When I read the blog the other day, I was curious about whether they switched its writer, since the content seemed so much less intelligent than what was previously there. I'm saddened to see that this is still Lyons's work.
The old FSJ was witty, creative and had just enough stupidity to make it funny. When I read it yesterday, I saw typical blogger shit. This only strengthens my point.
As for this "cause," it probably won't do anything, since only a very small percentage of iPhone users actually read that blog. If you spread that percentage across the US...yeah, not a big impact.
Yeah, so sitting on your ass for eight hours a day or more looking at something you'd generally not be looking at is hard enough to do. Music helps make that a LOT easier. Let's see how many cranky developers your boss gets after putting that rule in effect...
Then again, I don't think a developer (or anyone) would need music for work that they find interesting. When I'm working on a project I really like, I suck myself into it for hours.
From reading the article, I'm getting the gist that part of the problem was that some folks on Planet GNOME, de Icaza included, made a lot of mention of proprietary software and relatively little mention of its open-sourced cousins. I got this impression from several points in the article, such as this one:
And in response to Van Hoof's comments about VMware, Stallman said people should not write about their work on Planet GNOME "unless VmWare (sic) becomes free software. GNOME should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing."
I think that's a preposterous rule! You mean to tell me that folks who work on open source software, but happen to also work on non-OSS for their employers (Microsoft, VMware, etc) aren't allowed to talk about the work that actually helps them put food on the table and may even HELP make open-source software better?
I don't know a terrible lot about the open source movement, but from what I've read here and elsewhere, Stallman's an extremist, and that's NOT a good role model to follow.
Even if this gets nicely marketed and gains a decent amount of traction into the current eBook user market, what will this do to make people want eBooks?
iPhone owners, of which there are SIGNIFICANTLY more of, can get their daily news much, much easier. Unless there are a sizable number of avid readers that would benefit from having these digital readers (which they wouldn't, considering the DRM and their anti-sharing nature), I don't think prettifying magazines and such for use with readers is a good solution. Furthermore, magazines are a bit touchy, since a LOT of them are sold right from the stands because of their convenience. I'm sure that a digital model would work better for subscription-based magazines like Time that would work well as a digital platform. However, I'd like to assert that what REALLY drives magazine sales are super catchy headlines and pictures relevant to our interests. There's a reason why tabloids and celebrity trash is incredibly popular with women...
As an alternative, I think that consumers would be better served with a coalition that really investigated the sociology, psychology and technology behind what people really want in digital book readers.
Here are a few examples showing why this is needed. Most readers come with keyboards, physical and/or virtual, but they are mostly useless. Additionally, the Nook comes with a color screen...but its introductory review only gave it fair marks. Even further, they come with cellular radios so that people can download books on the fly...but only work in the United States AND are still carrier-locked! Worse, with the exception of the Nook, they don't have Wifi...which is probably most convenient to readers in areas without wireless access or without the desire of paying umpteen dollars extra per month just to download books. Finally, let's not ignore the fact that they only have one screen, which is completely counterintuitive to the way people read books. One screen works fine for short text, like newspaper articles and such, but doesn't have the same ease of use when reading novels that are hundreds of pages long!
When the iPhone was released, it had a processor that was slower than a lot of its competition, bugs up the wazoo, and didn't even have copy and paste! Nonetheless, it sold like hotcakes on sale for the same reason the iPod did...it was easy for people to use, and it made sense to own one. When eReaders approach that level of ease, I think we'll see them really (REALLY) take off.
Counterpoint: I've gotten two emails for companies that I haven't heard of (read: probably small) looking for sysadmins and were willing to pay $90K for them. Unsure if that includes benefits, but I wouldn't doubt it.
Sysadmins, especially those proficient in Linux/UNIX, get paid really well, depending on the field.
Don't forget that other fields have other issues. For example:
Law: Expect to work WAY (WAY) over 50 hours per week when you're just starting out. Be very fortunate if you have time to sleep.
