem to miss.
First is that, by and large, there really aren't that many incriminating things that people post on Myspace, unless you count the barely-coherent crap they try to pass off as English, but the fact that they're inarticulate goons would have come out on the application, resume, or interview anyway.
The implication always seems to be that a potential employer could find your Myspace, notice that you have pictures of yourself mooning the camera or blogging about how much weed you smoked, and refuse to hire you and so will everyone else and your entire career is ruined before it even got started.
However, how many people really do this? I've been around Myspace a lot and I just don't see much of this going on. The few brain-dead twahns that think it's a great idea to post photos of themselves doing stupid shit are just displaying lousy judgement -- something that would quickly become apparent to any potential employer even without Myspace, so what's the difference?
Consider also the ages involved here. The complainers are usually middle-aged up-and-outs who barely understand what the internet and web are about anyway. The people they complain about are usually teenagers or young twentysomethings who have a solid grasp on the implications of the digital age.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Baby Boomer's opinions are only going to be relevent for a few more years. In five or ten years' time most of them will be retired or out of positions of authority, and people my age (mid-late twenties) are going to be running the show. And people my age, well, we just don't care that you had a silly Myspace when you were a teenager, because everyone else did too, including us. If we start picking and choosing our potential underlings based on who had a stupid Myspace page, we're going to have a very dry pool indeed.
In the meantime, before those Boomers get out of the way, it's not like these teenagers are applying for such high-end jobs that anyone actually checks up on them. They fill in an application, interview once -- sometimes on the spot -- and there's a job. Even for entry-level positions in the "real world", which is where they'll be starting, rarely go beyond a cursory examination of an application or resume and a round or two of interviews. Either you're a good fit for the position or you're not.
Yes, I am simplifying the matter a bit, and there are always exceptions here and there to the generalities I am discussing, but this is basically how it is: The only people that care about this and worry about the privacy issues are either:
Old and rapidly becoming irrelevent.
Stick-up-the-ass jerks who would honestly care that you had a beer when you were 18. Who the hell wants to work for that kind of lunatic anyway?
Media twits who can't find anything more important to report.
Are you kidding? "winver.exe"? It's hard enough to tell these users where to click, nevermind get them to type something coherent. Here are a two options:
1. Click the Start menu. On 90% of Windows machines, the version is right there on the side of the menu.
2. If for some reason you need something more specific than "XP" or "2000", right-click My Computer, click Properites, and say "Read me what it says."
But you want this instead:
"Okay sir, can you click the Start menu. Go to Run. Run. Yes. In there type doubleyew eye en vee... no sir, that's eye, as in Igloo. Okay. Doubleyew eye en vee... no, sir, not after. Just that. Okay, uh, clear out everything in that box. Use the backspace key. Yes. Now, type this: Doubleyew, eye, enn, vee, e, arr, dot, ee, ex, ee. Nothing? Well, can you tell me that error message? 'Windows cannot find--' Oh, I see. Okay, sir, that was dot ee-ex-ee, not dot-com. Can you put that instead? Yeah, I know, but it's not a website, it's a command. No, it was doubleyew, eye, en, vee..."
Heh, the "majority" of users I deal with still haven't turned off the "HEY YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEND INFORMATION OVER THE INTERNET!" or "DO YOU WANT TO STORE THIS FORM INFORMATION?!" dialogue boxes in IE that comes up every time you type something into, say, Google. A simple checkbox that says "Don't tell me this again" and after using it five days a week for six years it still hasn't dawned on them to click it. What makes you think they're going to be any more capable of disabling this?
Most people put up with such obnoxiousness because to them, computers are obnoxious anyway, and it doesn't occur to them that there are simple ways of turning off most of the obnoxious crap.
You mean companies can't "increase productivity" much beyond where we are now? How terrible. It's not enough to have positive growth anymore, now we have to have ever-faster growth?
Shouldn't we be looking for ways to cut our "productivity" and enjoy the leisure time of our limited lives?
