retort: The whole notion that you think that there is a magical "right" to free speech, all the time, any location, and in any form, is ridiculous.
of course there has to be some limitations.
first off, the whole concept of "free speech", was put together in order to allow expression of POLITICAL speech. ie: to protect discussion, both positive and negative, about government, politics, etc. The extension of that to cover things like "art", blah blah, is an abuse of epic liberal proportions. But even in that context, there are obvious limits:
You are not "free" in your speech to incite a panic in a crowded theatre by yelling "fire!" when there isnt one.
You are not "free" to go take a bullhorn and yell things into someone else's home. particularly after certain times of night.
So right there, we have limitations on Location of speech. and Content of speech. Are you really going to argue against those, in favor of "all speech is protected"? (if your answer is, yes, then my second question is, are you 16 or something? because you sure are acting like it)
In practice, the Tea Partiers will oppose it on tax grounds, and hope nobody notices that it's precisely what the Christian Right wants.
Oh dear.. well, we couldnt have THAT, could we? we couldnt vote for ANYTHING that "the Christian Right" wants, now could we?
I hear that those right wing nutjobs are against rape. The NERVE of those people! We clearly have to fight against Christian Morality Bigots, and legalize that sort of thing.
What? they're against theft too???
DONT DENY ME MY RIGHT TO "pursue happiness" by by personal choice of acquisition style, you bible bashing nutjobs!
GNOME, on the other hand, is now a more bloated pig than CDE ever was.. which is amusing, because one of the gnome1 boasts was that it was much lighter than CDE.
These guys were having fun killing people. This is not and can never be ok.
As opposed to building an army of people, who hate killing people? That does not make for a particularly functional army.
two things to consider:
1. the army has to train a certain amount of aggresion into soldiers
2. The solders DID THE RIGHT THING. They stayed mentally "combat ready", but WAITED FOR CLEARANCE TO FIRE.
They got the clearance, they opened fire.
the fact that you dont like what they were muttering in order to psyche themselves up for the very nasty business of killing another human being, is irrelevant. Try to think in the real world, instead of a fairy tale.
it was better to establish intent from the people on the ground (Photographer and other people with AK-47) by just doing a fly-by and tempting them to take a shot at the helicopter. After they fire at the helicopters they would have been fair game. But shooting them before being fired upon is what caused this war to last longer than necessary.
What kind of IDIOT, takes a shot at a heavily armed gunship flying by, then hangs around waiting for them to come back and shoot them?
I may have a lot of negative opinions about the terrorists over there, but I dont think they are idiots. Your "suggestion" would have been useless.
Oddly enough violent crime has been decreasing since 1992, and is now at 1960 levels. Ergo another possible conclusion: Video games decrease overall societal violence level.
How about, "video games decrease overall incidence of physical real-life violence, while at the same time increasing tendancy of individuals to trigger violent behaviour"?
The theoretical reason for the "less real-life violence", being, that there are less people out on the street, because they're all at home playing their games in their rooms.
math game/gedankenexperiment: Johnny has a 5% chance of reacting violently to any confrontation. he spends most of his time "in public", and gets into a fight every day. Jimmy has a 20% chance of reacting violently to any conforntation. he spends 90% of his free time in his room playing 'Zombie Monster Hater Killer 3d!!!!'. he gets into a fight approximately once a week.
Consider that Jimmy is now by inclination a markedly "more violent" person, but he just has less "opportunity" to get into violent confrontations.
Is society better off with a higher percentage of "Johnny"s, or "Jimmy"s?
But bugs bunny/road-runner/daffy duck is NOT REALISTIC. It makes a huge difference.
I have my own, small, but quite conclusive "study group" on the subject:
I have 3 children. all boys. I have a very direct insight into their behaviour.
Watching cartoonised "violence" does not noticably change their behaviour, particularly when both sides are non-realistic. (both because it is cartoon, and animals instead of humans)
However, watching strongly human-identified violence, has a very strong influence on them. eg: watching power rangers, fighting other humanoids. It makes them start "play" punching and kicking each other. The same effect comes from "humanized" violent video games.
