Running multiple short sprints is a very effective way to exercise, likely more so than static running over the same period of time if you're looking to optimize results (and we know how keen Slashdotters are on optimization). Shame people tend to overlook it.
Actually, if you're looking to optimize, I'd look at high intensity intervals rather than sustaining 130-150bpm for 40-60 minutes. Lots of recent training methods and research are pointing to multiple short bursts of very intense exercise with rest in between as being far more effective than significantly longer periods of steady-state exercise. While it may not burn as many calories during the workout, it increases the metabolism afterwards, burning extra calories over the course of the next couple days. Unfortunately, this is difficult to track with a gadget.
Napolitano said she doubts it will be necessary to fill all 1,000 of the authorized positions, but she is focused on making DHS a "world-class cyberorganization."
Nice to know that we're hiring a bunch of random people for spits and giggles. Wasn't there some sort of economic crisis, or did that fix itself up already?
Re:And yet they do nothing to discourage the car
on
The Fresca Rebellion
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Sidewalks are actually a quite dangerous place for cyclists. One of the most dangerous interactions between cyclists and motorists is the intersection between sidewalks and parking lot entry-exit. The visibility can be exceptionally poor, the cyclists are going faster than the motorists expect, and sometimes the motorists simply don't look at the sidewalk. This is in addition to the need to dodge bus stops, telephone poles, pedestrians, and other cyclists on a fairly narrow path. Dedicated bike paths are one thing, but run of the mill sidewalks are a poor location for cyclists.
I've been hearing/reading/experiencing a lot lately indicating that steady-state aerobics (i.e. the stuff you can sing while you do) is not nearly as effective or beneficial (or healthy) as shorter high-intensity bursts, the kind that will likely leave you on the verge of breathlessness.
Still agree that it's probably legalistic crap, and you should leave the tech out.
On the contrary... I think PE should stay, but it should not suck. Have PE where the teacher actually, ZOMG, teaches the students how to play sports and do other physical things... all the rules, various techniques for throwing, running, jumping, hitting, kicking, etc. I was incredibly averse to any physical activity we might have been exposed to in school for years, because they would just give everyone a basketball and say, "OK, for the next 45 minutes, you play basketball. Go!" Not knowing the intricacies of the rules, and not having been instructed in how to do things properly, and not having picked any of that up on my own, I quite naturally sucked at it, and ended up hating it. In retrospect, had the teacher attempted to show us the joy of physical activity rather than just providing outdoor babysitting in contrast to the rest of the day's indoor babysitting, it may have done some good.
I say keep PE and music, and cut out the couple of hours you wasted every day watching videos, listening to a book get read at you, outlining criminally dry history books filled largely with anecdotal and questionably accurate information. And for the love of the children, cut out the standardized testing!! I remember my K-8 as having a ridiculously high concentration of hours of extreme boredom. Yes, I was a smart kid, but the, with all due respect, dumb kids were also bored out of their mind and did nothing most of the time.
If anything, the school day can be made shorter, so the kids can spend less time being talked at and more time learning and exploring on their own. Kids WOULD be inclined to exercise on their own if they weren't kept locked indoors during the most beautiful hours of the day and given mindless work to do once they get out.
So I partially agree with you, but don't see PE, music class, and healthy lunches as being mutually exclusive solutions.
That is the result of the poor anti-ergonomic design of most keyboards. Unfortunately, keyboards that don't suck are expensive, as the market hasn't shown them to be a priority.
Given how many people write "alot" (and "anytime," and "everyday" to mean daily instead of ordinary), I'd say that the misspelling makes his point particularly effective, even if not intentionally so. Apparently that 99.99% of elementary school is not particularly effective in teaching proper spelling, as grandparent has nicely demonstrated for us.
