What do I think? honestly? I think you're smart - and there ain't a whole lot of that going around.
Most site operators wouldn't have a clue how to redirect requests for images even if they did have a clue what the slashdot effect was. But I think you have a great idea that could help actual geeks with smaller sites.
It's too bad the ppl that maintain the slashcode don't read this site. huh?
Excellent point! Not only is classical music cheaper (I recently picked up several different composers for $2.99 per CD) it's also betterforyou.
And if you haven't tried it, playing classical in the background while you program is just as fulfilling as that techno stuff you have now (admit it, we all do).
And as an added benefit to the younger (male) geeks out there, knowledge and appreciation of classical art makes you appear cooler to chics. In college I rarely had a date, but I could approach any girl in any class and ask her to the symphony or the ballet with about an 80% success rate. Disclamer: I rarely got second dates due in part to the ache, braces, and poor conversation skills.
Thank God for NPR.
My only beef with NPR is that they (the local station were I live) play way to much baroque music. I really enjoy Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff - pretty much anything from the romantic era, but I can't get into Bach.
As I see it, the Democrats spend a lot of money and take a lot of taxes, while the Republicans spend a lot of money and don't charge a lot of taxes, thus exacerbating the federal debt. And people still fall for it.
There's one component you've missed. Motivation. Democrats would spend much of the tax revenue on social programs. They would redistribute wealth in order to buy votes. Democrats are socialists. Republicans are not known for buying votes - but they are known for reducing government waste.
In short, I'd give GWB a little more leeway when he says he's going to increase spending for two reasons: 1. He isn't a socialist. 2. there is at least a non-zero probability that the increase will be accompanied by a reduction in government waste.
Re:But what about hot dogs and apple pie?
on
The Future of MREs
·
· Score: 2
hands and face are covered in camo, grease, and dirt
don't forget breakfree - the seasoning of the gods (tm)
The little heater thingies (mmm, smell like acid),
It's hydrogen. It's sad to think about how much time I wasted trying to ignite the stuff. As someone else mentioned, the most mischievous thing to do with the heaters is put them in a soda bottle. I've also shaved with the water (don't try that at home) and stuffed them in my jacket to keep me warm on cold mornings. It's funny, I've wasted them in so many different ways but I rarely actually heated my food with em.
If I believe in the christian god and the Hindus are right, I'll come back as an ant.
That's not what hindus believe - although your point is taken.
Most religions actually support the belief that good people, even if they live in a time or location where that particular religion isn't available to them, are rewarded in the afterlife. This is true even though it seems to be common practice for the idiot practitioners of a religion tell you that you are doomed unless you do exactly as they do.
Now, which of the following responses to your post is most appropriate? Select only one.
a. Thank you for your thoughtful and poignant reply. Your insightfulness has moved me to accept your learned viewpoint.
b. Wow, that guy really set you off. Huh? Considering the juvenile nature of your response I have decided to give further deference to your opponent's views.
or
c. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls.
I have to wonder whether it's not often an attitude problem
I agree completely. Anyway who can blame them? They set up a mail server for their users, some westerners misuse it to send spam, then more westerners start yelling at them to fix it.
This all just plays to their generally poor opinion of us. We support their stereotypes.
They wouldn't care as much about plagues as they would news that spaceships had been built that were 10X faster than thiers - meaning that by the time they reach the destination it will have already been settled by humans.
QM is more simple than the classical alternative explanations
Hardly. Classical physics at least held that it would be possible to understand pretty much anything provided it could be observed and measured. QM, by describing the deterministic unitary evolution of a wave function, eliminates that possibility.
In QM one often must model systems as the superposition of two or more possible outcomes. Superpositions can produce interference effects and thus are experimentally distinguishable from mixed states. How does a superposition of different possibilities resolve itself into some particular observation? This question (also known as the measurement problem) affects how we analyze some experiments such as tests of Bell's inequality and may raise the question of interpretations from a philosophical debate to an experimentally testable question. So far there is no evidence that it makes any difference. The wave function evolves in such a way that there are no observable effects from macroscopic superpositions. It is only superposition of different possibilities at the microscopic level that leads to experimentally detectable interference effects.