When I take away that stuff... they are much, much calmer and non-combative. So guess what? I keep that stuff away from them. and... SURPRISE SURPRISE.. they are drastically less aggressive and violent then their peers who watch that stuff.
That's a lousy anti-argument. Not a good comparison at all. It fails, because "looking at porn" does not particularly simulate rape (unless the viewer is actually viewing "rape-porn" I suppose:-/ )
Whereas most FPS shooters are explicitly designed, to simulate, as realistically as possible, violence and killing (and even further, to explicitly "reward" it)
Say what you will about that, but I disagree - after a high school friend of mine blew his brains out with a 38 to the head, I spent two weeks depressed and the first thing I was able to get myself to do after that is help a church group tear down a house. Best release I ever had was deflecting that anger with a sledgehammer.
You are confusing "violent" with "destructive". There is a significant difference between the two. It is possible for an act to be BOTH violent and destructive; however, demolition of an unoccupied house, is destructive, with no violence involved in it.
The primary meaning of "violent", is "to cause harm to a person(whether real, or symbolic)".
Thus: shooting symbolic people in a video game = violent. tearing down a house = non-violent.
eh.. more than that, I'd say you actually have to CARE about programming. Kinda like being an artist. you can "learn" how to paint. maybe even get decent at photo-realism. But if you dont WANT to paint... you're either not going to be very good with the final works, or you wont be very "productive".
As to the submitter's question, my honest answer is to forget the syntax. What you really need to understand is the underlying logic of how and why to do things. Once you have a strong basis in logic, languages just become syntax and you can pick that up in a matter of days when the need arises. It also allows you to better recognize when a given language isn't the right tool for the job.
Well, it's not JUST syntax. A *good* CS degree, would teach you the lesson, that different languages, require different approaches, to use them *well*. It's easy to "learn java syntax, and write java code".
it is actually somewhat difficult (judging by the amount of FAIL out there) to write non-trivial, speedy, and *efficient* java code.
The entire article is based on "rebutting" an unfounded premise: that something "pushes out" programmers older than 40. This has not been proven by the article. It makes an unfounded assumption, and then rambles on with more unfounded principles and guesses. The writer (if not the editor) should be "encouraged" not to submit any more articles there.
data point: I have a degree in CS. I started my career as a programmer.
I dont *want to* be a programmer any more. (and I made that decision when I was 30, let alone 40) Not because I'm no good at it: i'm actually a damn good programmer (*cough*). I just dont want to do it for 40 hours a week any more.
Cecile writes... You want to fix the gender balance in computer engineering? Well, the computer is right over there, stop doing stupid sociology studies and learn to code.
I presume you'd agree that being a doctor is similarly demanding in terms of logic, critical analysis, knowledge, and just generally those scientific skills that are common to both medicine and programming.
Except that being a GOOD doctor, requires that you are also good at working with PEOPLE.
That right there, disqualifies most comp-sci people from the field of medicine:)
And at the same time, it motivates women to pay more attention to the logic side of the job, because it then also gives a high "working with people" factor to the job.
whereas comp.sci related jobs, are usually anti "work with people" jobs. except for "help desk support". but you dont need a degree for one of those positions, nor would people target that as "a career".
And that's exactly it. Women dont WANT to go into the field, because they dont generally LIKE it. It's the feminists who are making excuses. On the other hand, I think the majority of women, dont give a damn there are less women "in computing".
and those who do, get a job in the field. Simple, but "un-politically correct". Oh, the horror. "Must.. deploy... PC.. mind-reajustment.. field..."
Yes, there are some trashy insensitive guys in CS. but there are in EVERY OTHER field too! So just get over the fact that there are more guys in computing than women. and go complain about something else. Like how maybe elementary school education is dominated by women. yes, the pay is poor. But if anyone thinks making the pay equal to the average CS job, would magically even out the numbers.. they're nuts.
