Don't forget feature creep, aka Second System Syndrome. Have you seen that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets to design a car? And he keeps adding every possible thing he thinks might be a good idea, until the car is a complete mess, and ruins the company? This seems rather absurd on the show, but it's run-of-the-mill for software, and it's never the engineers' idea. We don't want the extra work, we'd rather fix what's already there.
For almost as long as the average American has been alive, people have been driven nuts by the flashing "12:00" of their videocassette recorder's clock.
I would like to change this to say, "For almost as long as the average American has been alive, stupid people have been driven nuts by the flashing "12:00" of their videocassette recorder's clock."
I have never had any problem setting any vcr's clock. Maybe I'm just a supra-genious, but somehow I doubt it. If I were, at least one of my plans to take over the world should have worked by now. But I digress. My point here is that I think this small change helps to better set the mood of the article, and get a little more insight into the perspective of the author.
Now then. Deliver me 1 mill - er - 100 billion dollars by sundown or I will destroy the city with my fiendishly clever but easily disabled destruction device. MWAHAHAHAHA!
You clearly do not know your tax law. The Basic Economics 101 class you slept through probably didn't go into enough detail. The complexities in the law are innumerable, or so it often seems. I admit I do not remember the details of my friend's situation, but I assure you the anecdote was accurate. Most likely, it had to do with various deductions allowed and such, adjusting her taxable income. The point (that would be the source of the breeze you just felt) is that rich people can, and will take advantage of the complexities in the tax law.
Incidently, one of the best ways to tell the difference between an intelligent person and a moron is to see which one has to resort to direct ad hominum attacks.
I must admit I fail to see your point. You seem to be aiming at contradicting me, but my whole point was that the rich would use the loopholes. Are you implying that the solution is to remove the loopholes? No argument here. I was simply implying that, under the current system, tax cuts go to the rich regardless of whom they target.
I suggest people who start complaining about tax cuts being focused on the rich try giving it some thought instead of just shooting from the hip. You may think that you could make a tax cut that isn't aimed at the rich, but it just doesn't happen. You see, when you focus a tax cut on the lower tax brackets, you might think that the poor can take advantage of it, and the rich can't. But that simply isn't true.
First, the lower and even middle class do not have the resources necessary to take advantage of tax laws. How many of you have known someone who barely jumped passed a cutoff for a tax bracket, and ended up with less money than if they had earned less? I had a friend in college who made $4000 less because she earned $2000 more.
So, a tax cut for the lower classes would not make much difference for many people. But how about the rich? Could they take advantage of them? Hell, yeah! The more money you have, the more likely it is you have a full time accountant working for you. That means they can take advantage of all of the best tax dodges - perfectly legally, too, although they don't always stop there. It's fairly simple for a millionaire to be in a low tax bracket, especially after retirement. Remember it's income tax, not bank account tax.
The point is, it doesn't matter for which tax bracket you intend a tax cut, it is for the rich.
How do you draw the line between a software patent and a hardware patent?
Simple: hardware patents are over hardware. Software patents are over software. Describing the hardware used by an algorithm would not make it a hardware patent, except in the case that the hardware only does that one thing. In other words, patenting a special webserver which has hard-coded circuits to process a one-click ordering system would be a hardware patent. Saying that your software runs on a PC with X processors and Y gigs of ram would not make it a hardware patent. As for the distinction between software patents and business methods, there is no point in distinguishing, because neither should be allowed.
Although I find your logic flawed, I do agree with your solutions. I also agreed with the 500,000 other people who suggested the same thing. What I would like to agree with is someone who could suggest a how, not just a what.
The PTO recently launched a much-ballyhooed Business Method Patent Initiative, expanding its database of prior art and instituting a second-look policy whereby business-method patents are reviewed by a second experienced examiner before issuance. Dickinson says this program has already reduced the Group 705 allowance rate to less than 40 percent.
This after Dickensaon tried to defend Group 705 by saying they had only a 57 percent approval rating. This means that, upon further review, 30% of the patents granted by Group 507 were denied! Yet Dickinson claims that there wasn't anything wrong with the PTO before that.
And to all of those who claimed that the PTO just needs time to adjust: FUCK YOU! I don't see why we should allow assholes to get away with ridiculous patents just because you're incompetent. I wouldn't get to keep my job if I told my boss, "Oh, I don't know what I'm doing yet, things have changed, you'll just have to wait". I say you get your ass in gear or you get a new job.
Ok, what this dumbass is saying, in between rants about god and the education system (which undoubtedly kicked him out), is that he thinks each actual day is really four days. He wants one day each for midnight-dawn, dawn-noon, noon-dusk, and dusk-midnight. (Despite the fact that these are not all the same length of time.) He clearly isn't smart enough to realize that it would simply be another, much stupider way of saying the same thing. Oh well, at least I had fun laughing at his horrible site.
