This is complete bullshit. None of my grandma's friends even CARE to show off their technological prowess, unlike the \. reader. Most people who would respond positively to WebTV will continue to respond positively to it, no matter what their alternatives are. Younger persons might show interest in expanded capabilities, but the over-65 crowd is notorious for sticking with tried-and-true technologies.
Now DON'T respond with nyah-nyah exceptions to this, because they DO exist. I admit it. But I think the generalization works well enough for the age group.
Actually, saying ALL the Handspring Springboard modules shipped with embedded drivers is a bit broad. Trust me, there are quite a few that require software installed at synch time.
Look. He's stated his own case for belief in non-combative terms. He's given his reasons - the evidence he considers sufficient for his faith. This isn't a consideration of my belief, your belief, or the lack of both thereof; this is merely a commendation to an intelligent man for making an attempt at a semi-informed decision to hold out faith in an unprovable concept.
Again, I am an atheist. I am a Libertarian. I am a computer programmer. I have dealt with people who hold my positions as a personal affront, and I applaud Mr. Wall for expressing his differences in such a gentle, thoughtful way.
I must agree. This is one of the most intelligent, enlightened defenses of faith that I have ever seen. And without the taint of superficial holiness that so many Christians add to the mix.
As an atheist, I must say, "Bravo."
Of some additional interest, you might like the following books, by an acquaintance of mine (one of the most intelligent men I have ever met):
The Reluctant Prophets: Has Science Found God?
COSMOS AND CONSCIOUSNESS: Quantum Computers, SuperStrings, Mysticism, C++ Programming, Egypt, Quarks, Mind-Body Problem, Aliens, Linguistics, and Turing Machines
Both by Stephen Blaha, Ph.D. and available at 1st Books.
Uh, hello? You know that the most popular form of geek exercise is masturbation. No expensive equipment needed either, just a hand, a penis, and optional lube and visual materials.
Sorry, I'm not posting links. You already know where to go, I'm sure.
Pussy. MFC debugging is easy. All the source is there on the Visual Studio CDs and the VS Debugger is great. Hell, it's one of the EASIEST things to debug. MFC's problems lie within its architecture, not within the execution of said architecture.
Sure, but it's lots of fun to argue about it, too.
In reality, I don't really read too much into Star Wars. As Joseph Campbell says, most myth is just the expression of human psychology and philosophy in symbolic form. In other words, we create myth and stories because of the existence of our interal structure, not through our awareness of it.
I think George Lucas had a neat story, and figured it would be cool to make a neat movie of it. No thought. No symbolism. No hidden meanings. Just neat-to-me rationalism, no matter what we geeks want to infer.
Actually, I'd be sure this was satire if I didn't have a Weekly Standard subscription. The articles tend to go both ways, with some bent to the law-and-order side of the fence. If it's satire, it's a great Libertarian piece, otherwise, it's good Conservativism.
If you really want a good parallel, look at Rome. Starting with the reign of the Etruscan kings, Rome grew to a moderately-sized city state. Rebelling against the foreign authority of the kings, Rome installed a republic, founded on the premise that no single person (no king) could wield unlimited authority over the population. Remember, even Rome's executive was dividing between TWO consuls, compared to our single president. Again, Rome grew. However, Rome's growth served to illustrate the problems inherent in large representative republics: elections begat corruption. To quote Juvenal:
"The people who once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses."
Of course, corrupt elections yield corrupt politicians. The more bread and circuses a potential politician could provide, the more likely his election. Corrupt politicians move slowly, each following his own personal interests to the exclusion of the interests of the state. Add to this the communication problems inherent in an steadily-growing sphere of influence. It's surprising that anything was accomplished at all, and eventually, nothing was. Petty squabbling and orgiastic spending replaced government.
Rome was too large and too decentralized to handle the corruption in the system. Decision making was all but stopped, and the government was an ineffectual burden on the growth and power of the state. Enter Julius Caesar. Though he was killed before the empire was realized, the events Julius Caesar put into motion took Rome out of its decline by introducing a government that reduced the effect political squabbles exerted over the state.
A single-person state cut straight through the bottleneck of the republic. Decisions, though sometimes harsh, were made. As a single executive, Caesar was the ultimate "the buck stops here." Functioning as a central decision maker, the Caesar was involved only in decisions he HAD to make, leaving the rest to appointed authority. (When later emperors deviated from this, trouble started.) Rome under this strong but benevolent guidance grew larger than any empire before it, and became firmly rooted in our own world by its grandeur.