Medicine: Over a decade of schooling and minimal cash mostly for a chance to become a well-off doctor, which doesn't happen to everyone anyway? That's not mentioning the actual work that doctors have to put up with...(HINT: In most cases, it's not as cool as House)
Marketing: Marketing interns not only do tons of bullshit, they also get paid terribly as well. Hell, even those entering the field get paid terribly for a while before they start to actually build a nice contact base and start getting those awesome deals.
Arts: Have you been to a bar in NYC? Where half of the people there are "aspiring" artists, models or actors? If not, go to one and then immediately go to the "hot spots" of NYC where they reside. Notice how SHITTY they all look. There's a reason for that.
Now, I'm not saying that all of these fields are terrible to work in; in fact, I was strongly considering going to art school instead of college and could've continued going on that track. However, when you put everything into perspective (or at least when I do...and I've been doing IT work for a LONG time), IT is a job that practically every industry needs (wide exposure), can be really easy (tech support) or very difficult (closer to theory/research/HARD MATHS), and, for the most part, pays really well starting out (most grads in my program start at $65K, and I know a few that are close to starting with $100K+). It's also a job that you can do on your own and make tons of short-term money from as well. It certainly has its issues, but it's certainly not all doom and gloom...
Counterpoint: Most of the folks in my school that are going into IT are still getting the $18+/hour salaries I got before the economy really tanked, with some making $25+/hour. Depends on your network and who's helping you.
Plain and simple, kiss your bosses ass. If your lucky enough to be liked, you may end up getting a job offer when your hired, and in this economy, you'd be considered lucky.
So basically your advocacy is that this kid acts desperate on the job because the economy sucks and he's already hopeless? If you don't enjoy your job, then why help another person join your boat?
Don't ever "kiss ass." Ask the stupid questions (trust me; the team you'll be working with is expecting them by the dozen. They only hope that you'll get it eventually...). Have lunch with your coworkers AT LEAST ONCE to see if they're a good fit for you. Having a good set of coworkers can make bad jobs good and good jobs fantastic.
I can second the OP's statement. Every co-op that I've had, including the one that eventually turned into my full-time position, has paid at least $18/hr, with the average holding at around $20/hr. $8/hr for an IT internship is close to minimum wage here in New York, so that makes me question what kind of internship this is.
What's the description of your internship? If you're getting paid this little, I'm going to assume that you're taking a help desk role (I hope you're not). In that case, at the very worst, expect to be answering phone calls all day and reading from a script, performing the most rudimentary of technical support tasks almost monotonously. You'll probably have to assemble reports as well, which isn't terribly exciting, nor is it contributional to your goal (ref: Office Space).
Additionally, a description of your work would be helpful for us because IT is an extremely diverse field. Most people assume IT to mean computer support, but there are so many non-technical roles that coalesce with these support roles that appropriately belong in IT (Project Management being one of them). For instance, one of my co-ops, which was also one of the ones I enjoyed least, was as a business analyst, where I was responsible for assisting in getting software projects off the ground from conception to "go live." I was intrigued by the fact that I never had a role like this, but was quickly turned off to it when I realized that while I was discussing technology, I couldn't touch it. Having to work on boring HTML all day didn't help either.
Nonetheless, in most good internships or co-ops where your manager actually lets you play with stuff and, even better, allows you to possibly break things (which hardly ever happens, especially in critical IT roles), you'll be expected to assist in low-risk projects that should be educational to you, but not be a terribly significant contribution to the company or division overall. I know that might sound discouraging, but you really do learn in some of these projects, and they give you a chance to show your managers what you're capable of IF you like what you'll be doing. I've done projects that were so dull (to me) that sleeping on the job and/or reading Slashdot OFF lunch-hours (that's when you know it's bad) was preferable to actually working on my assigned tasks. However, I've had projects that I really enjoyed and ran with them, with excellent results at the end.
As an aside, if you find that you're not enjoying your gig, try your best to finish on a good note. It really helps make you look more professional in the end, even though most managers expect the worst from their interns (i.e. wasted space). I know I've ended on sour terms with some of my previous managers, and looking back to it, I wish I hadn't. It didn't affect me too much in the grand scheme of things, but it still sucks to look back at those experiences and realize how undesirably they've ended.
