Ok, forget about drugs. Perhaps you, as a doctor, know a way to treat it without medicine. If you're a psychologist or therapist, you wouldn't have any other choice. The point is you have to do something and treat your patient seriously even if you know deep in your heart that the patient should be able to stop playing WoW (or whatever the particular addiction happens to be) just like you did with no further urges.
If it makes you feel better, you could approach the problem from the personal responsibility angle rather than addressing the addiction, however real or perceived it may be, directly. What it comes down to is that some people FEEL like they don't have control. Your judgements about the validity of that feeling is irrelevant, if not outright insulting.
On the flipside, I do often get a laugh when I read some of the overcomplicated "Enterprisey" code the is all too often featured on sites like http://thedailywtf.com/. It is amazing what some "enterprise" programmers will write to justify their overly inflated hourly rates (and egos). Not that I haven't see my share of Ruby WTFs. But it gets taken to a whole new level once you get "enterprise" programmers involved.
Working in the "enterprise" sucks. Partially because large corporations are soulless hells, but mostly because of arrogant pricks like you. I'm sure you'd have to pay someone more than $100 an hour just to put up with your shit.
Lets say you're a doctor and you start getting patients coming in complaining that they have what appears to be an addiction to the Internet. Or perhaps they are trying to get help for a family member who is showing signs of addiction. What do you do? Do you just laugh it off? Say something like "just stop using the computer so much." What can the patient do? I understand that medicating it seems unreasonable, but what else can you do as a doctor when you can only see the patient once a week or whatever?
It isn't like doctors are going around to people's homes and declaring otherwise healthy people mentally ill. I'm sure this is mostly a reaction to people with serious problems looking for help.
Also, keep in mind that an official diagnosis is important for insurance purposes. "Internet addiction" may sound silly, but doctors need to put down some diagnosis or insurance may not pay.
Re:Chapter 10 - Large Projects
on
Advanced Rails
·
· Score: 3, Funny
If you're used to dumbed down languages like PHP, Ruby might seem like black magic, but if you take the time to learn Ruby, you'll probably never watch to touch a line of nasty PHP again.
Large scale projects are usually written in Java or.NET. PHP is merely the "lowest common denominator" language of the web.
Yes, allowing the user to modify a device complicates support. But this can be dealt with - look at how e.g. HP and Dell manage user support nowadays? "Reset your system to the factory-shipped state with the included Restore partition - problem solved." This is even easier to do with the iPhone.
Yeah, and that kind of support sucks. This is why Dell support is all but useless to anyone with a clue.
Thing is, users don't have to install any third-party software, if they want a "guaranteed quality experience". Why not simply allow people the choice about how they use their device?
Because then you end up with support that can't help you besides walking you through resetting your device/computer. One of the reasons I despise supporting Windows machine is the choice users have to install so much shit. Shit that I often have no experience with and really don't care to. Have you SEEN the size of your average user's Tray in the taskbar? It is bloody ridiculous.
Did you even read the post that you replied to? The GP just got done explaining why it makes sense to make a good (if imperfect) effort to prevent unauthorized access and why it doesn't necessarily matter if a few clever people can hack it.
No real religion protects their materials by copyright, so they can do #2, and use the law to squelch leaks and critics. 4) No real religion will make you disconnect from your friends and family, so you will have nobody to instill some sense into you--and stop you from doing #2.
If your friends and family don't want you to do #2, perhaps you should be disconnected from them. Not doing #2 will kill you.
I wonder how much of it is faked and how much of it is real Cocoa controls though. Not that it really matters, but I'd be interested to learn what they've done to Cocoaify the front end. I notice that you can't click and drag the window by grabbing the bit of teh toolbar below the title bar. In other Mac apps such as iTunes and Safari, you can grab any part of the gray toolbar and move the window.
First time I saw "personals" ads on a web page that seemed to know what city I lived in, I kinda freaked.
"Meet sexy singles in [your town]." And then it shows some "example" profiles of some women who are most likely just models. Then I look closer and I think "Oh my God, I've slept with these women! How did they know?" Then I realized that they just got my location from my IP and that I've slept with pretty much all the attractive women around here so it didn't really matter which ones they chose.
