Useless Conversation

[ghost]

I figured out that caffeine pretty much just makes me feel like shit and doesn't do much to keep me awake.  My wife has a drink of something with caffeine in it at 8 AM and is counting sheep until 3 or 4 the next morning.  Me, I drink a three liter of Diet Coke an hour before bedtime and am asleep before my head even hits the pillow.  I was pretty surprised at how much better I feel now that I cut out the caffeine.

[Cyrrex]

I figured out that caffeine pretty much just makes me feel like shit and doesn't do much to keep me awake.  My wife has a drink of something with caffeine in it at 8 AM and is counting sheep until 3 or 4 the next morning.  Me, I drink a three liter of Diet Coke an hour before bedtime and am asleep before my head even hits the pillow.  I was pretty surprised at how much better I feel now that I cut out the caffeine.

I tell this story to a lot of people:  a few, I used Chantix pills to quit smoking.  They worked brilliantly, haven't smoked in three years.  Unexpectedly, they also broke me of my severe coffee addiction.  As a result of being off of coffee, I definitely wake up faster in the morning.  It isn't even a close thing.  I used to be pretty much useless until I had three cups of coffee in my bloodstream.  Since I broke that habit, I am pretty much fresh as a daisy within 3 minutes of waking.

In short, I'm utterly convinced that, seen through the wide angled lenses, caffeine actually has the exact opposite effect of what we have come to believe.

[Ingmar]

Thirding the Cherry Coke Zero recommendation, it is what enabled me to finally get off the sugared stuff. After a while of drinking it, I find I can tolerate regular Coke Zero and Diet Pepsi as well (but not Diet Coke, that stuff still tastes like detergent to me.)

[ghost]

Why does everyone want to get off of the "sugary" sodas?  The chemicals in the diet renditions are pretty much awful for you too. 

[Cyrrex]

Also!  I have long wondered why somebody can't figure out how to make some sort of tasty....in between soda.  So not Coke or Diet Coke, but something with a calorie/sugar count somewhere in the middle.  Coke .5 or something.  Pepsi Min/Max.  Nurse Pepper.  I don't want all that damn sugar or HFCS, and I hate the taste of the diet stuff.  Surely I'm not alone!

Quick, somebody lend me a million dollars!

[Nebu]

The chemicals in the diet renditions are pretty much awful for you too. 

There is almost no proof that this is true.  Ok, unless you drink 700+ diet sodas a day.  

The phosphoric acid in soda is the worst thing in it and that comes in both diet and regular varieties.

[Ingmar]

Why does everyone want to get off of the "sugary" sodas?  The chemicals in the diet renditions are pretty much awful for you too. 

Not as bad as the 30 extra pounds the sugary sodas were helping me carry, I'll wager.

[Cyrrex]

Why does everyone want to get off of the "sugary" sodas?  The chemicals in the diet renditions are pretty much awful for you too. 

Hyperglycemia would be one of my reasons, though I'll admit to not having investigated the relationships between diet sodas and glucose levels in my blood.  Also, two cans of regular soda a day equates to something like 31 pounds of fat per year that I'd rather not have to burn off.

[Furiously]

I'd be all over an agave sweetened soda.  Well I would buy one.

[ghost]

I'd be all over an agave sweetened soda.  Well I would buy one.

I had some root beer sweetened with agave the other day. 
Oogave

It was pretty damned good.

[Merusk]

Also!  I have long wondered why somebody can't figure out how to make some sort of tasty....in between soda.  So not Coke or Diet Coke, but something with a calorie/sugar count somewhere in the middle.  Coke .5 or something.  Pepsi Min/Max.  Nurse Pepper.  I don't want all that damn sugar or HFCS, and I hate the taste of the diet stuff.  Surely I'm not alone!

Quick, somebody lend me a million dollars!

They've tried that a few times with C2 and.. I forget what Pepsi's version was called.  It's never sold well enough, probably because they have twits who think Diet Coke tastes all right try it.  C2 tasted like diet coke if you added sugar in the raw to it.

I know people who thought it tasted fine, but I'm one of those odd people who can truly taste the difference between different sweeteners so that's probably also my problem with diet drinks in general.

I used to be pretty much useless until I had three cups of coffee in my bloodstream.  Since I broke that habit, I am pretty much fresh as a daisy within 3 minutes of waking.

