Obviously I wouldn't choose to ride on a narrow busy road if there was any alternative.
The alternative is to get a vehicle capable of keeping up with the flow of traffic. Your pet choice doesn't give you some exalted status.
No, I don't. They were built with my taxes, they are built on public land. I don't care how much you paid for your car, I have a right to use public roads in my puny velocipede.
Hey! The park was built with my taxes and on public land! Does that mean I can drive my car all over it?
No? Why not? Oh, because it wasn't built for cars?
Well, the road wasn't built for bicycles.
Now, whether you like it or not, as I said, with rights comes responsibility. If you cannot keep up with the flow of traffic, you are breaking the law. There is a minimum speed limit -- and not just on highways. You cannot, if you are in a car, just arbitrarily slow down to 20mph in a 45mph zone, and if you do so in front of a cop, expect to get pulled over. So why do you think that you get to do the same thing because you're on a bike?
Keep up with traffic or get the hell off the road. Obey all traffic signs and signals, not just the ones that are convenient for you. Do not assume that because your bike can weave through cars, you're allowed to do so. Use hand signals to indicate to drivers when you're about to slow down or turn.
These are not suggestions, these are laws. If and only if you can manage to adhere to all of them, I'll respect your right to use the road with a bike -- especially that first one. Until then, not only do you have no right to use the road, but it is patently illegal for you to do so.
With your "right" to use the road comes some responsibility -- like the responsibility to STOP at red lights and stop signs (bike riders seem to think this shit doesn't apply to them cause hey, it's just a bike!). Or the responsibility to not impede traffic flow by going 20mph slower than everyone else (yes, this is illegal, and saying "go around" doesn't cut it since it's nearly impossible on most roads, and if we try you'll gripe that we're maniacs trying to kill you). Or the responsibility to stop behind the car in front of you at red lights or other stops -- not bypass the line of cars and race your way to the front.
You want drivers to respect your right and treat you like any other vehicle, then ACT like you're on any other vehicle. Or maybe you should accept that roads were built for cars, not your puny velocipede. I respect your right to travel using whatever means you can get your hands on or choose to employ, but not at the expense of other people's sanity and ability to get where they're going. Just because it has wheels doesn't mean it's ready for the road.
Unfortunately what you're saying is neither here nor there. If math were taught as a method, as a means of allowing students to deduce the unknown from the known, then perhaps we'd be making some progress. But it isn't taught that way, and hasn't been for decades (at least). It is taught as a series of mindless formulas you are told to memorize and then spit back on command.
To this day I have no idea, whatsoever, what a quadratic equation is, beyond a vague, barely-remembered notion of "something to do with parabolas". I have no clue what one would ever use this formula for. I went through the normal gauntlet, though -- three years of required algebra and geometry in high school and another two semesters of algebra in college. During this time I could factor quadratic equations like it was nobody's business, because I'd memorized how to do it. Ask me what the hell I was doing, and I would have stared at you blankly. I still would. And you know I'm not alone here -- most people come out of math courses this way, and forget everything they allegedly learned a few months later. They will never have any use for this knowledge again for the rest of their lives.
But in the end I'm okay with that. There are plenty of means of teaching pure logic without teaching math and anyone who says otherwise hasn't taken the classes. The notion that "if we teach them math, then 'somehow' logic will transfer to them as well even if we don't directly teach logic" is a silly one and one that lacks any evidence -- but countless millions of students with high school and even college degrees, who took all the same math classes, stand as evidence of what I'm saying. If we care so much about instilling logic into our students, we can teach them logic, instead of having them drill in calculating derivatives and hoping like hell that "somehow" they learn logic from this.
Finally, back to my initial point -- math geeks need to realise that most people have no practical use for math beyond basic arithmetic. It is of personal interest to a minor fraction of the population, of professional use to another small portion, and useless to the rest. Just because Joe finds math interesting doesn't mean it is automatically "easy" or "logical" or "basic" to everyone else.
Despite my being an English major you won't catch me insisting that everyone must be well-versed in the works of Chaucer or Gothic literature. However, I would also submit that the ability to express one's ideas and thoughts to another, with eloquence and precision, is of incalculable value to anyone, in any walk of life, irrespective of occupation, social status, or other interests -- and not just professionally, but socially as well. You can be a math genius, but I'm still going to think you're an idiot if you come off as an inarticulate twit who can't properly wield his native language.
Were I your manager I would have given you a very stern talking-to for that math nonsense. Math education has virtually nothing to do with logic -- you are, in school, required to memorize formulas, and then plug in values when asked. You don't need to know the first thing about what you're actually doing, why any of it works, how these formulas were derived, or anything else, so long as you can dance on cue.
You're asking people to come out of that kind of system, and then never use any of it for ten years, and be able to derive mathematical formulas that most people didn't understand or care about even when they were being exposed to it on a daily basis. Are you insane or just sadistic?
And don't bother with the "it's just logic" crap. It seems like that to people who are good at math, but to those who are not, it is anything but logical -- and I believe it was Feynman himself who said something about how much of it made no real sense and merely had to be accepted. Frankly I have never seen a very convincing argument for the statement that learning math teaches logic, but it's so oft-repeated that it's become true by fiat.
Isn't a college degree just a symbol that says, "Look, a whole bunch of people with good reputations threw a bunch of puzzles at me. Some were hard, some were easy, but overall I did well enough to pass through these puzzles. I retained some of the information and processes but that's not really important. What's important is the fact that I'm able to solve problems and paid to do it for four years."
More like, "Look, a whole bunch of people asked me to memorize random bits of trivia and facts, long enough to pass some tests, after which I was permitted to forget most or all of it, forever. This thoroughly silly process continued for four years, during much of which I was drinking, trying to get laid, playing pranks on the other people around me, or otherwise screwing around. I'm much more qualified than someone who didn't go through this process!"
Anyone who thinks school is about learning hasn't been to school in decades; at least, not a public school. They are essentially daycare centers designed to keep the little punks off the street until they're 18. The only reason they bother teaching anything is because they have to make it *look* like they're doing something worthwhile.
But in the end, how many of those students are ever going to need to factor a quadratic equation, know what a midochondria is, explain the tidal forces of the moon, be able to identify key characteristics of Southern Gothic literature, etc? How much of this stuff do you think they even remember?
Like most everyone here I went through high school and did the usual two or three years of algebra, plus another year in college, and today I couldn't tell you how to factor a quadratic equation if my life depended on it. I barely know what one is aside from some vague, dimly remembered notion of "something to do with parabolas". I'm 27. I'm not unique.
Most people "learn" the material taught in school long enough to pass a test, at which point it is forgotten forever, and school makes no attempt at pretending this isn't the case. As for "skills", as opposed to "facts" -- things like "how to research a paper" -- school is equally useless, cramming everyone into a one-approach-works-for-all method and emphasizing how you format your citations instead of why citations are important, or the content of the paper. I myself do not use notecards, outlines, and make only marginal use of rough drafts (certainly not in the rigidly formalized style touted by educators), yet consistently handed in highly marked papers. At the same time we were all being told that without these things, your "research" is wrong and can barely be dignified with the word "research" at all.
