I remember a recent trip to a Tulsa, OK Starbucks after having not visited one for over 2 years. I walked in, asked the associate, "You guys have free WiFi?"
He replied, "Yeah."
I said, "Ok, I'll have %FAVORITE_DRINK% and a Scone."
He said, "Alright, that will be $7.00."
So I pony up the dough and break out my laptop. I connect to the access point and instantly hit the login screen. I ask him why there's a log in screen and he replies, "Oh, to reach the internet you gotta pay three bucks." So I ask, "So, the WiFi is free but if I want to reach the internet I gotta pay $3.00?" He says, "Yeah." (Face palm.) After a few choice words with him I folded up my stuff and left the drink and scone, untouched, on the table.
3 doors down was a local mom & pop shop that had bona-fide free Wifi. My new drink and 3 small cinnamon buns cost $3.25 and all the free "wifi + internet" I could handle. Lesson learned.
Software failure is not a technical problem but a human problem. Michael Crawford realized this and has developed the Crawfordian Psychoanalysis Manifesto which will end the software problem once and for all. He will fix not just bugs in code but bugs in the mind
Look, until this manifesto is released in a PDF I'm not reading it.
blockquote)Should google have to write warnings for all dangers? WARNING: You are about to cross the road. Our records show that this intersection has a crosswalk. Please wiat until the red hand turns into a white funny-looking guy before proceeding. Be sure to check both ways for traffic before stepping onto the road. Be aware that there may be other pedestrians crossing the road. Be sure not to collide with them. Caution! Be aware that there may be open manholes! DO NOT step on a manhole that has it's cover removed. For a full list of applicable warnings, please go to www.google.ca/pleasetiemyshoes//blockquote)
That's even worse. Providing such explicit instructions would be cannon fodder for a attorney. The mantra "Less is more" comes to mind.
Simply saying something to the effect 'These directions are provided as a courtesy. The user is fully responsible for their personal safety while using said directions. By using the directions you absolve yadda, yadda, yadda....
In short, this woman, in my humble opinion, should remove herself from the gene-pool.
OK, here's a question for you then. I understand the moon's surface is made up of a bunch of tiny particulate - "dust" is you will. This dust, as I understand, got into everything during the Apollo Moon Missions. Now, for arguments sake, let's say Japan is able to install a moon base operated wholly (locally) by robots.
What kinds of effects would the dust have upon the rails, pathways, gears and whatever other machinery is necessary to operate? I imagine that the gust would wear down the machinery and the robots might not have the ability to recognize wear and tear in such an environment - both on themselves and the machinery.
I'm not one to complain about/. editors; but, come on!
This is "News for Nerds - Stuff That Matters." Did CN just hire some recent college grads that majored in Type-Writer Maintenance and wouldn't know the difference between HD Memory and computer memory?
and this still would maintain the immersion. after all, in real life, you do not remember every bush you pass by while traveling a 1000 mile road, do you ? nor you even care.
Ah, yes, I practically do. I travel a lot. A lot. So much so that I live, full time, in an RV. Being able to recognize your surroundings is a basic human trait so one can "orient" their inner mental image of their own personal map so they know where they are in relation to everything else.
Some objects, bushes included, can be center to any one particular tribes' (American, European, Asian, etc...) geography. Some peoples use more permanent objects like statues or mountains to orient themselves. But what if the jungle is so thick that you can not see these particular markers. Therefore, trees and bushes begin to take on more prominence. Also, as a mountain biker, I am constantly being exposed to new areas in the middle of the woods and routinely find myself in areas I've never been to before. I've developed a sense about new areas so I can track whether I've been to a particular section of trail before. Cruising at about 6mph to 15mph, being able to quickly inventory or locate trail-markers (whether someone else placed it or I locate my own) has become a very useful skill of mine.
So, yes, people do care. Moving this discussion to the virtual world, I also find being able to recognize areas a useful skill. Getting lost in a game world because of lazy programmers or dynamically created content such as trees not being where I expect them to be is really annoying.
Grass? Fine. Dynamically create grass. It usually can not be used as a marker unless there is a section of grass in, say, some location where it sticks out as a section of grass.
If "it" sticks out due to the rest of its surrounding then it generally can be used as a marker and should be permanently-located in the game. Put larger items in some location and leave them there.
It wasn't communicating properly. From the summary:...unexpected problem in its communications stream.
FTFA:"A glitch in the flight data system, which formats information for radioing to Earth, was believed to be the problem." (Emphasis mine)
((conjecture on)) It was still communicating something...just not everything.
