Most humans make descisions based on their gut (in this case, how much they like the guy), then rationalize later.
You see this in
* votes
* hiring choices
* firing choices
* warnings vs traffic tickets
* arrests
* vendor purchasing decisions
* business deals
*./ moderation
There is a large group of people who *like* Obama and are motivated by him. McCain doesn't have that many supporters, so much as Obama detractors. The decision of who is President is going to come down to likeability and dislikeability above all other factors and there is not a lot that can be done about that.
Incidentally, CEOs are hired for who they know and what networking they can bring to a company. Their skill or knowledge is secondary. Of course there are a few exceptions to that rule (Gates,Jobs,Iacocca,Hughes).
As for the Olympics, not rocking the boat comes to the fore. It *is* about Olypic ideas for some people, and it is purely about money for others. For China, its about making it to the world stage and are hell bent on giving the illusion of perfection.
Some investors do care about 'cool' and about producing good products, even if most are all about the money.
That being said, MS has the momentum, the marketing capital and sales skill to keep earning very nice profits. It big enough that it resists real innovation, but its stable enough that it will take worse than Ballmer to wreck itself. Even if it were to start to fail, it would be this huge beached whale that will feed scavengers for decades.
The question isn't why Americans love cars, the question is why Europe doesn't.
Its quite an assumption to think that Europeans don't love their cars. That is not true.
They just don't tend to like to commute in them. European cities are congested places; bicycles are often a faster means of travel within a city.
I would much rather take a 20 minute ride on busses and fast trains rather than an hour commute driving through traffic.
I had lived in Berlin for a while. When you are downtown, you are never further than 200 meters from a subway or fast train stop. The rest of the city was covered by extensive bus routes, even at night. Cars were for longer trips, and most longer trips could be taken by train or bus in any case.
Look at Manhattan. The subway and bus systems completely blanket the city and the subways run all night. You have more freedom if you don't bring a car and have to seek out parking (which may be many blocks from your destination).
Life is not fair. We hope for fairness and justice and are really let down when it doesn't happen.
Fairness and justice are a promise we've been given as children.
After a number of years of being told how fair things should be, we are then taught that we shouldn't quite expect that.
How will it end? It won't be all that different than it is now. People in power will give a hard time to those they don't like, undue favour to those they do like and most everyone else will be ignored. They will just have a whole lot more power than they did before.
You really think no one is going to spy on their ex over this? It's just a few keystrokes. There's no oversight, so no problem! The worst that will happen is a 'naughty, naughty' from a complicent superior.
People are people and they like to play. They will do as much of 'whatever they want' as they think they can get away with, which is probably a lot.
I personally don't trust those listening in with so much unchecked power. A random sample of them is not likely better than a random sample of anyone else in the world, and people have a high suckage rate.
We have a pretty good idea what's going to happen with this law. There are so many immediate uses that those wiretapping will be too busy to actually getting around to trying to wiretap any real threats.
In the US, expect frivolous uses of the law such as the above. It will be used to find where to dig dirt (sex lives,funny/out of context quotes) on any politicians.
Expect those abusing it to have a good sense of 'just how far they can get away with it', and typically keep within those bounds so as to not be noticed.
What's the quickest way to a headache? What's a language with sucky closures? What language had a promising start until the convention was to have GhostClassFactoryFactoryFactoryThatHidesLogicBehindAllLayers? Where can I get the best bloat for my buck? Where can I find a good way to store a few k of data into a matrix of XML cruft?
That being said, java is reasonable when used reasonably. The current conventions is to use it to produce monumental bloat. It was fine pre J2EE.
I suppose it would be like an epileptic attack. If you did something like a DDOS attack, you'd run into the boundary that neurons can fire at most 3 times a second.
Maybe the Borg started off as a very advanced MMORPG.
Or you could have a sensible package system which does updates (eg, one of the Linux package managers), or have the program itself do the updates (eg, Firefox). Your problem is solved.
Its solved if you have a homogeneous environment. Where I work, people use Mac, Windows and Linux as desktop systems.
A commonly mentioned benefit of web apps is portability, but this isn't really true either because of the variety (and inconsistency) of web browsers. What I think is a better approach is something like the solution we see with Qt, where you write your program once, then compile it for different platforms, and it looks native every time. You get the speed and the portability and the UI consistency and the tech support only needs to support one program.
