After I learned 25 different programming languages, I stopped counting.
Here's a hint: all the 3rd generation languages - Basic, Pascal, C, Modula, Fortran, were fundamentally interchangeable. The concepts line up just fine, only the details were different - which is why I kept the reference books handy.
C++, Objective C, Java are the same. The CONCEPTS are the same, only the grammar and the optimizations are different. Sure ObjC is going to frustrate you till you grok retain/release memory management, but a red/black tree is a red/black tree no matter how you code it.
You want different? Try coding in FORTH or APL. They were fun.
Let's see. The company I worked for in the mid-90's has since folded. The company I worked for in the late 90's folded a few months after I bailed in 1999. The huge, theoretically safe $BIG_PHARMA company I worked for laid off my entire department, lock, stock and IT department. The company I'm working for now desperately needs more people but they're afraid to hire anyone because financing is iffy.
Of the men and women I've worked with in the past 20 years, the one still in CS are the ones who learned to jump from one speciality to another - which means I've done everything from middleware to SMTP agents to device drivers - which makes it really hard to convince an HR person that not having 8 years in Visual C++ isn't a problem.
Yeah, I can see where you'd think there were lots of CS positions going unfilled due to lack of qualified applicants.
My salary has been flat since 1999, my co-workers are all terrified of losing their jobs and being unable to find another in software development and yet we need to bring in more cheap labor from overseas.
Yeah. Just the thing.
I don't know about Washington State, but on the east coast we aren't looking at a shortage of people, we're looking at a shortage of positions for people to fill.
What's particularly insidious is government PR and video news releases.
Why are these automatically worse than, say, corporate PR? Does it really undermine democracy if the Department of Agriculture is putting out mp3s that explain the state of sugar industry?As long as they clearly state where the information is coming from, what's the problem?
Why should explaining government positions be left to those who oppose it?
One man's spin is another man's...
on
Paul Graham on PR
·
· Score: 1
I appreciate your point, but it's impossible for the government to give the truth "without spin". First, because the opposition - who ever they are - will be attempting to spin things their way and the government - who ever they are - will need to compensate.
Second, "spin" is a nebulous concept in any case - what's the difference between "spin" and "diplomacy", for example? What one man calls "spinning the truth" another man will call "a clear and simple explanation".
The only reason is to use your critical thinking skills whenever *anyone* is trying to convince you of something - and to try and make sure your own biases aren't spinning what you hear.
I think almost everyone is assuming that the Registrar is actively ignoring support requests.
I have a second opinion: I bet the company has long since dried up and blown away, and that all that's left is a bunch of servers running in some ISP's rack, unattended and unnoticed.
When something happens to destroy a physical company (death, illness, corruption, whatever) you usually figure it out quickly - the shop isn't open, the paper isn't being picked up, whatever.
If an internet business suddenly folds - how long before someone actually realizes what happened?
It would be spherical or hemispherical.
on
Bang But No Splash
·
· Score: 1
As I understand it, the "trunk" of the mushroom cloud is caused by the in-rushing shockwave.
1. Bomb goes off and drives air away from explosion point in a hemispherical fashion (for a ground burst). 2. Air rushes back from all directions, but mostly at ground level where air pressure is highest. 3. This "squirts" the smoke and debris upward till either the air gets thinner or the in-rushing air stops. This creates the "stem". 4. At this point, the smoke and debris start spreading outward, creating the mushroom cap.
By the way - such clouds can be created by any large enough explosion, it doesn't have to be nuclear.
So, I fronted the cash for my son to get a PSP today (he's going to work it off doing his grandmother's lawn over the summer) - and I immediately configured his WiFi access for him.
But other than getting a "connection test succeeded" the wireless didn't seem to matter at all. No web browsing, not even a special "preview channel" to let Sony dump game trailers into his machine.
The tech is absolutely incredible, but they don't seem to be doing much with it yet.
The original issue was that people didn't know how to use mice at all, so multiple buttons were considered confusing. These days there are relatively few people who haven't used a mouse and the vast majority are used to multi-button mice - which flips it around. Now it makes sense to provide the user something they are familiar with.
Just as with toys, more detailed ratings would still help you match up your kid with appropriate games.
If you know your kid is precocious for a 9 year old, you might feel comfortable giving him a game rated for 12 year olds - but it still helps to know that the game is aimed at 12 year olds and not 22 year olds.
You have to be careful - the "Macs are slow" flame war has a long history.
But, a lot of people have complained about the speed of the OS X Finder compared to Windows Explorer. Generally the complaint is what you've mentioned - slow app loading speeds, rather than slow performance once they're loaded.
10.3 should help a lot with that. Another trick is that if these machines really are used rather than new-in-box they might need to be "optimized". Check sites like MacOSXHints for references to "update_prebinding".
Also, look for a tool called "MacJanitor" which can help clean up the grunge on older systems.
Slashdot Mirror
After I learned 25 different programming languages, I stopped counting.
Here's a hint: all the 3rd generation languages - Basic, Pascal, C, Modula, Fortran, were fundamentally interchangeable. The concepts line up just fine, only the details were different - which is why I kept the reference books handy.
C++, Objective C, Java are the same. The CONCEPTS are the same, only the grammar and the optimizations are different. Sure ObjC is going to frustrate you till you grok retain/release memory management, but a red/black tree is a red/black tree no matter how you code it.
You want different? Try coding in FORTH or APL. They were fun.