I remember when I thought I wasn't being used to my full potential. When I thought I was undervalued by my company. When I felt I could recode the whole world without bugs in under an hour. How I yearn for those days. How I miss last week.
Ok, enough kidding. Actually, I do still feel this way, I've just learned not to harp on it. Most of the other engineers I know feel that way, too. Most non-engineers seem to think that way about themselves, as well. You just have to learn to make the most of your situation.
First, look at it from your employer's perspective. There are three reasons why a company hires high school students: Cheap labor, good PR, and in a few rare cases, a real interest in helping high school students find their calling. A lot of people on here are probably saying, "Of course they just want you as cheap labor, deal with it." I'm not going to say that. What I'll say is, take advantage of it. To make the most of your situation, here are some suggestions:
1) Accept that you are going to do some crap work. It's inevitable, whether you're a grunt or a top engineer. Sometimes, the only difference between way cool and big-ass lame is a few thousand repetitions.
2) Ask questions. Lots of questions. Try to make them good questions. (There are no stupid questions, but lots of inquisitive idiots, blah blah blah...) This will: keep them aware of you, let them know you're interested, and possibly lead to them revealing more interesting secrets.
3) Find the mentor. Somebody there is truly interested in helping you out. Most likely it is some old geek who will never have kids of his own. If you can get one of these guys to take you under his wing, chances are he will let you in on the cool stuff he's working on.
4) Play on their motives. If you can find the real reason the company hired you (cheap labor, pr, etc.), you can work it in to your discussions when you try to get cooler assignments. Try this, "Oh, there's no need for [engineer] to spend his time on that, I can handle it."
And never forget, you're just in high school. I know that seems insulting right now, but you'll be saying it yourself in a few years. People are supposed to have crap jobs in high school - it's like a rite of passage or something. And boring crap is better than manual labor.
And in conclusion, stand up straight, fly right, don't forget to floss, and pull up your pants!
Actually, that's perfectly legal. I would also suggest burning him in effigy, but then you have to be careful about laws against open flames, etc. Another good idea would be to cut off his head, fill the mouth with holy wafers, and throw him in a swift-running river. I'm pretty sure that one would be illegal. Still, amazing how big the holes in most laws are, isn't it?;-)
Bullshit. Just because we all can see that very few people would follow this doesn't mean that it isn't targeting everyone. Nothing in it says, "This is only intended for those of you who aren't involved in making real video games." This targets EVERYONE, and explicitly declares, "...for the interactive entertainment industry." It does not say,"for the indie gaming community." And even though he admits, "Now I realize that... nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001." This doesn't mean he isn't targeting them, it just means he knows his ideas are crap that will not be picked up by the people who matter.
My point is that IF THESE GUIDELINES HAD BEEN FOLLOWED PREVIOUSLY these games would not exist. I did not mean that these games would now cease to exist because of this. I do, however, mean that if everyone followed these, we would have no new games like these. I thought all of this would be easily inferred, but I guess I was not clear enough.
We wouldn't have Q3. For that matter, we wouldn't have Doom. All you FPS junkies would be making do with Wolfenstein3d.
We wouldn't have Everquest or Diablo II. I'm not certain, but I think that means all my friends would be hooked on smack, instead.:)
We wouldn't have ANY Mario game after the first. (Well, maybe Mario 2, but who'd miss it?) Although I will agree that the whole Mario thing has been pushed waaaaay beyond reason, I can't imagine never having played SMB3. My NES wouldn't have been the same.
We wouldn't have any Castlevania games. I'm playing Symphony of the Dark right now (again). One of the best games ever, IMHO.
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, this guy has made up a bunch of rules to try to get rid of all the crap games, without thinking about the impact on the good games. (But I'll grant that that is in line with what the original Dogme did.) A better approach would be "Don't buy crappy games." I'll take that vow right now. Let the designers make whatever they want. If it sucks, it'll come back to them, and (hopefully) they'll learn.
No! They're going to let it land again. They just want to get a few more pictures with the resources remaining. The probe itself might be solar powered, but the thrusters aren't.
By the way, does anybody else think the "official diagram" looks like legos?
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. I'm sure the moderator who modded it down won't see it, but I'm glad someone noticed.
You can buy these at ThinkGeek. One of my favorite sites.
Don't forget feature creep, aka Second System Syndrome. Have you seen that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets to design a car? And he keeps adding every possible thing he thinks might be a good idea, until the car is a complete mess, and ruins the company? This seems rather absurd on the show, but it's run-of-the-mill for software, and it's never the engineers' idea. We don't want the extra work, we'd rather fix what's already there.
