Sure, technically that's true. But in C++ ( and I'm sure other languages ) I enjoy the fact that if I'm switching on an enum, I can get compiler warnings if I forget one. if/then/else can't do that.
You might as well say that objects are just sugar for structs with function pointers and isa/super class pointers. And that functions are just sugar for goto.
Grousing about a language feature that makes doing certain classes of operations more robust just tells me you don't write much code.
Series-hybrids like the Volt are also appealing to city folk like me, who don't have a garage to recharge a pure electric car in.
As much as I'd love for my next car to be pure electric, I also love living in the city. I'm not rich, and can't afford a place with a garage or some other dedicated parking, so gas ( or some other combustible ) is it for the time being. Of course, in 50 years I'm hoping that municipal charging stations and super-efficient solar panels ( on the roof of the car ) may alleviate this a little.
You know, you're probably right. My experience with tablet PCs is mucking with my friend's -- no real time spent on it. Perhaps handwriting recognition is one of those things like voice recognition. Great in sci-fi, but no matter how good it gets, the keyboard still rules.
I'm thinking one of those dynamic on screen thumbkey systems, like MS displayed a couple years ago. But with Apple's slick touch like with the iPhone's keyboard which learns and predicts. Who knows. All that matters to me is that if such a machine does reach production, I want to be able to use it like a real computer, not a media portal.
As much as I'm a "loyal" Apple user ( I came from linux, and I do love OS X ) I will say flat out that Microsoft's handwriting input is years ahead of Apple's. Microsoft has thoroughly integrated it, with very impressive recognition and overall it *feels* right, like MS really put a lot of love into it.
As it stands today, "Ink", Apple's handwriting interface leaves a lot to be desired. In principle, it's nicely done. A good sort of floating scratch pad which you can write on, which will insert into the active doc. But, the quality of the handwriting recognition is pretty poor. God knows Apple has the resources to do this right. I'm sure there's a lot of left over experience from Newton ( if Jobs didn't fire all of those guys ), but as it stands, if Apple released a tablet with Ink it would be useless for anything but consuming media.
Frankly, I don't want to consume media. I want to use a computer, and a tablet is a nice form factor. I know I'd never write code on a tablet, but I'd like to think I *could*. I used to sketch out prototype algorithms using graffiti on a palm ( which I'd later edit/compile/etc on my desktop ), it was a nice thing to be able to do. What I don't want is a real computer which is so hobbled by bad input that it's only good for music, internet and video.
Seems to me Apple *could* do it... but who knows. Microsoft pulled it off, so, let's let competition bloom!
It's a fair enough assessment, but can be said of anybody.
My concern isn't about my particular situation, since as I said above I'm happy with my salary. My concern is about the general idea that white collar workers are just material to be used up and burned out.
I know this is Slashdot, and people like to pretend only sysadmins post here. But I have to ask, why just IT? I'm a graphic designer for a firm. I'm paid a decent salary and I like my work -- I don't have anything to complain about. But I do work weekends and late nights, all the freaking time. Much like the description of the programmer, I slog long hours implementing other people's whims.
Yes, of course I could freelance, and maybe someday I will. But, like many -- MANY -- salaried white collar workers, I put in absurd hours doing work for people who are paid 10 times as much as me and work one tenth as hard. All I want is some kind of acknowledgment for the hours I put in beyond 40.
I know people who work for aerospace who ( and this may not be normal ) get paid overtime. These people are programmers, engineers -- well educated. But if they work one minute past 40 hours, they get paid extra on top of salary. This is *great*. The employee is rewarded, and the company is punished. The company, if it sees a lot of overtime has an incentive to hire. This way, employees -- who are in fact human beings with friends and family -- get to live their lives.
My company, on the other hand, is rewarded when I have to work overtime. They get to charge the client for all my hours of work, and best of all, they get to keep that money, since I'm paid strictly as if I worked 40 per week.
But now, the slashdot conservative free market horde is going to scream that I'm a commie pinko, etc etc. I don't care, I think quality of life matters.
Democrats? Come on. This did happen with John Kerry present, but I don't think you can talk about Democrats denying civil liberties as if Republicans haven't been doing it since 2001. Both parties are lergely made up of shitbags. Don't pretend your party is innocent.