Really, what are we worried about the kids learning / not learning? In the real world, it IS more important for this kid to learn how to use a computer and make inane presentations, because that's what corporate America values, not your ability to think creatively, or recite the presidents of the US in chronological order, or memorize a bunch of math formulas you don't even understand.
Assuming we're going to keep the same basic curriculum and education system, then it doesn't matter if the kids are learning "normal" stuff, or how to make Powerpoint presentations. If we care at all about education, then it is time to utterly, completely scrap the system we have, start over with a system that actually works, revise the curriculum, and perhaps admit to ourselves that not everyone can be / wants to be / needs to be "well-rounded".
Throwing technical contrivances like laptops at the education system is useless but harmless; just more bread and circuses for the politicians to point at and say "See, we're really doing something to help the kids!"
Take a look at this. It's a few of the opening scenes from "The Doomsday Machine", and the effects actually look pretty damn good. Nothing was touched except shots of the ships, and things like the main viewscreen. They aren't digitally altering characters or anything.
It's easy to compare this to Lucas and his screwing around with Star Wars, but I don't think it's a fair comparision. Give Trek's effects people their credit -- they did a damn fine job for what they had, which was 60s technology and no budget, but let's face it, the effects look pretty hokey today. Unlike Star Wars, where most of the special effects still look convincing, Trek's effects could benefit from a makeover.
First, you claim "study after study" but you posted ONE STUDY.
Yeah, sorry I didn't provide a mountain of research there. Google "85th percentile" and see for yourself. The study I posted was authoritative enough.
1) This study was done on NON-LIMITED ACCESS ROADS. That means it was not done on the interstate highway system. Considering this thread was about the interstates, this isn't an apples to apples comparison.
I have no good reason to think that people's driving habits suddenly and radically alter when they get on the freeway, do you? Show me evidence to the contrary and I'll accept it but on the face of it your assertion is ridiculous.
Once again, you're blaming the citizens that follow the speed limit for this when you should be blaming the citizens that were breaking the law.
No, I'm blaming the speed limit for being in place when it is a known fact it will be ignored. There is no point whatsoever in creating a law you know will be ignored, and then getting upset when people ignore it. The goody two-shoes who actually follow the speed limit are technically following the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and are consequently more of a burden to society than the ones who are "breaking" the law by going at a reasonable speed.
Second, it's my observation that most of us drive by "feel." That is, I'm not likely to monitor my speedometer while driving unless prompted by a slow or fast moving vehicle or law enforcement.
So you admit that you basically ignore posted speed limits and just drive however fast feels right.
Which is exactly what the study showed -- people ignore posted speed limits and drive however fast feels right.
Now you want to lash them at the stake for doing this because they're demons on wheels.
Not uncoincidentally, the state, well aware of this fact, promptly posts limits well below what the average "feels right" speed is, so they can nail people for speeding and collect more money, which is what the study was all about, as well as this discussion -- wherein you assert that the speed limit is some kind of binding, always-correct mandate handed down from Mount Sinai. It's not. It's a silly number posted by greedy assholes who can make you pay money for ignoring it because they have more guns than you do.
So, are you quite done making an ass of yourself?
Before the evening a mob burned Oliver's property on Kilby street, then moved on to his house. There they beheaded the effigy and stoned the house as its occupants looked out in horror. They then moved to nearby Fort Hill were they built a large fire and burned what was left of the effigy. Most of the crowd dissipated at that point, however McIntosh and crew, then under cover of darkness, ransacked Oliver's abandoned home until midnight. On that evening it became very clear who ruled Boston. The British Militia, the Sheriffs and Justices, kept a low profile. No one dared respond to such violent force.
By the end of that year the Sons of Liberty existed in every colony. Their most popular objective was to force Stamp Distributors throughout the colonies to resign.
An organization using violent force and intimidation to create political change. Yeah, I'd say that's terrorism.
Of course, we call them freedom fighters, or heroes today. Back then, the ruling government (Britain) considered them terrorists.
There are plenty of stories of other state officials being beaten, tarred and feathered, having property destroyed, and so forth, in the time leading up to the actual Revolutionary War. While the tactics used may seem somewhat tame today, there were also less people involved, less communications, and less effective ways of getting your hands on stuff that really creates damage, but for what they had they managed to create quite a stir.
1. The ideal speed limit is the 85th percentile of driver speed.
2. Raising and lowering the speed limit has little to no effect on the speed people will actually drive.
3. Most places set the speed limit at the 45th percentile or so.
From this can we not conclude that lowering the speed limit, which the government is well aware will be ignored, is only a revenue-generating tactic?
Furthermore, can we not conclude that, since we KNOW people will drive at whatever speed they deem reasonable (the 85th percentile), lowering the speed limit to something far lower than this causes problems? Specifically, there's always going to be a few people who follow the posted limit, but they are suddenly slow-moving, unexpected obstacles in a river of fast-flowing traffic.
Please feel free to look at the research yourself, but don't just assume that Big Brother Knows Best and the speed limits are there for safety. In fact,
# Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate is 44 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 11 percent to an increase of 26 percent.
# Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate in 59 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 21 percent to an increase of 10 percent.
Seems that raising the limit, to remove the annoying blockheads who are going 20mph slower than everyone else, actually makes the roads SAFER. You'll also find that raising the limit does not cause everyone to start driving really fast, contrary to what you claim above. You can state your "I think" all day long, but experimental data overrides you.
How many of us would have known about the white PSP coming out if it weren't for this highly controversial ad?
I wouldn't have.
My guess is, this ad is deliberately provocative, just to stir things up. We can sit here and bicker about it all day, but as a result, we've now all seen the ads. From a marketing standpoint, it's quite brilliant.
Bostoners and New Yorkers and Atlanteans pronounce many words in different ways. Who gets to be the official "correct" one?
This is totally off topic, but this drives me insane -- creating names to identify citizenry. A few places have names that lend themselves well -- "New York" to "New Yorker", but most do not. I cringe whenever I hear someone muse over questions such as "A bunch of Balti.. Balt.. uh, what's the word for someone from Baltimore? Baltimorian? Baltimoron?"
The answer is that there IS NO WORD. There is no such thing as "Atlantean" (how do you know it's not "Atlantan"?) or Bostoner (why not "Bostonian"?)
Instead of inventing ridiculous, made-up words, this sentence could have read, "People from Boston, New York, or Atlanta pronounce many words..."
Computers are now part of the modern office, and they aren't going anywhere. If your job involves using a computer, and you don't know how, guess what? You are not qualified to hold that position, any more than I would be qualified to have a job as a lumberjack without knowing how to use a saw.
It's like pointing someone at an F-16 and saying, "She's all yours. Go do your job. We'll make sure you're shot down quickly so you don't have to do anything other than get it airborne."
