The bigger issue with Microsoft's actions vs. Netscape was less that they bundled IE with windows, but also that they prohibited PC makers from also bundling Netscape. They basically told HP/Dell/etc. that they were not permitted to pre-install alternate browsers, or they'd be at risk of losing the ability to license windows, which would pretty much have been a death sentence for that particular manufacturer.
In the end, we do have firefox, which is nice. But you can't say for sure that we're better off now than we would've been if Netscape had gotten a fair chance to compete. Once Netscape became a non-issue, there were a few years where not much happened in terms of browser progress. A few years is a long time in the internet universe. Changes in the browser market as of late are forcing MS to start paying attention to standards now, but I think we'd be better off if competition had pushed them down that road even earlier.
While I happen to think that the article is a gross over-reaction to a basically procedural move on the administration's part, I think that even if the article was accurate that your proposed explanation is very undemocratic and ill-considered.
If there is a valid and morally unambiguous rationalization for why it's not only acceptable but also beneficial for American citizens to have their communications tapped without a warrant, then the government should tell us why. They should tell us the plots that they've stopped, and the people that they've convicted.
I'm not looking for the nitty gritty technical details about how they do it, it's easy to understand why that sort of information might be classified. But the elected officials in a democratic government better have a more convincing argument than "it's for your own good" for something as significant as unfettered access to the communications of all their citizens.
You cross the street at the wrong time and a car sends you flying across the sidewalk. Someone calls 911, the EMS arrives to find you still alive but unconscious. Should they check your wallet and see if you've got health insurance before putting you into the ambulance? Should they call the insurance company that you've chosen and see what sort of coverage they provide for this sort of thing? What if you don't have an insurance card on you? Should they assume that you've chosen not to buy insurance and leave you there to die?
And that's not even getting into the the huge group of people who would like to have health insurance but can't afford it for themselves and/or their families.
All that being said, I think it very unlikely that a US universal healthcare system would involve a mandatory state level insurance plan. It's waaaay more likely that you'll be free to choose from any of the private healthcare companies that you can afford, as well as there being financial assistance available for those who couldn't afford it on their own.
I'm consulting you. Which alternate theory do you actually believe is closest? I'm curious as to which theory doesn't make any assumptions, since you've basically said that assumptions make theories worthless. A theory that doesn't require any assumptions must have all of the possible questions already answered, and so everything is must be figured out. I don't think I'm the only one who'd find learning about that very interesting.
Trying to modify existing theories to match new data isn't inherently any more dishonest or any less useful than trying to come up with entirely new theories just for the sake of "innovating". While I don't doubt there are some people who are so attached to their ideas that they willingly mislead themselves in order to not have to change their minds (or funding), that doesn't mean that everyone who's studying something that you disagree with is automatically a bad scientist or a dishonest one.
That's definitely not true. The recorded statements of public figures are edited up in order to muddle the context all of the time. Not everyone who hears the result has the time/resources to find and understand the actual context.
People with access to all of your personal data and communications do not to go through law enforcement or the legal system in order to use that information to harass you, discriminate against you, or otherwise ruin your life.
I'm a pretty decent law-abiding individual, but I have no doubt that if you dug through my past communications with friends, family, and colleagues you could find plenty of material that could easily be taken out of context or arranged to create a false context which would reflect very badly on me. Such information could potentially be used for things like denying me employment, alienating my friends/family, publicly shaming me, trying to blackmail me, etc.
As an matter of protecting individuals from the potential issues listed above, as well as from a moral standpoint, I strongly object to my government spying on its own citizens. For all of those same reasons, I disagree with our government arbitrarily spying on the citizens of other countries. That type of surveillance should be strictly limited only to cases where there is good reason to believe that the targeted individuals are a threat.
Have you taken a look at Apple's finances lately? $14 million is a drop in the bucket. As odd as it sounds, for a company of Apple's size, lawsuits dealing with amounts of money similar to that are almost routine. I don't think it had much of an effect.
