Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Why dessing professionally is important (Score 1) 212

Continuing my above response---
3) I think I would have to argue that people will still be judged on their suit; it's not a huge improvement over everyone just wearing clothing that has no printed words nor symbols, so it's not a particularly good reason to prefer suits over "business casual."
4) I'm uncomfortable with the idea of giving others the impression that I earn a lot of money. How much I earn is my business, not my co-workers', and if I'm buying clothes with my income, I'd prefer ones that I like and have high utility. Suits are not good things to wear when cooking, cleaning, nor gardening, but I can still sit at a computer and work wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Making a lot of money doesn't necessarily signal that you're good at your job; most people would describe it as being lucky enough to get paid well for the work you do, something that is more likely but not definite if you're competent in your field. Seeing someone in a suit to me generally signals that someone wants to appear authoritative or is trying to impress someone else; a poor person can always save up for a long time to buy a suit in order to impress people.
5) I don't feel suits are fairly neutral. In fact, by your point #4, you are saying they give someone an appearance of competence and wealth. I think you meant that suits are, at the present time in most circles in Europe and the US, viewed as unoffensive outfits in a typical man's wardrobe. I would argue that clothing free of words or symbols should be considered quite unoffensive.
6) Suits don't make the best uniforms for the very reason that it is not uncommon for a man to go arbitrary places wearing a suit. I know that in the past I have been often classified as an employee by other customers due to my appearance. Nametags/badges with the company name/logo make a better identifier; since they usually can only be seen from the front, some sort of clothing style/color scheme is helpful for customers to recognize potential employees from a distance (which is similar to the point you're making).
7) Eww, I don't think I look good in a suit. I'm told I do, but I'm far more comfortable with my appearance with all sorts of other outfits.
8) Haha. Yes, wearing a suit when you're trying to pick up women does tend to get you noticed.

Comment Re:Why dessing professionally is important (Score 1) 212

Hmm, you have some interesting points, some of which I agree with, and some of which I don't (or, rather, I just see the situation very differently). So, to go number-by-number with my thoughts---
1) Working with customers, I can see why you'd want to avoid making certain kinds of "dislike" statements. Making some kinds of "like" statements that don't immediately imply any "dislike" statement, while a slippery slope, still seems a justifiable privelege to me. If you don't work with customers, your clothing should be expected to meet a bare minimum of occupational requirements (and, by that, I don't mean running to join any new safety or professionalism standards, formal or not). If you work with any mildly unsafe reagents in a lab, for example, requiring shoes to not be open-toed seems reasonable to me.
2) I hate to hop onto semantics here, but if something is intentionally kept in a state that would qualify as "damaged" to an individual not wise to that intention, it isn't actually being "kept damaged." ;) Shoes that are broken-in are far more comfortable than when they are freshly bought, but broken-in shoes are clearly modified to a noticeable (at least to the wearer) degree, by definition.
Clothing being intentionally kept dirty can be argued similarly but not to as much of an extent. Consider the case of over-washing clothes (bringing eight outfits to work every day and changing each hour, then washing them all every night): their utility is diminished (shorter life before becoming unwearable). I know, it's an extreme example, but some people who make over $200k a year keep extra (super-expensive) business suits in their office to change into during the work-day if they feel any need to change out of slightly-soiled clothing that most people would consider still fit in which to dress themselves in the morning and go to work.
Which clothes match is a matter of ever-changing fashion. I'd also argue that wearing clothes that don't significantly stand out when contrasted against the clothing of your peers/co-workers is more of a cultural norm than a logical choice; I could argue that, as a customer, being able to distinguish one employee over another is very valuable in a customer-business relationship wherein individual employees of the business are expected to take responsibility for their individual interactions with customers.
Making a statement on the job when working with customers is generally unhelpful to a business as a whole, though, fairly universally, so I'm agreeing on that.
3) Sadly, people will always judge one another based on appearance. To some extent, it's hard-wired genetically; beyond that, it's cultural. (If you haven't noticed, I like to attempt to transcend human cultures in my reasoning.) ... I'm going to come back to this, I have thoughts on the rest of your points and would like to finish my reponse to #3 =)

Comment Re:A bigger Rubik's Cube (Score 1) 458

You could always get a 4-d bseball and play catch. The thought-provoking part is when you accidentally throw the ball with a velocity like (p != 0) and watch as the ball shrinks into a tiny point and disappears. Then, when it bounces off of something outside of your 3d-space and suddenly appears somewhere else, shrinking back from a point to a ball again, see if you can catch it! The inertia due to the last element of the velocity 4-vector will pull part of your arm out of your 3d-space. Have fun trying to get your arm back fully within your 3d-space! Great way to hide hairy arms, though.

