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I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

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Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#161

Post by guerrilla »

Nition wrote: post #144
stevage wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it may be a little hard to understand" Presumably they are implying that if they read creative suggestions, they open themselves to the possibility of being sued if they ever implemented anything similar to what was suggested. Doesn't sound too complicated to explain to a kid.

I always thought the catch-22 was funny where they say they saw that I was suggesting an idea ¾ of the way through the letter, so they chose to return the letter without reading it.

> catch-22

That's not really a catch-22. It's just a contradiction.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#162

Post by notpushkin »

stevage wrote: post #143
Nition wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1997 I typed up a letter to Maxis in Microsoft Creative Writer about how much I liked their games and wanted to move to America and work at Maxis when I grew up: https://i.imgur.com/1eHcead.jpeg Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning that it'd be cool if you could print out an image of your city in SimCity 2000, as you could in the previous SimCity game. That was enough to get me only this letter from lega…

> "it may be a little hard to understand" Presumably they are implying that if they read creative suggestions, they open themselves to the possibility of being sued if they ever implemented anything similar to what was suggested. Doesn't sound too complicated to explain to a kid.

I suppose the legal department wants the wording of that paragraph to be very specific. It’s not only there for the kid, it’s for the court as well.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#163

Post by Nition »

guerrilla wrote: post #161
Nition wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the catch-22 was funny where they say they saw that I was suggesting an idea ¾ of the way through the letter, so they chose to return the letter without reading it.

> catch-22 That's not really a catch-22. It's just a contradiction.

What I mean is, they have to read the letters to check whether they're ones they can't read.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#164

Post by guerrilla »

Nition wrote: post #163
guerrilla wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> catch-22 That's not really a catch-22. It's just a contradiction.

What I mean is, they have to read the letters to check whether they're ones they can't read.

Fair enough. I think I cracked the case though: they probably have someone who isn't "them" read the letters though, a third party like another law firm or some contractor that offers that service specifically.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#165

Post by Grazester »

tombert wrote: post #150
nogridbag wrote: post #15

These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…

When I was thirteen I sent an email to Tom Fulp (creator of Newgrounds.com) telling him I wanted to make my own website with Coldfusion (which I had learned about through a pirated copy of DreamWeaver) and MySQL, and asked if would help me make it. [1] He responded back extremely politely and said that my idea seems like a great idea, but he's far too busy running Newgrounds to build any other websites right now, but…

My job entails me writing mostly Coldfusion all day long. I write new code in Coldfusion script. Its syntax heavily inspired by javascript, right down to the optional terminating semicolon. I still have to support a fair bit of code written in Coldfusion tag syntax. That I dislike especially given the code base was written by amateur developers and just makes me feel like bad php from 2003.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#166

Post by tombert »

Grazester wrote: post #165
tombert wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was thirteen I sent an email to Tom Fulp (creator of Newgrounds.com) telling him I wanted to make my own website with Coldfusion (which I had learned about through a pirated copy of DreamWeaver) and MySQL, and asked if would help me make it. [1] He responded back extremely politely and said that my idea seems like a great idea, but he's far too busy running Newgrounds to build any other websites right now, but…

My job entails me writing mostly Coldfusion all day long. I write new code in Coldfusion script. Its syntax heavily inspired by javascript, right down to the optional terminating semicolon. I still have to support a fair bit of code written in Coldfusion tag syntax. That I dislike especially given the code base was written by amateur developers and just makes me feel like bad php from 2003.

Oh I am very familiar with Coldfusion. My first job after dropping out of college [1] was doing Flash and Coldfusion work for a Martial Arts management company.

I have very mixed feeling on the language as a whole, both the tag and script language, though they’re mostly negative nowadays. I joined the CFML Slack a few months ago, which I was surprised to find, and the people on there were very nice and I respected their passion for the platform, but I personally still find the language pretty irritating, even with the scripty version.

Granted, I am very removed from web stuff now, and mostly work in data-land.

[1] I have a degree now, but that came considerably later.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#167

Post by janwillemb »

ileonichwiesz wrote: post #37
janwillemb wrote: post #25

As a 10y old, my father taught me about logical ports. I took a very large piece of paper and in a few days, I designed a tic tac toe "computer". It had LEDs that indicated the next computer move, based on the position of the pieces: every single possible state of the board led to a specific "next move" led. I do not think it actually would have worked, but of course I was very proud of my design at the time. Unfortu…

That really hits home. I spent a couple weeks in primary school sketching my own blueprints for great inventions. Nothing that could've ever worked (I didn't know what a transistor actually was, but my machine certainly had a lot of them!), but in hindsight a good start for a curious tech-minded child - switches that opened/closed circuits, wires to connect the various imaginary lasers and electromagnets, and so on.…

Thanks for sharing this. It is so sad! Sorry that there are people like that. The only thing we can do now, is be better people than those horrible teachers.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#168

Post by janwillemb »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #89
ileonichwiesz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really hits home. I spent a couple weeks in primary school sketching my own blueprints for great inventions. Nothing that could've ever worked (I didn't know what a transistor actually was, but my machine certainly had a lot of them!), but in hindsight a good start for a curious tech-minded child - switches that opened/closed circuits, wires to connect the various imaginary lasers and electromagnets, and so on.…

Oh god, what’s the deal with horrendous people becoming teachers? Lately, I’ve been, uh, “reminiscing” about how terrible adults were to kids when I was a kid (I’m gen X.) It’s no wonder I turned my interest to the computer - it was only ever a jerk if I programmed it like that.

Same (GP). Schools were really unsafe places for children back then. It always strikes me of you see movies about schools in that period, that the story is often that children get horribly bullied and are called ugly, etc. I am glad my children grow up in better times.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#170

Post by joe_mamba »

Keyframe wrote: post #141
joe_mamba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The answer was negative, but I was happy. For sure it was a nice experience, I would have done the same, imagine that kid you wrote back gets inspired, goes to study engineering then they come work for you instead of the competition. But nowadays is getting super rare to get human written rejection emails anymore, let alone to kids. >but maybe it learned me that asking doesn't cost anything, and that the worst thing…

5000 kids asking you for a job per month is a nuisance. it's a great marketing platform, if anything. Strong brand loyalty going forward and costs you not much to do well, not to mention you can brighten a day or few for thousands of kids in all sorts of life situations.

You're severely mistaken if you think that's how businesses operate. Companies penny pinch on staff even for recruiting, they're not gonna increase headcount just to answer mail form kids just because you think it makes good marketing.
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