Well like I said, offer workable alternatives, and a discussion can move forwards. Extremists generally don't put forward realistic alternatives. They start with the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality. I'm not suggesting that anybody try to have productive negotiations with those sorts of people.
But it is important to note that it's rare that people that extreme just happen. It generally grows out of people with legitimate gripes, hopes/dreams, ideas, etc. who are ignored or even met with hostility. It's one of those cases where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Better and more responsive government will often temper the anger and hostility of disaffected people, and even if it doesn't solve all their problems, it can offer them more hope than turning towards extremism would.
I think Obama agrees with you. That's why he's always talking about the tough choices and hard work that we have ahead. Hope is not a substitute for hard work, it's just the start. Obama knows this, and will keep reminding us.
A president can get things done. Bush got lots of big things done, including starting two wars that have already lasted longer than WW2. Congress can obstruct when they want to, but it's not required of them.
Unfortunately, the minority republicans have already shown themselves to be fairly consistent obstructionists, and the democratic leadership in congress has been fairly weak and ineffective. Hopefully Obama will be a motivating force for congress, and they'll actually let him try to solve some problems.
But either way, is having reality fall short of hope better than never having hope at all? Maybe you're content to just let the country slowly slide into ruin, but I think most people want things to improve. Hope is the first step towards things getting better. The danger is that people can sometimes try and substitute their hope for the hard work that's actually required to make progress, but in his speeches Obama has consistently tried to remind everyone that there's difficult decisions and sacrifices that will need to be made as we go forward.
I'm not saying do what we want or shut up, I'm saying at least offer a workable alternative or shut up.
Making the argument that all politicians are the same and that nothing is going to change isn't really making an argument at all. Standing on a chair and telling everyone that they're foolish for being optimism isn't constructive, it isn't useful, and it certainly isn't a noble task.
Go ahead and tell me that I'm wrong. Tell me why my ideas will never work. But follow up with your proposed solution, and tell me why it will work. And we'll figure out a way forwards together. But if your only idea is to crap all over everything else, then I'm not interested in having a conversation with you.
There's always compromise. A little bit racist/homophobic is better than being extremist and hostile about it.
Very true. The past eight years were just a sort of pinnacle for the sense of entitlement that has become pervasive to American culture over the past few generations. The most frustrating part of it all was that although the events of Sept. 11, 2001 were undoubtedly horrible, they provided an amazing opportunity for the USA to reflect and make some serious decisions about itself. But fear caused us to as a whole to take in the wrong lessons, and instead of moving forward we stalled out and arguably took a few steps back.
While it's a different type of crisis, the financial mess that we're in is providing another opportunity for america to reinvent itself. That combined with the historic nature of electing a minority president and the generosity of the world as a whole to give us a somewhat clean slate and another chance to prove ourselves, and I'm hopeful that enough of our citizens will take an honest look around them and think about improving the future.
I believe that Obama is interested in setting the tone in that direction, and that's a good change and a good start.
I disagree. And that's historically been one of the big problems with really tackling the issue of racism, both in the USA and worldwide. We can't just magically jump to a point where race doesn't matter any more. And pretending that we can by trying to ignore the issue of race altogether is not going to work. There's just too many social and economic realities that are woven directly into race for the issue to just disappear and work itself out.
There's been some interesting stories over the past couple months about how many European countries have always considered themselves far more progressive in terms of race than the US, but are now being forced to realize that a minority citizen would never be elected to their highest offices. They haven't solved racism any more than the USA has, they merely did a better job of pretending that it wasn't an issue.
The demographics and particulars of American history have kept racism a bit more apparent in the US, and as a result, we've worked through it to the point where we now have a black man in the oval office. Things have often times been messy and ugly along the way, but that's how progress generally goes.
Ideally, we want race to be a non-issue in our civilization. But race is a big deal. And it'll have to become a bigger deal before it can become an non-issue. That's just how it works.
