I've seen my share of products fail miserably because nobody brought in the business analysts or consultants to gather functional and end-user requirements and spec out the system, and, generally, drive the project. Consequently, the engineers are left with an incomplete or incorrect idea of what to build or of what the acceptance criteria should actually be.
Well that's where communication comes in. It's easier in small teams, where the people in contact with the customers are easy to reach when a subtle choice-point comes up during development. Larger companies tend to be more beaureacratic in this respect, with a greater distance between those making the decisions and the actual developers. When this happens the way the developer visualises the software is critical. If you're parcelling up development into little pieces and giving it to people to code up, those people have no concept of the whole and therefore are incapable of making intelligence choices about how best to proceed.
In my view and from my experience, it's critical that each developer can see the whole project and his part in it. It's why many seemingly simple software projects, when out-sourced, end up costing millions of dollars over budget and are often delivered late.
so you're saying it's a phenomenon without a cause? cause-and-effect has been suspended?
Where in my paragraph did I even hint that this does not have a "cause"? My point was the assignment of AGW cause and effect. It's "global warming" (sorry, I mean Climate Change - as if that were somehow unusual - the fantasists in the AGW religion changed the meme when it stopped warming), stupid!
I am quite convinced that we are having a measurable effect on our environment, and that without fully understanding the processes involved
I didn't say we weren't having an effect on the environment, my point was that any and every natural event is given a globalwarming tag when it doesn't deserve one. Your point about nutjobs is moot, because the very people who are driving AGW policy are nutjobs themselves. If you agree with me that Gore, Mann and Hansen are nutjobs, then the case for AGW falls, because they are its primary proponents.
If you're so concerned about scientific understanding, you'll appreciate that cretinous efforts in climate related fields, particularly with respect to statistical analysis, are doing more to undermine public trust in the scientific method than any nutjob ever could.
Actually, it isn't a joke. People who believe in the AGW religion have a tendency, much like Bronze age fantasists, to assign causes to any and every natural event. I even read an article about Global Warming causing earth quakes. People are all too willing to suspend their rationality in the face of self-proclaimed experts (Hansen, Mann, Gore).
I beg to differ. Firstly, you're all assuming the ice shelf is collapsing because of Global Warming. This is in no way demonstrated, anywhere. It's entirely possible (and likely) that bits of ice-shelf collapse or break off every now and then in any case. When you consider the tiny amount of warming (now reversed) that has happened, you'll see how cretinous it is to make the assumption that man-made CO2 has caused it.
That's the problem in rural areas. The police don't turn up at all. It's hardly surprising that a spirit of vigilantism is developing there. The state may in theory protect the public in public spaces, but the reality is very different. If you don't live in a rural area, surrounded by `traveller' camps, you have no idea what's actually going on.
Are you joking? 3mm per year? Have you ever heard of thermal expansion? Is Ocean temperature regulated by atmospheric temperature? The last time I looked, Ocean thermal heat capacity was over 1,000 times greater than atmospheric heat capacity; the former being heated by the sun and the latter the ocean itself in combination with the sun. Ever heard of the PDO? Today it's negative. Over the last few decades it's been positive.
Why do you take the IPCC seriously? It published Hansens hockey stick with a straight face and continued to do so until its last report!
Are you saying flooding in Bangladesh is caused by Global Warming? If you are, then you are an idiot. I would love to contribute some knowledge in this area, but I fear you are determined to assign a cause to every single natural disaster, regardless of whether or not they are actually related. Let us just say that Geology and Geography are the reason for Bangladesh having issues with flooding, just as here in the UK covering over river flood plains with concrete and building houses on them isn't the smartest idea. Of course, that doesn't stop the environmental nutters claiming it's global warming, when in fact it's the very limited ability of concrete to absorb H2O. If you know about this stuff, then you'll know that the ocean is rising, but has been for a very long time (centuries and millenia) and has not been accelerating. Increasing sea level, it seems to me, falsifies theories of Global Warming. It isn't happening.
With respect to claimed consequences being taken seriously, we know one thing for certain: many more people will die if it becomes colder than if it becomes warmer. How do we know this? Because it happens every year. My theory on AGW is that people are fundamentally irrational, credulous and unbelievably stupid. Recent research shows that people lose their ability to be rational when confronted by an "expert". People like Hansen and Gore claim to be "experts", but they are only interested in promoting their own ideas, not in discovering truth.