Hey. If they're in the Air Force and their job is to fly fighter jets, then yes, I as the mechanic expect them to know how to freaking fly it. It's not my job to teach them. If they can't fly it, then what the hell are they doing in this job?
So, in addition to this truly groundbreaking news that "Windows security" is anything but, which makes just about anything more secure, could Sophos have possibly used a more idiotic metric?
Using the ten most common malwares, they found that -- gasp -- they infected the most common machines! Could it be that those are the common malwares because the machines they infect are also common?
Look at it another way. If every single Mac were infected with something, you could say "Well, only 4% of desktop / laptop computers are infected, therefore it's not very common and nothing to really worry about."
as the technical director for a small VoIP provider, and before that having done tech support for a major corporation, is that, despite college education, wealth, fancy suits, and other trappings of success, people, by and large, are really immature when it comes to social interaction.
It's as though they never get past the stage where you're supposed to realise that you are not Ptolmey, sitting at the center of the universe while everything revolves around you, and that if you yell and scream enough, eventually you'll get your way.
A few actual excerpts from some of the stuff that comes across my desk, with only identifying information removed; nothing else whatsoever is altered.
Subject: This #$%#
IT IS TIME FOR YOUR TECH PEOPLE TO GET TOGETHER WITH [our ISP] HERE IN TAMPA. IF THIS SERVICE ISN'T ABOUT 10 TIMES BETTER THAN AT PRESENT, YOU ARE GOING TO GET ALL OF IT BACK AND THEN SOME. WE ARE LOSING BUSINESS BY THE TRUCKLOAD, SO LET'S GET THIS FIXED.
For the record, he's pissed because his net connection sucked, which means his VoIP sucks, but that's not our problem. Which he was told, numerous times, yet for some reason, he thinks it's acceptable to write this.
PHONES ARE DOWN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!
Third time he's told us this in a fifteen-minute timespan, after we'd already spoken to him and told him we're working on it. I have not added any exclamation marks; this is exactly how he wrote it. And this is ALL he wrote; nothing before or after. Real mature.
I have a problem listening to my voicemail. I think it started about an hour ago. None of the office phones are letting us get to our messages. When we hit the button messages the lady says comedian mail mailbox. We enter our extension and then she says password. We enter our password and she says password incorrect.
One of my favorites. "The lady" referred to here is, of course, the recording that says things like "You have.. one.. new.. voice message. To play new messages, press one..." That a grown adult is referring to this announcement as "the lady" strikes me as utterly, utterly infantile. This sort of broken, stilted ramble is precisely what I would expect from a six or seven year old, not from an allegedly professional adult.
I sure hope someone answers this before Monday. If I have to wait until
Monday, you can stick this phone system where the sun don't shine.
Sent on a Sunday morning. We're closed on weekends except for emergencies, which he knows, but more to the point, what kind of adult says stuff like this?
People, this is just off the top of my ticket list here. If I really felt like digging around I could find dozens of examples even better than these, and oh, if only I had recordings of phone conversations I could post.:)
These sort of playground insults and me-me-me nonsense is what passes for grown up, rational adult communication with these loons -- most of whom are considered "successful" by society's metrics.
Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? If they're successful, they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else -- consumers, businesses and government -- will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth.
Is he saying that only those businesses lobbying for net neutrality will get it? Because here, he's saying "everyone else", including businesses, will have to pay "a competitive price" (whatever that means). Are Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo not businesses? What the hell is this idiot talking about?
I was of the impression that net neutrality had to do with, among other things, the idea that if it isn't "neutral", then, say, Comcast could partner with, say, Amazon, and give priority to Amazon traffic to the end-user. If said user tries to visit, say, Barnes & Noble, the site will be much slower than Amazon, because Barnes & Noble isn't partered with his ISP. (Same with game servers, VoIP providers, etc.)
This is more or less what he says here:
Net neutrality proponents worry that telecom, wireless and cable companies might one day favor their own content and applications over others. They want Congress to pass a new law to ban that practice by regulating the price of broadband service and the way it's sold.
Uh, who said anything about pricing? All I want is for the law to say "ISPs are not allowed to prioritize packets based on business agreements or partnerships or whatever else. The user pays for a 6 meg pipe and gets to send and receive whatever bits he wants, period."
You know.. sort of the way it is now.
Since I can't read Craig's argument, I can't say who "won", but from this, the guy is alternating between babbling and outright lying.
And of course, consider the question another way: "Two men debate net neutrality. One would stand to directly profit from preventing net neutrality, while to the other, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Who do you think is more honest and objective?"
Their freedom to walk without direct involvement of an adult is gradually increased, and if a worrying trend develops their their freedom is reined back a little, for instance if they keep wandering into the road then they might be made to hold hands for the rest of that trip and that pattern repeated until they've learnt the lesson.
This is all well and good for walking, but the problem is that we never really let kids get that freedom when it comes to social interaction, or more specifically, sexual issues. We do everything in our power to keep them blithely unaware or underinformed, sheltering them from anything sexual or "offensive". Especially during a time when every hormone in their bodies compel them to experiment, we try to artifically suppress it, act like it doesn't exist.
Then, when they turn 18, we kick them out into the real world and assume they can handle it on their own. Big surprise, none of them has any idea what the fuck they're doing because we've gone out of our way to pretend the Real World doesn't exist, and most of them do stupid shit the first couple of years.
A 14 year old isn't going to have the full maturity of an adult, of course, but if we didn't have this ridiculous idea that all children must be sheltered until the last possible second, a 14 year old could easily grasp the concept of "When older guys take you home, their intentions probably aren't all that pure."
Then again, I get the impression she knew this already, but the parents flipping out is yet another symptom of "Most of all we've got to hide it from the kids." As long as we can continue to villify sex and anyone who chooses to have it, our precious children will be safe!
So you can find out that someone is a middle manager or a TCO Analyst or Regional Director of Corporate Affairs or whatever. Who cares? No one ever wanted to be that when they grew up. These are jobs people take because they became available and they needed to put food on the table, not because it's some passion that drives them.
With a few exceptions -- the lucky people who somehow manage to turn drive and passion into marketable work -- what a person does is the least important thing about them. They, like most everyone, spend 1/3rd of their life doing something they'd rather not do, but are forced to because they need money.
These kinds of discussions make me sick.
on
On Point On Slacking
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I grew up thinking "9 to 5, an hour for lunch" was normal and expected. At the time (early 80s) it probably was. Little by little, it has eroded, a half hour here, fifteen minutes there. Most "normal" workdays are 8 to 5, half hour for lunch, and staying late is expected -- if you take off right at 5 in most places, you're going to get some looks.
Remember when only certain, time-critical jobs required people to carry pagers? You could tell someone was a doctor or a stockbroker if he was carrying one. Everyone else left work at work. Nowadays, you're expected to answer your cellphone at any time day or night if the boss calls.