Don't be so cynical. It's ridiculous how over the past couple months there have already been plenty of people all over the media telling us all the ways that Obama has already failed to live up to his promises, how he already has proved to be no different than any other politician, how all the excited citizens were foolish to ever have a positive thought cross through their mind.
There are already websites campaigning against Obama in 2012. Before he even performed a single task as president, telling us that he most go. Not trying to promote a particular candidate, just trying to bring down Obama. There's nothing positive about that. There's nothing to be proud about there.
Those bitter people are the ones creating the conflict. And they're doing it just for the sake of being confrontational. If your hopes and dreams differ from mine, then share them with me, we'll find the common areas and work to improve things for the both of us. But if you're devoid of hope, then just stay out of the conversation. You are incapable of helping us or yourself. If you want to choose that life for yourself, then so be it, but don't try to impose that misery on us.
I think one of the most amazing things about it all is how the replacement of one individual can really change the mood of so many people. Not just in the USA, but in the whole world. It's incredible how despite of all the bad decisions made over the previous administration, citizens of so many other countries are willing to give America the benefit of the doubt.
I believe that we should show some gratitude for that willingness to forgive, and we can express that gratitude by tempering our cynicism, and giving the new administration a decent chance to try some things. I think that a large portion of the country is willing to do so, hopefully the obstructionists can be drowned out by people who still feel that it's worthwhile to be hopeful.
But either way, if Obama tries to do even 5% of what he's said he wants to do, I'm having a hard time imagining how things could be run much worse than what we've survived through for the past eight years.
If you've got a full blown case of Ausergers, then I'm sorry, I'm not really qualified to help you. My advice isn't meant to solve any serious mental issues. I was approaching more from the position of the guy who was bored in grade school because everything was ridiculously easy, and so they develop the sort of mindset where "hey I don't need anyone's help, I'm smarter than everyone else, I don't need to play their little games..."
I was firmly in this category growing up. Shortly before college, family issues that I couldn't deal with on my own sort of reminded me how little I had figured out. In college I ended up taking all of the steps that I listed in my previous comment, and it really helped. I'm still not the most social guy out there. I don't particularly care for big parties, I usually prefer to spend my evenings at home relaxing in quiet than out with crowds. At work I'm still more of a technical guy and definitely not a schmoozing clients kind of a guy (although I do appreciate that clients often need to be schmoozed). I'd write more about this, but I really need to get dressed and go to work right now.
- Pay some attention to the people around you, and watch how they conduct themselves. Plenty of people are good at personal skills. The world is full of examples to learn from.
- Pick up a hobby that's generally involves some social interaction, and that you have no previous talent in. Go join a bowling league or something. The fact that you're new to it will make it more likely that you'll need to seek help from other people, hopefully forcing you to be more social. And many people actually enjoy the act of teaching and helping a fellow human being improve themselves, interacting with them won't be as hard as you think.
- Help with lots of little things around the office. Although it's sometimes annoying, it's actually a good thing to be one of the guys that people go to when they have a computer problem, or they need a ride to a meeting, or help carrying some boxes to their desk.
Note that none of these tips are particularly geared towards helping you pick up women. That "game" is a whole different thing, and one that I know even less about.
I think that was almost the parent comment's point. A lot of weak people get pushed around, and rather than admit that they allow themselves to be doormats, they whine that thier only problem is that they're too nice. That's why the parent commenter put "nice guy" in quotes. Being a nice person doesn't mean you're a loser. But "nice guy" is basically a code word for a push-over.
Your Obama example is a good one. For him to win, a bunch of others had to lose. Sure, in a way, he's responsible for those people losing. You could even make the argument that Obama crushed the lifelong dream of an old POW. But that doesn't mean that Obama's a bad person. It's just a fact of life that there only one person can be POTUS at a time, and a bunch of people want the job.
The position of project manager at your average software firm isn't quite as exciting as a presidential election, but the same principle holds true. Some sort of "campaigning" to get or keep that position isn't an inherently immoral or bad thing, and the fact that someone else is going to lose out on the job doesn't make you a bad person.
