Very well-said. I have long held the opinion that the decline started roughly about the time we began hearing the term "Human Resources" -- a concept which, in effect, treats a human being as having roughly equal individual value to a box of pencils.
In the US, this closely coincided with the near-total elimination of small business employment over the long term (roughly 30 years, ending with what now appears to be a leveling-off in the late 90s). Another trend which I believe is suspicously coincidental is the "get in / get out" mentality amongst the higher levels of management. Their involvement is purely financial and short-term; they are essentially hatchet-men, which directly supports your conclusion.
Don't be so sure about that. The HardOCP article about the GPU (here) indicates that there are 192 separate FPUs built into the GPU's "Smart 3D Memory" subsystem. If nothing else, weird new features like that make it relatively pointless to "predict" relative capabilities of the consoles prior to release.
Wrong. The calendar to which you refer was created around 525 AD by a Catholic monk named Dionysius Exiguus, who was attempting to calculate an accurate date for Easter. The sort of people who concern themselves with things like this believe his numbers were incorrect, and that The Man was born around 8BC (with other estimations placing it as late as 4BC). Another monk named Bede was trying to work out these descrepancies (I think around 725) and apparently concluded there wasn't "room" for a year zero if the known BC dates were to be reconciled with the known AD dates. Naturally, it's all much more complex than what I'm going to write in a slashdot post, but in any case, it is utterly unrelated to the Romans not having a zero in their numbering system.
You are correct, they're different. In the holo Emporer P is telling the boy-actor how he loves what he's done with the place (the Jedi Temple, that is).
I am actually a fairly highly-placed developer in one of the largest financial companies in the world. This industry is one of the worst when it comes to blindly offshoring everything within arm's reach and giving the axe to giant swathes of workers when the stock blips.
For a long time I've insisted the worst business concept to emerge from the 80's and 90's can be summed up by the phrase "Human Resources" -- treating people just like copier paper and office chairs. From time to time you have to draw the line somewhere.
I'd say it was pretty obvious that your mathetmatical wizardry was not in question. The trolling started when you, some random-wanker slashbot, is going to come up with the Secret Ultimate Solution to Grand Challenge Success with one line of pseudo-code that eluded the entire CMU team for an entire year.
Kudos. You are a master of robotics and engineering.
Others have already posted adequate responses to most of your points, but I'll add the observation that the terrain mix is very heavily biased towards desert and very low quality trails. I don't remember the specific details off the top of my head but actual roads comprised only a small fraction of the total course distance.
And unless you actually have spent a lot of time driving off-road (I have), or racing (I do), then I stand by my assertion that you clearly have no real world experience with either of these activities. If on the other hand you do engage in these activities, then I will merely express relief that you probably don't do it anywhere near me.
Yeah, I saw that the first time -- funny that nobody else has seen one of these mysterious "viral strains" of CWS. In other words -- if it was viral, it wasn't CWS.
For starters, when you're driving off-road, 17.5MPH *is* pretty fast. Go rent a 4WD Jeep one day and find yourself some wide open terrain and see what kind of speed you can average. You can easily brake axles and half-shafts even at only 10MPH in vehicles of the size and weight typically represented here. On top of that, unless you're spending big bucks on high-end racing grade drivetrains, a 4WD system isn't going to last 10 hours at that kind of speed. Be sure to read the manual in that Jeep you rent -- even in 4-high you can't exceed about 20 MPH, and shouldn't run it at that speed for any period of time. (Most full-time 4WD systems are not designed for off-road use beyond "the dirt road down to the campground" sort of thing.)
Oh wait a sec...
yet no-one thought to put in something that will do something like:
Damn, I wrote all of that before I realized you're just a troll.
why not to slow down near every obstacle and wait for actual impact. then try to estimate the obstacle using the information gotten from the impact. then decide about turning 40 degree and attemptiing again and so on.