And yes, this is coming from someone who believes in God. I just don't believe in a God who a) created the world 6,000 years ago with all the appearance of being billions of years old...
well, consider these things then:
1. We were made "in God's image"
2. We make (virtual) words all the time
3. We usually make them with in-depth complicated "histories", that are complete fakes. Because it makes the world "more interesting" to us.
Having served in the millitary when they were 20, does not automatically mean they are promilitary now they are 50+.
I hear there are quite a substantial number of people who are "anti war", , etc, etc. who served in their youth. Just as there are people who are anti-drug in their 50s, who probably took drugs in their 20s.
erm.. thats not saying the millitary is akin to drugs. I think it is sadly neccessary. I was just making a comparison of how one person can migrate from one end of the spectrum on something, to the other, over their lifetime.
"The GPL does not intrude on your right to license your code under other licenses. "
You implication that that absurd clause/concept somehow preserves my ownership of the code, is absurd as the notion that saying "the gpl does not prohibit you from selling your code", means that it does not destroy the economic value of the code as "property".
It clearly does. Only an idiot pays money for something, that he can legally get for free.
the semi-exception for that, is that organizations sometimes pay an author, for a NON-gpl licensed version of the code. But that rather proves the related point of "you cant made money directly off of gpl'd code". You have to use a DIFFERENT LICENSE to make money from it!
Note also: charging money for support, is not making money directly "from the code". It is making money from your support actions.
Slashdot Mirror
retort:
The whole notion that you think that there is a magical "right" to free speech, all the time, any location, and in any form, is ridiculous.
of course there has to be some limitations.
first off, the whole concept of "free speech", was put together in order to allow expression of POLITICAL speech. ie: to protect discussion, both positive and negative, about government, politics, etc. The extension of that to cover things like "art", blah blah, is an abuse of epic liberal proportions.
But even in that context, there are obvious limits:
You are not "free" in your speech to incite a panic in a crowded theatre by yelling "fire!" when there isnt one.
You are not "free" to go take a bullhorn and yell things into someone else's home. particularly after certain times of night.
So right there, we have limitations on Location of speech. and Content of speech.
Are you really going to argue against those, in favor of "all speech is protected"?
(if your answer is, yes, then my second question is, are you 16 or something? because you sure are acting like it)
The latter is exactly what you DONT have a right to say. Not to a police officer anyways. nor should you.
You want to live in a country without police? okay fine, move to one of the fine anarchistic countries in south america or something.
Queue up the Dr. Ferris speech about the real purpose of the law.
Controlling people. Not even for their own good, but merely for the sake of weilding control.
That is politics in America today.
No, politics in America today, is solely for the purpose of increasing sales of tinfoil hats.
I'm presuming you already have yours...
In practice, the Tea Partiers will oppose it on tax grounds, and hope nobody notices that it's precisely what the Christian Right wants.
Oh dear.. well, we couldnt have THAT, could we? we couldnt vote for ANYTHING that "the Christian Right" wants, now could we?
I hear that those right wing nutjobs are against rape. The NERVE of those people! We clearly have to fight against Christian Morality Bigots, and legalize that sort of thing.
What? they're against theft too???
DONT DENY ME MY RIGHT TO "pursue happiness" by by personal choice of acquisition style, you bible bashing nutjobs!
"simplicity"? SIMPLICITY???!
"xfce" is simple.
GNOME, on the other hand, is now a more bloated pig than CDE ever was.. which is amusing, because one of the gnome1 boasts was that it was much lighter than CDE.
These guys were having fun killing people. This is not and can never be ok.
As opposed to building an army of people, who hate killing people?
That does not make for a particularly functional army.
two things to consider:
1. the army has to train a certain amount of aggresion into soldiers
2. The solders DID THE RIGHT THING. They stayed mentally "combat ready", but WAITED FOR CLEARANCE TO FIRE.
They got the clearance, they opened fire.
the fact that you dont like what they were muttering in order to psyche themselves up for the very nasty business of killing another human being, is irrelevant.
