"WHAT IS THE APPEAL HERE? What am I missing? Are my observations totally missing some point?"
Yes, you're missing the point, but that doesn't mean you'd ever see the appeal.
The appeal is that the journey itself is fun. There's a whole style of gameplay where you attack the same challenge over and over again, getting better at it until it loses its fun and you move on. (See: Tetris, Pac-Man, platformers) There's also a style of gameplay where you cooperate with friends to achieve a task (See: any co-op platformer or FPS). Finally, there are games where you get random loot for your trouble and try and maximize stats and effectiveness (See: Diablo 2, Roguelikes, etc).
Now combine all that together.
Maybe it wouldn't be fun for you, but it's obviously fun for some people.
As others have already said, this is boilerplate advice in the software development world. I work at a large tech company and our legal department maintains a list of FOSS licenses which we can use, and for anything else you have to submit a request for approval.
It's a pain in the ass, but it makes sense. We're trained to ignore EULAs and licenses by years of just clicking "ok" but when it boils down to it, a company can lose substantial IP by the actions of a single developer who does that.
The funny part is we still have problems; they're just ignored. If a developer does some work using a nifty shareware text editor he's downloaded, and the license says something like "free for non-commercial use, costs one billion dollars for commercial use"... yeah, not so good:). We're supposed to clear all shareware/etc with them as well, but plenty of people don't.
I never say this, but mod parent up. The government doesn't own the airwaves -- you and I do. We empower and entrust the government to regulate them for us.
You missed the part where he said the ten million people would be paying ten dollars for a chance to win a trip. In other words, only one person goes -- the other ten million subsidize the trip through a lottery.
I could accept that, if only they had shown people learning and understanding that concept in the movies. It's subtle, but I think it's there. I think you see it in Yoda in Ep III, which as you said you haven't seen.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part, seeing what I wanted to be there.
I haven't done C++ programming for almost 5 years, but for five years before that I was developing exclusively in C++.
Effective C++ (an earlier edition, obviously) was a huge boost to my early years in the workplace.
It was pretty much required for every new hire to pick it up, our coding standards referred to it, and you were expected to have it nearby if you were messing around with the codebase.
It is full of no-nonsense vital explanations of C++ best practices. If you're going to break a rule from this book, you should be able to explain why you're going to do it:).
I still have it in my bookshelf "just in case" I ever am faced with a C++ question.
Is it a good book for a newbie? I don't know. But it'll help you understand how not to make newbie mistakes, that's for sure.
If all you're writing are toy programs, heck, it still might be interesting as just good background knowledge. But if you're developing professional software, it will help you make your software more solid and more maintainable.
And no, I don't know the author or anything. I just loved this book.
If you're really in the mood to geek out and read what some folks have drawn as conclusions based on the movies, video games, books, etc, check out this article at howstuffworks:
Not sure how much, if any, of what is in there is "canon" but it should give you some ideas of how and why the Sith limit themselves to this weird system.
I'm not sure who you hang around with, but I think people get tagged as weird when they over-indulge in any hobby: MTG or Poker, video games or football.
Trust me, for everybody who thinks you're a nerd for knowing the name of the guy in some robot suit in Star Wars, there's a guy who thinks someone else is a nerd for knowing the batting average of some 1937 baseball team.
And on both sides, you get the self-pitying "everybody thinks we're nerds" BS.
It's all a lie. Obsessed people get mocked no matter their obsession. We laugh at the guys in line for Star Wars, we laugh at the guys in line for Red Sox Season Tickets, we laugh at the guys who pay a thousand dollars for a bottle of wine, and we laugh at the guy who buys 15 different books on how to win at poker. You're all nuts, and I'm nuts in my own way and know someone out there is amused by it.
Stop taking yourself so seriously and chuckle once in a while; it's good for you.
I'm not sure why you're syaing it's impossible to make tabs with the current IE codebase. There are several browsers out there which basically "skin" IE and add tabbed browsing as well as other features.
MyIE2 and AvantBrowser are two examples that come right to mind. In fact, I like Avant's tabs better than Firefox's, because Avant treats it like MDI (so you can have two "tabs" open in the main browser window, side by side, for example) instead of just tabs. Minor difference but it's a big deal to me.
One example does not a trend make, but good point, I suppose. But I rather suspect that is the exception, not the rule.
