So you export to ODF and convert to PDF.... with what? OpenOffice? Why not do the presentation in OpenOffice in teh first place and have a much richer presentation?
And despite certain movies that say otherwise, "nerdy" is generally considered to be a Good Thing if your going to university... well, if you're going to a GOOD university. I'd be concerned if any university I was going to had a problem with the "nerdiness" of their curriculum. That would imply that they aren't attracting high caliber students (men OR women) and feel they have to dumb things down a bit to keep the students they do have.
Its funny you should mention geeks meeting up. Is that the best reason to actively recruit women? What I'm trying to say is if women don't want to enroll, so be it. Why force this 'positive discrimination'? Now if it was said that there was an overall drop in students enrolling then I would understand some concern but I just don't understand why we should force equality.
I don't think it is necessarily about forcing equality. It is just business. If you're a university and you are seeing enrollment dropping in a certain department which is typically domainated by men, and it is a national trend which means it isn't necessarily something you're doing wrong as a school, why not try going for the women? Who knows, you might discover a whole new market. As long as you are not simply taking students away from other departments and moving them into CS (no net enrollment gain), it makes good business sense.
It isn't about the target practice. It is about the mental preparedness and general life experience dealing with hostile and violent people. I would expect a police officer to be on guard for that sort of thing, but you'd have to be a particularly vigilant citizen to be ready to fend off a psycho with a gun. That's all I'm saying.
Wow, that just seems so hardcore to me. It would simply never occur to me to carry a gun around. But then, I don't even like to carry a cell phone and don't unless my employer requires it.
I have not done any Java in years. I wonder how this compares to duck typing as in Ruby. Can anyone explain this in terms of Ruby's duck typing and collections?
Wasn't the Amiga also popular in Europe at some point? Nothing wrong with the Amiga, just pointing out that you can't always use Europe as a gauge for success.;-)
Seriously? You actually carry it? Like in a holster? Are you a (ex)cop or something? How often and in what situation do you carry? Seems to me that this is rather unusual for gun owners.
I was reading some info about crime stats and one interestign thing: Victims of crimes who possessed guns/weapons during the incident had a good chance (40%) of having their own weapon used against them.
And that is just for the gun owners who happen to have their gun handy at the time. What about all the gun owners who just didn't have their gun handy at the time of the incident. I would bet that this is the most likely scenerio.
I really don't understand why you think this... You don't have to be "specially trained" to pull a pistol and shoot a psycho, unless perhaps the psycho has had special training. Occasional target shooting is enough. Considering that the psycho in these cases doesn't really try to avoid death, you probably wouldn't even need that.
It isn't really about the skill gained in training, I'm just talking about being prepared mentally. Shooting someone, even a "psycho", is a big deal for anyone. Things change when the shit hits the fan. People freeze up. Self-preservation takes over, etc, etc.
I don't keep my gun locked up all the time with ammunition in a separate place; you're quite right that it wouldn't do me much good in that case. Just keep it, with ammo, in a place that's sensibly secure and allows you to get to it quickly, so you'll have it if you need it.
So what you are saying is that you wouldn't have a gun with you if you were, say, at the mall and a psycho starts shooting up the place? How about walking down the street and a mugger comes up behind you? How useful is your secured gun then? Even if it is in the glove compartment of your car, its still unlikely to be useful. In the case of a carjacking, you're not going to get the chance to lean over, open your glove compartment, load your gun, and point it at the carjacker. I can't see a gun being useful in any situation except home intrusion. And even then you'd have to be given an opportunity to get your gun and load it before the intruder finds you.
I'd like to emphasize that I'm not arguing against personal firearms. I'm merely questioning the real-world usefulness.
ost recently, an off-duty police officer stopped gunman in a Salt Lake City Mall (link [nwsource.com]).
Well, um, that is a police officer. Hardly seems relevent. We're talking about "average" citizens. (if you can call a person who engages in a gunfight with a shooter average).
Mall shootings were a popular terrorist tactict in Israel... until the government required all active military (practicaly all college-aged Israelies) to always be armed (can only find a second hand source, a blog post discussing the SLC shooting in relation to the events in Israel).
Again, it is their JOB to protect against shootings. Not really waht I was asking for.
Try pulling that psycho bullshit in a Virginia mall, and that shooter's life would have ended a lot quicker, with a whole lot less innocent people injured.
