I've watched a couple seasons of it via Amazon Prime video.
On one hand, it prioritizes drama and style over reality and technology. I have not watched Mad Men but I assume it is a Mad Men wannabe. One of the characters once says, "all hat and no cattle." And many scenes in HCF are indeed all hat and no cattle.
On the other hand, many of the depictions of the technology of its day are detailed and on point and very few dramas, if any, have created so many moments of "yes! I have experienced that very thing!"
I don't work for or make commission from them, but I have used and recommend SafeEyes. Configurable. It keeps logs and blocks what you want, based on various criteria. You can even have it text message you if an account has too many hits. You can different accounts for different people. I believe it is prudent for parents to at least remain aware of what the kids are doing online. I have already had one young relative run away and meet someone they met online. Kids needs parents and sometimes parents need to set fences, or, again, at least be aware. I am sure there are ways around safeeyes but as pointed out in earlier posts, the arms race will at least make for more informed computer users:-)
hmmm... I fail to see how "crazy cut-your-head-off Muslims" applies to those who write a caustic article that aims to tell parents that the Wii accesses the Internet.
The real problem with BOB is that it didn't really matter. It keeps getting brought up as a scapegoat however, as it if were Microsoft's one problem from back when, and "hoo-boy, wasn't it a funny thing and what where they thinking?"
Noise about BOB entirely distracts from the fact that BOB wasn't Microsoft's one mistake, but rather characteristic of everything Microsoft has done since: a bad idea designed by committee and given a ridiculous interface that looks lame and insults the user.
Does his rant about BOB even make sense? Is he trying to say that entire tech media conglomerate has a conspiracy to fool all of us, and they are using BOB to do it? I enjoyed reading the article up to the BOB part. The parallels of Cairo to Vista are interesting and worth thinking about. But after the BOB and Cringley, thing, I don't know... I don't get it.
Thanks for the link. I expected the review to whine and demand several hours of the masochist's life back. It didn't, however. Further, it actually called out lack of violence as a feature.
Don't get me wrong. Reading about this game is making me grit my teeth. As does reading about GTA. I don't like either one of them. But I wonder if this game is getting a bad rap.
From the review:
The Good: Engaging story (of course there will be a sequel) A refreshing lack of violence Better than the books! The essays between the missions are well written, and actually intriguing There is an agenda, but it's pushed skillfully Surprisingly good documentation
The Bad: Pathfinding issues Explaining eschatology to your children if they want to play the game Subpar voice acting Horrid use of in-game advertisements Did they really have to try to sell me Christian music? They give you the book, and you may try to read it. Ick. That's bad.
The Ugly: The controversy over a relatively harmless and well-done piece of propaganda
I notice, for instance, that you seem to lob an ad hominem based on a completely unsupported assumption that the author referred to is ignorant of the thesis committee process.
To quote Princess Bride: I don't think that word means what you think it means...
Likewise. I would rather have my two 19" monitors than one 30". Two monitors of sufficient size give me a main workspace screen and a scratchpad, information, outlook, itunes, etc. screen. I can compare docs side by side, drag to a different monitor and maximize, etc. I believe I could use any given number of 19" monitors but I really doubt that any more or bigger than what I have would create any real gain in produtivity. OTOH, I believe that having only one 19" would create a shortage of screen space and slow me down a bit.
Long story short: for me, two 19-inchers are the sweet spot.
One man pushes an old lady out of the way of the bus. Another man pushes an old lady into the path of the oncoming bus. They are both guilty of pushing old ladies around. HOWEVER - one man was saving life, the other destroying it. Your example compares censoring Hezbollah (a terrorist organization that has no conscience against bombing civilians in the attempt to destroy a neigboring state) with censoring all free information.
Your comparison might be valid if the US were censoring Google searches by its own criteria, and China was censoring Google by it's own criteria. But to compare 1) blocking a terrorist web site while it is at war with 2) China blocking free flow of information from Google, Wiki, all the Internet is to say that both the men above are guilty of pushing old ladies around. One is in defense of life and liberty, the other is an attack against it.
TFA is a rant. A sentence like "The Vista saga has two interesting lessons for the computer business." would lead you to believe the author intends to take an objective look at some sort of a case study. However, pay attention to other verbiage within TFA. This is not an objective, fair, reasoned attempt to learn any lesson. It is a rant:
...marketed to people in poor countries in a futile attempt...
Security vulnerabilities come free with all versions
There will be a predictable (and expensive) PR campaign... But in Redmond...
