I took Charles up on his challenge. Here's why: For us TWs, there aren't freeware tools out there that emulate what we're expected to use on the job. And one problem newbie/wannabee TWs have is getting the apps to establish some experience. FrameMaker, for one, is close to $800 a pop. For various reasons (expedience, venality, short-sightedness; take your pick) we're expected to know particular toolsets in addition to our general capabilities. It's like when programmers out there are told "We need a capable C++ programmer, sure, but we're using the Visual Age IDE, so you need to be experienced in that."
So Ms. Newbie TW needs to hit the ground running with FrameMaker. Swell. If she can say "I use the clone all the time to write documentation as a volunteer for an Open Source project," a savvy HR or pubs manager will realize she'll be able to port that skillset easily and quickly.
I don't know why someone would scan things like that.
Possibly because of -- assuming this is true -- the dirty little secret in my chosen profession of technical communication: PHBs will hire any incompetent nitwit who calls him/herself a "technical writer" and has a passing acquaintance with Word. Plenty of us are experienced, knowledgeable professionals, but there are some total hacks and clueless wannabees out there. And way too often, Them That Hire don't pay attention to the distinction and/or want to save a buck on salary. Why pay $50K for a technical writer when it's basically typing, right? Somebody right out school at half the salary will do nicely.
I haven't read the article yet, but I hope that Adobe's willing to reconsider their decision as the Linux market share grows. In a fluid market space, no such decision ought ever to be final.
I had great hopes that FrameMaker would help to anchor Linux that much more firmly as a "real" workplace alternative to Windows. I think a lot of us tech-scribblers who like Linux would appreciate having a much more powerful alternative to Star Office. I don't think even emacs and TeX together could give technical writers the kind of flexibility and creative and organizational control over documents that FM does -- certainly, not with the same ease of use (without absolutely fiendish tweaking, manhandling, and front-end customization).
I've pondered buying the UNIX version of FM and seeing if I can tweak Linux to play nicely with it -- that would be an act of intellectual levitation on my part -- but obviously Adobe won't support me if I'm trying to run their product on the "wrong" platform.
Well, I guess it's back to hitting my knees every night before I go to bed, praying for a freeware alternative. Maybe some hacker out there will reverse-engineer FM, look at its feature space, and make a freeware alternative. Sure, and I might get lucky with Carmen Electra.:o/
I suspect, given where mankind's motivations put its money, there's an unspoken race to see whether we have robotic combatants or robotic sex toys first.
I concede that these early stages have to be done first, but looking at this, I wonder how practical a humanoid form factor is going to be for robots. Having been brought up on too much bad science fiction, I feel distinctly uneasy at the sight of these 'droids mimicking human movement. Also, I wonder how much utility this form factor is going to have for machines. I'd rather have an autonomous vacuum cleaner look like...a vacuum cleaner.
6. Australians will and always will be able to drink Americans, English (and anyone else on the planet) under the table.
Having an ex-Spetnaz Russian friend, I'd kind of like to see a drinking contest between Aussies and Russians if he's representative. Gawd, my liver hurts.:o)
7. Foster's beer is crap
Foster's isn't my favorite either, but thank you for Sheaf Stout -- it's glorious stuff. I wish I could send you guys some Sam Adams or Allegheny Brewery Penn Pilsner or Penn Dark. Bet you'd like it.
...I want...to extend my desktop from one screen to a full 360 wraparound. Maybe even an virtual globe centering on me. Wouldn't this be a bit much? Your head and neck can't swivel thru 360 degrees in all 3 axes. You might find yourself in some strange contortions such as bending over backward, sitting with head between knees, etc.
Wouldn't that be great for programming?... Only problem I see is getting the mouse to work well under those circumstances, since it would have much farther to travel, relatively speaking.
I already use screen "wraparound" software (i.e., pointer exits left edge/reappears on right) in combination with a trackball.
I see this is posted as news, but why not create a separate story category for book reviews? Surely that's more apropos.
(And since I've raised the subject, I'd still like to see a separate category for religion | metaphysics | spirituality, since that's come up from time to time.)