Good luck, and enjoy! (Unless you're gonna be help desk; that's a lost cause.:-p)
As noted above, it's not the turkey; it's the amount of food that most people eat during Thanksgiving that makes them groggy.
Example: Last year, someone in our family made a huge turkey, but I stopped eating the usual ton of food that I usually eat. Needless to say, I was fine.
It's the same thing as the usual post-lunch coma, which I'm pretty sure is caused by eating a massive amount of CRAP, followed by sitting idly for a few more hours...
The one job that I did have as one made me realize exactly how uncommon it is in corporate-level work to find code with nice, detailed comments describing what's going on where. I will blame the lack of comments for one project I was assigned taking months to complete rather than weeks or days, especially considering that it was pure Java Swing code (i.e. no NetBeans), which is especially infuriating to work with.
And I appreciate that you did! You took the words out of my mouth.
When I was a bit younger, I remember being all sorts of excited over the newest processors, graphics cards and all of those whiz-bang devices. The performance boosts you could get from overclocking your CPU, for instance, actually made a difference between tolerable and FLYING FAST, which let you do things with your computer that you couldn't do before (at least acceptably). Linux was nowhere near as complete as now, so getting that to work was fun sometimes...
Nowadays, there's nothing to get excited about anymore. As you said, when you can get a machine with a Core 2 Duo CPU running at over 2 GHz each core with gobs of memory and hard disk space and usually pretty decent graphics cards at less than $500 or so, it makes getting good performance easy. Furthermore, the benefits of getting better performance are slimming. Most apps are going to the web (including Office starting with Office 2010, which runs pretty nice), and the next wave of OSes seem to concentrate on how to better serve the low-end by co-opting the internet with the live desktop. Installing Linux is a nice alternative, but from my point of view, the result is nothing but an operating system that's functionally indifferent from Windows and inferior in terms of compatibility and application support.
Then again, it could be because I'm "getting old." (Though at 22, I hardly doubt it.)
While I can't comment on the logic behind the actions documented here, I can definitely say a word or two on what I believe to be the end of Craigslist's usefulness (at least for me).
About two years ago, I used Craigslist for everything. From iPhone purchases to small free stuff in my neighborhood (and others), Craigslist did it all. I even used its Personals section, which I actually had some success with (NO, not the NSA area...get your head out of there!).
Nowadays, every time I try to use Craigslist for those same purposes, I leave utterly disappointed. Almost every search I've run on the site has returned 95% SPAM. It's ridiculous that I can't trust a single entry because spam on there has gotten clever enough to resemble real listings. If you're even thinking of finding a mate on there, don't; it's a cesspool of fakes and cheap prostitutes. If I've left Craigslist for that reason, so has many other people, which means that it gets more noise, less hits.
I understand that the service is free, but let's put things in perspective. This very site sees ridiculously high traffic on a daily basis, yet does a very good job at moderating spam postings on EVERY discussion. We get dupes and stupidity, sure, but not (that much) spam.
Kind of sad, really. I shouldn't have to use eBay to buy something from a seller 5 miles away and hope that he's cool with local pickup...
Just in case anyone thinks building a Hackintosh is clearly bad...
Installing OS X can be an easy process IF the hardware which it's being installed on plays nice with it. I believe a lot of people, myself included, got turned off to getting OS X working on their machines because of the *MANY* issues people faced while trying to get Tiger to work. Now that the entire OS is written for the x86 platform, many machines with Core 2 Duo processors or higher can at least install OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard using the retail disc, which was never possible previously. The only thing that's needed to get the disc to boot is a bootloader that can recognize it.
Choosing the right hardware makes a huge difference in getting OS X running just right. Lots of people run into issues with sound, graphics and wireless, but they also fail to consider that these fail because OS X lacks the native support to make them work. Furthermore, many of those experiencing growing pains fail to look at the HUGE wiki of compatible devices that have been tried and proven working.
