I need to lookup where I heard this first, but there was a study done back in the 70's (I think) about the correlation of attention span and television.
The findings suggested that TV causes shortened attention spans by physically altering pathways in the brain. The effect is similar to muscle memory (you can all type your 28 character password in 1.5 seconds without needing to actually look at the keyboard, right? That's muscle memory.) and can either be reinforced by watching lots of TV or reduced by not watching TV and reading books instead. Because the nature of the medium of television is such that topical changes occur very fast (approx every 30 seconds) and more or less without end (until you turn it off), you are physically training the brain to deal with shortened periods of time on which to concentrate. This might explain why after watching MTV for a few minutes you might find yourself saying "my brain hurts!!!"
With children, this is especially problematic because the habits (physical and otherwise) they form will be with them forever. If they *learn* to have a 30 second attention span through the dominant medium in their life, then they will will end up having great difficulty concentrating for periods of time longer than what is normally required of them. Consequense? They are diagnosed as "having ADHD" (which I think is just a scam invented by shrinks and the drug companies... why discipline or educate your child when you can say they are 'disabled' and just medicate them instead?).
Unix Bigots Are Not Helping The Cause
on
Why PHBs Fear Linux
·
· Score: 2, Funny
From the article:For example if vendor A's product runs on the UNIX operating system and vendor B's runs on Windows NT, vendor A may try to influence the company to view the UNIX platform as a requirement. Simultaneously, vendor B might try to include features that are difficult to obtain through Unix. From this, our future MBA or CPA learns that Unix people are bigots..."
It was mentioned in another thread that there is the definite stereotype of the superioristic, socially inept, f-you if you don't get it or cannot make it work by writing for {insert toolkit here} with {insert (scripting) language here} on {insert distro here}. Many *nix people come across as only being interested in technology as the means and the end, and only that technology which they approve of as being cool.
Your typical MBA doesn't care how cool one language/database/operating system is versus another, they want results, and they want you to spell it out in a cogent cost/benefit summary that they can understand. If all you can puke out is "I am a Unix God and Windows sucks monkey balls" why are you surprised when the consultant with half a clue, an expensive suit, and a degree in technical writing hands him a proposal that is in his native "MBA" language that wins the bid? Could it be that our consultant was not effectively unrefuted by anything substantial from the foaming-at-the-mouth *nix advocate?
It is true that Linux will not be a dominant force on the desktop until there is a pretty, easy to use, intuitive, and well supported GUI. In the same way, until someone does a better marketing job than the boys from Redmond, keep current on.NET and VB/C#...
Yes, but I suppose I am looking at this from a slightly different perspective as well. Much of my early programming was in VB/VBScript/ASP programmer, I really appreciated being able to *quickly* learn the syntax or a very simple language (not bothering with case sensitivity is only the first of many ease-of-use elements of the language). Without doubt C/C++ gives you more raw power, and if my scripting requirements needed the goodness of power and speed that C gives me, it's only a COM component away from being included in the project.
The theoretical question is: Can there be a language that is both extremely easy to learn and use, yet strongly encourages the writing of proper code instead of the convoluted crap that most newbies create, or is this asking to have my cake and eat it too?
Would require a full table scan, yes, but you are doing all of that work already -- and most likely on the same server in many cases -- by selecting the whole table (or most of the table based on other constraints) into a result set and looping through those results and regex'ing out what you *really* want to find. In the interest of minimizing coding, it would be better to put the REGEX engine into the sql engine.
I'll admit I don't know Postgres, but if there is regular expression support there it's something *added on* to the database in the same way that Microsoft and Oracle add gobs of useful stuff to T-Sql and PL/Sql. It would be nice if the SQL standard itself accounted for regexp's since that would be SO handy in the most basic of sql commands: the SELECT.
In terms of getting data into and out of a database, how is sql in any way inadequate? The ONLY thing I can think of off the top of my head that I would love to see in SQL that is not currently there is the ability to use regular expressions in a WHERE clause...
Nor I... if one wants to create a new scripting language to overcome perceived weaknesses, why make it look 99% like something else that is already out there? Now if the goal were to be object oriented, extensible with C (or Perl or {insert your favorite language here}) modules, free of "brain-aching" complexity, easy to learn and fun to use, skip the Python syntax and make something with clearer scope termination, like say, a *proper* form of VB Script...
