I've found that mental work, IT, research, teaching, etc. kills any energy for extracurricular creativity, whereas physical work may leave the body too exhausted for say, sculpting marble, but I'm generally on a creative rush after coming off of 8 hours of lifting or hammering things.
I'm about to finish up college, and I'm seriously considering jobs that won't leave my brain drained at the end of every day.
Also with physical labor, unpaid overtime is virtually unheard of, hours are generally more flexible, and you generally get a better response when complaining about your day at the bar.
"I had to reconfigure every router in the building, give me a beer."
vs.
"I spent all day setting 16 foot tall posts in 95 degree weather... better make that a whiskey."
Something to think about...
(to be fair, my experience with physical labor has been mostly in volunteer organizations, and independant projects for family friends, and my experience with mental work has been mostly in work-study student jobs, all of which are considerably cushier than their "real world" counterparts)
yes but these are proofs, not engineering calculations, there's no such thing as a margin of error when your possible answers are "yes" and "no"
while in practice, there is a grey area, the intuition of a good mathematician can still be correct even if he or she makes a few small errors in explaining it rigorously, a formal proof should still aspire to a standard of perfect rigor.
20th century mathematics has seen some pretty amazing things, but at the same time, there are very real questions as to what constitutes "proof" any more.
consider this: the hypothesis of the famous Riemann Zeta problem has been tested for trillions of different solutions, and it has held true in every case. (If you want an explanation of the Zeta problem, look elsewhere, I don't have the time)
Now that means that it's *probably* true, but nobody accepts that as mathematical proof.
On the other hand, the classification problem for finite simple groups has been rigorously solved, but the collected proof (done in bits by hundreds of mathematicians working over 30 years) is tens of thousands of pages in many different journals. given the standards of review, it is a virtual certainty that there is an error somewhere in there that hasn't been found. So, again, the solution to this problem is *probably* right, but it has been accepted as solved.
What's the difference between these two cases really? What's the difference between these and relying on computer proofs that are, again, *probably* right?
In this light, the math of the late 19th century and early 20th century was something of a golden age, modern standards of logical rigor were in place, but the big breakthroughs were still using elementary enough techniques that the proofs could be written in only a few pages, and the majority of mathematically literate readers could be expected to follow along. These days proofs run in the hundreds of pages and only a handful of hyper-specialized readers can be expected to understand, much less review them.
Yes, but the comment system is integral to the whole opperation and has been from the start. Slashdot is a small team of non-anonymous editors with very obvious axes to grind, and a large and vocal readership with a significant percentage being knowledgeable enough to add substantively to the originally relayed story.
Frequently the best comments combined will be more informative than the original article.
And frankly, I don't believe in objective reporting. Claims of objectivity by the press remind me a little too much of claims of "rationality" by fascists and other totalitarian philosophies. Claims of more or less scientific validity prevent people from being able to question your viewpoint. The best reporting is often done in editorials, where the facts are colored by an opinion that is laid bare in front of you, as opposed to regular reporting where the facts are colored by an opinion that is not immediately obvious.
In this way Fox News is actually not the worst of the bunch, sure when they talk about George Bush, it's like reading a college paper and trying to find "fair and balanced" coverage of the local team, but you know what's going on.
Re:Cha ching, reloaded.
on
Gates on Spam
·
· Score: 1
I'm sure fark.com would appreciate the efforts of some photoshopper out there to this effect...
I'm a pretty big myth geek, and if Tolkein were really trying to write mythology, then I'd have to seriously question his understanding of myth, or Jackson's understanding of Tolkein, since I haven't read the books.
Outside of some Zorastrian mythology, you virtually never see such clear cut sides of "good" and "evil" as there are in the rings movies. On occasion there will be an evil, but the hero is never the shining moral light that most of the main characters in the movies are. Read the Iliad and tell me who's good and who's evil.
If anything, these movies have an almost Christian faith in the power of an abstract good that is never questionable (for instance, why are kings so great? why is mordor so awful, aside from being ugly?) the moral compass in middle earth is boringly perfect. Aside from Boromir, not a single character goes through anything resembling a crisis of motivation or internal moral struggle. And sorry, Gollum was hammy to the extreme. Schizophrenia? How very playwriting 101; that would have been laughed at in any other movie. And as far as the Frodo-Sam struggle, I've seen more interesting "Should I stick with my friends?" dilemmas in Disney made for video sports movies.