Are there any cases that have really put this to the test? I mean, it sounds good... the idea that some armed citizen/vigilante would engage in a gunfight with a crazed shooter, but I wonder if it really happens. You'd almost have to be specially trained (military, for example) to engage people like that. Just having some target shooting under your belt just doesn't seem like enough.
I wonder same thing with armed self defense in general. Sure, It is nice to know that you own a gun and you know how to use it if you had to. But do people really get the opportunity? Do personal firearms really get used in self defense? Seems to me that unless you are walk around with your gun in a holster at your side (and under your pillow) 24/7, chances are that your gun just isn't going to be in the right place at the right time. Don't most people keep their guns locked up for safety? What good is it there?
I dunno, it just sounds like a myth to me... that personal firearms make one safer.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that people should be allowed to own personal firearms, but I think perhaps we should be a little more realistic regarding why. It really comes down to one argument: Because it is a free country. Same thing with drugs. I could make up all kinds of arguments about how I use drugs casually, spritually, with moderation, etc. but the real argument for legalization of drugs: The government has no right to tell me what I can an cannot put into my body. Any other argument is moot.
I mean, come on. You get 30 seconds of dialog then spend 5 hours trying to accomplish the quest, 4 hours of which was spent trying to build up enough cash and/or magic in order to complete the quest.
What are you talking about? Obvlion was all about letting the player do any quest no matter what level they were. I've played my share of RPGs, and Obvivion is definitly NOT one that you had to build up/grind before going on quests. Though collecting plants for alchemy, to make potions and such, was a bit of a pain. The only thing really wrong with Oblibion IMO was the leveling system. It is the only game I've ever played where I didn't look forward to leveling. What really annoying thing was doing the "exercises" before leveling so you coudl get decent stat gains. Like I'd put on some heavy armor and go tank a crab for 15 minutes to build up strength. Or cast utility spells over and over again to exercise intelligence (ha!). I also didn't really like how the world adapted to you rather than you adapting to you. Otherwise Oblivion was pretty cool.;->
You might as well ask an old man if music was better when he was younger.:-)
I'm going to have to fight the nostalgia and say, "hell yea gaming is better now." I spent my fair share of time typing in games in BASIC line by line from a book. And you know what? Those games sucked ass. The ONLY reason I spent any time playing them was because I didn't want to feel like the time I spent typing was wasted.
I don't really see anything special about games "back in the day." Sure, you can say that programmers were forced to be creative with limited resources, but I am not sure that is necessarily a bonus for the end user. Really, most games 15, 20 years ago were just plain simple. Maybe they had a good idea that could keep people hooked, but really, they were extremely repetitive (I'm looking at you, Atari). They just have nothing on some of the depth you can get in games today. Even overlooking tge fancy graphics (which is a bonus in and of itself, IMO), you can spend a fair amount of time just learning how a modern game works... learning strategy, etc. It is much more than hand-eye coordination these days.
That said, I don't play many games any more even though I could. The really old game just plain bore the crap out of me within 5 seconds and the modern games just take about a couple hours longer to bore me. But that is just me getting older. I don't think it should reflect on the quality of gaming.
Definitly, if you really need to support both formats, a combined unit is going to be the way to go. I'm just talking about how the average consumer might look at it. Although I'm no average consumer.:-P
Just because your father has a child with your aunt, that doesn't make your aunt your mum. She's still only your aunt. She just happens to be the mother of your half-sibling.
3) market more expensive devices that handle both, as both a marketing advantage, a manufacturing skill advantage,
That would be a bad strategy. Supporting both formats is only be feasable if it can be done with minimal impact on the final cost of the product compared to devices that can only play one format or the other. Well, i'm sure some peole would buy them, but I don't think it would be a market dominating strategy.
If *I* were in the market for an HD player, I'd first be looking at which one format has the most/best titles and just pick a player than played those before consider a significantly more expensive device that plays both. As it is, I'm going to be with DVD for some time to come. The title I tend to rent (I don't buy) are barely even on DVD sometimes, much less Blu-ray or HD-DVD:-P
Damn, you're right! It is possible for your aunt to have given birth to you if your father slept with his sister. She'd be your mother AND your aunt. I hadn't thought of that.
