Wow, your sweeping generalization of over 83 million people really makes you sound like an informed and thoughtful individual. Well, I'm sorry, you said a majority, so I'll say you've only broadly judged 41.5 million or so (in the US), to give you the benefit of the doubt. What's your sample size? Surely you've met with at least several million of them and discussed political and economic issues with them to form your opinion?
Everyone is acting like this is some amazing, over-the-top act that puts Tesla above other car companies, but actually this recall is likely cheap enough that it falls perfectly within the scope of the Fight Club recall formula... this is SOP, folks.
I would say this is often true in the real world, but it shouldn't be true if things are really written using best practices. A true, well-written object-oriented design comprised of small, isolated pieces of encapsulated logic, ideally paired with comprehensive unit tests, should prevent the kind of subtle problems you describe. The unfortunate reality, however, is that in many professional settings such careful practices are often ignored or only partially followed, undermining the benefits they are supposed to provide.
You're right, it is common sense. My initial reaction to this was the same as yours. That said, it's very useful to verify common sense scientifically, because it's amazing how often common sense proves to be wrong when formally tested. Take nothing on faith, not even (and perhaps especially) the obvious.
You do know we're talking about Snowden here, right? The one who actually took the time to sift through and prepare the data, just sharing elements of it that really show USA wrongdoing and carefully timing it for maximum impact? Not Manning? Just what did he release that caused more bad than good? Or perhaps your definition of "bad" is "makes the US look bad even if they're violating the constitutional rights of their citizens". Just who or what do you think you're talking about, exactly?
Not all meetings are created equal. If I can provide an alternative to your closing sentence...
"Meeting can and should be about collaboration, with group participation, and getting something done. If you can not get that out of a meeting, fire the participants or reconsider why the meeting was called in the first place."
I actually kind of agree with your joking sentiment... GPS instructions should be taken with a grain of salt. I've had my Tom Tom tell me to drive off a cliff before (really, it said "turn left", left was a sheer drop), but I didn't listen to it. Pretty sure if I were told to drive onto a runway I'd engage my brain and reroute myself.
I consider any machine I don't control unsafe, especially servers run by any corporation. Machines I do control are still suspect. At this point the only guarantee is the one that the government has long known to be the best option... air gap. Even that isn't 100%, as evidenced by ip/thumbdrive as with stuxnet, but it's the only way you can consider something private.
The fact that the "former official" does not seem to realize this does not lead us to conclude that Snowden was brilliant... but rather that the mentioned official was anything but.
It doesn't show that the official is anything but... it shows that the official believes the American public is anything but.
On the one hand, it is a good thing to prevent yourself from constrained thinking. I work with someone who thinks exclusively in design patterns; it leads to some solid code, in many cases, but it's also sometimes a detriment to his work (overcomplicated designs, patterns used for the sake of patterns).
Unlearning all we have figured out in computer science is silly, though. Use the patterns and knowledge we've spend years honing, but use them as tools and not as crutches. I think as long as you look at something and accurately determine that a known pattern/language/approach is a near-optimal way to solve it, that's a good application of that pattern/language/approach. If you're cramming a solution into a pattern, though, or only using a language because it's your hammer and everything looks like a nail to you, that's bad.
I already have all that covered. I have a very well stocked survival bag (the list of contents is very long, but it's a surprisingly reasonable weight). I am quite pragmatic:)
Well, it has built-in GPS, so I could load it up with maps, survival guides, etc... but who am I kidding? It's more because I'm an engineer and I think it would give me +5 sanity.
Hah! My current instance of Eclipse, with a handful of relatively small Maven modules open, no build in progress, is using about 800MB. If you look at help.eclipse.org you'll also find:
"By default, Eclipse will allocate up to 384 megabytes of Java heap memory"
I'm not so sure I trust the credibility of this author.
Totally true. My first computer only had 16k available. Now that I have 12 gigs of RAM I have 786432x the amount of memory I need, so everything is always fast!
War on DRM?
on
How DRM Won
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The idea of DRM winning or losing is a bit too black and white here.
I'm not against DRM; I'm against *bad* DRM. You've probably seen one of the images showing the difference between watching a pirated movie and watching a paid DVD/blu-ray, showing that the pirated viewing experience is far better. Similarly, most early attempts at DRM resulted in a far worse media/game consumption experience for paying customers. That's what I'm against, and when that proliferates with complete acceptance I will consider the war lost.