Parallels with the Star Wars story are obvious. Large, corrupt republic replaced by an emperor with impeccably good timing. While the effect of a bad emperor can be devastating, good emperors (meaning: those who resist micromanagement) can be wonderful. The Weekly Standard author is attempting to point this out: good emperors are the ultimate laissez-faire economists. Rome was big by human standards, but a galactic civilization - spanning god-knows how many cultures and people with a HUGE communication lag - would almost require an emperor to even move. Most likely, an emperor would be required long before such a political state could exist.
Contrary to the prior poster, no government is totally "good" nor totally "evil." Strength and power may often be confused with evil, but the evil lies only in its application for a negative effect on the state and the populous as a whole, at least by the standards the author is using. By these standards, the Empire is quite good.
Personally, I'd rather be in anarchy, but the Weekly Standard is a rather right-wing, law-and-order sort of rag. (My conservative, Southern Baptist father subscribes and bought ME a subscription...ick.) Not something that most rather-libertarian (I'm a capital-L Libertarian, myself.) would read nor agree with wholeheartedly.
We're seeing the essential problem with computer sales and service illustrated in the above posting: low-order geeks. These angry young misfits are self-proclaimed "computer experts" with little real experience or knowledge of the hardware and software world - they're merely ranting zealots for the latest opinion espoused in their favorite gaming rag. Go into your favorite computer store and hear them sing:
"Yeah, I wrote my own OS; it's better than Linux." (One of MY favorites)
"Windows!? Only llamas use Windows!" (Of course, he has it on his home computer for games.)
"Yessir...you can run Windows XP on a G4." I have a friend who recompiled it no sweat." (Heard THIS at the Tallahassee CompUSA from a "Mac Guy.")
It's disgusting. So many people who think an A+ and MCSE are the be-all, end-all of career boosters. I refuse to buy from ANY freaking store where I have to talk to these clowns, and have taken to avoiding CompUSA entirely.
Submit your links to Yahoo!...er...Slashdot today! Leverage the power of the information superhighway and increase the size of your viewing audience by filling out this simple form!
Re:My own reading speed...
on
Speed Reading?
·
· Score: 2
Yes, this is that book.
My own reading speed...
on
Speed Reading?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...was in the neighborhood of 400 wpm before I started actually trying to speed-read. I have always been considered a comparatively quick reader, and have good comprehension, especially where novels, history, and other, non-technical literature is concerned. I picked up a book on speed-reading after becoming a professional software developer, and struggling to comprehend technical books with the same ease that I had experienced with other books.
I've found this book, Arco's Triple Your Reading Speed, a comparatively honest, straightforward look at the topic, without all the nonsense other books tend to contain. Essentially, reading is all about vision; you increase your vision area, you increase your ability to read more words at a glance. This book approaches speed-reading from this angle, and teaches you to increase your ability to "see more words" at a glance. It's not magic, and I haven't reached the claimed "triple" (1200 wpm for me) speed, but I've seen some improvement. Of course, technical books still slow me down, but I'm still quite a bit faster. I'm really hoping to get to the "page-turner" speed I used to see on That's Incredible.:)
To me, the best benefit of speed-reading is the reduction in reading time. The faster you read, the more time you have to re-read the material if you need it. Reading any material twice is better than a single slow-read, especially when studying. I have only noticed any particular discomfort when I am really trying to read terribly fast - up against my limits. At that point, I can read quickly, but I find my eyes start feeling strained, as though the ocular muscles are cramping. This sounds weird, it feels weird, and I generally slow down.
Hell, they didn't discuss any of the certifications, just listed them and their requirements. This isn't an article, it's shit. Any fool can go look at the lists on the company sites.
For now, good software comes from people who are willing to: work hard, think hard, and fail often. Paying the piper, in this day and age, is the ONLY way good developers come into existence, and the ONLY way good software ever comes into being.
To expound, teaching yourself to code isn't a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a GREAT thing, as I did it myself from the age of 10 (I'm 32 now). My intention was to make the new programmers semi-aware of how MUCH there is to learn; to wit, the old saw about true wisdom lying in the recognition of how much there is still to learn. The real issue, for me, is to recognize how much there is to software architecture and design - the patterns that, although expressed in code, lie somehow above it, shaping the code and expressing a higher abstraction. Recognizing this is the first step toward creating great, stable software, and far too many beginners are too entranced by the hypnotic syntax of their chosen programming language to be aware of the real beauty in programming. It's the difference in creating software that fulfills a purpose and slapping together something that "will do...sometimes".