Basically this is my complain with the story: if you take away all of the cool stuff, all of the orcs and magic and demons and whatever, you're left with three of the most boring war movies of all time. It's not impossible to tell a story about heroic people against a pretty well defined moral landscape and still have some depth. It's been done thousands of time.
I don't know what "timeless themes" people keep talking about. The only themes I was able to pick out was "attractive armies should beat unattractive armies." It seems to me Tolkein was a little too caught up in creating a very original world to do very much original with it. Either that or Jackson is one of the worst directors of all time.
Reading the series has forever been on my "to do" list but I never have. I enthusiastically sat through the first two movies, but half way through the third I thought to myself "something just isn't clicking here." Upon rewatching the first two movies, I have to say, now that the "oh wow" factor of big monsters fighting on beautiful scenery has worn off, I really didn't like these films.
And I think the reason is this: the characters do not interact with each other, and are for the most part not interesting. There's a tedious romance encountered entirely via flashback and voiceover. There's an INCREADIBLY obvious and overstated (again and again and again) little rivalry with Sam and Gollum for Frodo's attention. Aside from that the characters really have no relation to one another, they just wander together, and by the end we learn (but never really see) that they've all become the best of pals. Even more eggregious, the bad guys have no direct connection to the good guys. No character has a personal stake in what he's working toward. They're just bad, and the fellowship is working against them because they're the heroes. No further explanation is really provided.
Upon watching the third movie I realized that maybe Aragorn was reclaiming some sort of birthright or something, but why this is a really big deal (aside from the movie's vauge assertion that kings are better than other forms of leadership) is beyond me. The rest of the characters either literally wandered onto the screen with no real explanation (in the case of 3 out of 4 hobbits) and stuck with the quest just because they were nice guys, or showed up already billed as heroes around a table. I never knew who Legolas was and I never really cared.
Boromeir was pretty interesting, and the rivalry/respect he had going with Frodo and Aragorn was the only conflict between individuals that was the least bit interesting in the whole trilogy. Every other time individuals clashed with each other it was the result of an evil mage or something, and there was no ambiguity whatsoever to what was going to happen.
I voiced all of this to a friend of mine and he said that if I read the books, people's motivations would be a little more fleshed out. Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it. I'm watching these movies as movies, and they're too long and don't really make much sense.
They're certainly better than most sci fi blockbusters, I just don't think ROTK was Oscar worthy. They beat the entire Alien series hands- down. They're more consistently entertaining than the old Star Wars and way better than the new one. The first Matrix was a better movie, but the sequels were a mess of "cool" with no logic. Perhaps the fantasy / sci-fi action genre isn't for me, but the movies seem universally poorly written. I don't see why it's so hard to have interesting, believable people interacting with each other inside a fantastic environment.
Not enough info to tell if his robot is something special or not. But I can say this guy is trying waaaaay too hard to look like Johnny Depp. Nice hat.
They had one of those in the Atlanta airport in the early 90s. It would draw a crowd whenever someone would actually play it, but at $1.00 a credit (which was really really unusual back then) not many people did.
I think it's really interesting that the physics department over there seems make this sort of thing a habit. Universities are so often extremely tight penny penchers, I'm impressed that someone was able to convince the bean counters that this is worthwhile.
I think the sculpture itself is really pretty, it reminds me of De Maria's Lightning Field, another large scale installation that uses the surrounding environment.
they didn't *try* to share, but you don't usually see a single species so outgun all others that it results in rates of extinction usually reserved for massive changes in ocean chemistry or very large meteor impacts.
Actualy, you've just duck seasoned yourself: seems like over here, the "trickle down" benefits are going to India.
* I'm trying really hard to coin a new phrase: to duck season: v. to force an opponent to make your argument for you, from the classic Warner Brother's cartoons. "Duck Season!" "Wabbit Season!" etc.
I think the way this story is being discussed here reflects Slashdot's sadly narrow worldview. If it doesn't affect software engineering then it doesn't matter.
This is a wealth of poetry, folklore, and culture that is vanishing. Perhaps it's more efficient for everyone on earth to speak the languages of 3 or 4 dominant cultures, but it means that human society will be far less vibrant.
