I don't like the "rockstar" label, but excellent software developers are more than worth it, as Fred Brooks knew years ago...
Study after study shows that the very best designers produce structures that are faster, smaller, simpler, clearer, and produced with less effort. The differences between the great and the average approach an order of magnitude.
Then, and this is the absolute most important part, I walk away when I hit my goal, usually $50 or $100.
If you really can get a positive expectation on a particular roulette wheel because of a flawed wheel or flawed croupier (which I doubt), then this does not make sense. If you have an advantage, then it doesn't matter whether you have hit your goal or not. Over the very long run, if you always bet when you have an advantage, you will have a positive expectation. Or maybe does the croupier change his behavior or the house level the wheel after you have made your $100?
First, before marrying, discuss and make sure you can agree how to handle the following things:
1. Money 2. Religion 3. Children 4. In-laws
Second, make sure that both of you view marriage as a final, irrevocable decision. If either of you keep divorce in your back pocket as an option, then you have two strikes against you.
Actually, I did read those lines, and found nothing remotely suggesting the Bible is considered by the Catholic church to be "fallible and contradictory," which was what was asserted by the poster I quoted.
On the contrary, I line 107 claims the opposite: "The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."
How does interpretation and contemplation suggest fallibility or contradictions? How does trying to read the text in the sense it was intended (not necessarily literally) imply fallibility or contradictions?
Many people assert that the Bible is fallible and contradictory, but to say the Catholic church holds that position is ignorant.
[...]There's many, many Christian denominations which recognize the Bible as being fallible and contradictory (One of them got to be pretty big, actually: They call themselves the Roman Catholic Church). [...]
They make it expensive, and they can make it more immersive, but they do not contribute automatically to making a game fun, which is what it's all about.
I agree that if it isn't 3D, it isn't immersive. An for me if it isn't immersive then it might as well be FreeCell. I might play FreeCell while waiting for my kid's soccer game to start, but I sure won't pay for it.
Granted I am just a single data point, but to get me to buy a new game, it needs to have something even more ambitious than what has been done before. Figure out how to do an MMORPG with full PvP while keeping griefers in check, with a fully dynamic world in which changes made by players stick, and with NPC AI that immerses me enough that I don't think about "aggro radius," and you will have my purchase in a heartbeat.
Minor nit: growth is change. If your concept of space and time is accurate, then from the outside looking in we are no more growing than we are changing.
I understand (in a wimpy pop-science kind of way) the 4D space-time "block" concept...the concept that all of space and time just is.
However, that concept in and of itself doesn't preclude free will. Rather it only means that from some god's eye point of view all of the free will choices within space-time have "already" been made.
What I don't understand is how experience emerges from a static space-time. I don't even understand how experience emerges within time. (I've written enough software to be skeptical of increasing complexity at some point magically producing sentience.) I think the question of how conscious experience happens is somehow related to the free-will question.
I got a chance to use a Connection Machine (real, not emulated) in the late 1980s, just a couple of years out of college. It was an internal R&D project for a defense contractor, porting a computational fluid dynamics program I didn't understand from Cray vectorized Fortran to the CM's *Lisp. Fun stuff.
I even got a chance to visit Thinking Machines headquarters in Boston, and hear Danny Hillis speak. Here he was speaking to a room full of suits, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. I remember thinking at the time that being able to do that was quite an indicator of success.
Yeah, yeah, I know...offtopic, overrated, etc. So mod me down if you must. (Or is that just reverse psychology on you moderators? Muhahaha!)
A typical aggressor already has the means to successfully attack anyone who is elderly enough or disabled enough to need the device in the article. If we could magically eliminate all weapons, then the physically strong would still be able to attack the physically weak.
The fact that the device in the article (or just a regular firearm) would be both useful to an aggressor and to a victim shows merely that it is a useful tool.
Lose/lose? Since able-bodied aggressors can already easily attack elderly or disabled victims, I think that an armed potential victim is a clear win/lose. The win is for the potential victim who has a chance to avoid being a victim. The lose is for the attacker who must face the chance that his attack could be thwarted.
Ah...maybe I interpreted the AC a little loosely. I agree with you that we already live in a society with many socialist aspects. And I agree with AC that Obama will introduce more socialism.
If I were "drawing the line" as you say, I would draw it at the minimum amount of government intervention we could get away with. And I would limit (federal) government intervention to those things that are clearly common goods: national defense, court system, maybe interstate highways, etc. Direct transfers of wealth from one group to another (in whatever direction) would not make my list.