Good news is that it reminded me to go get tested for STDs.
Serious Linux users (that is, contributers, hackers, and tinkerers) don't have time to be gamers. Lets face it, gaming is often a full time job. Games these days involve a significant time investment. Especially online games. I've personally found it difficult to get involved in online games because it seems like everyone else online spends 16 hours a day playing and there's no way to compete. For example, I tried to play some casual Urban Terror (free FPS) and kept getting my ass kicked all over the place. I'd get like 1 or 2 kills if I was lucky. It just wasn't very fun at all. Not like I remember the casual after-hours Duke Nukem 3D/Quake battles at work where nobody was really a "gamer," per se.
That said, I've started playing EVE Online again after a 2.5 year hiatus. Which while still requiring some investment, doesn't necessarily have the same head-to-head competition. I don't feel the urge to constantly "grind" because my character advances (in skill) whether I am logged in or not. Oh, and it has Linux and OS X clients now.
I think we might see more Linux gamers if there were more games like EVE Online that didn't require too much time investment to remain competitive/engaging.
I've taken friends to the hospital who had no insurance in a life or death situation. They're still alive. I wonder how that happened. I guess the county and state paid to treat them like they have for like 80 years now.
The point is that it often doesn't have to become a life and death situation. People should feel they can see a doctor before a seemingly minor pain or other symptom turns into something serious.
Would you be willing to file for bankruptcy if you needed a heart or liver transplant? Given the choice of dying or having to move out of your house and have your family live in an apartment. What would be your choice?
Why should this have to be a choice?
Luckily it is (currently) illegal for a hospital to do a credit check before performing a procedure. Else people would probably be dying in the hospital lobby like doom and gloom universal healthcare proponents say.
Ok, it could be worse. Is that your point? My point is that it could be better.
As for insurance, I think it makes sense. insurance is supposed to protect you against losing all your money if the odds go against you. And this could be quite affordable and practical if it was mainly used for catastrophic cases rather than minor cases or chronic illness.
So how do people pay for all those doctors visits that aren't catastrophic cases? How do people get preventative medicine that can help avoid the catastrophes?
The Minority Report nightmare isn't that the ads are targeted, but that they are numerous and intrusive.
It is all three, IMO. How creepy would it be for an ad to call you by name and know more than it should about your personal life? Even if it was just once a day and relatively subtle. Like maybe you're on the bus and hear a hushed voice come from behind the seat, "Psst! Hey Matt. Wouldn't a Whopper sound good right about now? We know you like to eat lunch at around this time and there is a Burger King about one block from the next bus stop. Enjoy." Not intrusive. Not numerous, but targeted and really creepy.
Ads can be targeted without being intrusive-- Google's built an entire company on that concept.
They can be, but it depends on how a site implements them. One site I remember, for example, from back before I got fed up with ads had a Google ad between every other blog comment. No, it wasn't intrusive in the sense of being flashy and "in your face," but it was definitely an eyesore and a total waste of page real estate.
The difference is that Slashdot doesn't have "massive amounts of advertising". The front page has exactly 1 ad on each page. If that's too much for you, then fine. But I find it to be unobtrusive, and a very good way at generating cash. People are probably far more likely to remember and click on an ad, when they only see a single advertisement.
The interesting (great, really) thing about AdBlock Plus is that it is a lot easier to block nearly every ad than it is to selectively block. Even if the ads on Slashdot are not massive, why would I could out of my way to whitelist them? It just doesn't make any sense.
What is likely to happen is that more and more sites will go to flash/silverlight and the like.
If it goes that way, I doubt it would have anything to do with ad blocking. From what I understand, advertisers generally don't see ad blocking (on the web) as a big problem.
They'll likely say it is because it offers browser independence, and an enriched user experience, but I suspect that it will be mostly because then they control your content - and will be able to add ads wherever they want and you'll have little choice but to watch them (until someone invents an ad skipper, of course). Already there are lots of flash sites that make you sit through ads before and while you view the content.