Small societies with strong senses of identity and history produce more of interest than many larger societies. Ancient Athens in the fourth century BC had a population of only aroun 60 thousand (less than 30 thousand if you only count those who were allowed to become educated) and yet the philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and political thought that it produced overwhelmingly dwarfs (for instance) the suburbs of Atlanta, which contain many times more people with a much more widespread access to education and literacy.
So yes, I'm a luddite. I think progress should always be questioned. And immediate gains in efficiency, production, and practical utility are frequently not in the long term beneficial. If all human society should aim for is production-consumption-growth then count me out, give this place back to the other animals, they were doing a much better job of sharing.
This message paid for by the society of appreciators of variety and charm over success and power. Someone find me a city-state where I can go be an olive farmer.
Or if you resent a web forum telling you how to run your sexlife, then yeah, thinkgeek.com. Or how about this take him to CompUSA or Electronics Boutique or Best Buy to pick up something basic (you need new blank CDs or something) and as soon as you see him oggling something in your price range, yank it from his hands, march to the register, say "I love you sweetie." (or "happy valentines" if at 3 months, that's a bit much) and buy it for him.
"Leasure time" is a product of the post-industrial age. In agrarian societies, leasure is tied to work. The whole community celebrates at times keyed to the harvest cycle, and the times of hardest work, are the times of the greatest group-involvement and biggest celebration.
The idea that there is separate "work" and "play" time, one where you're paid, the other where you should feel slightly guilty for not working more, comes from the factory floor, where suddenly your time is someone else's money, and productivity is a measurable quantity.
"Alienation is for the rich" - They Might Be Giants.
Re:How did this virus spread so easily?
on
SCO Offline
·
· Score: 1
Thanks in large part to the web ("would you like us to remember this password?") using a computer has become an exercise in clicking a thousand identical little-grey boxes. People SHOULD read those things, just like they should read EULAs and the 12 pages of text they're handed when going in to get their teath cleaned or to buy a VCR, but since this is the real world and people have shit to do, it doesn't happen.
Hmmmm... Despite the evils of the monopoly textbook publishing cos, I'll take an editorial process over a Slashdot style system of writing books.
With software, there's an easy check: either it works or it doesn't. With textbooks it's different, the distance between a freshman learning from a Chemistry textbook, and being able to test the things they're taught independantly is too great, and misinformation could sneak in in a major way.
Black and white textbooks with minimal illustration (only where actually useful) and paperback addendums to keep older additions useful are the answer.
I looked through my father's old chemical engineering and mathematics textbooks, and they are smaller, more concise, and better references than any single textbook I've received in my college years. I keep them on my shelf, and sell my own books back at the end of the year.
Electronic books won't sit around for my kids to find someday. In fact, I doubt very much they'll sit around past one or two ebook product cycles. Also, I doubt book publishers want to seriously deal with the threat of a textbook napster. I don't know a single college student (my self included) who wouldn't feel fully justified in taking back from those greedy bastards.
In the meantime: get an old edition, then use the library reserve or borrow a friend's copy to do the problem sets.
In the gizmo world, only Apple seems to understand this.
I'm not going to claim that they're perfect, or that they succeed all the time, or even most of the time, but honestly, they're the only people who even seem to be *trying*
Then again, get those art-school ergonomics guys to try to design a laptop whose screen doesn't contact the keyboard when closed, or a battery on an MP3 player that doesn't drain when the unit is powered down, and what do you get?
The gizmo market is about a consumer thrill... most people buy for the rush of having just bought, never using that DVD burner or what have you more than a couple of times. Few people buy electronic gadgets based on a real consideration of use and need. It's the American middle-class equivalent of gypsy jewelry.
Of course, if you're actually trying to get something simple and functional, you're kinda screwed, but minority interests generally are.
Slashdot Mirror
I've found that mental work, IT, research, teaching, etc. kills any energy for extracurricular creativity, whereas physical work may leave the body too exhausted for say, sculpting marble, but I'm generally on a creative rush after coming off of 8 hours of lifting or hammering things.
I'm about to finish up college, and I'm seriously considering jobs that won't leave my brain drained at the end of every day.