Many web apps are merely data reports with minor munging. The performance differences in execution speed are made moot by network latency and thruput.
Yes there are different browsers out there, but you can be mean and put your foot down and say. "Use Firefox".
Makes sense, doesn't it? Everyone knows CO2 is utterly harmless. The scientists are just rocking the boat from their ivory towers.
I mean, its nothing at all like when it was completely obvious that the earth was the center of the universe and that malcontent Gallileo was stirring up shit.
Why the hell have an EPA if all this stuff is just completely obvious.
Now (and even then) you can be fired for using a racial epitaph (though you have to have a pattern of abusive behavior). Second to that, you just might get the shit kicked out of you if you were to try to use one.
Right or wrong, distil 'political correctness' down to its essence and you get "you'll be punished for acting like an jerk". Acting like an ass is one of those inalienable rights implicit in being human.
You could previously be fired for being of a certain race. Now its a little harder to do.
I suppose that's progress. I fear when 'lazy' becomes a protected class.
I suppose they would be experts at damaging the country by now. I wonder why the change of heart? Ah, they don't want anyone else to do it. They don't like to share.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like a whole new type of 'vaporware'.
It makes me wonder if power corrupts people and turns them into raging assholes or if raging assholes are attracted to that much power.
I'm sorry, all it just takes is a spineless middle unwilling to rock the boat to amplify the effects of a tiny minority of brutal psychopaths.
I agree with your post. I want to like McCain as I had in the past and I imagine him disliking the face he thinks he has to wear.
I'm sick of seeing McCain ads that only feature Obama. I'd really prefer to see ads for McCain *about* McCain. *sigh*
Most humans make descisions based on their gut (in this case, how much they like the guy), then rationalize later.
You see this in ./ moderation
* votes
* hiring choices
* firing choices
* warnings vs traffic tickets
* arrests
* vendor purchasing decisions
* business deals
*
There is a large group of people who *like* Obama and are motivated by him. McCain doesn't have that many supporters, so much as Obama detractors. The decision of who is President is going to come down to likeability and dislikeability above all other factors and there is not a lot that can be done about that.
Incidentally, CEOs are hired for who they know and what networking they can bring to a company. Their skill or knowledge is secondary. Of course there are a few exceptions to that rule (Gates,Jobs,Iacocca,Hughes).
As for the Olympics, not rocking the boat comes to the fore. It *is* about Olypic ideas for some people, and it is purely about money for others. For China, its about making it to the world stage and are hell bent on giving the illusion of perfection.
Apple is growing, Microsoft is stagnating.
http://quote.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL#chart2:symbol=aapl;range=my;compare=msft;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Some investors do care about 'cool' and about producing good products, even if most are all about the money.
That being said, MS has the momentum, the marketing capital and sales skill to keep earning very nice profits. It big enough that it resists real innovation, but its stable enough that it will take worse than Ballmer to wreck itself. Even if it were to start to fail, it would be this huge beached whale that will feed scavengers for decades.
Javascript itself is a relative of scheme, which is a descendant of lisp.
It offers macros, closures and of course recursion.
The big difference is that javascript is not list based.
The question isn't why Americans love cars, the question is why Europe doesn't.
Its quite an assumption to think that Europeans don't love their cars. That is not true.
They just don't tend to like to commute in them. European cities are congested places; bicycles are often a faster means of travel within a city.
I would much rather take a 20 minute ride on busses and fast trains rather than an hour commute driving through traffic.
I had lived in Berlin for a while. When you are downtown, you are never further than 200 meters from a subway or fast train stop. The rest of the city was covered by extensive bus routes, even at night. Cars were for longer trips, and most longer trips could be taken by train or bus in any case.
Look at Manhattan. The subway and bus systems completely blanket the city and the subways run all night. You have more freedom if you don't bring a car and have to seek out parking (which may be many blocks from your destination).
That patriotism isn't necessarily a good thing
Why doesn't Diebold allow for open source code?
* They are afraid of scrutiny. They might have errors and some might turn out to be embarrassing.
* Competition might ensue.
* Hide any funny business.
* Have to follow someone else's rules
* Have to spend effort/expense making code available.
