Re:Moving production to Asia?
on
IBM Spins Down
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· Score: 0
Are you asserting that our greed is due to our economic choice? I would think that the reverse is true. You can't just snap your fingers and choose a utopian society. The trick is taking basic human motivations such as greed and trying to channel them in a less destructive manner. Destroying the basic motivations is a much more difficult matter, and may not be a good idea anyway. Take communism, for example. Too utopian to be presently workable, and leaves the door wide open for inevitable corruption. Greed finds all sorts of cracks to slip through. Drive is beneficial to society, just not when it's taken to an extreme.
In the case of child labor, kids dying in coal mines today in the U.S. would totally destroy the PR image of the company responsible. Therefore such a business decision does not benefit said company, and greed mandates another tactic.
The counterbalance to overwhelming greed, or for that matter anything else of that nature, is public awareness. I'd say indifference is the biggest threat to an overall good society. It's very hard to get people to consistently give a shit about something. Of course, this assumes that people are fundamentally good, but I believe that a sense of ethics is motivated fundamentally by self-interest, so I'm covered with that assumption.:P I'm not saying that people consciously choose to be good out of self-interest, rather that humans are predominantly wired that way as an evolutionary 'decision'. That includes the evolution of ideas, cultures, systems of belief, worldviews, etc. You can treat those as co-entities which have a symbiotic relationship with their human hosts, if you like.
Whoa, that got a little long-winded. Probably no one will read this, anyway. Damn my 0 karma from a handful of offtopic (they were?) posts. heh.
If you've got the technology to easily recycle nuclear waste into something else, do you think you'll give a shit about having to dig a hole first? Go, mighty nanobots! Dig me a bigass hole! I'll be here eating my FutureBurger(tm). Come back in an hour when you're done.
// size getters / setters, these are trivial.
// They can be made more complex if needed,
// however. This form of overloading is used often
// in the Standard Library.
// For more complex functions, call a common
// private member function which is marked as
// const, but returns a non-const handle. Since
// it is const, it can be called by
// int const& size() const, and the non-const
// handle will be casted to const. (Such a cast
// makes good sense, since a non-const handle is a
// derived type of a const handle, as it provides
// both read (everything a const provides) and
// write. Now *that's* a windy comment!
int const& size() const { return size_; }
int& size() { return size_; }
void size (int size) { size_ = size; }
private:
int size_;
};
int main()
{
test t;
t.size() = 41;
cout ++t.size() endl;
return 0;
}
I can deal with having to type size() instead of size.
You can't get the really cool pieces in the boxes of blocks, you have to buy the kits. Unfortunately, the cool pieces are also much easier to break (and stepping on them is a lot more painful:p). There are about 10,000 lego pieces in some big buckets at my house that came from about 60 sets that my brother and I bought, played with, accidently destroyed, and built even cooler stuff out of.
I think use of such a device would be much too tiring over long periods. IMO, it'd fall under the category of an input device handy for certain specialized things, but unsuitable overall.
As far as mice in general, I doubt we'll see any more one-button mice. An extra button or two doesn't add too much complexity, and it matches well with the "activate and manipulate" metaphore, IMO. There's usually more than one way to manipulate an object, and that's where an extra button or two, as well as context menus, come in handy. If you have a single button, you haven't solved the complexity issue; you've just moved it to the GUI you're interacting with, with the multiple ways of interacting with objects repeated over and over again when you want to do something to something in the UI.
There's a balance to be struck here. Don't be too quick to go to one end of the scale with one button mice.
Perhaps a two button mouse plus a wheel is and will remain the best solution for the mouse class of devices, although more buttons can be handy for some things like games. Just another joystick, in that case, and joysticks can be bought. How often do you see someone using a joystick for word-processing, though?;p
Put a big mouse ball (or several, for stability) underneath the keyboard! Get a big keyboard pad, and you have a two in one! Think of the insanity! THINK, DAMN YOU!!!
Define 1 foo to be the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1 second. Therefore, c = 1 foo/s.