I have asked her -- IIRC her answer was that complete severing of the spinal cord has zero recovery.
Agreed about the mutilation bit. She opens up the spinal column, exposes the cord, and then uses a machine like a guillotine ( but with a blunt impactor rather than a blade ) to "bruise" the cord directly. Then she puts the poor rats back together and lets them heal.
She also does it at very particular locations for the purpose of watching the rat's hind legs regain control.
I'm not a neuroscientist -- but my girlfriend is. And I've watched her do the exact operation you described for the purpose of making illustrations for her papers ( I'm a graphic designer ). It was Gruesome. Anyway, I don't think it's that rats can heal their spinal cords. They can't. But, like us, they can heal damaged spinal cords up to a particular level of trauma, and since rats are the ubiquitous model for this reasearch, that level of trauma is reasonably well-understood.
So, a lot of this spinal work is done at that approximate trauma level; then when the rats are at different levels of healing they're "sacrificed" ( or "sacked", for short ) and then analysis of the cells at the damage point is done to better understand why that particular trauma level exists, such that ways can be determined to push it farther.
I looked at some of the tutorials yesterday, and I believe I'm going to dip my toes in this.
But. As much as I love C++ ( and I do ) the real weakness is the lack of usable closures/lambda. The parallel_for example requires you to pass a functor to execute on ranges, which is fine, it makes sense, but since you can't define the closure in the calling-scope in C++ you end up filling your namespace with one-off function objects.
This is not a critique of TBB, but rather of C++. In java I can make an anonymous subclass within function scope. In python and hell even javascript I can make anonymous functions to pass around. But in C++ I can't, and this means that my code will be ugly.
Not that this is new news. I use Boost.thread for threading right now, and most of my functors are defined privately in class scope ( which is, at the very least, not polluting my namespace ) but it's too bad that I don't have a more elegant option in C++.
That being said, Boost.lambda makes my brain hurt a little, so my complaints are really just a tempest in a teacup. If I were smarter and could really grok C++ I could probably use Boost.Lambda and this would be a non-issue.
At issue here are people -- I assume like yourself given your tone -- who believe that the government can be trusted to make the investigation and everything will be OK, so don't worry yer pretty little heads about it.
The government can only be trusted to do the right thing when we -- the citizens -- are able to watch the process.
One of the tags for this article is "slashdotliberalwhining".
Just seeing that broke my heart, makes me want to cry. What have we come to when holding our officials responsible for their actions accounts to "liberal whining"?
I know we'll never hold Bush accountable, nor Cheney nor any of the real players in this situation. But still, America is supposed to be free, and part of that is punishing police, soldiers, fbi agents, or even presidents when they break the law. The idea that somehow they are above the law, the very *idea* that they are above the law kind of obviates the whole fucking spirit of freedom and why America was founded.
Let me say this exactly once: These FBI agents are *citizens*, and so are soliders, and so are Bush and Cheney. They are not above the law.
I'm not saying this as a liberal ( though I am one ) nor as a libertarian ( though I also sort of am one ) but as a human being, and as an american. A deeply frightened and ashamed-for-my-countrymen american.
As much as I agree with your sentiment, you know as well as me that it will never happen. Cheapass trucks make way too much profit for the automakers. And Americans -- god bless us I guess -- like big shiny things. Small & efficient cars are the absolute polar opposite of the American way.
Now, since we've got our panties all in a bunch about holier-than-thou greenie-ism -- excuse me while I ride my *bicycle* home from work.
I was under the impression that ion drives used electricity to accelerate some inert gas ( xenon? ) so you still have to have a tank of propellant. I'm not griping, as this is damned cool, but it's not some sort of sci-fi pure electric space-drive.
I recall walking along a street in LA back around 2000 or 2001 and in the corner of my eye I saw a silent car roll up on my left. I turned to look at what it was and saw it was an EV-1. It was beautiful, and broke my heart a little, since GM had already made it clear the EV-1 was on its way out.