Try to think in the real world, instead of a fairy tale.
it was better to establish intent from the people on the ground (Photographer and other people with AK-47) by just doing a fly-by and tempting them to take a shot at the helicopter. After they fire at the helicopters they would have been fair game. But shooting them before being fired upon is what caused this war to last longer than necessary.
What kind of IDIOT, takes a shot at a heavily armed gunship flying by, then hangs around waiting for them to come back and shoot them?
I may have a lot of negative opinions about the terrorists over there, but I dont think they are idiots.
Your "suggestion" would have been useless.
Oddly enough violent crime has been decreasing since 1992, and is now at 1960 levels. Ergo another possible conclusion: Video games decrease overall societal violence level.
How about, "video games decrease overall incidence of physical real-life violence, while at the same time increasing tendancy of individuals to trigger violent behaviour"?
The theoretical reason for the "less real-life violence", being, that there are less people out on the street, because they're all at home playing their games in their rooms.
math game/gedankenexperiment:
Johnny has a 5% chance of reacting violently to any confrontation. he spends most of his time "in public", and gets into a fight every day.
Jimmy has a 20% chance of reacting violently to any conforntation. he spends 90% of his free time in his room playing 'Zombie Monster Hater Killer 3d!!!!'. he gets into a fight approximately once a week.
Consider that Jimmy is now by inclination a markedly "more violent" person, but he just has less "opportunity" to get into violent confrontations.
Is society better off with a higher percentage of "Johnny"s, or "Jimmy"s?
But bugs bunny/road-runner/daffy duck is NOT REALISTIC.
It makes a huge difference.
I have my own, small, but quite conclusive "study group" on the subject:
I have 3 children. all boys. I have a very direct insight into their behaviour.
Watching cartoonised "violence" does not noticably change their behaviour, particularly when both sides are non-realistic.
(both because it is cartoon, and animals instead of humans)
However, watching strongly human-identified violence, has a very strong influence on them.
eg: watching power rangers, fighting other humanoids. It makes them start "play" punching and kicking each other.
The same effect comes from "humanized" violent video games.
When I take away that stuff... they are much, much calmer and non-combative.
So guess what? I keep that stuff away from them. and... SURPRISE SURPRISE.. they are drastically less aggressive and violent then their peers who watch that stuff.
Now that's "conclusive".
swearing, and violence, are not interchangable.
swearing may accompany violence. but swearing in and of itself, is not violent. :-p )
(just "distasteful"
Sadly, yes. parents seem to be getting dumber, less involved, and less responsible every year.
That's a lousy anti-argument. Not a good comparison at all. It fails, because "looking at porn" does not particularly simulate rape (unless the viewer is actually viewing "rape-porn" I suppose :-/ )
Whereas most FPS shooters are explicitly designed, to simulate, as realistically as possible, violence and killing (and even further, to explicitly "reward" it)
Say what you will about that, but I disagree - after a high school friend of mine blew his brains out with a 38 to the head, I spent two weeks depressed and the first thing I was able to get myself to do after that is help a church group tear down a house. Best release I ever had was deflecting that anger with a sledgehammer.
You are confusing "violent" with "destructive". There is a significant difference between the two. It is possible for an act to be BOTH violent and destructive; however, demolition of an unoccupied house, is destructive, with no violence involved in it.
The primary meaning of "violent", is "to cause harm to a person(whether real, or symbolic)".
Thus: shooting symbolic people in a video game = violent. tearing down a house = non-violent.
eh.. more than that, I'd say you actually have to CARE about programming.
Kinda like being an artist. you can "learn" how to paint. maybe even get decent at photo-realism.
But if you dont WANT to paint... you're either not going to be very good with the final works, or you wont be very "productive".
As to the submitter's question, my honest answer is to forget the syntax. What you really need to understand is the underlying logic of how and why to do things. Once you have a strong basis in logic, languages just become syntax and you can pick that up in a matter of days when the need arises. It also allows you to better recognize when a given language isn't the right tool for the job.
Well, it's not JUST syntax.
A *good* CS degree, would teach you the lesson, that different languages, require different approaches, to use them *well*.
