Do you imagine Heinlein was endorsing the fascist society in Starship Troopers merely because the characters inhabiting the world accepted it? Yes.
Was he then also endorsing the libertarian society in Moon is a Harsh Mistress? And where does Stranger in a Strange Land fit in?
The forward he wrote himself covers Stranger in a Strange Land - he deliberately set out to write a sympathetic character and story which was entirely opposed to his own beliefs. He states this explicitly.
Am afraid have not read Moon is a Harsh Mistress so cannot comment.
I do this too. It's a style, rather than making someone 'better' or 'worse' - that style works for me. Another thing I find is that if I do consider something significant enough to write a note or a todo item about, it is the act of writing which makes me remember. I never really refer to the note or the todo again, simply the fact that I once wrote it down is what actually drives it into my brain.
Massively disagree with 'destroying'. I've taken the family to the Nessie museum twice, a few years apart, and both times I was impressed by the attitude there. They go to great pains to show that Nessie isn't any of the things normally attributed to it (not a plesiosaur because the landmass is in the wrong place for the time of the plesiosaurs, not a large whale or similar, not a large mammal at all because of unusually low fish density due to the waters being clogged with peat etc., etc.), and they also show all the fakes and take you through how it was done.
They don't really come out on the side of Nessie existing at all in fact. I think that's an excellent attitude for such a museum to have, and I was impressed both times. The monster is treated as a bit of fun, and nothing else.
There's a difference between handling and noticing though. If you sent me a mail with typos in it, I'd notice but fully be able to 'handle' it. If, on the other hand, you later asked me a specific question 'did you notice all the typos?' well then yeah, I noticed them.
Sensational title. From the article (and various others):
"Whittingdale expressed his preference for the industry to self-regulate"
Not Government regulation at all. His speech was very much targeted at his audience and I'm no fan of the opinion expressed, but he has not kicked off a government initiative to legislate against AdBlock.
Really need the content. I have an Oculus DK1 and a Cardboard viewer too - I really, really want to be a fan but there's only so many roller coasters and dinosaur parks I need to see.
You could do great things even now with it - there's some interesting solar system exploration apps for example. Too few people are actually doing this though, and my viewers more or less sit in a cupboard doing nothing. The push needs to be towards applications (including games yes, but other stuff too) and not just the hardware.
Crashplan is my choice because it allows you to use a friend's storage as well - best of both worlds if you do happen to have some technically-inclined friends. I have the free Crashplan service where I dedicate some space on a NAS to other people, and in return they are dedicated space on their machines for me. Works well.
Although I agree with your post, that wasn't 'a management consultant'. That was Sir John Harvey-Jones, former chief executive of the UK's largest manufacturer - Imperial Chemical Industries, better known as ICI.
I agree with your point and it's a classic example, but he wasn't randomly brought in to businesses. At the time Morgan's future was far from certain, and he was brought in to advise on it. Morgan listened, said thank you and decided to keep going their own way. They did change though - look at the Aero 8, definitely not ye olde Morgan.
Yes, would agree with this. The Cortana thing for instance - I'm comfortable using Siri (from a data collection point of view) but not comfortable using Cortana, purely on the basis of what the companies say they will do with it.
Shame - I actually liked the fact it was doing something different and wasn't an iOS clone. Had a chance to play with one very briefly when a friend bought it, and I thought it worked quite well.
I'm an Apple ecosystem person at the moment, but I'm definitely in for seeing alternatives and I'm also not on the Win10 hate train - I quite like it, and it would be nice to see some of its features well integrated into a mobile platform as well.
No really, do not do this unless you actually need to make changes in the area involved. Diving into old code just to tidy it up brings its own set of risks, and they may simply outweigh any 'niceness' advantage.
Instead - black box it. Interface it off. Make your new code structured, shiny and gleaming. Do black box-style testing (inputs vs outputs, almost like futzing) against the old code's API and make sure your interfaced version produces the same. Unit test the hell out of your new code.
Over time, should you actually find a genuine need to, you can then start to look at the black box. Can it be made into a series of smaller black boxes? Can you interface those off too, independently? Cool - do it, one at a time, and use the same approach you used before. Eventually you'll either be left with nicely restructured code or, more likely, nice code that changes often and gnarly horrible stuff that doesn't change ever, but that's hidden behind an interface/library/<insert abstraction methodology here> and works.
