Nah, we just need smugglers to import boards from Taiwan or elsewhere. There are always struggling manufacturers in other parts of the world who are willing to produce any old crap just to fill a niche.
If you thought the War on Drugs was bad, just wait until the War on Hacks heats up. Drugs from Columbia, motherboards from Korea; what's the diff? "NapsterClone3000 turned my son into a wretched bootleg junkie! An ABC TV movie (and you WILL watch it!)"
And be replaced with another professional politician who will sell out as soon as s/he's elected. And because of our wonderful two party system, nobody who's an "outsider" will stand a chance. Ain't America grand?
There are several other code editors/IDEs for Windows that will integrate with VC++. Codewright, for example; although I use it for straight C with a cross-compiler, anyway. Of course, I don't know if it does the "pretty pictures" like in VB or not.
You've definitely got a point there. I got my Jornada 548 because it was the best thing available at the time (the Casio is too big & clunky, IMHO). If I could have waited, or if the iPaq had been out at the time, I probably would have bought it instead.
Ever since the iPaqs have become popular, I've been feeling a bit jealous. But now that this new Jornada is coming, I'd much rather have it than an iPaq. The New Jornada's styling and ergonomics look perfect to me, much better than the iPaq's StarTrek prop/shiny toy look. (And the J.560 apparently still has hinges for an optional lid; important for clumsy slackers like me!) Plus, the specs are finally up to par with the iPaq as well.
I really hope that HP doesn't drop this product before it has a chance; I think that this could well be the one true PocketPC that works for nearly everyone.
The whole point is that you don't know when you're legally drunk, only when you're impaired (by your own standards). If you actually try one of these things, you may be surprised by the results...
Just curious, as you seem to have some personal knowledge: Why do they need probable cause in your situation, but they can still do roadblocks and charge people with the same crime? Last time I checked, just being on a particular road at a particular time does not normally constitute probable cause. I've always wonered about this sort of thing.
Well, now that the limit is.08 in pretty much all of the US, it could be argued that for some people, the legal limit is lower than their safe limit. Which is the whole problem with the way DUI is handled. The limits are so low that many people have sympathy for those who get a DUI; also people may get used to driving over the limit, and eventually start driving when they're truly drunk (who wouldn't have otherwise). BTW, for some people, one drink may be too much; for others, it's not even close.
Instead of lowering the limits to where everyone is breaking the law, they should have kept the limit higher, and imposed more effective penalties for first offenses. The automatic DUI level should be a maximum level at which you couldn't possibly be safe, not the minimum level at which hypersensitive people get drunk. The cops have always had the ability to give someone a DUI at lower levels if they thought they were impaired; that ability should be used more often, instead of an absolute cutoff which has only partial relevance to actual impairment. In many cases, factors such as sleep deprivation and stress levels can contribute as much to being impaired as the BAC itself.
And FYI, I don't drive after a drink or two either, but *only* because I'm paranoid about cops.
Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure I saw the old anchor on one of the sports channels recently. Maybe that's why the guys this season are more cheerful; they know still there's hope for them.
More importantly, how do you take out a bot like SoW? You can't get in close enough to push or flip it.
Yep, and this is what the arena hazards are for: to nail bots like this. I remember Mauler(?) used a similar idea, and almost won its match, until the killsaws caught it on its unprotected underbelly. This brings home the importance of having a well rounded bot; ideally, you should have a design such that your robot can survive even if the main weapon stops working.
This will be even more important once we start to see more bots of Wyachi's calibre in the ring. Imagine two Wyachi clones fighting each other; one of them is going to do damage, and the other is going to get its weapon damaged and/or its motor overloaded. That second bot better have something else up its sleeve, or it's going to get slaughtered.
Of Beautiful Houses and Sleazy Contractors
on
Software Aesthetics
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· Score: 1
What the author of this article doesn't realize is that many houses *are* ugly hacks, just not where you can see. The doors are pretty, the walls are painted, but the roof is leaky and the wiring is substandard. Just because houses look good doesn't mean they are defect free; there are probably dozens of cut corners and screwups in the walls and floors that will never be noticed, in addition to the few that will be.
Software is the same way. As long as the internal structures and building methods are hidden from the user, and as long as not too many things break, the user will be happy.