What would be very slick would be an open source system that integrates with wireless data (GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, WiFi -- take your pick) and GPS to project onto your windshield in heads-up-display (HUD) manner what the traffic conditions are ahead of you. Being open source, you could then add whatever modules interest you so that your HUD could indicate when you are near a Starbucks, state park, 2600 meeting location, weather conditions ahead, or whatever you might want to know while driving. Heck, with a system like that motorists could even pinpoint the locations of speed traps for each other. Imagine your HUD flashing a red warning of "speed trap 1500 meters ahead"...
This is more or less what I was thinking -- only more detailed and stated more elegantly. What I am at least mildly curious about is why switching platforms is out of the question. In my case, I do ASP.NET programming so I am stuck with Windows until VS.NET is capable of running on *nix or Mac OS. If not for this "little problem" I could be on linux *tomorrow* since there is nothing else that ties me to the Windows platform...
When the laser scanners were coming out, everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened.'
Excuse me? What do you think "Club cards" are, and why do you think there is a discount associated with it? All the info about what you buy is aggregated to create shopping profiles in order to suck more $$$ out of you in the form of targeted advertising and "sharing your info with our business partners."
RFID is everything that the barcode scanners are in terms of information collection, and A WHOLE LOT MORE! Consider: you go to your local supermarket and buy a six pack or two and walk out the front door, RFIDs and all. If an hour later you leave the parking lot but the six pack with the RFID doesn't, what's the logical conclusion, and how long will it be before all of the bored busy-body housewives of the world DEMAND that law enforcement be notified of such a scenario just in case someone might be drinking and then driving???
You are right -- legally "Microsoft" is a singular entity, like a person, so it is correct to say "Microsoft is" as most Americans do. It is also correct to refer to Microsoft as a collective noun representing their employees. Both are correct in the sense that "color" and "colour" are spelled correctly if understood in the correct cultural context.
Until we ban the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans, and whomever else are given to saying "Microsoft are" from/. we really should not quibble over culturally rooted linguistic differences.
If you are speaking "the Queen's English" then it is indeed correct to say "Microsoft are" because in this case "Microsoft" is logically the collective term used to refer to the people who work for the company. Since the nominative is plural, one uses the plural form of the verb.
Of course, we Americans don't usually see the people behind the company name but rather tend to personify the company as an individual rather than a collective, hence we are much more used to hearing "Microsoft IS a bad company" instead of "Microsoft are announcing a new piece of crap..."
I am not a games developer, so I don't know what all else has to be taken into account for a "gaming development platform" aside from advanced graphics, but I presume that this is going to involve gobs of.NET and XML. Just as the future of.NET apps includes XML Application Markup Language (XAML), will we soon be seeing a similar markup scheme for games -- perhaps even called XGML?
An interesting concept: since mouse breast cancer is sufficiently different from human breast cancer that the efficacy of the research is limited, make the breasts on the mouse more human so that the resulting cancer is more human... Basically the mouse -- or any other lab animal for that matter -- becomes the host for a human emulation layer for studying disease.
Is it just me, or does this makes make anyone else think of the WINE project: create a more Windows-like "tissue mass" on Linux in order to grow/study the cancer on a different platform...
I search for sushi near 66207 and the two most highly rated sushi restaurants in town are not even listed! Clearly this is a work in progress.
Another interesting discovery: search for "People who understand Windows 2003" near zip code "66207" returns 'Planned Parenthood of Kansas'... just what is Google suggesting here???:-)
Whatever. If that's your attitude you forfeit the right to bitch and whine about not having a job when you refuse to do what your employer lets you go for not doing what they ask of you.
Language choices can be good, I suppose, until you get into psuedo-religious arguments about which is better, which is superior, which is more pure for your platform, etc.
"nonmaskable" makes a great point about developer productivity with Java/C#; the only thing he leaves out is that if Mono really takes off on linux then you'll have a considerable number of very talented VB.NET programmers being able to cross over to linux for the first time as well. Add to this mix a good RAD tool or the ability to target Mono from VisualStudio.NET and now desktop linux is suddenly a viable option for every small business who relies on some sort of customized app produced by their in-house.NET programmers.
Linux won't be broadly accepted on the desktop until you have the apps to go on it; you won't have the apps until you can quickly and easily build or move all of the line-of-business applications built with "toy languages" like VB/VB.NET to linux. Said apps may not be pretty, elegant, or even efficient, but they get the job done and that is what the suits & the MBA's upstairs want to see: results in as little time as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
I need to lookup where I heard this first, but there was a study done back in the 70's (I think) about the correlation of attention span and television.
