... Programmers are far above the low level work of brick laying....
There is some truth in what you say, but it's obvious that you don't know anything about bricklaying. Jobs that have lower prestege are not necessarily less complicated. Try building a garden wall for your house. If you don't spend a sgnificant amount of time studying, then it will probably last less that a year.
... First, you need to prove the processor is bug free- there *have* been floating point bugs in Intel processors in the past. Then every other piece of hardware in the system. Then the system as a whole.
Once you've done that-...
Except we were talking about "errors made by the programmer". What you say is true, but too often it is used as an excuse for lazy programming.
Since my son-in-law is a master mason (senior bricklayer and other things), I can answer this. The brick layer can't charge more because there is competition. So they just don't make mistakes. That requires a lot of knowledge, to work, but it does. If the wall falls down, even if no-one is killed, it can be the end of their career.
Companies can hire cheap workers and then eat the mistakes, but even for them it can mean the end.
I think someday software will be like this. Prepare yourself!
Interesting thought. Can you think of ANY democracies that followed this particular path into dictatorship?
I can't.
Look at the democracies that existed before the United States. That's what they were looking at when that was said. Also look at the Weimar Republic, for a "horrible example".
1) The opponent might have done even worse by you, or at the very least, no better.
2) Your guy might not have the power to implement what he desires.
3) Conditions have been such that neither your guy nor his opponent have any chance to fix things.
Add another:
4) What he said he would do, might not be possible under the laws of physics.
Example: Economics is based on the laws of thermodynamics, not human laws.
Many people seem to think the election is a test, that you are supposed to vote for the one that you think will win. That is -not- how it is supposed to work! Voting for someone else does not "waste" your vote. The polititians can still see the total numbers.
However, looking at the elections for the last fifty years, it seems that voters don't do what the reserchers seem to think they are doing. It's more like they vote in the side that results in power blocks being broken up, such as changing parties after a war where extra powers were voted in. Step back and take another look...
Actually, the human eye can really only perceive images with 16ms at the very fastest. Most people's cognitive recognition is at about 50ms, and auditory recognition is about 70ms.
Those numbers are from the wrong kind of measurement. They were a test of how long the image would remain in the visual cells if a black background was presented. Like for avoiding flicker in a video. They have nothing to do with how fast an image can be percieved, which is several orders of magnitude faster depending on light level and contrast.
Latency over 1ms are distressing to human subconscious under those conditions.
Do you have more info on that? Seriously, no snark, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical. I've never heard of human perception time being less than 30ms. I hate slow responses in UI's with a passion, but 1ms?
I can read a line on a screen that is only there for 1/10,000 of a second. And so can you, with a little practice and assuming the background light is not too bright. Of course, it's not a computer screen, they can't do that. Human senses are not very good, but they are a lot better than people think.
Different specialties have different dialects of "technish", If you want to say something that someone will understand, then you need to find out what dialect they talk. And translate.
We need Google Translate to work on Javascript to SQL to C++ to Clarion ! ( to Salesman to Manager to Politian !!) 8-)
There are a finite number of ways to improve things. There is an infinate number of ways to make them worse. People who pick something at random and expect the change to make things better, do not have a good "track record" !
Even then - if they're thousands or millions of years more advanced than us, which would be the way to bet, just how much progress have we really made? Nukes might be something that would get their attention, but then again maybe not.
Read a few science fiction novels. This has been discussed and "simulated" for longer than we have been alive...
I'd lose sleep if tobacco and/or alcohol were banned. Imagine how much organised crime would benefit from banning those two - It'd be like prohibition all over again.
Good point. Governments banning inanimate objects of almost any type, just cause windfall profits for criminal gangs. In fact, prohibition of alcohol -created- the criminal gangs that sold it!. And, the criminals bribed some polititions to keep it illegal, but were eventually unsuccessful. To stop drug gangs, make it legal. But that might be dangerous to the people trying to change it, so be careful.
