I'd say it's rather obvious that his definition of "near future" involves a somewhat larger timespan than the next several seconds. Obviously at some point predicting the future may boil down to a simple understanding of basic cause-and-effect but trying to make that part of the argument is just pedantic.
This is Jakob Nielsen, the self-proclaimed usability expert who gets flamed for having one of the most god-awful sites on the Web. Seriously, have a look at this dumping-ground-style piece of shit which we may presume ought to be a model for excellent usability:
I suspect the heavily vertical stuff works for me because I've been programming for nearly 30 years. That involves a whole bunch of vertical scanning. I started life as a bookworm myself, and I'm sure I used to read faster -- but that could be a side effect of just getting old. Hard to say.
In any case, I couldn't imagine trying to *write* in that style... (I know TFA relates to an automated reformatter.)
You're lucky, in FL the distributors divvy up the state so you only have a single distributor for a given area, and they don't sell to individuals. You have to be licensed as a bar or restaurant. Fortunately the local beverage shop recognized that repeat business is good, so I only pay $5 above his cost, and no deposit. I can live with that.
I'm preparing to retire the little keg fridge to the pool house and install something a little bigger so I can run two kegs at once in the kitchen. Nothing sucks more than to have your keg run dry at about midnight after everybody has been drinking for a couple hours...
I suppose I understood that's what he meant, but it's very difficult for me to imagine what that must be like. I'd have a difficult time characterizing my reading habits using any of those categories you mention. To me, reading is just... thought. Pure meaning. Very abstract.
Actually your reformatted version is what convinces me there might be something to this.
Is "aural thinker" something you just made up? I'm not sure I know what it means (and so I'm assuming it doesn't describe me). No flame intended, but the term "aural thinker" makes me think of people who move their lips when they read...
I have a friend who works for Zoic where all the modeling and post-production is done, and pure and simple, the Cylons look human because the budget isn't big enough for anything else. They blew their wad in the first season, and Sci-Fi has pretty much been coasting on the success of that and collecting ad revenue ever since.
It kills me to say it, but the Sci-Fi channel has been circling the drain for a long time now.
We run through a keg of Sams about once a month. One or two parties a month will do that. I bought a Kegerator a few years ago, then in our new house I had them build the tap into the counter top. Pretty handy.
The sad part is that I don't think enough people have been burned for it to be much of a real issue. I can't tell you how often I hear people getting all worked up over the lack of HDMI support in one device or another, when plain old analog RGB is generally far superior. Heck, I have a component run in my house that is 150 feet from the signal source and it works great. HDMI is incapable of covering that distance and even if it could, the cable would cost more than the hi-def TV it feeds. So why do we have HDMI? Because it was a stepping stone to HDCP.
A few years back our management suddenly renamed layoffs "RIFs" -- borrowing the military abbreviation for Reduction In Force. The actual workers still called it "layoffs" and the managers studiously switched to the term RIF. It made for interesting meetings when each side would use a completely different word for the same thing.
To this day they deny there was any mandate from on high to adopt the friendly new term for being replaced by the lowest bidder.
Actually the name Peacekeeper was never officially adopted. Instead it received the fun and lightheared name LGM-118A (I think that's correct, anyway). And to some degree, Peacekeeper at least reflects the theory -- nobody especially likes concepts like Mutually Assured Destruction, but it really is at least intended to keep the peace.
On the other hand, this renaming of DRM is nothing but pure, transparent, offensive marketing exec spin-doctoring.
the existence of DRM-free digital coipies of content just leads to rampant copying, and that does have some negative effect on sales. The music industry went digital without an effective DRM system in place, and now they're stuck with it - you can't stop making CDs, or nobody would buy your music.
So non-DRMed digital music is both damaging and driving sales.
That's double-plus sweet.
(I know, you were really making two completely separate points, but it still skims damned close to textbook doublethink...)
Those people who take your service cancellation requests make commissions from convincing you to keep your service. I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance she saw "SadGeekHermit habitually orders PPV softcore pseudo-porn" and concluded the sad-dumped-girlfriend voice might open you up for a discussion where she could set the hooks.