I imagine, like much else, it varies widely by location. Perhaps I was hasty in my assumption as well. I'd like to think that everybody has access to this level of education if they're willing to do a little footwork and research, but that's probably my New England bias peeking through:).
I think this differs a lot based on the school. Do some research, first. As others have posted, many CCs have arrangements with local universities which map their courses one-to-one. I took the first two years of my WPI CS degree at Springfield Technical Community College (Massachusetts), in a program specifically designed to transfer into a "real" CS program. I was absolutely not handicapped in any way, and went on to get my MS in CS.
It can be done, but it depends a lot on the curriculum at the specific school. Research first!
For example, check out this CS program at Springfield Technical Community College in Massachusetts. It's designed specifically to transfer into a 4-year CS degree and includes such "hard and specialized" topics as Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Digital Logic, and Data Structures.
Sorry to say, but your gut instinct is completely incorrect in this instance.
I know because I went through that program, transfered to a 4-year school (WPI), and stuck around to get my Masters. And I wasn't the only one; several of my classmates in CS and other disciplines stuck out the two year transfer program and ended up graduating and are working in industry right now.
It can be done, and in some cases is a great way to bypass two expensive years at a 4-year school.
I received a 2-year degree from a Massachusetts community college back in the early 90s, at a school which had tailored the program specifically for transfering to a 4-year school. They even had agreements with many schools such that as long as you had a 3.0 or higher GPA, you were guaranteed a transfer into the school.
I was at Springfield Technical Community College, and transfered the degree to WPI, where I eventually ended up getting my MS in CS. I absolutely feel my 2 years at STCC were no handicap to me in my academic knowledge.
I actually feel I got an excellent grounding in CS from my introduction at the community college. I had, like you say, a Data Structures class. It was taught using C++, so I picked up some practical knowledge to go with the theory. Same with the introductory programming class, which used Pascal. Same with the machine language class, which had theory elements.
Basically I came out of the school with all the math I needed for a BS in CS (including linear algebra, DiffEQs, and discrete math), almost all of the science, and almost all of the humanities classes. I was a litle behind in CS theory classes, so when I got to WPI as a "Junior" I ended up enrolled in a couple "Sophomore" CS classes to catch up. It was really no big deal, and I had a little more practical knowledge than some of my classmates, too, because WPI at the time wasn't teaching C++ to its freshmen and sophomores.
Considering I saved, oh, maybe 15K+ each year by taking the first two years at a CC, I'm thrilled with how it worked out. Plus I could overload and take even more classes, at a cheaper cost per credit.
There's definitely a place for Community Colleges in science and engineering. You just need a program designed around it. Maybe your state has something similar....
How's this for a reason why you're not getting those benchmarks?
The entire thing is a glorified advertisement for the latest cards from ATI and NVidia. What do they have to gain from giving you detailed information about why your current setup will work just fine? Why would they spend hours and hours getting stats for cards which their customers already own?
In the US, just about everyone has a car. Even our poor people do. They are ubiquitous. That ubiquity has led to subsidies which lower the cost of vehicles, fuels, roads, and the like. And yet, we _still_ demand that people be licensed because if they get onto the public infrastructure without some basic skills they can cause enormous harm.
In the US, just about everyone has a child. Even our poor people do. They are ubiquitous. You tell me which is more dangerous, Windows XP or idiot parents.
Yes, people should take some responsibility and learn more about these machines they use. But making the system harder is not the answer. Making the education easier is, and making the potential damage lesser is.
It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. We have to do what we can to make people smarter, and do what we can to make the software safer.
Bitching about how we should have a "you must be this smart to get on this ride" sign at the gates to the net is as useful as wishing Enterprise had never been made:).
Just when you think the FCC isn't going to get any crazier, they turn around and start talking about things that are "profane."
The article makes a great case as to how this could be a strong move towards regulation of hate speech. You should read it, if you haven't (I know, this is Slashdot and all, but give it a shot). I'm not the only one shivering here.
There's just something about having a Bush in office that makes me really hate the Republican party. The last time I got this riled up about politics was, oh, about 12 years ago. I'm not saying I was a big Clinton fan, just that he never got my goat in quite the same way....
Funny how things have changed. The entire goal is supposed to be protection of common standards of decency. To, for example, protect the "citizens at large" from being assaulted with smut they don't want. We've slipped from that into a place where we don't protect the "citizens at large" but rather the vocal minority of those citizens who can't figure out how to fucking change the channel.
