You open the mailbox. Peering inside you see a Post-It (TM) note stuck to the back of the mailbox, which you must reach in to remove. Scrawled in blood on the Post-It (TM) note are the words "Welcome to Slashdot Beta! Love, Dice Holdings, Inc. P.S. Enjoy your stay."
You close the mailbox and stagger off. You are eaten by a grue.
Well, you know why it's skinny, don't you? Because everyone reads Slashdot on their phone and phones are skinny! Unless you turn them sideways, but no one does that! I hope they cut the comment width to about one inch. That way we can all see the quality ads that Dice wants us to see. Maybe they can make their ads blink, too, so that we have the full FUCK SLASHDOT BETA experience!
OK. You idiots at Dice want to "fix" the beta? My number one complaint - you post about 12 inches of crap in the right hand column that (because of your layout) removes about 50% of the screen for use by the comments. Not only does that destroy screen space that could be used by content users actually want to read, but that content that you've wasted this space for also scrolls off the screen for people who might (for some unknown reason) want to see the wonders of Dice's lovely sub-companies. Here's a clue for your idiot designers - either find some way to use CSS regions (and, yes, I know that Google has made an issue of this) so you can wrap around that crap after you've put up your stupid Dice job postings, etc., or embed the Dice ads inline - i's less annoying to scroll past wide and short pieces of crap, rather than long, narrow pieces of crap (which is what you're turning comments into).
Fuck Slashdot Beta!
P.S. I think you should fire your idiot web designers.
We could, if we were also not embedded in an economic system that also puts a value on what is done together with a political system that preaches both freedom and equality. The problem seems to be that somehow, when we take advantage of our freedom to "do whatever the fuck [we] want to do", there is still a persistent gap in wages between one half+ of the population and the other half. So you have to explain to me how otherwise reasonable people who make rational choices about what they want to do somehow always end up statistically down. I'm thinking it has more to do with the economic system that systematically undervalues work that is typically done by one of those halves, together with a lack of political will to provide adequate support for particular issues that lead to income inequality (support for childcare, paid maternity leave, etc.) for that half.
Of course, you can do your Libertarian whining all you want, but it's this toxic combination of economic and conflicting political goals that brings about this result. And, of course, any of these could be changed to fix this issue, if anyone (especially those economically on top) wanted to change it. But they don't, so we can't, other than in local, systemically ineffective ways. So, sorry ladies, life as a worker is likely to suck for you for the foreseeable future - not that it's much better for us guys (which is one of the issues against it getting better), but you get all of that and get paid less with little support for making it better.
Efficiency is not the sole determiner of market success by any means.
Yes, but it is the sole metric of modern economics, meaning that any activity taken using this system as a driving model will eventually have a goal of increasing that metric. As such, you will devolve to a cog, and an efficient one at that, or your relative usefulness to the economic system will be over and your employment prospects will plummet precipitously.
The use of economics (and thus, efficiency) as the main (and almost sole) underpinning of what is "right" is the cause of most of our misery. Efficiency is important. So is kindness and happiness. However, with only a few minor exceptions, it is efficiency that we (and modern businesses and governments) covet. Because even if you can't always find a way to create creative and innovative products that make peoples' lives better - you can almost always screw another 2% out of your employees with less risk and effort.
Minimizing risk and effort? Yeah - that's the efficiency metric in action. Have fun with it...
I checked with my old tape drive. Here's what she said:
It was years ago... decades, really. Back in a time when computers were big. I mean really, really big. Back when your computer didn't sit around the house! No! You designed the house around the computer!
And big! I can tell you about big! They were making movies that had computers in them! And how did you know that the large hulking box in the corner was a computer? Because it had a tape drive like spinning back and forth. Every movie that had a computer in it had one or more of us tape drives included...
And then... Well, I guess times changed. Magnetic tapes became passe. We weren't seen as a young up-and-comers anymore. We just didn't get the parts in the pictures anymore, those spots going to networking gear or some other assortment of blinking lights. And those young stars were getting so tiny, so slender... so new. And what use did the industry have for some old tape drive? I ask you, what use?
But I'll tell you one thing: I was big. I am still big! It's the computers that are small...
That being said, the other nail you need to hit is what you'll be doing with the software. From the emphasis on Finale in your post, it sounds as if you're doing composition. If your doing simple stuff and mainly want a nice playback of a score you might be able to cobble together an open source solution. However, you'd have many fewer headaches if you put together a Win7 box and put stuff that's not in perpetual beta on it.