It sounds to me like the communications software was working OK; however, the information-payload being sent was malformed. ((conjecture off))
BTW, I've seen this kind of problem during my tenure as a US Submariner on a Fast Attack Submarine. 1 bit in a circuit board can fail from time to time. And, considering were talking about 1970's technology, micro-miniaturization wasn't used. There's NOT millions, thousands or even hundreds of ICs on a single board or chip (like today's tech). I'd lay wager that were looking at a few (if not a single) IC (if it is even an IC) that caused the problem on one board.
You can replace the incandescent bulb with an LED module - IIRC, it didn't cost that much, either. I found mine at a sporting goods store in the lights section.
Well, for a little over $3, you can get a cheap fast-food meal. That's lunch!
CM.COM: "OK, so we tried to fraudulently obtain money from you by lieing our asses off about your buddy trying to contact you. Here's lunch. Better now?" Me: Shove that lunch up your ass!
Why is it that Company X defrauds someone and they only have to pay back 33% of what they collected to the victim; but, if Joe Schmo does it he gets ~1yr jail time or some such judicial or civil penalty?
Yeah, Linkedin.com also asks for passwords to your multiple email accounts to scan them for contacts. Wow. What a gold mine that could be. If there's an email addy that they don't know or a name they don't recognize, they could start spamming them for registrations and, potentially, saying a friend or colleague provided your email address to us thinking you might be interested in joining our social club....
Seriously, check out the job boards. During your investigation you will see what real skills employers are looking for in a JAVA developer. You'll find all kinds of interesting terms to decipher and while you are decoding those you will be introduced to other supporting technologies that support a JAVA development environment that employers are also interested in. Then you can also learn about those.
You are obviously going to find a lot of great info here in this/. article and you should pay attention to most of those. However, by viewing the job boards you will notice how certain technologies will be assembled to blend with one another.
If you don't plan on moving after your education, look only for companies developing with JAVA in your area and learn about the supporting systems they use so you'll have a leg up on them when the time comes that you are able to make the leap from student to developer.
The bottom line is that by seeing what your potential future employers are interested in will allow you to tailor your education appropriately.
Being a little more precise, I think that you're hearing the darkness beckon, and you're about to go from stage 2 to stage 3. Or you're trying to square your public claims of "hardness" with your fear of the darkness. Don't worry ; fear is rational ; no-one who matters will think the less of you for declining the opportunity (apart possibly from yourself). What people won't thank you for would be not getting proper training if you decide to start to bubble, as you sound enough a member of the caving fraternity to get the contacts you need.
LOL. That's funny and brings up an interesting point about my ancient history - I almost drowned when I was ~2 years old by running into the ocean at Black Sands Beach in Hawaii. I still to this day remember the entire event in black and white memory. I remember every bubble swirling around my eyes and the swishing of the water in my ears. Apparently, I told my mother I'd stay out of the water. I lied. I went straight for it!! Almost drowned because of it.
My brother says I'm afraid of water. Actually, I'd rather swim under it holding my breath where I feel in control. I am fearful of the surface as I could sink at any time. Odd, isn't it. Maybe you are correct and subconsciously I am craving the training. Truth be told, I would like to learn to SCUBA.
It's just the video I've seen of cave divers pushing their tanks through a squeeze makes me shiver.
You know. That's a good perspective and one I take at whatever I do.
This entire discussion pertains to 'wild caves' - not commercial caves.
Caves in the US are largely kept 'under wraps' - cavers don't discuss caves with non-cavers for fear of someone attempting to spelunk while not having a clue as to what they are doing. How it works in most grottos in the US is that the new caver comes to a few meetings so the group can gauge whether or not the new guy (or gal) is simply someone looking for thrills or to steal artifacts/cave formations from the cave - a federal offence in the US. Most cavers are fairly responsible cave stewards.
The problem arises when individuals go into caves clueless and wonder why they're injured, stuck, hurt or lost. People have gotten lost in caves and have actually successfully sued the land owner even though the land owner directly forbid or was unaware that people were entering a cave on his property. These are the same people who ignored the 'no trespassing' signs posted all over the property.
Information pertaining to a particular cave is not disseminated throughout the local community. I'm not sure on just how much of the UK is made up of soluble rock so caves can be formed but the US is so broad that entire states don't have a single cave to their name. Therefore, caves are not in the collective forefront of communities minds. Maybe in the TAG area of the US (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) they do as the TAG area has loads of caves. Maybe there are communities are more enlightened as it pertains to cave locations but I seriously doubt it. There are a handful of cave locations that do have public information pertaining to the cave - to gain entrance to those caves the person must contact the grotto currently stewarding that cave. Caves like this are usually set up on a rotational schedule so no one grotto gets burnt out stewarding that particular cave.