Re:Not this stupid 'programming is art' BS again!
on
Software Aesthetics
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· Score: 1
Crafts are made *primarily* for practical use, often with aesthetics as a major secondary consideration. Art is made primarily for art's sake, to stimulate thought & emotion. The reason that the lines seem to blur so often these days is that we have so many choices in products that we often select them solely on the basis of aesthetic value, even though the objects are ultimately meant to serve a practical purpose.
ObOnTopic: Software is indeed a craft, and can be approached from many points of view. But the only code that is truly 'art' is that which is written primarily for the appreciation of other programmers. Real-world software doesn't, and shouldn't, fall into this category.
Re:Beauty for beauty's sake makes crappy software
on
Software Aesthetics
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· Score: 1
Actually, my old boss used to give *me* that line!
Despite what we may like to believe, programming (in the real world, at least) is neither high art nor hard science. It is, in fact, engineering with a bit of architecture thrown in. And the only reason architects have to be artistic is precisely because people see the insides of their structures. There's no reason to write beautiful code per se; readable and maintainable, yes, but those much simpler goals. Beautiful code is a conceit of value only to other programmers.
Sounds like my dad's Studebaker (yes, he's that old). When it broke down, he left it sitting at the back of the driveway, saying "one of these days I'll get around to fixing that old car." Eventually, (at least 20 years later) he had the thing towed; it had become a home for wasps and other pests, and was completely rusted out. Even so, the real reason he got rid of it was because it was in the way of one of his grand new projects (also never finished), and mom wouldn't let him put it in the yard!
(BTW, yep, my dad's a redneck, but he's a redneck *engineer*, damit!;-)
This brings up a good point regarding the sainthood of profit-seeking drug corporations. Everybody is talking about the need to pay them to encourage development of new drugs. This is certainly true for new treatments, but what incentive do they have to produce a cure? A cure only gets used once per person, while an AIDS patient getting treatment is a guaranteed source of income for several year at least.
If we rely solely on the workings of modern capitalism to produce beneficial advancements, we are limiting the range of advancements to those that are profitable. But what if the best solution is not the one that produces the most profits? I'm not saying that profit incentive should be eliminated entirely; we all know that doesn't work. But we need to stop treating free-market forces as a perfect mechanism that will solve everything. Government and society need to know when to step in, to promote the greater good; that's exactly what Brazil is doing in this situation.
Personally I would like a solution where rich contries payes more for drugs and poor ones less but it may be diffucult to implement in reality.
Well, as long as we don't send in the troops to enforce patents in third-world countries, this is what will probably happen, at least with crucial life-saving drugs. Those of us who live in the United Corporations of [America/Europe] will continue to pay high patent-based costs for medication, while the poorer countries (who can't afford to pay anyway) will make their own generic supplies. So the drug companies will continue to make money in their primary markets, and the poorer nations will benefit.
Nah, who am I kidding? The corporate armies are probably mobilizing as we speak...
The key there is that the responses are *pre-programmed*. If the person in the room is forced to learn the correct response by trial-and-error, s/he might eventually begin to learn Chinese. The problem is in making the initial questions simple enough so that the person can "bootstrap" up to a basic level of understanding.
In other words, the person must be able to guess the answers with enough chance of success to allow patterns to reveal themselves. Even then, the person may end up producing the right results for all the wrong reasons, ie. false pattern matches. But at some point, if the responses are accurate enough in enough real-world situations, you have to conclude that the person "knows" some Chinese. Beyond this point the debate becomes abstractly philosophical (defining what it is to "know" something, etc.). Unfortunately, this is exactly where the question of AI "life" and rights must eventually lead, once the appearance of humanity is achieved.
Using duplicate AIs, that are all wired and programmed identically, would expose them (and us) to the risk of a single AI virus compromising all the AIs at once. Genetic, or in this case memetic, diversity is the name of the game.
Basically it's the same situation as we have now with M$ Outlook; most of the world is vulnerable because they all use the same AS* software.
From a user's perspective, having programming/compilation tools handy is nice, but it's not a requirement. Plenty of other OSes (most of which start with W) get along fine without this. Of course developers must have such tools, but that's a whole different thing.
BTW, I'm not saying that the GNU tools weren't important to the success of Linux; obviously they were. I'm just pointing out that compiler != OS. Otherwise, we might as well say "Microsoft VisualStudio/Windows."
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, we just need smugglers to import boards from Taiwan or elsewhere. There are always struggling manufacturers in other parts of the world who are willing to produce any old crap just to fill a niche.