Time was if you carried a pager you were obviously in some high-stress, critical job like a doctor or a stockbroker. Somehow, humanity survived these dark ages. Nowadays you're expected to have a cellphone, take client calls from the road, answer calls from your boss at any time when you're not at work, and if you don't, people act as though there's no way to continue working.
And we still put in 50 or more hours a week.
Call me crazy for not really caring about "productivity" as long as stuff gets done. Hell, most people spend the majority of their time at work idling anyway -- like Office Space said, there is maybe an hour of real, actual work to do per day, and the rest is just screwing around and giving off the appearance of being busy, or engaging in mindless busywork that makes no difference to anyone.
So today, instead of working 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, it's 8 to 6 with half an hour, if that, plus we're expected to bring our work home with us, and have our cellphones handy at all times -- and we're still worried about how maybe we can't pump MORE PRODUCTIVITY!!! from our little worker drones. What a pathetic society we've constructed.
There is more to life than the pursuit of the almighty dollar, people.
So Microsoft is basically saying that, because you're too stupid to run a VM, you shouldn't. You are not too stupid, however, to handle their bloatware OS by itself, because we all know that users perfectly understand the general risks of Windows.
That's really great. And just what "risk" are we talking about here? You risk not being a huge security hole? You risk that performance hit and not being able to run the almighty Aero? You risk not being able to see their lame 3D crap? What?
What would prevent an indivudal in today's industrial society from passing on his genes?
We have no natural predators. We don't have to hunt, gather, or forage. We don't have to be particularly intelligent. Virtually any physical handicap can be compensated for via technology -- glasses, implants, wheelchairs, prosthetics, surgury to correct whatever, and so on.
In today's society, pretty much any schmuck, no matter what, can live, land some kind of job, and knock someone up / get knocked up. Even if they're so utterly useless that they can't provide for their offspring, in comes welfare programs and the like. At least in the first world, there are very few children born who die simply because their parents couldn't feed and shelter them. (For anyone about to argue, please read very carefully what I said -- because I didn't say the kid is going to have a great life, merely that he won't die.)
Fact is that the epsilon semi-moron down the street from you has just as good a chance of producing children as does the guy with the brains of Einstein and the body of Jesse Owens.
Furthermore, environmental pressures specifically, and evolution in general, only occurs within relatively small and isolated groups. In a flock of one hundred, a "superior" bird will quickly outcompete the others. In a flock of one thousand, it's rather more difficult. In a flock of ten thousand he'll barely be noticed -- his genes will be drowned out by sheer numbers. And if that flock is near another flock of ten thousand, and they tend to interbreed a lot, or perhaps merge into one huge 20,000 member flock, it's nearly hopeless.
There are six and a half billion humans and, again at least for thsoe of us in the developed nations, virtually zero obstacles to our being able to travel anywhere at will. Hell, in my city alone there are almost five million people. I could be the best and brightest and hottest man alive, and that isn't going to matter, because Cletus the Slackjaw can have kids just as easily as I can.
Please, tell us what possible environmental pressures exist in a developed nation which would possibly cause an individual not to be able to pass his genes along.
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The number of you people talking about how you enjoy the "extra" daylight, how it makes you happier, how you feel safer, etc, is somewhat disturbing, in the sense that so many of these comments seem like the poster is unable to look beyond their own personal preferences and see that perhaps not everyone feels that way.
There are huge numbers of people, myself included, who have an intense dislike for daylight hours. Bright light hurts my eyes, glares into windows, makes everything look pale and washed out. In the summer, when temperatures around here can get into the 100s, and all I want is for the sun to go down and give a little respite from the heat, and the days are already naturally longer than in winter, you suckers think it's a great idea to artificially tack on even more daylight so the sun is still up at, I shit you not, 9pm. Think about how unnatural that is when you're talking about your "psychological benefits".
And let's not forget how everyone seems to want to talk about how helpful and great it is that people drive home in daylight instead of in the dark, and surely that's safer. Safer until you can't see what the hell is going on because the sun is glaring off everything and making the windshield a white halo, I guess.