Here's one: http://www.necaveconservancy.org/preserves/clarksville_preserve.php See the pool of water on this page? At the bottom most edge (from our 2d perspective) of this pool of water someone drowned - his SCUBA gear prevented him from getting to the surface a mere six feet below. All the while his buddies waited above.
While information pertaining to some caves does indeed exist on the Internet, most information is not widely known. Most grottos within a karst region keep the location of caves held tightly to their chest for reasons I've explained above. Even if cave maps were readily available, reading real cave maps is not a trivial task. By the time some spelunker (not a caver) got into a situation it'd be far too late for a map to be of any use for them anyway. Spelunkers, IMNSHO, are the kind of people who don't give a rats ass about anyone else's safety or don't think of their own safety until they're in a situation.
That's why cavers have a saying about spelunkers: "Cavers rescue spelunkers."
Cavers in the US also try to maintain a high degree of conduct WRT cave owners - we want to be able to go back. We keep a dialog open with the cave owner and abide by his/her wishes as to cave-entry requirements for his/her cave. (ie: camping overnight prohibited or not). A lot of times, the choice of whether to allow cavers (or anyone, for that matter) to enter their cave is solely up to the land owner. One of the driving factors of his/her allowance to let cavers in is based upon how well he trusts the legalese on the cave entrance form most cavers must sign in order to gain entry.
And that's the way it is. Very few cave owners approve their caves for entrance without the consent form being signed by every member of the caving party.
After having said all that, I'd be very surprised if any caver sued a land owner for getting hurt in the cave they were exploring. however, if little 10 year old Johnny and friends come along and get stuck in the cave how sure are you that your home owners insurance is going to cover your butt?
Slashdot Mirror
I give that post an 0xA!
I remember a recent trip to a Tulsa, OK Starbucks after having not visited one for over 2 years. I walked in, asked the associate, "You guys have free WiFi?"
He replied, "Yeah."
I said, "Ok, I'll have %FAVORITE_DRINK% and a Scone."
He said, "Alright, that will be $7.00."
So I pony up the dough and break out my laptop. I connect to the access point and instantly hit the login screen. I ask him why there's a log in screen and he replies, "Oh, to reach the internet you gotta pay three bucks." So I ask, "So, the WiFi is free but if I want to reach the internet I gotta pay $3.00?" He says, "Yeah." (Face palm.) After a few choice words with him I folded up my stuff and left the drink and scone, untouched, on the table.
3 doors down was a local mom & pop shop that had bona-fide free Wifi. My new drink and 3 small cinnamon buns cost $3.25 and all the free "wifi + internet" I could handle. Lesson learned.
What blew my mind about this issue is this thought I had: "Why would Google want to imitate Bing?"
I use Google precisely because they're not Microsoft.
Microsoft should aspire to be more like Google. The day Google aspires to be more like Microsoft is the day I look for another search provider.
Look, until this manifesto is released in a PDF I'm not reading it.
Yup. A flick of the wrist and BAM. I hit submit before preview.
Yes, I'm this weeks poster child for "How not to post a comment on /.".
blockquote)Should google have to write warnings for all dangers? WARNING: You are about to cross the road. Our records show that this intersection has a crosswalk. Please wiat until the red hand turns into a white funny-looking guy before proceeding. Be sure to check both ways for traffic before stepping onto the road. Be aware that there may be other pedestrians crossing the road. Be sure not to collide with them. Caution! Be aware that there may be open manholes! DO NOT step on a manhole that has it's cover removed. For a full list of applicable warnings, please go to www.google.ca/pleasetiemyshoes//blockquote)
That's even worse. Providing such explicit instructions would be cannon fodder for a attorney. The mantra "Less is more" comes to mind.
Simply saying something to the effect 'These directions are provided as a courtesy. The user is fully responsible for their personal safety while using said directions. By using the directions you absolve yadda, yadda, yadda....
In short, this woman, in my humble opinion, should remove herself from the gene-pool.
OK, here's a question for you then. I understand the moon's surface is made up of a bunch of tiny particulate - "dust" is you will. This dust, as I understand, got into everything during the Apollo Moon Missions. Now, for arguments sake, let's say Japan is able to install a moon base operated wholly (locally) by robots.