* Code files too big as they were written with PowerPoint (tm)
Life is not fair. We hope for fairness and justice and are really let down when it doesn't happen.
Fairness and justice are a promise we've been given as children.
After a number of years of being told how fair things should be, we are then taught that we shouldn't quite expect that.
How will it end? It won't be all that different than it is now. People in power will give a hard time to those they don't like, undue favour to those they do like and most everyone else will be ignored. They will just have a whole lot more power than they did before.
You really think no one is going to spy on their ex over this? It's just a few keystrokes. There's no oversight, so no problem! The worst that will happen is a 'naughty, naughty' from a complicent superior.
People are people and they like to play. They will do as much of 'whatever they want' as they think they can get away with, which is probably a lot.
I personally don't trust those listening in with so much unchecked power. A random sample of them is not likely better than a random sample of anyone else in the world, and people have a high suckage rate.
We have a pretty good idea what's going to happen with this law. There are so many immediate uses that those wiretapping will be too busy to actually getting around to trying to wiretap any real threats.
Lets take a look at how surveillance cameras are used in London
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/28/local-councils-in-th.html
In the US, expect frivolous uses of the law such as the above. It will be used to find where to dig dirt (sex lives,funny/out of context quotes) on any politicians.
Expect those abusing it to have a good sense of 'just how far they can get away with it', and typically keep within those bounds so as to not be noticed.
It was illegal when it happened.
When liquor was sold during Prohibition, it was sold illegally.
What's the quickest way to a headache?
What's a language with sucky closures?
What language had a promising start until the convention was to have GhostClassFactoryFactoryFactoryThatHidesLogicBehindAllLayers?
Where can I get the best bloat for my buck?
Where can I find a good way to store a few k of data into a matrix of XML cruft?
That being said, java is reasonable when used reasonably. The current conventions is to use it to produce monumental bloat. It was fine pre J2EE.
using perl 6 and guile both running on parrot.
Haha yes! I'd wondered what it stood for. It would explain why they are either violent (attacking) or oblivious (farming/fishing)
I suppose it would be like an epileptic attack. If you did something like a DDOS attack, you'd run into the boundary that neurons can fire at most 3 times a second.
Maybe the Borg started off as a very advanced MMORPG.
Or you could have a sensible package system which does updates (eg, one of the Linux package managers), or have the program itself do the updates (eg, Firefox). Your problem is solved.
Its solved if you have a homogeneous environment. Where I work, people use Mac, Windows and Linux as desktop systems.
A commonly mentioned benefit of web apps is portability, but this isn't really true either because of the variety (and inconsistency) of web browsers. What I think is a better approach is something like the solution we see with Qt, where you write your program once, then compile it for different platforms, and it looks native every time. You get the speed and the portability and the UI consistency and the tech support only needs to support one program.
Many web apps are merely data reports with minor munging. The performance differences in execution speed are made moot by network latency and thruput.
Yes there are different browsers out there, but you can be mean and put your foot down and say. "Use Firefox".
Eep, didn't mean to misrepresent you.
That one went right over my head.
*proudly wearing my 'I was a butthead on ./' T-Shirt
Makes sense, doesn't it? Everyone knows CO2 is utterly harmless. The scientists are just rocking the boat from their ivory towers.
I mean, its nothing at all like when it was completely obvious that the earth was the center of the universe and that malcontent Gallileo was stirring up shit.
Why the hell have an EPA if all this stuff is just completely obvious.
Now (and even then) you can be fired for using a racial epitaph (though you have to have a pattern of abusive behavior). Second to that, you just might get the shit kicked out of you if you were to try to use one.
Right or wrong, distil 'political correctness' down to its essence and you get "you'll be punished for acting like an jerk". Acting like an ass is one of those inalienable rights implicit in being human.
You could previously be fired for being of a certain race. Now its a little harder to do.
I suppose that's progress. I fear when 'lazy' becomes a protected class.
I would still expect people to place the emphasis on what they read last. That isn't everyone though.
No matter the order, you'll have a group that won't pay attention to the downsides.
Do you remember the first thing that you read, or the latest?
Placing the downsides last stresses the downsides.
I suppose they would be experts at damaging the country by now. I wonder why the change of heart? Ah, they don't want anyone else to do it. They don't like to share.
The record has been doubled by the Republicans. That needs more explanation than just being in the minority.