I was able to get OS X Snow Leopard installed on my Dell Latitude E-series laptop with minimal pitfalls. The only trip-ups are in areas that don't bother me, but might bother others. I can't sleep the machine if I want to keep my webcam and USB 2.0 at the moment, and everyone's having problems shutting down and restarting their machines using ACPI. Considering the minimal amount of time I needed to get it up and urnning, I consider these side effects negligible. The fact that I can use OS X in my daily workflow and virtualize Windows 7 within it is more than enough to keep me happy.
In the end, though, I wouldn't recommend that people build rigs expressly for getting OS X installed on it unless it differs significantly from Apple's offerings and is significantly less expensive. Their prices are coming down quite nicely, so I don't think they are as unreasonable as they used to be. Plus, their Mac Pro is pretty nice...
I think that a lot of people here talking about fitness are making the common mistake of not defining what fitness is relative to them. Fitness is a pretty vaguely defined state of being, which is proven by the existence of several "benchmark" tests to gauge it. However, a professional cyclist who's fit enough for hours of hard cycling might not be fit enough for the NYC Marathon, and vice versa. From a general perspective, cardiovascularly fit athletes are horribly unfit at strength-biased activities because of the high cardiovascular activity keeping their weight (and, thus, muscle weight) at much lower levels.
As for the main article, enough people here already said it: weight control is a balancing act. You are what you eat.
I'm surprised more people don't keep SSH off when idle; it uses a significant amount of battery power. After turning it off, my battery runtime improved quite noticeably.
Especially after waking up one winter morning to my neighbor's new Cadillac Escalade engulfed in flames. The neighbors were sleeping inside; by the time the owner came out to settle the flames, it had destroyed the Mercedes parked right in front of it. Had he not woken up, his house would've been gone.
He claimed that it just happened spontaneously, and I'd believe that, since my sister heard a loud sound and I heard it continuously honking before the fire started. It's kind of scary to think about, but freak accidents are called that for a reason...
Slashdot Mirror
And now for something completely different, "I'll take the rapists for $1200, Trebek."
When I read the blog the other day, I was curious about whether they switched its writer, since the content seemed so much less intelligent than what was previously there. I'm saddened to see that this is still Lyons's work.
The old FSJ was witty, creative and had just enough stupidity to make it funny. When I read it yesterday, I saw typical blogger shit. This only strengthens my point.
As for this "cause," it probably won't do anything, since only a very small percentage of iPhone users actually read that blog. If you spread that percentage across the US...yeah, not a big impact.
Yeah, so sitting on your ass for eight hours a day or more looking at something you'd generally not be looking at is hard enough to do. Music helps make that a LOT easier. Let's see how many cranky developers your boss gets after putting that rule in effect...
Then again, I don't think a developer (or anyone) would need music for work that they find interesting. When I'm working on a project I really like, I suck myself into it for hours.
From reading the article, I'm getting the gist that part of the problem was that some folks on Planet GNOME, de Icaza included, made a lot of mention of proprietary software and relatively little mention of its open-sourced cousins. I got this impression from several points in the article, such as this one:
And in response to Van Hoof's comments about VMware, Stallman said people should not write about their work on Planet GNOME "unless VmWare (sic) becomes free software. GNOME should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing."
I think that's a preposterous rule! You mean to tell me that folks who work on open source software, but happen to also work on non-OSS for their employers (Microsoft, VMware, etc) aren't allowed to talk about the work that actually helps them put food on the table and may even HELP make open-source software better?
I don't know a terrible lot about the open source movement, but from what I've read here and elsewhere, Stallman's an extremist, and that's NOT a good role model to follow.
Looks like I spoke too soon. The 3G actually is free. However, my remaining points are still valid.
To use 3G on any device, you need a data plan. That's what I was referring to.