How can hackers, scattered across the globe, working for no pay, linked only by the net and shared values, apparently outperform the smartest software company on the planet?
His logic is that because MS created an Office for Macintosh, therefore it will create a port for Linux. But Linux operates in a different space with a different user base than Macintosh. Further, Microsoft's relationship with Linux would have to be more similar to Microsoft's relationship to Apple for this to be a valid analogy.
I think a better analogy would be to compare SQL Server Express to MySQL and PostgreSQL. SQL Server was and is an expensive technology but Express is free. Why did MS do that? To compete with Open Source DBs. I believe it is more likely that when Open Office acquires a sufficient fan base to worry Microsoft they will either slash the price of Office or else release Office Express or some such version that is meant to compete ON WINDOWS with the Open Office space.
IOW, it is just as valid to assume that MS will create a WINDOWS variant of Office to compete with Open Office than it is to assume that they will create a LINUX version to do so. And, I think, more likely.
"Chinese labour law is very clear on this issue and the comments attributed to Apple are laughable. It is unlawful for employees in China to work 60 hours per week..."
How is this marked informative if there are no sources?
You will find the book to be completely worthless, same as if you had read it the first day you got it. But it will not matter, because more than likely the experience you got from owning it, and the years of working with computers will have given you the best "experience" possible.
Problem #1: Personal experience qualifies you only to solve problems you have personally solved before. If "it's never done that before" then you have a whole new problem. This is where outside help can SAVE TIME.
Problem #2: It impossible for most of us to remember everything we have ever learned. If you haven't seen a problem in a few years, you may forget a particular step or registry key or command syntax or creative hack or...
Problem #3: Isn't the transfer of written knowledge a hallmark of modern civilization? Why would computer repair not benefit from this important practice?
Problem #4: People who favor their own experience at the expense others' are often also know-it-alls who can't help but make up crap when they don't know the answer. All present company excluded, to be sure:-)
Besides, what if the book offers a better fix than you have discovered on your own? Isn't it possible that you personally have not always found the optimal solution?
My Point: Don't criticize someone as unskilled when such person claims at the outset he/she is unskilled and would like to find a quality book to improve his/her understanding and skill set. This is the exact same attitude that yells "RTFM" then offers up an inaccurate and incomplete suite of whitepapers that confuse a newbie as much as helps them.
And then there are the online pundits, many of whom are barely old enough to legally buy alcohol. These guys are classic. Let's just say that a lack of experience and a strongly worded opinion don't result in the most coherent of arguments and leave it at that.
I like the word 'paradigm.' True, sometimes it is abused. Sometimes it is only a hand-waving obfuscation. However it is also correctly used, if only occasionaly. In those cases, it is a correct and careful word choice which refers to both method and reasoning ("A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline" -- dictionary.com). Is there any other single word which can replace 'paradigm?"
However, a part of being in prison is that you are removed from society. Your rights are taken away from you on purpose. This is one reason why prison sucks.
Think about the consequence of prison inmates being a voting bloc. A politician could pander to a few large prisons and garner a great number of votes. Additionally, votes could be coerced. People in prison are under constant duress, both by authority and by their peers. For their own safety and for the political process, I believe that prison inmates should not be allowed to vote.
The quote in the leading paragraph about Qatar being more lawful than the West is out of context and wrongly represents the tone of the article. The author of the article expressed more concern about totalitarian regimes than the West. The above-mentioned quote was actually from a drunk salesman. Ever talked to a drunk salesman? The poster should be smacked for flaim-baiting by using an out of context quote that wrongly frames the article.
I admit it's been a while since I've read the thing but I do recall that laws to kill first born children were handed down by pharoes and kings when their power was threatened.
IOW, the Bible reports the occurance of such specific events but it did not set such a law.
that wholesome little angel who is the paragon of virtue and never does anything wrong in class
Don't have any of those, sorry:-) They are normal human children.
they have seen that it can red flag them for closer watching by authority and suddenly cause behavior they got away with before to be noticed and cause punishment
I described children who are negatively affected by games such as GTA. You seem to be accusing someone in authority of monitoring and punishing those kids for the simple fact that they play the games. Where did you come up with that offensive conclusion?
(BTW, I don't know any six- to nine-year-olds that would understand what you mean by 'oh no they have begun being corrupted by consumption of media' so I don't think they would have that response.)
Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your own decisions?