Since this thread's going way off topic anyway, one thing always bothered me about the original concept of the Terminator: A cyborg that looks like five-foot-three-inch 68-yr-old Sadie Finklestein of Paramus, NJ would have a much easier time getting within killing range of Sarah Conor than a huge imposing Ahhnult. The "Sadie" could just walk up to her, say "Are you Sarah Conor, dear?" and....
What a paper tiger!
If I knew then what I know now, I'd have taken high school a whole lot less seriously. I'd have been too busy getting an education.
sometimes they are the perpetrators.
Don't believe it? Try going into a linux channel on IRC... Hell, you don't even have to go that far afield. I've been dissed right here in/. back when I had a.aol email address.
Will realtime engines ever reach the quality of raytracing at the consumer level? If we ever see raytracing happen in realtime simulations, I for one will finally find an aerial-combat simulator I can be happy with. No matter how much they say the graphics are improving, they still don't realistic enough to suit me. I want photrealism, dig?That being said...What kind of horsepower will be required to do this? Is there any supercomputer system anywhere that raytraces scenes at several frames per second?
Re:More useful books on software development
on
Death March
·
· Score: 2
...I read "The Project Survival Guide"... published by the evil empire... Gotta jump in here to say, Microsoft Press is one of the less unpalatable aspects of the Dark Dominion. If the breakup ever comes, I hope this imprint could be spun off into its own house.
'Pious' maybe? 'Spiritual,' certainly.
New Age and Native American practices are very mediagenic, as are cults and right-wing-politically-oriented fundamentalist Christian adherents. It's the hitchhiker syndrome at work: We're all too afraid to hitchhike or to pick up hitchhikers because the only hitchhiking you ever hear about is associated with some kind of incident.
It'd be easy to say 'blame the media,' but they're just doing their jobs -- why devote column-inches to reporting on mainstream Christianity? It's not terribly exciting even if it's deeply meaningful to its practicioners.
Now, as for what this woman has written, and Jon's comments about it: Color me deep skeptical, as I am of anything anybody tries to say about What the Internet Means To Us. Our wired community is still the minority, and its impact, though growing, doesn't yet touch the majority of people on this planet, for most of whom safety, food, shelter and clean water are major challenges.
I had read somewhere, at some point in the last few weeks, that the race was pretty much over, except for the fig leaf of the popular vote, due to the electors slated to choose Dubyuh over the Stiff; not one single elector in any state had pledged to any of the other guys 'n' gals. Any accuracy to this?
I hope they have one hell of a legal department and VERY deep pockets to deal with the liability issues.
This thing's deceptively simple-looking, but it's basically a twin-rotor helicopter. And though they emphasize that it's neutrally stable, got redundancy out the ying-yang, etc., the fact is, if the drive train or the blades buy it, so will you: Your flying Yuppie toy will either roll inverted and drop like a rock, start some godawful eyeball-bugging yaw rate like a washing machine on spin cycle, or shake itself to pieces in midair. Not good.
And even if it works perfectly, the FAA better jump all over pilot certification. This puppy seems to have NO INSTRUMENTATION apparent in the illustrations; I suppose it's a drag having to constantly pay attention to mundane things like dials. How do you know your fuel state? If you're dumb enough to get caught out in the dark or in fog, what in the hell are you supposed to do -- shut up and die gallantly?
Death by hubris: I see some wealthy Malcolm Forbes-wannabee CEO or twentysomething brilliant-but-stupid software developer deciding to go out on a lark, getting a little too unwound, and clean forgetting about airport approach patterns, telephone/power lines, trees, cell-phone antenna masts (nasty hard-to-see guy wires) or migratory birds (don't laugh -- a hitting 20-lb. Canadian goose at 30 kts can do one hell of a lot of damage). We've already seen NASCAR driver Davey Allison fly his brand-new Hughes 500 into a chain-link fence because he wasn't paying attention to the surface winds; the same thing can happen with this kind of aircraft. (Fixed-wing aircraft aren't much better: They don't call the vee-tailed Beech Bonanza the "fork-tailed doctor killer" for nothing.)