Even if this gets nicely marketed and gains a decent amount of traction into the current eBook user market, what will this do to make people want eBooks?
iPhone owners, of which there are SIGNIFICANTLY more of, can get their daily news much, much easier. Unless there are a sizable number of avid readers that would benefit from having these digital readers (which they wouldn't, considering the DRM and their anti-sharing nature), I don't think prettifying magazines and such for use with readers is a good solution. Furthermore, magazines are a bit touchy, since a LOT of them are sold right from the stands because of their convenience. I'm sure that a digital model would work better for subscription-based magazines like Time that would work well as a digital platform. However, I'd like to assert that what REALLY drives magazine sales are super catchy headlines and pictures relevant to our interests. There's a reason why tabloids and celebrity trash is incredibly popular with women...
As an alternative, I think that consumers would be better served with a coalition that really investigated the sociology, psychology and technology behind what people really want in digital book readers.
Here are a few examples showing why this is needed. Most readers come with keyboards, physical and/or virtual, but they are mostly useless. Additionally, the Nook comes with a color screen...but its introductory review only gave it fair marks. Even further, they come with cellular radios so that people can download books on the fly...but only work in the United States AND are still carrier-locked! Worse, with the exception of the Nook, they don't have Wifi...which is probably most convenient to readers in areas without wireless access or without the desire of paying umpteen dollars extra per month just to download books. Finally, let's not ignore the fact that they only have one screen, which is completely counterintuitive to the way people read books. One screen works fine for short text, like newspaper articles and such, but doesn't have the same ease of use when reading novels that are hundreds of pages long!
When the iPhone was released, it had a processor that was slower than a lot of its competition, bugs up the wazoo, and didn't even have copy and paste! Nonetheless, it sold like hotcakes on sale for the same reason the iPod did...it was easy for people to use, and it made sense to own one. When eReaders approach that level of ease, I think we'll see them really (REALLY) take off.
You know what this reminds me of?
"My cock is much bigger than yours! My cock can walk right out through the door."
Counterpoint: I've gotten two emails for companies that I haven't heard of (read: probably small) looking for sysadmins and were willing to pay $90K for them. Unsure if that includes benefits, but I wouldn't doubt it.
Sysadmins, especially those proficient in Linux/UNIX, get paid really well, depending on the field.
Don't forget that other fields have other issues. For example:
Now, I'm not saying that all of these fields are terrible to work in; in fact, I was strongly considering going to art school instead of college and could've continued going on that track. However, when you put everything into perspective (or at least when I do...and I've been doing IT work for a LONG time), IT is a job that practically every industry needs (wide exposure), can be really easy (tech support) or very difficult (closer to theory/research/HARD MATHS), and, for the most part, pays really well starting out (most grads in my program start at $65K, and I know a few that are close to starting with $100K+). It's also a job that you can do on your own and make tons of short-term money from as well. It certainly has its issues, but it's certainly not all doom and gloom...
I know it had a feature to integrate itself with search in Windows 7, but it was pretty broken in the beta. I hope it's fixed now.
Counterpoint: Most of the folks in my school that are going into IT are still getting the $18+/hour salaries I got before the economy really tanked, with some making $25+/hour. Depends on your network and who's helping you.
Plain and simple, kiss your bosses ass. If your lucky enough to be liked, you may end up getting a job offer when your hired, and in this economy, you'd be considered lucky.
So basically your advocacy is that this kid acts desperate on the job because the economy sucks and he's already hopeless? If you don't enjoy your job, then why help another person join your boat?
Don't ever "kiss ass." Ask the stupid questions (trust me; the team you'll be working with is expecting them by the dozen. They only hope that you'll get it eventually...). Have lunch with your coworkers AT LEAST ONCE to see if they're a good fit for you. Having a good set of coworkers can make bad jobs good and good jobs fantastic.
I can second the OP's statement. Every co-op that I've had, including the one that eventually turned into my full-time position, has paid at least $18/hr, with the average holding at around $20/hr. $8/hr for an IT internship is close to minimum wage here in New York, so that makes me question what kind of internship this is.