My concern is for children. They don't take full responsibility for a lot of things. If they commit a crime, their sentences are different, etc. Ideally all parents would take responsibility for their kids. However, in the real world, the rest of society needs to make certain guidelines. Kids aren't allowed in adult establishments, for example.
My wife and I direct a kids' (K-2nd grade, 6-9 years old) program at church. Our most difficult children are the ones who also happen to play GTA. I realize this is mostly correlation, not causation. But when a nine-year-old kid, who is always angry anyway, starts yelling curse words and talking about various ways to kill some other kid just because the other kid said or did something the first kid doesn't like - well, we have a problem. These kids seem to actually desire to practice in real life what they are doing in the game. That fact is, GTA is putting violent (and sexually abusive) notions in some of these kids' brains that is not appropriate for them.
I realize I am not offering an answer. But I think that many who work with children see "causation-correlation" and "taking responsibility for your own actions" as facile responses to a real problem.
1) Many of these commands or events were localized, not generalized. They don't stand as timeless commands to God-followers of every age. They occurred in a specific time and place for a specific reason. That doesn't make some of the passages easier to take. Some of them are still distressing. But it is still only fair to differentiate between a timeless command and description of a past event.
2) Genre, genre, genre! Expressions that are purposely symbolic or hyperbolic are not and were not commands to be followed in this or any age. The "dashing children against a stone" and "gouging eyes out" sections are examples.
1) Many scholars in linguistics feel that naming something is asserting power over it. That may be extreme. But think about the importance of names, such as pejorative titles like the N-word that are no longer considered appropriate.
2) RMS also disagrees. It's why he makes such a big deal out of GNU/Linux. Why can't people just call it Linux, as long as we properly train them? I disagree with RMS's insistence. I merely point it out to use RMS as an example of someone who does care about names.
3) Think about advertising. Consumer products such as foods are named by easy to pronounce and remember monikers. A cheesy snack called MCSAF (my cheesy snacks aren't freetos) or some such unpronounceable name will fail to sell every single time. Every single time. Like it or not, an easy to remember and pronounce title such as Outlook or Excel or Paintshop is going to be better received by consumers than esoteric titles like GNUxxx.
Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the software as you wish.
Me thinks RMS is hypocritical about his naming convention. Free Software dictates that the user is Free, the user is not subjegated, the user can do as the user wants woo hoo!!!! Freedom.
EXCEPT -- Don't you dare call the OS Linux. No, RMS as the developer of all-but-the-kernel gets to decide what you call it.
You can USE it - but you can't NAME it.
Slashdot Mirror
I hoping to see some discussion about Halt and Catch Fire: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt25...
I've watched a couple seasons of it via Amazon Prime video.
On one hand, it prioritizes drama and style over reality and technology. I have not watched Mad Men but I assume it is a Mad Men wannabe. One of the characters once says, "all hat and no cattle." And many scenes in HCF are indeed all hat and no cattle.
On the other hand, many of the depictions of the technology of its day are detailed and on point and very few dramas, if any, have created so many moments of "yes! I have experienced that very thing!"
I don't work for or make commission from them, but I have used and recommend SafeEyes. Configurable. It keeps logs and blocks what you want, based on various criteria. You can even have it text message you if an account has too many hits. You can different accounts for different people. I believe it is prudent for parents to at least remain aware of what the kids are doing online. I have already had one young relative run away and meet someone they met online. Kids needs parents and sometimes parents need to set fences, or, again, at least be aware. I am sure there are ways around safeeyes but as pointed out in earlier posts, the arms race will at least make for more informed computer users :-)
hmmm... I fail to see how "crazy cut-your-head-off Muslims" applies to those who write a caustic article that aims to tell parents that the Wii accesses the Internet.
The real problem with BOB is that it didn't really matter. It keeps getting brought up as a scapegoat however, as it if were Microsoft's one problem from back when, and "hoo-boy, wasn't it a funny thing and what where they thinking?"
Noise about BOB entirely distracts from the fact that BOB wasn't Microsoft's one mistake, but rather characteristic of everything Microsoft has done since: a bad idea designed by committee and given a ridiculous interface that looks lame and insults the user.
Does his rant about BOB even make sense? Is he trying to say that entire tech media conglomerate has a conspiracy to fool all of us, and they are using BOB to do it? I enjoyed reading the article up to the BOB part. The parallels of Cairo to Vista are interesting and worth thinking about. But after the BOB and Cringley, thing, I don't know... I don't get it.