It sounds like your definition of true liberty is "positive liberty" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty. When I say liberty, I mean negative liberty as it is discussed in that article. I consider the concept of positive liberty to be rhetorical lipstick to make patronizing collectivism more palatable. Yuck.
On the other hand, I do want people to be "free from the ravages of nature." And I try to do my small part of making that happen. But I do it with my own resources...I don't use other people's time and money against their will.
Payroll tax is to fund social security benefits. Most people who live long enough to collect social security withdraws more than they paid. So I fail to see how anyone can make the argument that FICA transfers money from the poor to the rich. (It does transfer money from one generation to another, which I also think is a bad idea.)
Anyways, the point is he is decreasing the taxes on the rich at the expense of the poor (lowering taxes for one group means all other groups are now paying for a higher portion of public goods).
No, the original poster quite clearly said that McCain wanted to "tax the poor to pay the wealthy." If that doesn't mean transferring money from the poor to the wealthy, then I guess I need remedial English lessons. According to my quick check at http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/tax_calculators/index.html, those under the poverty level are paying a 0% portion of the public goods that come from federal income tax. So again I ask, just how is that taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich?
The poor do have to pay things like sales tax, gasoline tax, etc. I would be open to proposals to exempt those under the poverty line from such taxes.
Got a source on this? I just went to http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/tax_calculators/index.html and plugged in the poverty level for both a single taxpayer and married filing jointly with 2 kids, and in both cases the result was a refund via earned income tax credit.
Very interesting...botting is something I hadn't considered. It seemed to me that the GP poster was talking just about AI in NPCs.
In my ideal MMORPG all player characters would be at least semi-bots, because I would require that that character always have an in-game presence, even when the player was not logged in. The player would need to define the character's behavior for while he was gone, either choosing from some conservative stock behaviors, or scripting his own.
It should be noted that the AI of systems that live their whole lives in the simulated world (MMORPGs come to mind) is actually very advanced. Methinks you haven't spent much time playing MMORGs.;-)
"Hey, Leeroy...see that group of two orcs standing off to the side? I think we can body-pull them without getting the boss. What do you think?"
...and inclined to send off some useless email complaints that no one at the company will care about. Does anyone have email addresses for corporate officers of Bioware and EA? I tried JRiccitiello@ea.com for kicks, but I doubt it is any good.
I apologize for feeding the troll, but idiotic moderation has him pushed up to "3, Insightful," and I just can't stand it.
No, this is why the rest of the world *pities* the US. This profound utterance deserves a well-considered response, one that will bridge the obvious and unfortunate cultural gap. How about this: Why don't you stick your pity up your ass?
Yes indeed. That must be a really horrible way to live. I really can't imagine having to live in such a climate of fear. I have traveled internationally enough to understand that the United States is blessed with great natural resources and with a history of freedom and opportunity. I am humbled and grateful to live here.
That said, there are places in this country with crime rates high enough that gun ownership for protection is an obvious and reasonable choice. What I really don't understand is the response of those to whom using the best tool for the job is somehow unthinkable. Would these same people oppose table saws for woodworking because they can accidentally take off fingers?
By the way, I have had formal gun safety training. I make sure my children also get it at an appropriate age. I reinforce that training during recreational shooting. Life is full of risks, but owning a gun need not be any more dangerous than owning an automobile, a table saw, a swimming pool, or any other useful but potentially dangerous objects.
Ah, when you elaborate, it makes perfect sense. A person is definitely well-advised to figure out how to make a living doing something he likes...we spend so big a fraction of our lives working.
Good luck with your business. You and I are at about the same stage of life it sounds like...I understand how you can't just drop everything all at once.
I think you make a good point, but I'll take it one step further. Let's face it, an IT job is the modern day equivalent of a janitor in the eyes of management. You can be very successful, but you'd have to put in un-Godly hours and sacrifice too much. You'd be successful careerwise, but unhappy in your life. I see this kind of post on slashdot a lot, and it makes me wonder if I am an anomaly. I have a graduate degree in CS and close to 20 years of software development experience. Right now I work as a software developer in a small division of a medium-sized software company. Maybe it is because software is our product, but developers are pretty high on the totem pole here. I have the tools I need, work reasonable, flexible hours most of the time, and enjoy my work. My previous jobs have been varied, from huge companies to small ones, but I have enjoyed each in its own way. So what's the deal? Have I just been incredibly lucky or is slashdot full of whiners?
Since the only reason you're working in the first place is to make money, you should think outside the "go to college, get a good job" box. Find something and start your own business. I think he/she should skip the CS degree, get a job in construction, and after a few years become a contractor. Essentially get into some field for a few years to learn the trade (and make it a trade that EVERYONE needs. Plumber, electrician, etc.) and work hard for a few years to gain knowledge into doing the job and keeping an eye on how to run a company of that type.