Similarly, if you're wanting to produce the music you're writing, you'll want a DAW - but which one will vary based on what you're doing... Performing live? You'll need something like Ableton. Just recording and mixing? Sonar, Reaper, Cubase, and ProTools are all good choices (except Reaper is cheaper). Doing mastering? You'll probably want something like Samplitude and a really good I/O system for pushing the audio through external boxes. And, again, even though the open source world has lookalikes for many of these things, you'll get a much more simple and polished experience from a commercial OS. Especially since audio I/O on Linux has been even more FU'ed than Windows' audio I/O (I know... a concept even I have a hard time wrapping my head around) for the past twenty years.
So the real answer is "It depends." And I won't troll more by trying to recommend a Macintosh where the stuff is mainly plug-and-play and just works. Although Logic is its own can of hell, from what a friend I know tells me.
In any case, don't get too mired in the tools. They aren't where the music comes from, anyway.
Rich person likes things that could be paid for by taxes, but doesn't want to pay taxes. So he gets his buddies to help fund a group to defeat a ballot measure that his dad supports. Hypocritical? Yes. Narcissist with daddy issues? Yes. Surprising? No.
Gold is at least pretty and useful in a number of industrial and electrical applications.
Well, food is at least tasty and useful for keeping you alive. I know! Let's go onto the food standard! I can trade a sandwich for three fish fingers and the economy keeps humming...
Basically, whenever you start discussing currencies, it gets pretty abstract and very stupid quite quickly.
When I was in school, the only difference in required courses was that Comp.E's had an assembly language class, while EE's had an advanced analog lab class. Otherwise, it was all in the electives which, honestly, did differ quite a bit, with Comp.E's doing digital and programming stuff and EE's doing more analog, RF, IC design, and power systems things, depending on their sub-specialization.
Yeah, I was a Comp.E and I could still probably analyze a simple logic circuit's design. The basic circuit background comes in handy when I design a guitar amp, too, but real design? Leave that to the EE's.
This is just forward-chaining logic programming. I.e., if x changes then do y, and people have been using this in design for years - several large vertical applications have this feature built in.
The problem with this kind of code is that, when there is contextual dependency on what is to be done (which happens often in real life), the code becomes riddled with special cases accessing data from far flung parts of the system to determine the contextual state - this starts to look akin to spaghetti code with everything accessible from anywhere in the program: Hello, global state!
The other problem is that, without fixed flow of control, debugging becomes more difficult, even if you have a specialized debugger that doesn't make you trace through the machinery.
Plus, people not used to this kind of programming will embed code which must be specifically ordered within one or more triggers not realizing that trigger orders are usually unspecified, leading to fragile code.
In the end, this is just like any other programming paradigm - useful for things that it's useful for, not so useful for things that don't fit well. You should know how to program on systems like this. You should also know how they're implemented so that you don't screw up when you have to program in one.
It's harder to point to all the other regular Joes who got lemons in their driveways because it was considered acceptable behavior to show up drunk on the job and just bolt a few things together before taking another break.
And it seems it's even harder to mention the CFO's and finance folks in the car manufacturers who put product profitability goals into place that ensured that substandard product was made no matter how drunk the workers were (or weren't). E.g., Ford refused to upgrade paint processes in the late-60's/early-70's, so that the paint on their autos flaked off after about three-four years, the auto makers targeted large, high profit margin vehicles during the oil crisis of that time). But, of course, it's all the union's fault.
Yes. And the only reason that we're hearing more and more about it is that software companies are starting to run out of H1-B visas. Otherwise, they wouldn't give a shit.
Numbers? Yes. Quality? No. Look at the recent scandals about selling co-authorship of pre-written scientific papers to boost one's publication count. Many horror stories about scientific publishing in China can be found here.
These are often just typos here on forums. Basically spell checkers fixing up things without the writer bothering to proofread before hitting submit.
Writing is writing and publishing (even on the web) is publishing. If one doesn't care enough about what one publishes to proofread a post before hitting send, one probably doesn't care enough to do a good job at anything - autocorrect or not.
It seems people will say "shitty inner-city areas in the USA are dragging down the average". That's totally true.
And one must also remember that the US is doing little to actually improve the "shitty inner-city areas", anyway. You can bitch about the way that these tests are constructed and administered, or how our results really don't compare with those of other countries but, in the final analysis, these tests show that we're really not doing very well. If you think that the inner-city is what's not working, well, then we should do something about it.
Also note that because of our baroque, multi-stated "solutions" in education, anything we try to do at a national level is (by default) inefficient. We'd be better off with a national curriculum (that wasn't set by the textbook manufacturers sucking up to Texas and California).
How is this more efficient than tenure? Why bring yet another external party into the mix? Seems like a jury-rigged solution, actually. Try harder next time, Mr. Goldberg.
... a general criterion makes no real distinction between a classical pianist and someone who likes listening to Miley Cyrus. Only one of those should be weighted positively, and I'll let you guess which.
Wow! That's a convoluted way to let us know how much you like Miley Cyrus! Knowing that, I'd bet you're a Bieber believer, too!
