Ausfag here. Some minor clarifications. The vote for each seat is NOT first past the post - it's preferential voting or "instant run-off voting". So, if no candidate has a majority on primary votes, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the second preference for those ballot papers is distributed where those . Rinse, repeat until someone has a majority. As you say, in practice this means that 3rd party candidates are eliminated first. And in practice it comes down to a fight between Labor (our marginally progressive left-centrist party) and Liberal (our marginally conservative right-centrist party). Apologies if this is what you meant.
The Upper House (Senate) does get third party candidates because of this preferential voting process - each state has 7 senate seats regardless of actual population - a famous Prime Minister (Paul Keating) once called the Senate "unrepresentative swill" for this reason. The Senate is still largely Labor/Liberal with usually some Greens and a few independents though, so it's a stretch to say it represents minorities much.
Also, in the Lower House rules of party discipline apply - so if I'm in Labor party, I will vote with them regardless of my personal preferences - otherwise I can expect a nasty phone call from the heavies later in the day. "Crossing the floor" to vote with the other side is a big deal and a step not taken lightly. Occasionally on a moral issue (eg abortion, euthanasia) a "conscience vote" will be allowed and MPs can vote whichever way they like.
Don't romanticise our system - it's as prone to party politics and grid lock as anywhere else. A key difference though is that voting is compulsory - so you get high turn out rates. If you don't vote and get caught (ie you are registered to vote but don't) you'll get a small fine, about $50 I think.
.... particularly a departmental one, where there's been a history of ad hoc development that met the needs of the staff well when the applications were first developed but there is no management buy-in to maintenance of a code base and no culture of rigour in the developers who may have been brought in and out to do piecework. It's also a standard approach for a manager in an academic position to want a justification, which is fine, although sometimes they want to make insightful comments/recommendations from their academic disciplinary perspective which is often not useful. Academics also ask for a lot of information - after all, their job predisposes them to be analytical - whether they really need to or not.
If you really need to sell it, the image in the first reply is helpful - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Revision_controlled_project_visualization-2010-24-02.svg
talk through that, explaining how branches and versions are used in the development process - contrast with the opposite scenario when versioning is not used.
You have _faith_ that the sun will come up tomorrow. That is "grounded faith". You can't prove it until AFTER the event happens, at which point it becomes FACT/quote>
No, faith is the belief in things that cannot be proved through empiricism and reason - ie belief in a god. I don't have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have an expectation that it will because I understand that the Earth rotates on its axis relative to the Sun, and I have every day of my life so far as empirical evidence supporting that model.
Understanding the operation of a physical system and its behaviour, even future behaviour, is not the same as "faith".
Perhaps... although the set things "what I did yesterday", "what I'm doing today" and "what is blocking me" are open-ended and are intended to engage others in meaningful actions and interactions. It's not a process like a regular "business" meeting with a chair, minutes, actions, attendance record, etc etc. So I would argue it's much less process than traditional approaches, and much more about encouraging real interactions in an economical way.
The standing-up bit is just to encourage brevity - and it works! (Usually)
Agile also says change these rules as you see fit - although if you change them too much you may not be doing "agile", I guess.
The point of the terminal is that you have all the commands for every program accessible in one location. The downfall is that you have to know the commands beforehand.
Great and concise summary of the terminal and why I might or might want to use it.
It's actually "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools". Would you say a short, informal daily standup is about more about individuals and interactions or more about processes and tools?
The term you are looking for is "usability designers", something that is becoming more and more trendy nowadays.
None of the "usability designers" I've worked with - although of the usablity people I've worked with have that title anyway - do their work based on following "gurus" and make decisions based on "luck". Usability is based on empirical evidence in the main - a number of users actually attempt to carry out tasks using a design or prototype and point out where they find errors or don't understand how to complete a task. The design is iterated and tested again. The usability expert may or may not have been part of the team actually designing the interface anyway. You don't need large numbers of users to test a design. Around 5 typical users is typically enough to identify issues.
Gnome 3 may be shit, but to blame Usability seems like a stretch to me. Sounds like they made poor strategic design decisions which usability can't fix. But don't blame Usability.
If any commercial 7" tablet fits your needs, check some brands/models out there and create a custom version of Android + your app.
If it doesn't (probably not rugged enough, or the touch screen not bulletproof....) get them, strip them and modify them. If you are planning to sell more than 100k units and you have enough $, get serious, contact a factory and ask for some redesign for you.
In both cases, you can use a stripped android + your app.
OR you can start with something like this:
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/get-your-own-open-source-touchscreen-device-for-69-2011023/
There are plenty of ruggedized, industrial PCs out there. This guy needs to spend a few minutes Googling this stuff. Forget Android: just run stock Debian or BSD on the thing and forget about it. Or even Windows Embedded, if you happen to swing that way (as Seinfeld said, "But there's nothing wrong with that!")
I think he actually said "not that there's anything wrong with that".