On a side note: what are you drinking? I would hope $100 would get you four cases. My "default" beer is Sam Adams and it runs about $25 for a case, when you can find it by the case, and most people consider it expensive. (In reality MY cost is much less since I now buy kegs, but in terms of cost by the case...)
Pretend you like him. Just in case. His job is painfully dull. You don't want to hear his problems. Don't ask. He doesn't like the req form either, he's just a midlevel functionary. Show appreciation on the rare occasions his efforts are not a hindrance. He has nothing to lose, don't trust him as far as you can throw him.
Oh boy, I often think slashdot is mostly made up of sysadmins... they're gonna have a field day with your reply. Several years back there was a similar discussion here and I made a comment to the effect that most admins were little more than the janitorial staff of the IT world, and we had ourselves a good old fashioned Karma-lynching.
I'm contemplating carving out my own corner somewhere in this topic and going on a rant about a personal pet peeve: ex-military sysadmins. Yowza, don't get me started on those petty bureaucrats...
The wall itself wasn't to prevent people fleeing in terror, not initially anyway, but to prevent economic migration of people from the increasingly poor east to the wealthier west.
"Economic migration" does sound a lot more reasonable than "fleeing in terror" -- but it's still flight, it still indicates fear, and the people were still walled in.
The actual problem is that when these statements are made in the story summary, they are not subject to any moderation, deserving or otherwise. Regardless of whether you feel the statement deserves moderation, it clearly isn't adding anything to the summary. It's an old slashdot problem, and you can bet that the comments which survive just happen to match the slant of the editors: in effect, by making it into an untouchable story summary, it received the ultimate up-mod...
Slashdot Mirror
First off let me say that having read almost 2 of the author's books
I believe this is commonly referred to as "one"...
I'd say it's rather obvious that his definition of "near future" involves a somewhat larger timespan than the next several seconds. Obviously at some point predicting the future may boil down to a simple understanding of basic cause-and-effect but trying to make that part of the argument is just pedantic.
This is Jakob Nielsen, the self-proclaimed usability expert who gets flamed for having one of the most god-awful sites on the Web. Seriously, have a look at this dumping-ground-style piece of shit which we may presume ought to be a model for excellent usability:
http://www.useit.com/
I suspect the heavily vertical stuff works for me because I've been programming for nearly 30 years. That involves a whole bunch of vertical scanning. I started life as a bookworm myself, and I'm sure I used to read faster -- but that could be a side effect of just getting old. Hard to say.
In any case, I couldn't imagine trying to *write* in that style...
(I know TFA relates to an automated reformatter.)
It's definitely food for thought. (HA!)
You're lucky, in FL the distributors divvy up the state so you only have a single distributor for a given area, and they don't sell to individuals. You have to be licensed as a bar or restaurant. Fortunately the local beverage shop recognized that repeat business is good, so I only pay $5 above his cost, and no deposit. I can live with that.
I'm preparing to retire the little keg fridge to the pool house and install something a little bigger so I can run two kegs at once in the kitchen. Nothing sucks more than to have your keg run dry at about midnight after everybody has been drinking for a couple hours...
I suppose I understood that's what he meant, but it's very difficult for me to imagine what that must be like. I'd have a difficult time characterizing my reading habits using any of those categories you mention. To me, reading is just... thought. Pure meaning. Very abstract.
Actually your reformatted version is what convinces me there might be something to this.
Is "aural thinker" something you just made up? I'm not sure I know what it means (and so I'm assuming it doesn't describe me). No flame intended, but the term "aural thinker" makes me think of people who move their lips when they read...
I have a friend who works for Zoic where all the modeling and post-production is done, and pure and simple, the Cylons look human because the budget isn't big enough for anything else. They blew their wad in the first season, and Sci-Fi has pretty much been coasting on the success of that and collecting ad revenue ever since.
It kills me to say it, but the Sci-Fi channel has been circling the drain for a long time now.