*shrugs, closes browser, gets back to work*
Don't get me wrong. Reading about this game is making me grit my teeth. As does reading about GTA. I don't like either one of them. But I wonder if this game is getting a bad rap.
From the review:
Engaging story (of course there will be a sequel)
A refreshing lack of violence
Better than the books!
The essays between the missions are well written, and actually intriguing
There is an agenda, but it's pushed skillfully
Surprisingly good documentation
Pathfinding issues
Explaining eschatology to your children if they want to play the game
Subpar voice acting
Horrid use of in-game advertisements
Did they really have to try to sell me Christian music?
They give you the book, and you may try to read it. Ick. That's bad.
The controversy over a relatively harmless and well-done piece of propaganda
To quote Princess Bride: I don't think that word means what you think it means...
Likewise. I would rather have my two 19" monitors than one 30". Two monitors of sufficient size give me a main workspace screen and a scratchpad, information, outlook, itunes, etc. screen. I can compare docs side by side, drag to a different monitor and maximize, etc. I believe I could use any given number of 19" monitors but I really doubt that any more or bigger than what I have would create any real gain in produtivity. OTOH, I believe that having only one 19" would create a shortage of screen space and slow me down a bit.
Long story short: for me, two 19-inchers are the sweet spot.
One man pushes an old lady out of the way of the bus. Another man pushes an old lady into the path of the oncoming bus. They are both guilty of pushing old ladies around. HOWEVER - one man was saving life, the other destroying it. Your example compares censoring Hezbollah (a terrorist organization that has no conscience against bombing civilians in the attempt to destroy a neigboring state) with censoring all free information.
Your comparison might be valid if the US were censoring Google searches by its own criteria, and China was censoring Google by it's own criteria. But to compare 1) blocking a terrorist web site while it is at war with 2) China blocking free flow of information from Google, Wiki, all the Internet is to say that both the men above are guilty of pushing old ladies around. One is in defense of life and liberty, the other is an attack against it.
His logic is that because MS created an Office for Macintosh, therefore it will create a port for Linux. But Linux operates in a different space with a different user base than Macintosh. Further, Microsoft's relationship with Linux would have to be more similar to Microsoft's relationship to Apple for this to be a valid analogy.
I think a better analogy would be to compare SQL Server Express to MySQL and PostgreSQL. SQL Server was and is an expensive technology but Express is free. Why did MS do that? To compete with Open Source DBs. I believe it is more likely that when Open Office acquires a sufficient fan base to worry Microsoft they will either slash the price of Office or else release Office Express or some such version that is meant to compete ON WINDOWS with the Open Office space.
IOW, it is just as valid to assume that MS will create a WINDOWS variant of Office to compete with Open Office than it is to assume that they will create a LINUX version to do so. And, I think, more likely.
"Chinese labour law is very clear on this issue and the comments attributed to Apple are laughable. It is unlawful for employees in China to work 60 hours per week..."
How is this marked informative if there are no sources?
You will find the book to be completely worthless, same as if you had read it the first day you got it. But it will not matter, because more than likely the experience you got from owning it, and the years of working with computers will have given you the best "experience" possible.
Problem #1: Personal experience qualifies you only to solve problems you have personally solved before. If "it's never done that before" then you have a whole new problem. This is where outside help can SAVE TIME.
Problem #2: It impossible for most of us to remember everything we have ever learned. If you haven't seen a problem in a few years, you may forget a particular step or registry key or command syntax or creative hack or...
Problem #3: Isn't the transfer of written knowledge a hallmark of modern civilization? Why would computer repair not benefit from this important practice?
Problem #4: People who favor their own experience at the expense others' are often also know-it-alls who can't help but make up crap when they don't know the answer. All present company excluded, to be sure :-)
Besides, what if the book offers a better fix than you have discovered on your own? Isn't it possible that you personally have not always found the optimal solution?
My Point: Don't criticize someone as unskilled when such person claims at the outset he/she is unskilled and would like to find a quality book to improve his/her understanding and skill set. This is the exact same attitude that yells "RTFM" then offers up an inaccurate and incomplete suite of whitepapers that confuse a newbie as much as helps them.
And then there are the online pundits, many of whom are barely old enough to legally buy alcohol. These guys are classic. Let's just say that a lack of experience and a strongly worded opinion don't result in the most coherent of arguments and leave it at that.