If you thought the War on Drugs was bad, just wait until the War on Hacks heats up. Drugs from Columbia, motherboards from Korea; what's the diff? "NapsterClone3000 turned my son into a wretched bootleg junkie! An ABC TV movie (and you WILL watch it!)"
Nah, all they have to do is make an analogy between IP and oil, and he'll be eating out of their hands.
But if no-one voted, one person could vote and make all the difference!
Naw, you'd simply have the privilege of being outvoted by all the dead people (and military overseas ballots).
And be replaced with another professional politician who will sell out as soon as s/he's elected. And because of our wonderful two party system, nobody who's an "outsider" will stand a chance. Ain't America grand?
Idunno, depends on how big the beer fridge is ;-)
There are several other code editors/IDEs for Windows that will integrate with VC++. Codewright, for example; although I use it for straight C with a cross-compiler, anyway. Of course, I don't know if it does the "pretty pictures" like in VB or not.
You've definitely got a point there. I got my Jornada 548 because it was the best thing available at the time (the Casio is too big & clunky, IMHO). If I could have waited, or if the iPaq had been out at the time, I probably would have bought it instead.
Ever since the iPaqs have become popular, I've been feeling a bit jealous. But now that this new Jornada is coming, I'd much rather have it than an iPaq. The New Jornada's styling and ergonomics look perfect to me, much better than the iPaq's StarTrek prop/shiny toy look. (And the J.560 apparently still has hinges for an optional lid; important for clumsy slackers like me!) Plus, the specs are finally up to par with the iPaq as well.
I really hope that HP doesn't drop this product before it has a chance; I think that this could well be the one true PocketPC that works for nearly everyone.
The whole point is that you don't know when you're legally drunk, only when you're impaired (by your own standards). If you actually try one of these things, you may be surprised by the results...
Just curious, as you seem to have some personal knowledge: Why do they need probable cause in your situation, but they can still do roadblocks and charge people with the same crime? Last time I checked, just being on a particular road at a particular time does not normally constitute probable cause. I've always wonered about this sort of thing.
Well, now that the limit is .08 in pretty much all of the US, it could be argued that for some people, the legal limit is lower than their safe limit. Which is the whole problem with the way DUI is handled. The limits are so low that many people have sympathy for those who get a DUI; also people may get used to driving over the limit, and eventually start driving when they're truly drunk (who wouldn't have otherwise). BTW, for some people, one drink may be too much; for others, it's not even close.
Instead of lowering the limits to where everyone is breaking the law, they should have kept the limit higher, and imposed more effective penalties for first offenses. The automatic DUI level should be a maximum level at which you couldn't possibly be safe, not the minimum level at which hypersensitive people get drunk. The cops have always had the ability to give someone a DUI at lower levels if they thought they were impaired; that ability should be used more often, instead of an absolute cutoff which has only partial relevance to actual impairment. In many cases, factors such as sleep deprivation and stress levels can contribute as much to being impaired as the BAC itself.
And FYI, I don't drive after a drink or two either, but *only* because I'm paranoid about cops.
True, but it's mainly a warning for people who don't always think (or look) before they click.
Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure I saw the old anchor on one of the sports channels recently. Maybe that's why the guys this season are more cheerful; they know still there's hope for them.
More importantly, how do you take out a bot like SoW? You can't get in close enough to push or flip it.
Yep, and this is what the arena hazards are for: to nail bots like this. I remember Mauler(?) used a similar idea, and almost won its match, until the killsaws caught it on its unprotected underbelly. This brings home the importance of having a well rounded bot; ideally, you should have a design such that your robot can survive even if the main weapon stops working.
This will be even more important once we start to see more bots of Wyachi's calibre in the ring. Imagine two Wyachi clones fighting each other; one of them is going to do damage, and the other is going to get its weapon damaged and/or its motor overloaded. That second bot better have something else up its sleeve, or it's going to get slaughtered.
What the author of this article doesn't realize is that many houses *are* ugly hacks, just not where you can see. The doors are pretty, the walls are painted, but the roof is leaky and the wiring is substandard. Just because houses look good doesn't mean they are defect free; there are probably dozens of cut corners and screwups in the walls and floors that will never be noticed, in addition to the few that will be.
Software is the same way. As long as the internal structures and building methods are hidden from the user, and as long as not too many things break, the user will be happy.
