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User: dinfinity

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Comments · 1,327

  1. Re:Disappointing on Microsoft Edge To Support Dolby Audio · · Score: 1

    I have some pure super HD gold fidelity-cables I want to sell to you.

  2. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 1

    Rationally chasing an irrational goal is not rational behaviour.

    You can't just say nuh-uh and be done with it. Especially after I've already shown that what you just wrote is incorrect by definition. We could do the "but I don't define it that way"-dance, but that will lead us nowhere worth being.

    But you cannot claim the goals are *rational* either.

    I never did. Quite the opposite in fact. No goals are inherently rational or irrational. They can only be rational or irrational relative to some other or higher goal (if your ultimate goal is to die of starvation next week, it is irrational to have a goal of eating a healthy dinner every day for the coming week). Considering I said that I think there is no ultimate goal and there cannot be one, it necessarily means that there is ultimately nothing to which any goal can be relative to. And thus no goal can absolutely be rational or irrational.

    Nope, I think it's silly. If you can't be yourself around your peers, you could find new peers.

    Your opinion is irrelevant. Your arguments may be relevant. In any case, you ignored my points on this topic and I will do so for yours (and I'm being generous here in using the plural and calling them 'points') until you properly address mine.

  3. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 1

    "Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value." (wikipedia)

    The thing is: there is no point in the universe. It doesn't exist for a reason, it just exists. There is no rational underlying basis for doing anything at all.

    I'm not being nihilist.

    You are.

    If the goal is not rational, then the actions are only marginally rational at best. If, for example I was driven to spend the rest of my life wandering round dressed as a giant chicken, well, it would a stretch to call the endavour logical.

    If that was your goal, then yes, working towards that would be rational.

    From wikipedia:
    "Determining optimality for rational behavior requires a quantifiable formulation of the problem, and making several key assumptions. When the goal or problem involves making a decision, rationality factors in how much information is available (e.g. complete or incomplete knowledge). Collectively, the formulation and background assumptions are the model within which rationality applies. Illustrating the relativity of rationality: if one accepts a model in which benefitting oneself is optimal, then rationality is equated with behavior that is self-interested to the point of being selfish; whereas if one accepts a model in which benefiting the group is optimal, then purely selfish behavior is deemed irrational. It is thus meaningless to assert rationality without also specifying the background model assumptions describing how the problem is framed and formulated."

    Given that there is (by your own admittance) no basis to call one goal more valid than another, a goal in itself cannot be irrational unless it conflicts with other goals pursued simultaneously.

    Finally: I take it that you agree on the original point that caring about whether you are seen as weak by your peers can be (and often is) rational, given your silence on the topic.

  4. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 1

    Well, that's pretty much escalating it to a point where all discussion becomes useless. I say that is pretty weak.

    I'm going to do two things here:
    1. I am going to respond to the ontopic part of your attack.
    2. I am going to go offtopic, see your weak nihilism and raise you strong nihilism.

    1:
    Rational means: 'making the optimal decision to further your goals.' The only thing I needed to prove was that there could be reasoning behind not wanting to be seen as weak. I went a little further and stated that there often is reasoning behind not wanting to be seen as weak. I repeat: rational conclusions are not universal; they depend on your goals. What is rational for one, may not be rational for another.

    2:
    I agree, there is no goal in the universe. I'd state it even stronger: there can ultimately be no ultimate goal of the universe (this particular universe may have an ultimate goal if it is nested in another universe, but that is sort of cheating with the word universe). The word goal is dependent on time and on a ranking of configurations of the universe. Coming closer to your goal means that the configuration of universe has changed in such a way that it is more likely that the set of configurations that define your goal will occur. Attaining your goal means being in the set of configurations that define that goal.

    If all configurations exist 'simultaneously' (i.e., time is just another dimension), then the whole notion of 'moving to another configuration' is nonsensical. There can be no goal if there is no passing time.

    Even if the universe is really only in one state at a time, there is no absolute reason to value one configuration over another. Reasons can emerge within the universe, but not outside of it. I.e.: all species have a basis to rank certain configurations above others (the dinosaurs might have certain preferences concerning asteroids), but without this emergent value system, there needs to be an inherent value system that defines which configurations of the universe are more desirable than others. The universe doesn't work that way: it has no concept of values. It is as you said: it just exists; it just happens. There are configurations that are statistically more likely and in that sense one could argue that the universe 'favors' those, but that is a far cry from our intuition of a 'goal' (heat death doesn't seem that interesting).

    Finally: if there happened to be an ultimate goal, what would we do after attaining it? Suppose the ultimate goal of the universe is pushing a big red button in some crevice on Mars and we manage to push it. Then what?
    In more technical terms: the set of configurations that would define an ultimate goal is necessarily relatively small and ranked above all other configurations. The only option when reaching it would be to 'roam' indefinitely in that limited set of configurations (although admittedly, it can still be an infinite set).

  5. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 1

    Except that caring whether you're ostracised by a particular group of people (there are more than enough in society that don't care about such things) is emotional.