By all means, teach yourself to code, but GET A MENTOR to help you see the rest. Join mailing lists, newsgroups, and the like. Talk to the larger community, and don't hold yourself above ALL the academics. There is some real gold out there that is NOT written in a "how to" reference. Don't try to be a REAL programmer, try to write good software.
For some bizarre reason, there is a wide-ranging belief: anyone can purchase a compiler and some tech books, thus, anyone can write good software. You see evidence everyday - at least I do - in offices where the operations staff (tape monkeys) have been transferred into programming with the help of VB and a Dummies book, in state government where the only qualification for programmers is a college degree (no matter the major), in clients who INSIST that their Excel spreadsheet is the perfect medium for their corporation-wide finance package. Even worse, you see it in the software that you suffer from daily.
To the point: Programming is easy. Designing and building useful software is HARD....DAMN HARD. Just because no governmental body is demanding that you become licensed and certified before foisting your code upon the world, doesn't mean that software development is any less an engineering feat than building a suspension bridge. Sure, anyone can drop a log over a creek and call it a bridge, just as you can pound together some QBasic routines and call it software, but don't fool yourself concerning your true level of skill.
Software development is in its infancy, and most likely will require many lifetimes to truly reach some state of maturity. Development processes are poorly understood, architecture is almost non-existant, and we practitioners are often left groping about in the dark. For now, good software comes from people who are willing to: work hard, think hard, and fail often. Paying the piper, in this day and age, is the ONLY way good developers come into existence, and the ONLY way good software ever comes into being. Inspire the dreamer to move, not merely sit and dream.
Agreed. Given the quality of most recent MMORPGs lately, or lack thereof, to wit:
Anarchy Online and World War II Online
not to mention the grand suckfulness that is ANY recent game with the words Star Wars in its title, this game will be hard-pressed not to suck.
Come on people! Realize that it's pure commercial drivel, not art nor nostalgia nor some sense of art that makes this crap move. You bought the crappy plastic little figures in 1977, and you're still buying junk.
This poll indicates that some 75% of VC++ developers (poll states around 3 million) are MFC programmers. This would seem to indicate a fair number of MFC projects in existence, at least among the Visual C++ community. Granted, given the TOTAL number of Windows programmers, this number is quite small, as the vast majority are almost certainly Delphi or VB users; so you're correct.
Although I can't see this link (thanks/.), I have to say "bravo!" More people should be exposed to the wonders of multi-monitor setups. As a developer/author, I have found the added real estate of multiple monitors more than outweighs the benefits of huge monitors. Thus, I buy cheaper 19 and 17 inch CRTs and have WAY more space to work and play. Good for Panasonic!
Slashdot Mirror
This is complete bullshit. None of my grandma's friends even CARE to show off their technological prowess, unlike the \. reader. Most people who would respond positively to WebTV will continue to respond positively to it, no matter what their alternatives are. Younger persons might show interest in expanded capabilities, but the over-65 crowd is notorious for sticking with tried-and-true technologies.
Now DON'T respond with nyah-nyah exceptions to this, because they DO exist. I admit it. But I think the generalization works well enough for the age group.
My point exactly. This guy is married to someone who actually posts to /.. Does he actually need anything else for Christmas?!
Actually, saying ALL the Handspring Springboard modules shipped with embedded drivers is a bit broad. Trust me, there are quite a few that require software installed at synch time.
Pretty stupid to be so near that curb, if you ask me. Surely these guys could find a more level site.
Look. He's stated his own case for belief in non-combative terms. He's given his reasons - the evidence he considers sufficient for his faith. This isn't a consideration of my belief, your belief, or the lack of both thereof; this is merely a commendation to an intelligent man for making an attempt at a semi-informed decision to hold out faith in an unprovable concept.
Again, I am an atheist. I am a Libertarian. I am a computer programmer. I have dealt with people who hold my positions as a personal affront, and I applaud Mr. Wall for expressing his differences in such a gentle, thoughtful way.
As an atheist, I must say, "Bravo."
Of some additional interest, you might like the following books, by an acquaintance of mine (one of the most intelligent men I have ever met):
Both by Stephen Blaha, Ph.D. and available at 1st Books.
Before any of you say it, no, a penis is not required. I just assume most geeks are equipped with one, rather than the more interesting alternative.
Stupid 2 minute wait. Someone is going to beat me to it.
Sorry, I'm not posting links. You already know where to go, I'm sure.
Pussy. MFC debugging is easy. All the source is there on the Visual Studio CDs and the VS Debugger is great. Hell, it's one of the EASIEST things to debug. MFC's problems lie within its architecture, not within the execution of said architecture.