Vacation time gets slowly whittled away. Years ago, maybe you accrued one day of vacation per month. Then it was half a day. Then you couldn't roll those days into the next fiscal year -- use 'em or lose 'em. (You probably lost 'em.) Sorry, it's for "productivity" reasons. We need more "productivity" from our worker bees. I don't think you're typing as fast as you could be. With another 3wpm you could save thirty seven seconds per quarter, you slacker. Is that a personal call I see you making? You're not on the interworldwebnet, are you? That's a productivity loss! Why aren't you being productive? I know you've been here since 8am, worked through lunch, plan to stay late, and probably take client calls from your cellphone while sitting in traffic, but goddammit, be productive!! Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger!
Americans work insane amounts. (I realize we are not alone in this, so cork it.) It's especially insane when you realize that "productivity" hasn't really increased that much. We show up earlier, stay later, take less breaks, but in any given day, the average office yob only has so much to do. Now they just have to spread their bit of work over nine hours, instead of seven or eight.
The push for almighty profit has taken a lot away from society. Contrary to what conservatives love to believe, there is more to life than making money. Not long ago I was listening to some doofus on the radio prattling to the host about what a lazy bunch of losers France was. His justification for this was that their economic growth isn't as fast as ours.
There seems to be an awful lot of this mentality, and it sickens me. Sure, they get tons of free time. What is it, eight weeks of vacation a year? Ten? 35 hour workweeks or something? In other words, time to enjoy life and do something you enjoy? Oh, but their economic growth isn't as fast as America's! WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Most people are not doing anything so important that it requires five eight-or-nine hour days. I have my doubts that most people would admit that, but that's another problem in our culture of profit profit profit -- that we tie our identities so intrisically to our jobs, that it feels insulting to hear that what we're doing really isn't all that important. But I'm telling you, and all the other Joe Timesheets and Eddie Punchclocks out there, that really, if you only wrote TPS reports four days a week instead of five, nobody would notice. Things would still get done.
I take that back -- the only people who would notice are those who directly profit from your efforts. So while 99% of the workforce would like to go the fuck home and enjoy what life has to offer, we're trapped in soul-crushing hellholes by the 1% that controls these things.
Right now it's a beautiful day outside. I can see it from my window. I could be out there sunbathing or reading or falling in the water as I try to learn to use a kayak or getting sighed at by my friend as he tries to explain for the tenth time the difference between these knots as we prepare to go rock climbing. I could be playing with my cats, throwing Frisbees at my girlfriend's dogs, or just taking a nap. Instead, I have to stay here.
There is nothing for me to do in the office today, but I have
No Bluetooth?! What the hell were they thinking? Don't they remember how a few years ago, before Bluetooth, was like practically the Dark Ages, when you had to tediously plug in a cable to the device you were sitting right in front of?
It's almost unbelievable that anyone got anything done back then.
totally agree here, it has not been maybe 100 years or so ( correct me if i am wrong ) that humans started using radio waves for communication, these radio waves do not travel at the speed of light,
Yes, but it wasn't until the 30s that any of our transmissions were strong enough to get past our own atmosphere and into space.
Also, where did you get the idea that radio waves don't travel at the speed of light? They are light -- just not part of the visible spectrum we usually mean when we say "light". Still, it's all just photons. Radio, like X-rays, gamma rays, infrared, ultraviolet, etc, most certainly does travel at the speed of light.
I've seen reports like this over and over, and I continue to disagree, primarily because it makes it seem as though the medium is at fault. It isn't. The people are the problem.
I will agree that it is unlikely that an average office yob is going to have a level of linguistic prowess that allows him to convey every nuance of meaning through text. I do not ask that emails be Shakespearean sonnets full of flowery prose and deft, clever sentence construction. I can even overlook the occasional typo or grammatical or spelling error.
However, the problem is really that people are raging morons bordering on illiteracy.
Allow me to paste a few excerpts from real, actual emails I've received:
can you pls send me info on this solution
(This was the full text of the email. No one has any idea what he's asking for. Also, "pls" is not a word, and you didn't save yourself any time by refusing to type three extra letters.)
----
Can you check x301. It will not come up
(WHAT won't come up? What does that even mean?)
----
Update please
(This was in response to a five-paragraph email I wrote explaining that what he wants is technically impossible, the reasons for this, and why it is sitting at the very bottom of my priority list -- a two-word reply without a period.)
---
I have the [device] direct into a modem via a switch, I have tested the codecs multiple times but still horrible service
Also why is it coming up with [error message] ??????????
(I don't know. Why are you coming up with seventeen question marks???????? Would it have killed you to say "I still have horrible service", or put a period there? It's also noteworthy that "testing codecs" has NOTHING to do with what I asked him to do in a previous email -- this isn't a lack of technical expertise. He simply did not read what was written to him.)
---
For the record, all of these people are Americans and speak English natively.
Do you notice a theme here? What possible school of thought made someone think these were reasonable communiques? Some of them are bordering on incoherency; others are outright rude or demonstrate that the person didn't bother reading the email at all. Capitalization is a crapshoot and for some reason, people don't think periods are important. (I'm ignoring "direct to a modem via a switch, because that's not a problem with English, but seriously, what the fuck?)
No, the problem isn't email. The problem is stupidity. Email, as are all other text communications, is a perfectly valid way of sending someone a clear message, but the desire to do so has to be there, as does a basic understanding of the language.
The notion that "email is hard to understand" is idiotic. People can't bloody read or write -- that's the problem. These are supposed to be adults, and professionals, and most if not all of them graduated college. Yet in their minds, this drivel is what constitutes a serious attempt at communication to another professional.
I doubt any one of you is having a great deal of difficulty understanding what I'm saying here. I've explained my observations rationally. You can tell I'm annoyed or angry or frustrated. And this is the same medium as email uses -- plain text.
Most of the idiots I deal with follow a pattern. It varies in details but the theme is the same -- attempt communications NON-FREAKING-STOP until they get an answer. Typically, I will be away from the desk or something, and they'll call four or five times, leaving one message at the end once they realize I'm not there. Afterwards, they'll usually call a couple more times over the course of the next thirty mninutes, then email me telling me about the voicemail, then email either my boss or my sales partner asking why I won't call them back.
(Of course, it wouldn't matter, since 99% of the time, when I return a user's call, they aren't there, or they're calling from their car or something, meaning they're nowhere near the device or machine that is giving them problems.. but that's another rant.)
Once I've been here a little longer and have the clout to throw around I'm going to implement a policy whereby a user is allowed ONE communique of any medium, and I will get back to him when I have the time, but for every subsequent attempt at reaching me after that initial attempt, I will add two hours to their response time. Contrary to their belief, they are not important -- they are but one of hundreds of other doofuses I have to support and my job entails more than just supporting doofuses, which means I have other things to do, which means every time they call and get pushy about their problem, they are pissing off the only person who can help them.
Thankfully my boss has already green-lit this idea, but I'm not going to do it without permission from the owner -- hence the waiting.
Anyway, the point is that making people wait doesn't always work, depending on the type of userbase you're dealing with. Most people are impatient and behave like Ptolmey, sitting at the center of the universe while everything rotates around them. If you wait a whole 24 hours to call them back they're going to make your life miserable.