For one thing, there is a time limit. You'd never come anywhere close to finishing if you took the bumper-car approach. On top of that, some of those obstacles aren't of the "bump into it" variety -- streams and ditches, for example. There are also obstacles which are designed to require visual interpretation -- picking your way through a narrow gate, for example.
I don't know about you, but in all the cities I've driven in across the country, it's the highways which are congested -- and they consider that to be a relatively difficult problem.
You've clearly never driven off-road. Indeed, with your statement that somebody could average 68 MPH in terrain like this demosntrates that you've probably never raced in your life, either.
Even in relatively benign terrain, a speed of about 15 MPH is actually moving pretty quickly. These aren't $2M one-time-use lightweight 500HP Paris-Dakar desert racers with a navigator, an 8-ton supply-laden chase truck. These are extremely heavy fully autonomous machines. If you read the rules, they're even supposed to refuel themselves without human intervention should it become necessary. It's really, really easy to break stuff at only 15 MPH, particularly when you consider how heavy these robots are.
Also, the paved sections are very short -- I haven't looked at the 2004 course in quite awhile and I'm not sure if the 05 proposed courses are up yet, but it was something like only 10% of the entire route -- and then you're not permitted to exceed the speed limit, which I think was pretty low -- 50 MPH or thereabouts.
I suppose you may have been joking or trolling, but just in case -- there is a remote-kill and all vehicles are continuously monitored by event organizers (e.g. not the team itself, who might take advantage of their proximity to cheat). There are guidelines for things like maximum deviation from pre-planned corridors, etc. (These are quite wide and by design involve a lot of unfriendly terrain -- it wouldn't be possible to do simply exploit the existence of these imaginary corridors as a navigation aid).
If it's just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route, then it doesn't seem too exciting.
Instead of simply assuming you automatically know what it's all about, why don't you go read about it, then tell us what you think if you still feel you have something interesting to say? (Hint: It isn't just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route. Hence, everything else you said is pointless. Indeed, your "idea" would actually be far easier than the real event.)
Americans should realize that they need to compete in this new world economy by either working for fewer wages and benefits, or by offering much higher skills and capabilities. Or both. Congress realizes this, and should take action to support American business, the economy, and people.
Which is very nearly a fine definition of the word "extortion".
Saying that we need to cut our own throats to statisfy THEIR needs -- or they'll simply be "forced" to turn to third-world dirt-hut coders -- amounts to the same thing. And before anyone gives me a lecture on "global economies" and other politically correct bullshit, I'll remind you that I'm only responding to their supposed concern about a lack of US talent.
If they're so fucking worried about losing in-country talent, then they'd better simply buckle down and pay what it costs to get it. That position is NO DIFFERENT than the position they take when they claim we're too expensive. I counter-claim THEY are too cheap. I further counter-claim that any hand-wringing a US company does about losing US talent is simply a campaign to improve their image, and to suck up to Congress before joining the corporate outcry to allow more H1Bs and to avoid offshoring penalties.
So ["Insert Corporation Entity Here"] needs to shave a few million to keep stockholders happy? I'd say CEO salaries are a fine place to start, rather than whacking hard-working, often highly skilled people with house and car payments and a family to feed.
Yes, I'm well aware of it, I was making a small joke which apparently flopped. While Ballmer did look goofy, I am puzzled by the immense significance the anti-MS community assigns to that outburst.
Slashdot Mirror
Very well-said. I have long held the opinion that the decline started roughly about the time we began hearing the term "Human Resources" -- a concept which, in effect, treats a human being as having roughly equal individual value to a box of pencils.
In the US, this closely coincided with the near-total elimination of small business employment over the long term (roughly 30 years, ending with what now appears to be a leveling-off in the late 90s). Another trend which I believe is suspicously coincidental is the "get in / get out" mentality amongst the higher levels of management. Their involvement is purely financial and short-term; they are essentially hatchet-men, which directly supports your conclusion.
