btw, I'm not saying that counting cards well is easy.
To do it well, it does take a lot of practice and you still need to rely on some luck in the casino
In life, the same generally applies to everything. To be successfull you need to understand what you are trying to accomplish, practice/work hard, and have a bit of luck.
Back to the counting thing, just because you can count cards doesn't mean you will win. You are just eliminating the house advantage and leaning it in your directions but the calculated odds are based on really large numbers so there is a chance that you could have your streak of losing hands eliminate your bankroll before you even see favorable conditions.
On the other hand, casinos play a really large number of hands so, regardless of short term deviations, the percentages, over the long term, are more likely to work out for them.
If you find basic strategy hard, even after a few beers, then I feel sorry for you. You must be one of those 'math is hard' type of people. Turn in your geek card.
Basic strategy is easy.
Counting cards is mildly harder. If you find doing +1, -1 math in your head hard, along with basic division then turn in your geek card.
You do have to memorize a few more play tables for optimal play, depending on what system your using.
Since, in the US, we live in a country where using your brain at a level above watching tv is considered hard casinos like people who think they can count cards. They lose a lot more money than people who follow basic strategy.
Well not really, but in most bars if you order a pint of Guinness or any other beer you actually end up with a 12oz glass. It's nice to actually run across a bar that serves actual pints.
I've had friends argue that I'm wrong about them being poured a 12oz beer from the tap until I tell them to order a bottle of beer and pour it in the glass.
Another trick bars like to do is pour shots into a big shot glass. People are impressed until they realize that the bottom and sides of the shot glass are so thick that they are getting a shorter pour than a 'real' shot glass.
As for me, I'll take a bottle of La Fin du Monde if I can't get a pint of Guinness.
Since the mid-80s the demise of the silicon chip has been predicted. Back then there were all kinds of articles about how 100mhz was the top end of silicon chip performance. Gallium Arsenide based chips were supposed to be the chip of the future. At that time, GaAs chips were mainly used in military applications.
I remember articles in Byte and Scientific American, among other magazines, about this.
Now look at the performance levels of silicon. Where's GaAs?
Never underestimate the enginuity of engineers. Never underestimate their optimism either. Apply to silicon and GaAs respectively.
"The sooner it stops pretending to be a 1984 Macintosh, the better it will be for everyone."
There, fixed that for you.
Steve Jobs is just continueing his philosophy of closed technology ecosystems. You should never need anything other than what he spec'd for the system and the software that Apple produces. Drink his kool-aid or f u is the way he thinks.
I started programming on an Apple II. Now I only touch an Apple product when I need to help my parents.
Your full of selfrighteous BS.
It doesn't matter how much more mclearn earns than the employees. That person has risked their own money to create a company that creates jobs and employs people. That person has not only taken on enormous financial liability but also legal liability. The people that are being employed have the same opportunity to take risk everything they have and use all the skills they have. They have chosen security of a regular paycheck, something owners of companies don't always have. They have also chosen to work at that company.
You do have the option of working for who you want to, or did your current employer grab you off the street, throw a bag over your head, and throw you into a van before you somehow found yourself chained to your desk?
What, finding a job isn't that easy? Then upgrade your skills.
Most employees are employees because they don't want to take the risks or additional responsibilities of being an employer.
I recently had a conversation with a friend that has a manufacturing company. Yes they still exist in America. His company lost money last quarter. Guess who's not getting paid, or should I say paid his company for the privilege of working. As with mclearn, he'll take his fair share when there are profits. We also talked about compensation issues and he mentioned that when they went through a compensation restructuring a few years ago the employees were polled as to which they would prefer: a pay raise or a bonus plan that would offer them the potential of making 6x the raise. The vote was overwhelmingly for the raise. They wanted the security of guaranteed money, which was one reason why they choose to be employees.
And yes, he pays very well, treats his employees well, offers great health insurance because he self insures and he usually delegates the stuff that doesn't demand his attention to the people who he hired to do the work. It's his money, if he wants to pay someone to do some of his work so he has more time with the family, what's so wrong with that?
He is also so stressed that he can't sleep because of the economy while his employees don't worry about their next paycheck.
There's a big difference between a communist government and a capitalist corporation on many levels even if the communist government is using some of those corporations to assist in the blocking and filtering of the internet.
What restrictions to your network freedom do you currently have on your Internet access from your own home in the US?
next you'll be telling me that almost 3 mos after winter solstice the days are still getting longer but still not as long as they will be when summer solstice occurs...
why does this crap make it on slashdot? Ericatw should be banned from submitting posts after yet another crappost.
