I share a first name with my father, so to save confusion, they called me by my middle name. If it were strictly a matter of social convenience, that would be fine. But you can't do anything in the modern world without submitting some kind of form, and the form is what gives me trouble. I can put my first initial in the First Name field, but then some people think that means I want to be called R.
Some people, confronted with a single letter in the First Name field, might look at the Middle Name field, but often the Middle Name field is actually a Middle Initial field. So now they have no idea what to call me, and usually default back to R.
I could take the daring step of "lying," and putting my middle name in the First Name field, and my first initial in the Middle Initial field, but if they ever try to compare that record to, say, my drivers license or passport, there will be a mismatch, and some uncomfortable questions being asked. This is especially troublesome if the form is something that is likely to be coordinated with other forms in different offices.
Ironically, the first time I ever got any pushback for being an Initial-Name-Name instead of a Name-Initial-Name was when the HR department at Burroughs was processing my new-hire paperwork. Burroughs was chaired, at the time, by one W. Michael Blumenthal.
It's kind of a neat thing, for sure, but what are we thinking are its practical applications? Possible use as an assistive device for the disabled, perhaps?
First thought is that the link to "See how Dragdis works" takes you to a youtube video that shows pretty much the same thing as what plays in the page background. I don't think you need both.
I like the concept, though I didn't play around with it to see whether the implementation was what I would hope it to be.
At first we worried that people will not "get" the product without full video, but killing the video link and exposing social buttons increased conversion 5% for the past day.
Comic book physics is always good for a fun discussion, but no one seems to ever want to discuss comic book economics. As in, "Oh my goodness! That arch-criminal just stole a $200,000 diamond! Time to swoop in an cause a few tens of millions of dollars in property and collateral damage in order to retrieve it!"
Not to mention the basic premise of the "science hero" in which a single man develops world-changing technology and then never shares it with anyone.
That's why I loved the show "Dollhouse" - one of the central themes of the show is how the brain-rewriting technology is progressing and how it will change the world. As much as everyone gushes over Firefly and Avengers, I think Dollhouse should be remembered as Whedon's sci-fi creation that really focuses on the classical themes of SF - speculating on how a science/magical event would change the world.
also, how many Congressmen and pundits could the X-Men have bought with the money they spent on an invisible jet and an underground fortress?
One often thought is that the technology is too dangerous to share with people or governments considering the bad things they might do with their creations.
Related to article; I remember once Parker needed money so he approached a tech company as Spiderman to sell them his web formula. He demoed it by suspending some heavy equipment from the ceiling.
The scientists were amazed and couldn't wait to see the formula. That is, until the equipment came crashing to the ground.
Turns out, Parker created his formula to wither away after about an hour or so; to prevent him from covering the city in webs.
Parker decided he couldn't wait the months it would take to remake the formula to be permanent as demanded by the scientists, so he moved on.
That day the Marvel Universe almost had SpideyGlue.
> One often thought is that the technology is too dangerous to share with people or governments considering the bad things they might do with their creations.
When one hero does this, it's reasonable. When every science hero does this, it's suspicious. It's mostly visible in the Marvel Universe, which is notably science-hero-heavy. The fact that civilians aren't driving around in flying cars in Marvel is incredibly conspicuous.
And yeah, the commercial applications of spideyglue are obvious and numerous, even with its short lifespan.
I just take it that government agencies like SHIELD prevent mass commercial uses of certain technologies so they can have all the cool stuff for themselves.
After all, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe there are flying cars but only SHIELD agents have them.
But even if you consider that decision rational, think of the cost of property insurance.
Seriously, what insurance company is going to offer to insure the Daily Planet building with it being a known magnet for supervillans looking for Superman? Based on that can we assume that the Planet is almost certainly uninsured and paying for it's own repairs out of wafer thin newspaper profits. If so frankly how is it even still in business?
Stopping a $200,000 theft might easily be worth $10 million, because a successful public theft does a lot more than $200,000 in damage to society. The point is to make the theft unprofitable and thus deter others. Having the thief confronted immediately with ridiculous force is expensive, but I could be persuaded that it makes more of an impression than letting him get away and catching him weeks later.
X-Men has/had (I haven't read any story-lines from the last 20 years or so) length arcs where the animosity from government is split between fear over mutants and anger over the destruction, and where a lot of the fear is driven by the massive amounts of collateral damage.