What's the description of your internship? If you're getting paid this little, I'm going to assume that you're taking a help desk role (I hope you're not). In that case, at the very worst, expect to be answering phone calls all day and reading from a script, performing the most rudimentary of technical support tasks almost monotonously. You'll probably have to assemble reports as well, which isn't terribly exciting, nor is it contributional to your goal (ref: Office Space).
Additionally, a description of your work would be helpful for us because IT is an extremely diverse field. Most people assume IT to mean computer support, but there are so many non-technical roles that coalesce with these support roles that appropriately belong in IT (Project Management being one of them). For instance, one of my co-ops, which was also one of the ones I enjoyed least, was as a business analyst, where I was responsible for assisting in getting software projects off the ground from conception to "go live." I was intrigued by the fact that I never had a role like this, but was quickly turned off to it when I realized that while I was discussing technology, I couldn't touch it. Having to work on boring HTML all day didn't help either.
Nonetheless, in most good internships or co-ops where your manager actually lets you play with stuff and, even better, allows you to possibly break things (which hardly ever happens, especially in critical IT roles), you'll be expected to assist in low-risk projects that should be educational to you, but not be a terribly significant contribution to the company or division overall. I know that might sound discouraging, but you really do learn in some of these projects, and they give you a chance to show your managers what you're capable of IF you like what you'll be doing. I've done projects that were so dull (to me) that sleeping on the job and/or reading Slashdot OFF lunch-hours (that's when you know it's bad) was preferable to actually working on my assigned tasks. However, I've had projects that I really enjoyed and ran with them, with excellent results at the end.
As an aside, if you find that you're not enjoying your gig, try your best to finish on a good note. It really helps make you look more professional in the end, even though most managers expect the worst from their interns (i.e. wasted space). I know I've ended on sour terms with some of my previous managers, and looking back to it, I wish I hadn't. It didn't affect me too much in the grand scheme of things, but it still sucks to look back at those experiences and realize how undesirably they've ended.
Good luck, and enjoy! (Unless you're gonna be help desk; that's a lost cause. :-p)
[quote]Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. [/quote]
The author of this article is a woman, hence introducing gender bias.
Don't the latest FIC phones allow complete access to all parts of the system code, including the bits that control the radios?
As noted above, it's not the turkey; it's the amount of food that most people eat during Thanksgiving that makes them groggy.
Example: Last year, someone in our family made a huge turkey, but I stopped eating the usual ton of food that I usually eat. Needless to say, I was fine.
It's the same thing as the usual post-lunch coma, which I'm pretty sure is caused by eating a massive amount of CRAP, followed by sitting idly for a few more hours...
The one job that I did have as one made me realize exactly how uncommon it is in corporate-level work to find code with nice, detailed comments describing what's going on where. I will blame the lack of comments for one project I was assigned taking months to complete rather than weeks or days, especially considering that it was pure Java Swing code (i.e. no NetBeans), which is especially infuriating to work with.
And I appreciate that you did! You took the words out of my mouth.
When I was a bit younger, I remember being all sorts of excited over the newest processors, graphics cards and all of those whiz-bang devices. The performance boosts you could get from overclocking your CPU, for instance, actually made a difference between tolerable and FLYING FAST, which let you do things with your computer that you couldn't do before (at least acceptably). Linux was nowhere near as complete as now, so getting that to work was fun sometimes...
Nowadays, there's nothing to get excited about anymore. As you said, when you can get a machine with a Core 2 Duo CPU running at over 2 GHz each core with gobs of memory and hard disk space and usually pretty decent graphics cards at less than $500 or so, it makes getting good performance easy. Furthermore, the benefits of getting better performance are slimming. Most apps are going to the web (including Office starting with Office 2010, which runs pretty nice), and the next wave of OSes seem to concentrate on how to better serve the low-end by co-opting the internet with the live desktop. Installing Linux is a nice alternative, but from my point of view, the result is nothing but an operating system that's functionally indifferent from Windows and inferior in terms of compatibility and application support.
Then again, it could be because I'm "getting old." (Though at 22, I hardly doubt it.)