    The antithesis of rational is irrational. If you wish to disprove my point, you need to prove that it is irrational to care about being ostracized for being a weak man.
    Hiding what is perceived as weakness is generally a very wise and rational strategy. Ask any leader of anything anywhere.

  6. Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    1. We weren't talking about Metro.
    Metro is a piece of shit, introduced due to MSs tablet market-'us too'-thinking (but that is a whole other story and even then still not 'change for the sake of change').
    We were discussing flat design which doesn't fundamentally change the functionality. Just the visuals.

    2. See the sibling posts and threads. The flat design also generally doesn't matter, functionally. There are some points to be made about affordance and intuition which aren't applicable to a(n again: fucking) hammer, but that's about it.

    3. 'Believe in UX'?
    I believe users experience things, yes. Your point?

  7. Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    A reflex hammer is a frivolous toy and hardly an actual useless hammer. [...] The excellent points made by the GP poster regarding claw hammers and their unchanged form still stand

    No. I explicitly included the query 'design hammer' to show that the same holds for normal hammers.
    Next time: read.

    Also: you only attacked (and failed at it) what you regarded as the weakest part of my post and disregarded the rest (which was independent from that part). That is the sign of a coward.

  8. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 2

    I'm not doing this again with you. You consistently ignore my points and just change the subject.

    Goodbye.

  9. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 1

    And what is the desire for social status and power, if not emotional?

    Rational.

    How is that not an example of emotion trumping rationality? Shame is precisely an emotion.

    1. That wasn't the point. I was pointing out the fallacious reasoning.
    2. It is rational to not want to be ostracized by society as being a weak man. But there is a fine line here as well. A lot of our emotional behavior has a basis in rationality. You could say that if someone does (or doesn't do) something out of shame, but doesn't think about the rational part of doing so, it is purely driven by emotion. To return to your question: only when emotion leads someone to doing something that they wouldn't have done had they rationally looked at it does it become a problem.

  10. Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    What does color have to do with it?

    Really?

    What does the pixel configuration of the recycle bin icon have to do with its functionality?
    That's right, very, very little. Even if it were just a yellow square, it'd still have 'Recycle Bin' under it and the fundamental functionality would not be different. Just like a yellow polka dot hammer.

    Also: http://stanford25blog.stanford... (reflex hammers)
    And Google 'design hammer'. There are definitely hammers out there that look as stupid as all the flat UI crap we're dealing with today.

    The big difference here is that switching away from Windows (or the flat design) isn't as easy as not buying a ridiculously looking hammer. I'm pretty sure that if MS would make the icon sets and a lot of the interface easily switchable, that many would indeed switch away from the flat stuff. Sure, a lot of people wouldn't know about it or even give a shit (I've see many an XP desktop with the hideously bloated blue look and the default desktop background) and sure, that would make MS say: "See! They LIKE it!", but for those among us with a brain, it would quickly show the collective dislike for the flat style.

  11. Re:females operate on emotion, not logic on Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Although GP is clearly a troll, you are attacking his point fallaciously.

    1. Even if men were by far the most emotional irrational beings on earth, that would not disprove "emotion is [females'] fundamental mental underpinning"
    2. Risk taking, murder and aggression are not necessarily driven by emotion. It's a fine line, but technically those behaviors can be (and might often be) about attaining social status or power.
    3. There is evidence that there should be many more 'husband shelters' and that their lack is driven largely by a culture of (implicitly) shaming 'weak men', not by a lack of battered husbands.

    Let me state clearly that I do not agree with the GP. The only thing I'm trying to do here is point out some logical fallacies in the hope that this will improve the quality of the discussion.

  12. Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    A hammer made today still looks like a hammer from a century ago.

    No, it doesn't.
    Hammers come in all kinds of different colors with all kinds of designs.

    Also, a UI for an inherently complex and extremely powerful and versatile thing such as an OS is not a fucking hammer. That's like comparing an industrial complex to a dog house.

  13. Re:They're bums, why keep them around on Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment · · Score: 1

    Except that only works when the world thinks you and your bonds are reliable investments in the first place.
    Would you buy any Greek bonds on the day they switch back to the Drachma?
    Yeah, me neither. Even if there was a veritably sick interest rate attached to them, I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole before at least the first massive devaluation.

    The only people for whom it wouldn't really matter are people who have Drachma to spend in the first place (although given the imminent devaluation, they'd be better off changing them to a more stable currency ASAP).

  14. Re:Williams WASP X-Jet on The Hoverboard Flies Closer To Reality · · Score: 1

    Apparently there has been a reboot effort going on with significant improvements in the noise department.
    They had a (miserably failed) indiegogo-campaign 2+ years ago: https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

    The turbulence doesn't look half bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    Looking at how close people are standing during the landing procedure, it is much, much better than the same situation for helicopters.

    In the noise department the info given by these guys is this:
    "Due to advances in technology the fuel consumption has been reduced by 66% and the 98 decibels of noise is now around 62 Decibels; A helicopter main rotor break the speed of sound that is why you can hear it coming for miles and miles.