That's a foolish way to look at it. If you know that your job is on the line, make a little effort to show how much you really care about your job. It sucks when you're in the position where some guy has to be the loser, but taking honest steps to make sure that you're not the loser isn't immoral or even an asshole move.
Over the holidays I talked with someone who knew that after new years he was going to be responsible for choosing a few employees to be let go due to the current economic mess. He was having a really hard time making the decisions about who would go. I think that if I were in his position, I'd really appreciate anything that my employees might do to make the decision even a little easier. Someone stopping by and reminding me how important their work was to them and to the company would bode well for them.
Actually, in most jobs, they're both important. There's two lessons that the "smart kids" generally have to learn later in their lives (some have to figure it out in college, some get by a little longer). One is that unlike in grade school, smarts along won't put you in the upper echelon. You have to work hard, and you have to network. It's a big world, and no matter how smart you are, there's a guy out there who's at least as is talented as you and harder working. And there's a guy out there who's at least as smart as you and better at networking.
The point is that(especially in rough economic times) there's often more than enough smarts available to fill the demand. Being technically competent is certainly important, but unless you're in some very rare position where no one else is equally competent (or convincingly close), you've got some equally competent competition out there. Taking the time to develop some social and political business skills is not a wasteful investment in yourself.
Couldn't you minimize a lot of these problems by testing your device out in space? Find a location that's mostly empty, and that you would expect to be equally empty at your target time.
Of course, this assumes some decent space travel technology, but I'd hope by the time humanity has figured out time travel that they've also managed to make spaceflight reasonably accessible.
Well, here's the thing. Different people are skilled at solving different sorts of problems. A rocket scientist isn't necessarily the best person to be designing a mars habitat. And since it's not the same person doing both, they can both be worked on at the same time.
And while there's almost certainly going to be a need for a mars habitat to make design adaptations to work with whatever the launch vehicle is (and vice versa), there are plenty of habitat issues that need to solved irregardless of how it's gotten into space, so work spent figuring those out isn't wasted.
Besides, once the rocket is ready, it'd be nice to have the mars project almost ready to go, instead of just starting up.
In a sense, games such as the ones that you're talking about are partially generated automatically.
Taking Tetris as the textbook example, each game is different because the computer randomly selects pieces from a pre-designed list and throws it at the player. It's a very simple mechanism that allows the game to "automatically" generate new levels, but it works because the gameplay is so simple. The interesting question is whether or not increasing hardware resources and programming abilities will allow more complicated gameplay to be automated in increasingly complex ways.
A good and recent example is Valve's "Director" A.I. system in Left 4 Dead. For those who aren't familiar, it's basically a zombie game where you fight zombies as you travel through pre-designed levels. But what isn't pre-designed is the spawn points and quantities of Zombies, weapons, health kits, etc. The game is certainly more complex than Tetris, but you can boil both way down to a same basic system. The player has a pretty basic goal (make lines, get to the safe house), and the computer picks pre-designed pieces (different combinations of 4 blocks, different types of zombies) from a library and throws them on the screen for the player to deal with.
The individual pieces in L4D have much more complicated behaviors than those in tetris, and the system by which the computer selects those pieces is much more sophisticated than just randomness, but they both share an underlying fundamental pattern.
But it's important to note that human brains were required for both to design the player's goals, to design the individual pieces, and to design the setting in which the interaction takes place. I don't see how that part can be automated short of someone discovering how to build a creative artificial intelligence. And if that happens, the ramifications for everyone will be way bigger than computer created games.
Despite what its tagline says, slashdot long ago ceased to be any sort of news site. It is a discussion site. You've been here long enough that you should know that.
This story certainly isn't breaking news, it's trivia at best, but human beings (especially nerds) are very good at talking about and arguing over trivia. Throw in politics, and the never ending debate of the merits of film vs. digital, and I think there's plenty to discuss.
