dragonsky

I find the idea of understanding the work you do absolutely revolutionary. I hope this becomes a trend that gains traction.

I think this highlights the most important bit that is missing from most checklists... the why.

Yes we have a list of things to do, and we know that if we don't do all those things then bad things can happen, but the most important thing is to know why we are doing those things... Because when bad things start to happen despite following the list, you need to know why you are doing those things so that you have some hope of making it better.

I did

I suppose raises the question, is the spending of mega bucks on advertising (regardless of effectiveness) a net benefit for society?

As commenters have already raised, we'd have no Google, Facebook, Twitter (sorry 'X') or many other entities and the products they create without the money spent on advertising. Is this all just happening because people are too scared to look under the curtain and find that it's all just a sham?

We had advertising long before the internet came along, and from my personal memory most of the most aggressive advertising was for things that were either useless (magic snake oil remedies) or actually dangerous (tobacco products), not to mention all the "as seen on TV" junk that was "promoted" on morning television.

Is what we have now is more intrusive? It used to be that you could duck to the toilet during the adds on TV or flip the page in the newspaper or magazine, but now they are taking our cpu cycles, making web pages unreadable and that is not to mention the more intrusive ways of really getting in our heads.

I'd argue that we've always had (even if just the shop keeper recommending a product) and always will have advertising. There have always been products that are not needed or wanted by the majority, and advertising is the way that the producer of that product gets their product sold. I would be nice if there were not so much dodgy practice involved.

Agreed. Just ask the bloody question.

Is it possible that the cause is people are sitting the tests who would not have previously?

The “need” for a collage degree just to get a job, it is inevitable that more people would want to go down that path regardless how suited they are to it.

So how much does the "ugly" factor into your purchase decisions?

for me functionality and ergonomics decide the purchase, if the device is "pretty" is very much down the list. I'm aways surprised by people who purchase computers for work worrying about what colour they are. Who cares, you're looking at the screen and keyboard, not the case when you are using it.

Keeping your technician’s excited about working for your company.

Only if you are stupid enough to go near the water in areas they live.

Unfortunately plenty of drunk campers have a habit of doing this.

Did you happen to find if the same drug is available as a generic?

I use a daily medication. Every time I got to get t he script filled I get asked if I want the brand name or the generic. There is a two or three times price difference, why would I ever get the brand name?

In my experience you will get as many different reactions to your interactions as humans you interact with with a very wide range, some of which I would consider "not conscious" if not obviously coming from a living breathing human body.

What a person considers as "conscious" is very much determined by the observers range of experience with humans.

Tens of millions vs population of even just the US let alone the entire planet == few of us.

So much this.... Crappy so called security software that only makes things more secure by slowing down the computer.

I get it we need to protect the network, but you don't do that by making sure that everybody is out looking for a way to do an end run around your virus scan and audit software.

I would love to know how much power is used just to run so called security software.

>> As of now, the drones’ propellers are still somewhat noisy. But as quiet drone technology becomes available, they’ll be able to add it to the existing framework.

So really everything you would expect from hanging a speaker from a drone, noisy and power hungry.

I was running a 2.x server. it was a sad day that I had to reboot and break the 359 day uptime... Amazing system, solid as a rock as long as long as you stuck to file sharing and printer management.

What I’d like to know is how much energy is burnt by corporate mandated software running on workstations.

My work computer regularly spends hours heating my room running god knows what scanning and inventory software when I’m not using it for anything. Unless of course one of the desktop people have managed to deploy coin mining software across the fleet. At least then someone is getting benefit beyond room heating.

Why not just ask "what problem are you trying to solve?", or "What do you want it to do?"?.. Not only does this put the requirement back on the asker to describe what they want you to do, it removes your preconceptions from the request.

A mistake I often see myself making is that as soon as I get asked to do something I stop listening and start planning how I'm going to implement the solution. In many cases my preconceived solution will not solve the actual problem, because I've not actually found what the problem is that needs to be solved.