...is that up to four 21" monitors it'll accommodate? And what kind of shelf/counter space does that leave?If I used something like this, I'd probably also pay to have a carpenter build a clamshell around it like Darth Vader had in The Empire Strikes Back. I'd go in there, lower the access, and it's "I'm Busy, Nobody Bother Me" time. Plus with some kind of wraparound wall, there could be a LOT more task-surface area and storage space for books, etc.Now if I can just find a technical writing job at $80 an hour...
...I forgot my high-school civics. For what underlying reason (beyond "That's what the Constitution says") do we still need to use the Electoral College instead of direct popular election of a President? Heck, we went to electing Senators that way a while back and it seems to work OK.
I think I struck a nerve; sorry! I'd say you made a really wise and carefully-thought-out choice, and consequently you live happily and well. May you always do so. Playing devil's advocate - your question (alumshubby's, not The Queen's) seems to imply that "it's different once it's your own".
True, I've experienced the it's-different-when-it's-your-own epiphany despite not believing in it up till that moment. But if you choose it, raising your own little worker bee certainly is worth giving up your life for (as she puts it). You get an awful lot back.
Given my viscerally-negative reaction whenever I encounter babies or kids, how on earth could I, in good conscience, "have one to see if my reaction was different when it was mine"? I couldn't do that either. No responsible adult could. I don't know whom you're quoting, but I''m glad it's not me. It's one thing to date somebody a few times to see if you're going to like her, but it's entirely another to test-drive parenthood.My point, really, is that raising a kid can be an impediment to choosing other callings, or it can be a calling you choose in itself -- potentially every bit as satisfying as kernel hacking, in its way. The different choices you and I we made certainly prove that point. But Queen V seems to regard people as procreating rather mindlessly, and I suggest that it's not always that way. Some of us take our happy accidents and our deliberate choices very seriously.(By the way -- it seems to me investments are sacrifices. You choose to do without something now to get something else later. Sacrifices are different from waste, though.)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the TTBs will turn out to be tetrachromats in addition to their other considerable gifts.
I took Charles up on his challenge. Here's why: For us TWs, there aren't freeware tools out there that emulate what we're expected to use on the job. And one problem newbie/wannabee TWs have is getting the apps to establish some experience. FrameMaker, for one, is close to $800 a pop. For various reasons (expedience, venality, short-sightedness; take your pick) we're expected to know particular toolsets in addition to our general capabilities. It's like when programmers out there are told "We need a capable C++ programmer, sure, but we're using the Visual Age IDE, so you need to be experienced in that." So Ms. Newbie TW needs to hit the ground running with FrameMaker. Swell. If she can say "I use the clone all the time to write documentation as a volunteer for an Open Source project," a savvy HR or pubs manager will realize she'll be able to port that skillset easily and quickly.
I don't know why someone would scan things like that. Possibly because of -- assuming this is true -- the dirty little secret in my chosen profession of technical communication: PHBs will hire any incompetent nitwit who calls him/herself a "technical writer" and has a passing acquaintance with Word. Plenty of us are experienced, knowledgeable professionals, but there are some total hacks and clueless wannabees out there. And way too often, Them That Hire don't pay attention to the distinction and/or want to save a buck on salary. Why pay $50K for a technical writer when it's basically typing, right? Somebody right out school at half the salary will do nicely.
I haven't read the article yet, but I hope that Adobe's willing to reconsider their decision as the Linux market share grows. In a fluid market space, no such decision ought ever to be final. I had great hopes that FrameMaker would help to anchor Linux that much more firmly as a "real" workplace alternative to Windows. I think a lot of us tech-scribblers who like Linux would appreciate having a much more powerful alternative to Star Office. I don't think even emacs and TeX together could give technical writers the kind of flexibility and creative and organizational control over documents that FM does -- certainly, not with the same ease of use (without absolutely fiendish tweaking, manhandling, and front-end customization). I've pondered buying the UNIX version of FM and seeing if I can tweak Linux to play nicely with it -- that would be an act of intellectual levitation on my part -- but obviously Adobe won't support me if I'm trying to run their product on the "wrong" platform. Well, I guess it's back to hitting my knees every night before I go to bed, praying for a freeware alternative. Maybe some hacker out there will reverse-engineer FM, look at its feature space, and make a freeware alternative. Sure, and I might get lucky with Carmen Electra. :o/
I looked at the video. Where's the tail rotor to keep this thing from counterrotating?
