Yes, I am:-) This is not about people's hobbies - they're free to like Tolkien or not. But the group-think here is that anyone who agrees with me that Tolkien's LotR was not all that great better put their asbestos underwear on. Same as saying that Asimov was a level below the true great Sci-Fi authors (quantity doesn't replace quality, same as LoC is a poor software metric).
On academic programming courses - of which I've taught on many - the grade distribution is definitely bimodal and there is a clear gap between those who can and those who can't. Of course, there is variance among those who can but the difference is largely that those who can largely get better whilst those who can't never get even get it.
Those who can, do...and those that can't, teach?
Good programmers make themselves available to help (teach) their cube-mates - not get into pissing contests by withholding information.
"there is a myth that programming skill is somehow distributed on a U-shaped curve"
Never heard of this "myth." I always thought it was a slope - a lot of bad ones, a fair amount of decent ones, and some really good ones - and that it was in many ways dependent upon experience - the more experience you have, the better you get - or you go into something else after a few years.
The original design was not faulty - it worked fine for years, until people's habits changed to carrying so much junk on their keychains. It would be the same as if people, instead of just hanging a pair of fuzzy dice from their interior rear-view mirror started hanging their purse or pack-sack from it and complaining that it broke off after a bump.
We have way too many common-sense fails nowadays, such as "This plastic bag is not a toy" and "Objects in mirror are closer than they seem" and "6PCS Precision screwdriver set not to be inserted into penis" and "Do not eat Ipod shuffle" (found on apple's website) and "Do not use for personal hygiene" (on Scrubbing Bubbles Fresh Brush) and many many more.
That would presume that every writer actually read Tolkien - a very dubious assumption, since (a) there were plenty of writers who wrote fantasy before Tolkien wrote LotR, and (b) that many modern writers would even bother reading it. I bought the series on sale because of the hype, and after 50 pages put it down because it sucks pretty much on the same level as C. S. Lewis.
Have I seen the movie? I walked into a relative's basement and after a minute I asked "What the heck is this anyway?" "Lord of the Rings." "No wonder it's so f-ed up. Bye!"
Tolkien was a poor second-rate wannabe of HG Wells and Jules Verne, or if you want to go back a few centuries, Johnathan Swift.
Honestly though, you don't have to like Tolkien, but you also can't say anything about the modern fantasy genre without in some way referencing him... wizards, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and dragons... you either have these things in the idiom of Tolkien, or you consciously have them not in the idiom of Tolkien.
A pity that Tolkien didn't invent any of those - then his estate could sue the modern fantasy genre into non-existence, and nothing of value would be lost except Anne McCaffrey's works.:-)
Scotty wasn't just a red shirt - he was THE red shirt. The one that everyone who failed to live up to his level got offed / eaten alive / transporter accident / phasered one time too many / crushed by a rock... and in the unreleased episodes, killed themselves when they thought their phaser was a blow drier, stepped into to turbo lift without checking to see if it was there, didn't realize that not all planets had earth-normal atmosphere, froze to death when they forgot the difference between 20C and 20K, at the food in the cafeteria... (that will get you every time, no matter where you are in the universe).
Just because most of the fans of lord of the rings are (claimed to be) scientists (no actual study was done) does not mean that most scientists are fans of lord of the rings.
And honestly, lord of the rings stinks as a piece of literature. Give me a good sci-fi (or even not-so-good) any day.
They thought is was a reference to the game Quake 4.0, which was released in 2005. You know, recycling old news. Coming up next - Bennett Haselton pontificating on what this apparent coincidence means for the upcoming release of Quake 5, which will happen when a story about a 5.0 earthquake makes it to the front page.
If they're hosting the ads themselves, at least it will take care of 3rd-party malware. Maybe. Fingers crossed, good luck with that, YMMV, invalid in Hawaii, Alaska, and Delaware, etc.
Yes it is; she was trans long before she was publicly identified as trans, and you can be sure that she did not maintain a male appearance 100% of the time. Once someone transitions, they want to move on to what is their real life.
Once Bruce Jenner is done transitioning, do you think it would not be considered both insulting and exploitative to make a statue of how he used to look?
Of course, the number of high vulnerabilities of Linux is lower than all of the Microsoft OSes except those popular fan favorites, Vista and RT. Ahem... but I digress.
If you consider both high and medium vulnerabilities, OSX and Linux take the top spots, by more than a 2 to 1 margin compared to Windows. Hopefully this will incentivize OSX and Linux to look at different processes for development, testing, and deployment.