The findings suggested that TV causes shortened attention spans by physically altering pathways in the brain. The effect is similar to muscle memory (you can all type your 28 character password in 1.5 seconds without needing to actually look at the keyboard, right? That's muscle memory.) and can either be reinforced by watching lots of TV or reduced by not watching TV and reading books instead. Because the nature of the medium of television is such that topical changes occur very fast (approx every 30 seconds) and more or less without end (until you turn it off), you are physically training the brain to deal with shortened periods of time on which to concentrate. This might explain why after watching MTV for a few minutes you might find yourself saying "my brain hurts!!!"
With children, this is especially problematic because the habits (physical and otherwise) they form will be with them forever. If they *learn* to have a 30 second attention span through the dominant medium in their life, then they will will end up having great difficulty concentrating for periods of time longer than what is normally required of them. Consequense? They are diagnosed as "having ADHD" (which I think is just a scam invented by shrinks and the drug companies... why discipline or educate your child when you can say they are 'disabled' and just medicate them instead?).
From the article: For example if vendor A's product runs on the UNIX operating system and vendor B's runs on Windows NT, vendor A may try to influence the company to view the UNIX platform as a requirement. Simultaneously, vendor B might try to include features that are difficult to obtain through Unix. From this, our future MBA or CPA learns that Unix people are bigots..."
.NET and VB/C#...
It was mentioned in another thread that there is the definite stereotype of the superioristic, socially inept, f-you if you don't get it or cannot make it work by writing for {insert toolkit here} with {insert (scripting) language here} on {insert distro here}. Many *nix people come across as only being interested in technology as the means and the end, and only that technology which they approve of as being cool.
Your typical MBA doesn't care how cool one language/database/operating system is versus another, they want results, and they want you to spell it out in a cogent cost/benefit summary that they can understand. If all you can puke out is "I am a Unix God and Windows sucks monkey balls" why are you surprised when the consultant with half a clue, an expensive suit, and a degree in technical writing hands him a proposal that is in his native "MBA" language that wins the bid? Could it be that our consultant was not effectively unrefuted by anything substantial from the foaming-at-the-mouth *nix advocate?
It is true that Linux will not be a dominant force on the desktop until there is a pretty, easy to use, intuitive, and well supported GUI. In the same way, until someone does a better marketing job than the boys from Redmond, keep current on
Yes, but I suppose I am looking at this from a slightly different perspective as well. Much of my early programming was in VB/VBScript/ASP programmer, I really appreciated being able to *quickly* learn the syntax or a very simple language (not bothering with case sensitivity is only the first of many ease-of-use elements of the language). Without doubt C/C++ gives you more raw power, and if my scripting requirements needed the goodness of power and speed that C gives me, it's only a COM component away from being included in the project.
The theoretical question is: Can there be a language that is both extremely easy to learn and use, yet strongly encourages the writing of proper code instead of the convoluted crap that most newbies create, or is this asking to have my cake and eat it too?
Would require a full table scan, yes, but you are doing all of that work already -- and most likely on the same server in many cases -- by selecting the whole table (or most of the table based on other constraints) into a result set and looping through those results and regex'ing out what you *really* want to find. In the interest of minimizing coding, it would be better to put the REGEX engine into the sql engine.
I'll admit I don't know Postgres, but if there is regular expression support there it's something *added on* to the database in the same way that Microsoft and Oracle add gobs of useful stuff to T-Sql and PL/Sql. It would be nice if the SQL standard itself accounted for regexp's since that would be SO handy in the most basic of sql commands: the SELECT.
In terms of getting data into and out of a database, how is sql in any way inadequate? The ONLY thing I can think of off the top of my head that I would love to see in SQL that is not currently there is the ability to use regular expressions in a WHERE clause...
"A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied too late." -- General George S. Patton
What exactly is the "perfection" of Prothon going to allow that cannot now be achieved with Python, Perl, C, Java, etc....
I wasn't aware Python was broken.
Nor I... if one wants to create a new scripting language to overcome perceived weaknesses, why make it look 99% like something else that is already out there? Now if the goal were to be object oriented, extensible with C (or Perl or {insert your favorite language here}) modules, free of "brain-aching" complexity, easy to learn and fun to use, skip the Python syntax and make something with clearer scope termination, like say, a *proper* form of VB Script...
