CS geeks like to ask CS trivia questions to make sure no one with
the "wrong" background gets in the door. ("No, I don't know how
to write a binary sort algorithm off of the top of my head, I use
existing code for solved problems.")
Affinity biases abound.
This Google-inflicted problem is a huge improvement over the old
Microsoft dominated days when "the cult of the puzzle" loomed
("A priest, a vampire and Richard Stallman all need to cross a
river, but they have only one wind surfer, the vampire can not
ride with the priest, and the priest is a Windows user, so...")
The only job interview-style that I actually like is "Get out your
laptop, here, can you write code to do this?"
Even that has drawbacks though-- you could exclude a competent
programmer that doesn't own a laptop, for whatever reason...
Whether we like it or not, it comes to chains of trust.
Yes, exactly.
There are some social systems out there that clearly work better
than others, e.g. Science.
The $69 (x 10 to the 12) question is: can you come up with social
structures in other realms (e.g. politics, public policy) that
work as well as science.
If you look around at the way we actually evaluate information, I think you can see that we use multiple stages; there are at least two levels of engagement with two different standards of evidence: the quick look and the close focus. A rule of thumb like "trust the experts" is excellent in the early stages, but the logical fallacies become important in the later stages.
I was reading a piece by a mozilla dev where he seemed to be
arguing that he didn't see what the problem was, because a lot
of stuff like firebug is broken already, and all people have to
do is find an equivalent extension in the chromium extensions...
It wasn't clear to me why one wouldn't just switch to chrome,
rather than continue with mozilla jerking their user-base around
(this is the third big one, by my count, and I wouldn't be
surprised if I'm missing a few).
Even worse than all this though is that it all seems like a
symbolic surrender: mozilla is giving up on firefox and forking
chrome instead.
Okay, but the magnitude of the problem we're up against is so hue that anything you can think of that might make a dent in it is going to have associated numbers that make it look completely crazy.
If the numbers don't sound insane, then it can't work.
(Myself, I like the idea of parking nuclear submarines around Antarctica, and using them to power pumping stations to spray seawater in the interior. But I haven't crunched the numbers on that, I'm sure they look deranged as well.)
Nuclear is the cheapest even fully capitalized if run at capacity and efficiently, but nuclear has trouble scaling costs and generation to demand too; it basically has to be run at full capacity all the time to be effective.
Which would mean we have a choice between "renewables" combined with very dirty coal or somewhat-cleaner-but-still-dirty methane; or going with an all nuclear strategy which would give us large quantities of zero-emissions energy.
But that must, of course, be wrong. It violates the prime directive.
If you want to get started with programming, you should probably
learn javascript. You have something that can run it already
where you can make changes and see visible results. And your
biggest problem isn't going to be finding tutorials, but
picking ones you want to start with out of the ten thousand
available ones.
I don't actually like Javascript, but the people
telling you to do something else really have to do more than just
wave their hands.
Okay, I must confess that this is the first I've heard about SSL
not being SSL any more, but I have a humble suggestion: let's
drop this horseshit, no matter how Logical the rationale is, and
continue to call SSL SSL.
You'd think we'd learn something from stuff like the URL/URI
"switch" that never happened.
For that matter you'd think we'd learn something period, from
something, anything, but perhaps I'm showing my age.
And the slashdot summary of this research is terrible (you will be suprised to hear):
Our personality may be shaped by how our brain works, but in fact the shape of our brain can itself provide surprising clues about how we behave...
If your read about the study, what they've got is a correlation between brain features and Big5 personality features, they don't even hint in the direction of biological determinism ("our personality may be shaped").
But don't be surprised if they start adding brain scans to job interviews ("hm... doesn't look agreeable enough.").
A friend of mine once released some code with a hash named "%global".
Labeling it clearly didn't stop purists from complaining about it.
But yeah, I know, global state exists because there's a real
world that exists, and the code is supposed to have something to
do with it.
My point is that no programming discipline is complete until it
re-invents global variables under some other name-- but it has to
be called something different to get it by the censors.
This site used to be a respite, A place for techies to go to get away from those evil advertisers.
Look, what makes you guys think this lukewarm whining is even
going to register on the slashdot editors? They've been
listening to programmer's bitcing and moaning for decades, you're
going to have to amp it up if you even want to begin competing.
(You think you've got it bad now? You have no idea what kind of
stupid shit Commander Taco could come up with.)
But this is truly a breakthrough, in solar journalism at least. This may be the first time in decades I've seen a story about some new solar power idea that isn't drowning in gosh-wow enthusiasm . This is so impressive, I was toying with the idea of jumping in and defending the possibility that this technology might someday be perfected...
The trouble is, I think I'd rather have a roof over the roadway where it can act as a sunshade (in CA) and keep the snow off (in places you probably don't want to rely on solar anyway, but what the hell).
You know what's really fun? I've had UPS delievery refuse to
leave a package on my doorstep in West Oakland-- there are limits
even to their stupidity-- and take it back to the central
shipping office way over at the Oakland Airport. They gave me
only a few days to get over there and pick it up before it would
be returned to sender.