The other thing to realize is that people who are car enthusiasts/hobbyists always carry around a top-ten list in their minds. "If I had $30K I would buy a (foo) and add a (bar) and then modify the (wompus)." Having a car in a game will not change somebody's mind, but it lets them live out part of that fantasy and increase the hype.
This isn't about creating demand, it's just another part of the hype machine. Let's say Jim Sixpack has meticulously researched and test driven two comparable cars, but can afford neither right now. He's constantly wishing he had either of them: he has posters of them in his office, he can rattle off the engine specs, he can list the common modifications. Now he buys the next "realistic" car sim, and one of them is in there, and one isn't. He spends the next 8 months racing one of those cars, adding custom touches to it, modifying it, winning race after race in it.
Do you think that might influence his decision of which car to put a downpayment on when his tax refund comes in?
ssh in if you need anything else I guess. I was thinking of a friend's homegrown solution, and it was very cool to be able to have full access to the PC from the couch. Surf the web, check your fantasy football scores while the game goes on in a window, etc.
but it's a project and a challange, and a nice diversion from working on the house all the time Exactly. It's a hobby and it's one I can see the appeal of. Trust me, I labored over this decision for a while before ending up with the TiVo. I did it for cost, but also because I just don't have time for another hobby. Like I read from someone else who was heavy into this hobby: "Now I spend more time managing my system than I do watching TV with it -- but that's more fun anyway." (paraphrased)
Ah, who am I kidding? If I was single, I'd have a homegrown system too. Just don't tell the Mrs.:)
he does not miss the pause live tv function. I'm betting 99% of them won't.
Don't bet too much on that. While I bought a TiVo for the recording features, I've quickly found pausing live TV to be one of the most-used features it has.
I'm not kidding when I say that the pause and replay buttons get used to death in my house, while watching live TV. Maybe if all I watched was pre-recorded I would feel differently, but as it stands now I still watch a fair amount of live TV. Being able to pause the news while getting up to stir dinner or answer the phone, or replay a sports play right away, is a television-changing experience.
I'm new to TiVo. I am far from a TiVo-vangelist. But it really does change it from the TV networks owning you to vice-versa.
I thought about doing a home-brew, but in the end I wanted an appliance I could use, not another hobby I don't have time to keep up with:).
If I could mod that post up, I would, but my Magic Mod Points are empty today, so I'll just post a little "me too" post.
I can't point you at any studies, but I think it's common sense. In anything but a fly-by-night shop, the later in the cycle you are, the larger the ripple-effect is from making any change.
If I can fix a bug in my code before it gets to QA, QA has never seen the bug. There's no bug in the bugtracking database, there's no need to review the bug at a weekly cross-functional bug triage meeting, and there's no need to write specific regression tests that specifically make sure that bug is fixed. There's also no need to perform those specific regression tests on every build that follows to make sure it's still fixed. There's no need to hold a meeting to justify the cost of fixing the bug versus the cost of simply leaving it in and documenting its presence and its workaround. Just there, I've saved a ton of time.
The costs explode even higher once the software is in the field. Once it's in the field, it hits support every time the bug is reported in the field (multiple times, usually, as of course level 1 support is usually going to blow off the report, tell them to reboot, or whatever the "filter out bogus complaints" method of the week is). Finally it might bubble up through support but only after it gets seen multiple times, costing us money every time. Then it gets argued about by who-knows-who (more time/money) until finally someone tells development it's a bug, and then we have to hold meetings and decide whether it's important enough to fix immediately, whether it should go in a service pack or just the next version, etc. We have to write up a technical bulletin and distribute it, that bulletin has to be reviewed by documentation, product management, QA, and who-knows-who else. Then QA has to specifically add test cases to make sure the fix is there in future versions, etc.
The costs explode. Again, in any sort of large corporate environment, a cost difference of 100:1 seems completely reasonable to me.
Slashdot Mirror
There's an interview on the NYTimes site:
r craftqa.web.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/technology/10wa
It has info on the race, profession choices, and much more. Very interesting read.
"WHAT IS THE APPEAL HERE? What am I missing? Are my observations totally missing some point?"
Yes, you're missing the point, but that doesn't mean you'd ever see the appeal.
The appeal is that the journey itself is fun. There's a whole style of gameplay where you attack the same challenge over and over again, getting better at it until it loses its fun and you move on. (See: Tetris, Pac-Man, platformers) There's also a style of gameplay where you cooperate with friends to achieve a task (See: any co-op platformer or FPS). Finally, there are games where you get random loot for your trouble and try and maximize stats and effectiveness (See: Diablo 2, Roguelikes, etc).