While anticdotal, notice that IBM is cutting jobs in Europe, but not the US or developing nations.
In 2002 they whacked about 16,000 people in the US.
And it's "anecodotal".
Troll? Troll?! How depressing.
For the the moderator, I mean.
Don't be so sure about that. The HardOCP article about the GPU (here) indicates that there are 192 separate FPUs built into the GPU's "Smart 3D Memory" subsystem. If nothing else, weird new features like that make it relatively pointless to "predict" relative capabilities of the consoles prior to release.
There is a pretty intriguing article at HardOCP about the 360 GPU. It's sounding pretty stunning.
because they will either purchase it or make their parents' lives a living hell until they get it
Parents who cede that sort of control to their children utterly deserve everything they get.
All of this is targeted at teens that play video games and will rack up the bill on Mommy's credit card.
Most Xbox owners fall in the 20-30 year old age range.
Disclaimer: If any of these conditions persist for more than four hours, seek medical attention immediately.
Wrong. The calendar to which you refer was created around 525 AD by a Catholic monk named Dionysius Exiguus, who was attempting to calculate an accurate date for Easter. The sort of people who concern themselves with things like this believe his numbers were incorrect, and that The Man was born around 8BC (with other estimations placing it as late as 4BC). Another monk named Bede was trying to work out these descrepancies (I think around 725) and apparently concluded there wasn't "room" for a year zero if the known BC dates were to be reconciled with the known AD dates. Naturally, it's all much more complex than what I'm going to write in a slashdot post, but in any case, it is utterly unrelated to the Romans not having a zero in their numbering system.
You are correct, they're different. In the holo Emporer P is telling the boy-actor how he loves what he's done with the place (the Jedi Temple, that is).
I am actually a fairly highly-placed developer in one of the largest financial companies in the world. This industry is one of the worst when it comes to blindly offshoring everything within arm's reach and giving the axe to giant swathes of workers when the stock blips.
For a long time I've insisted the worst business concept to emerge from the 80's and 90's can be summed up by the phrase "Human Resources" -- treating people just like copier paper and office chairs. From time to time you have to draw the line somewhere.
I'd say it was pretty obvious that your mathetmatical wizardry was not in question. The trolling started when you, some random-wanker slashbot, is going to come up with the Secret Ultimate Solution to Grand Challenge Success with one line of pseudo-code that eluded the entire CMU team for an entire year.
Kudos. You are a master of robotics and engineering.
Others have already posted adequate responses to most of your points, but I'll add the observation that the terrain mix is very heavily biased towards desert and very low quality trails. I don't remember the specific details off the top of my head but actual roads comprised only a small fraction of the total course distance.
And unless you actually have spent a lot of time driving off-road (I have), or racing (I do), then I stand by my assertion that you clearly have no real world experience with either of these activities. If on the other hand you do engage in these activities, then I will merely express relief that you probably don't do it anywhere near me.
Yeah, I saw that the first time -- funny that nobody else has seen one of these mysterious "viral strains" of CWS. In other words -- if it was viral, it wasn't CWS.
For starters, when you're driving off-road, 17.5MPH *is* pretty fast. Go rent a 4WD Jeep one day and find yourself some wide open terrain and see what kind of speed you can average. You can easily brake axles and half-shafts even at only 10MPH in vehicles of the size and weight typically represented here. On top of that, unless you're spending big bucks on high-end racing grade drivetrains, a 4WD system isn't going to last 10 hours at that kind of speed. Be sure to read the manual in that Jeep you rent -- even in 4-high you can't exceed about 20 MPH, and shouldn't run it at that speed for any period of time. (Most full-time 4WD systems are not designed for off-road use beyond "the dirt road down to the campground" sort of thing.)
Oh wait a sec...
yet no-one thought to put in something that will do something like:
Damn, I wrote all of that before I realized you're just a troll.
why not to slow down near every obstacle and wait for actual impact. then try to estimate the obstacle using the information gotten from the impact. then decide about turning 40 degree and attemptiing again and so on.