In many cases the requester doesn't really know what they are asking for and will need some prompting to actually think it through. This requires a discussion, rather than a simplistic request to define "use case".

What is with the sledging of Home Schooling.

Ok, in some cases it's because the parents are religious or over controlling nutcases, but in many cases home schooling is the final choice of parents whose kid is not able to learn in the traditional school environment for many reasons.

  I'd suggest that in most of these cases the parents would far prefer that their child attend traditional schooling so they can get on with their lives, but the payoff of calmer home life and a kid who is actually getting an education.

home school does not always equal nutcase parents. Thanks you, rant off.

I find talking to them is a great way for to gain their confidence.

Let them see you and see that you are not threat. Treat them like a dog you want to gain the confidence of an you can't go too far wrong. Don't chase them, just or rush at them, just let them that you belong in the space as well and are not a threat.

Don't feed them. They don't need you to and unless you do it right you can make them very sick.

Isn't it just a matter of listening to the ambient noise in your environment. open space sounds different to a closed room. if there is any noise around you can normally tell if you are near a wall just because one ear is getting a close echo from the wall, and the other isn't.

I think most people use sound all the time to orient themselves, especially in the dark. It's just that we are so fixated on what we see that using hearing to tell what is around you gets overloaded by the higher resolution information from our eyes.

I think I would be very interesting to see good research done with blind people to see how they use their senses. Is anybody aware of such research?

you need to be able to see them sweat!

Don't drink soda, and would never bother with a soda stream... sorry, try something else next time.

I’m not sure about your definition of nowhere.

I think this point is missed in the implementation of these systems.

Give the people doing the work the responsibility for the work and the authority to chase down and "demand" answers they need to get the work done. If that can't be achieved, then maybe you need a meeting where the manager is involved. No need for daily meetings with reports of "same as yesterday". No need to to wait for a meeting before getting advice on how to unblock something. Just get on with what needs to be done.

Because as we all know, it is the job of all humans to slave away until they can no longer stand.

I think as a society we can strive for better than "work till you die". There sees to be a lot of people out there who don't see any objective beyond making a profit, I feel sad for them, and hope that some day they can stop and smell the roses.

I'm a little shocked that anybody could claim that viewing a naked body at any age could be considered harmful. There are many cases where children would benefit from seeing a range of naked bodies, and realise that there are many people out there that look just like them. they don't have to look like the photoshop models who do get exposed. Body shame is a real thing, and the only way around it is for people to realise that bodies come in a wide range of shapes and colours, and they have no reason to be ashamed of theirs.

Seems to me that many (most?) successful overthrowing of tyrannical governments have been conducted through mostly peaceful means. Where armed insurrection has taken place the result has been a long bloody revolution and in the rare cases it has succeeded the replacement government has many of the same faults as the one it replaced.

Don't get me wrong, there have been cases where armed revolution has been successful, but in most cases, it's been average people getting out into the streets and saying enough that has made the big difference.

There are not many governments that can continue when the majority of the people are actively protesting against it.

It's a country where in certain parts there is a fairly good chance that a random person walking down the road will be carrying a gun, with no good reason apart from "protection" from other random people walking down the road also carrying a gun.

As you say, not a problem in most parts of the world, let alone western world.

Agreed... For a very long time you would not get me anywhere near celebrations with fireworks or gunfire, and if I was exposed, it was not a pleasant experience for anyone. Took some time, but things are far better now. Still prefer not to be around, but no longer a huge negative experience.

Well it’s a human pointing the camera and pushing the button. It totally depends upon the camera how much influence it has on the actual picture produced. Depending on your settings, hardware control and image processing can be applied to automate the production of a more acceptable image. Is the camera or the person holding it producing the image? Or is the photogenic environment the camera is being pointed at responsible for the resulting image?

Once I’ve selected one from the 20 or so images, had it printed, framed and placed it on my wall then weeks later notice it again when the light coming through the window catches it just right, I think that is a really great picture that transports me to another place.

Is it art? Because I was holding the camera does that make me an artist?

All I know is that my life is enhanced by having that image on my wall however it came to be there.