Comment Re:Legibility (Score 1) 280

Hmm, I can read it just fine. For the benefit of those with vision not as good:
When is the course of human events it becomes necessary for one specie to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to
assume onions the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Mature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the courses
which inset them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men aree created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienate Fights, not going these are Lift, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Hoppiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Hen, deriving their just squares from the consent of the
governor. That whenever amy Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to sitter or to abolish it, and to
institute sex Government, laxing its foundation an such princilpes and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Hoppiness. Prudence, indeed, will Skate not
Governments lions established should not be changed for light and transient
courses; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more
Exposed to suffer, while anvils are sufferable than to right themselves by
abolishing the farms to which they are acoustment. But when a long rain of
abuses and inspirations, pursuing invariably the sane Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it's
their dub, to throw off such Government and to pray for new Guards for their
future security. Such has been the potent sufferance of these Colonies: and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to otter their former
Systems of Government. The history of the resent Kite of Great Brittle is a
history of reposted injuries and inspecting, oil having in direct abject
submitted to a candid variable has refuted his Assent to Lows, the most
wholesome and pressure importance, unless suspended in their operation till
his Agent should be omitted; and when he suspended, he has utterly neglected
to offend to them.He has refused to toss other Lows for the accomodations of
large districts of people,unless those people would relinquish the fight of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies of
prizes unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
Public Records, for the sale purpose of fatiguing then into compliance with
his measures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused
for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cruise others to be ejected
whereby the Legislative Powers,incapable of Annhilation,have returned to the
People at large for their exercise;

Comment Re:Do they taste good with fava beens and chianti? (Score 1) 154

Wow, see, I didn't even get this one right (that's how little it was discussed), but in my defense, I wasn't many worlds away. Centrioles are structural bodies involved in generation of the mitotic spindle (separates chromosomes during cell mitosis), extracellular structures (such as cilia), and microtubules that provide structure for the cytoskeleton.
The cytoskeleton itself also contains microfilaments and intermediate filaments. Intermediate filaments are involved with extracellular structure through interactions with desmosomes and hemidesmosomes.

Comment Re:Do they taste good with fava beens and chianti? (Score 1) 154

Obviously OP has only seen the movie, not read the book. You could've come back with, "Don't you mean a big amarone?"

!OT: I'm a bit surprised the extracellular structure remains so viable after removing the animal cells, but then again, my cell biology background is limited to high school, which mostly discusses the organelles, adding, "Spindles are important and nifty! LMAO BUTTS!" more-or-less.

Comment Re:You know what would make it instant? (Score 2, Interesting) 408

Is it just me, or was google instant available before the /. story about the google light-up-letters story even posted? :confused look:
Yes, it is surprisingly fast, and it is great for relieving boredom. For example, I started typing llll, lllll, llllll, lllllll, etc., to see how long a string of l's I could make before it said "Press enter to search" and stopped giving me results. It seems like I needed a string of about 30 L's. It looks like the cut-off is about 5,000 hits.

Comment Re:Philosophical issue arises (Score 1) 72

Ha! Here we go. I was looking at all the posts of people who thought only in concepts and not understanding. Your post makes much more sense to me. I think mostly in words, but not entirely. Sometimes I have a moment where I have an incomplete thought, because I can't find the word I'm looking for. Right now, as I type, it feels like I'm thinking 'in my fingers.'

I am not a visual person at all. I am almost entirely an audial person. I can remember what just about anything sounds like. I cannot remember what anything looks like. If I don't see someone for a week or two, I can't remember what they look like. This applies to my immediate family and closest friends!
Having such an audio-centric memory may be why I think so much in words.

Comment Re:Poor solution (Score 1) 470

Yes. ATC and safety systems should probably just use a timescale that has no arbitrary corrections.

OTOH, systems where humans expect the time to be correct (which is probably many of the Oracle DBs) should use something we have already had for a long time: adjtimex and its equivalents, which implement systematic drift.
Instead of suddenly adding or removing one second, just make the second longer or shorter for a few minutes/hours/days (depending on how quickly you need it to be synchronized with UTC vs. how much shift your systems can tolerate w/o getting confused). The solution is simple, and already exists.

Comment Re:Why are articles so stingy with pictures? (Score 1) 108

You mean that instead of sound bytes prescribing (and sometimes proscribing) how to feel, community news instead should showcase the information the community itself has to offer?

Oh, and isn't there a GIMP plugin to do this with built-in speckling/add-entropy so that the prosecution/judge can't notice so easily?

Comment Re:How long since you were in school? (Score 5, Interesting) 417

My HS math teacher spent her spare time designing her tests carefully so that no calculators were needed. If you got down to the end of a question, and you had messed up and ended up with something that *would* need manual calculation, you didn't have to work out the calculation--you'd just lose the point(s) on whatever theoretical part you screwed up, and that was it.
No calculators were ever allowed---nor were they needed.

I learned one hell of a lot of math.... including vector calc and laplace transforms senior year (finished ap calc bc junior year along with 11 other kids, so that teacher wrote course material for a calc 3 class).

Slashdot Top Deals

The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. -- B. Franklin

Working...