I've got a fairly efficient 7 year old 2dr hatchback with manual transmission which I only drive for trips and groceries and the like ( since I walk to work ). It's got 55k miles on it, and my hope/goal is to put at least another 50 or 60k on it, before I buy a new car. My hope is I can buy an electric, but, well, I'm pretty confident that won't happen. For two reasons:
1) I'm not rich. I'm a web designer, I made a decent living, but there's no way I'm spending more than ( in today's money ) 15-20k for a car. I don't think cars are worth that much money, since I generally prefer walking/bicyling.
2) I'm an apartment-dweller! How the hell am I going to plug the thing in at night? Admittedly, I might luck out in the future and have, say, an alley behind my apartment which I could run an extension cord to, but you can't bank on such a thing.
Probably, in 2012 or so when I buy a new car I'll get a diesel smart or something which gets 90 to 100 mpg.
I was writing from the Caribou Coffee at 17th & Pennsylvania. They had a free 1 hour token, refresh via coffee purchase WAP a while back, but now it's just free. Trist in Adams Morgan is free, too.
There's also places in Arlington, since people are bit more hip there.
Now I'm at work...
I don't have access at home, and I don't really care. When I need access on a weekend, I'm usually at a coffee shop ( like now ) anyway, and at least where I am -- DC -- there's quite a few free WAPs.
I used to have DSL at my old apartment, and I spent too much time online. Frankly, I'd rather be writing code, or reading a book. I get "enough" internet access at work. If I know I'm going to need some offline documentation, I download it when I have access and keep it around.
What it comes down to is this: When my girlfriend and I moved in together, we discussed whether internet & cable tv were worth the expense, and we decided it wasn't. It's a lot of money to -- essentially -- veg out. We'd rather spend time together, or read, or go exercise, or do something worthwhile.
Now, that being said it's saturday and I'm on slashdot from a free WAP dowtown. So, I guess it's hard to take me seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, technically that's true. But in C++ ( and I'm sure other languages ) I enjoy the fact that if I'm switching on an enum, I can get compiler warnings if I forget one. if/then/else can't do that.
You might as well say that objects are just sugar for structs with function pointers and isa/super class pointers. And that functions are just sugar for goto.
Grousing about a language feature that makes doing certain classes of operations more robust just tells me you don't write much code.
Clarke apparently described a Dalek. Well, minus the plungers.
That's why I referred to the volt as a "series hybrid".
Series-hybrids like the Volt are also appealing to city folk like me, who don't have a garage to recharge a pure electric car in.
As much as I'd love for my next car to be pure electric, I also love living in the city. I'm not rich, and can't afford a place with a garage or some other dedicated parking, so gas ( or some other combustible ) is it for the time being. Of course, in 50 years I'm hoping that municipal charging stations and super-efficient solar panels ( on the roof of the car ) may alleviate this a little.
You know, you're probably right. My experience with tablet PCs is mucking with my friend's -- no real time spent on it. Perhaps handwriting recognition is one of those things like voice recognition. Great in sci-fi, but no matter how good it gets, the keyboard still rules.
I'm thinking one of those dynamic on screen thumbkey systems, like MS displayed a couple years ago. But with Apple's slick touch like with the iPhone's keyboard which learns and predicts. Who knows. All that matters to me is that if such a machine does reach production, I want to be able to use it like a real computer, not a media portal.
As much as I'm a "loyal" Apple user ( I came from linux, and I do love OS X ) I will say flat out that Microsoft's handwriting input is years ahead of Apple's. Microsoft has thoroughly integrated it, with very impressive recognition and overall it *feels* right, like MS really put a lot of love into it.
As it stands today, "Ink", Apple's handwriting interface leaves a lot to be desired. In principle, it's nicely done. A good sort of floating scratch pad which you can write on, which will insert into the active doc. But, the quality of the handwriting recognition is pretty poor. God knows Apple has the resources to do this right. I'm sure there's a lot of left over experience from Newton ( if Jobs didn't fire all of those guys ), but as it stands, if Apple released a tablet with Ink it would be useless for anything but consuming media.
Frankly, I don't want to consume media. I want to use a computer, and a tablet is a nice form factor. I know I'd never write code on a tablet, but I'd like to think I *could*. I used to sketch out prototype algorithms using graffiti on a palm ( which I'd later edit/compile/etc on my desktop ), it was a nice thing to be able to do. What I don't want is a real computer which is so hobbled by bad input that it's only good for music, internet and video.
