Especially if they set up a system where individuals can build CnR packages and support them so that the repository can quickly and easily be built up. There is nothing wrong with making things easier for Joe Blow.
I'm half way in and so far, they've made blogs look evil, and given the villain a nice communist background, and of course they're perpetuating the scary myth that every download is laden with viruses, spyware, and heroin. When the news stories were drawing comparisons between this and other comics, they forgot to mention Jack Chick. I wonder if Microsoft hired him to write for them.
USPS of course, via Global Priority Mail - Variable Weight (Single). http://ircalc.usps.gov/intl_speed.asp?SD=yes&CID=1 0054&MailType=package&Pounds=1&Ounces=0
Instead they insist on super ultimate high priority hand delivered by god at $30 an ounce to ship. Some people seem to think that people completely ignore the price of shipping when they buy something. "I got that $30 item for $10 who cares if it cost me $40 to ship it". If after I pay shipping, it isn't a minimum 20% cheaper than I can get it from a retail store, I won't bother. There is nothing wrong with shipping via USPS and Canadapost (I can track packages via Canadapost to the US, I'm not sure if you can the other way, but I can't see why not). Merchants who absolutely insist on using Fedex or UPS iritate me. Its not so bad on high ticket items, but I don't want to double or triple the price of my purchase just to get it from you to me. Every carrier offers estimates, so it really isn't rocket science to figure out that the item you want to send costs $40 with UPS and only $8 with USPS.
Then you haven't come across many merchants. I constantly see people on ebay who don't want to fill out that extra piece of paper to even ship to Canada. Couple that with the merchants who only ship via the most expensive method possible, and you can assume they just don't want to ship to Canada, but don't want to come right out and say it. Sure, I'll pay $45 to ship something I just won for $10.
Because if the white male is allowed to even remotely play fair, he might one day rise up again to rule the world. Everyone else won't be happy until the white male is a foot note, and if another special (likely government funded) program can be created to further that cause, someone will call for it.
If that doesn't work, they'll just cry rape, discrimination, "his shirt is too blue", until someone listens and hands it to them.
In related news I'm establishing: "White male history month" "National White guy day" We'll celebrate Bill Gates' birthday by marching on Washington demanding affirmative action and support programs to help us out. I'd like to see initiatives and grants for men who want to become: Nurses Dental Assistants Receptionists Flight Attendants Cashier at a woman's clothing store etc
I remember a bunch of women suing for access to some men's club and winning, yet when a man sued to get access to an exclusive woman's gym (because it was much closer than other gyms or something like that, memory is vague) he lost. In Canada we had some guys having to goto court to get on a girls team in high school because their school didn't have a guys team of that sport. I'm not sure what happened with that, but if a girl wanted on the guys team, they'd be tripping over themselves to let it happen.
Women are doing just fine. Just because the world isn't a 50% perfect balance between all genders, religions, races, etc down the middle in some kind of cosmic ying yang ultimate divine harmony doesn't mean something needs to be fixed, it means you need a new hobby, try checkers or a I hear knitting is damn fantastic. Devote as much time to that as people do whining about this and we could clothe the world twice over.
Retail, especially women's clothing stores.
Even men's clothing stores (most that I've seen anyway) have a fairly even balance. When I was in high school long ago, there was a rumour that the local coffee shop chain *cough*hockeyplayer*cough* wouldn't even hire you if you were a guy. It was probably another 2 or 3 years before I saw a guy working in that chain who wasn't a manager.
Any grocery store around here is probably 90% female on the cash, 100% male bagging, and about 60/40 in favour of males stocking shelves. The only retail places I see with a male swing is..hrm..
cell phone shops, unless they're a high visibility mall kiosk, then they have barbie in the tight shirt and skirt and heels. Even places like Radio Shack and Ebgames I've seen a fair number of female employees in.
Yeah because that is what that article said. I wasn't aware that Pachter was "everyone" and he's really only pointing out a discrepancy in the count, which is an estimate. It also been pointed out that Target may be holding back with a plan to release a bunch later this week (see digg I don't want to wait for the story to show up here). Probably not hundreds of thousands, but it seems that most stores are getting them in constantly. He also has no info on how many are in Canada (he guesses) and other places. A couple of half guesses combined with an estimate doesn't make a damning story that everyone is talking about.
No, but prolonged ignorance over basic things does begin to look stupid. I don't care if you have an MBA but still can't seem to figure your mouse out and what the light does. A computer is a tool of your job. If you find you can't seem to use your tools properly ask the employer about training or get some of your own.
I find with Firefox 2.0 yahoo mail causes it to crash constantly. As in usually 3 or 4 times a day. likely ad related as it happens on a refresh or a page change. I don't use adblock though, I use flashblock (and hosts rules to block their particular ad servers).