    Now you would be lucky to hear the WASP at 500 feet." (from the Youtube comments at the video above)

  15. What the fuck, America. on Baton Bob Receives $20,000 Settlement For Coerced Facebook Post · · Score: 1

    Seriously. Both the incident itself and how it was subsequently 'dealt with' are of the kind of shit we only expect from actual police state wannabes like China, Russia and any number of fictitious dystopian states.

    On behalf of the civilized world: get your fucking shit together.

  16. Re:Markets, not people on The Economic Consequences of Self-Driving Trucks · · Score: 1

    It would have to be big rig hacking or physical cracking, not hijacking.

    You can't exactly hold a gun to the driver's head and kick him out of the driver's seat if it's AI- (or even remote-)driven.

    It would probably be very easy to get the trucks to stop, simply by creating an obstacle. Even then, for a hijacking, you need to gain access to the cabin (if there even is one), override (or prevent) the 'exception: vehicle stopped due to obstacle'-alarm from being sent, prevent all communication of position of the truck, make sure you and your material are unrecognizable for the shitload of live feed cameras on the thing and then perform some control override to get it to actually start moving towards wherever you're planning on stashing it.

    Hell, for a successful hijack, it'd be far easier to just hack into the network of the transporter or do some 'social engineering' on an insider and direct the truck to wherever. Obviously not a job for ex-truckers.

    Of course, the far easier alternative is just to get the trucks to stop in a fairly quiet place (traffic wise), break them open and transfer the contents to another truck. It would still have to happen fast and visually anonymously, of course.

  17. Re: Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    It was and is relevant to both the OP, this comment thread AND the post I was directly replying to.

    I will happily provide proof for these statements if you make an effort to do the same for yours. I do urge you to reread the comment thread first, though.

  18. Re:The Ghost of 2000 echoes --20 mins into the fut on Online Voting Should Be Verifiable -- But It's a Hard Problem · · Score: 1

    Democrats

    Christ, everything is politicized in your them vs. us two-party system, isn't it?

  19. Re:Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    If his boss is a closed-minded dick like you are, then yes. Thanks for reminding me and the OP that such people exist.

  20. Re:Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    So what's preventing him from asking his employer for a new contract with different terms?
    Nothing.

    His employer may say: "Are you kidding me? Get back to work."
    Or: "Interesting. Let's talk about this."

    With your attitude and 'advice' he'll never know.

  21. Re: Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    Can you read what I'm suggesting in the following quotes?

    I've personally entered a number of contracts in which there was an explicit separation between the domain-independent and domain-specific elements.

    Effectively, you agree on dividing your work between a general purpose library and domain-specific code. I believe and find it works quite well and is an honest reflection of the merits and efforts of all parties involved.

    Following your own (again: obtuse) line of reasoning, you should have said: "well, make sure you strike up a new agreement with management that allows you to keep ownership on parts of your code."

    Mind you: when you take on a job, you also sign a contract. Everything can be done within the law, and from the starting situation of the OP. Off-topic, my ass.

  22. Re:Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    He wants to develop stuff on company time but sell the fruits of that labor

    Again, this is where you're wrong. The fact that he even mentions the possibility of going independent indicates that he understands the issues of getting (partial) ownership to products developed 'on company time'.

    Your reaction is a complete black and white view, where you're either the employer owning everything and having freedom, or where you're the employee that just has to do his job, collect his paycheck and shut the fuck up. It's silly and it kills all meaningful discussion.

  23. Re:Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    1. You completely disregarded the main point here and only replied to the minor point between parentheses (minor hence the fucking parentheses).

    2. Your reply again completely misses the point. You refute nor support my point that we can change our culture and the law ('reality'). The same holds for my statement that it would be an interesting discussion to change current practices in this area. What you do say here is only very remotely relevant, but definitely a distraction from the main point.

    3. This is just pulling stuff out of your ass. Please provide the quote from which you so confidently deduce your conclusion. I'll show you how it is done for my conclusions on the matter:
        - "I am interested in sharing the solutions I create, hopefully with the potential of selling." --> 'He wants that ownership'
        - "I have a good relationship with management and can develop on my own personal instance of the platform, but would be doing so on company time. Going contractor is a bit premature for me at this stage." --> "... but doesn't see a way to get it."
        - "Any advice, references or stories to learn from?" --> "He was asking for advice"

    4. The above objectively shows you suck at discussions. QED.

  24. Re:Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    1. There is plenty of room within 'the' law (I'm assuming you are US-based, given your disregard of the existence of other rules of law in the world) to do the things I'm suggesting.
    2. The 'reality' is something we can change. If we rationally ascertain that we are currently doing things the wrong way, we can start taking actions to fix that. Even if (1) was not true, it would be an interesting discussion to find out how to make it true, especially here on Slashdot.
    3. You are creating ridiculous straw men. The OP was asking for advice. He was never claiming he deserved the ownership to the things he currently creates. He wants that ownership but doesn't see a way to get it.
    4. Your discussion skills are terrible.

  25. Re: Get it in writing on Ask Slashdot: How To Own the Rights To Software Developed At Work? · · Score: 1

    Why are you asking questions I've answered in this specific thread?
    Just click on the link that says 'Parent' a few times and read. It's that simple.