I can't imagine a site like Slashdot going Flash/Silverlight. It isn't very conducive to interactive sites with lots of user generated content.
I don't recall ever clicking an ad either but, if I blindly speculate correctly, some ad-revenue is generated based on targeted viewing rather than purely click-through.
Then their model is flawed. Personally, I don't like the idea of being passively influenced like that. I'd feel much better about my purchases if I knew my decisions were based on my own research than some subliminal message.
Feel free to correct me if anyone has actual knowledge/data. I reject the argument that white-listing is stupid because advertisers suck - I know they do but, if they pay sites I like to provide content to me without forcing me to subscribe, I'll put up with them. But, if white-listing slashdot (et al.) really does not help them at all, then I'll clean out my white-list.
I do believe that WE are providing the majority of content for Slashdot. That's the web 2.0 model: "You create the content, we collect the revenue.":-)
Slashdot Mirror
I thought ClamAV was just a commandline scanner. WOuldn't you want an active on-access scanner?
Ok, forget about drugs. Perhaps you, as a doctor, know a way to treat it without medicine. If you're a psychologist or therapist, you wouldn't have any other choice. The point is you have to do something and treat your patient seriously even if you know deep in your heart that the patient should be able to stop playing WoW (or whatever the particular addiction happens to be) just like you did with no further urges.
If it makes you feel better, you could approach the problem from the personal responsibility angle rather than addressing the addiction, however real or perceived it may be, directly. What it comes down to is that some people FEEL like they don't have control. Your judgements about the validity of that feeling is irrelevant, if not outright insulting.
I'm just stating what happens to be a reality in our (the US) medical establishment. I'm not saying this is the way it should be.
-matthew
No arguments there. But that's not really a problem with psychiatry, is it? It is a problem with capitalism.
On the flipside, I do often get a laugh when I read some of the overcomplicated "Enterprisey" code the is all too often featured on sites like http://thedailywtf.com/. It is amazing what some "enterprise" programmers will write to justify their overly inflated hourly rates (and egos). Not that I haven't see my share of Ruby WTFs. But it gets taken to a whole new level once you get "enterprise" programmers involved.
Working in the "enterprise" sucks. Partially because large corporations are soulless hells, but mostly because of arrogant pricks like you. I'm sure you'd have to pay someone more than $100 an hour just to put up with your shit.
Lets say you're a doctor and you start getting patients coming in complaining that they have what appears to be an addiction to the Internet. Or perhaps they are trying to get help for a family member who is showing signs of addiction. What do you do? Do you just laugh it off? Say something like "just stop using the computer so much." What can the patient do? I understand that medicating it seems unreasonable, but what else can you do as a doctor when you can only see the patient once a week or whatever?
It isn't like doctors are going around to people's homes and declaring otherwise healthy people mentally ill. I'm sure this is mostly a reaction to people with serious problems looking for help.
Also, keep in mind that an official diagnosis is important for insurance purposes. "Internet addiction" may sound silly, but doctors need to put down some diagnosis or insurance may not pay.
If you're used to dumbed down languages like PHP, Ruby might seem like black magic, but if you take the time to learn Ruby, you'll probably never watch to touch a line of nasty PHP again.
.NET. PHP is merely the "lowest common denominator" language of the web.
Large scale projects are usually written in Java or
Combining computer and girlfriend: FAIL
Pays my bills.
Yeah, and that kind of support sucks. This is why Dell support is all but useless to anyone with a clue.
Because then you end up with support that can't help you besides walking you through resetting your device/computer. One of the reasons I despise supporting Windows machine is the choice users have to install so much shit. Shit that I often have no experience with and really don't care to. Have you SEEN the size of your average user's Tray in the taskbar? It is bloody ridiculous.
Did you even read the post that you replied to? The GP just got done explaining why it makes sense to make a good (if imperfect) effort to prevent unauthorized access and why it doesn't necessarily matter if a few clever people can hack it.
Not to mention the +5 Nuclear Damage you get. Unfortunately, you get a -3 Dex modifier when wielding. :(
If your friends and family don't want you to do #2, perhaps you should be disconnected from them. Not doing #2 will kill you.
