Pondering that quote was what changed my mind on capital punishment a couple of decades ago. We shouldn't execute even monsters not because they are not monsters, but because we are not.
The most important subtext here is that this is just the beginning. The printed hand doesn't have to win against the manufactured hand on all counts just now. If it even comes close, think what that means for 3D printing a couple of decades from now, not just for prosthetics, but for many other things. We tend to think of 3D printing in terms of it's ability to displace commodities, which it will never do. What it will do is to provide less-expensive, highly customized solutions from a vast number of sources rather than expensive shelf models from a few vendors. When manufacturers realize that, cue the lobbyists and lawsuits.
or do you just think you are? It's easy to minimize the amount of work it took to get to where you are. When you first learned to program, you likely took it day-by-day, just being involved with the process itself and enjoying the it without worrying about how fast you were learning. You may actually be learning faster now, it paradoxically just feels slower because you're comparing it to all the things you already know.
Thief 1/2 had a tongue-in-cheek campiness about them that made them fun to play in spite of the technical limitations. It was like being a kid again and being able to suspend disbelief. Looking down from the heights into the crudely polygonal catacombs was actually scary. Turning around to find a medium-res monster coming at you really made you jump. The same dumb guard saying for the fiftieth time: "Nobody shows me my own sword and yells run," still made you smile. You watched for situations in which to use the word "taffer" in real life. Ironically, the more realistic later versions actually interfered with this by being too realistic and yet failing to engage your imagination.
Exactly. I have relatives who are in law enforcement. I can tell you exactly how they would have handled this: "Move along, buddy, and don't let me catch you doing this again."
All this cloud application talk reminds me of my first computer job. I worked on PCs, but most of the rest of the people in the company still used 3270-era terminals. Usually I would sit surrounded in auditory haze of clicky typing. Sometimes, it would gradually slow down, then dwindle off to a few isolated clicks. Finally somebody would yell “Are you on the clock?” (referring to the mainframe busy icon on the terminal's status bar). Then everybody would get up for a while and chat and have coffee until somebody yelled “It's back on!”
Learn to write by studying the writing of people who do it for a living: novelists, journalists, etc. Do this by reading books about writing, and by learning to read with a critical eye. Then read lots of novels, short-stories and essays, favoring those vetted by time and peers.
When I was taking scientific methodology courses in school, we were strongly encouraged to use the "recipe" approach. We were warned that thinking about the detailed meaning of the statistical results might lead to the introduction of bias. I applauded the intent, but even then I saw it as likely to cause problems by forcing a continuous spectrum of results into accept / reject quanta. So I agree that simply moving the thresholds cannot solve the problem. I think Bayesian statistics, while not a panacea, can offer a more nuanced and realistic approach approach. But the real solution, IMHO, is to make sure every researcher has a good foundation in a broad range of statistical techniques and theory.
It's not strictly a question of "easy." I consider the inside of a car engine a realm of dark, arcane mystery that I will never penetrate. However, cars are not "geeky" (at least the way most people approach them). To be a real geek you have to yearn after the abstract over the concrete -- logic that can run without hardware, etc., even if what results is some really cool hardware. A mechanic, on the other hand -- and I do *not* use the term "mechanic" perjoratively -- is enamored of the concrete, the feel of metal on metal. And that's the "geek" difference -- abstract more than concrete -- rather than difficulty.
I'm a geek, I fit most of the "negative" stereotypes, and you know what: I kind of feel sorry for people who don't. Being a geek has rewards all its own that cool people will never know.
I'm a Kentuckian of several generations on both sides; I wrote my first computer program in Kentucky. It makes me happy to see our exchange is doing well. One thing about Kentuckians: we may not always know everything, but we know what we don't know and aren't generally too proud to try to remedy it given the means.
"There is no excuse for a site to launch in this condition."
I could not possibly agree more. However, the reality is that, no matter how well planned or well funded an engineering enterprise, management, sales, and other issues almost always push it to release before it is ready. This has been a nearly universal experience for me in several decades of professional software and hardware product design in companies ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small startups. If you work in a shop where where your experience has been otherwise, count yourself blessed.
The web problems are unfortunate, but are to be expected and are managable. Most non-programming people don't realize that, even if they are early adopters, by the time they encounter a web site it is in essentially revision three or four or higher. And there are still problems then. What is needed is good backup on the human resources side (e.g. 800 numbers) until the bugs are worked out.
One small quote from SICP sums up all one needs to know about programming and the history of computers:
"When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun." --Alan J. Perlis
I think the situation is even worse today. Not only would the pencil+eraser patent be upheld, a patent troll would then sue both makers of plain pencils and plain erasers for infringing on parts of the patent.
Slashdot Mirror
Pondering that quote was what changed my mind on capital punishment a couple of decades ago. We shouldn't execute even monsters not because they are not monsters, but because we are not.