Services like Spotify, Steam and Netflix get it right, though. Yes, they use DRM, but they found a balance where the paid, rights-restricted solution is actually more convenient than the pirated solution. Most common use cases are easy, and I'm happy to pay. In my opinion, when the legal option becomes nice enough to use it doesn't matter if it includes DRM, and I don't blame content distributors for doing so.
The issue of DRM is really pretty different from the issue of rent versus own, though. If you rent a digital item it necessarily has DRM, but DRM isn't the issue there.
Often the detection of sarcasm relies on understanding of popular opinion on a topic. I don't think we'll have any magic bullet algorithm to detect sarcasm until we have hard AI with a far-reaching corpus of current knowledge.
Take these two sentences: "DRM is the best. It makes everything so much easier!" and "The iPhone is the best! It makes everything so much easier!"
Ok, algorithm. Pick the one containing sarcasm...
Actually the rules are very clearly posted and are in no way confusing.
It's much like if I owned a popular jewelry store and told you that you could sell some of your products through my storefront if I took a 30% commission. Then, when a customer comes in to my store you whisper to him "psst, you can get this necklace 30% cheaper. Just meet me at my own private store and we can do business without the owner of this place getting his cut." Customer is happy. You're happy. I, the store owner, am not. I gave you a customer through my own distribution channel and you tried to sidestep giving me what you owe me for that.
I'm sorry... are you trying to tell me that natural selection conditions don't exist now because thousands of years ago tribal humans had social selection as well? I don't understand how your comment relates to what we're talking about.
To reiterate, my point is that the conditions for natural selection existed then and exist now, but are simply different expressions of those requirements. Not all humans managed to reproduce then and not all humans reproduce now. Sometimes it's social, sometimes it's a pressure introduced externally (disease, a truck, etc.).
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, your sweeping generalization of over 83 million people really makes you sound like an informed and thoughtful individual. Well, I'm sorry, you said a majority, so I'll say you've only broadly judged 41.5 million or so (in the US), to give you the benefit of the doubt. What's your sample size? Surely you've met with at least several million of them and discussed political and economic issues with them to form your opinion?
Everyone is acting like this is some amazing, over-the-top act that puts Tesla above other car companies, but actually this recall is likely cheap enough that it falls perfectly within the scope of the Fight Club recall formula... this is SOP, folks.
I would say this is often true in the real world, but it shouldn't be true if things are really written using best practices. A true, well-written object-oriented design comprised of small, isolated pieces of encapsulated logic, ideally paired with comprehensive unit tests, should prevent the kind of subtle problems you describe. The unfortunate reality, however, is that in many professional settings such careful practices are often ignored or only partially followed, undermining the benefits they are supposed to provide.
You're right, it is common sense. My initial reaction to this was the same as yours. That said, it's very useful to verify common sense scientifically, because it's amazing how often common sense proves to be wrong when formally tested. Take nothing on faith, not even (and perhaps especially) the obvious.
Here we have Exhibit A: the soul after it has been thoroughly crushed by corporate reality.
You do know we're talking about Snowden here, right? The one who actually took the time to sift through and prepare the data, just sharing elements of it that really show USA wrongdoing and carefully timing it for maximum impact? Not Manning? Just what did he release that caused more bad than good? Or perhaps your definition of "bad" is "makes the US look bad even if they're violating the constitutional rights of their citizens". Just who or what do you think you're talking about, exactly?
Not all meetings are created equal. If I can provide an alternative to your closing sentence... "Meeting can and should be about collaboration, with group participation, and getting something done. If you can not get that out of a meeting, fire the participants or reconsider why the meeting was called in the first place."
This is not science going wrong, this is wrongly calling something science.
Good thing that lightsaber quote isn't getting out of hand.
I actually kind of agree with your joking sentiment... GPS instructions should be taken with a grain of salt. I've had my Tom Tom tell me to drive off a cliff before (really, it said "turn left", left was a sheer drop), but I didn't listen to it. Pretty sure if I were told to drive onto a runway I'd engage my brain and reroute myself.
I consider any machine I don't control unsafe, especially servers run by any corporation. Machines I do control are still suspect. At this point the only guarantee is the one that the government has long known to be the best option... air gap. Even that isn't 100%, as evidenced by ip/thumbdrive as with stuxnet, but it's the only way you can consider something private.