Does that make c^2 1? Sure. It depends on the units c is expressed in terms of. It is meaningless to speak of c^2 as a speed, it's SQUARE meters per SQUARE seconds, which is NOT a speed.
No one will probably see this, since I'm posting over a day late. Oh well...
One thing I hate about partial credit is when I'm working on a rather complicated problem that I've alreaady previously laid the groundwork for. Several times I've been able to significantly reduce the size of a problem I'm working on by thinking back to ways I've played around with the subject, or perhaps solved pieces of the problem in other classes. Thus, "putting it all together" can be almost instantaneous, but supporting all the pieces of my answer takes upwards of an hour. geh.
- Ithil
END OF TEXT (device control 3/7)
mmm, yes. A good book, highly recommended! The metaphysics is a bit of mumbo-jumbo, but there's very little of it, and it actually makes sense for it to be in there. The "person who experienced the phenomenon" is trying to explain it as best he can, and concedes that he doubts he has the capability. The real meat of the book is the amazing things the author does with constructing a living, breathing, two-dimensional world. The "wheels and gears" are right there to see, while in Flatland, the mechanisms are hidden. (For instance, how exactly polygon lifeforms evolved isn't explained in Flatland; on the other hand, the author of Planiverse goes into great detail on this, and many other subjects.) _Definitely_ a recommended read.
The Computer Science instructor reached into his desk drawer.
*click*
"You have fifteen seconds to write me a 'Hello, World' program, ya damn bitchy undergrad.";p
Slashdot Mirror
Are you asserting that our greed is due to our economic choice? I would think that the reverse is true. You can't just snap your fingers and choose a utopian society. The trick is taking basic human motivations such as greed and trying to channel them in a less destructive manner. Destroying the basic motivations is a much more difficult matter, and may not be a good idea anyway. Take communism, for example. Too utopian to be presently workable, and leaves the door wide open for inevitable corruption. Greed finds all sorts of cracks to slip through. Drive is beneficial to society, just not when it's taken to an extreme.
In the case of child labor, kids dying in coal mines today in the U.S. would totally destroy the PR image of the company responsible. Therefore such a business decision does not benefit said company, and greed mandates another tactic.
The counterbalance to overwhelming greed, or for that matter anything else of that nature, is public awareness. I'd say indifference is the biggest threat to an overall good society. It's very hard to get people to consistently give a shit about something. Of course, this assumes that people are fundamentally good, but I believe that a sense of ethics is motivated fundamentally by self-interest, so I'm covered with that assumption. :P I'm not saying that people consciously choose to be good out of self-interest, rather that humans are predominantly wired that way as an evolutionary 'decision'. That includes the evolution of ideas, cultures, systems of belief, worldviews, etc. You can treat those as co-entities which have a symbiotic relationship with their human hosts, if you like.
Whoa, that got a little long-winded. Probably no one will read this, anyway. Damn my 0 karma from a handful of offtopic (they were?) posts. heh.
- Ithil
If you've got the technology to easily recycle nuclear waste into something else, do you think you'll give a shit about having to dig a hole first? Go, mighty nanobots! Dig me a bigass hole! I'll be here eating my FutureBurger(tm). Come back in an hour when you're done.
heh.
Boost is also a very good set of libraries.
- Ithil
#include <iostream>
using std::cout;
using std::endl;
class test
{
public:
private:
};
int main()
{
}
It's not that hard in C++.
#include
using std::cout;
using std::endl;
class test
{
public:
test() : size_ (0) {}
// size getters / setters, these are trivial.
// They can be made more complex if needed,
// however. This form of overloading is used often
// in the Standard Library.
// For more complex functions, call a common
// private member function which is marked as
// const, but returns a non-const handle. Since
// it is const, it can be called by
// int const& size() const, and the non-const
// handle will be casted to const. (Such a cast
// makes good sense, since a non-const handle is a
// derived type of a const handle, as it provides
// both read (everything a const provides) and
// write. Now *that's* a windy comment!
int const& size() const { return size_; }
int& size() { return size_; }
void size (int size) { size_ = size; }
private:
int size_;
};
int main()
{
test t;
t.size() = 41;
cout ++t.size() endl;
return 0;
}
I can deal with having to type size() instead of size.