I, for one, wouldn't mind if the girls they showed me were from another continent... particularly yours. ;-)
I wonder how much of it is faked and how much of it is real Cocoa controls though. Not that it really matters, but I'd be interested to learn what they've done to Cocoaify the front end. I notice that you can't click and drag the window by grabbing the bit of teh toolbar below the title bar. In other Mac apps such as iTunes and Safari, you can grab any part of the gray toolbar and move the window.
-matthew
First time I saw "personals" ads on a web page that seemed to know what city I lived in, I kinda freaked.
"Meet sexy singles in [your town]." And then it shows some "example" profiles of some women who are most likely just models. Then I look closer and I think "Oh my God, I've slept with these women! How did they know?" Then I realized that they just got my location from my IP and that I've slept with pretty much all the attractive women around here so it didn't really matter which ones they chose.
Good news is that it reminded me to go get tested for STDs.
+1 Flamebait
I know there were some, but I also ghosted many people who were really just that good.
Serious Linux users (that is, contributers, hackers, and tinkerers) don't have time to be gamers. Lets face it, gaming is often a full time job. Games these days involve a significant time investment. Especially online games. I've personally found it difficult to get involved in online games because it seems like everyone else online spends 16 hours a day playing and there's no way to compete. For example, I tried to play some casual Urban Terror (free FPS) and kept getting my ass kicked all over the place. I'd get like 1 or 2 kills if I was lucky. It just wasn't very fun at all. Not like I remember the casual after-hours Duke Nukem 3D/Quake battles at work where nobody was really a "gamer," per se.
That said, I've started playing EVE Online again after a 2.5 year hiatus. Which while still requiring some investment, doesn't necessarily have the same head-to-head competition. I don't feel the urge to constantly "grind" because my character advances (in skill) whether I am logged in or not. Oh, and it has Linux and OS X clients now.
I think we might see more Linux gamers if there were more games like EVE Online that didn't require too much time investment to remain competitive/engaging.
Can I get a Same-Linux-Starting-Point high five!
Did you color-code the labels on the floppies for the different sets (Base, X11, Apps) like I did?
Man, installing Slackware back then really did make you realize just how unreliable floppy disks are.
-mattew
The point is that it often doesn't have to become a life and death situation. People should feel they can see a doctor before a seemingly minor pain or other symptom turns into something serious.
Why should this have to be a choice?
Ok, it could be worse. Is that your point? My point is that it could be better.
So how do people pay for all those doctors visits that aren't catastrophic cases? How do people get preventative medicine that can help avoid the catastrophes?
-matthew
It is all three, IMO. How creepy would it be for an ad to call you by name and know more than it should about your personal life? Even if it was just once a day and relatively subtle. Like maybe you're on the bus and hear a hushed voice come from behind the seat, "Psst! Hey Matt. Wouldn't a Whopper sound good right about now? We know you like to eat lunch at around this time and there is a Burger King about one block from the next bus stop. Enjoy." Not intrusive. Not numerous, but targeted and really creepy.
They can be, but it depends on how a site implements them. One site I remember, for example, from back before I got fed up with ads had a Google ad between every other blog comment. No, it wasn't intrusive in the sense of being flashy and "in your face," but it was definitely an eyesore and a total waste of page real estate.
The interesting (great, really) thing about AdBlock Plus is that it is a lot easier to block nearly every ad than it is to selectively block. Even if the ads on Slashdot are not massive, why would I could out of my way to whitelist them? It just doesn't make any sense.
-matthew
If it goes that way, I doubt it would have anything to do with ad blocking. From what I understand, advertisers generally don't see ad blocking (on the web) as a big problem.
I can't imagine a site like Slashdot going Flash/Silverlight. It isn't very conducive to interactive sites with lots of user generated content.
-matthew
Then their model is flawed. Personally, I don't like the idea of being passively influenced like that. I'd feel much better about my purchases if I knew my decisions were based on my own research than some subliminal message.
I do believe that WE are providing the majority of content for Slashdot. That's the web 2.0 model: "You create the content, we collect the revenue."
-matthew