Pussy. I always used copy con and got it right the first time. :)
I was hoping this was Beverly Cleary. I want another Mouse and the Motorcycle book.
Sure, but it's lots of fun to argue about it, too.
In reality, I don't really read too much into Star Wars. As Joseph Campbell says, most myth is just the expression of human psychology and philosophy in symbolic form. In other words, we create myth and stories because of the existence of our interal structure, not through our awareness of it.
I think George Lucas had a neat story, and figured it would be cool to make a neat movie of it. No thought. No symbolism. No hidden meanings. Just neat-to-me rationalism, no matter what we geeks want to infer.
Actually, I'd be sure this was satire if I didn't have a Weekly Standard subscription. The articles tend to go both ways, with some bent to the law-and-order side of the fence. If it's satire, it's a great Libertarian piece, otherwise, it's good Conservativism.
If you really want a good parallel, look at Rome. Starting with the reign of the Etruscan kings, Rome grew to a moderately-sized city state. Rebelling against the foreign authority of the kings, Rome installed a republic, founded on the premise that no single person (no king) could wield unlimited authority over the population. Remember, even Rome's executive was dividing between TWO consuls, compared to our single president. Again, Rome grew. However, Rome's growth served to illustrate the problems inherent in large representative republics: elections begat corruption. To quote Juvenal:
"The people who once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses."
Of course, corrupt elections yield corrupt politicians. The more bread and circuses a potential politician could provide, the more likely his election. Corrupt politicians move slowly, each following his own personal interests to the exclusion of the interests of the state. Add to this the communication problems inherent in an steadily-growing sphere of influence. It's surprising that anything was accomplished at all, and eventually, nothing was. Petty squabbling and orgiastic spending replaced government.
Rome was too large and too decentralized to handle the corruption in the system. Decision making was all but stopped, and the government was an ineffectual burden on the growth and power of the state. Enter Julius Caesar. Though he was killed before the empire was realized, the events Julius Caesar put into motion took Rome out of its decline by introducing a government that reduced the effect political squabbles exerted over the state.
A single-person state cut straight through the bottleneck of the republic. Decisions, though sometimes harsh, were made. As a single executive, Caesar was the ultimate "the buck stops here." Functioning as a central decision maker, the Caesar was involved only in decisions he HAD to make, leaving the rest to appointed authority. (When later emperors deviated from this, trouble started.) Rome under this strong but benevolent guidance grew larger than any empire before it, and became firmly rooted in our own world by its grandeur.
Parallels with the Star Wars story are obvious. Large, corrupt republic replaced by an emperor with impeccably good timing. While the effect of a bad emperor can be devastating, good emperors (meaning: those who resist micromanagement) can be wonderful. The Weekly Standard author is attempting to point this out: good emperors are the ultimate laissez-faire economists. Rome was big by human standards, but a galactic civilization - spanning god-knows how many cultures and people with a HUGE communication lag - would almost require an emperor to even move. Most likely, an emperor would be required long before such a political state could exist.
Contrary to the prior poster, no government is totally "good" nor totally "evil." Strength and power may often be confused with evil, but the evil lies only in its application for a negative effect on the state and the populous as a whole, at least by the standards the author is using. By these standards, the Empire is quite good.
Personally, I'd rather be in anarchy, but the Weekly Standard is a rather right-wing, law-and-order sort of rag. (My conservative, Southern Baptist father subscribes and bought ME a subscription...ick.) Not something that most rather-libertarian (I'm a capital-L Libertarian, myself.) would read nor agree with wholeheartedly.
We're seeing the essential problem with computer sales and service illustrated in the above posting: low-order geeks. These angry young misfits are self-proclaimed "computer experts" with little real experience or knowledge of the hardware and software world - they're merely ranting zealots for the latest opinion espoused in their favorite gaming rag. Go into your favorite computer store and hear them sing:
It's disgusting. So many people who think an A+ and MCSE are the be-all, end-all of career boosters. I refuse to buy from ANY freaking store where I have to talk to these clowns, and have taken to avoiding CompUSA entirely.
Submit your links to Yahoo!...er...Slashdot today! Leverage the power of the information superhighway and increase the size of your viewing audience by filling out this simple form!
What's a house-elf to do!?
Yes, this is that book.