Now combine all that together.
Maybe it wouldn't be fun for you, but it's obviously fun for some people.
As others have already said, this is boilerplate advice in the software development world. I work at a large tech company and our legal department maintains a list of FOSS licenses which we can use, and for anything else you have to submit a request for approval.
... yeah, not so good :). We're supposed to clear all shareware/etc with them as well, but plenty of people don't.
It's a pain in the ass, but it makes sense. We're trained to ignore EULAs and licenses by years of just clicking "ok" but when it boils down to it, a company can lose substantial IP by the actions of a single developer who does that.
The funny part is we still have problems; they're just ignored. If a developer does some work using a nifty shareware text editor he's downloaded, and the license says something like "free for non-commercial use, costs one billion dollars for commercial use"
I never say this, but mod parent up. The government doesn't own the airwaves -- you and I do. We empower and entrust the government to regulate them for us.
You missed the part where he said the ten million people would be paying ten dollars for a chance to win a trip. In other words, only one person goes -- the other ten million subsidize the trip through a lottery.
I could accept that, if only they had shown people learning and understanding that concept in the movies.
It's subtle, but I think it's there. I think you see it in Yoda in Ep III, which as you said you haven't seen.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part, seeing what I wanted to be there.
I haven't done C++ programming for almost 5 years, but for five years before that I was developing exclusively in C++.
:).
Effective C++ (an earlier edition, obviously) was a huge boost to my early years in the workplace.
It was pretty much required for every new hire to pick it up, our coding standards referred to it, and you were expected to have it nearby if you were messing around with the codebase.
It is full of no-nonsense vital explanations of C++ best practices. If you're going to break a rule from this book, you should be able to explain why you're going to do it
I still have it in my bookshelf "just in case" I ever am faced with a C++ question.
Is it a good book for a newbie? I don't know. But it'll help you understand how not to make newbie mistakes, that's for sure.
If all you're writing are toy programs, heck, it still might be interesting as just good background knowledge. But if you're developing professional software, it will help you make your software more solid and more maintainable.
And no, I don't know the author or anything. I just loved this book.
If you're really in the mood to geek out and read what some folks have drawn as conclusions based on the movies, video games, books, etc, check out this article at howstuffworks:
http://stuffo.howstuffworks.com/sith.htm
Not sure how much, if any, of what is in there is "canon" but it should give you some ideas of how and why the Sith limit themselves to this weird system.
I'm not sure who you hang around with, but I think people get tagged as weird when they over-indulge in any hobby: MTG or Poker, video games or football.
Trust me, for everybody who thinks you're a nerd for knowing the name of the guy in some robot suit in Star Wars, there's a guy who thinks someone else is a nerd for knowing the batting average of some 1937 baseball team.
And on both sides, you get the self-pitying "everybody thinks we're nerds" BS.
It's all a lie. Obsessed people get mocked no matter their obsession. We laugh at the guys in line for Star Wars, we laugh at the guys in line for Red Sox Season Tickets, we laugh at the guys who pay a thousand dollars for a bottle of wine, and we laugh at the guy who buys 15 different books on how to win at poker. You're all nuts, and I'm nuts in my own way and know someone out there is amused by it.
Stop taking yourself so seriously and chuckle once in a while; it's good for you.
I'm not sure why you're syaing it's impossible to make tabs with the current IE codebase. There are several browsers out there which basically "skin" IE and add tabbed browsing as well as other features.
... ).
MyIE2 and AvantBrowser are two examples that come right to mind. In fact, I like Avant's tabs better than Firefox's, because Avant treats it like MDI (so you can have two "tabs" open in the main browser window, side by side, for example) instead of just tabs. Minor difference but it's a big deal to me.
(Of course, I still use Firefox, but
I wonder if this has anything to do with the way people tend to look upwards when visualizing something and trying to concentrate/remember.
:)
Feh, probably not. Oh well.
One example does not a trend make, but good point, I suppose. But I rather suspect that is the exception, not the rule.
:).
