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User: Brain-Fu

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  1. Re:The unfortunate state of gaming on World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Launches On September 25 · · Score: 1

    Some people play games because they want to do hard things. Other people play games because they want to have fun. There is nothing "wrong" with games that are designed to be fun rather than hard, they are just a different kind of game.

    Nor is there anything "wrong" with wanting to reach a wide audience. From an economic perspective, this is as right as rain...wider audience = more money = right!

    So the abundance of easy games is not something wrong with gaming today. You are simply in a smaller target audience.

    The only thing wrong here is your expectation that game-makers should sacrifice profit potential to cater to an audience of people who don't want to have fun. There are a small number of games designed to cater to your market segment, but that number will always be small because there aren't very many of you, and that is exactly how things should be.

  2. Re:Maybe same old 'leave your guns at entrance' ru on 12 Dead, 50 Injured at The Dark Knight Rises Showing In Colorado · · Score: 1

    Why do people keep posting this nonsense? This is the third comment I have seen that assumes that owning a gun somehow makes a person stupid. People with guns on them wouldn't automatically start shooting randomly into a crowd of civilians when they can't even see an assailant. Sheesh.

  3. Re:Maybe same old 'leave your guns at entrance' ru on 12 Dead, 50 Injured at The Dark Knight Rises Showing In Colorado · · Score: 1

    Says who? Having a gun doesn't automatically make a person start shooting randomly, when they can't even see a target.

  4. Re:Maybe same old 'leave your guns at entrance' ru on 12 Dead, 50 Injured at The Dark Knight Rises Showing In Colorado · · Score: 2

    In colorado, one must take a class in order to get the concealed permit. While a single class is nothing compared to real military training, they usually cover "don't shoot in crowded areas where you can't even see your target."

    While having a gun might not have done much good in this circumstance, it seems unfair to assume that any carrier would automatically just start shooting randomly.

  5. Re:LOL on EPIC Files Motion About Ignored Body Scanner Ruling · · Score: 5, Funny

    So who voted for them?

    Diebold.

  6. Re:It originated from our fucking sun, morons. on Asteroid Crashes Likely Gave Earth Its Water · · Score: 1

    Your statement does not contradict what the article is saying. Did you intend it to?

    Everything heavier than hydrogen is cooked within and then ejected from a star. Stars are where atomic fusion occurs, you see.

    The water droplets shoot out from the poles of the star. They are perpendicular to Earth's orbit. So, those droplets wouldn't have landed directly on the Earth. They first would have frozen out in the void of space, and collapsed into one another due to their mutual gravity, forming big icy rocks that we call "asteroids." Some of those then got drawn back in by the Sun's gravity, and crashed into the Earth.

    So....asteroids delivered water to the Earth, exactly as the article says. And the water was baked up and shot out from our own Sun before that. Though some of the water may have drifted in to our outer solar system from other solar systems after they went through the same process, too.

  7. Re:Asteroid impacts == good on Asteroid Crashes Likely Gave Earth Its Water · · Score: 1

    Asteroid impacts are neither good nor bad. They are just natural events.

    An asteroid impact on Earth today would kill a lot of people, so we can be forgiven for thinking of that as bad. But back when there was no life on Earth, the impacts mostly just increased the Earth's mass (and delivered a little water). THOSE turned out to be good for us today because they helped set the stage for our evolution.

  8. Re:The moon on Asteroid Crashes Likely Gave Earth Its Water · · Score: 1

    Liquid water does not last long on the moon; the solar radiation boils it away. There could still be water on the moon, though, but our missions there have still barely scratched the surface (so to speak).

    If you are really curious, you could just type the word "moon" into wikipedia. There is a lot of info there.

  9. I am officially "old" on Facebook "Like" System Devalued By Fake Users · · Score: 1

    You become old when new technologies stop making sense to you, and seem silly, unnatural, evil, or just plain valueless.

    This exactly describes my opinion of Facebook, despite the fact that it is wildly successful.

    Ugh. I am depressed now.