- Ithil
Gotta watch out for those Meteors when there isn't a 'Cloud' in the sky!
(Okay, okay. Bad joke, I know.)
Well, he did say "the ONLY proper spelling" (emphasis added).
I think he would have said "the proper spelling" if, instead of kidding around, he actually didn't know.
You can't get the really cool pieces in the boxes of blocks, you have to buy the kits. Unfortunately, the cool pieces are also much easier to break (and stepping on them is a lot more painful :p). There are about 10,000 lego pieces in some big buckets at my house that came from about 60 sets that my brother and I bought, played with, accidently destroyed, and built even cooler stuff out of.
I think use of such a device would be much too tiring over long periods. IMO, it'd fall under the category of an input device handy for certain specialized things, but unsuitable overall.
;p
As far as mice in general, I doubt we'll see any more one-button mice. An extra button or two doesn't add too much complexity, and it matches well with the "activate and manipulate" metaphore, IMO. There's usually more than one way to manipulate an object, and that's where an extra button or two, as well as context menus, come in handy. If you have a single button, you haven't solved the complexity issue; you've just moved it to the GUI you're interacting with, with the multiple ways of interacting with objects repeated over and over again when you want to do something to something in the UI.
There's a balance to be struck here. Don't be too quick to go to one end of the scale with one button mice.
Perhaps a two button mouse plus a wheel is and will remain the best solution for the mouse class of devices, although more buttons can be handy for some things like games. Just another joystick, in that case, and joysticks can be bought. How often do you see someone using a joystick for word-processing, though?
- Ithil
Who ever heard of using your voice to order a drink in a bar? Nah, wouldn't work!
Bad analogy. Try again.
Put a big mouse ball (or several, for stability) underneath the keyboard! Get a big keyboard pad, and you have a two in one! Think of the insanity! THINK, DAMN YOU!!!
Ahem... yes.
- Ithil
I just tried it with IE 5.50 on Windows 98, and the context menu didn't come up until mouse-up.
Define 1 foo to be the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1 second. Therefore, c = 1 foo/s.
Does that make c^2 1? Sure. It depends on the units c is expressed in terms of. It is meaningless to speak of c^2 as a speed, it's SQUARE meters per SQUARE seconds, which is NOT a speed.
No one will probably see this, since I'm posting over a day late. Oh well...
- Ithil
Oh my is this true... : - )
One thing I hate about partial credit is when I'm working on a rather complicated problem that I've alreaady previously laid the groundwork for. Several times I've been able to significantly reduce the size of a problem I'm working on by thinking back to ways I've played around with the subject, or perhaps solved pieces of the problem in other classes. Thus, "putting it all together" can be almost instantaneous, but supporting all the pieces of my answer takes upwards of an hour. geh. - Ithil END OF TEXT (device control 3/7)
Score 5, Insightful heh
I mod this up with my non-existent mod points!
mmm, yes. A good book, highly recommended! The metaphysics is a bit of mumbo-jumbo, but there's very little of it, and it actually makes sense for it to be in there. The "person who experienced the phenomenon" is trying to explain it as best he can, and concedes that he doubts he has the capability. The real meat of the book is the amazing things the author does with constructing a living, breathing, two-dimensional world. The "wheels and gears" are right there to see, while in Flatland, the mechanisms are hidden. (For instance, how exactly polygon lifeforms evolved isn't explained in Flatland; on the other hand, the author of Planiverse goes into great detail on this, and many other subjects.) _Definitely_ a recommended read.
Wait for Diablo III :D
There's another good example (one of the regulars of the Lounge): Sirian's Diablo II Page
bleh
The Computer Science instructor reached into his desk drawer. *click* "You have fifteen seconds to write me a 'Hello, World' program, ya damn bitchy undergrad." ;p
Freaking hilarious!
Man that's funny :)
such a nice ring to it... heh