Thanks. I would just like to point out that there are many different linux kernels. Many distros do their own customizations and patches. And there are many build targets - x86, ARM, POWER, etc. And there are kernels that are hard real-time. Which is pretty neat, and a GOOD THING (tm), even if it introduces even more complexity.
Dressing like a female doesn't make him one. Even mutilating his body doesn't change his DNA.
Anonymous Coward once again proves that what's between the ears is more important than what's between the legs. Last time I looked, DNA programs how you develop - which includes the failure of the testes to produce sufficient testosterone to masculinize the fetus brain at 12 weeks. So, it's only logical to say she's that way because of her DNA.
Now that further studies have shown that transsexualism is actually quite common (between 1:500 and 1:2000), you've certainly run into us - we're pretty much everywhere, and we're not buying into old, discredited ideas as to "right and wrong" about gender identity.
The very definition of a delinquency is an act that, if it had been committed by an adult, would have been a crime. And as long as the case isn't remanded to the adult system, that doesn't change - he will have been found to have committed one or more delinquencies, not crimes.
Even children in jurisdictions that don't have mandatory remand to the adult court system for acts such as murder can end up being found to have committed a delinquency, not a crime.
Some people would say this isn't right - but consider that as a trade-off, juveniles accused of delinquencies don't have a right to a jury trial, and a process with a much higher standard of proof.
Right now he does NOT face five felonies. That's a simple fact. He may, at some future time, should the juvenile court system so rule. Right now, though, he only faces delinquencies. Given that about 10% of the e population has had run-ins with the juvenile system, this should be better known.
Makes me wonder how many non-criminals who have been taken into custody have thought that they have to answer "yes" when asked if they've "ever been arrested, even as a juvenile" , when they can legally say no.
What this says is that the originators of the idea (sculptor Davide Dormino and journalist Charles Glass) are more interested in the agenda (and self-promotion) than in the people behind the story. You don't honor someone by actively disrespecting who they are, insulting them and putting the lie to the greater truth. Hopefully, since the stated purpose is to encourage ordinary citizens to speak out, hopefully others will also call out these two (and everyone who backs this misrepresentation of Ms. Manning).
And before anyone starts with the "we don't have the data to make a representation of her as a woman" argument, if you can't do it right, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Ditto for the "artistic integrity" argument - artistic integrity my arse!
Only problem with that is that the police officer was wrong. Georgia law does not mandate that juveniles be tried as adults for 3rd degree arson - which is what this was (attempt to damage property of another worth $25 or more). So, legally speaking, the kid wasn't arrested - he was taken into custody (this difference is so that adults can legally say they were never arrested if their only contact is with the juvenile system - this means that it doesn't tarnish them for life).
So, he committed a delinquency, not a criminal act (a delinquency being any act that, if it were done by an adult, would be a crime).
So, when the article, based on information from the cop, states:
The boy, who was not identified because he is a minor, faces five felonies, including burglary and arson. Lt. Daniel said the charges could land the young man in prison for several years.
,... he is wrong. The minor faces 5 delinquencies, not felonies. Even detention at a youth detention facility is not considered prison under the legal system.
We can only go by reported vulnerabilities - we have no data for unreported vulnerabilities, and claiming that there are fewer unreported vulnerabilities in the linux and bsd kernels than in the windows kernel is totally unprovable - it's "magic thinking". And as shellshock and heartbleed have shown us, linux and bsd are not "magically invulnerable".
Times change. BSD used to have the least, followed closely by Linux, but not any more. Whether this trend will continue in the future is unknown, but for right now, "them's the facts."
Neither software development (open or closed) is perfect. They both have obvious problems. Back when the Windows kernel was more vulnerable, people claimed it was because Windows was used more. Today linux is more vulnerable, even though we haven't seen any increase in uptake, so why is linux more vulnerable now?
Simple - Microsoft, after having one near-death experience too many, got their act together. The excitement we had 20 years ago over the promise of linux - "maybe this will be the year of linux on the desktop" - will never happen, and we know it. As Apple has shown with BSD, and Microsoft continues to show with Windows, the vast majority of people are quite willing to pay for software and don't care about whether it's open or not. The problem with linux is fragmentation, and it's now too late to address that.
Hey, ALL viruses, bugs, programming errors, etc., are exploits of human vulnerability. And yes, in this particular case, it's possible to fix it so that machines that download and attempt to run the exploit fail. It's right there in the white paper.
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Yes, I am :-) This is not about people's hobbies - they're free to like Tolkien or not. But the group-think here is that anyone who agrees with me that Tolkien's LotR was not all that great better put their asbestos underwear on. Same as saying that Asimov was a level below the true great Sci-Fi authors (quantity doesn't replace quality, same as LoC is a poor software metric).