If Facebook wants to expand through mobile, they'd have to make a mobile app that doesn't run as slow as (non diarhetic) crap. Which it currently does. Just sayin'...
Slashdot Mirror
You open the mailbox. Peering inside you see a Post-It (TM) note stuck to the back of the mailbox, which you must reach in to remove. Scrawled in blood on the Post-It (TM) note are the words "Welcome to Slashdot Beta! Love, Dice Holdings, Inc. P.S. Enjoy your stay."
You close the mailbox and stagger off. You are eaten by a grue.
Well, you know why it's skinny, don't you? Because everyone reads Slashdot on their phone and phones are skinny! Unless you turn them sideways, but no one does that! I hope they cut the comment width to about one inch. That way we can all see the quality ads that Dice wants us to see. Maybe they can make their ads blink, too, so that we have the full FUCK SLASHDOT BETA experience!
OK. You idiots at Dice want to "fix" the beta? My number one complaint - you post about 12 inches of crap in the right hand column that (because of your layout) removes about 50% of the screen for use by the comments. Not only does that destroy screen space that could be used by content users actually want to read, but that content that you've wasted this space for also scrolls off the screen for people who might (for some unknown reason) want to see the wonders of Dice's lovely sub-companies. Here's a clue for your idiot designers - either find some way to use CSS regions (and, yes, I know that Google has made an issue of this) so you can wrap around that crap after you've put up your stupid Dice job postings, etc., or embed the Dice ads inline - i's less annoying to scroll past wide and short pieces of crap, rather than long, narrow pieces of crap (which is what you're turning comments into).
Fuck Slashdot Beta!
P.S. I think you should fire your idiot web designers.
We could, if we were also not embedded in an economic system that also puts a value on what is done together with a political system that preaches both freedom and equality. The problem seems to be that somehow, when we take advantage of our freedom to "do whatever the fuck [we] want to do", there is still a persistent gap in wages between one half+ of the population and the other half. So you have to explain to me how otherwise reasonable people who make rational choices about what they want to do somehow always end up statistically down. I'm thinking it has more to do with the economic system that systematically undervalues work that is typically done by one of those halves, together with a lack of political will to provide adequate support for particular issues that lead to income inequality (support for childcare, paid maternity leave, etc.) for that half.
Of course, you can do your Libertarian whining all you want, but it's this toxic combination of economic and conflicting political goals that brings about this result. And, of course, any of these could be changed to fix this issue, if anyone (especially those economically on top) wanted to change it. But they don't, so we can't, other than in local, systemically ineffective ways. So, sorry ladies, life as a worker is likely to suck for you for the foreseeable future - not that it's much better for us guys (which is one of the issues against it getting better), but you get all of that and get paid less with little support for making it better.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Efficiency is not the sole determiner of market success by any means.
Yes, but it is the sole metric of modern economics, meaning that any activity taken using this system as a driving model will eventually have a goal of increasing that metric. As such, you will devolve to a cog, and an efficient one at that, or your relative usefulness to the economic system will be over and your employment prospects will plummet precipitously.
The use of economics (and thus, efficiency) as the main (and almost sole) underpinning of what is "right" is the cause of most of our misery. Efficiency is important. So is kindness and happiness. However, with only a few minor exceptions, it is efficiency that we (and modern businesses and governments) covet. Because even if you can't always find a way to create creative and innovative products that make peoples' lives better - you can almost always screw another 2% out of your employees with less risk and effort.
Minimizing risk and effort? Yeah - that's the efficiency metric in action. Have fun with it...
I checked with my old tape drive. Here's what she said:
This guy hits the nail on the head.
That being said, the other nail you need to hit is what you'll be doing with the software. From the emphasis on Finale in your post, it sounds as if you're doing composition. If your doing simple stuff and mainly want a nice playback of a score you might be able to cobble together an open source solution. However, you'd have many fewer headaches if you put together a Win7 box and put stuff that's not in perpetual beta on it.
Similarly, if you're wanting to produce the music you're writing, you'll want a DAW - but which one will vary based on what you're doing... Performing live? You'll need something like Ableton. Just recording and mixing? Sonar, Reaper, Cubase, and ProTools are all good choices (except Reaper is cheaper). Doing mastering? You'll probably want something like Samplitude and a really good I/O system for pushing the audio through external boxes. And, again, even though the open source world has lookalikes for many of these things, you'll get a much more simple and polished experience from a commercial OS. Especially since audio I/O on Linux has been even more FU'ed than Windows' audio I/O (I know... a concept even I have a hard time wrapping my head around) for the past twenty years.
So the real answer is "It depends." And I won't troll more by trying to recommend a Macintosh where the stuff is mainly plug-and-play and just works. Although Logic is its own can of hell, from what a friend I know tells me.
In any case, don't get too mired in the tools. They aren't where the music comes from, anyway.