What kinds of effects would the dust have upon the rails, pathways, gears and whatever other machinery is necessary to operate? I imagine that the gust would wear down the machinery and the robots might not have the ability to recognize wear and tear in such an environment - both on themselves and the machinery.
Yes.
I have a question for you. Have you ever lived outside of your own city? or have you only lived in a few cities in your life.
I travel extensively and practically know the entire eastern seaboard from Massachusetts to Florida stretching to Kansas City (in my adult life).
My Pre-adult life I spent a great deal of time in CA, HI, and CO.
I'm not one to complain about /. editors; but, come on!
This is "News for Nerds - Stuff That Matters." Did CN just hire some recent college grads that majored in Type-Writer Maintenance and wouldn't know the difference between HD Memory and computer memory?
Just....plain....stupid.
Ah, yes, I practically do. I travel a lot. A lot. So much so that I live, full time, in an RV. Being able to recognize your surroundings is a basic human trait so one can "orient" their inner mental image of their own personal map so they know where they are in relation to everything else.
Some objects, bushes included, can be center to any one particular tribes' (American, European, Asian, etc...) geography. Some peoples use more permanent objects like statues or mountains to orient themselves. But what if the jungle is so thick that you can not see these particular markers. Therefore, trees and bushes begin to take on more prominence. Also, as a mountain biker, I am constantly being exposed to new areas in the middle of the woods and routinely find myself in areas I've never been to before. I've developed a sense about new areas so I can track whether I've been to a particular section of trail before. Cruising at about 6mph to 15mph, being able to quickly inventory or locate trail-markers (whether someone else placed it or I locate my own) has become a very useful skill of mine.
So, yes, people do care. Moving this discussion to the virtual world, I also find being able to recognize areas a useful skill. Getting lost in a game world because of lazy programmers or dynamically created content such as trees not being where I expect them to be is really annoying.
Grass? Fine. Dynamically create grass. It usually can not be used as a marker unless there is a section of grass in, say, some location where it sticks out as a section of grass.
If "it" sticks out due to the rest of its surrounding then it generally can be used as a marker and should be permanently-located in the game. Put larger items in some location and leave them there.
It wasn't a byte. It was a bit. ONE bit.
It wasn't communicating properly. From the summary: ...unexpected problem in its communications stream.
FTFA:"A glitch in the flight data system, which formats information for radioing to Earth, was believed to be the problem." (Emphasis mine)
((conjecture on))
It was still communicating something...just not everything.
It sounds to me like the communications software was working OK; however, the information-payload being sent was malformed.
((conjecture off))
BTW, I've seen this kind of problem during my tenure as a US Submariner on a Fast Attack Submarine. 1 bit in a circuit board can fail from time to time. And, considering were talking about 1970's technology, micro-miniaturization wasn't used. There's NOT millions, thousands or even hundreds of ICs on a single board or chip (like today's tech). I'd lay wager that were looking at a few (if not a single) IC (if it is even an IC) that caused the problem on one board.
Computers don't run on BINARY...they run off electricity.
When they are running off of electricity they *interpret* binary and *attempt* to perform something useful.
Just like a car - It runs off of gasoline and attempts to perform something useful.
but you can't fix stupid.
Yeah, I only did it until I needed glasses. I didn't damage my arm over it.
What's this we shit? You got a mouse in your pocket?
I've been to Scotland - I took one look at haggis and I suddenly didn't feel so international anymore.
You can replace the incandescent bulb with an LED module - IIRC, it didn't cost that much, either. I found mine at a sporting goods store in the lights section.
Good hunting!
CM.COM: "OK, so we tried to fraudulently obtain money from you by lieing our asses off about your buddy trying to contact you. Here's lunch. Better now?"
Me: Shove that lunch up your ass!
Why is it that Company X defrauds someone and they only have to pay back 33% of what they collected to the victim; but, if Joe Schmo does it he gets ~1yr jail time or some such judicial or civil penalty?
Come November? Crow.
Yeah, Linkedin.com also asks for passwords to your multiple email accounts to scan them for contacts. Wow. What a gold mine that could be. If there's an email addy that they don't know or a name they don't recognize, they could start spamming them for registrations and, potentially, saying a friend or colleague provided your email address to us thinking you might be interested in joining our social club....
Seriously, check out the job boards. During your investigation you will see what real skills employers are looking for in a JAVA developer. You'll find all kinds of interesting terms to decipher and while you are decoding those you will be introduced to other supporting technologies that support a JAVA development environment that employers are also interested in. Then you can also learn about those.