You have it half right. On the standard $10 Fry's Special keyboard (or even some of the pricier "natural" options), touch typing is TERRIBLE for your hands. It's the keyboard's fault though. Get something like a Kinesis Advantage (aka the most awesome keyboard ever), and your hands aren't placed at that extremely awkward wrists-rotated angle, your fingers don't move nearly as far to keys, and there's almost no movement at all for ctrl, alt, backspace, delete, etc. Also, don't get me started on the diagonal staggering of keys, a bizarre relic of typewriter mechanisms long gone. The Kinesis is still maybe not as good for your hands as hunt and peck, but a very significant improvement.
I took the GRE 2 years ago. The software is still Win 3.1 era. Accommodating keyboard layouts, somehow, I don't think is any of their concern when they can't even be bothered to provide a box more than 20 characters wide to read an essay.
Perhaps they'll recover from the war-related PTSD, but you've introduced a whole other traumatic situation by bringing Second Life into the mix. How long will it take our brave veterans to get over the horror of bombardment via millions of floating penises?
I'm sure there are sound methods involved in this, but it sounds kinda like some lab techs have two dartboards, one labeled "thing to do to mouse" and another labeled "thing to inject into mouse to see if it gets better" and are playing a drinking game.
"Well, the Tide With Color-Safe Bleach injection didn't fix Squeaky's 'beetus. Your turn, Roy!"
My university was laying a bunch of new cable underground, and wanted to know what kind of cable to install that would be useful for the longest time. They asked the networking professor, probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the area on such matters. He told them that the cable type didn't matter, as long as it was installed with some sort of pull-through mechanism so that new cable could be easily installed at any time in the future without digging up the cables.
They ignored his suggestion, and installed whatever was good at the time despite his protests. I think they'll be due to re-trench a couple thousand yards in the not-too-distant future.
Go to your local Home Depot (or whatever) and get some plant ties. Work every bit as good as velcro "Cable Ties" (maybe because they're the same thing) but they're dirt cheap because they're marketed for plants rather than computers. 50 feet or so runs about $4.
If you want to use a mouse to scroll through documentation, access IDE options, open source files, quickly navigate through code etc, you need a mouse
Yes, if you want to use a mouse, you need a mouse.
However, those things (except perhaps the IDE options, if the IDE sucks and doesn't offer keyboard shortcuts) can be done with the keyboard, often more quickly than with the mouse.
Screw the mouse! Just about any programming task that might use a mouse can be done more quickly (and less irritatingly) with a keyboard once you learn how. My optimum setup is a Kinesis Advantage keyboard, paired with a Wacom tablet.
While pricy, I've found the Kinesis to be worth every penny. The plethora of thumb keys allows me to keep not only my hands at the keyboard, but also my fingers positioned at the home row. No big moves for backspace, delete, page up/down, home. Ctrl and Alt are also thumb keys, eliminating the little Cut/Copy/Paste dance. The keys are also closer together, ergonomically positioned, and have delightful response. My only complaint is that the ESC and the Function keys are tiny little rubber buttons on top. Still, compared to the standard, and even "natural" layouts, it's far, far superior imho.
But I digress. Next comes the usefulness of the Wacom tablet. While excellent for graphical apps, I've found it exceptionally poor for programming-type tasks. Which is why I use it. The sheer irritation of having to move my hand, pick up the pen (if I can locate it!), hover over the pad to find the pointer on screen, do my business, then set the pen down before returning the keyboard is motivation enough for me to learn, remember, and use keyboard shortcuts as often as possible. A bit painful for the first few days, but a huge time saver in the long run. Any minor task that I might otherwise use the mouse for, after using it once or twice I'll be giddy to find a keyboard replacement.
IIRC, the labels handle all the busywork for the artists on this. Lawyers and accountants call lawyers and accountants, hammer out agreements, establish a rapport over the years. Might even be some even-trades going on (you can use X of ours if we can use Y of yours). Works all right if you're signed with a label. Sucks majorly for indie artists who can't afford the fees demanded and/or don't have corresponding in-demand works to trade access for, assuming the labels will give them the time of day at all.