I like the word 'paradigm.' True, sometimes it is abused. Sometimes it is only a hand-waving obfuscation. However it is also correctly used, if only occasionaly. In those cases, it is a correct and careful word choice which refers to both method and reasoning ("A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline" -- dictionary.com). Is there any other single word which can replace 'paradigm?"
However, a part of being in prison is that you are removed from society. Your rights are taken away from you on purpose. This is one reason why prison sucks.
Think about the consequence of prison inmates being a voting bloc. A politician could pander to a few large prisons and garner a great number of votes. Additionally, votes could be coerced. People in prison are under constant duress, both by authority and by their peers. For their own safety and for the political process, I believe that prison inmates should not be allowed to vote.
The quote in the leading paragraph about Qatar being more lawful than the West is out of context and wrongly represents the tone of the article. The author of the article expressed more concern about totalitarian regimes than the West. The above-mentioned quote was actually from a drunk salesman. Ever talked to a drunk salesman? The poster should be smacked for flaim-baiting by using an out of context quote that wrongly frames the article.
and God himself making laws to kill first born children
Once again, interesting. Have a reference for that?
I admit it's been a while since I've read the thing but I do recall that laws to kill first born children were handed down by pharoes and kings when their power was threatened.
IOW, the Bible reports the occurance of such specific events but it did not set such a law.
According to "The Bible" killing first born children was a law at one time too
Interesting. Could you provide a reference for that?
that wholesome little angel who is the paragon of virtue and never does anything wrong in class
Don't have any of those, sorry
they have seen that it can red flag them for closer watching by authority and suddenly cause behavior they got away with before to be noticed and cause punishment
I described children who are negatively affected by games such as GTA. You seem to be accusing someone in authority of monitoring and punishing those kids for the simple fact that they play the games. Where did you come up with that offensive conclusion?
(BTW, I don't know any six- to nine-year-olds that would understand what you mean by 'oh no they have begun being corrupted by consumption of media' so I don't think they would have that response.)
My concern is for children. They don't take full responsibility for a lot of things. If they commit a crime, their sentences are different, etc. Ideally all parents would take responsibility for their kids. However, in the real world, the rest of society needs to make certain guidelines. Kids aren't allowed in adult establishments, for example.
My wife and I direct a kids' (K-2nd grade, 6-9 years old) program at church. Our most difficult children are the ones who also happen to play GTA. I realize this is mostly correlation, not causation. But when a nine-year-old kid, who is always angry anyway, starts yelling curse words and talking about various ways to kill some other kid just because the other kid said or did something the first kid doesn't like - well, we have a problem. These kids seem to actually desire to practice in real life what they are doing in the game. That fact is, GTA is putting violent (and sexually abusive) notions in some of these kids' brains that is not appropriate for them.
I realize I am not offering an answer. But I think that many who work with children see "causation-correlation" and "taking responsibility for your own actions" as facile responses to a real problem.
Two comments.
1) Many of these commands or events were localized, not generalized. They don't stand as timeless commands to God-followers of every age. They occurred in a specific time and place for a specific reason. That doesn't make some of the passages easier to take. Some of them are still distressing. But it is still only fair to differentiate between a timeless command and description of a past event.
2) Genre, genre, genre! Expressions that are purposely symbolic or hyperbolic are not and were not commands to be followed in this or any age. The "dashing children against a stone" and "gouging eyes out" sections are examples.
uh oh, the analogy police are coming!
I disagree.
1) Many scholars in linguistics feel that naming something is asserting power over it. That may be extreme. But think about the importance of names, such as pejorative titles like the N-word that are no longer considered appropriate.
2) RMS also disagrees. It's why he makes such a big deal out of GNU/Linux. Why can't people just call it Linux, as long as we properly train them? I disagree with RMS's insistence. I merely point it out to use RMS as an example of someone who does care about names.
3) Think about advertising. Consumer products such as foods are named by easy to pronounce and remember monikers. A cheesy snack called MCSAF (my cheesy snacks aren't freetos) or some such unpronounceable name will fail to sell every single time. Every single time. Like it or not, an easy to remember and pronounce title such as Outlook or Excel or Paintshop is going to be better received by consumers than esoteric titles like GNUxxx.
Me thinks RMS is hypocritical about his naming convention. Free Software dictates that the user is Free, the user is not subjegated, the user can do as the user wants woo hoo!!!! Freedom.
EXCEPT -- Don't you dare call the OS Linux. No, RMS as the developer of all-but-the-kernel gets to decide what you call it.
You can USE it - but you can't NAME it.