Couldn't I say the same thing about the Earth being the center of the Universe? Didn't the whole 'we're going around the sun' thing introduce complexity?
They know what a good deal they have with the DMCA. Don't expect them to ever again put themselves in a position to be challanged or to allow the law to be challanged. They'll be smart about it. They'll only use the law in clear cut cases from now on.
Catholic Church will always remain a staunch opponent of such practices
I'd like to try to explain it to you by drawing an analogy, but I don't know you well enough. Perhaps you could help me - is there anything at all that you believe in? Anything at all? No? Well then I guess it's pointless trying to argue with you. huh?
I said
These two things give me nightmares remembering customers who have had cute ideas at the last minute. then I said:
[for example] he couldn't give me any criteria.
and you suggest:
You are not very sensitive to the users needs
makes me wonder what your customers are like. The people I'm used to dealing with have no idea - really absolutely no idea - what the effect of a last minute change will be.
Maybe we should move this discussion to the abstract. Imagine you are building a bridge. Far into the project your customer absentmindedly remarks how cool it would be if you could ad a revolving restaurant on one of the towers. You explain why that's Not A Good Idea (TM) and they give you the deer in the headlights look. The fact is that the average people doesn't think through all the ramifications of their suggestions. How do you think that damn paperclip got into MS Office? Should we 'sensitive' to all these requests or should we be realistic?
This is what I'm used to seeing, and judging by the other replies I think that must be typical.
The entire point of having a customer on-site is to hopefully let them have a better idea of what is going on with the project, so that they won't try to suggest anything stupid.
ever tried it?
The specific nightmare I was thinking of involved a customer looking at a report from a database and saying "that looks great but highlight this person."
Now I'd be happy to highlight people who match a particular criteria - you know SELECT * FROM foobar WHERE X=Y and all that. But he couldn't give me any criteria. He just wanted this guy's name highlighted. I could have screamed! I ended up putting a column in the database called highlight.
I'm not sure how much mainstream acceptance is possible for any paradigm that incorporates a faddish name like 'extreme'
I'd much rather see our profession associated with more difficult disciplines, like maybe engineering, than with mountain dew commercials. Ever hear of The Extreme Scientific Method? How about Extreme Structural Engineering?
Interviewer: so, what are your goals?
Me: Dude, I want to be like, the most X-Treme programmer!
Of course I've said nothing about the actual process. The article contains a link to a list of practices which include:
Continuous integration of changes
Customer on site
These two things give me nightmares remembering customers who have had cute ideas at the last minute. Other than that is looks like the waterfall model. My humble recommendation is that it needs a good name change.
The problem I'm finding now is, I've been asked for PDF, PostScript, HTML, Plaintext, RichText, and MS Word versions of my resume. So I've got 6 versions to keep up to date.
It's definitely a pain in the ass. I keep the master copy of my resume in HTML, print it to postscript and convert to PDF with ps2pdf. That part is easy. The problem is keeping a word version up to date. If I open the HTML in Word it looks terrible - and somehow expands to over three pages!
Anyone ever notice how MS's version numbers are always synchronized? Win2000 (aka WinNT 5), IIS 5...
Welcome to the world of "me too" management. The really high-level managers are sitting around the table talking strategy. Somebody proudly says "We are developing the next version of the XYZ program" The other managers think 'oh shit!' and each in turn pipes up and says, "yes, we will update our PDQ program at the same time"
They all want to be part of the game; they want to keep putting points on the board.
The really funny part is when they return to their respective groups and brainstorm new features just so that there can be a point release.
Similar things happen in all organizations. I'll never forget being sent of a recon (spy) mission to another post in Korea to find out what humanitarian efforts were underway following a flood. In my bosses words "whatever they do, we had better do to" as opposed to the correct attitude "lets find out if they have any good ideas that we could also make use of to benefit the civilians living in our area of responsibility."
Slashdot Mirror
What do you think?
What do I think? honestly? I think you're smart - and there ain't a whole lot of that going around.
Most site operators wouldn't have a clue how to redirect requests for images even if they did have a clue what the slashdot effect was. But I think you have a great idea that could help actual geeks with smaller sites.
It's too bad the ppl that maintain the slashcode don't read this site. huh?
Excellent point!
