This is because people are not interested into the problem, they are only interested by the solution.
And this is true for everybody: personally, I don't really care about how my car works, I just want that it works. When it does not work, I go to a garage to solve my problem.
Trying to simplify programming will only give a false sense of expertise, because REAL programming is tough: it's about solving abstract problems.
No matter the difficulty of the subject, there will always be people who are interested in understanding, and people who don't care (even if it's simple). So I would prefer that, instead of training people who don't care about programming, we train people who are interested into programming.
And the best tool to make people interested into programming is games, because a lot of programmers started programming because they wanted to write their own game.
I'm guessing the weight of criticism Lamo has faced has forced him to figure out a plausible alternate explanation
No, this has everything to do with ego. Everybody wants to have a good opinion of himself. When a lot of people start to criticize you, you try to find noble motives about your actions, even though your actions are "evil".
Lamo started to realize that his acts were not as "good" as he thought, so he tries to justify himself, because his belief system is starting to collapse. When the belief system is flawed, it's difficult to change it, so doubts and guilt arise. And after that, various (self-inflicted) illnesses appear.
But the "I" is also illusory in Advaita (which means nonduality). Maharshi explains that it's like the projection of a movie on a screen, it has no substance but it seems real.
"In retrospect, my greatest challenge was to break away from probabilistic thinking and accept, first, that people are not probability thinkers but cause-effect thinkers and, second, that causal thinking cannot be captured in the language of probability;
The buddhist point of view (from the Advaita Vedanta) is what we are is built upon all causes/effects that we encountered. And the first root is the sense of "I am".
In other words, "I am" came first, then all the remaining derived from this. Buddhists call "karma" all the causes/effects.
1) filling the memory space starting at 0x0000 with magic numbers. NULL is equal to 0 on most compilers, so when you use pointers, it could write at 0x0000. Sometimes NULL is -1, so you can also protect the high memory range. 2) using different magic numbers at the top and at the bottom of the stack, or in any allocated memory space
I also like to add more controls (pointers checking) in memory allocation, since I tend to use my own malloc. Of course, my own malloc allocates a few more bytes, some at the beginning, some at the end, and the memory is always filled with magic numbers. As you said, 0x55555555 or 0xAAAAAAAA are good for that.
For example try helping refugees who have been raped and been through hell. Trust me you will feel miserable. Or go to a camp where there are thousands of people and you can hardly make a difference. You will feel like shit.
If you feel miserable, it's probably because you expect something, like saving their souls or some other magic thinking.
Helping others is not about helping them materially, but helping them to change their point of view. When somebody has been raped, the task is not to deny the rape, but stop their feeling of being a victim, or more exactly accept the past and continue their life. It's a difficult task, because everybody identifies himself with his body, so a physical rape is considered as a rape of the whole being. When you start to realize that your body is only a small part of you (no, I don't believe in God), rape becomes just an event in your life.
Some recent techniques, like EMDR, work well on PTSD.
I contest that every human being is either inherently ENTIRELY selfish
You are wrong, every human is inherently entirely selfish. For example, if you have children, you probably think that you are not selfish, but WHY did you want to have children ?
I've yet to see a convincing argument otherwise, including from the "I help others selflessly" crowd - they do it because the act of helping others makes them happy. If helping others made them miserable, they'd stop.
If you help other to make yourself happy, you are selfish. In fact, as long as you expect something from your actions, you are selfish. The correct way is to practice disinterested action, and of course, you don't have to force yourself to help everybody, just people that need your help (and money is not the solution !).
I have only been promoted four times in my 12-year career
It's quite an achievement ! I have never been promoted in my 30-year career, I'm still a programmer.
From what you wrote, "meaning" has been lost in your life. Finding meaning is not as simple as one might think.
Anyway, here are a few more books not mentioned above, sorted by decreasing order of which will probably help you most.
"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl (a powerful book about finding meaning in your life) "Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth" by Brad Blanton (honesty is hard, but so liberating) "Constructive Thinking" by Seymour Epstein (the most interesting approach to change your beliefs) "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie (very practical book) "Aha!" by Martin Gardner (it will help you realize what is Aha in logic, it's similar to Eureka)
But the most important things cannot be found in books. I would recommend that you experiment stopping your thoughts, in order to discover who you are. I strongly encourage you to practice this: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/downloads/who_am_I.pdf by Sri Ramana Maharshi my life has deeply changed since I practiced the technique, the first side-effect is that I'm feeling more connected to others.