Crafts are made *primarily* for practical use, often with aesthetics as a major secondary consideration. Art is made primarily for art's sake, to stimulate thought & emotion. The reason that the lines seem to blur so often these days is that we have so many choices in products that we often select them solely on the basis of aesthetic value, even though the objects are ultimately meant to serve a practical purpose.
ObOnTopic: Software is indeed a craft, and can be approached from many points of view. But the only code that is truly 'art' is that which is written primarily for the appreciation of other programmers. Real-world software doesn't, and shouldn't, fall into this category.
Actually, my old boss used to give *me* that line!
As the CS prof.s used to say:
;-)
"Repeat after me: we are Software Engineers!"
Despite what we may like to believe, programming (in the real world, at least) is neither high art nor hard science. It is, in fact, engineering with a bit of architecture thrown in. And the only reason architects have to be artistic is precisely because people see the insides of their structures. There's no reason to write beautiful code per se; readable and maintainable, yes, but those much simpler goals. Beautiful code is a conceit of value only to other programmers.
(Wow, I never knew I could sound that snotty!
Sounds like my dad's Studebaker (yes, he's that old). When it broke down, he left it sitting at the back of the driveway, saying "one of these days I'll get around to fixing that old car." Eventually, (at least 20 years later) he had the thing towed; it had become a home for wasps and other pests, and was completely rusted out. Even so, the real reason he got rid of it was because it was in the way of one of his grand new projects (also never finished), and mom wouldn't let him put it in the yard!
;-)
(BTW, yep, my dad's a redneck, but he's a redneck *engineer*, damit!
This brings up a good point regarding the sainthood of profit-seeking drug corporations. Everybody is talking about the need to pay them to encourage development of new drugs. This is certainly true for new treatments, but what incentive do they have to produce a cure? A cure only gets used once per person, while an AIDS patient getting treatment is a guaranteed source of income for several year at least.
If we rely solely on the workings of modern capitalism to produce beneficial advancements, we are limiting the range of advancements to those that are profitable. But what if the best solution is not the one that produces the most profits? I'm not saying that profit incentive should be eliminated entirely; we all know that doesn't work. But we need to stop treating free-market forces as a perfect mechanism that will solve everything. Government and society need to know when to step in, to promote the greater good; that's exactly what Brazil is doing in this situation.
Well, as long as we don't send in the troops to enforce patents in third-world countries, this is what will probably happen, at least with crucial life-saving drugs. Those of us who live in the United Corporations of [America/Europe] will continue to pay high patent-based costs for medication, while the poorer countries (who can't afford to pay anyway) will make their own generic supplies. So the drug companies will continue to make money in their primary markets, and the poorer nations will benefit.
Nah, who am I kidding? The corporate armies are probably mobilizing as we speak...
The key there is that the responses are *pre-programmed*. If the person in the room is forced to learn the correct response by trial-and-error, s/he might eventually begin to learn Chinese. The problem is in making the initial questions simple enough so that the person can "bootstrap" up to a basic level of understanding.
In other words, the person must be able to guess the answers with enough chance of success to allow patterns to reveal themselves. Even then, the person may end up producing the right results for all the wrong reasons, ie. false pattern matches. But at some point, if the responses are accurate enough in enough real-world situations, you have to conclude that the person "knows" some Chinese. Beyond this point the debate becomes abstractly philosophical (defining what it is to "know" something, etc.). Unfortunately, this is exactly where the question of AI "life" and rights must eventually lead, once the appearance of humanity is achieved.
Using duplicate AIs, that are all wired and programmed identically, would expose them (and us) to the risk of a single AI virus compromising all the AIs at once. Genetic, or in this case memetic, diversity is the name of the game.
Basically it's the same situation as we have now with M$ Outlook; most of the world is vulnerable because they all use the same AS* software.
(*)AS == Artificial Stupidity(TM)
HAL, that is. Actually, the new slashcode seems to be operating at about the same level...
Funny, sounds more like a Slashdot troll to me...
From a user's perspective, having programming/compilation tools handy is nice, but it's not a requirement. Plenty of other OSes (most of which start with W) get along fine without this. Of course developers must have such tools, but that's a whole different thing.
BTW, I'm not saying that the GNU tools weren't important to the success of Linux; obviously they were. I'm just pointing out that compiler != OS. Otherwise, we might as well say "Microsoft VisualStudio/Windows."