While I can't comment on the logic behind the actions documented here, I can definitely say a word or two on what I believe to be the end of Craigslist's usefulness (at least for me).
About two years ago, I used Craigslist for everything. From iPhone purchases to small free stuff in my neighborhood (and others), Craigslist did it all. I even used its Personals section, which I actually had some success with (NO, not the NSA area...get your head out of there!).
Nowadays, every time I try to use Craigslist for those same purposes, I leave utterly disappointed. Almost every search I've run on the site has returned 95% SPAM. It's ridiculous that I can't trust a single entry because spam on there has gotten clever enough to resemble real listings. If you're even thinking of finding a mate on there, don't; it's a cesspool of fakes and cheap prostitutes. If I've left Craigslist for that reason, so has many other people, which means that it gets more noise, less hits.
I understand that the service is free, but let's put things in perspective. This very site sees ridiculously high traffic on a daily basis, yet does a very good job at moderating spam postings on EVERY discussion. We get dupes and stupidity, sure, but not (that much) spam.
Kind of sad, really. I shouldn't have to use eBay to buy something from a seller 5 miles away and hope that he's cool with local pickup...
(BTW: That project is awesome.)
Just in case anyone thinks building a Hackintosh is clearly bad...
Installing OS X can be an easy process IF the hardware which it's being installed on plays nice with it. I believe a lot of people, myself included, got turned off to getting OS X working on their machines because of the *MANY* issues people faced while trying to get Tiger to work. Now that the entire OS is written for the x86 platform, many machines with Core 2 Duo processors or higher can at least install OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard using the retail disc, which was never possible previously. The only thing that's needed to get the disc to boot is a bootloader that can recognize it.
Choosing the right hardware makes a huge difference in getting OS X running just right. Lots of people run into issues with sound, graphics and wireless, but they also fail to consider that these fail because OS X lacks the native support to make them work. Furthermore, many of those experiencing growing pains fail to look at the HUGE wiki of compatible devices that have been tried and proven working.
I was able to get OS X Snow Leopard installed on my Dell Latitude E-series laptop with minimal pitfalls. The only trip-ups are in areas that don't bother me, but might bother others. I can't sleep the machine if I want to keep my webcam and USB 2.0 at the moment, and everyone's having problems shutting down and restarting their machines using ACPI. Considering the minimal amount of time I needed to get it up and urnning, I consider these side effects negligible. The fact that I can use OS X in my daily workflow and virtualize Windows 7 within it is more than enough to keep me happy.
In the end, though, I wouldn't recommend that people build rigs expressly for getting OS X installed on it unless it differs significantly from Apple's offerings and is significantly less expensive. Their prices are coming down quite nicely, so I don't think they are as unreasonable as they used to be. Plus, their Mac Pro is pretty nice...
I just got mine from the laptop I purchased a while back. That's a pretty nice incentive...
I think that a lot of people here talking about fitness are making the common mistake of not defining what fitness is relative to them. Fitness is a pretty vaguely defined state of being, which is proven by the existence of several "benchmark" tests to gauge it. However, a professional cyclist who's fit enough for hours of hard cycling might not be fit enough for the NYC Marathon, and vice versa. From a general perspective, cardiovascularly fit athletes are horribly unfit at strength-biased activities because of the high cardiovascular activity keeping their weight (and, thus, muscle weight) at much lower levels.
As for the main article, enough people here already said it: weight control is a balancing act. You are what you eat.
I'm surprised more people don't keep SSH off when idle; it uses a significant amount of battery power. After turning it off, my battery runtime improved quite noticeably.
Especially after waking up one winter morning to my neighbor's new Cadillac Escalade engulfed in flames. The neighbors were sleeping inside; by the time the owner came out to settle the flames, it had destroyed the Mercedes parked right in front of it. Had he not woken up, his house would've been gone.
He claimed that it just happened spontaneously, and I'd believe that, since my sister heard a loud sound and I heard it continuously honking before the fire started. It's kind of scary to think about, but freak accidents are called that for a reason...