It's easy to "learn java syntax, and write java code".
it is actually somewhat difficult (judging by the amount of FAIL out there) to write non-trivial, speedy, and *efficient* java code.
The entire article is based on "rebutting" an unfounded premise: that something "pushes out" programmers older than 40.
This has not been proven by the article.
It makes an unfounded assumption, and then rambles on with more unfounded principles and guesses.
The writer (if not the editor) should be "encouraged" not to submit any more articles there.
data point: I have a degree in CS. I started my career as a programmer.
I dont *want to* be a programmer any more. (and I made that decision when I was 30, let alone 40)
Not because I'm no good at it: i'm actually a damn good programmer (*cough*). I just dont want to do it for 40 hours a week any more.
Next stop: Slash.
http://myanimelist.net/character/1317/Slash
(hey, I just wrote a post with "Slash Dot", while being gramatically and contextually appropriate. I should be given UberModPoints or something :-D )
Cecile writes...
You want to fix the gender balance in computer engineering? Well, the computer is right over there, stop doing stupid sociology studies and learn to code.
nice.. I gotta bookmark that one or something :-)
I presume you'd agree that being a doctor is similarly demanding in terms of logic, critical analysis, knowledge, and just generally those scientific skills that are common to both medicine and programming.
Except that being a GOOD doctor, requires that you are also good at working with PEOPLE.
That right there, disqualifies most comp-sci people from the field of medicine :)
And at the same time, it motivates women to pay more attention to the logic side of the job, because it then also gives a high "working with people" factor to the job.
whereas comp.sci related jobs, are usually anti "work with people" jobs.
except for "help desk support". but you dont need a degree for one of those positions, nor would people target that as "a career".
And that's exactly it. Women dont WANT to go into the field, because they dont generally LIKE it.
It's the feminists who are making excuses. On the other hand, I think the majority of women, dont give a damn there are less women "in computing".
and those who do, get a job in the field. Simple, but "un-politically correct".
Oh, the horror.
"Must.. deploy... PC.. mind-reajustment.. field..."
Yes, there are some trashy insensitive guys in CS. but there are in EVERY OTHER field too!
So just get over the fact that there are more guys in computing than women. and go complain about something else. Like how maybe elementary school education is dominated by women.
yes, the pay is poor. But if anyone thinks making the pay equal to the average CS job, would magically even out the numbers.. they're nuts.
PS: older tablets/accounts indicate that the sumerian "flood" story, may have been more of a localized flood story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrahasis
Some people would date the story of Utnapishtim as AFTER the estimated date of Noah, which would make the sumarian the "second-hand imitation".
And yes, this is coming from someone who believes in God. I just don't believe in a God who a) created the world 6,000 years ago with all the appearance of being billions of years old ...
well, consider these things then:
1. We were made "in God's image"
2. We make (virtual) words all the time
3. We usually make them with in-depth complicated "histories", that are complete fakes. Because it makes the world "more interesting" to us.
So if WE like to do that...
Having served in the millitary when they were 20, does not automatically mean they are promilitary now they are 50+.
I hear there are quite a substantial number of people who are "anti war", , etc, etc. who served in their youth. Just as there are people who are anti-drug in their 50s, who probably took drugs in their 20s.
erm.. thats not saying the millitary is akin to drugs. I think it is sadly neccessary. I was just making a comparison of how one person can migrate from one end of the spectrum on something, to the other, over their lifetime.
"The GPL does not intrude on your right to license your code under other licenses. "
You implication that that absurd clause/concept somehow preserves my ownership of the code, is absurd as the notion that saying "the gpl does not prohibit you from selling your code", means that it does not destroy the economic value of the code as "property".
It clearly does.
Only an idiot pays money for something, that he can legally get for free.
the semi-exception for that, is that organizations sometimes pay an author, for a NON-gpl licensed version of the code.
But that rather proves the related point of "you cant made money directly off of gpl'd code". You have to use a DIFFERENT LICENSE to make money from it!
Note also: charging money for support, is not making money directly "from the code". It is making money from your support actions.