Most of those words are the "nicer" words that people were supposed to use, so as not to insult various people. See "euphemism". The result is the "nicer" word just takes on the bad connotation and gets "ruined", as well as the old one. The world goes through a cycle of this several times each generation, but it is futile.
At this stage, you do not need to "marginalize the non-believers," they have done that nicely for themselves. The real scientific debates over this were back in the 1980's, for pete's sake (I participated in some of them). Now it's all just politics.
Politics. That is a significant point. I suspect that many who oppose the AGW bills, are actually opposing the power blocks and control "freaks" that are trying to use it to gain power and money! Their damage is much more nearby.
So even the Slashgods don't have the power to fix summaries? If so, I guess that explains a lot. But surely if they don't already have that power, at least they have the power to grant that new power to themselves. Or am I overestimating them again?
I think they would rather not... The idea was that the readers would do all the work. 8-)
Judging by the fact that summaries so frequently contain simple errors (this one seemed to be missing an "a" - which sounds kinda stereotypically Japanese in the context of WWII: I then read "Pratform" instead of "Platform"), it seems as though they post the summaries without editing. If that's the case, the units are whatever the submitter submitted....
On slashdot, "they" is us. And we don't get to change text, just rate it...
Slashdot Mirror
... Programmers are far above the low level work of brick laying. ...
There is some truth in what you say, but it's obvious that you don't know anything about bricklaying. Jobs that have lower prestege are not necessarily less complicated. Try building a garden wall for your house. If you don't spend a sgnificant amount of time studying, then it will probably last less that a year.
... First, you need to prove the processor is bug free- there *have* been floating point bugs in Intel processors in the past. Then every other piece of hardware in the system. Then the system as a whole.
Once you've done that- ...
Except we were talking about "errors made by the programmer".
What you say is true, but too often it is used as an excuse for lazy programming.
Since my son-in-law is a master mason (senior bricklayer and other things), I can answer this.
The brick layer can't charge more because there is competition. So they just don't make mistakes. That requires a lot of knowledge, to work, but it does.
If the wall falls down, even if no-one is killed, it can be the end of their career.
Companies can hire cheap workers and then eat the mistakes, but even for them it can mean the end.
I think someday software will be like this. Prepare yourself!
for those who do not comprehend the underlying data.
But if you put the numbers in units that people can relate to, it becomes something they can comprehend and make educated decisions.
Which is why reporters and politicians and salesmen put them in percentages!
Interesting thought. Can you think of ANY democracies that followed this particular path into dictatorship?
I can't.
Look at the democracies that existed before the United States. That's what they were looking at when that was said.
Also look at the Weimar Republic, for a "horrible example".
... The following considerations apply:
1) The opponent might have done even worse by you, or at the very least, no better.
2) Your guy might not have the power to implement what he desires.
3) Conditions have been such that neither your guy nor his opponent have any chance to fix things.
Add another:
4) What he said he would do, might not be possible under the laws of physics.
Example: Economics is based on the laws of thermodynamics, not human laws.
Deflation can only happen if we allow growth to stop.
Inflation is not growth.
If there is no inflation, then growth causes deflation.
Democracy is broken. But it is designed that way, so even worse things don't happen.
"Democracy is the worst type of government... except for all of the rest."
Many people seem to think the election is a test, that you are supposed to vote for the one that you think will win. That is -not- how it is supposed to work!
Voting for someone else does not "waste" your vote. The polititians can still see the total numbers.
However, looking at the elections for the last fifty years, it seems that voters don't do what the reserchers seem to think they are doing. It's more like they vote in the side that results in power blocks being broken up, such as changing parties after a war where extra powers were voted in. Step back and take another look...
To think that the news media are/were trying to serve the readers with accurate data, is naive.
Look up the origins of the term "yellow journalism".
wrong.
i think the US government is incredible at building roads, and it's military seems rather well managed.
also, library's kick ass.
The Bureau of Standards is pretty good, too.