Yeah, I kinda lucked out in that regard, as I had a very clear exit strategy. Minors and second majors in college are good for that type of thing. If I was determined (or resigned) to stay in computing, I might try to find some joy in making the most beautiful, elegant drawing possible for everything I worked on. The drawing might become my purpose at work, with the actual code being some necessary by-product that I would hardly give a second thought to. Just thinking of that almost has me motivated to go write a nice program. Almost.
My colleagues read/. also, but they've already heard the story.:P
Get yourself an enormous piece of paper (butcher paper, or something from an art store), and make a big drawing, in pencil, of the entire project and how everything will fit together. Do it at an appropriate detail level to fill a good portion of the paper.
This has multiple benefits... it gets all your ideas written down, it gets the project organized (and helps identify potential problems before they're in code), it makes for nicely visible pieces of a larger puzzle, and, perhaps most importantly, it gets you away from the computer where you have coder's block.
The one best piece of code I've ever written, which had all sorts of interprocess communication and synchronization problems to overcome, etc., I started with a big drawing, which lent itself very nicely to a fully pseudocoded skeleton of the program (fully doxygened and line-by-line commented before any code went in), followed by the actual code, which practically wrote itself at that point. Not only did this keep the process going, but it also helped me eliminate and compensate for a whole bunch of technical and design issues, before I had even written the code that I would have had to fix. After addressing a few rogue syntax errors, the program ran correctly the first time.
Unfortunately, while effective, this process left me completely spent. Having written what was, by my standards, a perfect piece of code, I saw little further for me to accomplish in my career, and I was especially devastated when I saw that it was fairly likely that my contribution would not make it into the final product. A mere shell of a programmer remained, and I have steadily lost interest in programming since. I'm enrolling in graduate school for music in the fall.
I came to that realization about myself over the past few years, which is why I'm going through a career change right now. Couldn't be happier about leaving it behind.
Slashdot Mirror
Running multiple short sprints is a very effective way to exercise, likely more so than static running over the same period of time if you're looking to optimize results (and we know how keen Slashdotters are on optimization). Shame people tend to overlook it.
Actually, if you're looking to optimize, I'd look at high intensity intervals rather than sustaining 130-150bpm for 40-60 minutes. Lots of recent training methods and research are pointing to multiple short bursts of very intense exercise with rest in between as being far more effective than significantly longer periods of steady-state exercise. While it may not burn as many calories during the workout, it increases the metabolism afterwards, burning extra calories over the course of the next couple days. Unfortunately, this is difficult to track with a gadget.
"When my Linux box started showing pop-up ads for Windows Vista, I called a priest to exercise it."
Drat, I think my spelling may be off...
Napolitano said she doubts it will be necessary to fill all 1,000 of the authorized positions, but she is focused on making DHS a "world-class cyberorganization."
Nice to know that we're hiring a bunch of random people for spits and giggles. Wasn't there some sort of economic crisis, or did that fix itself up already?
Sidewalks are actually a quite dangerous place for cyclists. One of the most dangerous interactions between cyclists and motorists is the intersection between sidewalks and parking lot entry-exit. The visibility can be exceptionally poor, the cyclists are going faster than the motorists expect, and sometimes the motorists simply don't look at the sidewalk. This is in addition to the need to dodge bus stops, telephone poles, pedestrians, and other cyclists on a fairly narrow path. Dedicated bike paths are one thing, but run of the mill sidewalks are a poor location for cyclists.
I've been hearing/reading/experiencing a lot lately indicating that steady-state aerobics (i.e. the stuff you can sing while you do) is not nearly as effective or beneficial (or healthy) as shorter high-intensity bursts, the kind that will likely leave you on the verge of breathlessness.
Still agree that it's probably legalistic crap, and you should leave the tech out.