Slashdot Mirror
The bigger issue with Microsoft's actions vs. Netscape was less that they bundled IE with windows, but also that they prohibited PC makers from also bundling Netscape. They basically told HP/Dell/etc. that they were not permitted to pre-install alternate browsers, or they'd be at risk of losing the ability to license windows, which would pretty much have been a death sentence for that particular manufacturer.
In the end, we do have firefox, which is nice. But you can't say for sure that we're better off now than we would've been if Netscape had gotten a fair chance to compete. Once Netscape became a non-issue, there were a few years where not much happened in terms of browser progress. A few years is a long time in the internet universe. Changes in the browser market as of late are forcing MS to start paying attention to standards now, but I think we'd be better off if competition had pushed them down that road even earlier.
While I happen to think that the article is a gross over-reaction to a basically procedural move on the administration's part, I think that even if the article was accurate that your proposed explanation is very undemocratic and ill-considered.
If there is a valid and morally unambiguous rationalization for why it's not only acceptable but also beneficial for American citizens to have their communications tapped without a warrant, then the government should tell us why. They should tell us the plots that they've stopped, and the people that they've convicted.
I'm not looking for the nitty gritty technical details about how they do it, it's easy to understand why that sort of information might be classified. But the elected officials in a democratic government better have a more convincing argument than "it's for your own good" for something as significant as unfettered access to the communications of all their citizens.
You cross the street at the wrong time and a car sends you flying across the sidewalk. Someone calls 911, the EMS arrives to find you still alive but unconscious. Should they check your wallet and see if you've got health insurance before putting you into the ambulance? Should they call the insurance company that you've chosen and see what sort of coverage they provide for this sort of thing? What if you don't have an insurance card on you? Should they assume that you've chosen not to buy insurance and leave you there to die?
And that's not even getting into the the huge group of people who would like to have health insurance but can't afford it for themselves and/or their families.
All that being said, I think it very unlikely that a US universal healthcare system would involve a mandatory state level insurance plan. It's waaaay more likely that you'll be free to choose from any of the private healthcare companies that you can afford, as well as there being financial assistance available for those who couldn't afford it on their own.
I'm consulting you. Which alternate theory do you actually believe is closest? I'm curious as to which theory doesn't make any assumptions, since you've basically said that assumptions make theories worthless. A theory that doesn't require any assumptions must have all of the possible questions already answered, and so everything is must be figured out. I don't think I'm the only one who'd find learning about that very interesting.
Trying to modify existing theories to match new data isn't inherently any more dishonest or any less useful than trying to come up with entirely new theories just for the sake of "innovating". While I don't doubt there are some people who are so attached to their ideas that they willingly mislead themselves in order to not have to change their minds (or funding), that doesn't mean that everyone who's studying something that you disagree with is automatically a bad scientist or a dishonest one.
That's definitely not true. The recorded statements of public figures are edited up in order to muddle the context all of the time. Not everyone who hears the result has the time/resources to find and understand the actual context.
People with access to all of your personal data and communications do not to go through law enforcement or the legal system in order to use that information to harass you, discriminate against you, or otherwise ruin your life.
I'm a pretty decent law-abiding individual, but I have no doubt that if you dug through my past communications with friends, family, and colleagues you could find plenty of material that could easily be taken out of context or arranged to create a false context which would reflect very badly on me. Such information could potentially be used for things like denying me employment, alienating my friends/family, publicly shaming me, trying to blackmail me, etc.
As an matter of protecting individuals from the potential issues listed above, as well as from a moral standpoint, I strongly object to my government spying on its own citizens. For all of those same reasons, I disagree with our government arbitrarily spying on the citizens of other countries. That type of surveillance should be strictly limited only to cases where there is good reason to believe that the targeted individuals are a threat.
Have you taken a look at Apple's finances lately? $14 million is a drop in the bucket. As odd as it sounds, for a company of Apple's size, lawsuits dealing with amounts of money similar to that are almost routine. I don't think it had much of an effect.