In my view a rational response to Global Warming would be to get out a deck-chair and crack open a beer.
You could always try reading the most up to date research rather than quoting from Wikipedia. The latter does after all contain many articles that are "managed" by various activists and that therefore cannot be trusted. I find it's better to remain open minded. The Environmental movement would not agree with me however.
Most people will be looking to upgrade from XP to 7, not from Vista to 7. Some of us are lucky enough to have MSDN subscriptions, so we won't need to pay for it in any case (or rather, we already have!).
It seems to me that people, scientists included, have lost or are losing their minds. I cannot believe people are seriously discussing the merits or otherwise of this idiotic and totally cretinous experiment.
I think the fact that you've asked this question tells me a lot about how you see yourself and your job. As a developer you should be flexible enough to pick up *any* language and to choose the right tool for the right job. The principles of all of these languages are by and large the same. The syntax and libraries differ however (obviously), but to "specialise" would be to box yourself into a corner career-wise. Over the last 8 years I've worked with Visual Basic 6, VB.NET, C#, C++, Flash, Java, SQL and Perl. I've used ATL, MFC,.NET, ASP and a whole host of other libraries in order to get the job done. Specialisation = extinction in software development. Technology changes too fast so don't bet a life-time of earning on any single technology.
The best advice I can give you is to concentrate on writing quality code - irrespective of the language you use. That means being clear and concise and using lots of whitespace and writing lots of comments;).
Let me say that firstly, CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a plant fertiliser. Secondly, Shell are absolutely right. They can't make money on these so called "green" technologies; the market is once again working here to optimise resources. The cloud cuckoo land politics of the environmentalists are unrealistic and completely unworkable, unless, as I suspect, they want to see the lights go out on Technocracy as a whole (one of their early cheer leaders, Konrad Lorenz, said as much in the 1960's). To say that this energy is "free" is a load of bull. It's not free, it's extremely expensive if you consider all of the resources required to generate it are taken into account.
I expect Shell will continue to research alternative energy but unless it makes a profit (and is therefore attractive to share-holders), it can't do this.
A guy who insults his co-workers is an asshole. And a guy who smirks while informing others that documentation doesn't exist is just plain malicious.
I think you make two points here that aren't really related. There are a lot of clever people in IT who are, it seems to me, suffering from some form of Autism (I can think of two people in my code-shop just off the top of my head). Once you understand that and take it into account, you'll find they are no longer so insulting, even when they are being insulting, if you see what I mean.
Your other point is a common "joke" among us developers. We often don't have the time to fully document something and even if we did when requirements change (as they always do), the documentation is out of date. Keeping it up to date is a constant struggle. I have found from experience that a few pages explaining general principles, followed by clear code, with in-place comments, is far preferable to a 100 page document explaining everything in detail. Consider also that documentation is not going to help you if the code isn't written to be easily extensible. It seems to me that the design is the more important document, far more important than ex post-facto explaination.
It's really quite common on TF2. I've often joined a server when my favourite servers are full, where the number of players in game says something like 28/32, only to find that it's me against jombon00b1923, with nobody else in sight. I've complained more than once on the steam forums and I'm very happy that Valve are now taking this seriously.
This is, with respect, complete rubbish. Most "clueless users" have other things to do and don't want their computer getting in the way. Not everyone is an anally retentive command-line nerd, or has dreams about being one. I shudder reading this guy's Linux experiences. I wouldn't use it as it is now. My life is too short.
Submarines have been measuring ice thickness for decades (e.g. HMS Tireless). One of their discoveries was the ice moves about (due to wind), so measuring thickness at one spot today and then again next year is pretty meaningless.
According to the NSIDC, Arctic ice extent is almost back to the 1979-2000 mean (within 1 standard deviation), so I'm not too sure what all the fuss is about. Exclusive: "Scientists go on long walk".
What? I've got Windows 7 and XP. I have no problems watching any movies or playing any of my mp3's. DRM is only enabled when the media itself is DRM'd and that generally done by the producers of the media, not by Microsoft.
In 1996 I was spending a lot of my time out of lectures surfing The Hun's Yellow Pages. I was awarded first class honours, thus proving that porn makes you clever.
Why would anyone even remotely consider the expense and hassle to move from XP to Vista or XP to W7?