On the contrary... I think PE should stay, but it should not suck. Have PE where the teacher actually, ZOMG, teaches the students how to play sports and do other physical things... all the rules, various techniques for throwing, running, jumping, hitting, kicking, etc. I was incredibly averse to any physical activity we might have been exposed to in school for years, because they would just give everyone a basketball and say, "OK, for the next 45 minutes, you play basketball. Go!" Not knowing the intricacies of the rules, and not having been instructed in how to do things properly, and not having picked any of that up on my own, I quite naturally sucked at it, and ended up hating it. In retrospect, had the teacher attempted to show us the joy of physical activity rather than just providing outdoor babysitting in contrast to the rest of the day's indoor babysitting, it may have done some good.
I say keep PE and music, and cut out the couple of hours you wasted every day watching videos, listening to a book get read at you, outlining criminally dry history books filled largely with anecdotal and questionably accurate information. And for the love of the children, cut out the standardized testing!! I remember my K-8 as having a ridiculously high concentration of hours of extreme boredom. Yes, I was a smart kid, but the, with all due respect, dumb kids were also bored out of their mind and did nothing most of the time.
If anything, the school day can be made shorter, so the kids can spend less time being talked at and more time learning and exploring on their own. Kids WOULD be inclined to exercise on their own if they weren't kept locked indoors during the most beautiful hours of the day and given mindless work to do once they get out.
So I partially agree with you, but don't see PE, music class, and healthy lunches as being mutually exclusive solutions.
That is the result of the poor anti-ergonomic design of most keyboards. Unfortunately, keyboards that don't suck are expensive, as the market hasn't shown them to be a priority.
Given how many people write "alot" (and "anytime," and "everyday" to mean daily instead of ordinary), I'd say that the misspelling makes his point particularly effective, even if not intentionally so. Apparently that 99.99% of elementary school is not particularly effective in teaching proper spelling, as grandparent has nicely demonstrated for us.
You have it half right. On the standard $10 Fry's Special keyboard (or even some of the pricier "natural" options), touch typing is TERRIBLE for your hands. It's the keyboard's fault though. Get something like a Kinesis Advantage (aka the most awesome keyboard ever), and your hands aren't placed at that extremely awkward wrists-rotated angle, your fingers don't move nearly as far to keys, and there's almost no movement at all for ctrl, alt, backspace, delete, etc. Also, don't get me started on the diagonal staggering of keys, a bizarre relic of typewriter mechanisms long gone. The Kinesis is still maybe not as good for your hands as hunt and peck, but a very significant improvement.
I took the GRE 2 years ago. The software is still Win 3.1 era. Accommodating keyboard layouts, somehow, I don't think is any of their concern when they can't even be bothered to provide a box more than 20 characters wide to read an essay.
Perhaps they'll recover from the war-related PTSD, but you've introduced a whole other traumatic situation by bringing Second Life into the mix. How long will it take our brave veterans to get over the horror of bombardment via millions of floating penises?
Are you suggesting... CHEESE TREES????? Someone notify the President!
ZOMG!!! This means there must have once been trees on the moon!!!
Perhaps they'll attach a notice to the Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off coupon that arrives in the mail on days ending in "y".
I'm sure there are sound methods involved in this, but it sounds kinda like some lab techs have two dartboards, one labeled "thing to do to mouse" and another labeled "thing to inject into mouse to see if it gets better" and are playing a drinking game.
"Well, the Tide With Color-Safe Bleach injection didn't fix Squeaky's 'beetus. Your turn, Roy!"
My university was laying a bunch of new cable underground, and wanted to know what kind of cable to install that would be useful for the longest time. They asked the networking professor, probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the area on such matters. He told them that the cable type didn't matter, as long as it was installed with some sort of pull-through mechanism so that new cable could be easily installed at any time in the future without digging up the cables.
They ignored his suggestion, and installed whatever was good at the time despite his protests. I think they'll be due to re-trench a couple thousand yards in the not-too-distant future.
Go to your local Home Depot (or whatever) and get some plant ties. Work every bit as good as velcro "Cable Ties" (maybe because they're the same thing) but they're dirt cheap because they're marketed for plants rather than computers. 50 feet or so runs about $4.