Because they'll get sued, the government will force them to retire in hiding, they'll get jobs they hate, get bored, take risks in maintaining their secrecy in an attempt to relive the glory days, join up with a mysterious organization without thinking it through, destroy half the city to save it, get popular again, and repeat.
I have a clipping from a small regional daily newspaper from the 60s. The headline reads, "U.S., Canada Rear Warning Staveal Sites of Radtions" which sounds ominous indeed. It took me several tries to realize that someone most have dropped the line of type, breaking it, and reassembling it in the wrong order. It should have read, "U.S., Canada Reveal Sites of Radar Warning Stations"
Those are fine looking templates, and I like the idea of using a bit of splashiness to stand out from the crowd. I just worry that the end result might be that I'm taken less seriously as a candidate than the one who used the old, traditional format.
For what it's worth, I almost wish I was applying for a job at a commercial art house, just so I could use that black resume. Print that bad boy on some heavy, glossy stock, and there's no way they can turn you down!
First, I like the kid's methodology. You can eyeball the various differences between font X and font Y, and see that the same passage printed in one is going to take more ink than the other, but how do you quantify the difference? He came up with a clever hack to relate an easily measurable attribute to a not-so-easily measured one.
Second, intentionally or otherwise, he managed to divorce the savings ratio from the type of ink being used--whether you laser-print, inkjet-print, or press-print your text on paper, you're going to use x% less ink or toner with one font versus another.
However, the selection of a font should take things into consideration besides the relative amount of ink needed to produce a body of text. Human and machine readability should also be significant concerns. And I would like to point out that a cost savings of $136 million represents less than two seconds worth of spending at the US governments current spend rate of $3.5 trillion per year. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't even imagine that level of spending!
The fellow across the street from me saw the gutters going up on my house, and decided he just had to have gutters too. The contractor he called did a sales job on him, and he sprang for the so-called gutter helmets in addition to the gutters.
The "Gutter Helmet" is, essentially, a sheet of aluminium with a single slot along its length that allows rainwater into the gutters, while keeping (most of) the leaf debris out of the gutters. It's probably more of a necessity on houses surrounded by mature trees that will be dropping leaves onto the roof, but I'm not one to judge. Here's the thing, though: there is a significant difference in the velocity of the water rolling off the roof during a gentle rain and that of the streams pouring off during a torrential downpour.
Not a week after our gutters were installed, we experienced one of the aforementioned downpours. I stepped out onto my stoop to reassure myself that the gutters were equal to the task of handling that volume of water, which they were. Then I looked across the street at the neighbor's house. There was a veritable cataract of water cascading down the roof surface, skipping, for the most part, over the gutter helmets, and producing an impressive drip line in the poor guy's freshly groomed flower beds. He was standing on the stoop, phone in hand, gesticulating wildly at the waterfall and apparently having a loud, boisterous conversation with someone at the other end of the line! Couple days later, the gutter helmet guys were back in his yard, removing the helmets (and presumably refunding his money).
The hack described in the article is almost certainly less expensive than the helmet my neighbor bought, and I'm guessing it would be a lot more effective as well. Perhaps more debris can penetrate the mesh than the sheet aluminium helmet, but by the same token, the greater volume of rainwater captured should wash that debris away more effectively than the smaller volume with a helmet.
That said, it's still a Really Bad Idea to have the roof slope toward the house. Over time, that will cause bigger and bigger problems. Hope the OP can get that fixed soon.
Some people, confronted with a single letter in the First Name field, might look at the Middle Name field, but often the Middle Name field is actually a Middle Initial field. So now they have no idea what to call me, and usually default back to R.
I could take the daring step of "lying," and putting my middle name in the First Name field, and my first initial in the Middle Initial field, but if they ever try to compare that record to, say, my drivers license or passport, there will be a mismatch, and some uncomfortable questions being asked. This is especially troublesome if the form is something that is likely to be coordinated with other forms in different offices.
Ironically, the first time I ever got any pushback for being an Initial-Name-Name instead of a Name-Initial-Name was when the HR department at Burroughs was processing my new-hire paperwork. Burroughs was chaired, at the time, by one W. Michael Blumenthal.