The most important subtext here is that this is just the beginning. The printed hand doesn't have to win against the manufactured hand on all counts just now. If it even comes close, think what that means for 3D printing a couple of decades from now, not just for prosthetics, but for many other things. We tend to think of 3D printing in terms of it's ability to displace commodities, which it will never do. What it will do is to provide less-expensive, highly customized solutions from a vast number of sources rather than expensive shelf models from a few vendors. When manufacturers realize that, cue the lobbyists and lawsuits.
...get back to me in 100 years.
or do you just think you are? It's easy to minimize the amount of work it took to get to where you are. When you first learned to program, you likely took it day-by-day, just being involved with the process itself and enjoying the it without worrying about how fast you were learning. You may actually be learning faster now, it paradoxically just feels slower because you're comparing it to all the things you already know.
This is also how I sort documents. First into piles by source, then by data.
Geany on Linux; a nice little editor reminiscent of Notepad++.
Thief 1/2 had a tongue-in-cheek campiness about them that made them fun to play in spite of the technical limitations. It was like being a kid again and being able to suspend disbelief. Looking down from the heights into the crudely polygonal catacombs was actually scary. Turning around to find a medium-res monster coming at you really made you jump. The same dumb guard saying for the fiftieth time: "Nobody shows me my own sword and yells run," still made you smile. You watched for situations in which to use the word "taffer" in real life. Ironically, the more realistic later versions actually interfered with this by being too realistic and yet failing to engage your imagination.
I'm refusing to take sides in the beta kerfuffle, but that was pretty funny and apropos.
Just point them at indeed, where, last time I checked, jQuery was ranked number eight.
I wonder how the whales feel about this?
Exactly. I have relatives who are in law enforcement. I can tell you exactly how they would have handled this: "Move along, buddy, and don't let me catch you doing this again."
We Neils are much further along than any of you carbon-based lifeforms can imagine.
I'm confused. Does this mean we all have one less friend than we thought, or one more?
All this cloud application talk reminds me of my first computer job. I worked on PCs, but most of the rest of the people in the company still used 3270-era terminals. Usually I would sit surrounded in auditory haze of clicky typing. Sometimes, it would gradually slow down, then dwindle off to a few isolated clicks. Finally somebody would yell “Are you on the clock?” (referring to the mainframe busy icon on the terminal's status bar). Then everybody would get up for a while and chat and have coffee until somebody yelled “It's back on!”
Learn to write by studying the writing of people who do it for a living: novelists, journalists, etc. Do this by reading books about writing, and by learning to read with a critical eye. Then read lots of novels, short-stories and essays, favoring those vetted by time and peers.
When I was taking scientific methodology courses in school, we were strongly encouraged to use the "recipe" approach. We were warned that thinking about the detailed meaning of the statistical results might lead to the introduction of bias. I applauded the intent, but even then I saw it as likely to cause problems by forcing a continuous spectrum of results into accept / reject quanta. So I agree that simply moving the thresholds cannot solve the problem. I think Bayesian statistics, while not a panacea, can offer a more nuanced and realistic approach approach. But the real solution, IMHO, is to make sure every researcher has a good foundation in a broad range of statistical techniques and theory.
It's not strictly a question of "easy." I consider the inside of a car engine a realm of dark, arcane mystery that I will never penetrate. However, cars are not "geeky" (at least the way most people approach them). To be a real geek you have to yearn after the abstract over the concrete -- logic that can run without hardware, etc., even if what results is some really cool hardware. A mechanic, on the other hand -- and I do *not* use the term "mechanic" perjoratively -- is enamored of the concrete, the feel of metal on metal. And that's the "geek" difference -- abstract more than concrete -- rather than difficulty.
It's a language from the days of wooden computers and iron programmers.
I'm a geek, I fit most of the "negative" stereotypes, and you know what: I kind of feel sorry for people who don't. Being a geek has rewards all its own that cool people will never know.
I'm a Kentuckian of several generations on both sides; I wrote my first computer program in Kentucky. It makes me happy to see our exchange is doing well. One thing about Kentuckians: we may not always know everything, but we know what we don't know and aren't generally too proud to try to remedy it given the means.
"There is no excuse for a site to launch in this condition." I could not possibly agree more. However, the reality is that, no matter how well planned or well funded an engineering enterprise, management, sales, and other issues almost always push it to release before it is ready. This has been a nearly universal experience for me in several decades of professional software and hardware product design in companies ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small startups. If you work in a shop where where your experience has been otherwise, count yourself blessed.
The web problems are unfortunate, but are to be expected and are managable. Most non-programming people don't realize that, even if they are early adopters, by the time they encounter a web site it is in essentially revision three or four or higher. And there are still problems then. What is needed is good backup on the human resources side (e.g. 800 numbers) until the bugs are worked out.
There are days when you wake up proud to have French ancestry.
One small quote from SICP sums up all one needs to know about programming and the history of computers: "When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun." --Alan J. Perlis
I think the situation is even worse today. Not only would the pencil+eraser patent be upheld, a patent troll would then sue both makers of plain pencils and plain erasers for infringing on parts of the patent.