Well like I said, offer workable alternatives, and a discussion can move forwards. Extremists generally don't put forward realistic alternatives. They start with the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality. I'm not suggesting that anybody try to have productive negotiations with those sorts of people.
But it is important to note that it's rare that people that extreme just happen. It generally grows out of people with legitimate gripes, hopes/dreams, ideas, etc. who are ignored or even met with hostility. It's one of those cases where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Better and more responsive government will often temper the anger and hostility of disaffected people, and even if it doesn't solve all their problems, it can offer them more hope than turning towards extremism would.
I think Obama agrees with you. That's why he's always talking about the tough choices and hard work that we have ahead. Hope is not a substitute for hard work, it's just the start. Obama knows this, and will keep reminding us.
A president can get things done. Bush got lots of big things done, including starting two wars that have already lasted longer than WW2. Congress can obstruct when they want to, but it's not required of them.
Unfortunately, the minority republicans have already shown themselves to be fairly consistent obstructionists, and the democratic leadership in congress has been fairly weak and ineffective. Hopefully Obama will be a motivating force for congress, and they'll actually let him try to solve some problems.
But either way, is having reality fall short of hope better than never having hope at all? Maybe you're content to just let the country slowly slide into ruin, but I think most people want things to improve. Hope is the first step towards things getting better. The danger is that people can sometimes try and substitute their hope for the hard work that's actually required to make progress, but in his speeches Obama has consistently tried to remind everyone that there's difficult decisions and sacrifices that will need to be made as we go forward.
I'm not saying do what we want or shut up, I'm saying at least offer a workable alternative or shut up.
Making the argument that all politicians are the same and that nothing is going to change isn't really making an argument at all. Standing on a chair and telling everyone that they're foolish for being optimism isn't constructive, it isn't useful, and it certainly isn't a noble task.
Go ahead and tell me that I'm wrong. Tell me why my ideas will never work. But follow up with your proposed solution, and tell me why it will work. And we'll figure out a way forwards together. But if your only idea is to crap all over everything else, then I'm not interested in having a conversation with you.
There's always compromise. A little bit racist/homophobic is better than being extremist and hostile about it.
Very true. The past eight years were just a sort of pinnacle for the sense of entitlement that has become pervasive to American culture over the past few generations. The most frustrating part of it all was that although the events of Sept. 11, 2001 were undoubtedly horrible, they provided an amazing opportunity for the USA to reflect and make some serious decisions about itself. But fear caused us to as a whole to take in the wrong lessons, and instead of moving forward we stalled out and arguably took a few steps back.
While it's a different type of crisis, the financial mess that we're in is providing another opportunity for america to reinvent itself. That combined with the historic nature of electing a minority president and the generosity of the world as a whole to give us a somewhat clean slate and another chance to prove ourselves, and I'm hopeful that enough of our citizens will take an honest look around them and think about improving the future.
I believe that Obama is interested in setting the tone in that direction, and that's a good change and a good start.
I disagree. And that's historically been one of the big problems with really tackling the issue of racism, both in the USA and worldwide. We can't just magically jump to a point where race doesn't matter any more. And pretending that we can by trying to ignore the issue of race altogether is not going to work. There's just too many social and economic realities that are woven directly into race for the issue to just disappear and work itself out.
There's been some interesting stories over the past couple months about how many European countries have always considered themselves far more progressive in terms of race than the US, but are now being forced to realize that a minority citizen would never be elected to their highest offices. They haven't solved racism any more than the USA has, they merely did a better job of pretending that it wasn't an issue.
The demographics and particulars of American history have kept racism a bit more apparent in the US, and as a result, we've worked through it to the point where we now have a black man in the oval office. Things have often times been messy and ugly along the way, but that's how progress generally goes.
Ideally, we want race to be a non-issue in our civilization. But race is a big deal. And it'll have to become a bigger deal before it can become an non-issue. That's just how it works.