I know this is a wild and crazy idea, but if the place that's
shipping to you is actually closer that your local post
office... why didn't you just go and pick it up there?
Seriously gang: tradeoffs. Either you run a recieving office
with someone on staff during business hours, you send you
packages to your work place presuming they have a recieving
office, or you just use something like the USPS with a place
nearby you can pick up missed deliveries.
What you don't do is insist on using a delivery service that
abandons your packages outside and then act shocked
when they get stolen.
Most other countries leave the seller or courier liable until they get a signature, meaning they don't just leave boxes out in the open like they seem to do in the US.
It's really only
the private delivery services that compete with the federal post
office that use this abandon the package and hope for the best
approach.
This means that there's a simple fix for the problem, but
that idea goes against the still-dominant ideology that The Free
Market always knows best.
Yes, and everyone loves working in their warehouses. But
y'all have a nice life.
Me, I've always appreciated that little checkbox at bn.com to
only use the USPS for my address. If you check that little box,
the entire theft problem we're talking about goes away.
You too can join the commie socialist revolution: support your
local post office.
Yup. They do their best to get it into your hands-- they don't
just abandon it outside and hope for the best-- and if they miss
you, you get the package at a convenient post office located
nearby, and they have a lot of them (yes, "brick and mortar", how pass).
This whole issue reminds me of the recurrent claims that some latest fad
technology is so much more faster than an RDBMS--
they're "faster" because they're not doing as much for you, but
there's reasons RDBMS do what they do to preserve data
integrity...
many companies have exclusive contracts with shipping carriers that cannot deliver to PO boxes
Yeah, but if you don't use Amazon, that problem goes away and you
help make the world a better place.
Many companies, huh? There's a remarkable inability to
diagnose a problem, if the result requires one to admit y'all
fucked up by making some idiotic fad the "new standard"...
Look, this is getting ridiculous. If you just use the post office
for package delivery, you know what happens if they can't deliver
it into your hands? It goes back to your local post office, and
they hold it for you-- you go by and pick it up whenever
convenient. A postal worker is not just going to abandon your
package on your doorstep pretending that you live in Mayberry
RFD...
This is the key thing here: UPS sucks. They don't maintain
anything like the network of post offices managed by USPS, and
instead they like to gamble with the safety of your packages in
ways the post office simply won't.
Blaiming the USPS for being "less efficient" is crazy: they *do
more* for you. UPS cuts corners, and the result is a theft
problem everyone is looking for slick technical fixes for.
I was trying to respond with a perl code example showing some
features it has -- which are admittedly optional -- to write
readable code, but slashdot is refusing to let me post them
because of it's "Lameness Filter", which I think has actually let
quite a bit of lameness through.
Slashdot Mirror
CS geeks like to ask CS trivia questions to make sure no one with the "wrong" background gets in the door. ("No, I don't know how to write a binary sort algorithm off of the top of my head, I use existing code for solved problems.")
Affinity biases abound.
This Google-inflicted problem is a huge improvement over the old Microsoft dominated days when "the cult of the puzzle" loomed ("A priest, a vampire and Richard Stallman all need to cross a river, but they have only one wind surfer, the vampire can not ride with the priest, and the priest is a Windows user, so...")
The only job interview-style that I actually like is "Get out your laptop, here, can you write code to do this?"
Even that has drawbacks though-- you could exclude a competent programmer that doesn't own a laptop, for whatever reason...
So when is he going to take down Trump?
Yes, exactly.
There are some social systems out there that clearly work better than others, e.g. Science.
The $69 (x 10 to the 12) question is: can you come up with social structures in other realms (e.g. politics, public policy) that work as well as science.
Yup, that's pretty much it.
The Two Gatekeepers:
I was reading a piece by a mozilla dev where he seemed to be arguing that he didn't see what the problem was, because a lot of stuff like firebug is broken already, and all people have to do is find an equivalent extension in the chromium extensions...
It wasn't clear to me why one wouldn't just switch to chrome, rather than continue with mozilla jerking their user-base around (this is the third big one, by my count, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing a few).
Even worse than all this though is that it all seems like a symbolic surrender: mozilla is giving up on firefox and forking chrome instead.
Okay, but the magnitude of the problem we're up against is so hue that anything you can think of that might make a dent in it is going to have associated numbers that make it look completely crazy.
If the numbers don't sound insane, then it can't work.
(Myself, I like the idea of parking nuclear submarines around Antarctica, and using them to power pumping stations to spray seawater in the interior. But I haven't crunched the numbers on that, I'm sure they look deranged as well.)
Which would mean we have a choice between "renewables" combined with very dirty coal or somewhat-cleaner-but-still-dirty methane; or going with an all nuclear strategy which would give us large quantities of zero-emissions energy.
But that must, of course, be wrong. It violates the prime directive.
Lame piss.
Ah, would that there were only 3000 mindless trolls left on the internet.