Give it a rest. Fine, you personally enjoy sunlight; I'm happy for you. But don't act like there's some definitive psychological or other benefit to daylight savings. What you personally enjoy is precisely what many of us despise. I see no reason to legislate arbitrary changes to our timekeeping which will appease some and piss off others. Just let nature deal with it as it has been doing for eons, and I promise I won't try to legislate that we knock the clocks back to get more darkness in our lives, since that's what makes me happy.
Yeah, I've listened to them before, and they seem to have kind of the same deal. no radio station in the US that I know of is going to play trance, certainly not the generally unknown stuff from afterhoursdjs -- as far as I can tell artists on that station aren't even signed to any major label. Why would the RIAA care about that? Utterly idiotic.
1. I myself have bought albums after hearing certain artists' songs on other net radio stations -- music I would never, ever, ever have heard otherwise except perhaps in the drunken haze of a goth club.
2. Several independent artists have sent me singles and even entire albums, encouraging me to put them in rotation. To quote the latest, after he sent me a few samples and I liked 'em:
This has happened several times. It's good for the artists who are trying to get noticed; it's good for the audience who gets to discover new music; it's good for the broadcaster cause it's just fun. I get permission from many of the labels or artists to play their stuff, and when I don't, well, it's a freaking 96k broadcast that can't be copied without some technical know-how (certainly much more difficult than jamming a tape into your radio and hitting "record"). Exactly who is being harmed here?
The RIAA's outmoded and antiquated business models, and their continued attempts to strangle the life out of emergent technologies, is absolutely appalling. I'll continue to broadcast from my host in Germany and here's a big screw you to the suits. I don't make a single cent off my broadcast, and I don't play the kind of music that would come close to competing with the mass-appeal fare on the normal airwaves. You'll never get a dime from me.
But what I want is LESS features, LESS friendly nonsense, and LESS annoying menus and stuff to wade through. I wish phone makers and carriers would get on board with making phones less obnoxious all around, instead of worrying about absurd little trinkets and services of dubious value.
.... TO RECORD A MESSAGE, PRESS ONE, OR WAIT FOR THE BEEP. WHEN FINISHED, HANG UP, OR PRESS POUND FOR MORE OPTIONS." Shut the fuck up! Every single one of us has used answering machines or voicemail services for the past twenty years! I don't need instructions on how to do this; quit wasting my time, STFU, and let me just leave my damn message already.
For example, when someone calls me, I usually ignore it because I'm a crotchety type who doesn't want to talk to you. You get my voicemail, and now I have to clear it out because I'm not interested in what you have to say. But I can't just hit a button that says "delete all voicemail", no. I have to call it and listen to an excruciating spiel: "You have... one... new voice message and... two.. old messages. To listen to... new.. messages.. press one. To--" Shut up. And when I press 7 to delete, just delete the damn thing and move on. I don't need "Your message has been deleted... to undelete... press... one..."
Oh, then when it's all done and I hang up, my phone tells me "1 missed call". ORLY? Now I have to go clear that out too.
How about for the slob leaving the message? "Hey, you've reached kitten, I'm not here, leave a message.
And that's just part of what pisses me off about modern cellphones. I swear, if I could go back to old-style Zack Morris phones that cost ten dollars a minute and couldn't do shit except make and receive calls, I would
So, for all of those who dislike DST, try this: Just get up an hour later.
Sure, I'll just let my boss know I'll be showing up an hour late every day for several months, shall I? Get real.
I'm not sure if you noticed this, but the daylight hours are already longer in summer than in winter. Screwing with the clocks just means that it's still sunny and hot as hell at 8pm, during what is already the hot season, when all some people want is for the damn sun to go down and cool off a little.
And you're missing the point for all of that anyway, which is that we should pick one and stick with it. If more people like DST, fine. If more people like standard time, fine. But it is utterly ridiculous to screw with the clocks twice a year. It messes up people's schedules, it causes problems like the one we're facing now, and serves no useful purpose. There are several states in the US which just refuse to bother with it, and gee, somehow they manage.
