Well, that was my reaction, too. This guy is old, and he must have started programming when computers were really new. So he's unique.
Then I realized that I'm over 60 (64, in fact) and that I (afair) was in my teens (19) when I took my first computer programming class (Fortran and PL/1).
So either he's not so old, or I'm really old. But I'm only grumpy when I'm awake.
Machines will never fly, for all the analogous reasons.
1) We don't know exactly how birds, bats, flying fish, or insects fly.
2) Machines are machines.
Lots of programs search for some value of a variable, with conflicting criteria. They know when they have reached an answer (conclusion); whether it is the right answer, or only a local minima, is not always clear, either to the program or to the person using it. But then people commonly arrive at erroneous conclusions concerning an answer, too. And for that matter, if the criteria are conflicting, then by definition I don't think there is a *right* answer--the answer that's best depends on how you weight those criteria.
Some of these programs are conceptually quite simple, e.g. we have one we use to search for possible correctly spelled words, given a possibly misspelled input. It outputs a list of answers that are above some threshold of "rightness", as measured by how likely the correction(s) are under some notion of a likely error. You might consider the top answer to be "truth" (although it's not always unique). I would not call this program intelligent.
Um - no. I'm farsighted, and like all farsighted people, I can see things at a distance (other cars, say, or the cell phone in that driver's hand) just fine. It's the text on my own cell's gps that I can't see without my reading glasses. (I have 20-14 vision, meaning I can see at 20 feet what the average person needs to stand 14 feet away to see. I just can't focus up close, meaning a foot or two away.)
So no, I do NOT need my glasses to drive. And unlike you, I'm not lost.
Here's a theory: VS 2012 (and likewise Office 2013) were written by people who write in the Perso-Arabic, Hebrew or Hangul scripts, which have no upper/lower case distinction. (And the Ribbon itself was written by people who use hieroglyphics.)
Reminds me: on rare occasion I need to use Internet Explorer (like to edit some doc on sharepoint--sometimes that works with Firefox, sometimes not). I can't ever find IE in the Windows Start menu, not as iexplorer, internet explorer, or anything else I can think of. Had this experience on several computers, and had to open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\something. Why?
(replying to myself--yeah, I talk to myself, but at least I don't lose arguments with myself)
I noticed today that the status bar at the top of the Outlook 2013 preview panel has three lines of junk, all of it (except for some useless icons) copied from the line in the message list above. Think you can hide that? In 2010 you could, but they took that tweak away in 2013.
Office 2013 (which we just switched to at work, over my objections after being one of our office's "beta" testers) is even worse than 2010, which was worse than 2007. In 2007, they introduced the non-conforming title bar, so you could barely tell by looking whether an Office app had the focus. (It changed to slightly darker, but only slightly. I had to look at my other apps and by process of elimination figure out whether Office had focus.)
In 2013, the title bar changes *not at all* when Office receives/ loses focus. It's always white (or always light gray or a slightly darker gray). I finally found a work-around, using a high-contrast "theme" in Windows forces the title bar to change color depending on focus. Of course everything else looks rather ugly, but I'm gradually tweaking what I can.
And Office 2013 has the ugliest icons and buttons I've ever seen. Looks like it was designed for a VGA screen, or maybe CGA...
If you don't believe me, google "microsoft office 2013 ugly".
"A return of LISP machines might be nice." Yeah, because then I could run Steamer (http://hci.ucsd.edu/hutchins/Steamer.html). It emulated the steam plant I was in charge of (as MPA) in the Navy 1972-1975. Without all the dirt, oil, seawater, tobacco smoke, and corrosion (not to mention sea sickness).
Your sig line is misattributed. That quote cannot come from a Chinese speaker, you can tell because it uses the indefinite article "a". Everyone knows the Chinese don't do that. Haven't you read any fortune cookies lately? My own guess is that it was Ben Franklin who said that.
--
Stamp out sig lines!
"I imagine most OSes for centuries to come will have bsd or linux in their ancestry."
Absolutely. And most slide rules for centuries to come will be made with plastic, not bamboo or metal. There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
I don't know what abacuses will be made out of in coming centuries, though.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but he thpeakth with a Lithp.
Well, that was my reaction, too. This guy is old, and he must have started programming when computers were really new. So he's unique. Then I realized that I'm over 60 (64, in fact) and that I (afair) was in my teens (19) when I took my first computer programming class (Fortran and PL/1). So either he's not so old, or I'm really old. But I'm only grumpy when I'm awake.
Machines will never fly, for all the analogous reasons. 1) We don't know exactly how birds, bats, flying fish, or insects fly. 2) Machines are machines.