On academic programming courses - of which I've taught on many - the grade distribution is definitely bimodal and there is a clear gap between those who can and those who can't. Of course, there is variance among those who can but the difference is largely that those who can largely get better whilst those who can't never get even get it.
Those who can, do...and those that can't, teach?
Good programmers make themselves available to help (teach) their cube-mates - not get into pissing contests by withholding information.
"there is a myth that programming skill is somehow distributed on a U-shaped curve"
Never heard of this "myth." I always thought it was a slope - a lot of bad ones, a fair amount of decent ones, and some really good ones - and that it was in many ways dependent upon experience - the more experience you have, the better you get - or you go into something else after a few years.
The original design was not faulty - it worked fine for years, until people's habits changed to carrying so much junk on their keychains. It would be the same as if people, instead of just hanging a pair of fuzzy dice from their interior rear-view mirror started hanging their purse or pack-sack from it and complaining that it broke off after a bump.
We have way too many common-sense fails nowadays, such as "This plastic bag is not a toy" and "Objects in mirror are closer than they seem" and "6PCS Precision screwdriver set not to be inserted into penis" and "Do not eat Ipod shuffle" (found on apple's website) and "Do not use for personal hygiene" (on Scrubbing Bubbles Fresh Brush) and many many more.
That would presume that every writer actually read Tolkien - a very dubious assumption, since (a) there were plenty of writers who wrote fantasy before Tolkien wrote LotR, and (b) that many modern writers would even bother reading it. I bought the series on sale because of the hype, and after 50 pages put it down because it sucks pretty much on the same level as C. S. Lewis.
Have I seen the movie? I walked into a relative's basement and after a minute I asked "What the heck is this anyway?" "Lord of the Rings." "No wonder it's so f-ed up. Bye!"
Tolkien was a poor second-rate wannabe of HG Wells and Jules Verne, or if you want to go back a few centuries, Johnathan Swift.
Honestly though, you don't have to like Tolkien, but you also can't say anything about the modern fantasy genre without in some way referencing him ... wizards, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and dragons ... you either have these things in the idiom of Tolkien, or you consciously have them not in the idiom of Tolkien.
A pity that Tolkien didn't invent any of those - then his estate could sue the modern fantasy genre into non-existence, and nothing of value would be lost except Anne McCaffrey's works. :-)
You got it! And I agree, they should have kept her around, rather than Kirk doing a parody of the swaggering captain of yore.
Scotty wasn't just a red shirt - he was THE red shirt. The one that everyone who failed to live up to his level got offed / eaten alive / transporter accident / phasered one time too many / crushed by a rock ... and in the unreleased episodes, killed themselves when they thought their phaser was a blow drier, stepped into to turbo lift without checking to see if it was there, didn't realize that not all planets had earth-normal atmosphere, froze to death when they forgot the difference between 20C and 20K, at the food in the cafeteria ... (that will get you every time, no matter where you are in the universe).
Just because most of the fans of lord of the rings are (claimed to be) scientists (no actual study was done) does not mean that most scientists are fans of lord of the rings.
And honestly, lord of the rings stinks as a piece of literature. Give me a good sci-fi (or even not-so-good) any day.
Do you really believe that they're going to make a statue of the Kardashian Clan?
They thought is was a reference to the game Quake 4.0, which was released in 2005. You know, recycling old news. Coming up next - Bennett Haselton pontificating on what this apparent coincidence means for the upcoming release of Quake 5, which will happen when a story about a 5.0 earthquake makes it to the front page.
If they're hosting the ads themselves, at least it will take care of 3rd-party malware. Maybe. Fingers crossed, good luck with that, YMMV, invalid in Hawaii, Alaska, and Delaware, etc.
Yes it is; she was trans long before she was publicly identified as trans, and you can be sure that she did not maintain a male appearance 100% of the time. Once someone transitions, they want to move on to what is their real life.
Once Bruce Jenner is done transitioning, do you think it would not be considered both insulting and exploitative to make a statue of how he used to look?
Of course, the number of high vulnerabilities of Linux is lower than all of the Microsoft OSes except those popular fan favorites, Vista and RT. Ahem... but I digress.
If you consider both high and medium vulnerabilities, OSX and Linux take the top spots, by more than a 2 to 1 margin compared to Windows. Hopefully this will incentivize OSX and Linux to look at different processes for development, testing, and deployment.