What, exactly, is this supposed to do to "fight terror"? The only thing I'm terrified of is how easy it would be for an invasive, looming government with no regard for privacy and individual rights -- such as the one we have now -- to abuse this. "The terrorists" aren't getting ID cards. The law-abiding citizens are. And the citizens are the ones who will pay the consequences.
Oh for crying out loud! The accountants are whinging about 4.8 billion over twenty or more years?!
Have they LOOKED at the US budget? In 2006, 406 billion went to interest payments alone for the debt. And they're griping at a price that is 1/200th of that per annum. Absolutely unfuckingbelievable.
It's this kind of funding that is the reason NASA can barely ever get anything done. We give them a pittance and then complain when they can't build freaking spaceships with it, which gives us an excuse to cut their budget even more cause they never do anything anyway, right?
A large part of what we remember as memorable characters and roles is coming not from some brainless actor dutifully reciting lines, but from improvisation and other random, unexpected things that neither the writer nor the director had in mind. Do you recall Hannibal Lector's slurpy-gross noise when he was trying to intimidate Starling? Unscripted. Spur of the moment from Anthony Hopkins.
For that matter, I think we are a long, long way off from replacing truly gifted actors. CGI is far from being able to reproduce the nuances of Hopkin's performance that brought Hannibal to life and made him such a convincingly real character, or the particular cadence of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith that made him seem so calculating and machinelike. Some of us still go to the movies to appreciate the artistry of the work, and that artistry includes the actors and how they interpret and modify the role.
Even if (when) CGI can reproduce the human likeness with absolute perfection, notice that today, people still go to plays and musicals where there are few special effects, no multiple takes and retries, relatively simple backdrops, and no whiz-bang computer graphics: Just stage, a solid script, a good crew, and talented actors. There's something to be said for the art of performance.
Guys, I hate to break this to you, but "most users" can't install the drivers on Windows either. You ever walk someone through that process?
e -you-sure-you--" ...it says finished, do I click Ok?"
"Okay, so go to nvidia.com and find the driver for your card."
"How do I do that?"
"Click Downloads, select your operating system..."
"Is that Windows?"
"Yes. So select that and--"
"It says.. Windows XP slash 2000... Windows 98 slash 95..."
"You're on Windows XP. So select that."
"Okay."
"Now which video card do you have?"
"I don't know."
"Right click on the desktop. Go to properties. Go to Advanced. Do you see it?"
"No."
"Right above the colorful thing."
"Oh. Okay.. uh.."
"..it'll say Nvidia something, or maybe GeForce something."
"Ohhhh. GeForce 5200?"
"Okay, select that then."
"Where?"
"On the WEBSITE."
"Exit out of this?"
"YES, EXIT OUT OF THE PROPERTIES THING AND GO BACK TO THE WEBSITE."
"Okay."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Did you select the 5200 yet?"
"No, am I supposed to?"
"YES. Click that. Click next."
"Do-I-want-to-download-the-following-file: installer dot exe."
"Yes. Download that."
"Where should I save it?"
"ANYWHERE. The desktop, okay?"
"Okay... it's downloading."
"..."
"Do-I-want-to-run-the-following-application: installer dot exe."
"Yesssss."
"It says.. warning-some-software-can-damage-your-computer-ar
"Yes."
"Accept terms and conditions?"
"...yes..."
"This-will-install-nvidia-drivers-blah-blah-blah, continue?"
"...yes..."
"Setup is preparing the... uh, install..shield.. wizard?"
"That's fine, just let it go."
"Do I click Next?"
"YES. YES. JUST KEEP HAMMERING NEXT UNTIL IT SAYS FINISHED."
"Okay.
"YES FOR GOD'S SAKE ALREADY!"
"Okay, now it says I must reboot. Should I do that?"
"@#%"
Yeah. That's much, much easier for most people. The CLI looks intimidating but, to most people, both Windows and Linux CLI are incomprehensible gibberish anyway, so what's the difference?
I'm aware that this is somewhat beside the point, but why hasn't anyone called Michael Chrichton on the fact that his plots always follow the same formula? That is, humans develop an exciting breakthrough technology, and then it goes horrible awry since we lack the wisdom needed to temper ourselves.