Should always weigh the operational risk of changing ugly-but-known-quantity against shiny-but-unknown-quantity. The path of what to do will be different for every case.
Interesting - I have the exact reverse experience, I'm typing this on a 1.3Ghz 12" MacBook now and I'm very impressed with the performance. Sails through everyday tasks, but also I'm a reasonably heavy user of Logic and a large number of passably heavyweight audio plug-ins - the only time I really notice any slow-down compared to my iMac quad 2.5Ghz i5 is on the final export. I also regularly run VMs on it.
You're right about "care about thin and light" - that was me (vs choosing the 13" MacBook Pro). But another key consideration for me was silence - there are no fans in this, and I love the quiet.
At what point was the OWNER consulted by their CAR on this?
At the point they turned on Emergency Assist, which is optional and which is opt-in. I've recently driven a car with this feature on it - got it as a courtesy car whilst mine was being repaired. I said no when the prompt first appeared, then did my reading. I then thought "hmm - I like the sound of that" and explicitly opted in.
Reading it. Yep, thinking of all the junk we had to hook up for the 80s micros that I cut my teeth on. Sounding familiar so far. Let's see, let's install the sideways RAM, refresh the EPROM, hook up to one of the myriad different I/O ports, learn how to open channels to devices on serial ports over BASIC...
Not suitable for learning? Sounds better for learning.
Pah. Doctor Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker were decades ahead of them - gold into foam? Useless! Try gold into cottage cheese - low in cholesterol, high in vitamins...
"I drive a black cab in London, so I'm really getting a kick out of some of these replies."
Cool. I use black cabs in London - the same for the replies.
"Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about. But trust me.... You don't." I do, in fact, know exactly what it's like to use a black cab in London. Because I do, and have been doing so for more than eighteen years. You will be right in that I don't know the ins and outs of the industry, but I don't need to - I only need to say what it's like as a user. Most of the time I'm happy, but the card thing is definitely my experience and is truly irritating. I always ask up front, and the vast majority of the time I'm told the card reader is broken and that they'll drive to a cash point.
"I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you dont know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do."
I read the article. It said "...come into force from April of 2016 and by October all black cab drivers will need to have complied with the directive, which mandates the new payment methods.". Hence the comment "The difference seems to be making it mandatory". Still seems reasonably grounded as a suggestion to me, and you've not made a different one.
This is primarily a discussion board. If you know more, now's the time to post it and then your point of view is added to the discussion. Would be good to get that point of view in fact. Meanwhile, since it hasn't been added, what I have to go on is the article itself and my years of experience using cabs of all types in London.
The difference seems to be making it mandatory - at the moment it's optional.
Try actually doing it though. Magically, almost every time I've asked the card reader somehow seems to be out of order and they need cash instead. Astonishing co-incidence.
It's a nightmare. I have a piece of music I want to put on my next album. It contains speech from an old BBC programme (1982), so to release it I need to get in touch with the copyright holder. But who actually is that?
The BBC told me to try Getty, because they'd sold off a lot of things to Getty. Getty told me they didn't know, and to contact the original narrator and the scriptwriter for that narrator. I have no idea who the scriptwriter was and, whilst I imagine I could find the narrator I doubt he'd know either. Result? This piece of music will never be released, simply because I cannot find who to ask (and those I did ask do not seem sure of their answers). That's exactly analogous to the problem they're describing in the article - actually finding who to ask, let alone getting a co-ordinated yes/no decision, is just much harder than people might imagine it to be.
Which is also good of course. If you've bought your machine primarily for gaming and it's a Mac? You've bought the wrong machine. But for people like me who don't game all that much anymore but still like to sit down once in a while? Very handy.
Slashdot Mirror
None of these words go together.
That bug looks like the 2003 iPod bug - Xing vs Fraunhoffer headers in an MP3 VBR. I posted about it at the time..
Do you imagine Heinlein was endorsing the fascist society in Starship Troopers merely because the characters inhabiting the world accepted it?