For almost as long as the average American has been alive, people have been driven nuts by the flashing "12:00" of their videocassette recorder's clock.
I would like to change this to say, "For almost as long as the average American has been alive, stupid people have been driven nuts by the flashing "12:00" of their videocassette recorder's clock."
I have never had any problem setting any vcr's clock. Maybe I'm just a supra-genious, but somehow I doubt it. If I were, at least one of my plans to take over the world should have worked by now. But I digress. My point here is that I think this small change helps to better set the mood of the article, and get a little more insight into the perspective of the author.
Now then. Deliver me 1 mill - er - 100 billion dollars by sundown or I will destroy the city with my fiendishly clever but easily disabled destruction device. MWAHAHAHAHA!
You clearly do not know your tax law. The Basic Economics 101 class you slept through probably didn't go into enough detail. The complexities in the law are innumerable, or so it often seems. I admit I do not remember the details of my friend's situation, but I assure you the anecdote was accurate. Most likely, it had to do with various deductions allowed and such, adjusting her taxable income. The point (that would be the source of the breeze you just felt) is that rich people can, and will take advantage of the complexities in the tax law.
Incidently, one of the best ways to tell the difference between an intelligent person and a moron is to see which one has to resort to direct ad hominum attacks.
I must admit I fail to see your point. You seem to be aiming at contradicting me, but my whole point was that the rich would use the loopholes. Are you implying that the solution is to remove the loopholes? No argument here. I was simply implying that, under the current system, tax cuts go to the rich regardless of whom they target.
Getting an accountant to do your taxes once a year does not qualify as full time.
I suggest people who start complaining about tax cuts being focused on the rich try giving it some thought instead of just shooting from the hip. You may think that you could make a tax cut that isn't aimed at the rich, but it just doesn't happen. You see, when you focus a tax cut on the lower tax brackets, you might think that the poor can take advantage of it, and the rich can't. But that simply isn't true.
First, the lower and even middle class do not have the resources necessary to take advantage of tax laws. How many of you have known someone who barely jumped passed a cutoff for a tax bracket, and ended up with less money than if they had earned less? I had a friend in college who made $4000 less because she earned $2000 more.
So, a tax cut for the lower classes would not make much difference for many people. But how about the rich? Could they take advantage of them? Hell, yeah! The more money you have, the more likely it is you have a full time accountant working for you. That means they can take advantage of all of the best tax dodges - perfectly legally, too, although they don't always stop there. It's fairly simple for a millionaire to be in a low tax bracket, especially after retirement. Remember it's income tax, not bank account tax.
The point is, it doesn't matter for which tax bracket you intend a tax cut, it is for the rich.
I means they have an alternative motive. If they were really worried about the poor, they could more than make up for the tax cuts.
How do you draw the line between a software patent and a hardware patent?
Simple: hardware patents are over hardware. Software patents are over software. Describing the hardware used by an algorithm would not make it a hardware patent, except in the case that the hardware only does that one thing. In other words, patenting a special webserver which has hard-coded circuits to process a one-click ordering system would be a hardware patent. Saying that your software runs on a PC with X processors and Y gigs of ram would not make it a hardware patent. As for the distinction between software patents and business methods, there is no point in distinguishing, because neither should be allowed.
Although I find your logic flawed, I do agree with your solutions. I also agreed with the 500,000 other people who suggested the same thing. What I would like to agree with is someone who could suggest a how, not just a what.
The PTO recently launched a much-ballyhooed Business Method Patent Initiative, expanding its database of prior art and instituting a second-look policy whereby business-method patents are reviewed by a second experienced examiner before issuance. Dickinson says this program has already reduced the Group 705 allowance rate to less than 40 percent.
This after Dickensaon tried to defend Group 705 by saying they had only a 57 percent approval rating. This means that, upon further review, 30% of the patents granted by Group 507 were denied! Yet Dickinson claims that there wasn't anything wrong with the PTO before that.
And to all of those who claimed that the PTO just needs time to adjust: FUCK YOU! I don't see why we should allow assholes to get away with ridiculous patents just because you're incompetent. I wouldn't get to keep my job if I told my boss, "Oh, I don't know what I'm doing yet, things have changed, you'll just have to wait". I say you get your ass in gear or you get a new job.
Doesn't ethernet have a few too many collisions? I think token ring might be safer...
Ok, what this dumbass is saying, in between rants about god and the education system (which undoubtedly kicked him out), is that he thinks each actual day is really four days. He wants one day each for midnight-dawn, dawn-noon, noon-dusk, and dusk-midnight. (Despite the fact that these are not all the same length of time.) He clearly isn't smart enough to realize that it would simply be another, much stupider way of saying the same thing. Oh well, at least I had fun laughing at his horrible site.