Westworld: Animatronic robots blow a fuse and eliminate people
Jurassic Park: Dinosaurs, brought back via genetic engineering, get lose and wreak havoc
Running Man: The Governator engages androids in battle; our own inventions bite us in the ass.
This thread: It began in a farcical way but becomes trite and tired. Don't you agree?
If you have further examples at your disposal, please post in reply.
isn't being paid to know how to drive. Users often are. Walk into any office (or worse, support any office) and witness the hundreds of clueless twits who haven't the slightest idea how to use their computer properly, or even effectively, or even competently, or even just without breaking something.
These people have jobs that require the use of a computer. If they cannot perform basic -- and I do mean basic -- tasks, they aren't qualified to hold that position, no matter what else they can do. There's always someone else who can do what they do and manage to send email without wiping out their own inbox. In this day and age, "I'm not a computer person" holds no more validity than saying you won't photocopy something because "I'm not a copy machine person", and it's not like you're being asked to repair the thing on your own, just use it competently and effectively. Own up to the responsibilities of your job, and learn.
So when it was the big, dumb kids tormenting the quiet geek on the playground, in the locker room, in the hallways...nobody cared. Some lip service was paid but no one ever really got in trouble, no one cared, and administrators would wring their hands and go "Well, we didn't see it happening, so..."
But now the quiet geeks are the tormentors, on their own turf. And that's when the schools start caring and blithering about how something must be done. Astounding.
In high school some idiot senior football player had a beef with me -- I don't even remember what anymore. Something he basically made up. Tough guy that he was, he confronted my girlfriend in the hallway between classes, screaming in her face about how he was gonna mess me up. When I found her she was in tears.
Brought this to the attention of the principal, who cared for little other than the football team. His response was to make typical polite noises until we went away. A few hours later the kid approaches me in the lunchroom, ready to end my life, and probably would have if my much larger friend hadn't stepped in to tell him to piss off.
The ruckus was noticed by a science teacher who came over to ask what was going on. Dumb jock shoves the teacher, who hauls his ass down to the principal. The punishment? Sent home for the day. Oooh.
On his way out the kid kicked a huge dent in the side of my car. I noticed at the end of the day when I was leaving. (The moron kicked it in the side of the trunk compartment, though, so all I had to do was reach into the trunk and pop it back out from that side.)
The school did nothing about the vandalism to my car, the threats towards me or my girlfriend, and it was only when he put his hands on a teacher that anything was done -- and then, a slap on the wrist.
But everyone can now rest assured that had I blogged about what a douchebag the guy was, I would have been put in my place as a cyber bully.
The study has been done dozens of times here in the US, by various state and federal agencies. They ALL say the exact same things, which are, briefly --
- Speed limits are set artificially low from the 85th percentile (the universally agreed-upon standard).
- Raising and lowering posted speed limits has no significant effect on driver speed.
- Usually (as in, well more than half), lowering the posted limit increases the number of accidents in an area. The reason is because there's always one or two doofuses who actually obey the limit, so they're going 40mph while everyone else is going 60mph and those slow-moving people now constitute a very unexpected obstacle. You can argue that they are being lawful but the law is still stupid.
- Raising the limit, likewise, tends to decrease the number of accidents.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html Here's a great site all about it.
Department of Transportation / Federal Highway Authority study on the subject.
Even the government's own studies prove the speed limit is retarded and dangerous, but they stick to it.
Ask yourself why, and stop holding up this "for public safety" crap.
Breaking the law doesn't always mean you're wrong. The law. Is. Stupid.
"What do you think of users who know absolutely nothing about computers?"
Well, I think you -- the employer -- need to seriously re-examine your employee base, then. This is the twenty first century. Computers in the business environment have been around for a good twenty years, and really started gettinng huge ten years ago with Windows 95. In today's modern workplace, if you really know nothing about computers, you aren't qualified for the job. It doesn't matter that you're a brialliant loan officer or whatever else -- part of the job involves using computers. Period. The excuse "I'm not a computer person" or "It's not my area" no longer holds water. This isn't the 70s.