Because Windows 7 is a much better OS in so many different ways. I've been using the beta for about a month now and I'm loving it. I'm not looking forward to plugging my XP drive back in when the beta expires.
Slashdot Mirror
Well that's where communication comes in. It's easier in small teams, where the people in contact with the customers are easy to reach when a subtle choice-point comes up during development. Larger companies tend to be more beaureacratic in this respect, with a greater distance between those making the decisions and the actual developers. When this happens the way the developer visualises the software is critical. If you're parcelling up development into little pieces and giving it to people to code up, those people have no concept of the whole and therefore are incapable of making intelligence choices about how best to proceed.
In my view and from my experience, it's critical that each developer can see the whole project and his part in it. It's why many seemingly simple software projects, when out-sourced, end up costing millions of dollars over budget and are often delivered late.
Where in my paragraph did I even hint that this does not have a "cause"? My point was the assignment of AGW cause and effect. It's "global warming" (sorry, I mean Climate Change - as if that were somehow unusual - the fantasists in the AGW religion changed the meme when it stopped warming), stupid!
I didn't say we weren't having an effect on the environment, my point was that any and every natural event is given a globalwarming tag when it doesn't deserve one. Your point about nutjobs is moot, because the very people who are driving AGW policy are nutjobs themselves. If you agree with me that Gore, Mann and Hansen are nutjobs, then the case for AGW falls, because they are its primary proponents.
If you're so concerned about scientific understanding, you'll appreciate that cretinous efforts in climate related fields, particularly with respect to statistical analysis, are doing more to undermine public trust in the scientific method than any nutjob ever could.
Actually, it isn't a joke. People who believe in the AGW religion have a tendency, much like Bronze age fantasists, to assign causes to any and every natural event. I even read an article about Global Warming causing earth quakes. People are all too willing to suspend their rationality in the face of self-proclaimed experts (Hansen, Mann, Gore).
I beg to differ. Firstly, you're all assuming the ice shelf is collapsing because of Global Warming. This is in no way demonstrated, anywhere. It's entirely possible (and likely) that bits of ice-shelf collapse or break off every now and then in any case. When you consider the tiny amount of warming (now reversed) that has happened, you'll see how cretinous it is to make the assumption that man-made CO2 has caused it.
That's the problem in rural areas. The police don't turn up at all. It's hardly surprising that a spirit of vigilantism is developing there. The state may in theory protect the public in public spaces, but the reality is very different. If you don't live in a rural area, surrounded by `traveller' camps, you have no idea what's actually going on.
Are you joking? 3mm per year? Have you ever heard of thermal expansion? Is Ocean temperature regulated by atmospheric temperature? The last time I looked, Ocean thermal heat capacity was over 1,000 times greater than atmospheric heat capacity; the former being heated by the sun and the latter the ocean itself in combination with the sun. Ever heard of the PDO? Today it's negative. Over the last few decades it's been positive.
Why do you take the IPCC seriously? It published Hansens hockey stick with a straight face and continued to do so until its last report!
Are you saying flooding in Bangladesh is caused by Global Warming? If you are, then you are an idiot. I would love to contribute some knowledge in this area, but I fear you are determined to assign a cause to every single natural disaster, regardless of whether or not they are actually related. Let us just say that Geology and Geography are the reason for Bangladesh having issues with flooding, just as here in the UK covering over river flood plains with concrete and building houses on them isn't the smartest idea. Of course, that doesn't stop the environmental nutters claiming it's global warming, when in fact it's the very limited ability of concrete to absorb H2O. If you know about this stuff, then you'll know that the ocean is rising, but has been for a very long time (centuries and millenia) and has not been accelerating. Increasing sea level, it seems to me, falsifies theories of Global Warming. It isn't happening.
With respect to claimed consequences being taken seriously, we know one thing for certain: many more people will die if it becomes colder than if it becomes warmer. How do we know this? Because it happens every year. My theory on AGW is that people are fundamentally irrational, credulous and unbelievably stupid. Recent research shows that people lose their ability to be rational when confronted by an "expert". People like Hansen and Gore claim to be "experts", but they are only interested in promoting their own ideas, not in discovering truth.
In my view a rational response to Global Warming would be to get out a deck-chair and crack open a beer.
You could always try reading the most up to date research rather than quoting from Wikipedia. The latter does after all contain many articles that are "managed" by various activists and that therefore cannot be trusted. I find it's better to remain open minded. The Environmental movement would not agree with me however.