Look, this could change in the future, but as it stands now, my users are freaking morons. One of them swore up and down that her email address didn't have an @. Another couldn't find her start menu (no, it wasn't hidden or anything like that). I've got a guy who configured his extension to forward to itself and doesn't understand why it doesn't work. I've been working with another idiot that wanted me to, quote, "put the address on the internet".
Now you want them to create sets of keys and upload them somewhere. It's not going to happen. No matter how user-friendly the system is, there is no way in Hell these people are going to be capable of it. They barely even know what encryption is. The only reason they ask is so they can hear themselves talk.
I say forget it. Voip is as secure as it needs to be, which is "not very", which is as secure as phones have always been.
I am the technical director for a small voip provider, and I can't tell you how many times a day we get asked "how secure is it?"
Really, I want to answer: "Who cares? Do you ask 'how secure is it' to Bell? No, you just get a phone line from them and stop worrying about it."
In fact, any schmuck can splice wires into a physical landline. My friend and I used to do it all the time to hassle my sister, and this was when we were 10. If a couple of ten year olds can monitor phone calls by sticking wires into the box which is secured with a single screw and easy to walk right up to, then it's not very secure.
Monitoring an RTP stream on the other hand would require some administrative level access to routers on the network, or owning a switch upstream, or spoofing MAC addresses locally, or other technical jiggery. It's not easy. Most of it requires physical access to the network at some point or another, and to say that it's therefore not secure is like saying your phone isn't secure because your mother might pick up the upstairs phone while you're talking. Oh noes!
All this blather about "encryption" is just that -- blather. Until Ma Bell starts encrypting copper line calls, I really don't see what the big deal is.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously I wouldn't choose to ride on a narrow busy road if there was any alternative.
The alternative is to get a vehicle capable of keeping up with the flow of traffic. Your pet choice doesn't give you some exalted status.
No, I don't. They were built with my taxes, they are built on public land. I don't care how much you paid for your car, I have a right to use public roads in my puny velocipede.
Hey! The park was built with my taxes and on public land! Does that mean I can drive my car all over it?
No? Why not? Oh, because it wasn't built for cars?
Well, the road wasn't built for bicycles.
Now, whether you like it or not, as I said, with rights comes responsibility. If you cannot keep up with the flow of traffic, you are breaking the law. There is a minimum speed limit -- and not just on highways. You cannot, if you are in a car, just arbitrarily slow down to 20mph in a 45mph zone, and if you do so in front of a cop, expect to get pulled over. So why do you think that you get to do the same thing because you're on a bike?
Keep up with traffic or get the hell off the road. Obey all traffic signs and signals, not just the ones that are convenient for you. Do not assume that because your bike can weave through cars, you're allowed to do so. Use hand signals to indicate to drivers when you're about to slow down or turn.
These are not suggestions, these are laws. If and only if you can manage to adhere to all of them, I'll respect your right to use the road with a bike -- especially that first one. Until then, not only do you have no right to use the road, but it is patently illegal for you to do so.
With your "right" to use the road comes some responsibility -- like the responsibility to STOP at red lights and stop signs (bike riders seem to think this shit doesn't apply to them cause hey, it's just a bike!). Or the responsibility to not impede traffic flow by going 20mph slower than everyone else (yes, this is illegal, and saying "go around" doesn't cut it since it's nearly impossible on most roads, and if we try you'll gripe that we're maniacs trying to kill you). Or the responsibility to stop behind the car in front of you at red lights or other stops -- not bypass the line of cars and race your way to the front.
You want drivers to respect your right and treat you like any other vehicle, then ACT like you're on any other vehicle. Or maybe you should accept that roads were built for cars, not your puny velocipede. I respect your right to travel using whatever means you can get your hands on or choose to employ, but not at the expense of other people's sanity and ability to get where they're going. Just because it has wheels doesn't mean it's ready for the road.
Unfortunately what you're saying is neither here nor there. If math were taught as a method, as a means of allowing students to deduce the unknown from the known, then perhaps we'd be making some progress. But it isn't taught that way, and hasn't been for decades (at least). It is taught as a series of mindless formulas you are told to memorize and then spit back on command.
To this day I have no idea, whatsoever, what a quadratic equation is, beyond a vague, barely-remembered notion of "something to do with parabolas". I have no clue what one would ever use this formula for. I went through the normal gauntlet, though -- three years of required algebra and geometry in high school and another two semesters of algebra in college. During this time I could factor quadratic equations like it was nobody's business, because I'd memorized how to do it. Ask me what the hell I was doing, and I would have stared at you blankly. I still would. And you know I'm not alone here -- most people come out of math courses this way, and forget everything they allegedly learned a few months later. They will never have any use for this knowledge again for the rest of their lives.
But in the end I'm okay with that. There are plenty of means of teaching pure logic without teaching math and anyone who says otherwise hasn't taken the classes. The notion that "if we teach them math, then 'somehow' logic will transfer to them as well even if we don't directly teach logic" is a silly one and one that lacks any evidence -- but countless millions of students with high school and even college degrees, who took all the same math classes, stand as evidence of what I'm saying. If we care so much about instilling logic into our students, we can teach them logic, instead of having them drill in calculating derivatives and hoping like hell that "somehow" they learn logic from this.
Finally, back to my initial point -- math geeks need to realise that most people have no practical use for math beyond basic arithmetic. It is of personal interest to a minor fraction of the population, of professional use to another small portion, and useless to the rest. Just because Joe finds math interesting doesn't mean it is automatically "easy" or "logical" or "basic" to everyone else.
Despite my being an English major you won't catch me insisting that everyone must be well-versed in the works of Chaucer or Gothic literature. However, I would also submit that the ability to express one's ideas and thoughts to another, with eloquence and precision, is of incalculable value to anyone, in any walk of life, irrespective of occupation, social status, or other interests -- and not just professionally, but socially as well. You can be a math genius, but I'm still going to think you're an idiot if you come off as an inarticulate twit who can't properly wield his native language.
Were I your manager I would have given you a very stern talking-to for that math nonsense. Math education has virtually nothing to do with logic -- you are, in school, required to memorize formulas, and then plug in values when asked. You don't need to know the first thing about what you're actually doing, why any of it works, how these formulas were derived, or anything else, so long as you can dance on cue.
You're asking people to come out of that kind of system, and then never use any of it for ten years, and be able to derive mathematical formulas that most people didn't understand or care about even when they were being exposed to it on a daily basis. Are you insane or just sadistic?
And don't bother with the "it's just logic" crap. It seems like that to people who are good at math, but to those who are not, it is anything but logical -- and I believe it was Feynman himself who said something about how much of it made no real sense and merely had to be accepted. Frankly I have never seen a very convincing argument for the statement that learning math teaches logic, but it's so oft-repeated that it's become true by fiat.
Isn't a college degree just a symbol that says, "Look, a whole bunch of people with good reputations threw a bunch of puzzles at me. Some were hard, some were easy, but overall I did well enough to pass through these puzzles. I retained some of the information and processes but that's not really important. What's important is the fact that I'm able to solve problems and paid to do it for four years."