I've found this book, Arco's Triple Your Reading Speed, a comparatively honest, straightforward look at the topic, without all the nonsense other books tend to contain. Essentially, reading is all about vision; you increase your vision area, you increase your ability to read more words at a glance. This book approaches speed-reading from this angle, and teaches you to increase your ability to "see more words" at a glance. It's not magic, and I haven't reached the claimed "triple" (1200 wpm for me) speed, but I've seen some improvement. Of course, technical books still slow me down, but I'm still quite a bit faster. I'm really hoping to get to the "page-turner" speed I used to see on That's Incredible. :)
To me, the best benefit of speed-reading is the reduction in reading time. The faster you read, the more time you have to re-read the material if you need it. Reading any material twice is better than a single slow-read, especially when studying. I have only noticed any particular discomfort when I am really trying to read terribly fast - up against my limits. At that point, I can read quickly, but I find my eyes start feeling strained, as though the ocular muscles are cramping. This sounds weird, it feels weird, and I generally slow down.
Good luck.
Hell, they didn't discuss any of the certifications, just listed them and their requirements. This isn't an article, it's shit. Any fool can go look at the lists on the company sites.
I should quote the prior post:
For now, good software comes from people who are willing to: work hard, think hard, and fail often. Paying the piper, in this day and age, is the ONLY way good developers come into existence, and the ONLY way good software ever comes into being.
To expound, teaching yourself to code isn't a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a GREAT thing, as I did it myself from the age of 10 (I'm 32 now). My intention was to make the new programmers semi-aware of how MUCH there is to learn; to wit, the old saw about true wisdom lying in the recognition of how much there is still to learn. The real issue, for me, is to recognize how much there is to software architecture and design - the patterns that, although expressed in code, lie somehow above it, shaping the code and expressing a higher abstraction. Recognizing this is the first step toward creating great, stable software, and far too many beginners are too entranced by the hypnotic syntax of their chosen programming language to be aware of the real beauty in programming. It's the difference in creating software that fulfills a purpose and slapping together something that "will do...sometimes".
By all means, teach yourself to code, but GET A MENTOR to help you see the rest. Join mailing lists, newsgroups, and the like. Talk to the larger community, and don't hold yourself above ALL the academics. There is some real gold out there that is NOT written in a "how to" reference. Don't try to be a REAL programmer, try to write good software.
Why rant?
For some bizarre reason, there is a wide-ranging belief: anyone can purchase a compiler and some tech books, thus, anyone can write good software. You see evidence everyday - at least I do - in offices where the operations staff (tape monkeys) have been transferred into programming with the help of VB and a Dummies book, in state government where the only qualification for programmers is a college degree (no matter the major), in clients who INSIST that their Excel spreadsheet is the perfect medium for their corporation-wide finance package. Even worse, you see it in the software that you suffer from daily.
To the point: Programming is easy. Designing and building useful software is HARD....DAMN HARD. Just because no governmental body is demanding that you become licensed and certified before foisting your code upon the world, doesn't mean that software development is any less an engineering feat than building a suspension bridge. Sure, anyone can drop a log over a creek and call it a bridge, just as you can pound together some QBasic routines and call it software, but don't fool yourself concerning your true level of skill.
Software development is in its infancy, and most likely will require many lifetimes to truly reach some state of maturity. Development processes are poorly understood, architecture is almost non-existant, and we practitioners are often left groping about in the dark. For now, good software comes from people who are willing to: work hard, think hard, and fail often. Paying the piper, in this day and age, is the ONLY way good developers come into existence, and the ONLY way good software ever comes into being. Inspire the dreamer to move, not merely sit and dream.
THAT'S why I rant.
Agreed. Given the quality of most recent MMORPGs lately, or lack thereof, to wit: Anarchy Online and World War II Online not to mention the grand suckfulness that is ANY recent game with the words Star Wars in its title, this game will be hard-pressed not to suck.
Come on people! Realize that it's pure commercial drivel, not art nor nostalgia nor some sense of art that makes this crap move. You bought the crappy plastic little figures in 1977, and you're still buying junk.
This poll indicates that some 75% of VC++ developers (poll states around 3 million) are MFC programmers. This would seem to indicate a fair number of MFC projects in existence, at least among the Visual C++ community. Granted, given the TOTAL number of Windows programmers, this number is quite small, as the vast majority are almost certainly Delphi or VB users; so you're correct.
Although I can't see this link (thanks /.), I have to say "bravo!" More people should be exposed to the wonders of multi-monitor setups. As a developer/author, I have found the added real estate of multiple monitors more than outweighs the benefits of huge monitors. Thus, I buy cheaper 19 and 17 inch CRTs and have WAY more space to work and play. Good for Panasonic!