Don't spend your life working for someone else. It's a horrible experience now, and it's only going to get worse as corporations expand their control. Start your own company and work it from a young age and you'll be much better off by the time you're 30. If the original submitter is the entrepreneurial type, then this could be partly good advice. But how can you be so goofy as to suggest he pick something so unrelated to what are his apparent interests? If he wanted to be in construction, plumbing, or electrical work, then he would already be in it. While those trades can result in a good living, they are also freaking hard work.
Since this is slashdot, I feel justified in psychoanalyzing you just from this one post.;-) I think you've got a chip on your shoulder from your own bad experiences in the IT world, and hate your own job. Not everyone works only to make money, and not everyone in IT hates his job.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't like the "rockstar" label, but excellent software developers are more than worth it, as Fred Brooks knew years ago...
I don't have the book in front of me, but there is a reference at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks.
That book is worth rereading every few years.
If you really can get a positive expectation on a particular roulette wheel because of a flawed wheel or flawed croupier (which I doubt), then this does not make sense. If you have an advantage, then it doesn't matter whether you have hit your goal or not. Over the very long run, if you always bet when you have an advantage, you will have a positive expectation. Or maybe does the croupier change his behavior or the house level the wheel after you have made your $100?
First, before marrying, discuss and make sure you can agree how to handle the following things:
1. Money
2. Religion
3. Children
4. In-laws
Second, make sure that both of you view marriage as a final, irrevocable decision. If either of you keep divorce in your back pocket as an option, then you have two strikes against you.
Actually, I did read those lines, and found nothing remotely suggesting the Bible is considered by the Catholic church to be "fallible and contradictory," which was what was asserted by the poster I quoted.
On the contrary, I line 107 claims the opposite: "The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."
How does interpretation and contemplation suggest fallibility or contradictions? How does trying to read the text in the sense it was intended (not necessarily literally) imply fallibility or contradictions?
Many people assert that the Bible is fallible and contradictory, but to say the Catholic church holds that position is ignorant.
[...]There's many, many Christian denominations which recognize the Bible as being fallible and contradictory (One of them got to be pretty big, actually: They call themselves the Roman Catholic Church). [...]
Um, not so much. See http://www.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm#II for the Roman Catholic position.
ALL ethics are by definition artificial
I don't think that word (oxymoron) means what you think it does.
I liked Wolverine.
Um...yuck.
I agree that if it isn't 3D, it isn't immersive. An for me if it isn't immersive then it might as well be FreeCell. I might play FreeCell while waiting for my kid's soccer game to start, but I sure won't pay for it.
Granted I am just a single data point, but to get me to buy a new game, it needs to have something even more ambitious than what has been done before. Figure out how to do an MMORPG with full PvP while keeping griefers in check, with a fully dynamic world in which changes made by players stick, and with NPC AI that immerses me enough that I don't think about "aggro radius," and you will have my purchase in a heartbeat.
Maybe. But there are possible answers to the seeming dilemma:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/#2.1
and
Because people care whether their decisions matter?
Minor nit: growth is change. If your concept of space and time is accurate, then from the outside looking in we are no more growing than we are changing.
I understand (in a wimpy pop-science kind of way) the 4D space-time "block" concept...the concept that all of space and time just is.
However, that concept in and of itself doesn't preclude free will. Rather it only means that from some god's eye point of view all of the free will choices within space-time have "already" been made.
What I don't understand is how experience emerges from a static space-time. I don't even understand how experience emerges within time. (I've written enough software to be skeptical of increasing complexity at some point magically producing sentience.) I think the question of how conscious experience happens is somehow related to the free-will question.
I got a chance to use a Connection Machine (real, not emulated) in the late 1980s, just a couple of years out of college. It was an internal R&D project for a defense contractor, porting a computational fluid dynamics program I didn't understand from Cray vectorized Fortran to the CM's *Lisp. Fun stuff.
I even got a chance to visit Thinking Machines headquarters in Boston, and hear Danny Hillis speak. Here he was speaking to a room full of suits, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. I remember thinking at the time that being able to do that was quite an indicator of success.
Yeah, yeah, I know...offtopic, overrated, etc. So mod me down if you must. (Or is that just reverse psychology on you moderators? Muhahaha!)
A typical aggressor already has the means to successfully attack anyone who is elderly enough or disabled enough to need the device in the article. If we could magically eliminate all weapons, then the physically strong would still be able to attack the physically weak.