They're using paypal for fucks sake. We know that by the time they hit 20K, paypal will freeze the account. If they were serious, they'd have us just slip a $20 in a bottle and drop it in the ocean.
you can nitpick all day. There will always be exceptions. I've had machines which worked better under windows without doing anything extra, and ones that worked better under linux without doing anything. It ALL depends on the hardware in the machine, which in the PC world varies greatly.
What percentage of the world just learns for fun and what percentage uses knowledge as a mechanism to get ahead in an occupation? An occupation where they actually have to prove their knowledge via a diploma, certificate or other "paper" method. As I pointed out in the other post, you can sit around and nitpick exceptions all day, that doesn't mean its useful for the general public, i.e. the real world. Most people do not have the time to just learn for fun, unless there is some benefit, i.e. a grade or something they can use to prove knowledge to an employer for a raise/promotion or finish a degree/diploma, or something of that nature.
Of course it is. You and I know that, but how many managers actually know that? This is also great for a disadvantaged kid, but unless its going to put him in scholarship range, its not likely to be of any benefit to him. Everyone can potentially benefit from this (whether personally or professionally), but how many people learn to just learn? Most people aren't that in love with learning and usually use knowledge as a means to an end. The most common application of that is in the workplace, and its benefits are limited there. We can pick scenarios where its good and bad, but what percentage of the workforce is actually in those scenarios. You can nitpick exceptions all day and night if you like, but as something the majority could take advantage of use to their advantage its somewhat limited. That doesn't make it bad or wrong for them to do, it would just be a much more successful and far reaching venture if there was someway to "prove" the knowledge you gained from the course. Say an open source testing center with randomized questions put together by the instructors and marked by computers. Charge a low fee to take the test, say $25 bucks a go, and even a disadvantaged kid could perhaps get one or two credentials under his belt as a stepping stone to something greater if he did well.
You expect to prove that with an ignorant statement? Refer to my original post where I was referring to the usefulness of this in the "real" world. I wasn't even talking about people who just want to learn.
Unless you're employer requires proof that you took the course. i.e. a final grade or certificate from the institution you took the course from.
This really only benefits the self-employed (who need no proof of knowledge) and people who work for employers who will take their word that they've completed required training X.
As most of us know, knowledge is useless in the "real" world without the piece of paper behind it to back it up. Most employers don't want to do their own testing. I guess if you wanted to study your ass off and challenge a bunch of courses you could save that way.
Didn't they also have Super Mario Bros before North America? I seem to recall seeing shots of it online in Japan a couple weeks before it was out here?
As its been pointed out, very few games have been good. What other licensed games have been good? Ignoring sports and racing and john deer American farmer type games. Personally I actually enjoyed Armada. As an RTS at the time I found it to be quite good. Especially since it allowed you to steal enemy ships and buildings, or steal construction units and actually build their stuff. I liked elite Forces 2 and the 25th anniversary game. What game is going to work best? Massive CRPG combining: 1)The tactical combat of Silent Storm but with Phasers, including destructible environments 2)The dialog and complexity of of a game like Fallout 2, Kotor, Baldur's Gate. 3)Highly detailed space combat that allows a variety of play styles "From the bridge", "tactical over-view" and even the ability to grab a small ship and pilot it yourself. 4)It needs to stay the hell away from any console 5)they need to pay bioware a shitload of money to do nothing but focus on this game for about 2 years and have complete veto on a release date if its not ready. 6)It should be moddable 7)it shouldn't be a goddamn mmorpg. 8)You should have an option of wandering around the many decks of whatever ship you're on and doing stuff during travel time and a generic "pass the time" button for quick travel if you want. Including say a holodeck where you could practice combat scenarios or other things.
I think he over stated how "hard" this was. I clicked "help' typed "cancel" pressed enter clicked the first link entitled "Canceling a Gold membership" which contained:
You may cancel your Classmates Gold membership at any time, however, please keep in mind that by doing so you will forfeit your member benefits and membership fee.
Gold Members enjoy many valuable benefits:
* Send Classmates Email to any of our millions of members
* Show your latest accomplishments in your Personal Profile
* Enjoy unlimited use of our Compare tool
* Participate in the Internet's largest alumni message boards
* Post & view photos with your friends
* Plan reunions and events
* Create free Private Groups (and invite anyone with an email address)
* Take advantage of exclusive deals in Gold Member Rewards
If you still wish to cancel your Gold membership, please click here to submit your request to our Member Support Team
Click the link at the end which has the contact form.
His description:
Classmates.com also forced me to click through several Web pages consisting of reminders of the benefits I'd lose by canceling.
There was exactly 1 page. I wonder how many other descriptions he embellished.