You may have been making a common mistake and listing your dream list of specific requirements for your next web developer which means that you narrowed your possible applicant pool down to 1, the developer that just left. Eventually you were able to find one that fit most of the requirements and hired that person.
Even if you were able to find someone that met all your requirements, that person would still need some time to get up to speed at your company because every environment is different. A good developer would be able to get up to speed at your company almost as quickly, maybe quicker if the person you did hire fulfilled the requirements but wasn't very good.
Hire the person that can best help your company in regards to the role you need them to fill, not the person that matches your punchlist of requirements the best.
And how do you know when to ditch your platform? When it cannot fulfill your technical needs. When its product roadmap shows that it will not fill your technical needs in the near future. When the cost of continuing with the platform becomes prohibitive, etc.
Basically when the risks of staying with the platform are greater than the risks involved with moving to a new platform. I use risk as an inclusive term, it may mean costs, it may mean security, it may mean technical, etc.
The costs and risks of changing platforms depends on what you are using it for, your organizations actual code base, what you are switching to, etc.
Oh and paying for some expertise to help you decide based on examing your actual web platform, application, code and such might be better than asking slashdot a vague question with minimal information. Call me crazy...
There are several reasons why current web programming skip the abstraction layer. A lot of web programmers think that MySQL is a RDBMS and that is all they program again. They also think that PHP is a real language. Finally they need it to run on their $5.99 a month value hosting account that they expect to build the next myspace on.
BTW, can you tell them how to make the next myspace on that shared server? Can it be installed with fantastico?
Even if they have actually worked with another DB server, they still wouldn't know what an abstraction layer is. If they managed to use an abstraction layer with their web app, the site performance would slow to a crawl because of the performance hit the abstraction layer incurrs. Not that it would matter in the end because their site is going to crash with a few concurrent requests.
Oh and before you MySQL and PHP defenders pipe up, MySQL with it's default install still isn't ACID compliant and is a stinking POS. PHP may be a language but barely. Any high level programming language that lets you declare variables on the fly and without a datatype is just plain stupid. And when's the last time you didn't get the result you expected because you had a typo in the variable name?
Slashdot Mirror
btw, I'm not saying that counting cards well is easy.
To do it well, it does take a lot of practice and you still need to rely on some luck in the casino
In life, the same generally applies to everything. To be successfull you need to understand what you are trying to accomplish, practice/work hard, and have a bit of luck.
Back to the counting thing, just because you can count cards doesn't mean you will win. You are just eliminating the house advantage and leaning it in your directions but the calculated odds are based on really large numbers so there is a chance that you could have your streak of losing hands eliminate your bankroll before you even see favorable conditions.
On the other hand, casinos play a really large number of hands so, regardless of short term deviations, the percentages, over the long term, are more likely to work out for them.
If you find basic strategy hard, even after a few beers, then I feel sorry for you. You must be one of those 'math is hard' type of people. Turn in your geek card.
Basic strategy is easy.
Counting cards is mildly harder. If you find doing +1, -1 math in your head hard, along with basic division then turn in your geek card.
You do have to memorize a few more play tables for optimal play, depending on what system your using.
Since, in the US, we live in a country where using your brain at a level above watching tv is considered hard casinos like people who think they can count cards. They lose a lot more money than people who follow basic strategy.
Well not really, but in most bars if you order a pint of Guinness or any other beer you actually end up with a 12oz glass. It's nice to actually run across a bar that serves actual pints. I've had friends argue that I'm wrong about them being poured a 12oz beer from the tap until I tell them to order a bottle of beer and pour it in the glass. Another trick bars like to do is pour shots into a big shot glass. People are impressed until they realize that the bottom and sides of the shot glass are so thick that they are getting a shorter pour than a 'real' shot glass. As for me, I'll take a bottle of La Fin du Monde if I can't get a pint of Guinness.
Since the mid-80s the demise of the silicon chip has been predicted. Back then there were all kinds of articles about how 100mhz was the top end of silicon chip performance. Gallium Arsenide based chips were supposed to be the chip of the future. At that time, GaAs chips were mainly used in military applications. I remember articles in Byte and Scientific American, among other magazines, about this. Now look at the performance levels of silicon. Where's GaAs? Never underestimate the enginuity of engineers. Never underestimate their optimism either. Apply to silicon and GaAs respectively.
"The sooner it stops pretending to be a 1984 Macintosh, the better it will be for everyone."
There, fixed that for you.
Steve Jobs is just continueing his philosophy of closed technology ecosystems. You should never need anything other than what he spec'd for the system and the software that Apple produces. Drink his kool-aid or f u is the way he thinks.