If you want to use a mouse to scroll through documentation, access IDE options, open source files, quickly navigate through code etc, you need a mouse
Yes, if you want to use a mouse, you need a mouse.
However, those things (except perhaps the IDE options, if the IDE sucks and doesn't offer keyboard shortcuts) can be done with the keyboard, often more quickly than with the mouse.
Screw the mouse! Just about any programming task that might use a mouse can be done more quickly (and less irritatingly) with a keyboard once you learn how. My optimum setup is a Kinesis Advantage keyboard, paired with a Wacom tablet.
While pricy, I've found the Kinesis to be worth every penny. The plethora of thumb keys allows me to keep not only my hands at the keyboard, but also my fingers positioned at the home row. No big moves for backspace, delete, page up/down, home. Ctrl and Alt are also thumb keys, eliminating the little Cut/Copy/Paste dance. The keys are also closer together, ergonomically positioned, and have delightful response. My only complaint is that the ESC and the Function keys are tiny little rubber buttons on top. Still, compared to the standard, and even "natural" layouts, it's far, far superior imho.
But I digress. Next comes the usefulness of the Wacom tablet. While excellent for graphical apps, I've found it exceptionally poor for programming-type tasks. Which is why I use it. The sheer irritation of having to move my hand, pick up the pen (if I can locate it!), hover over the pad to find the pointer on screen, do my business, then set the pen down before returning the keyboard is motivation enough for me to learn, remember, and use keyboard shortcuts as often as possible. A bit painful for the first few days, but a huge time saver in the long run. Any minor task that I might otherwise use the mouse for, after using it once or twice I'll be giddy to find a keyboard replacement.
IIRC, the labels handle all the busywork for the artists on this. Lawyers and accountants call lawyers and accountants, hammer out agreements, establish a rapport over the years. Might even be some even-trades going on (you can use X of ours if we can use Y of yours). Works all right if you're signed with a label. Sucks majorly for indie artists who can't afford the fees demanded and/or don't have corresponding in-demand works to trade access for, assuming the labels will give them the time of day at all.
Yeah, I kinda lucked out in that regard, as I had a very clear exit strategy. Minors and second majors in college are good for that type of thing. If I was determined (or resigned) to stay in computing, I might try to find some joy in making the most beautiful, elegant drawing possible for everything I worked on. The drawing might become my purpose at work, with the actual code being some necessary by-product that I would hardly give a second thought to. Just thinking of that almost has me motivated to go write a nice program. Almost.
/. also, but they've already heard the story. :P
My colleagues read
No, but plumbers don't have to invent a new kind of pipe every time they fix a sink or unclog a toilet. They are very different kinds of activities.
Get yourself an enormous piece of paper (butcher paper, or something from an art store), and make a big drawing, in pencil, of the entire project and how everything will fit together. Do it at an appropriate detail level to fill a good portion of the paper.
This has multiple benefits... it gets all your ideas written down, it gets the project organized (and helps identify potential problems before they're in code), it makes for nicely visible pieces of a larger puzzle, and, perhaps most importantly, it gets you away from the computer where you have coder's block.
The one best piece of code I've ever written, which had all sorts of interprocess communication and synchronization problems to overcome, etc., I started with a big drawing, which lent itself very nicely to a fully pseudocoded skeleton of the program (fully doxygened and line-by-line commented before any code went in), followed by the actual code, which practically wrote itself at that point. Not only did this keep the process going, but it also helped me eliminate and compensate for a whole bunch of technical and design issues, before I had even written the code that I would have had to fix. After addressing a few rogue syntax errors, the program ran correctly the first time.
Unfortunately, while effective, this process left me completely spent. Having written what was, by my standards, a perfect piece of code, I saw little further for me to accomplish in my career, and I was especially devastated when I saw that it was fairly likely that my contribution would not make it into the final product. A mere shell of a programmer remained, and I have steadily lost interest in programming since. I'm enrolling in graduate school for music in the fall.
I came to that realization about myself over the past few years, which is why I'm going through a career change right now. Couldn't be happier about leaving it behind.