The point is that a malformed documented shouldn't throw a word processor into an unrecoverable state. That is a bug. I don't know whether or not it is a denial of service attack. That is debatable, but not properly handling an exception in a document is definitely a bug. A word processor can simply tell the user, "hey, this document is fucked, I can't open it." If it just crashes, the user could possibly lose data in other open documents. And that is a Bad Thing(tm).
I realize you're probably joking, but I'd like to make it clear that "related to" != "evolved from." Saying that we evolved from some species just because we are related to it would be like suggesting that your aunt gave birth to you.
A fast motorcycle could cover the distances pretty quickly. You can't say you didn't like the offroad car races though. Come on. The countryside MADE that game, IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
So you export to ODF and convert to PDF.... with what? OpenOffice? Why not do the presentation in OpenOffice in teh first place and have a much richer presentation?
-matthew
And despite certain movies that say otherwise, "nerdy" is generally considered to be a Good Thing if your going to university... well, if you're going to a GOOD university. I'd be concerned if any university I was going to had a problem with the "nerdiness" of their curriculum. That would imply that they aren't attracting high caliber students (men OR women) and feel they have to dumb things down a bit to keep the students they do have.
-matthew
I don't think it is necessarily about forcing equality. It is just business. If you're a university and you are seeing enrollment dropping in a certain department which is typically domainated by men, and it is a national trend which means it isn't necessarily something you're doing wrong as a school, why not try going for the women? Who knows, you might discover a whole new market. As long as you are not simply taking students away from other departments and moving them into CS (no net enrollment gain), it makes good business sense.
-matthew
It isn't about the target practice. It is about the mental preparedness and general life experience dealing with hostile and violent people. I would expect a police officer to be on guard for that sort of thing, but you'd have to be a particularly vigilant citizen to be ready to fend off a psycho with a gun. That's all I'm saying.
Wow, that just seems so hardcore to me. It would simply never occur to me to carry a gun around. But then, I don't even like to carry a cell phone and don't unless my employer requires it.
-matthew
I have not done any Java in years. I wonder how this compares to duck typing as in Ruby. Can anyone explain this in terms of Ruby's duck typing and collections?
-matthew
Wasn't the Amiga also popular in Europe at some point? Nothing wrong with the Amiga, just pointing out that you can't always use Europe as a gauge for success. ;-)
-matthew
Seriously? You actually carry it? Like in a holster? Are you a (ex)cop or something? How often and in what situation do you carry? Seems to me that this is rather unusual for gun owners.
-matthew
And that is just for the gun owners who happen to have their gun handy at the time. What about all the gun owners who just didn't have their gun handy at the time of the incident. I would bet that this is the most likely scenerio.
-matthew
It isn't really about the skill gained in training, I'm just talking about being prepared mentally. Shooting someone, even a "psycho", is a big deal for anyone. Things change when the shit hits the fan. People freeze up. Self-preservation takes over, etc, etc.
So what you are saying is that you wouldn't have a gun with you if you were, say, at the mall and a psycho starts shooting up the place? How about walking down the street and a mugger comes up behind you? How useful is your secured gun then? Even if it is in the glove compartment of your car, its still unlikely to be useful. In the case of a carjacking, you're not going to get the chance to lean over, open your glove compartment, load your gun, and point it at the carjacker. I can't see a gun being useful in any situation except home intrusion. And even then you'd have to be given an opportunity to get your gun and load it before the intruder finds you.
I'd like to emphasize that I'm not arguing against personal firearms. I'm merely questioning the real-world usefulness.
-matthew
Well, um, that is a police officer. Hardly seems relevent. We're talking about "average" citizens. (if you can call a person who engages in a gunfight with a shooter average).
Again, it is their JOB to protect against shootings. Not really waht I was asking for.
-matthew
Are there any cases that have really put this to the test? I mean, it sounds good... the idea that some armed citizen/vigilante would engage in a gunfight with a crazed shooter, but I wonder if it really happens. You'd almost have to be specially trained (military, for example) to engage people like that. Just having some target shooting under your belt just doesn't seem like enough.
I wonder same thing with armed self defense in general. Sure, It is nice to know that you own a gun and you know how to use it if you had to. But do people really get the opportunity? Do personal firearms really get used in self defense? Seems to me that unless you are walk around with your gun in a holster at your side (and under your pillow) 24/7, chances are that your gun just isn't going to be in the right place at the right time. Don't most people keep their guns locked up for safety? What good is it there?