Seems to me Apple *could* do it... but who knows. Microsoft pulled it off, so, let's let competition bloom!
How do you propose spraying soap on the *outside* of a freaking space ship?
It's a fair enough assessment, but can be said of anybody.
My concern isn't about my particular situation, since as I said above I'm happy with my salary. My concern is about the general idea that white collar workers are just material to be used up and burned out.
I know this is Slashdot, and people like to pretend only sysadmins post here. But I have to ask, why just IT? I'm a graphic designer for a firm. I'm paid a decent salary and I like my work -- I don't have anything to complain about. But I do work weekends and late nights, all the freaking time. Much like the description of the programmer, I slog long hours implementing other people's whims.
Yes, of course I could freelance, and maybe someday I will. But, like many -- MANY -- salaried white collar workers, I put in absurd hours doing work for people who are paid 10 times as much as me and work one tenth as hard. All I want is some kind of acknowledgment for the hours I put in beyond 40.
I know people who work for aerospace who ( and this may not be normal ) get paid overtime. These people are programmers, engineers -- well educated. But if they work one minute past 40 hours, they get paid extra on top of salary. This is *great*. The employee is rewarded, and the company is punished. The company, if it sees a lot of overtime has an incentive to hire. This way, employees -- who are in fact human beings with friends and family -- get to live their lives.
My company, on the other hand, is rewarded when I have to work overtime. They get to charge the client for all my hours of work, and best of all, they get to keep that money, since I'm paid strictly as if I worked 40 per week.
But now, the slashdot conservative free market horde is going to scream that I'm a commie pinko, etc etc. I don't care, I think quality of life matters.
I know you're trolling, but get out of your parents' basement. There's more to the 3d visualization world than video games.
My mistake! I assumed you were one of Slashdot's conservative horde. I apologize.
Democrats? Come on. This did happen with John Kerry present, but I don't think you can talk about Democrats denying civil liberties as if Republicans haven't been doing it since 2001. Both parties are lergely made up of shitbags. Don't pretend your party is innocent.
I have asked her -- IIRC her answer was that complete severing of the spinal cord has zero recovery.
Agreed about the mutilation bit. She opens up the spinal column, exposes the cord, and then uses a machine like a guillotine ( but with a blunt impactor rather than a blade ) to "bruise" the cord directly. Then she puts the poor rats back together and lets them heal.
She also does it at very particular locations for the purpose of watching the rat's hind legs regain control.
I'm not a neuroscientist -- but my girlfriend is. And I've watched her do the exact operation you described for the purpose of making illustrations for her papers ( I'm a graphic designer ). It was Gruesome. Anyway, I don't think it's that rats can heal their spinal cords. They can't. But, like us, they can heal damaged spinal cords up to a particular level of trauma, and since rats are the ubiquitous model for this reasearch, that level of trauma is reasonably well-understood.
So, a lot of this spinal work is done at that approximate trauma level; then when the rats are at different levels of healing they're "sacrificed" ( or "sacked", for short ) and then analysis of the cells at the damage point is done to better understand why that particular trauma level exists, such that ways can be determined to push it farther.
You know, some people don't *want* cable. Baffling, I know. Who would have thought there could be something more important in life than staring at TV?
Choosing not to have cable is not the same thing as being unemployed. It's not like health insurance, or whatever. Cable's optional.
Baffling, I know.
I was under the impression that that's a non-standard extension to C++ in GCC.
I looked at some of the tutorials yesterday, and I believe I'm going to dip my toes in this.
But. As much as I love C++ ( and I do ) the real weakness is the lack of usable closures/lambda. The parallel_for example requires you to pass a functor to execute on ranges, which is fine, it makes sense, but since you can't define the closure in the calling-scope in C++ you end up filling your namespace with one-off function objects.
This is not a critique of TBB, but rather of C++. In java I can make an anonymous subclass within function scope. In python and hell even javascript I can make anonymous functions to pass around. But in C++ I can't, and this means that my code will be ugly.
Not that this is new news. I use Boost.thread for threading right now, and most of my functors are defined privately in class scope ( which is, at the very least, not polluting my namespace ) but it's too bad that I don't have a more elegant option in C++.