More like, "Look, a whole bunch of people asked me to memorize random bits of trivia and facts, long enough to pass some tests, after which I was permitted to forget most or all of it, forever. This thoroughly silly process continued for four years, during much of which I was drinking, trying to get laid, playing pranks on the other people around me, or otherwise screwing around. I'm much more qualified than someone who didn't go through this process!"
Anyone who thinks school is about learning hasn't been to school in decades; at least, not a public school. They are essentially daycare centers designed to keep the little punks off the street until they're 18. The only reason they bother teaching anything is because they have to make it *look* like they're doing something worthwhile.
But in the end, how many of those students are ever going to need to factor a quadratic equation, know what a midochondria is, explain the tidal forces of the moon, be able to identify key characteristics of Southern Gothic literature, etc? How much of this stuff do you think they even remember?
Like most everyone here I went through high school and did the usual two or three years of algebra, plus another year in college, and today I couldn't tell you how to factor a quadratic equation if my life depended on it. I barely know what one is aside from some vague, dimly remembered notion of "something to do with parabolas". I'm 27. I'm not unique.
Most people "learn" the material taught in school long enough to pass a test, at which point it is forgotten forever, and school makes no attempt at pretending this isn't the case. As for "skills", as opposed to "facts" -- things like "how to research a paper" -- school is equally useless, cramming everyone into a one-approach-works-for-all method and emphasizing how you format your citations instead of why citations are important, or the content of the paper. I myself do not use notecards, outlines, and make only marginal use of rough drafts (certainly not in the rigidly formalized style touted by educators), yet consistently handed in highly marked papers. At the same time we were all being told that without these things, your "research" is wrong and can barely be dignified with the word "research" at all.
Really, what are we worried about the kids learning / not learning? In the real world, it IS more important for this kid to learn how to use a computer and make inane presentations, because that's what corporate America values, not your ability to think creatively, or recite the presidents of the US in chronological order, or memorize a bunch of math formulas you don't even understand.
Assuming we're going to keep the same basic curriculum and education system, then it doesn't matter if the kids are learning "normal" stuff, or how to make Powerpoint presentations. If we care at all about education, then it is time to utterly, completely scrap the system we have, start over with a system that actually works, revise the curriculum, and perhaps admit to ourselves that not everyone can be / wants to be / needs to be "well-rounded".
Throwing technical contrivances like laptops at the education system is useless but harmless; just more bread and circuses for the politicians to point at and say "See, we're really doing something to help the kids!"
Take a look at this. It's a few of the opening scenes from "The Doomsday Machine", and the effects actually look pretty damn good. Nothing was touched except shots of the ships, and things like the main viewscreen. They aren't digitally altering characters or anything.
It's easy to compare this to Lucas and his screwing around with Star Wars, but I don't think it's a fair comparision. Give Trek's effects people their credit -- they did a damn fine job for what they had, which was 60s technology and no budget, but let's face it, the effects look pretty hokey today. Unlike Star Wars, where most of the special effects still look convincing, Trek's effects could benefit from a makeover.
First, you claim "study after study" but you posted ONE STUDY.
Yeah, sorry I didn't provide a mountain of research there. Google "85th percentile" and see for yourself. The study I posted was authoritative enough.
1) This study was done on NON-LIMITED ACCESS ROADS. That means it was not done on the interstate highway system. Considering this thread was about the interstates, this isn't an apples to apples comparison.
I have no good reason to think that people's driving habits suddenly and radically alter when they get on the freeway, do you? Show me evidence to the contrary and I'll accept it but on the face of it your assertion is ridiculous.
Once again, you're blaming the citizens that follow the speed limit for this when you should be blaming the citizens that were breaking the law.
No, I'm blaming the speed limit for being in place when it is a known fact it will be ignored. There is no point whatsoever in creating a law you know will be ignored, and then getting upset when people ignore it. The goody two-shoes who actually follow the speed limit are technically following the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and are consequently more of a burden to society than the ones who are "breaking" the law by going at a reasonable speed.
Second, it's my observation that most of us drive by "feel." That is, I'm not likely to monitor my speedometer while driving unless prompted by a slow or fast moving vehicle or law enforcement.
So you admit that you basically ignore posted speed limits and just drive however fast feels right.
Which is exactly what the study showed -- people ignore posted speed limits and drive however fast feels right.
Now you want to lash them at the stake for doing this because they're demons on wheels.
Not uncoincidentally, the state, well aware of this fact, promptly posts limits well below what the average "feels right" speed is, so they can nail people for speeding and collect more money, which is what the study was all about, as well as this discussion -- wherein you assert that the speed limit is some kind of binding, always-correct mandate handed down from Mount Sinai. It's not. It's a silly number posted by greedy assholes who can make you pay money for ignoring it because they have more guns than you do. So, are you quite done making an ass of yourself?
Of course, we call them freedom fighters, or heroes today. Back then, the ruling government (Britain) considered them terrorists.
There are plenty of stories of other state officials being beaten, tarred and feathered, having property destroyed, and so forth, in the time leading up to the actual Revolutionary War. While the tactics used may seem somewhat tame today, there were also less people involved, less communications, and less effective ways of getting your hands on stuff that really creates damage, but for what they had they managed to create quite a stir.
1. The ideal speed limit is the 85th percentile of driver speed.
2. Raising and lowering the speed limit has little to no effect on the speed people will actually drive.
3. Most places set the speed limit at the 45th percentile or so.
These are facts. A study by the DoT says so, not me.
From this can we not conclude that lowering the speed limit, which the government is well aware will be ignored, is only a revenue-generating tactic?
Furthermore, can we not conclude that, since we KNOW people will drive at whatever speed they deem reasonable (the 85th percentile), lowering the speed limit to something far lower than this causes problems? Specifically, there's always going to be a few people who follow the posted limit, but they are suddenly slow-moving, unexpected obstacles in a river of fast-flowing traffic.
Please feel free to look at the research yourself, but don't just assume that Big Brother Knows Best and the speed limits are there for safety. In fact, Seems that raising the limit, to remove the annoying blockheads who are going 20mph slower than everyone else, actually makes the roads SAFER. You'll also find that raising the limit does not cause everyone to start driving really fast, contrary to what you claim above. You can state your "I think" all day long, but experimental data overrides you.
How many of us would have known about the white PSP coming out if it weren't for this highly controversial ad? I wouldn't have. My guess is, this ad is deliberately provocative, just to stir things up. We can sit here and bicker about it all day, but as a result, we've now all seen the ads. From a marketing standpoint, it's quite brilliant.
Bostoners and New Yorkers and Atlanteans pronounce many words in different ways. Who gets to be the official "correct" one?
This is totally off topic, but this drives me insane -- creating names to identify citizenry. A few places have names that lend themselves well -- "New York" to "New Yorker", but most do not. I cringe whenever I hear someone muse over questions such as "A bunch of Balti.. Balt.. uh, what's the word for someone from Baltimore? Baltimorian? Baltimoron?"