In short, I'm utterly convinced that, seen through the wide angled lenses, caffeine actually has the exact opposite effect of what we have come to believe.

I'm a morning person, my wife hates me for it.  I've always been bright & chipper within a few minutes of actually getting vertical. (The question is do I bother dragging myself out of bed on time or not.) However, when I cut out the caffeine from my diet for 6 months back in the beginning of '10 I had problems staying awake rather than getting up.  I used to be able to stay up until midnight to 1am, then get up at 5:30 without problems.  Not so when the caffeine wasn't there, I was dropping-off at 10:30.

I read up on it and learned that caffeine doesn't actually "wake you up" it blocks the chemicals in your brain that make you tired/ sleepy.  So, yeah, it pretty much doesn't do what most people think it does.  That run-down feeling just means they aren't getting enough sleep and using the caffeine to trick their brain into not feeling tired.

[Paelos]

Also!  I have long wondered why somebody can't figure out how to make some sort of tasty....in between soda.  So not Coke or Diet Coke, but something with a calorie/sugar count somewhere in the middle.  Coke .5 or something.  Pepsi Min/Max.  Nurse Pepper.  I don't want all that damn sugar or HFCS, and I hate the taste of the diet stuff.  Surely I'm not alone!

Quick, somebody lend me a million dollars!

I've been in several focus groups to tell you that one of the major companies has something in the works. Will it ever hit market? Can't say. 

[Chimpy]

He lives in Atlanta and just mentioned "one of the major companies".

I wonder who that could be?

[Merusk]

The 7 up company! 

[Johny Cee]

Also!  I have long wondered why somebody can't figure out how to make some sort of tasty....in between soda.  So not Coke or Diet Coke, but something with a calorie/sugar count somewhere in the middle.  Coke .5 or something.  Pepsi Min/Max.  Nurse Pepper.  I don't want all that damn sugar or HFCS, and I hate the taste of the diet stuff.  Surely I'm not alone!

Quick, somebody lend me a million dollars!

I've been in several focus groups to tell you that one of the major companies has something in the works. Will it ever hit market? Can't say. 

Does it speed up evolution so as to turn people into merfolk?

[Yegolev]

I've been in several focus groups to tell you that one of the major companies has something in the works. Will it ever hit market? Can't say. 

I've seen the new factory they built and I can't say, either.  Mostly because no one is allowed to tell me due to NDA.

[Selby]

Honestly the only thing I can tolerate these days is water.  I occasionally indulge in a root beer or ginger ale, but my taste buds tend to go into shock when I do.  I do drink tea and don't mind it much, but water is just easier for me to make ;-)

[Yegolev]

[Yegolev]

Amazon Cloud Drive may deserve its own thread.

[K9]

I would be interested to hear more opinions on the Amazon Cloud servers and such, it seems like a cool idea.

[Ironwood]

All of the Amazon stuff deserves its own thread.  They have an extremely smart offering that I've been burrowing into for months.

Wait, what ?  First 5gb Free when you can sign up for an Amazon AWS account and get 10Gb Free ?

I r confused.  Time to compare pricing...


Or, hey, time to NOT BOTHER :  Not available in -

Austria
 Belgium
 Bulgaria
 
Cyprus
 Czech Republic
 Denmark
 
Estonia
 Finland
 France
 
Germany
 Greece
 Hungary
 
Ireland
 Italy
 Latvia
 
Lithuania
 Luxembourg
 Malta
 
Netherlands
 Poland
 Portugal
 
Romania
 Slovakia
 Slovenia
 
Spain
 Sweden
 United Kingdom
 

[Cyrrex]

As someone who is about to move back to Europe, it's disappointing how much stuff is unavailable over there.  You'd think the marketing opportunities would be breaking down these barriers faster, but it just isn't the case.  Can you even use Netflix over there?

[Ironwood]

No.

The Amazon thing surprises me, though, since the AWS is housed over in Dublin and is Booming over here.  Why on Earth they can't use that for Cloud Drive is beyond me.

Don't move to the UK.  It's a fucking Shithole.

[K9]

Don't move to the UK.  It's a fucking Shithole.

Aww, it's not so bad 

[Cyrrex]

I'm moving to DK...which, while it's not a shithole, it's not exactly the most exciting place on earth, either.