Yes.
Was he then also endorsing the libertarian society in Moon is a Harsh Mistress? And where does Stranger in a Strange Land fit in?
The forward he wrote himself covers Stranger in a Strange Land - he deliberately set out to write a sympathetic character and story which was entirely opposed to his own beliefs. He states this explicitly.
Am afraid have not read Moon is a Harsh Mistress so cannot comment.
I'm not American, but I would have thought that mobile data is more expensive than wired? Certainly that's the case in the UK.
I do this too. It's a style, rather than making someone 'better' or 'worse' - that style works for me. Another thing I find is that if I do consider something significant enough to write a note or a todo item about, it is the act of writing which makes me remember. I never really refer to the note or the todo again, simply the fact that I once wrote it down is what actually drives it into my brain.
Massively disagree with 'destroying'. I've taken the family to the Nessie museum twice, a few years apart, and both times I was impressed by the attitude there. They go to great pains to show that Nessie isn't any of the things normally attributed to it (not a plesiosaur because the landmass is in the wrong place for the time of the plesiosaurs, not a large whale or similar, not a large mammal at all because of unusually low fish density due to the waters being clogged with peat etc., etc.), and they also show all the fakes and take you through how it was done.
They don't really come out on the side of Nessie existing at all in fact. I think that's an excellent attitude for such a museum to have, and I was impressed both times. The monster is treated as a bit of fun, and nothing else.
I think somebody needs a pony hug...
There's a difference between handling and noticing though. If you sent me a mail with typos in it, I'd notice but fully be able to 'handle' it. If, on the other hand, you later asked me a specific question 'did you notice all the typos?' well then yeah, I noticed them.
Not sure that distinction is well made.
Sensational title. From the article (and various others):
"Whittingdale expressed his preference for the industry to self-regulate"
Not Government regulation at all. His speech was very much targeted at his audience and I'm no fan of the opinion expressed, but he has not kicked off a government initiative to legislate against AdBlock.
Really need the content. I have an Oculus DK1 and a Cardboard viewer too - I really, really want to be a fan but there's only so many roller coasters and dinosaur parks I need to see.
You could do great things even now with it - there's some interesting solar system exploration apps for example. Too few people are actually doing this though, and my viewers more or less sit in a cupboard doing nothing. The push needs to be towards applications (including games yes, but other stuff too) and not just the hardware.
Crashplan is my choice because it allows you to use a friend's storage as well - best of both worlds if you do happen to have some technically-inclined friends. I have the free Crashplan service where I dedicate some space on a NAS to other people, and in return they are dedicated space on their machines for me. Works well.
Although I agree with your post, that wasn't 'a management consultant'. That was Sir John Harvey-Jones, former chief executive of the UK's largest manufacturer - Imperial Chemical Industries, better known as ICI.
I agree with your point and it's a classic example, but he wasn't randomly brought in to businesses. At the time Morgan's future was far from certain, and he was brought in to advise on it. Morgan listened, said thank you and decided to keep going their own way. They did change though - look at the Aero 8, definitely not ye olde Morgan.
Yes, would agree with this. The Cortana thing for instance - I'm comfortable using Siri (from a data collection point of view) but not comfortable using Cortana, purely on the basis of what the companies say they will do with it.
Shame - I actually liked the fact it was doing something different and wasn't an iOS clone. Had a chance to play with one very briefly when a friend bought it, and I thought it worked quite well.
I'm an Apple ecosystem person at the moment, but I'm definitely in for seeing alternatives and I'm also not on the Win10 hate train - I quite like it, and it would be nice to see some of its features well integrated into a mobile platform as well.
It's still here. Try accessing the site on iPhone - beta a-go-go. +5 Troll for you post by the way.
No really, do not do this unless you actually need to make changes in the area involved. Diving into old code just to tidy it up brings its own set of risks, and they may simply outweigh any 'niceness' advantage.
Instead - black box it. Interface it off. Make your new code structured, shiny and gleaming. Do black box-style testing (inputs vs outputs, almost like futzing) against the old code's API and make sure your interfaced version produces the same. Unit test the hell out of your new code.