The answer is that there IS NO WORD. There is no such thing as "Atlantean" (how do you know it's not "Atlantan"?) or Bostoner (why not "Bostonian"?)
Instead of inventing ridiculous, made-up words, this sentence could have read, "People from Boston, New York, or Atlanta pronounce many words..."
Drives me nuts.
Computers are now part of the modern office, and they aren't going anywhere. If your job involves using a computer, and you don't know how, guess what? You are not qualified to hold that position, any more than I would be qualified to have a job as a lumberjack without knowing how to use a saw.
It's like pointing someone at an F-16 and saying, "She's all yours. Go do your job. We'll make sure you're shot down quickly so you don't have to do anything other than get it airborne."
Hey. If they're in the Air Force and their job is to fly fighter jets, then yes, I as the mechanic expect them to know how to freaking fly it. It's not my job to teach them. If they can't fly it, then what the hell are they doing in this job?
So, in addition to this truly groundbreaking news that "Windows security" is anything but, which makes just about anything more secure, could Sophos have possibly used a more idiotic metric?
Using the ten most common malwares, they found that -- gasp -- they infected the most common machines! Could it be that those are the common malwares because the machines they infect are also common?
Look at it another way. If every single Mac were infected with something, you could say "Well, only 4% of desktop / laptop computers are infected, therefore it's not very common and nothing to really worry about."
It's as though they never get past the stage where you're supposed to realise that you are not Ptolmey, sitting at the center of the universe while everything revolves around you, and that if you yell and scream enough, eventually you'll get your way.
A few actual excerpts from some of the stuff that comes across my desk, with only identifying information removed; nothing else whatsoever is altered.
For the record, he's pissed because his net connection sucked, which means his VoIP sucks, but that's not our problem. Which he was told, numerous times, yet for some reason, he thinks it's acceptable to write this.
Third time he's told us this in a fifteen-minute timespan, after we'd already spoken to him and told him we're working on it. I have not added any exclamation marks; this is exactly how he wrote it. And this is ALL he wrote; nothing before or after. Real mature.
One of my favorites. "The lady" referred to here is, of course, the recording that says things like "You have.. one.. new.. voice message. To play new messages, press one..." That a grown adult is referring to this announcement as "the lady" strikes me as utterly, utterly infantile. This sort of broken, stilted ramble is precisely what I would expect from a six or seven year old, not from an allegedly professional adult.
Sent on a Sunday morning. We're closed on weekends except for emergencies, which he knows, but more to the point, what kind of adult says stuff like this?
People, this is just off the top of my ticket list here. If I really felt like digging around I could find dozens of examples even better than these, and oh, if only I had recordings of phone conversations I could post.
Is he saying that only those businesses lobbying for net neutrality will get it? Because here, he's saying "everyone else", including businesses, will have to pay "a competitive price" (whatever that means). Are Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo not businesses? What the hell is this idiot talking about?
I was of the impression that net neutrality had to do with, among other things, the idea that if it isn't "neutral", then, say, Comcast could partner with, say, Amazon, and give priority to Amazon traffic to the end-user. If said user tries to visit, say, Barnes & Noble, the site will be much slower than Amazon, because Barnes & Noble isn't partered with his ISP. (Same with game servers, VoIP providers, etc.)
This is more or less what he says here: Uh, who said anything about pricing? All I want is for the law to say "ISPs are not allowed to prioritize packets based on business agreements or partnerships or whatever else. The user pays for a 6 meg pipe and gets to send and receive whatever bits he wants, period."
You know.. sort of the way it is now.
Since I can't read Craig's argument, I can't say who "won", but from this, the guy is alternating between babbling and outright lying.
And of course, consider the question another way: "Two men debate net neutrality. One would stand to directly profit from preventing net neutrality, while to the other, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Who do you think is more honest and objective?"
Their freedom to walk without direct involvement of an adult is gradually increased, and if a worrying trend develops their their freedom is reined back a little, for instance if they keep wandering into the road then they might be made to hold hands for the rest of that trip and that pattern repeated until they've learnt the lesson.
This is all well and good for walking, but the problem is that we never really let kids get that freedom when it comes to social interaction, or more specifically, sexual issues. We do everything in our power to keep them blithely unaware or underinformed, sheltering them from anything sexual or "offensive". Especially during a time when every hormone in their bodies compel them to experiment, we try to artifically suppress it, act like it doesn't exist.
Then, when they turn 18, we kick them out into the real world and assume they can handle it on their own. Big surprise, none of them has any idea what the fuck they're doing because we've gone out of our way to pretend the Real World doesn't exist, and most of them do stupid shit the first couple of years.
A 14 year old isn't going to have the full maturity of an adult, of course, but if we didn't have this ridiculous idea that all children must be sheltered until the last possible second, a 14 year old could easily grasp the concept of "When older guys take you home, their intentions probably aren't all that pure."
Then again, I get the impression she knew this already, but the parents flipping out is yet another symptom of "Most of all we've got to hide it from the kids." As long as we can continue to villify sex and anyone who chooses to have it, our precious children will be safe!
So you can find out that someone is a middle manager or a TCO Analyst or Regional Director of Corporate Affairs or whatever. Who cares? No one ever wanted to be that when they grew up. These are jobs people take because they became available and they needed to put food on the table, not because it's some passion that drives them.
With a few exceptions -- the lucky people who somehow manage to turn drive and passion into marketable work -- what a person does is the least important thing about them. They, like most everyone, spend 1/3rd of their life doing something they'd rather not do, but are forced to because they need money.
I grew up thinking "9 to 5, an hour for lunch" was normal and expected. At the time (early 80s) it probably was. Little by little, it has eroded, a half hour here, fifteen minutes there. Most "normal" workdays are 8 to 5, half hour for lunch, and staying late is expected -- if you take off right at 5 in most places, you're going to get some looks.
Remember when only certain, time-critical jobs required people to carry pagers? You could tell someone was a doctor or a stockbroker if he was carrying one. Everyone else left work at work. Nowadays, you're expected to answer your cellphone at any time day or night if the boss calls.
Vacation time gets slowly whittled away. Years ago, maybe you accrued one day of vacation per month. Then it was half a day. Then you couldn't roll those days into the next fiscal year -- use 'em or lose 'em. (You probably lost 'em.) Sorry, it's for "productivity" reasons. We need more "productivity" from our worker bees. I don't think you're typing as fast as you could be. With another 3wpm you could save thirty seven seconds per quarter, you slacker. Is that a personal call I see you making? You're not on the interworldwebnet, are you? That's a productivity loss! Why aren't you being productive? I know you've been here since 8am, worked through lunch, plan to stay late, and probably take client calls from your cellphone while sitting in traffic, but goddammit, be productive!! Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger!
Americans work insane amounts. (I realize we are not alone in this, so cork it.) It's especially insane when you realize that "productivity" hasn't really increased that much. We show up earlier, stay later, take less breaks, but in any given day, the average office yob only has so much to do. Now they just have to spread their bit of work over nine hours, instead of seven or eight.