Forgive me for asking, but does your husband know you're just "relatively" happy? I mean he might think you're both "very happy"!
Most people will be looking to upgrade from XP to 7, not from Vista to 7. Some of us are lucky enough to have MSDN subscriptions, so we won't need to pay for it in any case (or rather, we already have!).
It seems to me that people, scientists included, have lost or are losing their minds. I cannot believe people are seriously discussing the merits or otherwise of this idiotic and totally cretinous experiment.
I think the fact that you've asked this question tells me a lot about how you see yourself and your job. As a developer you should be flexible enough to pick up *any* language and to choose the right tool for the right job. The principles of all of these languages are by and large the same. The syntax and libraries differ however (obviously), but to "specialise" would be to box yourself into a corner career-wise. Over the last 8 years I've worked with Visual Basic 6, VB.NET, C#, C++, Flash, Java, SQL and Perl. I've used ATL, MFC, .NET, ASP and a whole host of other libraries in order to get the job done. Specialisation = extinction in software development. Technology changes too fast so don't bet a life-time of earning on any single technology.
;).
The best advice I can give you is to concentrate on writing quality code - irrespective of the language you use. That means being clear and concise and using lots of whitespace and writing lots of comments
Let me say that firstly, CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a plant fertiliser. Secondly, Shell are absolutely right. They can't make money on these so called "green" technologies; the market is once again working here to optimise resources. The cloud cuckoo land politics of the environmentalists are unrealistic and completely unworkable, unless, as I suspect, they want to see the lights go out on Technocracy as a whole (one of their early cheer leaders, Konrad Lorenz, said as much in the 1960's). To say that this energy is "free" is a load of bull. It's not free, it's extremely expensive if you consider all of the resources required to generate it are taken into account.
I expect Shell will continue to research alternative energy but unless it makes a profit (and is therefore attractive to share-holders), it can't do this.
I think you make two points here that aren't really related. There are a lot of clever people in IT who are, it seems to me, suffering from some form of Autism (I can think of two people in my code-shop just off the top of my head). Once you understand that and take it into account, you'll find they are no longer so insulting, even when they are being insulting, if you see what I mean.
Your other point is a common "joke" among us developers. We often don't have the time to fully document something and even if we did when requirements change (as they always do), the documentation is out of date. Keeping it up to date is a constant struggle. I have found from experience that a few pages explaining general principles, followed by clear code, with in-place comments, is far preferable to a 100 page document explaining everything in detail. Consider also that documentation is not going to help you if the code isn't written to be easily extensible. It seems to me that the design is the more important document, far more important than ex post-facto explaination.
It's really quite common on TF2. I've often joined a server when my favourite servers are full, where the number of players in game says something like 28/32, only to find that it's me against jombon00b1923, with nobody else in sight. I've complained more than once on the steam forums and I'm very happy that Valve are now taking this seriously.
This is, with respect, complete rubbish. Most "clueless users" have other things to do and don't want their computer getting in the way. Not everyone is an anally retentive command-line nerd, or has dreams about being one. I shudder reading this guy's Linux experiences. I wouldn't use it as it is now. My life is too short.
The internet was invented by Al Gore, not at CERN, you dummy.
Why does ice volume matter more when it's ice surface area that affects albedo, not thickness? i.e. 1ft of ice has just as much albedo and 100ft.
Submarines have been measuring ice thickness for decades (e.g. HMS Tireless). One of their discoveries was the ice moves about (due to wind), so measuring thickness at one spot today and then again next year is pretty meaningless.
According to the NSIDC, Arctic ice extent is almost back to the 1979-2000 mean (within 1 standard deviation), so I'm not too sure what all the fuss is about. Exclusive: "Scientists go on long walk".
Polar Ice Trends
What? I've got Windows 7 and XP. I have no problems watching any movies or playing any of my mp3's. DRM is only enabled when the media itself is DRM'd and that generally done by the producers of the media, not by Microsoft.
In 1996 I was spending a lot of my time out of lectures surfing The Hun's Yellow Pages. I was awarded first class honours, thus proving that porn makes you clever.
Are you joking? How much slower is 0.0.0.0 to load over 0?
Because Windows 7 is a much better OS in so many different ways. I've been using the beta for about a month now and I'm loving it. I'm not looking forward to plugging my XP drive back in when the beta expires.