  10. Re:Right people, right results on New Analyst Report Calls Agile a Scam, Says It's An Easy Out For Lazy Devs · · Score: 1

    Just make test case documentation, code comments, code-reviews, and whatever documentation you need be key deliverables of your sprints. Also, if you can't hold a developer for five years, then you have a morale problem that will cause such pain no matter what process you use. Or maybe you have a bias for cheap entry-level developers over experienced ones, which will also ruin all your code no matter what process you use.

    Agile might not be right for your environment, but from what you say, it sounds like you are doing agile wrong.

    My experience with agile has been the exact opposite of yours.

  11. Re:Requirements do change on New Analyst Report Calls Agile a Scam, Says It's An Easy Out For Lazy Devs · · Score: 1

    Finally, Agile has a tendency to fail in its goal of producing software that is actually usable by its intended consumer.

    That is *exactly* why you are supposed to be demoing the software to the client on a daily basis. If you aren't doing that, your failure is not the fault of agile, but of your misimplementation of it.

    Agile is built on a different philosophy than waterfall, and those who cannot grasp those underpinnings will *always* do agile wrong. They will then blame agile for their own failures.

    Agile *is* wrong for some environments. But it is a perfect fit for others....assuming it is done right.

  12. Re:culture? on Ask Slashdot: What Defines Good Developer Culture? · · Score: 1

    Amazing. I recognize that not everyone is motivated by money, and I can sympathize with a distaste for boredom, but it just seems strange to me that someone would turn down $20k per year and most of their personal life for a less boring job.

    How likely do you think it is that you will all have the spirit and the endurance to keep this pace up when you are past your 40's? And how likely do you think it is that your company won't start looking at replacing you with younger people at that time? sub-100k salaries are generally not retire-early salaries, and there is a bias against old programmers in the industry.

    Kudos for finding happiness, but, I hope you all know what you are doing.

  13. Re:culture? on Ask Slashdot: What Defines Good Developer Culture? · · Score: 1

    And are the salaries around $150 k per year? If they are much below that you are being taken advantage of; the market has many employers who are having a hard time hiring employees with half your devotion. You could easily make equivalent salary and still have free time for a personal life.

  14. Re:Until you can prove them wrong on In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins · · Score: 2

    Godel's proof fails to prove the existence of God.

    1) It begins by re-defining God to mean something quite different (and containing far fewer attributes) than the common meaning. Even if such a thing can be proven to exist, what has been proven to exist is not "God." This is the logical fallacy of ignoratio elenchi"

    2) The premise "necessary existence is a positive property" is not an a priori truth, but an interesting equivocation. It translates to "something that actually exists is morally superior to something that is merely imaginary," which might make sense to some people but is ultimately based on opinion rather than logical necessity.

    3) As Hume astutely pointed out, it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of any concrete thing from purely a priori truths. This includes God. To summarize: a priori truths can only be proven if their opposite necessarily implies a contradiction. Any concrete thing that exists could also not-exist without there being a contradiction. So, to prove that a real thing exists one must include at least one relevant a posteriori premise in the argument.

    Fun fact: Godel was an atheist, and delayed the publication of this "proof" for fear that people might think he believed in God.

  15. A game of speculation on In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins · · Score: 1

    It seems relevant to point out that even if we can infer the existence of a creator from the level of intelligent design that is evident in the universe, that alone tells us nothing about what the creator is like.

    It is one thing to say "the universe was created." It is quite another to say "the creator of the universe wants you to fly an airplane into a building" or "the creator wants you to give me ten percent of your income."

  16. If you are wrong, you still lose everything, because you believed in the wrong god, and the right one will send you to hell for it.

  17. The people who's votes are being played for, by this move, are in a demographic that is largely unconcerned with the value of your house (or, by extension, the current state of the real estate market).

  18. Agreed. on Why Making Facebook Private Won't Protect You · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The right to work is mis-envisioned. Most people who think they have a right to work don't realize that it translates to a requirement to employ liabilities and lose one's business. The bigger issue, though, is that most people see the having of a job as the only means by which they can subsist, and so they consider it an extension of the right to life.