The push for almighty profit has taken a lot away from society. Contrary to what conservatives love to believe, there is more to life than making money. Not long ago I was listening to some doofus on the radio prattling to the host about what a lazy bunch of losers France was. His justification for this was that their economic growth isn't as fast as ours.
There seems to be an awful lot of this mentality, and it sickens me. Sure, they get tons of free time. What is it, eight weeks of vacation a year? Ten? 35 hour workweeks or something? In other words, time to enjoy life and do something you enjoy? Oh, but their economic growth isn't as fast as America's! WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Most people are not doing anything so important that it requires five eight-or-nine hour days. I have my doubts that most people would admit that, but that's another problem in our culture of profit profit profit -- that we tie our identities so intrisically to our jobs, that it feels insulting to hear that what we're doing really isn't all that important. But I'm telling you, and all the other Joe Timesheets and Eddie Punchclocks out there, that really, if you only wrote TPS reports four days a week instead of five, nobody would notice. Things would still get done.
I take that back -- the only people who would notice are those who directly profit from your efforts. So while 99% of the workforce would like to go the fuck home and enjoy what life has to offer, we're trapped in soul-crushing hellholes by the 1% that controls these things.
Right now it's a beautiful day outside. I can see it from my window. I could be out there sunbathing or reading or falling in the water as I try to learn to use a kayak or getting sighed at by my friend as he tries to explain for the tenth time the difference between these knots as we prepare to go rock climbing. I could be playing with my cats, throwing Frisbees at my girlfriend's dogs, or just taking a nap. Instead, I have to stay here. There is nothing for me to do in the office today, but I have
No Bluetooth?! What the hell were they thinking? Don't they remember how a few years ago, before Bluetooth, was like practically the Dark Ages, when you had to tediously plug in a cable to the device you were sitting right in front of?
It's almost unbelievable that anyone got anything done back then.
totally agree here, it has not been maybe 100 years or so ( correct me if i am wrong ) that humans started using radio waves for communication, these radio waves do not travel at the speed of light,
Yes, but it wasn't until the 30s that any of our transmissions were strong enough to get past our own atmosphere and into space.
Also, where did you get the idea that radio waves don't travel at the speed of light? They are light -- just not part of the visible spectrum we usually mean when we say "light". Still, it's all just photons. Radio, like X-rays, gamma rays, infrared, ultraviolet, etc, most certainly does travel at the speed of light.
I will agree that it is unlikely that an average office yob is going to have a level of linguistic prowess that allows him to convey every nuance of meaning through text. I do not ask that emails be Shakespearean sonnets full of flowery prose and deft, clever sentence construction. I can even overlook the occasional typo or grammatical or spelling error.
However, the problem is really that people are raging morons bordering on illiteracy.
Allow me to paste a few excerpts from real, actual emails I've received: For the record, all of these people are Americans and speak English natively.
Do you notice a theme here? What possible school of thought made someone think these were reasonable communiques? Some of them are bordering on incoherency; others are outright rude or demonstrate that the person didn't bother reading the email at all. Capitalization is a crapshoot and for some reason, people don't think periods are important. (I'm ignoring "direct to a modem via a switch, because that's not a problem with English, but seriously, what the fuck?)
No, the problem isn't email. The problem is stupidity. Email, as are all other text communications, is a perfectly valid way of sending someone a clear message, but the desire to do so has to be there, as does a basic understanding of the language.
The notion that "email is hard to understand" is idiotic. People can't bloody read or write -- that's the problem. These are supposed to be adults, and professionals, and most if not all of them graduated college. Yet in their minds, this drivel is what constitutes a serious attempt at communication to another professional.
I doubt any one of you is having a great deal of difficulty understanding what I'm saying here. I've explained my observations rationally. You can tell I'm annoyed or angry or frustrated. And this is the same medium as email uses -- plain text.
Most of the idiots I deal with follow a pattern. It varies in details but the theme is the same -- attempt communications NON-FREAKING-STOP until they get an answer. Typically, I will be away from the desk or something, and they'll call four or five times, leaving one message at the end once they realize I'm not there. Afterwards, they'll usually call a couple more times over the course of the next thirty mninutes, then email me telling me about the voicemail, then email either my boss or my sales partner asking why I won't call them back.
(Of course, it wouldn't matter, since 99% of the time, when I return a user's call, they aren't there, or they're calling from their car or something, meaning they're nowhere near the device or machine that is giving them problems.. but that's another rant.)
Once I've been here a little longer and have the clout to throw around I'm going to implement a policy whereby a user is allowed ONE communique of any medium, and I will get back to him when I have the time, but for every subsequent attempt at reaching me after that initial attempt, I will add two hours to their response time. Contrary to their belief, they are not important -- they are but one of hundreds of other doofuses I have to support and my job entails more than just supporting doofuses, which means I have other things to do, which means every time they call and get pushy about their problem, they are pissing off the only person who can help them.
Thankfully my boss has already green-lit this idea, but I'm not going to do it without permission from the owner -- hence the waiting.
Anyway, the point is that making people wait doesn't always work, depending on the type of userbase you're dealing with. Most people are impatient and behave like Ptolmey, sitting at the center of the universe while everything rotates around them. If you wait a whole 24 hours to call them back they're going to make your life miserable.
Look, this could change in the future, but as it stands now, my users are freaking morons. One of them swore up and down that her email address didn't have an @. Another couldn't find her start menu (no, it wasn't hidden or anything like that). I've got a guy who configured his extension to forward to itself and doesn't understand why it doesn't work. I've been working with another idiot that wanted me to, quote, "put the address on the internet".
Now you want them to create sets of keys and upload them somewhere. It's not going to happen. No matter how user-friendly the system is, there is no way in Hell these people are going to be capable of it. They barely even know what encryption is. The only reason they ask is so they can hear themselves talk.
I say forget it. Voip is as secure as it needs to be, which is "not very", which is as secure as phones have always been.
I am the technical director for a small voip provider, and I can't tell you how many times a day we get asked "how secure is it?"
Really, I want to answer: "Who cares? Do you ask 'how secure is it' to Bell? No, you just get a phone line from them and stop worrying about it."
In fact, any schmuck can splice wires into a physical landline. My friend and I used to do it all the time to hassle my sister, and this was when we were 10. If a couple of ten year olds can monitor phone calls by sticking wires into the box which is secured with a single screw and easy to walk right up to, then it's not very secure.
Monitoring an RTP stream on the other hand would require some administrative level access to routers on the network, or owning a switch upstream, or spoofing MAC addresses locally, or other technical jiggery. It's not easy. Most of it requires physical access to the network at some point or another, and to say that it's therefore not secure is like saying your phone isn't secure because your mother might pick up the upstairs phone while you're talking. Oh noes!
All this blather about "encryption" is just that -- blather. Until Ma Bell starts encrypting copper line calls, I really don't see what the big deal is.