And also, companies and programmers employed by companies make significant contributions to open source projects. Not all open source work is done by hobbyists. In fact not much at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Ausfag here. Some minor clarifications. The vote for each seat is NOT first past the post - it's preferential voting or "instant run-off voting". So, if no candidate has a majority on primary votes, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the second preference for those ballot papers is distributed where those . Rinse, repeat until someone has a majority. As you say, in practice this means that 3rd party candidates are eliminated first. And in practice it comes down to a fight between Labor (our marginally progressive left-centrist party) and Liberal (our marginally conservative right-centrist party). Apologies if this is what you meant. The Upper House (Senate) does get third party candidates because of this preferential voting process - each state has 7 senate seats regardless of actual population - a famous Prime Minister (Paul Keating) once called the Senate "unrepresentative swill" for this reason. The Senate is still largely Labor/Liberal with usually some Greens and a few independents though, so it's a stretch to say it represents minorities much. Also, in the Lower House rules of party discipline apply - so if I'm in Labor party, I will vote with them regardless of my personal preferences - otherwise I can expect a nasty phone call from the heavies later in the day. "Crossing the floor" to vote with the other side is a big deal and a step not taken lightly. Occasionally on a moral issue (eg abortion, euthanasia) a "conscience vote" will be allowed and MPs can vote whichever way they like. Don't romanticise our system - it's as prone to party politics and grid lock as anywhere else. A key difference though is that voting is compulsory - so you get high turn out rates. If you don't vote and get caught (ie you are registered to vote but don't) you'll get a small fine, about $50 I think.
.... particularly a departmental one, where there's been a history of ad hoc development that met the needs of the staff well when the applications were first developed but there is no management buy-in to maintenance of a code base and no culture of rigour in the developers who may have been brought in and out to do piecework. It's also a standard approach for a manager in an academic position to want a justification, which is fine, although sometimes they want to make insightful comments/recommendations from their academic disciplinary perspective which is often not useful. Academics also ask for a lot of information - after all, their job predisposes them to be analytical - whether they really need to or not. If you really need to sell it, the image in the first reply is helpful - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Revision_controlled_project_visualization-2010-24-02.svg talk through that, explaining how branches and versions are used in the development process - contrast with the opposite scenario when versioning is not used.
I've read Zelanzy a long time ago, but can't remember titles except "Lord of Light" which was great! Recommend me something.
If you can track down Golem100, it's a great read. It's the first Bester I read but seems less dated than his others (to me).
You have _faith_ that the sun will come up tomorrow. That is "grounded faith". You can't prove it until AFTER the event happens, at which point it becomes FACT/quote> No, faith is the belief in things that cannot be proved through empiricism and reason - ie belief in a god. I don't have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have an expectation that it will because I understand that the Earth rotates on its axis relative to the Sun, and I have every day of my life so far as empirical evidence supporting that model. Understanding the operation of a physical system and its behaviour, even future behaviour, is not the same as "faith".
Were you thinking of Indonesia, with its "pancasila"?
Malaysia applies Muslim law to Muslims: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia#Religion
Pancasila is nothing to do with Sharia.
Perhaps... although the set things "what I did yesterday", "what I'm doing today" and "what is blocking me" are open-ended and are intended to engage others in meaningful actions and interactions. It's not a process like a regular "business" meeting with a chair, minutes, actions, attendance record, etc etc. So I would argue it's much less process than traditional approaches, and much more about encouraging real interactions in an economical way. The standing-up bit is just to encourage brevity - and it works! (Usually) Agile also says change these rules as you see fit - although if you change them too much you may not be doing "agile", I guess.
The point of the terminal is that you have all the commands for every program accessible in one location. The downfall is that you have to know the commands beforehand.
Great and concise summary of the terminal and why I might or might want to use it.
It's actually "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools". Would you say a short, informal daily standup is about more about individuals and interactions or more about processes and tools?
can't speak for Tasmania (or Maine), but I've in nearly all the other Australian states at one time or other and it's not that bad!
The term you are looking for is "usability designers", something that is becoming more and more trendy nowadays.
None of the "usability designers" I've worked with - although of the usablity people I've worked with have that title anyway - do their work based on following "gurus" and make decisions based on "luck". Usability is based on empirical evidence in the main - a number of users actually attempt to carry out tasks using a design or prototype and point out where they find errors or don't understand how to complete a task. The design is iterated and tested again. The usability expert may or may not have been part of the team actually designing the interface anyway. You don't need large numbers of users to test a design. Around 5 typical users is typically enough to identify issues. Gnome 3 may be shit, but to blame Usability seems like a stretch to me. Sounds like they made poor strategic design decisions which usability can't fix. But don't blame Usability.
If any commercial 7" tablet fits your needs, check some brands/models out there and create a custom version of Android + your app. If it doesn't (probably not rugged enough, or the touch screen not bulletproof....) get them, strip them and modify them. If you are planning to sell more than 100k units and you have enough $, get serious, contact a factory and ask for some redesign for you. In both cases, you can use a stripped android + your app. OR you can start with something like this: http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/get-your-own-open-source-touchscreen-device-for-69-2011023/
There are plenty of ruggedized, industrial PCs out there. This guy needs to spend a few minutes Googling this stuff. Forget Android: just run stock Debian or BSD on the thing and forget about it. Or even Windows Embedded, if you happen to swing that way (as Seinfeld said, "But there's nothing wrong with that!")
I think he actually said "not that there's anything wrong with that".
And also, companies and programmers employed by companies make significant contributions to open source projects. Not all open source work is done by hobbyists. In fact not much at all.
is fat.