Thanks. I would just like to point out that there are many different linux kernels. Many distros do their own customizations and patches. And there are many build targets - x86, ARM, POWER, etc. And there are kernels that are hard real-time. Which is pretty neat, and a GOOD THING (tm), even if it introduces even more complexity.
You seem to know an awful lot about delinquencies.
I grew up in the slums. Everyone knew an awful lot about delinquencies :-)
Dressing like a female doesn't make him one. Even mutilating his body doesn't change his DNA.
Anonymous Coward once again proves that what's between the ears is more important than what's between the legs. Last time I looked, DNA programs how you develop - which includes the failure of the testes to produce sufficient testosterone to masculinize the fetus brain at 12 weeks. So, it's only logical to say she's that way because of her DNA.
Now that further studies have shown that transsexualism is actually quite common (between 1:500 and 1:2000), you've certainly run into us - we're pretty much everywhere, and we're not buying into old, discredited ideas as to "right and wrong" about gender identity.
The very definition of a delinquency is an act that, if it had been committed by an adult, would have been a crime. And as long as the case isn't remanded to the adult system, that doesn't change - he will have been found to have committed one or more delinquencies, not crimes.
Even children in jurisdictions that don't have mandatory remand to the adult court system for acts such as murder can end up being found to have committed a delinquency, not a crime.
Some people would say this isn't right - but consider that as a trade-off, juveniles accused of delinquencies don't have a right to a jury trial, and a process with a much higher standard of proof.
Right now he does NOT face five felonies. That's a simple fact. He may, at some future time, should the juvenile court system so rule. Right now, though, he only faces delinquencies. Given that about 10% of the e population has had run-ins with the juvenile system, this should be better known.
Makes me wonder how many non-criminals who have been taken into custody have thought that they have to answer "yes" when asked if they've "ever been arrested, even as a juvenile" , when they can legally say no.
What this says is that the originators of the idea (sculptor Davide Dormino and journalist Charles Glass) are more interested in the agenda (and self-promotion) than in the people behind the story. You don't honor someone by actively disrespecting who they are, insulting them and putting the lie to the greater truth. Hopefully, since the stated purpose is to encourage ordinary citizens to speak out, hopefully others will also call out these two (and everyone who backs this misrepresentation of Ms. Manning).
And before anyone starts with the "we don't have the data to make a representation of her as a woman" argument, if you can't do it right, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Ditto for the "artistic integrity" argument - artistic integrity my arse!
Only problem with that is that the police officer was wrong. Georgia law does not mandate that juveniles be tried as adults for 3rd degree arson - which is what this was (attempt to damage property of another worth $25 or more). So, legally speaking, the kid wasn't arrested - he was taken into custody (this difference is so that adults can legally say they were never arrested if their only contact is with the juvenile system - this means that it doesn't tarnish them for life).
So, he committed a delinquency, not a criminal act (a delinquency being any act that, if it were done by an adult, would be a crime).
So, when the article, based on information from the cop, states:
The boy, who was not identified because he is a minor, faces five felonies, including burglary and arson. Lt. Daniel said the charges could land the young man in prison for several years.
, ... he is wrong. The minor faces 5 delinquencies, not felonies. Even detention at a youth detention facility is not considered prison under the legal system.
So show me the stats on unreported vulnerabilities.
We can only go by reported vulnerabilities - we have no data for unreported vulnerabilities, and claiming that there are fewer unreported vulnerabilities in the linux and bsd kernels than in the windows kernel is totally unprovable - it's "magic thinking". And as shellshock and heartbleed have shown us, linux and bsd are not "magically invulnerable".
Times change. BSD used to have the least, followed closely by Linux, but not any more. Whether this trend will continue in the future is unknown, but for right now, "them's the facts."
Neither software development (open or closed) is perfect. They both have obvious problems. Back when the Windows kernel was more vulnerable, people claimed it was because Windows was used more. Today linux is more vulnerable, even though we haven't seen any increase in uptake, so why is linux more vulnerable now?
Simple - Microsoft, after having one near-death experience too many, got their act together. The excitement we had 20 years ago over the promise of linux - "maybe this will be the year of linux on the desktop" - will never happen, and we know it. As Apple has shown with BSD, and Microsoft continues to show with Windows, the vast majority of people are quite willing to pay for software and don't care about whether it's open or not. The problem with linux is fragmentation, and it's now too late to address that.
Hey, ALL viruses, bugs, programming errors, etc., are exploits of human vulnerability. And yes, in this particular case, it's possible to fix it so that machines that download and attempt to run the exploit fail. It's right there in the white paper.
Trojans ARE exploits, duh!