For one thing, there is a time limit. You'd never come anywhere close to finishing if you took the bumper-car approach. On top of that, some of those obstacles aren't of the "bump into it" variety -- streams and ditches, for example. There are also obstacles which are designed to require visual interpretation -- picking your way through a narrow gate, for example.
I don't know about you, but in all the cities I've driven in across the country, it's the highways which are congested -- and they consider that to be a relatively difficult problem.
You've clearly never driven off-road. Indeed, with your statement that somebody could average 68 MPH in terrain like this demosntrates that you've probably never raced in your life, either.
Even in relatively benign terrain, a speed of about 15 MPH is actually moving pretty quickly. These aren't $2M one-time-use lightweight 500HP Paris-Dakar desert racers with a navigator, an 8-ton supply-laden chase truck. These are extremely heavy fully autonomous machines. If you read the rules, they're even supposed to refuel themselves without human intervention should it become necessary. It's really, really easy to break stuff at only 15 MPH, particularly when you consider how heavy these robots are.
Also, the paved sections are very short -- I haven't looked at the 2004 course in quite awhile and I'm not sure if the 05 proposed courses are up yet, but it was something like only 10% of the entire route -- and then you're not permitted to exceed the speed limit, which I think was pretty low -- 50 MPH or thereabouts.
It's very, very hard.
The Hummer (CMU I think?) made it 7 miles.
I think another team made it something like 1.5 miles.
Nobody else got very far, and a lot never managed to even start.
It's far more difficult than people raised on a steady diet of sci-fi believe it to be.
I suppose you may have been joking or trolling, but just in case -- there is a remote-kill and all vehicles are continuously monitored by event organizers (e.g. not the team itself, who might take advantage of their proximity to cheat). There are guidelines for things like maximum deviation from pre-planned corridors, etc. (These are quite wide and by design involve a lot of unfriendly terrain -- it wouldn't be possible to do simply exploit the existence of these imaginary corridors as a navigation aid).
If it's just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route, then it doesn't seem too exciting.
Instead of simply assuming you automatically know what it's all about, why don't you go read about it, then tell us what you think if you still feel you have something interesting to say? (Hint: It isn't just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route. Hence, everything else you said is pointless. Indeed, your "idea" would actually be far easier than the real event.)
Americans should realize that they need to compete in this new world economy by either working for fewer wages and benefits, or by offering much higher skills and capabilities. Or both. Congress realizes this, and should take action to support American business, the economy, and people.
Which is very nearly a fine definition of the word "extortion".
Saying that we need to cut our own throats to statisfy THEIR needs -- or they'll simply be "forced" to turn to third-world dirt-hut coders -- amounts to the same thing. And before anyone gives me a lecture on "global economies" and other politically correct bullshit, I'll remind you that I'm only responding to their supposed concern about a lack of US talent.
If they're so fucking worried about losing in-country talent, then they'd better simply buckle down and pay what it costs to get it. That position is NO DIFFERENT than the position they take when they claim we're too expensive. I counter-claim THEY are too cheap. I further counter-claim that any hand-wringing a US company does about losing US talent is simply a campaign to improve their image, and to suck up to Congress before joining the corporate outcry to allow more H1Bs and to avoid offshoring penalties.
So ["Insert Corporation Entity Here"] needs to shave a few million to keep stockholders happy? I'd say CEO salaries are a fine place to start, rather than whacking hard-working, often highly skilled people with house and car payments and a family to feed.
Yeah, same old story.
The biggest problem is that the IT industry was flooded with fucking asshats interested in it only for the money.
I assume you're talking about the CEOs...
And they all have communications skills roughly on par with yours. Fab!
Yes, I'm well aware of it, I was making a small joke which apparently flopped. While Ballmer did look goofy, I am puzzled by the immense significance the anti-MS community assigns to that outburst.