Yeah it was bad. I restarted, and I couldn't login. When I clicked my username, it sayed userinit.exe failed to initialize then locked up the machine, I had to goto safemode and uninstall it.
Slashdot Mirror
Especially if they set up a system where individuals can build CnR packages and support them so that the repository can quickly and easily be built up. There is nothing wrong with making things easier for Joe Blow.
I'm half way in and so far, they've made blogs look evil, and given the villain a nice communist background, and of course they're perpetuating the scary myth that every download is laden with viruses, spyware, and heroin. When the news stories were drawing comparisons between this and other comics, they forgot to mention Jack Chick. I wonder if Microsoft hired him to write for them.
USPS of course, via Global Priority Mail - Variable Weight (Single). http://ircalc.usps.gov/intl_speed.asp?SD=yes&CID=1 0054&MailType=package&Pounds=1&Ounces=0
Instead they insist on super ultimate high priority hand delivered by god at $30 an ounce to ship. Some people seem to think that people completely ignore the price of shipping when they buy something. "I got that $30 item for $10 who cares if it cost me $40 to ship it". If after I pay shipping, it isn't a minimum 20% cheaper than I can get it from a retail store, I won't bother. There is nothing wrong with shipping via USPS and Canadapost (I can track packages via Canadapost to the US, I'm not sure if you can the other way, but I can't see why not). Merchants who absolutely insist on using Fedex or UPS iritate me. Its not so bad on high ticket items, but I don't want to double or triple the price of my purchase just to get it from you to me. Every carrier offers estimates, so it really isn't rocket science to figure out that the item you want to send costs $40 with UPS and only $8 with USPS.
Then you haven't come across many merchants. I constantly see people on ebay who don't want to fill out that extra piece of paper to even ship to Canada. Couple that with the merchants who only ship via the most expensive method possible, and you can assume they just don't want to ship to Canada, but don't want to come right out and say it. Sure, I'll pay $45 to ship something I just won for $10.
You know, one that doesn't suck so goddam much.
Evil Genius?
Because if the white male is allowed to even remotely play fair, he might one day rise up again to rule the world.
Everyone else won't be happy until the white male is a foot note, and if another special (likely government funded) program can be created to further that cause, someone will call for it.
If that doesn't work, they'll just cry rape, discrimination, "his shirt is too blue", until someone listens and hands it to them.
In related news I'm establishing:
"White male history month"
"National White guy day"
We'll celebrate Bill Gates' birthday by marching on Washington demanding affirmative action and support programs to help us out. I'd like to see initiatives and grants for men who want to become:
Nurses
Dental Assistants
Receptionists
Flight Attendants
Cashier at a woman's clothing store
etc
I remember a bunch of women suing for access to some men's club and winning, yet when a man sued to get access to an exclusive woman's gym (because it was much closer than other gyms or something like that, memory is vague) he lost. In Canada we had some guys having to goto court to get on a girls team in high school because their school didn't have a guys team of that sport. I'm not sure what happened with that, but if a girl wanted on the guys team, they'd be tripping over themselves to let it happen.
Women are doing just fine. Just because the world isn't a 50% perfect balance between all genders, religions, races, etc down the middle in some kind of cosmic ying yang ultimate divine harmony doesn't mean something needs to be fixed, it means you need a new hobby, try checkers or a I hear knitting is damn fantastic. Devote as much time to that as people do whining about this and we could clothe the world twice over.
Retail, especially women's clothing stores. Even men's clothing stores (most that I've seen anyway) have a fairly even balance. When I was in high school long ago, there was a rumour that the local coffee shop chain *cough*hockeyplayer*cough* wouldn't even hire you if you were a guy. It was probably another 2 or 3 years before I saw a guy working in that chain who wasn't a manager. Any grocery store around here is probably 90% female on the cash, 100% male bagging, and about 60/40 in favour of males stocking shelves. The only retail places I see with a male swing is..hrm.. cell phone shops, unless they're a high visibility mall kiosk, then they have barbie in the tight shirt and skirt and heels. Even places like Radio Shack and Ebgames I've seen a fair number of female employees in.
Has anyone just tried telling them to Fuck off lately? Maybe a few times?
Yeah because that is what that article said. I wasn't aware that Pachter was "everyone" and he's really only pointing out a discrepancy in the count, which is an estimate. It also been pointed out that Target may be holding back with a plan to release a bunch later this week (see digg I don't want to wait for the story to show up here). Probably not hundreds of thousands, but it seems that most stores are getting them in constantly. He also has no info on how many are in Canada (he guesses) and other places. A couple of half guesses combined with an estimate doesn't make a damning story that everyone is talking about.