I imagine, like much else, it varies widely by location. Perhaps I was hasty in my assumption as well. I'd like to think that everybody has access to this level of education if they're willing to do a little footwork and research, but that's probably my New England bias peeking through
I think this differs a lot based on the school. Do some research, first. As others have posted, many CCs have arrangements with local universities which map their courses one-to-one. I took the first two years of my WPI CS degree at Springfield Technical Community College (Massachusetts), in a program specifically designed to transfer into a "real" CS program. I was absolutely not handicapped in any way, and went on to get my MS in CS.
It can be done, but it depends a lot on the curriculum at the specific school. Research first!
Absolute flamebait.
For example, check out this CS program at Springfield Technical Community College in Massachusetts. It's designed specifically to transfer into a 4-year CS degree and includes such "hard and specialized" topics as Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Digital Logic, and Data Structures.
Sorry to say, but your gut instinct is completely incorrect in this instance.
I know because I went through that program, transfered to a 4-year school (WPI), and stuck around to get my Masters. And I wasn't the only one; several of my classmates in CS and other disciplines stuck out the two year transfer program and ended up graduating and are working in industry right now.
It can be done, and in some cases is a great way to bypass two expensive years at a 4-year school.
I received a 2-year degree from a Massachusetts community college back in the early 90s, at a school which had tailored the program specifically for transfering to a 4-year school. They even had agreements with many schools such that as long as you had a 3.0 or higher GPA, you were guaranteed a transfer into the school.
... looks like my favorite professor is still hanging around there!
I was at Springfield Technical Community College, and transfered the degree to WPI, where I eventually ended up getting my MS in CS. I absolutely feel my 2 years at STCC were no handicap to me in my academic knowledge.
URLs:
List of transfer programs
CS Transfer Program
I actually feel I got an excellent grounding in CS from my introduction at the community college. I had, like you say, a Data Structures class. It was taught using C++, so I picked up some practical knowledge to go with the theory. Same with the introductory programming class, which used Pascal. Same with the machine language class, which had theory elements.
Basically I came out of the school with all the math I needed for a BS in CS (including linear algebra, DiffEQs, and discrete math), almost all of the science, and almost all of the humanities classes. I was a litle behind in CS theory classes, so when I got to WPI as a "Junior" I ended up enrolled in a couple "Sophomore" CS classes to catch up. It was really no big deal, and I had a little more practical knowledge than some of my classmates, too, because WPI at the time wasn't teaching C++ to its freshmen and sophomores.
Considering I saved, oh, maybe 15K+ each year by taking the first two years at a CC, I'm thrilled with how it worked out. Plus I could overload and take even more classes, at a cheaper cost per credit.
There's definitely a place for Community Colleges in science and engineering. You just need a program designed around it. Maybe your state has something similar....
How's this for a reason why you're not getting those benchmarks?
The entire thing is a glorified advertisement for the latest cards from ATI and NVidia. What do they have to gain from giving you detailed information about why your current setup will work just fine? Why would they spend hours and hours getting stats for cards which their customers already own?
Just a thought.
I don't know about the rest of you, but things like these are actually scaring me out of running Windows.
:P
If you stop using windows, the terrorists have already won!!
In the US, just about everyone has a car. Even our poor people do. They are ubiquitous. That ubiquity has led to subsidies which lower the cost of vehicles, fuels, roads, and the like. And yet, we _still_ demand that people be licensed because if they get onto the public infrastructure without some basic skills they can cause enormous harm.
:).
In the US, just about everyone has a child. Even our poor people do. They are ubiquitous. You tell me which is more dangerous, Windows XP or idiot parents.
Yes, people should take some responsibility and learn more about these machines they use. But making the system harder is not the answer. Making the education easier is, and making the potential damage lesser is.
It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. We have to do what we can to make people smarter, and do what we can to make the software safer.
Bitching about how we should have a "you must be this smart to get on this ride" sign at the gates to the net is as useful as wishing Enterprise had never been made
Just when you think the FCC isn't going to get any crazier, they turn around and start talking about things that are "profane."
The article makes a great case as to how this could be a strong move towards regulation of hate speech. You should read it, if you haven't (I know, this is Slashdot and all, but give it a shot). I'm not the only one shivering here.
There's just something about having a Bush in office that makes me really hate the Republican party. The last time I got this riled up about politics was, oh, about 12 years ago. I'm not saying I was a big Clinton fan, just that he never got my goat in quite the same way....
Funny how things have changed. The entire goal is supposed to be protection of common standards of decency. To, for example, protect the "citizens at large" from being assaulted with smut they don't want. We've slipped from that into a place where we don't protect the "citizens at large" but rather the vocal minority of those citizens who can't figure out how to fucking change the channel.