Also with physical labor, unpaid overtime is virtually unheard of, hours are generally more flexible, and you generally get a better response when complaining about your day at the bar.
"I had to reconfigure every router in the building, give me a beer."
vs.
"I spent all day setting 16 foot tall posts in 95 degree weather... better make that a whiskey."
Something to think about...
(to be fair, my experience with physical labor has been mostly in volunteer organizations, and independant projects for family friends, and my experience with mental work has been mostly in work-study student jobs, all of which are considerably cushier than their "real world" counterparts)
yes but these are proofs, not engineering calculations, there's no such thing as a margin of error when your possible answers are "yes" and "no"
while in practice, there is a grey area, the intuition of a good mathematician can still be correct even if he or she makes a few small errors in explaining it rigorously, a formal proof should still aspire to a standard of perfect rigor.
20th century mathematics has seen some pretty amazing things, but at the same time, there are very real questions as to what constitutes "proof" any more.
consider this: the hypothesis of the famous Riemann Zeta problem has been tested for trillions of different solutions, and it has held true in every case. (If you want an explanation of the Zeta problem, look elsewhere, I don't have the time)
Now that means that it's *probably* true, but nobody accepts that as mathematical proof.
On the other hand, the classification problem for finite simple groups has been rigorously solved, but the collected proof (done in bits by hundreds of mathematicians working over 30 years) is tens of thousands of pages in many different journals. given the standards of review, it is a virtual certainty that there is an error somewhere in there that hasn't been found. So, again, the solution to this problem is *probably* right, but it has been accepted as solved.
What's the difference between these two cases really? What's the difference between these and relying on computer proofs that are, again, *probably* right?
In this light, the math of the late 19th century and early 20th century was something of a golden age, modern standards of logical rigor were in place, but the big breakthroughs were still using elementary enough techniques that the proofs could be written in only a few pages, and the majority of mathematically literate readers could be expected to follow along. These days proofs run in the hundreds of pages and only a handful of hyper-specialized readers can be expected to understand, much less review them.
Yes, but the comment system is integral to the whole opperation and has been from the start. Slashdot is a small team of non-anonymous editors with very obvious axes to grind, and a large and vocal readership with a significant percentage being knowledgeable enough to add substantively to the originally relayed story.
Frequently the best comments combined will be more informative than the original article.
And frankly, I don't believe in objective reporting. Claims of objectivity by the press remind me a little too much of claims of "rationality" by fascists and other totalitarian philosophies. Claims of more or less scientific validity prevent people from being able to question your viewpoint. The best reporting is often done in editorials, where the facts are colored by an opinion that is laid bare in front of you, as opposed to regular reporting where the facts are colored by an opinion that is not immediately obvious.
In this way Fox News is actually not the worst of the bunch, sure when they talk about George Bush, it's like reading a college paper and trying to find "fair and balanced" coverage of the local team, but you know what's going on.
I'm sure fark.com would appreciate the efforts of some photoshopper out there to this effect...
So what then, the compiler is strict and rude about it? It won't adapt to admit even comonly used keywords from other, more popular languages?
"deliberately writing in a mythical style."
I'm a pretty big myth geek, and if Tolkein were really trying to write mythology, then I'd have to seriously question his understanding of myth, or Jackson's understanding of Tolkein, since I haven't read the books.
Outside of some Zorastrian mythology, you virtually never see such clear cut sides of "good" and "evil" as there are in the rings movies. On occasion there will be an evil, but the hero is never the shining moral light that most of the main characters in the movies are. Read the Iliad and tell me who's good and who's evil.
If anything, these movies have an almost Christian faith in the power of an abstract good that is never questionable (for instance, why are kings so great? why is mordor so awful, aside from being ugly?) the moral compass in middle earth is boringly perfect. Aside from Boromir, not a single character goes through anything resembling a crisis of motivation or internal moral struggle. And sorry, Gollum was hammy to the extreme. Schizophrenia? How very playwriting 101; that would have been laughed at in any other movie. And as far as the Frodo-Sam struggle, I've seen more interesting "Should I stick with my friends?" dilemmas in Disney made for video sports movies.