Rich person likes things that could be paid for by taxes, but doesn't want to pay taxes. So he gets his buddies to help fund a group to defeat a ballot measure that his dad supports. Hypocritical? Yes. Narcissist with daddy issues? Yes. Surprising? No.
With the billions poured into "security"...
Security is for the little people. Corporations, small, medium, and large? Not so much.
An old Chinese saying, power is earned by those who gang up.
I think Mao said it better when he said that "Power flows from the barrel of a gun."
Gold is at least pretty and useful in a number of industrial and electrical applications.
Well, food is at least tasty and useful for keeping you alive. I know! Let's go onto the food standard! I can trade a sandwich for three fish fingers and the economy keeps humming...
Basically, whenever you start discussing currencies, it gets pretty abstract and very stupid quite quickly.
Yes, George Lucas was working overtime when he came up with the idea for the platypus.
When I was in school, the only difference in required courses was that Comp.E's had an assembly language class, while EE's had an advanced analog lab class. Otherwise, it was all in the electives which, honestly, did differ quite a bit, with Comp.E's doing digital and programming stuff and EE's doing more analog, RF, IC design, and power systems things, depending on their sub-specialization.
Yeah, I was a Comp.E and I could still probably analyze a simple logic circuit's design. The basic circuit background comes in handy when I design a guitar amp, too, but real design? Leave that to the EE's.
This is just forward-chaining logic programming. I.e., if x changes then do y, and people have been using this in design for years - several large vertical applications have this feature built in.
The problem with this kind of code is that, when there is contextual dependency on what is to be done (which happens often in real life), the code becomes riddled with special cases accessing data from far flung parts of the system to determine the contextual state - this starts to look akin to spaghetti code with everything accessible from anywhere in the program: Hello, global state!
The other problem is that, without fixed flow of control, debugging becomes more difficult, even if you have a specialized debugger that doesn't make you trace through the machinery.
Plus, people not used to this kind of programming will embed code which must be specifically ordered within one or more triggers not realizing that trigger orders are usually unspecified, leading to fragile code.
In the end, this is just like any other programming paradigm - useful for things that it's useful for, not so useful for things that don't fit well. You should know how to program on systems like this. You should also know how they're implemented so that you don't screw up when you have to program in one.
Fossilized grounds from Starbuck's secret dumpsite.
Never give away part of something you might want all of later.
It's harder to point to all the other regular Joes who got lemons in their driveways because it was considered acceptable behavior to show up drunk on the job and just bolt a few things together before taking another break.
And it seems it's even harder to mention the CFO's and finance folks in the car manufacturers who put product profitability goals into place that ensured that substandard product was made no matter how drunk the workers were (or weren't). E.g., Ford refused to upgrade paint processes in the late-60's/early-70's, so that the paint on their autos flaked off after about three-four years, the auto makers targeted large, high profit margin vehicles during the oil crisis of that time). But, of course, it's all the union's fault.
Yes. And the only reason that we're hearing more and more about it is that software companies are starting to run out of H1-B visas. Otherwise, they wouldn't give a shit.
Numbers? Yes. Quality? No. Look at the recent scandals about selling co-authorship of pre-written scientific papers to boost one's publication count. Many horror stories about scientific publishing in China can be found here.
These are often just typos here on forums. Basically spell checkers fixing up things without the writer bothering to proofread before hitting submit.
Writing is writing and publishing (even on the web) is publishing. If one doesn't care enough about what one publishes to proofread a post before hitting send, one probably doesn't care enough to do a good job at anything - autocorrect or not.
It seems people will say "shitty inner-city areas in the USA are dragging down the average". That's totally true.
And one must also remember that the US is doing little to actually improve the "shitty inner-city areas", anyway. You can bitch about the way that these tests are constructed and administered, or how our results really don't compare with those of other countries but, in the final analysis, these tests show that we're really not doing very well. If you think that the inner-city is what's not working, well, then we should do something about it.
Also note that because of our baroque, multi-stated "solutions" in education, anything we try to do at a national level is (by default) inefficient. We'd be better off with a national curriculum (that wasn't set by the textbook manufacturers sucking up to Texas and California).
How is this more efficient than tenure? Why bring yet another external party into the mix? Seems like a jury-rigged solution, actually. Try harder next time, Mr. Goldberg.
Exactly! Now you've got the picture!
... a general criterion makes no real distinction between a classical pianist and someone who likes listening to Miley Cyrus. Only one of those should be weighted positively, and I'll let you guess which.
Wow! That's a convoluted way to let us know how much you like Miley Cyrus! Knowing that, I'd bet you're a Bieber believer, too!
If Facebook wants to expand through mobile, they'd have to make a mobile app that doesn't run as slow as (non diarhetic) crap. Which it currently does. Just sayin'...