I'm not asking users to know how to examine their TCP/IP properties or perform network diagnostics. I'm not asking them to open the box and replace bad memory, or how to mount an image as a device, or anything else remotely complicated or nonintuitive.
I am asking them to know how to do the basic, fundamental things that are required of them in their job, and do these things competently. You need to know how to open Word and grab a document off your coworker's shared folder. You need to know how to save things in sane, organized places so you can find them later. You need to understand that not everything is safe to arbitrariliy download and run, so don't do it. Basic stuff.
And perhaps that's part of why IT professionals hold users in such contempt. They are hounded nonstop by people who somehow got jobs for which they clearly lack the necessary skills (because using a computer is a necessary skill, people). And instead of getting to do anything interesting they spend half their time doing what amounts to job training for clueless people who really should know better.
To make it worse, I can think of few other fields where the client base gets as demanding and unreasonable. You won't often catch someone who deliberately tinkers with their car engine for no reason, breaks it, then harrasses the mechanic every thirty minutes to "just fix it". When the mechanic says "It's going to take two days", that's the end of it, and most people realize that no amount of arguing will change that. Not so in the computer world -- users think it's perfectly okay to get snippy, and that the Magic IT Guy can just wave his Magic IT Wand and magically fix any problem (usually by "just dialing in").
IT is a tough field, especially when you deal with end users. I think we get jaded and snotty because really, you can only listen to the whines and insults of the users for so long before it affects you -- and make no mistake, users are every bit as insulting as they think we are.
1) An embryo is a collection of cells and has life (as much life as a bacterium, which I doubt you would deny).
Okay. But no one cares about whether it's alive. We kill living things all the time. We care about whether it's human...
2) At conception, the genetic structure is uniquely human.
Great definition! But wait, can't the same be said about every cell in my body? Am I committing mass murder of "human life" by pricking my finger and losing a drop of blood?
What makes a human a human isn't just genetics or "being alive". Our brain is the only thing that seperates us from any other living creature as far as we can tell. Let's talk about whether or not this thing has a brain.
Of course, the fundies will quickly argue that even though large-scale neuron linkup doesn't begin until the sixth or seventh month, the embryo has a "soul" or somesuch. Pure speculation with zero factual evidence behind it, but for the moment let's assume that's true.
Have they considered the implications of life being able to have a soul without a brain, or sentience? If they're willing to say that this brainless clump of cells has a "soul", how do they know animals don't have souls? Or plants? Or bacteria, for that matter? They're just as alive as the embryo, and the animals at least have developed, functional brains.
But it terrifies them to think that the hamburger they just ate may have come from a cow that had a soul just like theirs, so they dismiss it as nonsense. Eventually they'll fall back to some line about how God uniquely created humans in his image, not animals, so there.
The more you push the more weak their argument becomes. Of course, most people never get this far -- they just assert blind opinions as fact: "I believe abortion is morally wrong." Ask them why and you get standard-issue responses. Press a little more and they're left gibbering.
1) I got sick to death of having to run CD burning software with sudo.
.NET hobbyist like is simply not there.
Uh, what? You stick a blank CD in, it mounts, and you drag whatever you want to it, then click burn. You don't have to be root. What are you doing?
2) A lot of software I as a
Well duh. But you can't criticize Linux for that really. If your goal is to mess with Microsoft stuff, of course you need Microsoft products.
3) I hate to say it, but Windows XP actually runs consistently faster under load on my laptop than Ubuntu. The GUI in particular is more responsive under load than GNOME or KDE.
Must be a hardware thing, cause I haven't noticed any difference on my two laptops, both of which have run Windows and Ubuntu.
4) Things like easily configuring wireless connections really do work out of the box better on Windows XP than they do in Linux.
That's somewhat fair. But to be even more fair you'd have to point out that there are plenty of times where wireless doesn't work at all in Windows, and it's not all that easy to get running. For the "average user", I don't see how scanning around Dell's site and finding obscure drivers is easier than using ndiswrapper.