Let's see. The company I worked for in the mid-90's has since folded. The company I worked for in the late 90's folded a few months after I bailed in 1999. The huge, theoretically safe $BIG_PHARMA company I worked for laid off my entire department, lock, stock and IT department. The company I'm working for now desperately needs more people but they're afraid to hire anyone because financing is iffy.
Of the men and women I've worked with in the past 20 years, the one still in CS are the ones who learned to jump from one speciality to another - which means I've done everything from middleware to SMTP agents to device drivers - which makes it really hard to convince an HR person that not having 8 years in Visual C++ isn't a problem.
Yeah, I can see where you'd think there were lots of CS positions going unfilled due to lack of qualified applicants.
My salary has been flat since 1999, my co-workers are all terrified of losing their jobs and being unable to find another in software development and yet we need to bring in more cheap labor from overseas.
Yeah. Just the thing.
I don't know about Washington State, but on the east coast we aren't looking at a shortage of people, we're looking at a shortage of positions for people to fill.
What's particularly insidious is government PR and video news releases.
Why are these automatically worse than, say, corporate PR? Does it really undermine democracy if the Department of Agriculture is putting out mp3s that explain the state of sugar industry?As long as they clearly state where the information is coming from, what's the problem?
Why should explaining government positions be left to those who oppose it?
I appreciate your point, but it's impossible for the government to give the truth "without spin". First, because the opposition - who ever they are - will be attempting to spin things their way and the government - who ever they are - will need to compensate.
Second, "spin" is a nebulous concept in any case - what's the difference between "spin" and "diplomacy", for example? What one man calls "spinning the truth" another man will call "a clear and simple explanation".
The only reason is to use your critical thinking skills whenever *anyone* is trying to convince you of something - and to try and make sure your own biases aren't spinning what you hear.
I think almost everyone is assuming that the Registrar is actively ignoring support requests.
I have a second opinion: I bet the company has long since dried up and blown away, and that all that's left is a bunch of servers running in some ISP's rack, unattended and unnoticed.
When something happens to destroy a physical company (death, illness, corruption, whatever) you usually figure it out quickly - the shop isn't open, the paper isn't being picked up, whatever.
If an internet business suddenly folds - how long before someone actually realizes what happened?
As I understand it, the "trunk" of the mushroom cloud is caused by the in-rushing shockwave.
1. Bomb goes off and drives air away from explosion point in a hemispherical fashion (for a ground burst).
2. Air rushes back from all directions, but mostly at ground level where air pressure is highest.
3. This "squirts" the smoke and debris upward till either the air gets thinner or the in-rushing air stops. This creates the "stem".
4. At this point, the smoke and debris start spreading outward, creating the mushroom cap.
By the way - such clouds can be created by any large enough explosion, it doesn't have to be nuclear.
People have already raised this argument and, guess what?
1) The patent was filed in 1995. Patent protection begins with filing, not granting.
2) Nintendo licensed the technology from the patent holder.
So, I fronted the cash for my son to get a PSP today (he's going to work it off doing his grandmother's lawn over the summer) - and I immediately configured his WiFi access for him.
But other than getting a "connection test succeeded" the wireless didn't seem to matter at all. No web browsing, not even a special "preview channel" to let Sony dump game trailers into his machine.
The tech is absolutely incredible, but they don't seem to be doing much with it yet.
I was going to make a similar, but much more long-winded, comment - but you beat me to the punch.
Now I can go a whole week without emptying my Yahoo mail spam folder.
your overwrought and hysterical opinion, then.
and an inability to parse simple declarative sentences.
who can't even spell "controversial".
Science will be doomed by inattention to details long before it will be done in by a small minorities' feelings about a single issue.
I love how /.'ers claim to be libertarian then complain about this kind of stuff.
You misunderstand. I like the wheel where it is - I just don't want the wheel to double up as a button.
Or it might be their "pro" mouse.
The original issue was that people didn't know how to use mice at all, so multiple buttons were considered confusing. These days there are relatively few people who haven't used a mouse and the vast majority are used to multi-button mice - which flips it around. Now it makes sense to provide the user something they are familiar with.
because I have a habit of rolling the wheel when I try to click it.
I prefer designs that put a button under the thumb.
Either you're an incredibly lame troll, or sarcasm is just lost on you.
That those faculty members didn't take out an ad supporting a plagiarist who got his job under false pretenses?
We all know my daughter is exactly like you were at that age.
Did you read any of the other comments?
Just as with toys, more detailed ratings would still help you match up your kid with appropriate games.
If you know your kid is precocious for a 9 year old, you might feel comfortable giving him a game rated for 12 year olds - but it still helps to know that the game is aimed at 12 year olds and not 22 year olds.
She's watching me play Beyond Good and Evil right now; but I really don't think she's got the eye for detail a hardcore RPG requires.
You have to be careful - the "Macs are slow" flame war has a long history.
But, a lot of people have complained about the speed of the OS X Finder compared to Windows Explorer. Generally the complaint is what you've mentioned - slow app loading speeds, rather than slow performance once they're loaded.
10.3 should help a lot with that. Another trick is that if these machines really are used rather than new-in-box they might need to be "optimized". Check sites like MacOSXHints for references to "update_prebinding".
Also, look for a tool called "MacJanitor" which can help clean up the grunge on older systems.
You didn't specify clock speeds, so I don't know how old the boxes are.
If they are running 10.1 or 10.0 they are going to be sluggish. 10.2 wasn't so bad, 10.3 is better.
Nice troll, though.