Don't be so cynical. It's ridiculous how over the past couple months there have already been plenty of people all over the media telling us all the ways that Obama has already failed to live up to his promises, how he already has proved to be no different than any other politician, how all the excited citizens were foolish to ever have a positive thought cross through their mind.
There are already websites campaigning against Obama in 2012. Before he even performed a single task as president, telling us that he most go. Not trying to promote a particular candidate, just trying to bring down Obama. There's nothing positive about that. There's nothing to be proud about there.
Those bitter people are the ones creating the conflict. And they're doing it just for the sake of being confrontational. If your hopes and dreams differ from mine, then share them with me, we'll find the common areas and work to improve things for the both of us. But if you're devoid of hope, then just stay out of the conversation. You are incapable of helping us or yourself. If you want to choose that life for yourself, then so be it, but don't try to impose that misery on us.
I think one of the most amazing things about it all is how the replacement of one individual can really change the mood of so many people. Not just in the USA, but in the whole world. It's incredible how despite of all the bad decisions made over the previous administration, citizens of so many other countries are willing to give America the benefit of the doubt.
I believe that we should show some gratitude for that willingness to forgive, and we can express that gratitude by tempering our cynicism, and giving the new administration a decent chance to try some things. I think that a large portion of the country is willing to do so, hopefully the obstructionists can be drowned out by people who still feel that it's worthwhile to be hopeful.
But either way, if Obama tries to do even 5% of what he's said he wants to do, I'm having a hard time imagining how things could be run much worse than what we've survived through for the past eight years.
If you've got a full blown case of Ausergers, then I'm sorry, I'm not really qualified to help you. My advice isn't meant to solve any serious mental issues. I was approaching more from the position of the guy who was bored in grade school because everything was ridiculously easy, and so they develop the sort of mindset where "hey I don't need anyone's help, I'm smarter than everyone else, I don't need to play their little games..."
I was firmly in this category growing up. Shortly before college, family issues that I couldn't deal with on my own sort of reminded me how little I had figured out. In college I ended up taking all of the steps that I listed in my previous comment, and it really helped. I'm still not the most social guy out there. I don't particularly care for big parties, I usually prefer to spend my evenings at home relaxing in quiet than out with crowds. At work I'm still more of a technical guy and definitely not a schmoozing clients kind of a guy (although I do appreciate that clients often need to be schmoozed). I'd write more about this, but I really need to get dressed and go to work right now.
Here's a couple ways to get started.
- Pay some attention to the people around you, and watch how they conduct themselves. Plenty of people are good at personal skills. The world is full of examples to learn from.
- Pick up a hobby that's generally involves some social interaction, and that you have no previous talent in. Go join a bowling league or something. The fact that you're new to it will make it more likely that you'll need to seek help from other people, hopefully forcing you to be more social. And many people actually enjoy the act of teaching and helping a fellow human being improve themselves, interacting with them won't be as hard as you think.
- Help with lots of little things around the office. Although it's sometimes annoying, it's actually a good thing to be one of the guys that people go to when they have a computer problem, or they need a ride to a meeting, or help carrying some boxes to their desk.
Note that none of these tips are particularly geared towards helping you pick up women. That "game" is a whole different thing, and one that I know even less about.
I think that was almost the parent comment's point. A lot of weak people get pushed around, and rather than admit that they allow themselves to be doormats, they whine that thier only problem is that they're too nice. That's why the parent commenter put "nice guy" in quotes. Being a nice person doesn't mean you're a loser. But "nice guy" is basically a code word for a push-over.
Your Obama example is a good one. For him to win, a bunch of others had to lose. Sure, in a way, he's responsible for those people losing. You could even make the argument that Obama crushed the lifelong dream of an old POW. But that doesn't mean that Obama's a bad person. It's just a fact of life that there only one person can be POTUS at a time, and a bunch of people want the job.
The position of project manager at your average software firm isn't quite as exciting as a presidential election, but the same principle holds true. Some sort of "campaigning" to get or keep that position isn't an inherently immoral or bad thing, and the fact that someone else is going to lose out on the job doesn't make you a bad person.