The fact that the device in the article (or just a regular firearm) would be both useful to an aggressor and to a victim shows merely that it is a useful tool.
Lose/lose? Since able-bodied aggressors can already easily attack elderly or disabled victims, I think that an armed potential victim is a clear win/lose. The win is for the potential victim who has a chance to avoid being a victim. The lose is for the attacker who must face the chance that his attack could be thwarted.
Ah...maybe I interpreted the AC a little loosely. I agree with you that we already live in a society with many socialist aspects. And I agree with AC that Obama will introduce more socialism.
If I were "drawing the line" as you say, I would draw it at the minimum amount of government intervention we could get away with. And I would limit (federal) government intervention to those things that are clearly common goods: national defense, court system, maybe interstate highways, etc. Direct transfers of wealth from one group to another (in whatever direction) would not make my list.
It sounds like your definition of true liberty is "positive liberty" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty. When I say liberty, I mean negative liberty as it is discussed in that article. I consider the concept of positive liberty to be rhetorical lipstick to make patronizing collectivism more palatable. Yuck.
On the other hand, I do want people to be "free from the ravages of nature." And I try to do my small part of making that happen. But I do it with my own resources...I don't use other people's time and money against their will.
Payroll tax is to fund social security benefits. Most people who live long enough to collect social security withdraws more than they paid. So I fail to see how anyone can make the argument that FICA transfers money from the poor to the rich. (It does transfer money from one generation to another, which I also think is a bad idea.)
No, the original poster quite clearly said that McCain wanted to "tax the poor to pay the wealthy." If that doesn't mean transferring money from the poor to the wealthy, then I guess I need remedial English lessons. According to my quick check at http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/tax_calculators/index.html, those under the poverty level are paying a 0% portion of the public goods that come from federal income tax. So again I ask, just how is that taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich?
The poor do have to pay things like sales tax, gasoline tax, etc. I would be open to proposals to exempt those under the poverty line from such taxes.
Got a source on this? I just went to http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/tax_calculators/index.html and plugged in the poverty level for both a single taxpayer and married filing jointly with 2 kids, and in both cases the result was a refund via earned income tax credit.
You insult the AC, but your post basically agrees with him. No major successful political figure today truly represents liberty, including GWB.
Does a person below the poverty level even pay income tax? (Yes, I know they pay sales tax and payroll tax if they are on a payroll.)
If not, then how was McCain going to get money from the poor to pay the wealthy? I would honestly like an explanation of that from the GP poster.
Yup...no way that having a mandatory online component to a game will succeed. Somebody wanna let Blizzard know?
Very interesting...botting is something I hadn't considered. It seemed to me that the GP poster was talking just about AI in NPCs.
In my ideal MMORPG all player characters would be at least semi-bots, because I would require that that character always have an in-game presence, even when the player was not logged in. The player would need to define the character's behavior for while he was gone, either choosing from some conservative stock behaviors, or scripting his own.
"Hey, Leeroy...see that group of two orcs standing off to the side? I think we can body-pull them without getting the boss. What do you think?"
...and inclined to send off some useless email complaints that no one at the company will care about. Does anyone have email addresses for corporate officers of Bioware and EA? I tried JRiccitiello@ea.com for kicks, but I doubt it is any good.
That said, there are places in this country with crime rates high enough that gun ownership for protection is an obvious and reasonable choice. What I really don't understand is the response of those to whom using the best tool for the job is somehow unthinkable. Would these same people oppose table saws for woodworking because they can accidentally take off fingers?
By the way, I have had formal gun safety training. I make sure my children also get it at an appropriate age. I reinforce that training during recreational shooting. Life is full of risks, but owning a gun need not be any more dangerous than owning an automobile, a table saw, a swimming pool, or any other useful but potentially dangerous objects.
Ah, when you elaborate, it makes perfect sense. A person is definitely well-advised to figure out how to make a living doing something he likes...we spend so big a fraction of our lives working.
Good luck with your business. You and I are at about the same stage of life it sounds like...I understand how you can't just drop everything all at once.
Don't spend your life working for someone else. It's a horrible experience now, and it's only going to get worse as corporations expand their control. Start your own company and work it from a young age and you'll be much better off by the time you're 30. If the original submitter is the entrepreneurial type, then this could be partly good advice. But how can you be so goofy as to suggest he pick something so unrelated to what are his apparent interests? If he wanted to be in construction, plumbing, or electrical work, then he would already be in it. While those trades can result in a good living, they are also freaking hard work.
Since this is slashdot, I feel justified in psychoanalyzing you just from this one post.