The fact that the "former official" does not seem to realize this does not lead us to conclude that Snowden was brilliant... but rather that the mentioned official was anything but.
It doesn't show that the official is anything but... it shows that the official believes the American public is anything but.
Yes and no, I think.
On the one hand, it is a good thing to prevent yourself from constrained thinking. I work with someone who thinks exclusively in design patterns; it leads to some solid code, in many cases, but it's also sometimes a detriment to his work (overcomplicated designs, patterns used for the sake of patterns).
Unlearning all we have figured out in computer science is silly, though. Use the patterns and knowledge we've spend years honing, but use them as tools and not as crutches. I think as long as you look at something and accurately determine that a known pattern/language/approach is a near-optimal way to solve it, that's a good application of that pattern/language/approach. If you're cramming a solution into a pattern, though, or only using a language because it's your hammer and everything looks like a nail to you, that's bad.
I do have a kindle in there actually, yes.
I already have all that covered. I have a very well stocked survival bag (the list of contents is very long, but it's a surprisingly reasonable weight). I am quite pragmatic :)
Well, it has built-in GPS, so I could load it up with maps, survival guides, etc... but who am I kidding? It's more because I'm an engineer and I think it would give me +5 sanity.
It's going in my emergency bag. Looks like a perfect emergency and/or post-apocalyptic laptop.
Brilliant! We can make people exercise less and remove their healthcare at the same time!
"Eclipse requires about 3 megabytes of memory"
Hah! My current instance of Eclipse, with a handful of relatively small Maven modules open, no build in progress, is using about 800MB. If you look at help.eclipse.org you'll also find:
"By default, Eclipse will allocate up to 384 megabytes of Java heap memory"
I'm not so sure I trust the credibility of this author.
Totally true. My first computer only had 16k available. Now that I have 12 gigs of RAM I have 786432x the amount of memory I need, so everything is always fast!
The idea of DRM winning or losing is a bit too black and white here. I'm not against DRM; I'm against *bad* DRM. You've probably seen one of the images showing the difference between watching a pirated movie and watching a paid DVD/blu-ray, showing that the pirated viewing experience is far better. Similarly, most early attempts at DRM resulted in a far worse media/game consumption experience for paying customers. That's what I'm against, and when that proliferates with complete acceptance I will consider the war lost. Services like Spotify, Steam and Netflix get it right, though. Yes, they use DRM, but they found a balance where the paid, rights-restricted solution is actually more convenient than the pirated solution. Most common use cases are easy, and I'm happy to pay. In my opinion, when the legal option becomes nice enough to use it doesn't matter if it includes DRM, and I don't blame content distributors for doing so. The issue of DRM is really pretty different from the issue of rent versus own, though. If you rent a digital item it necessarily has DRM, but DRM isn't the issue there.
Often the detection of sarcasm relies on understanding of popular opinion on a topic. I don't think we'll have any magic bullet algorithm to detect sarcasm until we have hard AI with a far-reaching corpus of current knowledge. Take these two sentences: "DRM is the best. It makes everything so much easier!" and "The iPhone is the best! It makes everything so much easier!" Ok, algorithm. Pick the one containing sarcasm...
Actually the rules are very clearly posted and are in no way confusing.
It's much like if I owned a popular jewelry store and told you that you could sell some of your products through my storefront if I took a 30% commission. Then, when a customer comes in to my store you whisper to him "psst, you can get this necklace 30% cheaper. Just meet me at my own private store and we can do business without the owner of this place getting his cut." Customer is happy. You're happy. I, the store owner, am not. I gave you a customer through my own distribution channel and you tried to sidestep giving me what you owe me for that.
Damn, people are so entitled these days.
I'm sorry... are you trying to tell me that natural selection conditions don't exist now because thousands of years ago tribal humans had social selection as well? I don't understand how your comment relates to what we're talking about. To reiterate, my point is that the conditions for natural selection existed then and exist now, but are simply different expressions of those requirements. Not all humans managed to reproduce then and not all humans reproduce now. Sometimes it's social, sometimes it's a pressure introduced externally (disease, a truck, etc.).
Well... yeah. Same was true thousands of generations back when we were getting eaten by wild animals instead of hit by trucks.