    We are entering an era of such technological ascendency that very few people must actually work in order to provide for the subsistence of the entire population. Capitalistic values do not work well in such an economic landscape. The fact that civilized governments pay landowners to NOT grow food, in an effort to protect a market, while children go to bed hungry within their own borders, demonstrates the absurdities of this disparity.

    Of course...people who can't find jobs are not content to just die. They absolutely will turn to crime instead, where they will either:

    a) take your wealth from you by stealing it, to your detriment, or
    b) receive free food and clothing, paid by your tax dollars, in jail.

    We will be providing for their subsistence one way or the other. It would be better, however, if humans could maintain a more enlightened means of solving the distribution problem.

  19. Actually, yes, it does drop you a moral rung on Is Poor Numeracy Ruining Lives? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Aristotle pointed out that one's capacity for virtue is limited by one's intelligence.

    To put it simply: if you truly want to do the right thing, but you are so uneducated that you can't figure out what the right thing is, you wind up not doing the right thing. The thing you actually do is one of the wrong things, and so it is probably harmful to someone.

    Even if the soul of such a person is as pure as untrodden snow, the actual outcomes of their actual actions are equivalent to those of a morally inferior person.

    When a person is in a position that his actions could harm others (such as, say, an airplane pilot who’s actions could crash the plane), that person is morally obligated to attain and maintain a high level of competence. However, since we all live as part of an interconnected society, we are *all* in this position. Any action we take could harm others if not thought through, so lifelong self-education is a moral imperative for all of us.

    Everyone has genetic limits to intelligence, and limits on opportunities for education, which are forgivable. When you hit those limits and need to make decisions that are beyond them, the morally correct thing to do is seek guidance from someone who is more appropriately educated.

    If you do neither; if you insist on remaining ignorant and on directing your life based on this ignorance, then you harm everyone around you. You are therefore guilty of negligence, and therefore you are a bad person.

  20. Re:the only drug? on France's Bold Drunk-Driving Legislation - Every Car To Carry a Breathalyzer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is a common line of thinking among those who haven't thought things through.

    1) When you make a highly-desired commodity illegal, you create organized crime. Mafia bosses who have no qualms about sending your children home minus a few digits just to make a point wind up receiving tremendous economic power from people who want the item. This level of crime is far worse, and far harder for the police to protect against, than random muggings by petty junkies.

    2) You assume that once it becomes legal, demand will increase significantly. This is very fallacious. Most people who desire to use drugs already do so, whether it is legal or not. The only people who refrain from using drugs due to their legal status are precisely the sort of people who are responsible enough to keep their use under control. Furthermore, the current (illegal) users who are the type that would lose control and start mugging people to fuel the habit are already doing so. So, even if usage increases, crime does not increase.

    3) Once legal, it can be taxed to fund addiction clinics and other support services that users can now turn to without fear of legal punishment. So, that naturally helps to control the problem and further reduce crime.

  21. No surprise it was posted AC then... on Human Rights Groups Push To Save Condemned Programmer In Iran · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Incidentally, I think you need to read your philosophy coursebook a little more closely. An "atheist" is someone who does not believe in the existence of any gods. That is *it*. Rejection of belief in gods does not, in and of itself, require acceptance of the postulate "you should just be rational."

    While it is true that many atheists would probably agree with the statement "you should just be rational," most will have very different ideas about what constitutes "rationality" in any given circumstance and some may object entirely. And in any case, accepting even this statement doesn't reject the possibility of making and honoring laws. Doing so could be considered a very rational behavior (the argument is left to the student).

    Being an atheist also does not, in and itself, require rejection of a religion. Many sects of Buddhism, for example, deny the existence of any gods and as such are atheist. New-age weirdos can deny the existence of god as well and still believe in auras and energies and what-not. Again...many atheists might also reject these belief systems, but it is not a requirement of the word.

    Some might try to argue that there is a chain of reasoning at work...something like rejection of god means rejection of religion which means rejection of religious codes of morality which means rejections of any code of morality which means acceptance of the only possibility left which is "you should act rationally," but such a chain of reasoning is philosophically sloppy with incorrect assumptions each step of the way. Though being an atheist doesn't automatically make someone a rigorous philosopher, so plenty of atheists might think this way.