You are right that a white background is good for the eyes, as long as it's not too lit. Reading on white background and CRTs was painful, and black background was better when LCD were not common.
You are wrong about movement. Nowadays screens are large, so we need to move our eyes, but it's not efficient. There are muscles that we do not exercize. You can try the following exercize: try to rotate your eyes clockwise, then anticlockwise. You'll notice that it hurts ! In fact, EMDR is a therapy based upon eyes movement, and it helps activating left and right brain hemispheres.
The trick to make it work is to offer the subscription at a really low price, for example, $5 per month. And they can use upselling by providing online backups, for example at $10 per month. This way, customers will think it's a great deal, because it adds real value.
However, I'm sure it won't work, for several reasons: 1) Microsoft will maintain their basic offer at $12.5 per month, which is too high. Come on, an Internet connection is cheap, and it's even more useful than Office ! 2) most of the users don't really need Office. They just need notepad, and wordpad/spreadsheets for the most advanced users. And in general, advanced users use it for their work, so they'll be able to afford the one time charge. 3) proposing better online functions is a terrible idea. People will think that the acquired version is an uncomplete version, and it will hurt their brand. They should try instead to propose the newest options to the online version, and push upgrades later (6 months) for the offline version. This way, they'll attract people who crave for the latest versions. 4) for basic editing, plenty of free online (Google Documents) and offline solutions exist. 5) for important files (and people who invest $150 for some software believe that the software is worthy to handle their precious files), people need security, and software renting goes against security. 6) a bad upgrade will ruin the trust, and Microsoft is not very well known for its software stability
Understanding written or spoken words use the same parts of the brain, so this is multitasking.
It would be different if they were experimenting unrelated tasks, like reading and passively listening (without focus) to music. You don't use the same parts of your brain for such tasks.
Motivation is not as simple as you think, it's not "pleasure" or "pain".
There are at least 3 levels of motivation by "doing", and 3 levels of motivation by "being".
The 3 levels of motivation by "doing" are, in increasing order: 1) enjoying the job/the tasks. There are 3 steps in this one: autonomy, mastery, purpose (check Dan Pink's video) 2) looking for an evolution in your career. There are 5 steps in this one, check Maslow's pyramid 3) meaning in life. Check Viktor Frankl's approach: "Man's search for meaning".
Life is meaningless, it's just you who add meaning in your life. Its meaning could change in a very short amount of time, but it's sometimes difficult to accept this change. For example, your first meaning would be to have children, but if one of your children dies, you'll need to find another meaning to continue.
In my opinion, you should always try to see if the new job could provide you some interesting lessons. What is important to learn in your life is lessons, not status nor money nor fun. Becoming a director will force to develop human skills and corporate strategy.
Slashdot Mirror
VPN is not really the problem, since VPN access tends to be quite limited in scope.
I think that the main problem is that a random guy in China has a local copy of all the source code of the company.
If access to the code required some NDA, the company is now in pretty deep shit.
Anyway, kudos to the chinese guy, he seems to be a good coder and had to work at an unusual work schedule.
10 petaflops is the minimum to run Windows 8 smoothly.
They ask for 30 petaflops, probably to run at least 3 other processes.
This is because people are not interested into the problem, they are only interested by the solution.
And this is true for everybody: personally, I don't really care about how my car works, I just want that it works.
When it does not work, I go to a garage to solve my problem.
Trying to simplify programming will only give a false sense of expertise, because REAL programming is tough: it's about solving abstract problems.
No matter the difficulty of the subject, there will always be people who are interested in understanding, and people who don't care (even if it's simple).
So I would prefer that, instead of training people who don't care about programming, we train people who are interested into programming.
And the best tool to make people interested into programming is games, because a lot of programmers started programming because they wanted to write their own game.
It seems that the threat was efficient:
http://www.generation-nt.com/adgate-free-google-compris-message-actualite-1677052.html
I'm guessing the weight of criticism Lamo has faced has forced him to figure out a plausible alternate explanation
No, this has everything to do with ego.
Everybody wants to have a good opinion of himself.
When a lot of people start to criticize you, you try to find noble motives about your actions, even though your actions are "evil".