That's a foolish way to look at it. If you know that your job is on the line, make a little effort to show how much you really care about your job. It sucks when you're in the position where some guy has to be the loser, but taking honest steps to make sure that you're not the loser isn't immoral or even an asshole move.
Over the holidays I talked with someone who knew that after new years he was going to be responsible for choosing a few employees to be let go due to the current economic mess. He was having a really hard time making the decisions about who would go. I think that if I were in his position, I'd really appreciate anything that my employees might do to make the decision even a little easier. Someone stopping by and reminding me how important their work was to them and to the company would bode well for them.
Actually, in most jobs, they're both important. There's two lessons that the "smart kids" generally have to learn later in their lives (some have to figure it out in college, some get by a little longer). One is that unlike in grade school, smarts along won't put you in the upper echelon. You have to work hard, and you have to network. It's a big world, and no matter how smart you are, there's a guy out there who's at least as is talented as you and harder working. And there's a guy out there who's at least as smart as you and better at networking.
The point is that(especially in rough economic times) there's often more than enough smarts available to fill the demand. Being technically competent is certainly important, but unless you're in some very rare position where no one else is equally competent (or convincingly close), you've got some equally competent competition out there. Taking the time to develop some social and political business skills is not a wasteful investment in yourself.
Couldn't you minimize a lot of these problems by testing your device out in space? Find a location that's mostly empty, and that you would expect to be equally empty at your target time.
Of course, this assumes some decent space travel technology, but I'd hope by the time humanity has figured out time travel that they've also managed to make spaceflight reasonably accessible.
Don't forget to kill anyone who may have created or seen the data previously on the drive.
Well, here's the thing. Different people are skilled at solving different sorts of problems. A rocket scientist isn't necessarily the best person to be designing a mars habitat. And since it's not the same person doing both, they can both be worked on at the same time.
And while there's almost certainly going to be a need for a mars habitat to make design adaptations to work with whatever the launch vehicle is (and vice versa), there are plenty of habitat issues that need to solved irregardless of how it's gotten into space, so work spent figuring those out isn't wasted.
Besides, once the rocket is ready, it'd be nice to have the mars project almost ready to go, instead of just starting up.
In a sense, games such as the ones that you're talking about are partially generated automatically.
Taking Tetris as the textbook example, each game is different because the computer randomly selects pieces from a pre-designed list and throws it at the player. It's a very simple mechanism that allows the game to "automatically" generate new levels, but it works because the gameplay is so simple. The interesting question is whether or not increasing hardware resources and programming abilities will allow more complicated gameplay to be automated in increasingly complex ways.
A good and recent example is Valve's "Director" A.I. system in Left 4 Dead. For those who aren't familiar, it's basically a zombie game where you fight zombies as you travel through pre-designed levels. But what isn't pre-designed is the spawn points and quantities of Zombies, weapons, health kits, etc. The game is certainly more complex than Tetris, but you can boil both way down to a same basic system. The player has a pretty basic goal (make lines, get to the safe house), and the computer picks pre-designed pieces (different combinations of 4 blocks, different types of zombies) from a library and throws them on the screen for the player to deal with.
The individual pieces in L4D have much more complicated behaviors than those in tetris, and the system by which the computer selects those pieces is much more sophisticated than just randomness, but they both share an underlying fundamental pattern.
But it's important to note that human brains were required for both to design the player's goals, to design the individual pieces, and to design the setting in which the interaction takes place. I don't see how that part can be automated short of someone discovering how to build a creative artificial intelligence. And if that happens, the ramifications for everyone will be way bigger than computer created games.
Despite what its tagline says, slashdot long ago ceased to be any sort of news site. It is a discussion site. You've been here long enough that you should know that.
This story certainly isn't breaking news, it's trivia at best, but human beings (especially nerds) are very good at talking about and arguing over trivia. Throw in politics, and the never ending debate of the merits of film vs. digital, and I think there's plenty to discuss.