dragonsky · HackerTrans

23 dagen geledendiscuss

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

dragonsky

2 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

2 jaar geledendiscuss

I did

dragonsky

2 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

3 jaar geledendiscuss

Agreed. Just ask the bloody question.

dragonsky

3 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

3 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

3 jaar geledendiscuss

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

dragonsky

3 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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?

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

>>> 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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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".

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

Ok, case study of one, but in our experience we've gone from a family subject to daily arguments about getting to school and seeing absolutely no value achieved when actually getting the kid through the school gate, to a happy well adjusted (call it normal) kid who is achieving decent educational outcomes and having a rich social life.

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

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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.

dragonsky

4 jaar geledendiscuss

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?

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