That being said, Boost.lambda makes my brain hurt a little, so my complaints are really just a tempest in a teacup. If I were smarter and could really grok C++ I could probably use Boost.Lambda and this would be a non-issue.
At issue here are people -- I assume like yourself given your tone -- who believe that the government can be trusted to make the investigation and everything will be OK, so don't worry yer pretty little heads about it.
The government can only be trusted to do the right thing when we -- the citizens -- are able to watch the process.
One of the tags for this article is "slashdotliberalwhining".
Just seeing that broke my heart, makes me want to cry. What have we come to when holding our officials responsible for their actions accounts to "liberal whining"?
I know we'll never hold Bush accountable, nor Cheney nor any of the real players in this situation. But still, America is supposed to be free, and part of that is punishing police, soldiers, fbi agents, or even presidents when they break the law. The idea that somehow they are above the law, the very *idea* that they are above the law kind of obviates the whole fucking spirit of freedom and why America was founded.
Let me say this exactly once: These FBI agents are *citizens*, and so are soliders, and so are Bush and Cheney. They are not above the law.
I'm not saying this as a liberal ( though I am one ) nor as a libertarian ( though I also sort of am one ) but as a human being, and as an american. A deeply frightened and ashamed-for-my-countrymen american.
As much as I agree with your sentiment, you know as well as me that it will never happen. Cheapass trucks make way too much profit for the automakers. And Americans -- god bless us I guess -- like big shiny things. Small & efficient cars are the absolute polar opposite of the American way.
Now, since we've got our panties all in a bunch about holier-than-thou greenie-ism -- excuse me while I ride my *bicycle* home from work.
I was under the impression that ion drives used electricity to accelerate some inert gas ( xenon? ) so you still have to have a tank of propellant. I'm not griping, as this is damned cool, but it's not some sort of sci-fi pure electric space-drive.
It seems fairly obvious that the people who are pushing for this are the type to demand that all citizens carry it at all times.
This ain't a free country, any more. And it wasn't those shifty democrats who did it, either.
I recall walking along a street in LA back around 2000 or 2001 and in the corner of my eye I saw a silent car roll up on my left. I turned to look at what it was and saw it was an EV-1. It was beautiful, and broke my heart a little, since GM had already made it clear the EV-1 was on its way out.
I've got a fairly efficient 7 year old 2dr hatchback with manual transmission which I only drive for trips and groceries and the like ( since I walk to work ). It's got 55k miles on it, and my hope/goal is to put at least another 50 or 60k on it, before I buy a new car. My hope is I can buy an electric, but, well, I'm pretty confident that won't happen. For two reasons:
1) I'm not rich. I'm a web designer, I made a decent living, but there's no way I'm spending more than ( in today's money ) 15-20k for a car. I don't think cars are worth that much money, since I generally prefer walking/bicyling.
2) I'm an apartment-dweller! How the hell am I going to plug the thing in at night? Admittedly, I might luck out in the future and have, say, an alley behind my apartment which I could run an extension cord to, but you can't bank on such a thing.
Probably, in 2012 or so when I buy a new car I'll get a diesel smart or something which gets 90 to 100 mpg.
I was writing from the Caribou Coffee at 17th & Pennsylvania. They had a free 1 hour token, refresh via coffee purchase WAP a while back, but now it's just free. Trist in Adams Morgan is free, too. There's also places in Arlington, since people are bit more hip there. Now I'm at work...
I don't have access at home, and I don't really care. When I need access on a weekend, I'm usually at a coffee shop ( like now ) anyway, and at least where I am -- DC -- there's quite a few free WAPs.
I used to have DSL at my old apartment, and I spent too much time online. Frankly, I'd rather be writing code, or reading a book. I get "enough" internet access at work. If I know I'm going to need some offline documentation, I download it when I have access and keep it around.
What it comes down to is this: When my girlfriend and I moved in together, we discussed whether internet & cable tv were worth the expense, and we decided it wasn't. It's a lot of money to -- essentially -- veg out. We'd rather spend time together, or read, or go exercise, or do something worthwhile.
Now, that being said it's saturday and I'm on slashdot from a free WAP dowtown. So, I guess it's hard to take me seriously.