The other thing to realize is that people who are car enthusiasts/hobbyists always carry around a top-ten list in their minds. "If I had $30K I would buy a (foo) and add a (bar) and then modify the (wompus)." Having a car in a game will not change somebody's mind, but it lets them live out part of that fantasy and increase the hype.
This isn't about creating demand, it's just another part of the hype machine. Let's say Jim Sixpack has meticulously researched and test driven two comparable cars, but can afford neither right now. He's constantly wishing he had either of them: he has posters of them in his office, he can rattle off the engine specs, he can list the common modifications. Now he buys the next "realistic" car sim, and one of them is in there, and one isn't. He spends the next 8 months racing one of those cars, adding custom touches to it, modifying it, winning race after race in it.
Do you think that might influence his decision of which car to put a downpayment on when his tax refund comes in?
ssh in if you need anything else
:)
I guess. I was thinking of a friend's homegrown solution, and it was very cool to be able to have full access to the PC from the couch. Surf the web, check your fantasy football scores while the game goes on in a window, etc.
but it's a project and a challange, and a nice diversion from working on the house all the time
Exactly. It's a hobby and it's one I can see the appeal of. Trust me, I labored over this decision for a while before ending up with the TiVo. I did it for cost, but also because I just don't have time for another hobby. Like I read from someone else who was heavy into this hobby: "Now I spend more time managing my system than I do watching TV with it -- but that's more fun anyway." (paraphrased)
Ah, who am I kidding? If I was single, I'd have a homegrown system too. Just don't tell the Mrs.
he does not miss the pause live tv function. I'm betting 99% of them won't.
:).
Don't bet too much on that. While I bought a TiVo for the recording features, I've quickly found pausing live TV to be one of the most-used features it has.
I'm not kidding when I say that the pause and replay buttons get used to death in my house, while watching live TV. Maybe if all I watched was pre-recorded I would feel differently, but as it stands now I still watch a fair amount of live TV. Being able to pause the news while getting up to stir dinner or answer the phone, or replay a sports play right away, is a television-changing experience.
I'm new to TiVo. I am far from a TiVo-vangelist. But it really does change it from the TV networks owning you to vice-versa.
I thought about doing a home-brew, but in the end I wanted an appliance I could use, not another hobby I don't have time to keep up with
Don't forget wireless keyboard and mouse to control from your cushy couch :).
Anybody who is trying to save money by building a TiVo substitute is going to end up losing in the end.
Do it because you love to hack, do it for the satisfaction, do it for the feature set, but trying to save money is not going to work here.
Correction. Legally, the series 2 TiVos (all that you can find at your corner TiVo store) all require a subscription to the service.
Old Series 1 TiVos can be used without subscription, as a sort of digital VCR.
If I could mod that post up, I would, but my Magic Mod Points are empty today, so I'll just post a little "me too" post.
I can't point you at any studies, but I think it's common sense. In anything but a fly-by-night shop, the later in the cycle you are, the larger the ripple-effect is from making any change.
If I can fix a bug in my code before it gets to QA, QA has never seen the bug. There's no bug in the bugtracking database, there's no need to review the bug at a weekly cross-functional bug triage meeting, and there's no need to write specific regression tests that specifically make sure that bug is fixed. There's also no need to perform those specific regression tests on every build that follows to make sure it's still fixed. There's no need to hold a meeting to justify the cost of fixing the bug versus the cost of simply leaving it in and documenting its presence and its workaround. Just there, I've saved a ton of time.
The costs explode even higher once the software is in the field. Once it's in the field, it hits support every time the bug is reported in the field (multiple times, usually, as of course level 1 support is usually going to blow off the report, tell them to reboot, or whatever the "filter out bogus complaints" method of the week is). Finally it might bubble up through support but only after it gets seen multiple times, costing us money every time. Then it gets argued about by who-knows-who (more time/money) until finally someone tells development it's a bug, and then we have to hold meetings and decide whether it's important enough to fix immediately, whether it should go in a service pack or just the next version, etc. We have to write up a technical bulletin and distribute it, that bulletin has to be reviewed by documentation, product management, QA, and who-knows-who else. Then QA has to specifically add test cases to make sure the fix is there in future versions, etc.
The costs explode. Again, in any sort of large corporate environment, a cost difference of 100:1 seems completely reasonable to me.