But then, those are things it is -supposed- to do.
Even Microsoft websites no longer support IE6.
And you know what we think of Micro$oft !
Actually, the human eye can really only perceive images with 16ms at the very fastest. Most people's cognitive recognition is at about 50ms, and auditory recognition is about 70ms.
Those numbers are from the wrong kind of measurement. They were a test of how long the image would remain in the visual cells if a black background was presented. Like for avoiding flicker in a video.
They have nothing to do with how fast an image can be percieved, which is several orders of magnitude faster depending on light level and contrast.
Latency over 1ms are distressing to human subconscious under those conditions.
Do you have more info on that? Seriously, no snark, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical. I've never heard of human perception time being less than 30ms. I hate slow responses in UI's with a passion, but 1ms?
I can read a line on a screen that is only there for 1/10,000 of a second.
And so can you, with a little practice and assuming the background light is not too bright.
Of course, it's not a computer screen, they can't do that.
Human senses are not very good, but they are a lot better than people think.
Different specialties have different dialects of "technish", If you want to say something that someone will understand, then you need to find out what dialect they talk. And translate.
We need Google Translate to work on Javascript to SQL to C++ to Clarion !
( to Salesman to Manager to Politian !!) 8-)
There are a finite number of ways to improve things. There is an infinate number of ways to make them worse. People who pick something at random and expect the change to make things better, do not have a good "track record" !
most human children don't...spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors
I'm not so sure about that one...
There seems to be some evidence that children that -don't- spend time in the dirt with the bugs, have a tendency to develop allergies.
The theory is that the immune system, without enemies to fight against, has a tendency to get too sensitive and attack the wrong things.
Even then - if they're thousands or millions of years more advanced than us, which would be the way to bet, just how much progress have we really made? Nukes might be something that would get their attention, but then again maybe not.
Read a few science fiction novels. This has been discussed and "simulated" for longer than we have been alive...
I'd lose sleep if tobacco and/or alcohol were banned. Imagine how much organised crime would benefit from banning those two - It'd be like prohibition all over again.
Good point. Governments banning inanimate objects of almost any type, just cause windfall profits for criminal gangs.
In fact, prohibition of alcohol -created- the criminal gangs that sold it!.
And, the criminals bribed some polititions to keep it illegal, but were eventually unsuccessful.
To stop drug gangs, make it legal. But that might be dangerous to the people trying to change it, so be careful.
Most of those words are the "nicer" words that people were supposed to use, so as not to insult various people. See "euphemism".
The result is the "nicer" word just takes on the bad connotation and gets "ruined", as well as the old one.
The world goes through a cycle of this several times each generation, but it is futile.
the Christian's god was probably a volcano.
I always thought it was a burning bush, aka an open oil spring somewhere in the desert.
No, it was just a flashlight. The big question is: who's flashlight was it?
When you denigrate the common people, keep in mind that about half of them are smarter than you are...
8-)
At this stage, you do not need to "marginalize the non-believers," they have done that nicely for themselves. The real scientific debates over this were back in the 1980's, for pete's sake (I participated in some of them). Now it's all just politics.
Politics. That is a significant point. I suspect that many who oppose the AGW bills, are actually opposing the power blocks and control "freaks" that are trying to use it to gain power and money! Their damage is much more nearby.
And we don't get to change text, just rate it...
So even the Slashgods don't have the power to fix summaries? If so, I guess that explains a lot. But surely if they don't already have that power, at least they have the power to grant that new power to themselves. Or am I overestimating them again?
I think they would rather not...
The idea was that the readers would do all the work. 8-)
Judging by the fact that summaries so frequently contain simple errors (this one seemed to be missing an "a" - which sounds kinda stereotypically Japanese in the context of WWII: I then read "Pratform" instead of "Platform"), it seems as though they post the summaries without editing. If that's the case, the units are whatever the submitter submitted. ...
On slashdot, "they" is us. And we don't get to change text, just rate it...