Gaak. You can do a hell of a lot better than that. Tricia Helfer
We run through a keg of Sams about once a month. One or two parties a month will do that. I bought a Kegerator a few years ago, then in our new house I had them build the tap into the counter top. Pretty handy.
Right, right. I must have "enabled" my reading comprehension skills, HBO-style.
The sad part is that I don't think enough people have been burned for it to be much of a real issue. I can't tell you how often I hear people getting all worked up over the lack of HDMI support in one device or another, when plain old analog RGB is generally far superior. Heck, I have a component run in my house that is 150 feet from the signal source and it works great. HDMI is incapable of covering that distance and even if it could, the cable would cost more than the hi-def TV it feeds. So why do we have HDMI? Because it was a stepping stone to HDCP.
A few years back our management suddenly renamed layoffs "RIFs" -- borrowing the military abbreviation for Reduction In Force. The actual workers still called it "layoffs" and the managers studiously switched to the term RIF. It made for interesting meetings when each side would use a completely different word for the same thing.
To this day they deny there was any mandate from on high to adopt the friendly new term for being replaced by the lowest bidder.
Actually the name Peacekeeper was never officially adopted. Instead it received the fun and lightheared name LGM-118A (I think that's correct, anyway). And to some degree, Peacekeeper at least reflects the theory -- nobody especially likes concepts like Mutually Assured Destruction, but it really is at least intended to keep the peace.
On the other hand, this renaming of DRM is nothing but pure, transparent, offensive marketing exec spin-doctoring.
Was the username "CaptainObvious" already taken? :)
The writer is coming up with names like "Rincewind" -- please adjust your expectations accordingly.
the existence of DRM-free digital coipies of content just leads to rampant copying, and that does have some negative effect on sales. The music industry went digital without an effective DRM system in place, and now they're stuck with it - you can't stop making CDs, or nobody would buy your music.
So non-DRMed digital music is both damaging and driving sales.
That's double-plus sweet.
(I know, you were really making two completely separate points, but it still skims damned close to textbook doublethink...)
Those people who take your service cancellation requests make commissions from convincing you to keep your service. I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance she saw "SadGeekHermit habitually orders PPV softcore pseudo-porn" and concluded the sad-dumped-girlfriend voice might open you up for a discussion where she could set the hooks.
On a side note: what are you drinking? I would hope $100 would get you four cases. My "default" beer is Sam Adams and it runs about $25 for a case, when you can find it by the case, and most people consider it expensive. (In reality MY cost is much less since I now buy kegs, but in terms of cost by the case...)
What this boils down to is:
Pretend you like him. Just in case.
His job is painfully dull. You don't want to hear his problems. Don't ask.
He doesn't like the req form either, he's just a midlevel functionary.
Show appreciation on the rare occasions his efforts are not a hindrance.
He has nothing to lose, don't trust him as far as you can throw him.
Oh boy, I often think slashdot is mostly made up of sysadmins... they're gonna have a field day with your reply. Several years back there was a similar discussion here and I made a comment to the effect that most admins were little more than the janitorial staff of the IT world, and we had ourselves a good old fashioned Karma-lynching.
I'm contemplating carving out my own corner somewhere in this topic and going on a rant about a personal pet peeve: ex-military sysadmins. Yowza, don't get me started on those petty bureaucrats...
The wall itself wasn't to prevent people fleeing in terror, not initially anyway, but to prevent economic migration of people from the increasingly poor east to the wealthier west.
"Economic migration" does sound a lot more reasonable than "fleeing in terror" -- but it's still flight, it still indicates fear, and the people were still walled in.
Why? In a game environment, it's possible -- easy -- for the "AI" to have full and perfect knowledge of the world. Guessing is not necessary.
The actual problem is that when these statements are made in the story summary, they are not subject to any moderation, deserving or otherwise. Regardless of whether you feel the statement deserves moderation, it clearly isn't adding anything to the summary. It's an old slashdot problem, and you can bet that the comments which survive just happen to match the slant of the editors: in effect, by making it into an untouchable story summary, it received the ultimate up-mod...
Very nice.