Lamo started to realize that his acts were not as "good" as he thought, so he tries to justify himself, because his belief system is starting to collapse.
When the belief system is flawed, it's difficult to change it, so doubts and guilt arise.
And after that, various (self-inflicted) illnesses appear.
It's because of this motto that Windows is perceived as a developer's platform.
On the opposite, Apple is perceived as a designer's platform, because all the focus is done on the design.
Yes, you are right.
But the "I" is also illusory in Advaita (which means nonduality).
Maharshi explains that it's like the projection of a movie on a screen, it has no substance but it seems real.
"In retrospect, my greatest challenge was to break away from probabilistic thinking and accept, first, that people are not probability thinkers but cause-effect thinkers and, second, that causal thinking cannot be captured in the language of probability;
The buddhist point of view (from the Advaita Vedanta) is what we are is built upon all causes/effects that we encountered.
And the first root is the sense of "I am".
In other words, "I am" came first, then all the remaining derived from this.
Buddhists call "karma" all the causes/effects.
You forgot a few other tricks, like:
1) filling the memory space starting at 0x0000 with magic numbers. NULL is equal to 0 on most compilers, so when you use pointers, it could write at 0x0000. Sometimes NULL is -1, so you can also protect the high memory range.
2) using different magic numbers at the top and at the bottom of the stack, or in any allocated memory space
I also like to add more controls (pointers checking) in memory allocation, since I tend to use my own malloc. Of course, my own malloc allocates a few more bytes, some at the beginning, some at the end, and the memory is always filled with magic numbers. As you said, 0x55555555 or 0xAAAAAAAA are good for that.
There are also political issues: Ariane is french but also european.
Using american rockets is interesting if you focus only on costs, but it is definitely an error if you intend to develop and improve technology.
It's obvious that europeans will continue to use Ariane, americans will use SpaceX, and russians will use their own system.
Nice analysis of the situation !
However, there is a disastrous side-effect: injecting paranoia will contaminate everybody !
The problem is that using menaces creates a terrible feeling in the team.
Everybody will feel that he could be the next target, for any futile motive.
If I was working for Cisco, I would search another job right now, because if the VP is not fired, no teamwork will be possible anymore.
For example try helping refugees who have been raped and been through hell. Trust me you will feel miserable. Or go to a camp where there are thousands of people and you can hardly make a difference. You will feel like shit.
If you feel miserable, it's probably because you expect something, like saving their souls or some other magic thinking.
Helping others is not about helping them materially, but helping them to change their point of view.
When somebody has been raped, the task is not to deny the rape, but stop their feeling of being a victim, or more exactly accept the past and continue their life.
It's a difficult task, because everybody identifies himself with his body, so a physical rape is considered as a rape of the whole being.
When you start to realize that your body is only a small part of you (no, I don't believe in God), rape becomes just an event in your life.
Some recent techniques, like EMDR, work well on PTSD.
I contest that every human being is either inherently ENTIRELY selfish
You are wrong, every human is inherently entirely selfish. For example, if you have children, you probably think that you are not selfish, but WHY did you want to have children ?
I've yet to see a convincing argument otherwise, including from the "I help others selflessly" crowd - they do it because the act of helping others makes them happy. If helping others made them miserable, they'd stop.
If you help other to make yourself happy, you are selfish.
In fact, as long as you expect something from your actions, you are selfish.
The correct way is to practice disinterested action, and of course, you don't have to force yourself to help everybody, just people that need your help (and money is not the solution !).
The best text I read about selfless action is the description about Karma Yoga: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/hby/hby07.htm
In Christianism too, monks choose to live in celibacy.
And to practice buddhism, you don't need to live as a monk, there are a lot of other ways.
Did you ever hear about Tantra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra) or more exactly Vajrayana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana) ?
It may have been randomly generated, but it's sure that it was randomly peer-reviewed !
I have only been promoted four times in my 12-year career
It's quite an achievement ! I have never been promoted in my 30-year career, I'm still a programmer.
From what you wrote, "meaning" has been lost in your life.
Finding meaning is not as simple as one might think.
Anyway, here are a few more books not mentioned above, sorted by decreasing order of which will probably help you most.