I dunno, it just sounds like a myth to me... that personal firearms make one safer.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that people should be allowed to own personal firearms, but I think perhaps we should be a little more realistic regarding why. It really comes down to one argument: Because it is a free country. Same thing with drugs. I could make up all kinds of arguments about how I use drugs casually, spritually, with moderation, etc. but the real argument for legalization of drugs: The government has no right to tell me what I can an cannot put into my body. Any other argument is moot.
-matthew
At least you can block the ads, unlike their print magazine.
-matthew
What are you talking about? Obvlion was all about letting the player do any quest no matter what level they were. I've played my share of RPGs, and Obvivion is definitly NOT one that you had to build up/grind before going on quests. Though collecting plants for alchemy, to make potions and such, was a bit of a pain. The only thing really wrong with Oblibion IMO was the leveling system. It is the only game I've ever played where I didn't look forward to leveling. What really annoying thing was doing the "exercises" before leveling so you coudl get decent stat gains. Like I'd put on some heavy armor and go tank a crab for 15 minutes to build up strength. Or cast utility spells over and over again to exercise intelligence (ha!). I also didn't really like how the world adapted to you rather than you adapting to you. Otherwise Oblivion was pretty cool.
-matthew
You might as well ask an old man if music was better when he was younger. :-)
I'm going to have to fight the nostalgia and say, "hell yea gaming is better now." I spent my fair share of time typing in games in BASIC line by line from a book. And you know what? Those games sucked ass. The ONLY reason I spent any time playing them was because I didn't want to feel like the time I spent typing was wasted.
I don't really see anything special about games "back in the day." Sure, you can say that programmers were forced to be creative with limited resources, but I am not sure that is necessarily a bonus for the end user. Really, most games 15, 20 years ago were just plain simple. Maybe they had a good idea that could keep people hooked, but really, they were extremely repetitive (I'm looking at you, Atari). They just have nothing on some of the depth you can get in games today. Even overlooking tge fancy graphics (which is a bonus in and of itself, IMO), you can spend a fair amount of time just learning how a modern game works... learning strategy, etc. It is much more than hand-eye coordination these days.
That said, I don't play many games any more even though I could. The really old game just plain bore the crap out of me within 5 seconds and the modern games just take about a couple hours longer to bore me. But that is just me getting older. I don't think it should reflect on the quality of gaming.
-matthew
That doesn't really count. We're talking about genetics, not social constructs.
-matthew
Definitly, if you really need to support both formats, a combined unit is going to be the way to go. I'm just talking about how the average consumer might look at it. Although I'm no average consumer. :-P
-matthew
Just because your father has a child with your aunt, that doesn't make your aunt your mum. She's still only your aunt. She just happens to be the mother of your half-sibling.
-matthew
That would be a bad strategy. Supporting both formats is only be feasable if it can be done with minimal impact on the final cost of the product compared to devices that can only play one format or the other. Well, i'm sure some peole would buy them, but I don't think it would be a market dominating strategy.
If *I* were in the market for an HD player, I'd first be looking at which one format has the most/best titles and just pick a player than played those before consider a significantly more expensive device that plays both. As it is, I'm going to be with DVD for some time to come. The title I tend to rent (I don't buy) are barely even on DVD sometimes, much less Blu-ray or HD-DVD
-matthew
Damn, you're right! It is possible for your aunt to have given birth to you if your father slept with his sister. She'd be your mother AND your aunt. I hadn't thought of that.
-matthew
The point is that a malformed documented shouldn't throw a word processor into an unrecoverable state. That is a bug. I don't know whether or not it is a denial of service attack. That is debatable, but not properly handling an exception in a document is definitely a bug. A word processor can simply tell the user, "hey, this document is fucked, I can't open it." If it just crashes, the user could possibly lose data in other open documents. And that is a Bad Thing(tm).
-matthew
I realize you're probably joking, but I'd like to make it clear that "related to" != "evolved from." Saying that we evolved from some species just because we are related to it would be like suggesting that your aunt gave birth to you.
-matthew
Wait, we're children of God? I thought Jesus was the only son of God. Does that make Jesus my brother?
-matthew
Try EasyElement along with EasyList. I don't see any gaps on eBay.
-matthew
A fast motorcycle could cover the distances pretty quickly. You can't say you didn't like the offroad car races though. Come on. The countryside MADE that game, IMO.
-matthew