You are obviously going to find a lot of great info here in this /. article and you should pay attention to most of those. However, by viewing the job boards you will notice how certain technologies will be assembled to blend with one another.
If you don't plan on moving after your education, look only for companies developing with JAVA in your area and learn about the supporting systems they use so you'll have a leg up on them when the time comes that you are able to make the leap from student to developer.
The bottom line is that by seeing what your potential future employers are interested in will allow you to tailor your education appropriately.
Don't you mean, "Fuckin' eh!! Eh."?
Interesting perspectives. Thank you for that.
LOL. That's funny and brings up an interesting point about my ancient history - I almost drowned when I was ~2 years old by running into the ocean at Black Sands Beach in Hawaii. I still to this day remember the entire event in black and white memory. I remember every bubble swirling around my eyes and the swishing of the water in my ears. Apparently, I told my mother I'd stay out of the water. I lied. I went straight for it!! Almost drowned because of it.
My brother says I'm afraid of water. Actually, I'd rather swim under it holding my breath where I feel in control. I am fearful of the surface as I could sink at any time. Odd, isn't it. Maybe you are correct and subconsciously I am craving the training. Truth be told, I would like to learn to SCUBA.
It's just the video I've seen of cave divers pushing their tanks through a squeeze makes me shiver.
Indeed!
Bourne is in the building!
You know. That's a good perspective and one I take at whatever I do.
This entire discussion pertains to 'wild caves' - not commercial caves.
Caves in the US are largely kept 'under wraps' - cavers don't discuss caves with non-cavers for fear of someone attempting to spelunk while not having a clue as to what they are doing. How it works in most grottos in the US is that the new caver comes to a few meetings so the group can gauge whether or not the new guy (or gal) is simply someone looking for thrills or to steal artifacts/cave formations from the cave - a federal offence in the US. Most cavers are fairly responsible cave stewards.
The problem arises when individuals go into caves clueless and wonder why they're injured, stuck, hurt or lost. People have gotten lost in caves and have actually successfully sued the land owner even though the land owner directly forbid or was unaware that people were entering a cave on his property. These are the same people who ignored the 'no trespassing' signs posted all over the property.
Information pertaining to a particular cave is not disseminated throughout the local community. I'm not sure on just how much of the UK is made up of soluble rock so caves can be formed but the US is so broad that entire states don't have a single cave to their name. Therefore, caves are not in the collective forefront of communities minds. Maybe in the TAG area of the US (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) they do as the TAG area has loads of caves. Maybe there are communities are more enlightened as it pertains to cave locations but I seriously doubt it. There are a handful of cave locations that do have public information pertaining to the cave - to gain entrance to those caves the person must contact the grotto currently stewarding that cave. Caves like this are usually set up on a rotational schedule so no one grotto gets burnt out stewarding that particular cave.
Here's one: http://www.necaveconservancy.org/preserves/clarksville_preserve.php
See the pool of water on this page? At the bottom most edge (from our 2d perspective) of this pool of water someone drowned - his SCUBA gear prevented him from getting to the surface a mere six feet below. All the while his buddies waited above.
While information pertaining to some caves does indeed exist on the Internet, most information is not widely known. Most grottos within a karst region keep the location of caves held tightly to their chest for reasons I've explained above. Even if cave maps were readily available, reading real cave maps is not a trivial task. By the time some spelunker (not a caver) got into a situation it'd be far too late for a map to be of any use for them anyway. Spelunkers, IMNSHO, are the kind of people who don't give a rats ass about anyone else's safety or don't think of their own safety until they're in a situation.
That's why cavers have a saying about spelunkers: "Cavers rescue spelunkers."
Cavers in the US also try to maintain a high degree of conduct WRT cave owners - we want to be able to go back. We keep a dialog open with the cave owner and abide by his/her wishes as to cave-entry requirements for his/her cave. (ie: camping overnight prohibited or not). A lot of times, the choice of whether to allow cavers (or anyone, for that matter) to enter their cave is solely up to the land owner. One of the driving factors of his/her allowance to let cavers in is based upon how well he trusts the legalese on the cave entrance form most cavers must sign in order to gain entry.
And that's the way it is. Very few cave owners approve their caves for entrance without the consent form being signed by every member of the caving party.
After having said all that, I'd be very surprised if any caver sued a land owner for getting hurt in the cave they were exploring. however, if little 10 year old Johnny and friends come along and get stuck in the cave how sure are you that your home owners insurance is going to cover your butt?