No, but prolonged ignorance over basic things does begin to look stupid. I don't care if you have an MBA but still can't seem to figure your mouse out and what the light does. A computer is a tool of your job. If you find you can't seem to use your tools properly ask the employer about training or get some of your own.
The site is a bit out of date though. Any tests of the latest batteries?
I find with Firefox 2.0 yahoo mail causes it to crash constantly. As in usually 3 or 4 times a day. likely ad related as it happens on a refresh or a page change. I don't use adblock though, I use flashblock (and hosts rules to block their particular ad servers).
They're using paypal for fucks sake. We know that by the time they hit 20K, paypal will freeze the account. If they were serious, they'd have us just slip a $20 in a bottle and drop it in the ocean.
you can nitpick all day. There will always be exceptions. I've had machines which worked better under windows without doing anything extra, and ones that worked better under linux without doing anything. It ALL depends on the hardware in the machine, which in the PC world varies greatly.
What percentage of the world just learns for fun and what percentage uses knowledge as a mechanism to get ahead in an occupation? An occupation where they actually have to prove their knowledge via a diploma, certificate or other "paper" method. As I pointed out in the other post, you can sit around and nitpick exceptions all day, that doesn't mean its useful for the general public, i.e. the real world. Most people do not have the time to just learn for fun, unless there is some benefit, i.e. a grade or something they can use to prove knowledge to an employer for a raise/promotion or finish a degree/diploma, or something of that nature.
Of course it is. You and I know that, but how many managers actually know that? This is also great for a disadvantaged kid, but unless its going to put him in scholarship range, its not likely to be of any benefit to him. Everyone can potentially benefit from this (whether personally or professionally), but how many people learn to just learn? Most people aren't that in love with learning and usually use knowledge as a means to an end. The most common application of that is in the workplace, and its benefits are limited there. We can pick scenarios where its good and bad, but what percentage of the workforce is actually in those scenarios. You can nitpick exceptions all day and night if you like, but as something the majority could take advantage of use to their advantage its somewhat limited. That doesn't make it bad or wrong for them to do, it would just be a much more successful and far reaching venture if there was someway to "prove" the knowledge you gained from the course. Say an open source testing center with randomized questions put together by the instructors and marked by computers. Charge a low fee to take the test, say $25 bucks a go, and even a disadvantaged kid could perhaps get one or two credentials under his belt as a stepping stone to something greater if he did well.
You expect to prove that with an ignorant statement? Refer to my original post where I was referring to the usefulness of this in the "real" world. I wasn't even talking about people who just want to learn.
Unless you're employer requires proof that you took the course. i.e. a final grade or certificate from the institution you took the course from.
This really only benefits the self-employed (who need no proof of knowledge) and people who work for employers who will take their word that they've completed required training X.
As most of us know, knowledge is useless in the "real" world without the piece of paper behind it to back it up. Most employers don't want to do their own testing. I guess if you wanted to study your ass off and challenge a bunch of courses you could save that way.
Didn't they also have Super Mario Bros before North America? I seem to recall seeing shots of it online in Japan a couple weeks before it was out here?
We're basically getting hosed with random stuff and the occasional big title. Japan seems to get everything first.
As its been pointed out, very few games have been good. What other licensed games have been good? Ignoring sports and racing and john deer American farmer type games. Personally I actually enjoyed Armada. As an RTS at the time I found it to be quite good. Especially since it allowed you to steal enemy ships and buildings, or steal construction units and actually build their stuff. I liked elite Forces 2 and the 25th anniversary game. What game is going to work best?
Massive CRPG combining:
1)The tactical combat of Silent Storm but with Phasers, including destructible environments
2)The dialog and complexity of of a game like Fallout 2, Kotor, Baldur's Gate.
3)Highly detailed space combat that allows a variety of play styles "From the bridge", "tactical over-view" and even the ability to grab a small ship and pilot it yourself.
4)It needs to stay the hell away from any console
5)they need to pay bioware a shitload of money to do nothing but focus on this game for about 2 years and have complete veto on a release date if its not ready.
6)It should be moddable
7)it shouldn't be a goddamn mmorpg.
8)You should have an option of wandering around the many decks of whatever ship you're on and doing stuff during travel time and a generic "pass the time" button for quick travel if you want. Including say a holodeck where you could practice combat scenarios or other things.
I clicked "help'
typed "cancel"
pressed enter
clicked the first link entitled "Canceling a Gold membership" which contained:
Click the link at the end which has the contact form.
His description:
There was exactly 1 page.
I wonder how many other descriptions he embellished.
Yeah it was bad. I restarted, and I couldn't login. When I clicked my username, it sayed userinit.exe failed to initialize then locked up the machine, I had to goto safemode and uninstall it.