Basically this is my complain with the story: if you take away all of the cool stuff, all of the orcs and magic and demons and whatever, you're left with three of the most boring war movies of all time. It's not impossible to tell a story about heroic people against a pretty well defined moral landscape and still have some depth. It's been done thousands of time.
I don't know what "timeless themes" people keep talking about. The only themes I was able to pick out was "attractive armies should beat unattractive armies." It seems to me Tolkein was a little too caught up in creating a very original world to do very much original with it. Either that or Jackson is one of the worst directors of all time.
Reading the series has forever been on my "to do" list but I never have. I enthusiastically sat through the first two movies, but half way through the third I thought to myself "something just isn't clicking here." Upon rewatching the first two movies, I have to say, now that the "oh wow" factor of big monsters fighting on beautiful scenery has worn off, I really didn't like these films.
And I think the reason is this: the characters do not interact with each other, and are for the most part not interesting. There's a tedious romance encountered entirely via flashback and voiceover. There's an INCREADIBLY obvious and overstated (again and again and again) little rivalry with Sam and Gollum for Frodo's attention. Aside from that the characters really have no relation to one another, they just wander together, and by the end we learn (but never really see) that they've all become the best of pals. Even more eggregious, the bad guys have no direct connection to the good guys. No character has a personal stake in what he's working toward. They're just bad, and the fellowship is working against them because they're the heroes. No further explanation is really provided.
Upon watching the third movie I realized that maybe Aragorn was reclaiming some sort of birthright or something, but why this is a really big deal (aside from the movie's vauge assertion that kings are better than other forms of leadership) is beyond me. The rest of the characters either literally wandered onto the screen with no real explanation (in the case of 3 out of 4 hobbits) and stuck with the quest just because they were nice guys, or showed up already billed as heroes around a table. I never knew who Legolas was and I never really cared.
Boromeir was pretty interesting, and the rivalry/respect he had going with Frodo and Aragorn was the only conflict between individuals that was the least bit interesting in the whole trilogy. Every other time individuals clashed with each other it was the result of an evil mage or something, and there was no ambiguity whatsoever to what was going to happen.
I voiced all of this to a friend of mine and he said that if I read the books, people's motivations would be a little more fleshed out. Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it. I'm watching these movies as movies, and they're too long and don't really make much sense.
They're certainly better than most sci fi blockbusters, I just don't think ROTK was Oscar worthy. They beat the entire Alien series hands- down. They're more consistently entertaining than the old Star Wars and way better than the new one. The first Matrix was a better movie, but the sequels were a mess of "cool" with no logic. Perhaps the fantasy / sci-fi action genre isn't for me, but the movies seem universally poorly written. I don't see why it's so hard to have interesting, believable people interacting with each other inside a fantastic environment.
Not enough info to tell if his robot is something special or not. But I can say this guy is trying waaaaay too hard to look like Johnny Depp. Nice hat.
Agreed.
As much as it makes me smile to see Amazon getting a taste of their own medicine, this really won't be good for anyone if it actually works.
heheheh
hmmmm... snowed last night and below freezing all day here in Athens, GEORGIA, so I think you've just experienced a warm front, not global warming.
They had one of those in the Atlanta airport in the early 90s. It would draw a crowd whenever someone would actually play it, but at $1.00 a credit (which was really really unusual back then) not many people did.
I think it's really interesting that the physics department over there seems make this sort of thing a habit. Universities are so often extremely tight penny penchers, I'm impressed that someone was able to convince the bean counters that this is worthwhile.
I think the sculpture itself is really pretty, it reminds me of De Maria's Lightning Field, another large scale installation that uses the surrounding environment.
they didn't *try* to share, but you don't usually see a single species so outgun all others that it results in rates of extinction usually reserved for massive changes in ocean chemistry or very large meteor impacts.
Actualy, you've just duck seasoned yourself: seems like over here, the "trickle down" benefits are going to India.
* I'm trying really hard to coin a new phrase: to duck season: v. to force an opponent to make your argument for you, from the classic Warner Brother's cartoons. "Duck Season!" "Wabbit Season!" etc.
I think the way this story is being discussed here reflects Slashdot's sadly narrow worldview. If it doesn't affect software engineering then it doesn't matter.
This is a wealth of poetry, folklore, and culture that is vanishing. Perhaps it's more efficient for everyone on earth to speak the languages of 3 or 4 dominant cultures, but it means that human society will be far less vibrant.