Not only is classical music cheaper (I recently picked up several different composers for $2.99 per CD) it's also better for you.
And if you haven't tried it, playing classical in the background while you program is just as fulfilling as that techno stuff you have now (admit it, we all do).
And as an added benefit to the younger (male) geeks out there, knowledge and appreciation of classical art makes you appear cooler to chics. In college I rarely had a date, but I could approach any girl in any class and ask her to the symphony or the ballet with about an 80% success rate. Disclamer: I rarely got second dates due in part to the ache, braces, and poor conversation skills.
Thank God for NPR.
My only beef with NPR is that they (the local station were I live) play way to much baroque music. I really enjoy Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff - pretty much anything from the romantic era, but I can't get into Bach.
If you cound all the warez, mp3's and whatever else, that can easily be 1/3rd of the whole US bandwidth.
Add to that spam and you're probably looking at 1/2 of all traffic!
As I see it, the Democrats spend a lot of money and take a lot of taxes, while the Republicans spend a lot of money and don't charge a lot of taxes, thus exacerbating the federal debt. And people still fall for it.
There's one component you've missed. Motivation. Democrats would spend much of the tax revenue on social programs. They would redistribute wealth in order to buy votes. Democrats are socialists. Republicans are not known for buying votes - but they are known for reducing government waste.
In short, I'd give GWB a little more leeway when he says he's going to increase spending for two reasons: 1. He isn't a socialist. 2. there is at least a non-zero probability that the increase will be accompanied by a reduction in government waste.
hands and face are covered in camo, grease, and dirt
don't forget breakfree - the seasoning of the gods (tm)
The little heater thingies (mmm, smell like acid),
It's hydrogen. It's sad to think about how much time I wasted trying to ignite the stuff. As someone else mentioned, the most mischievous thing to do with the heaters is put them in a soda bottle. I've also shaved with the water (don't try that at home) and stuffed them in my jacket to keep me warm on cold mornings. It's funny, I've wasted them in so many different ways but I rarely actually heated my food with em.
If I believe in the christian god and the Hindus are right, I'll come back as an ant.
That's not what hindus believe - although your point is taken.
Most religions actually support the belief that good people, even if they live in a time or location where that particular religion isn't available to them, are rewarded in the afterlife. This is true even though it seems to be common practice for the idiot practitioners of a religion tell you that you are doomed unless you do exactly as they do.
Now, which of the following responses to your post is most appropriate? Select only one.
a. Thank you for your thoughtful and poignant reply. Your insightfulness has moved me to accept your learned viewpoint.
b. Wow, that guy really set you off. Huh? Considering the juvenile nature of your response I have decided to give further deference to your opponent's views.
or
c. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls.
I have to wonder whether it's not often an attitude problem
I agree completely. Anyway who can blame them? They set up a mail server for their users, some westerners misuse it to send spam, then more westerners start yelling at them to fix it.
This all just plays to their generally poor opinion of us. We support their stereotypes.
They wouldn't care as much about plagues as they would news that spaceships had been built that were 10X faster than thiers - meaning that by the time they reach the destination it will have already been settled by humans.
That would truely suck!
Sooner or later, Microsoft and their goons will go a step too far
isn't that like saying that drug dealers will go too far and the addicts will stop using?
call me cynical, but I just see the corporate world as too depentant on microsoft (on the desktop anyway) to give them up even if they wanted to.
QM is more simple than the classical alternative explanations
Hardly. Classical physics at least held that it would be possible to understand pretty much anything provided it could be observed and measured. QM, by describing the deterministic unitary evolution of a wave function, eliminates that possibility.
In QM one often must model systems as the superposition of two or more possible outcomes. Superpositions can produce interference effects and thus are experimentally distinguishable from mixed states. How does a superposition of different possibilities resolve itself into some particular observation? This question (also known as the measurement problem) affects how we analyze some experiments such as tests of Bell's inequality and may raise the question of interpretations from a philosophical debate to an experimentally testable question. So far there is no evidence that it makes any difference. The wave function evolves in such a way that there are no observable effects from macroscopic superpositions. It is only superposition of different possibilities at the microscopic level that leads to experimentally detectable interference effects.
simple and elegant.
like quantum mechanics?