Does that timecube guy realize that there are 8 corners in a cube? Guess not.
I remember when I thought I wasn't being used to my full potential. When I thought I was undervalued by my company. When I felt I could recode the whole world without bugs in under an hour. How I yearn for those days. How I miss last week.
Ok, enough kidding. Actually, I do still feel this way, I've just learned not to harp on it. Most of the other engineers I know feel that way, too. Most non-engineers seem to think that way about themselves, as well. You just have to learn to make the most of your situation.
First, look at it from your employer's perspective. There are three reasons why a company hires high school students: Cheap labor, good PR, and in a few rare cases, a real interest in helping high school students find their calling. A lot of people on here are probably saying, "Of course they just want you as cheap labor, deal with it." I'm not going to say that. What I'll say is, take advantage of it. To make the most of your situation, here are some suggestions:
1) Accept that you are going to do some crap work. It's inevitable, whether you're a grunt or a top engineer. Sometimes, the only difference between way cool and big-ass lame is a few thousand repetitions.
2) Ask questions. Lots of questions. Try to make them good questions. (There are no stupid questions, but lots of inquisitive idiots, blah blah blah...) This will: keep them aware of you, let them know you're interested, and possibly lead to them revealing more interesting secrets.
3) Find the mentor. Somebody there is truly interested in helping you out. Most likely it is some old geek who will never have kids of his own. If you can get one of these guys to take you under his wing, chances are he will let you in on the cool stuff he's working on.
4) Play on their motives. If you can find the real reason the company hired you (cheap labor, pr, etc.), you can work it in to your discussions when you try to get cooler assignments. Try this, "Oh, there's no need for [engineer] to spend his time on that, I can handle it."
And never forget, you're just in high school. I know that seems insulting right now, but you'll be saying it yourself in a few years. People are supposed to have crap jobs in high school - it's like a rite of passage or something. And boring crap is better than manual labor.
And in conclusion, stand up straight, fly right, don't forget to floss, and pull up your pants!
Actually, that's perfectly legal. I would also suggest burning him in effigy, but then you have to be careful about laws against open flames, etc. Another good idea would be to cut off his head, fill the mouth with holy wafers, and throw him in a swift-running river. I'm pretty sure that one would be illegal. Still, amazing how big the holes in most laws are, isn't it? ;-)
Does anyone else picture this Powell guy as Satan wearing a tin halo?
Bullshit. Just because we all can see that very few people would follow this doesn't mean that it isn't targeting everyone. Nothing in it says, "This is only intended for those of you who aren't involved in making real video games." This targets EVERYONE, and explicitly declares, "...for the interactive entertainment industry." It does not say,"for the indie gaming community." And even though he admits, "Now I realize that... nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001." This doesn't mean he isn't targeting them, it just means he knows his ideas are crap that will not be picked up by the people who matter.
My point is that IF THESE GUIDELINES HAD BEEN FOLLOWED PREVIOUSLY these games would not exist. I did not mean that these games would now cease to exist because of this. I do, however, mean that if everyone followed these, we would have no new games like these. I thought all of this would be easily inferred, but I guess I was not clear enough.
I'm sorry, but chess has knights. Breaks the rules :(
If this guy had his way:
:)
We wouldn't have Q3. For that matter, we wouldn't have Doom. All you FPS junkies would be making do with Wolfenstein3d.
We wouldn't have Everquest or Diablo II. I'm not certain, but I think that means all my friends would be hooked on smack, instead.
We wouldn't have ANY Mario game after the first. (Well, maybe Mario 2, but who'd miss it?) Although I will agree that the whole Mario thing has been pushed waaaaay beyond reason, I can't imagine never having played SMB3. My NES wouldn't have been the same.
We wouldn't have any Castlevania games. I'm playing Symphony of the Dark right now (again). One of the best games ever, IMHO.
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, this guy has made up a bunch of rules to try to get rid of all the crap games, without thinking about the impact on the good games. (But I'll grant that that is in line with what the original Dogme did.) A better approach would be "Don't buy crappy games." I'll take that vow right now. Let the designers make whatever they want. If it sucks, it'll come back to them, and (hopefully) they'll learn.
Bill Gates != Sauron
Bill Gates == Morgoth
No! They're going to let it land again. They just want to get a few more pictures with the resources remaining. The probe itself might be solar powered, but the thrusters aren't.
By the way, does anybody else think the "official diagram" looks like legos?
Forget the goat silk - I want goats that give me BEER!
Mmmm... goat beer
I can see it now:
SWM seeks infected female for fun,
companionship, procreation.
Must have own Wolbachia. Hornets need not apply.