    I am also curious about how it has been "mathematically proven that there never are any rational course[s] of action." Mathematics generally deals with the modeling of quantifiable relationships, whereas "rationality" is more in the domain of psychology, sociology, economics, and perhaps philosophy. Does the proof look like this?:

    Let x = .33333... (repeating infinitely)
    let y = 1/3

    therefore: x = y
    therefore 3x = 3y
    therefore (3)(.3333...) = (3)(1/3)
    therefore (.9999...) = (3/3)
    therefore (.9999...) = 1
    therefore there is never a rational course of action.

    Seems pretty unlikely to me.

  22. Not delusion, manipulation on RIAA Chief Whines That SOPA Opponents Were "Unfair" · · Score: 1

    He isn't stating facts so much as attempting to create them. From that perspective, everything he says makes perfect sense.

  23. Re:A little uncomfortable on RIAA Chief Whines That SOPA Opponents Were "Unfair" · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since you could, in theory, take politically-impactful action, every person with a political agenda has a direct incentive to influence your opinions. Writing a piece that tells you what your emotional response should be is a common way of doing that.

    There is nothing wrong with complaining about this, of course, but don't expect it to change. Better to maintain eternal vigilance in your guardianship of your ability to form independent conclusions, especially when confronted with such biased information sources.

  24. Re:Old is gold? on President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night · · Score: 1

    Most developers I have known believe that their productivity is so much higher than their peers that they can justify slacking off. I asked in private, after establishing trust, because I found it interesting. Each member of the team considered himself superior to the other members of the team. Clearly, they couldn't all have been right.

    Technicians, it seems, are inherently arrogant. Though I suspect this is true of all people, not just technicians.

    But whenever I hear "I am so good I don't have to work as hard" I just assume the person is using their enormous ego to justify their sloth.

    Be that as it may...it is still bullshit that people should be expected to work the equivalent of two jobs in order to pull a barely-middle-class salary. However, the labor market seems full of young-uns who are willing to accept these terms. In the long run they are harming themselves and everyone in their industry...but....they are also going home with a paycheck.

  25. The free market does that on President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night · · Score: 5, Informative

    This problem is not specific to the tech industry, and it isn't caused by any particular government policy. While it is true that the high allowance of H1B visas are adding fuel to the fire, tightening the restrictions won't put the fire out.

    The older, more experienced workers who can't find jobs are absolutely worth the salary that they are requesting. However, there aren't very many businesses that actually need that level of experience and quality. The market for their products will bear a lower level of quality, and in fact the customers wouldn't be willing to buy if the price tag was higher even if the quality level more than made up for it. So the businesses don't need and can't justify the cost of top-tier talent.

    Also, as everyone is aware, the total number of tech businesses only shrinks over time. This is a natural progression of the free market; the winners buy up the losers and centralize efforts, meaning that a smaller number of engineers is making products that serve a bigger market.

    To put it simply: you only need one team of engineers to make the iPhone in order for everyone who could afford one to be able to have one. You also only need one team of developers to make a solid office suite in order for the whole world to be able to use it.

    Yes, there is still some competition in the market. We will probably never reach a state of true global monopoly. However, there is a whole lot less competition than there used to be, and that shrinkage (though asymptotic) will continue. That is, in fact, how a free market is expected to work. The winners eliminate the competition and then establish monopolies or cartels, and the need for skilled labor plummets. So we can safely predict a supply of top-tier talent that is much greater than the demand.

    In theory you can respond to this problem with government and/or union intervention. In practice the end result is never as good as the theory should be.

    If we invent a new wildly disruptive technology we may create some young markets with lots of demand for laborers, but in these mature markets (like software development and computer engineering) it is better to recognize the reality and make plans accordingly. If you are young and looking to enter tech, either:

    1) expect to move up to management, and build your skillset and all your career decisions around this expectation. Also, actively push this agenda on your employers.

    -or-

    2) Find a job with long-term prospects at a company with a reputation for retaining talent, and keep your costs of living nice and low as you invest as much as you can.

    I'm sorry if both options are unappealing. I didn't create the world, I am just observing it.