Over time, should you actually find a genuine need to, you can then start to look at the black box. Can it be made into a series of smaller black boxes? Can you interface those off too, independently? Cool - do it, one at a time, and use the same approach you used before. Eventually you'll either be left with nicely restructured code or, more likely, nice code that changes often and gnarly horrible stuff that doesn't change ever, but that's hidden behind an interface/library/<insert abstraction methodology here> and works.
Should always weigh the operational risk of changing ugly-but-known-quantity against shiny-but-unknown-quantity. The path of what to do will be different for every case.
Interesting - I have the exact reverse experience, I'm typing this on a 1.3Ghz 12" MacBook now and I'm very impressed with the performance. Sails through everyday tasks, but also I'm a reasonably heavy user of Logic and a large number of passably heavyweight audio plug-ins - the only time I really notice any slow-down compared to my iMac quad 2.5Ghz i5 is on the final export. I also regularly run VMs on it.
You're right about "care about thin and light" - that was me (vs choosing the 13" MacBook Pro). But another key consideration for me was silence - there are no fans in this, and I love the quiet.
No. This is a voluntary, and opt-in feature that you have to explicitly enable. Consent is asked for, and has to be given.
At what point was the OWNER consulted by their CAR on this?
At the point they turned on Emergency Assist, which is optional and which is opt-in. I've recently driven a car with this feature on it - got it as a courtesy car whilst mine was being repaired. I said no when the prompt first appeared, then did my reading. I then thought "hmm - I like the sound of that" and explicitly opted in.
It's entirely voluntary, and entirely opt-in.
Reading it. Yep, thinking of all the junk we had to hook up for the 80s micros that I cut my teeth on. Sounding familiar so far. Let's see, let's install the sideways RAM, refresh the EPROM, hook up to one of the myriad different I/O ports, learn how to open channels to devices on serial ports over BASIC...
Not suitable for learning? Sounds better for learning.
Pah. Doctor Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker were decades ahead of them - gold into foam? Useless! Try gold into cottage cheese - low in cholesterol, high in vitamins...
"I drive a black cab in London, so I'm really getting a kick out of some of these replies."
Cool. I use black cabs in London - the same for the replies.
"Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about. But trust me.... You don't."
I do, in fact, know exactly what it's like to use a black cab in London. Because I do, and have been doing so for more than eighteen years. You will be right in that I don't know the ins and outs of the industry, but I don't need to - I only need to say what it's like as a user. Most of the time I'm happy, but the card thing is definitely my experience and is truly irritating. I always ask up front, and the vast majority of the time I'm told the card reader is broken and that they'll drive to a cash point.
"I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you dont know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do."
I read the article. It said "...come into force from April of 2016 and by October all black cab drivers will need to have complied with the directive, which mandates the new payment methods.". Hence the comment "The difference seems to be making it mandatory". Still seems reasonably grounded as a suggestion to me, and you've not made a different one.
This is primarily a discussion board. If you know more, now's the time to post it and then your point of view is added to the discussion. Would be good to get that point of view in fact. Meanwhile, since it hasn't been added, what I have to go on is the article itself and my years of experience using cabs of all types in London.
The difference seems to be making it mandatory - at the moment it's optional.
Try actually doing it though. Magically, almost every time I've asked the card reader somehow seems to be out of order and they need cash instead. Astonishing co-incidence.
It's a nightmare. I have a piece of music I want to put on my next album. It contains speech from an old BBC programme (1982), so to release it I need to get in touch with the copyright holder. But who actually is that?
The BBC told me to try Getty, because they'd sold off a lot of things to Getty. Getty told me they didn't know, and to contact the original narrator and the scriptwriter for that narrator. I have no idea who the scriptwriter was and, whilst I imagine I could find the narrator I doubt he'd know either. Result? This piece of music will never be released, simply because I cannot find who to ask (and those I did ask do not seem sure of their answers). That's exactly analogous to the problem they're describing in the article - actually finding who to ask, let alone getting a co-ordinated yes/no decision, is just much harder than people might imagine it to be.
Which is also good of course. If you've bought your machine primarily for gaming and it's a Mac? You've bought the wrong machine. But for people like me who don't game all that much anymore but still like to sit down once in a while? Very handy.