Small societies with strong senses of identity and history produce more of interest than many larger societies. Ancient Athens in the fourth century BC had a population of only aroun 60 thousand (less than 30 thousand if you only count those who were allowed to become educated) and yet the philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and political thought that it produced overwhelmingly dwarfs (for instance) the suburbs of Atlanta, which contain many times more people with a much more widespread access to education and literacy.
So yes, I'm a luddite. I think progress should always be questioned. And immediate gains in efficiency, production, and practical utility are frequently not in the long term beneficial. If all human society should aim for is production-consumption-growth then count me out, give this place back to the other animals, they were doing a much better job of sharing.
This message paid for by the society of appreciators of variety and charm over success and power. Someone find me a city-state where I can go be an olive farmer.
babes in toyland
Or if you resent a web forum telling you how to run your sexlife, then yeah, thinkgeek.com. Or how about this take him to CompUSA or Electronics Boutique or Best Buy to pick up something basic (you need new blank CDs or something) and as soon as you see him oggling something in your price range, yank it from his hands, march to the register, say "I love you sweetie." (or "happy valentines" if at 3 months, that's a bit much) and buy it for him.
I wholeheartedly agree.
"Leasure time" is a product of the post-industrial age. In agrarian societies, leasure is tied to work. The whole community celebrates at times keyed to the harvest cycle, and the times of hardest work, are the times of the greatest group-involvement and biggest celebration.
The idea that there is separate "work" and "play" time, one where you're paid, the other where you should feel slightly guilty for not working more, comes from the factory floor, where suddenly your time is someone else's money, and productivity is a measurable quantity.
"Alienation is for the rich" - They Might Be Giants.
Thanks in large part to the web ("would you like us to remember this password?") using a computer has become an exercise in clicking a thousand identical little-grey boxes. People SHOULD read those things, just like they should read EULAs and the 12 pages of text they're handed when going in to get their teath cleaned or to buy a VCR, but since this is the real world and people have shit to do, it doesn't happen.
QT's license is actually the equivalent of Microsoft selling Visual Studio.
You don't pay them a percentage fee, you pay them for a developer license.
They're selling a software development environment. They're nice enough to give it away if you're making GPLed software.
I don't see what the problem is.
Open books and open collections of wisdom?
Hmmmm... Despite the evils of the monopoly textbook publishing cos, I'll take an editorial process over a Slashdot style system of writing books.
With software, there's an easy check: either it works or it doesn't. With textbooks it's different, the distance between a freshman learning from a Chemistry textbook, and being able to test the things they're taught independantly is too great, and misinformation could sneak in in a major way.
It's quite simple. Buying and renting are two distinct ideas in customers' minds. Never the twain shall meet.
No, it isn't.
Black and white textbooks with minimal illustration (only where actually useful) and paperback addendums to keep older additions useful are the answer.
I looked through my father's old chemical engineering and mathematics textbooks, and they are smaller, more concise, and better references than any single textbook I've received in my college years. I keep them on my shelf, and sell my own books back at the end of the year.
Electronic books won't sit around for my kids to find someday. In fact, I doubt very much they'll sit around past one or two ebook product cycles. Also, I doubt book publishers want to seriously deal with the threat of a textbook napster. I don't know a single college student (my self included) who wouldn't feel fully justified in taking back from those greedy bastards.
In the meantime: get an old edition, then use the library reserve or borrow a friend's copy to do the problem sets.
In the gizmo world, only Apple seems to understand this.
I'm not going to claim that they're perfect, or that they succeed all the time, or even most of the time, but honestly, they're the only people who even seem to be *trying*
Then again, get those art-school ergonomics guys to try to design a laptop whose screen doesn't contact the keyboard when closed, or a battery on an MP3 player that doesn't drain when the unit is powered down, and what do you get?
The gizmo market is about a consumer thrill... most people buy for the rush of having just bought, never using that DVD burner or what have you more than a couple of times. Few people buy electronic gadgets based on a real consideration of use and need. It's the American middle-class equivalent of gypsy jewelry.
Of course, if you're actually trying to get something simple and functional, you're kinda screwed, but minority interests generally are.