"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl (a powerful book about finding meaning in your life)
"Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth" by Brad Blanton (honesty is hard, but so liberating)
"Constructive Thinking" by Seymour Epstein (the most interesting approach to change your beliefs)
"How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie (very practical book)
"Aha!" by Martin Gardner (it will help you realize what is Aha in logic, it's similar to Eureka)
But the most important things cannot be found in books.
I would recommend that you experiment stopping your thoughts, in order to discover who you are.
I strongly encourage you to practice this:
http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/downloads/who_am_I.pdf by Sri Ramana Maharshi
my life has deeply changed since I practiced the technique, the first side-effect is that I'm feeling more connected to others.
In fact, the english phrase seems to date back from 1880:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=correlation+does+not+imply+causation&year_start=1600&year_end=1900&corpus=0&smoothing=3
But the concepts of correlation and causation started to become popular around 1860:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=correlation%2C+causation&year_start=1600&year_end=1900&corpus=0&smoothing=3
No, it's more a:
"I'm sorry that we have been caught spying and lying".
Of course, a simple apology will help him feel good about himself.
May I suggest that you don't have enough ambient light ?
Though I agree that I have the same problem on my HP touchpad, it's tiring for the eyes.
You are right that a white background is good for the eyes, as long as it's not too lit. Reading on white background and CRTs was painful, and black background was better when LCD were not common.
You are wrong about movement.
Nowadays screens are large, so we need to move our eyes, but it's not efficient.
There are muscles that we do not exercize.
You can try the following exercize: try to rotate your eyes clockwise, then anticlockwise. You'll notice that it hurts !
In fact, EMDR is a therapy based upon eyes movement, and it helps activating left and right brain hemispheres.
The trick to make it work is to offer the subscription at a really low price, for example, $5 per month.
And they can use upselling by providing online backups, for example at $10 per month.
This way, customers will think it's a great deal, because it adds real value.
However, I'm sure it won't work, for several reasons:
1) Microsoft will maintain their basic offer at $12.5 per month, which is too high. Come on, an Internet connection is cheap, and it's even more useful than Office !
2) most of the users don't really need Office. They just need notepad, and wordpad/spreadsheets for the most advanced users. And in general, advanced users use it for their work, so they'll be able to afford the one time charge.
3) proposing better online functions is a terrible idea. People will think that the acquired version is an uncomplete version, and it will hurt their brand. They should try instead to propose the newest options to the online version, and push upgrades later (6 months) for the offline version. This way, they'll attract people who crave for the latest versions.
4) for basic editing, plenty of free online (Google Documents) and offline solutions exist.
5) for important files (and people who invest $150 for some software believe that the software is worthy to handle their precious files), people need security, and software renting goes against security.
6) a bad upgrade will ruin the trust, and Microsoft is not very well known for its software stability
Or she's a spy from Google, and works at Yahoo to kill it !
Sorry, but you are wrong.
Understanding written or spoken words use the same parts of the brain, so this is multitasking.
It would be different if they were experimenting unrelated tasks, like reading and passively listening (without focus) to music.
You don't use the same parts of your brain for such tasks.
Motivation is not as simple as you think, it's not "pleasure" or "pain".
There are at least 3 levels of motivation by "doing", and 3 levels of motivation by "being".
The 3 levels of motivation by "doing" are, in increasing order:
1) enjoying the job/the tasks. There are 3 steps in this one: autonomy, mastery, purpose (check Dan Pink's video)
2) looking for an evolution in your career. There are 5 steps in this one, check Maslow's pyramid
3) meaning in life. Check Viktor Frankl's approach: "Man's search for meaning".
Life is meaningless, it's just you who add meaning in your life. Its meaning could change in a very short amount of time, but it's sometimes difficult to accept this change.
For example, your first meaning would be to have children, but if one of your children dies, you'll need to find another meaning to continue.
In my opinion, you should always try to see if the new job could provide you some interesting lessons.
What is important to learn in your life is lessons, not status nor money nor fun.
Becoming a director will force to develop human skills and corporate strategy.
I'll soon explain what is motivation by "being" on my french blog:
https://psychologieagile.wordpress.com/category/motivation/
(sorry, no english version)
I discovered that I was gluten intolerant AFTER stopping ingesting gluten.
In fact, I didn't perform the tests to validate my intolerance, since they require a biopsy, and I should eat gluten during at least 30 days.