5) Windows has far more good software options.
Now here, you have GOT to be kidding me.
You want software for Windows? You can either buy it, or you can search Google for keywords and hope to fucking god to find something that does what you want, is free, and isn't loaded with spyware and crap. Once it's installed you have to clean up after it and all the crappy desktop icons, systray garbage, extraneous start menu folders, and other nonsense it leaves behind.
Ubuntu? Add/Remove, or Synaptic. Type in something and you get a bunch of choices almost instantly. There are usually several choices so you're not locked into anything. Just pick whatever you like and click Install and a few seconds later, literally, it shows up in your Applications folder, installing only what was necessary to run the app, and already categorized into sane, organized menus. (Applications > Sound & Video > DVD Player, as opposed to Start > All Programs > Megatech > Megatech WinDVD > Run Megatech WinDVD).
This article explains why Ubuntu is ideal for new users, using criteria that users actually care about, instead of the usual holy wars surrounding distro of choice discussions amongst geeks. Check it out.
First is that, by and large, there really aren't that many incriminating things that people post on Myspace, unless you count the barely-coherent crap they try to pass off as English, but the fact that they're inarticulate goons would have come out on the application, resume, or interview anyway.
The implication always seems to be that a potential employer could find your Myspace, notice that you have pictures of yourself mooning the camera or blogging about how much weed you smoked, and refuse to hire you and so will everyone else and your entire career is ruined before it even got started.
However, how many people really do this? I've been around Myspace a lot and I just don't see much of this going on. The few brain-dead twahns that think it's a great idea to post photos of themselves doing stupid shit are just displaying lousy judgement -- something that would quickly become apparent to any potential employer even without Myspace, so what's the difference?
Consider also the ages involved here. The complainers are usually middle-aged up-and-outs who barely understand what the internet and web are about anyway. The people they complain about are usually teenagers or young twentysomethings who have a solid grasp on the implications of the digital age.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Baby Boomer's opinions are only going to be relevent for a few more years. In five or ten years' time most of them will be retired or out of positions of authority, and people my age (mid-late twenties) are going to be running the show. And people my age, well, we just don't care that you had a silly Myspace when you were a teenager, because everyone else did too, including us. If we start picking and choosing our potential underlings based on who had a stupid Myspace page, we're going to have a very dry pool indeed.
In the meantime, before those Boomers get out of the way, it's not like these teenagers are applying for such high-end jobs that anyone actually checks up on them. They fill in an application, interview once -- sometimes on the spot -- and there's a job. Even for entry-level positions in the "real world", which is where they'll be starting, rarely go beyond a cursory examination of an application or resume and a round or two of interviews. Either you're a good fit for the position or you're not.
Yes, I am simplifying the matter a bit, and there are always exceptions here and there to the generalities I am discussing, but this is basically how it is: The only people that care about this and worry about the privacy issues are either:
Are you kidding? "winver.exe"? It's hard enough to tell these users where to click, nevermind get them to type something coherent. Here are a two options:
1. Click the Start menu. On 90% of Windows machines, the version is right there on the side of the menu.
2. If for some reason you need something more specific than "XP" or "2000", right-click My Computer, click Properites, and say "Read me what it says."
But you want this instead:
"Okay sir, can you click the Start menu. Go to Run. Run. Yes. In there type doubleyew eye en vee... no sir, that's eye, as in Igloo. Okay. Doubleyew eye en vee... no, sir, not after. Just that. Okay, uh, clear out everything in that box. Use the backspace key. Yes. Now, type this: Doubleyew, eye, enn, vee, e, arr, dot, ee, ex, ee. Nothing? Well, can you tell me that error message? 'Windows cannot find--' Oh, I see. Okay, sir, that was dot ee-ex-ee, not dot-com. Can you put that instead? Yeah, I know, but it's not a website, it's a command. No, it was doubleyew, eye, en, vee..."