What would be very slick would be an open source system that integrates with wireless data (GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, WiFi -- take your pick) and GPS to project onto your windshield in heads-up-display (HUD) manner what the traffic conditions are ahead of you. Being open source, you could then add whatever modules interest you so that your HUD could indicate when you are near a Starbucks, state park, 2600 meeting location, weather conditions ahead, or whatever you might want to know while driving. Heck, with a system like that motorists could even pinpoint the locations of speed traps for each other. Imagine your HUD flashing a red warning of "speed trap 1500 meters ahead"...
This is more or less what I was thinking -- only more detailed and stated more elegantly. What I am at least mildly curious about is why switching platforms is out of the question. In my case, I do ASP.NET programming so I am stuck with Windows until VS.NET is capable of running on *nix or Mac OS. If not for this "little problem" I could be on linux *tomorrow* since there is nothing else that ties me to the Windows platform...
I will double-check my spelling next time...
When the laser scanners were coming out, everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened.'
Excuse me? What do you think "Club cards" are, and why do you think there is a discount associated with it? All the info about what you buy is aggregated to create shopping profiles in order to suck more $$$ out of you in the form of targeted advertising and "sharing your info with our business partners."
RFID is everything that the barcode scanners are in terms of information collection, and A WHOLE LOT MORE! Consider: you go to your local supermarket and buy a six pack or two and walk out the front door, RFIDs and all. If an hour later you leave the parking lot but the six pack with the RFID doesn't, what's the logical conclusion, and how long will it be before all of the bored busy-body housewives of the world DEMAND that law enforcement be notified of such a scenario just in case someone might be drinking and then driving???
After all, it's for the safety of the children...
You are right -- legally "Microsoft" is a singular entity, like a person, so it is correct to say "Microsoft is" as most Americans do. It is also correct to refer to Microsoft as a collective noun representing their employees. Both are correct in the sense that "color" and "colour" are spelled correctly if understood in the correct cultural context.
/. we really should not quibble over culturally rooted linguistic differences.
Until we ban the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans, and whomever else are given to saying "Microsoft are" from
This needs to be modded up to 5-funny just on the strength of the "DirectXXX" reference!
If you are speaking "the Queen's English" then it is indeed correct to say "Microsoft are" because in this case "Microsoft" is logically the collective term used to refer to the people who work for the company. Since the nominative is plural, one uses the plural form of the verb.
Of course, we Americans don't usually see the people behind the company name but rather tend to personify the company as an individual rather than a collective, hence we are much more used to hearing "Microsoft IS a bad company" instead of "Microsoft are announcing a new piece of crap..."
I am not a games developer, so I don't know what all else has to be taken into account for a "gaming development platform" aside from advanced graphics, but I presume that this is going to involve gobs of .NET and XML. Just as the future of .NET apps includes XML Application Markup Language (XAML), will we soon be seeing a similar markup scheme for games -- perhaps even called XGML?
An interesting concept: since mouse breast cancer is sufficiently different from human breast cancer that the efficacy of the research is limited, make the breasts on the mouse more human so that the resulting cancer is more human... Basically the mouse -- or any other lab animal for that matter -- becomes the host for a human emulation layer for studying disease.
Is it just me, or does this makes make anyone else think of the WINE project: create a more Windows-like "tissue mass" on Linux in order to grow/study the cancer on a different platform...
But will the new dual layer DVD's be compatible with set-top boxes or legacy DVD ROM drives???
I search for sushi near 66207 and the two most highly rated sushi restaurants in town are not even listed! Clearly this is a work in progress.
:-)
Another interesting discovery: search for "People who understand Windows 2003" near zip code "66207" returns 'Planned Parenthood of Kansas'... just what is Google suggesting here???
Whatever. If that's your attitude you forfeit the right to bitch and whine about not having a job when you refuse to do what your employer lets you go for not doing what they ask of you.
Language choices can be good, I suppose, until you get into psuedo-religious arguments about which is better, which is superior, which is more pure for your platform, etc.
.NET programmers.
"nonmaskable" makes a great point about developer productivity with Java/C#; the only thing he leaves out is that if Mono really takes off on linux then you'll have a considerable number of very talented VB.NET programmers being able to cross over to linux for the first time as well. Add to this mix a good RAD tool or the ability to target Mono from VisualStudio.NET and now desktop linux is suddenly a viable option for every small business who relies on some sort of customized app produced by their in-house
Linux won't be broadly accepted on the desktop until you have the apps to go on it; you won't have the apps until you can quickly and easily build or move all of the line-of-business applications built with "toy languages" like VB/VB.NET to linux. Said apps may not be pretty, elegant, or even efficient, but they get the job done and that is what the suits & the MBA's upstairs want to see: results in as little time as possible.