My dog and cats seem to have senses of identity, although I can't be sure.
Lots of programs search for some value of a variable, with conflicting criteria. They know when they have reached an answer (conclusion); whether it is the right answer, or only a local minima, is not always clear, either to the program or to the person using it. But then people commonly arrive at erroneous conclusions concerning an answer, too. And for that matter, if the criteria are conflicting, then by definition I don't think there is a *right* answer--the answer that's best depends on how you weight those criteria. Some of these programs are conceptually quite simple, e.g. we have one we use to search for possible correctly spelled words, given a possibly misspelled input. It outputs a list of answers that are above some threshold of "rightness", as measured by how likely the correction(s) are under some notion of a likely error. You might consider the top answer to be "truth" (although it's not always unique). I would not call this program intelligent.
Darn! You made me choke on my coffee laughing!
Did the trash can keep accepting his apology? Even if it didn't, I don't suppose it complained.
Um - no. I'm farsighted, and like all farsighted people, I can see things at a distance (other cars, say, or the cell phone in that driver's hand) just fine. It's the text on my own cell's gps that I can't see without my reading glasses. (I have 20-14 vision, meaning I can see at 20 feet what the average person needs to stand 14 feet away to see. I just can't focus up close, meaning a foot or two away.) So no, I do NOT need my glasses to drive. And unlike you, I'm not lost.
"in dinosaur history": really? There are historical documents written while dinosaurs were around? Ok, I admit I'm being a bit pedantic...
What? You mean HTML isn't good enough?
...spoiled youngsters that never... know which end of a saw to hold
Well _that_ explains something!
Sure. And if you subscribed to the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, then I suppose you'd have some other theory of atoms.
Here's a theory: VS 2012 (and likewise Office 2013) were written by people who write in the Perso-Arabic, Hebrew or Hangul scripts, which have no upper/lower case distinction. (And the Ribbon itself was written by people who use hieroglyphics.)
Reminds me: on rare occasion I need to use Internet Explorer (like to edit some doc on sharepoint--sometimes that works with Firefox, sometimes not). I can't ever find IE in the Windows Start menu, not as iexplorer, internet explorer, or anything else I can think of. Had this experience on several computers, and had to open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\something. Why?
Figured it out, yes; like it, no. I've figured it out like I've figured out death and taxes.
(replying to myself--yeah, I talk to myself, but at least I don't lose arguments with myself) I noticed today that the status bar at the top of the Outlook 2013 preview panel has three lines of junk, all of it (except for some useless icons) copied from the line in the message list above. Think you can hide that? In 2010 you could, but they took that tweak away in 2013.
Office 2013 (which we just switched to at work, over my objections after being one of our office's "beta" testers) is even worse than 2010, which was worse than 2007. In 2007, they introduced the non-conforming title bar, so you could barely tell by looking whether an Office app had the focus. (It changed to slightly darker, but only slightly. I had to look at my other apps and by process of elimination figure out whether Office had focus.) In 2013, the title bar changes *not at all* when Office receives/ loses focus. It's always white (or always light gray or a slightly darker gray). I finally found a work-around, using a high-contrast "theme" in Windows forces the title bar to change color depending on focus. Of course everything else looks rather ugly, but I'm gradually tweaking what I can. And Office 2013 has the ugliest icons and buttons I've ever seen. Looks like it was designed for a VGA screen, or maybe CGA... If you don't believe me, google "microsoft office 2013 ugly".
Preach it, brother! Amen, and halelujah! And pass the ammo...
If we're talking about vacuum, shouldn't that be Hoover-eels?
I'm sure you have thought of some testable predictions of this theory, right?
Sacrées, tes idées.
Don't wake the Red King. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
"A return of LISP machines might be nice." Yeah, because then I could run Steamer (http://hci.ucsd.edu/hutchins/Steamer.html). It emulated the steam plant I was in charge of (as MPA) in the Navy 1972-1975. Without all the dirt, oil, seawater, tobacco smoke, and corrosion (not to mention sea sickness).
Your sig line is misattributed. That quote cannot come from a Chinese speaker, you can tell because it uses the indefinite article "a". Everyone knows the Chinese don't do that. Haven't you read any fortune cookies lately? My own guess is that it was Ben Franklin who said that. -- Stamp out sig lines!
"I imagine most OSes for centuries to come will have bsd or linux in their ancestry." Absolutely. And most slide rules for centuries to come will be made with plastic, not bamboo or metal. There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? I don't know what abacuses will be made out of in coming centuries, though.