I started programming on an Apple II. Now I only touch an Apple product when I need to help my parents.
I thought college was a time for keggers, girls, and fun.
College was great, school sucked.
PIMF, sorry about the block of text.
I keep forgetting that I need to add tags instead of the good ol' crlf.
Your full of selfrighteous BS. It doesn't matter how much more mclearn earns than the employees. That person has risked their own money to create a company that creates jobs and employs people. That person has not only taken on enormous financial liability but also legal liability. The people that are being employed have the same opportunity to take risk everything they have and use all the skills they have. They have chosen security of a regular paycheck, something owners of companies don't always have. They have also chosen to work at that company. You do have the option of working for who you want to, or did your current employer grab you off the street, throw a bag over your head, and throw you into a van before you somehow found yourself chained to your desk? What, finding a job isn't that easy? Then upgrade your skills. Most employees are employees because they don't want to take the risks or additional responsibilities of being an employer. I recently had a conversation with a friend that has a manufacturing company. Yes they still exist in America. His company lost money last quarter. Guess who's not getting paid, or should I say paid his company for the privilege of working. As with mclearn, he'll take his fair share when there are profits. We also talked about compensation issues and he mentioned that when they went through a compensation restructuring a few years ago the employees were polled as to which they would prefer: a pay raise or a bonus plan that would offer them the potential of making 6x the raise. The vote was overwhelmingly for the raise. They wanted the security of guaranteed money, which was one reason why they choose to be employees. And yes, he pays very well, treats his employees well, offers great health insurance because he self insures and he usually delegates the stuff that doesn't demand his attention to the people who he hired to do the work. It's his money, if he wants to pay someone to do some of his work so he has more time with the family, what's so wrong with that? He is also so stressed that he can't sleep because of the economy while his employees don't worry about their next paycheck.
I don't think the PARENT is the real Bruce Perens, unless Bruce felt like he needed to re-register as '.Bruce Perens' to use as an evil twin.
As far as I can tell, the REAL Bruce Perens has a 4 digit id.
So modding '.Bruce Perens'(150539) down would be the right thing.
There's a big difference between a communist government and a capitalist corporation on many levels even if the communist government is using some of those corporations to assist in the blocking and filtering of the internet. What restrictions to your network freedom do you currently have on your Internet access from your own home in the US?
what else would you expect 6 mos after release?
next you'll be telling me that almost 3 mos after winter solstice the days are still getting longer but still not as long as they will be when summer solstice occurs...
why does this crap make it on slashdot? Ericatw should be banned from submitting posts after yet another crappost.
You may have been making a common mistake and listing your dream list of specific requirements for your next web developer which means that you narrowed your possible applicant pool down to 1, the developer that just left. Eventually you were able to find one that fit most of the requirements and hired that person.
Even if you were able to find someone that met all your requirements, that person would still need some time to get up to speed at your company because every environment is different. A good developer would be able to get up to speed at your company almost as quickly, maybe quicker if the person you did hire fulfilled the requirements but wasn't very good.
Hire the person that can best help your company in regards to the role you need them to fill, not the person that matches your punchlist of requirements the best. And how do you know when to ditch your platform? When it cannot fulfill your technical needs. When its product roadmap shows that it will not fill your technical needs in the near future. When the cost of continuing with the platform becomes prohibitive, etc.
Basically when the risks of staying with the platform are greater than the risks involved with moving to a new platform. I use risk as an inclusive term, it may mean costs, it may mean security, it may mean technical, etc.
The costs and risks of changing platforms depends on what you are using it for, your organizations actual code base, what you are switching to, etc.
Oh and paying for some expertise to help you decide based on examing your actual web platform, application, code and such might be better than asking slashdot a vague question with minimal information. Call me crazy...
There are several reasons why current web programming skip the abstraction layer. A lot of web programmers think that MySQL is a RDBMS and that is all they program again. They also think that PHP is a real language. Finally they need it to run on their $5.99 a month value hosting account that they expect to build the next myspace on.
BTW, can you tell them how to make the next myspace on that shared server? Can it be installed with fantastico?
Even if they have actually worked with another DB server, they still wouldn't know what an abstraction layer is. If they managed to use an abstraction layer with their web app, the site performance would slow to a crawl because of the performance hit the abstraction layer incurrs. Not that it would matter in the end because their site is going to crash with a few concurrent requests.
Oh and before you MySQL and PHP defenders pipe up, MySQL with it's default install still isn't ACID compliant and is a stinking POS. PHP may be a language but barely. Any high level programming language that lets you declare variables on the fly and without a datatype is just plain stupid. And when's the last time you didn't get the result you expected because you had a typo in the variable name?