[K9]

Or, hey, time to NOT BOTHER :  Not available in -

From what I saw you could still get the free 5GB anywhere, the listed countries are only restricted for additional space. I'm not clear how this differs from Dropbox though.

[ghost]

Is there anywhere that isn't a shit hole?

[K9]

Scandinavia?

[Paelos]

Is there anywhere that isn't a shit hole?

Beaver Creek, Colorado is quite nice.

[Nebu]

Beaver Creek, Colorado is quite nice.

If you don't mind spending $500k for a 2 BR A-frame 

[Yegolev]

If you can tolerate the elevation.  I wasn't there long enough for my body to acclimate... "there" being Keystone, but that's close enough.

[Ironwood]

Or, hey, time to NOT BOTHER :  Not available in -

From what I saw you could still get the free 5GB anywhere, the listed countries are only restricted for additional space. I'm not clear how this differs from Dropbox though.

Yeah, that's what I meant - Not worthwhile as an alternative to Dropbox, especially considering the AWS account gives you 10Gb.

Silly.

[Morat20]

*snort*. Just came out of the worst interview EVER. I was actually kinda happy at the thought of working for these guys, but between basic research into the parent company, some questions involving "Why did you develop this in house, and yet have consultants doing all the work for the past 7 or so years, and what's your transition plan since you have no in-house expertise?", and finally a 'technical screening' that consisted of being read two quizzes obviously taken from the internet on C# and SQL trivia/minutia from someone whose expertise was apparently only stretched as far as 'reading the answer key'...

Jesus Christ. I realize they have no local talent, but couldn't they have sent someone who technical skills?

Admittedly, I happily bombed the test. Half the SQL test was on transaction details for SQL Server that I haven't had reason to look at in 5 years (we have exactly zero transactions in our systems. I could tell you about normal forms, and good and bad DB designs, but if you want me to tell you the specific pass/fail criteria for a SQL Server transaction under X I can't tell you without googling it. I also don't have that down on my resume).

The C# shit just annoyed me. "What's the array command for sorting a list in descending order?". I happened to know that -- and the difference between clone and copy -- simply because I'd been using it a month or so ago, but they weren't expertise questions -- they were syntax, the sort of thing you either use daily or simply flip a reference to when you need it. It has nothing to do with skill, or even familiarity with the language.

And god help me with the debugger questions. *slams head into wall*.

Totally fucked up.

Oh yeah -- half the job is Powerbuilder. Guess what's not in either my resume OR the job description? It didn't help to realize halfway through the first interview that their business methodology is pretty shit, which is why they went broke, laid everyone off, farmed it all out to consultants, and only are now hiring people back since they've been bought out and recapitalized -- but they're still basically middlemen in the ad business, generating no actual content of their own -- just doing ad/market matching in a particularly lame way that will only get less profitable over the years.

[Sand]

some questions involving "Why did you develop this in house, and yet have consultants doing all the work for the past 7 or so years, and what's your transition plan since you have no in-house expertise?",

Welcome to 99% of the corporate world right now. If they arent directly an IT or computer company themselves they farm that shit out. The IT department for most corporations is just to keep the desktops running and give them enough expertise that they can provide maintenance and house keeping. Anything else goes to a consultant.

One recent company my wife worked at. Their entire rules engine and database for one operation was created and run by one employee for like a decade. Then they downsized him. It wasnt until after letting him go they realized NO ONE else had any idea how to run the monster in the basement, and this was for a major health care corporation.

Hell CTO/CIO's even farm out the creation of their strategic plans to consultants now.

[Fraeg]

I am getting some wierd shit going on at work.   I had balanced my budgets for FY11 and zeroed everything out.   Part of my budget goes to overhead which pays for the salarys of supervisors, IT folks etc.  Apparently our Adminstrative Officer went in to various projects budgets (including mine) and added labor hours for people who are supposed to be covered by overhead.  So Suddenly I am paying for a high salary manager/supervisor for 75 hours on one project and 124 on another.... which drives both projects into the red.

I see this as double billing, they are dinging my projects a flat % for overhead, and on top of that billing me again for labor time for people whose salary I am helping to pay for with my overhead cost.

I sent off a polite carefully worded email to the people involved, and am fuming in my chair.