I suspect, given where mankind's motivations put its money, there's an unspoken race to see whether we have robotic combatants or robotic sex toys first.
I concede that these early stages have to be done first, but looking at this, I wonder how practical a humanoid form factor is going to be for robots. Having been brought up on too much bad science fiction, I feel distinctly uneasy at the sight of these 'droids mimicking human movement. Also, I wonder how much utility this form factor is going to have for machines. I'd rather have an autonomous vacuum cleaner look like...a vacuum cleaner.
6. Australians will and always will be able to drink Americans, English (and anyone else on the planet) under the table. Having an ex-Spetnaz Russian friend, I'd kind of like to see a drinking contest between Aussies and Russians if he's representative. Gawd, my liver hurts. :o)
7. Foster's beer is crap
Foster's isn't my favorite either, but thank you for Sheaf Stout -- it's glorious stuff. I wish I could send you guys some Sam Adams or Allegheny Brewery Penn Pilsner or Penn Dark. Bet you'd like it.
...I want...to extend my desktop from one screen to a full 360 wraparound. Maybe even an virtual globe centering on me. Wouldn't this be a bit much? Your head and neck can't swivel thru 360 degrees in all 3 axes. You might find yourself in some strange contortions such as bending over backward, sitting with head between knees, etc. Wouldn't that be great for programming? ... Only problem I see is getting the mouse to work well under those circumstances, since it would have much farther to travel, relatively speaking.
I already use screen "wraparound" software (i.e., pointer exits left edge/reappears on right) in combination with a trackball.
I see this is posted as news, but why not create a separate story category for book reviews? Surely that's more apropos. (And since I've raised the subject, I'd still like to see a separate category for religion | metaphysics | spirituality, since that's come up from time to time.)
Since this thread's going way off topic anyway, one thing always bothered me about the original concept of the Terminator: A cyborg that looks like five-foot-three-inch 68-yr-old Sadie Finklestein of Paramus, NJ would have a much easier time getting within killing range of Sarah Conor than a huge imposing Ahhnult. The "Sadie" could just walk up to her, say "Are you Sarah Conor, dear?" and....
What a paper tiger! If I knew then what I know now, I'd have taken high school a whole lot less seriously. I'd have been too busy getting an education.
sometimes they are the perpetrators. Don't believe it? Try going into a linux channel on IRC... Hell, you don't even have to go that far afield. I've been dissed right here in /. back when I had a .aol email address.
Will realtime engines ever reach the quality of raytracing at the consumer level? If we ever see raytracing happen in realtime simulations, I for one will finally find an aerial-combat simulator I can be happy with. No matter how much they say the graphics are improving, they still don't realistic enough to suit me. I want photrealism, dig?That being said...What kind of horsepower will be required to do this? Is there any supercomputer system anywhere that raytraces scenes at several frames per second?
...I read "The Project Survival Guide" ... published by the evil empire... Gotta jump in here to say, Microsoft Press is one of the less unpalatable aspects of the Dark Dominion. If the breakup ever comes, I hope this imprint could be spun off into its own house.
'Pious' maybe? 'Spiritual,' certainly. New Age and Native American practices are very mediagenic, as are cults and right-wing-politically-oriented fundamentalist Christian adherents. It's the hitchhiker syndrome at work: We're all too afraid to hitchhike or to pick up hitchhikers because the only hitchhiking you ever hear about is associated with some kind of incident. It'd be easy to say 'blame the media,' but they're just doing their jobs -- why devote column-inches to reporting on mainstream Christianity? It's not terribly exciting even if it's deeply meaningful to its practicioners. Now, as for what this woman has written, and Jon's comments about it: Color me deep skeptical, as I am of anything anybody tries to say about What the Internet Means To Us. Our wired community is still the minority, and its impact, though growing, doesn't yet touch the majority of people on this planet, for most of whom safety, food, shelter and clean water are major challenges.