Heh, the "majority" of users I deal with still haven't turned off the "HEY YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEND INFORMATION OVER THE INTERNET!" or "DO YOU WANT TO STORE THIS FORM INFORMATION?!" dialogue boxes in IE that comes up every time you type something into, say, Google. A simple checkbox that says "Don't tell me this again" and after using it five days a week for six years it still hasn't dawned on them to click it. What makes you think they're going to be any more capable of disabling this?
Most people put up with such obnoxiousness because to them, computers are obnoxious anyway, and it doesn't occur to them that there are simple ways of turning off most of the obnoxious crap.
Yeah, uh. I realized that about an hour after posting my brilliant comment. Ah well. It's still neat.
Check it out here -- the amazing sampled human beatbox. I like this guy's theatrics a lot more anyway.
You mean companies can't "increase productivity" much beyond where we are now? How terrible. It's not enough to have positive growth anymore, now we have to have ever-faster growth?
Shouldn't we be looking for ways to cut our "productivity" and enjoy the leisure time of our limited lives?
Time was if you carried a pager you were obviously in some high-stress, critical job like a doctor or a stockbroker. Somehow, humanity survived these dark ages. Nowadays you're expected to have a cellphone, take client calls from the road, answer calls from your boss at any time when you're not at work, and if you don't, people act as though there's no way to continue working.
And we still put in 50 or more hours a week.
Call me crazy for not really caring about "productivity" as long as stuff gets done. Hell, most people spend the majority of their time at work idling anyway -- like Office Space said, there is maybe an hour of real, actual work to do per day, and the rest is just screwing around and giving off the appearance of being busy, or engaging in mindless busywork that makes no difference to anyone.
So today, instead of working 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, it's 8 to 6 with half an hour, if that, plus we're expected to bring our work home with us, and have our cellphones handy at all times -- and we're still worried about how maybe we can't pump MORE PRODUCTIVITY!!! from our little worker drones. What a pathetic society we've constructed.
There is more to life than the pursuit of the almighty dollar, people.
So Microsoft is basically saying that, because you're too stupid to run a VM, you shouldn't. You are not too stupid, however, to handle their bloatware OS by itself, because we all know that users perfectly understand the general risks of Windows. That's really great. And just what "risk" are we talking about here? You risk not being a huge security hole? You risk that performance hit and not being able to run the almighty Aero? You risk not being able to see their lame 3D crap? What?
Well, now, let's see.
What would prevent an indivudal in today's industrial society from passing on his genes?
We have no natural predators. We don't have to hunt, gather, or forage. We don't have to be particularly intelligent. Virtually any physical handicap can be compensated for via technology -- glasses, implants, wheelchairs, prosthetics, surgury to correct whatever, and so on.
In today's society, pretty much any schmuck, no matter what, can live, land some kind of job, and knock someone up / get knocked up. Even if they're so utterly useless that they can't provide for their offspring, in comes welfare programs and the like. At least in the first world, there are very few children born who die simply because their parents couldn't feed and shelter them. (For anyone about to argue, please read very carefully what I said -- because I didn't say the kid is going to have a great life, merely that he won't die.)
Fact is that the epsilon semi-moron down the street from you has just as good a chance of producing children as does the guy with the brains of Einstein and the body of Jesse Owens.
Furthermore, environmental pressures specifically, and evolution in general, only occurs within relatively small and isolated groups. In a flock of one hundred, a "superior" bird will quickly outcompete the others. In a flock of one thousand, it's rather more difficult. In a flock of ten thousand he'll barely be noticed -- his genes will be drowned out by sheer numbers. And if that flock is near another flock of ten thousand, and they tend to interbreed a lot, or perhaps merge into one huge 20,000 member flock, it's nearly hopeless.
There are six and a half billion humans and, again at least for thsoe of us in the developed nations, virtually zero obstacles to our being able to travel anywhere at will. Hell, in my city alone there are almost five million people. I could be the best and brightest and hottest man alive, and that isn't going to matter, because Cletus the Slackjaw can have kids just as easily as I can.
Please, tell us what possible environmental pressures exist in a developed nation which would possibly cause an individual not to be able to pass his genes along.