If you want to get started with programming, you should probably learn javascript. You have something that can run it already where you can make changes and see visible results. And your biggest problem isn't going to be finding tutorials, but picking ones you want to start with out of the ten thousand available ones.
I don't actually like Javascript, but the people telling you to do something else really have to do more than just wave their hands.
Okay, I must confess that this is the first I've heard about SSL not being SSL any more, but I have a humble suggestion: let's drop this horseshit, no matter how Logical the rationale is, and continue to call SSL SSL.
You'd think we'd learn something from stuff like the URL/URI "switch" that never happened.
For that matter you'd think we'd learn something period, from something, anything, but perhaps I'm showing my age.
What I'm getting at is the solution to Web 2.0 content might be Web 1.0 content.
Or technical tricks to emulate Web 1.0 content.
(I bet google has the chops to come up with a really killer ad blocker.)
If your read about the study, what they've got is a correlation between brain features and Big5 personality features, they don't even hint in the direction of biological determinism ("our personality may be shaped").
But don't be surprised if they start adding brain scans to job interviews ("hm... doesn't look agreeable enough.").
Hm perhaps we could use similar techniques to avoid making those hundreds of network connections in the first place...
A friend of mine once released some code with a hash named "%global". Labeling it clearly didn't stop purists from complaining about it.
But yeah, I know, global state exists because there's a real world that exists, and the code is supposed to have something to do with it.
My point is that no programming discipline is complete until it re-invents global variables under some other name-- but it has to be called something different to get it by the censors.
Look, what makes you guys think this lukewarm whining is even going to register on the slashdot editors? They've been listening to programmer's bitcing and moaning for decades, you're going to have to amp it up if you even want to begin competing.
(You think you've got it bad now? You have no idea what kind of stupid shit Commander Taco could come up with.)
I can remember back when we just called those "global variables".
Ah, how far we've come.
But this is truly a breakthrough, in solar journalism at least. This may be the first time in decades I've seen a story about some new solar power idea that isn't drowning in gosh-wow enthusiasm . This is so impressive, I was toying with the idea of jumping in and defending the possibility that this technology might someday be perfected... The trouble is, I think I'd rather have a roof over the roadway where it can act as a sunshade (in CA) and keep the snow off (in places you probably don't want to rely on solar anyway, but what the hell).
You know what's really fun? I've had UPS delievery refuse to leave a package on my doorstep in West Oakland-- there are limits even to their stupidity-- and take it back to the central shipping office way over at the Oakland Airport. They gave me only a few days to get over there and pick it up before it would be returned to sender.
I know this is a wild and crazy idea, but if the place that's shipping to you is actually closer that your local post office... why didn't you just go and pick it up there?
Seriously gang: tradeoffs. Either you run a recieving office with someone on staff during business hours, you send you packages to your work place presuming they have a recieving office, or you just use something like the USPS with a place nearby you can pick up missed deliveries.
What you don't do is insist on using a delivery service that abandons your packages outside and then act shocked when they get stolen.
It's really only the private delivery services that compete with the federal post office that use this abandon the package and hope for the best approach.
This means that there's a simple fix for the problem, but that idea goes against the still-dominant ideology that The Free Market always knows best.
Yes, and everyone loves working in their warehouses. But y'all have a nice life.
Me, I've always appreciated that little checkbox at bn.com to only use the USPS for my address. If you check that little box, the entire theft problem we're talking about goes away.
You too can join the commie socialist revolution: support your local post office.
Pollux wrote:
Yup. They do their best to get it into your hands-- they don't just abandon it outside and hope for the best-- and if they miss you, you get the package at a convenient post office located nearby, and they have a lot of them (yes, "brick and mortar", how pass).
This whole issue reminds me of the recurrent claims that some latest fad technology is so much more faster than an RDBMS-- they're "faster" because they're not doing as much for you, but there's reasons RDBMS do what they do to preserve data integrity...
Yeah, but if you don't use Amazon, that problem goes away and you help make the world a better place.
Many companies, huh? There's a remarkable inability to diagnose a problem, if the result requires one to admit y'all fucked up by making some idiotic fad the "new standard"...
Look, this is getting ridiculous. If you just use the post office for package delivery, you know what happens if they can't deliver it into your hands? It goes back to your local post office, and they hold it for you-- you go by and pick it up whenever convenient. A postal worker is not just going to abandon your package on your doorstep pretending that you live in Mayberry RFD...
This is the key thing here: UPS sucks. They don't maintain anything like the network of post offices managed by USPS, and instead they like to gamble with the safety of your packages in ways the post office simply won't.
Blaiming the USPS for being "less efficient" is crazy: they *do more* for you. UPS cuts corners, and the result is a theft problem everyone is looking for slick technical fixes for.
I was trying to respond with a perl code example showing some features it has -- which are admittedly optional -- to write readable code, but slashdot is refusing to let me post them because of it's "Lameness Filter", which I think has actually let quite a bit of lameness through.