Couldn't I say the same thing about the Earth being the center of the Universe? Didn't the whole 'we're going around the sun' thing introduce complexity?
They know what a good deal they have with the DMCA. Don't expect them to ever again put themselves in a position to be challanged or to allow the law to be challanged. They'll be smart about it. They'll only use the law in clear cut cases from now on.
No one can hear you scream.
Catholic Church will always remain a staunch opponent of such practices
I'd like to try to explain it to you by drawing an analogy, but I don't know you well enough. Perhaps you could help me - is there anything at all that you believe in? Anything at all? No? Well then I guess it's pointless trying to argue with you. huh?
I said
These two things give me nightmares remembering customers who have had cute ideas at the last minute.
then I said:
[for example] he couldn't give me any criteria.
and you suggest:
You are not very sensitive to the users needs
makes me wonder what your customers are like. The people I'm used to dealing with have no idea - really absolutely no idea - what the effect of a last minute change will be.
Maybe we should move this discussion to the abstract. Imagine you are building a bridge. Far into the project your customer absentmindedly remarks how cool it would be if you could ad a revolving restaurant on one of the towers. You explain why that's Not A Good Idea (TM) and they give you the deer in the headlights look. The fact is that the average people doesn't think through all the ramifications of their suggestions. How do you think that damn paperclip got into MS Office? Should we 'sensitive' to all these requests or should we be realistic?
This is what I'm used to seeing, and judging by the other replies I think that must be typical.
Behold, Deadmeat did spake unto us saying:
Ask Slashdot: What's This 'Search Engine' Thing I Keep Hearing So Much About?
And lo, it has come to pass.
The entire point of having a customer on-site is to hopefully let them have a better idea of what is going on with the project, so that they won't try to suggest anything stupid.
ever tried it?
The specific nightmare I was thinking of involved a customer looking at a report from a database and saying "that looks great but highlight this person."
Now I'd be happy to highlight people who match a particular criteria - you know SELECT * FROM foobar WHERE X=Y and all that. But he couldn't give me any criteria. He just wanted this guy's name highlighted. I could have screamed! I ended up putting a column in the database called highlight.
Keep the users far, far away from me thank you.
I'm not sure how much mainstream acceptance is possible for any paradigm that incorporates a faddish name like 'extreme'
I'd much rather see our profession associated with more difficult disciplines, like maybe engineering, than with mountain dew commercials. Ever hear of The Extreme Scientific Method? How about Extreme Structural Engineering?
Interviewer: so, what are your goals?
Me: Dude, I want to be like, the most X-Treme programmer!
Of course I've said nothing about the actual process. The article contains a link to a list of practices which include:
Continuous integration of changes
Customer on site
These two things give me nightmares remembering customers who have had cute ideas at the last minute. Other than that is looks like the waterfall model. My humble recommendation is that it needs a good name change.
hmm... I would have thought that "existing" meant 'in use', not "severely decrepid or archaic"
The problem I'm finding now is, I've been asked for PDF, PostScript, HTML, Plaintext, RichText, and MS Word versions of my resume. So I've got 6 versions to keep up to date.
It's definitely a pain in the ass. I keep the master copy of my resume in HTML, print it to postscript and convert to PDF with ps2pdf. That part is easy. The problem is keeping a word version up to date. If I open the HTML in Word it looks terrible - and somehow expands to over three pages!
Anyone ever notice how MS's version numbers are always synchronized? Win2000 (aka WinNT 5), IIS 5...
Welcome to the world of "me too" management. The really high-level managers are sitting around the table talking strategy. Somebody proudly says "We are developing the next version of the XYZ program" The other managers think 'oh shit!' and each in turn pipes up and says, "yes, we will update our PDQ program at the same time"
They all want to be part of the game; they want to keep putting points on the board.
The really funny part is when they return to their respective groups and brainstorm new features just so that there can be a point release.
Similar things happen in all organizations. I'll never forget being sent of a recon (spy) mission to another post in Korea to find out what humanitarian efforts were underway following a flood. In my bosses words "whatever they do, we had better do to" as opposed to the correct attitude "lets find out if they have any good ideas that we could also make use of to benefit the civilians living in our area of responsibility."
One data point huh?