I bet you had a problem with the guy who took a 12-gauge to his PC case, too.
I had read somewhere, at some point in the last few weeks, that the race was pretty much over, except for the fig leaf of the popular vote, due to the electors slated to choose Dubyuh over the Stiff; not one single elector in any state had pledged to any of the other guys 'n' gals. Any accuracy to this?
I hope they have one hell of a legal department and VERY deep pockets to deal with the liability issues. This thing's deceptively simple-looking, but it's basically a twin-rotor helicopter. And though they emphasize that it's neutrally stable, got redundancy out the ying-yang, etc., the fact is, if the drive train or the blades buy it, so will you: Your flying Yuppie toy will either roll inverted and drop like a rock, start some godawful eyeball-bugging yaw rate like a washing machine on spin cycle, or shake itself to pieces in midair. Not good. And even if it works perfectly, the FAA better jump all over pilot certification. This puppy seems to have NO INSTRUMENTATION apparent in the illustrations; I suppose it's a drag having to constantly pay attention to mundane things like dials. How do you know your fuel state? If you're dumb enough to get caught out in the dark or in fog, what in the hell are you supposed to do -- shut up and die gallantly? Death by hubris: I see some wealthy Malcolm Forbes-wannabee CEO or twentysomething brilliant-but-stupid software developer deciding to go out on a lark, getting a little too unwound, and clean forgetting about airport approach patterns, telephone/power lines, trees, cell-phone antenna masts (nasty hard-to-see guy wires) or migratory birds (don't laugh -- a hitting 20-lb. Canadian goose at 30 kts can do one hell of a lot of damage). We've already seen NASCAR driver Davey Allison fly his brand-new Hughes 500 into a chain-link fence because he wasn't paying attention to the surface winds; the same thing can happen with this kind of aircraft. (Fixed-wing aircraft aren't much better: They don't call the vee-tailed Beech Bonanza the "fork-tailed doctor killer" for nothing.)
"A cynic sees the cost of everything and the value of nothing." -- anonymous
Don't even bother. Jesse Ventura pitched a third-party candidacy McCain/Ventura candidacy to him, and Mr. McCain preferred to remain a Republican.
...is that up to four 21" monitors it'll accommodate? And what kind of shelf/counter space does that leave?If I used something like this, I'd probably also pay to have a carpenter build a clamshell around it like Darth Vader had in The Empire Strikes Back. I'd go in there, lower the access, and it's "I'm Busy, Nobody Bother Me" time. Plus with some kind of wraparound wall, there could be a LOT more task-surface area and storage space for books, etc.Now if I can just find a technical writing job at $80 an hour...
...I forgot my high-school civics. For what underlying reason (beyond "That's what the Constitution says") do we still need to use the Electoral College instead of direct popular election of a President? Heck, we went to electing Senators that way a while back and it seems to work OK.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the Slashdot forum is explained to Dubyuh...
True, I've experienced the it's-different-when-it's-your-own epiphany despite not believing in it up till that moment. But if you choose it, raising your own little worker bee certainly is worth giving up your life for (as she puts it). You get an awful lot back.
Given my viscerally-negative reaction whenever I encounter babies or kids, how on earth could I, in good conscience, "have one to see if my reaction was different when it was mine"? I couldn't do that either. No responsible adult could. I don't know whom you're quoting, but I''m glad it's not me. It's one thing to date somebody a few times to see if you're going to like her, but it's entirely another to test-drive parenthood.My point, really, is that raising a kid can be an impediment to choosing other callings, or it can be a calling you choose in itself -- potentially every bit as satisfying as kernel hacking, in its way. The different choices you and I we made certainly prove that point. But Queen V seems to regard people as procreating rather mindlessly, and I suggest that it's not always that way. Some of us take our happy accidents and our deliberate choices very seriously.(By the way -- it seems to me investments are sacrifices. You choose to do without something now to get something else later. Sacrifices are different from waste, though.)