There are people who would give their lives for the ability to do what you shrug off so easily. Your lack of enthusiasm for the freedoms you've been blessed with is a DISGRACE and you should feel ashamed. You have brains and you've chosen not to use them, which is the most horrible thing anyone could ever do. Go read up on your elected officials and the issues that you have the ability to affect. There's really not that much to learn and it should only take you a couple of hours. It is unacceptable to either not vote or to cast an uninformed vote. The only right thing to do is to get informed and to fulfill your civic DUTY, a duty that people are DYING for even as I write this. Your lack of respect for their sacrifice is astounding. I don't give a rat's ass what your political affiliation is. I'm a liberal at heart, so I probably disagree with some of the things you and your parents believe in, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sit there and say voting isn't important enough for your time.
Way back in July? Hmm... let's see... oh, right! That was right about the time I saw fraudulent activity ON MY CHASE CREDIT CARD! Christ Almighty, is it soooo hard for companies in this country to not be idiotic and to take some f***ing care of their clients' private and sensitive information? I mean, really, is it that hard? "Oh, sorry, we just handed your entire life's story - bank account numbers, social security number, favorite dog's name - to that guy who walked in off the street... We thought he was the compliance officer. Ooops, our bad. Please forgive us." Ugh, this god damn country. Money, money, money, that's all anyone cares about. Wake me when someone in the corporate world finds some heart... oh, and a brain.
But if I'm just browsing around through hundred of documents (not spending much time in each), in multiple shared directories, looking for informative project documentation or whatnot, a few seconds can turn into a few minutes, which can turn into many minutes of lost productivity. Speed does matter. I actually *hate* how long it takes for OpenOffice to load up and open documents. It's a great product, but it's not perfect, and to say that slowness doesn't matter is pretty sad. Slow and steady does not win the race when you're talking about usability.
In order for a free market to operate properly, there needs to be competition in the marketplace. If there is only one player, then he is the one who dictates the market. Consider the specialist pits in the NYSE (the beacon of the free market economy). Pre-open, they can (and do) dictate prices way off the market, because they are the only ones setting the prices. Once the market actually opens and there are more players, the true price of the stock is determined. The specialists use this inefficiency to make their money. They exploit their positions of power. This is why the U.S. markets are quickly moving to be all electronic, automatically matching buyers and sellers without use of a middle-man (in 20 years, there will be no exchange floor and no specialists)
If there's only one car company around, then there is no choice for the workers of that company. If they want to change jobs, that involves moving to another city, most likely in another state, uprooting their families in the process. And if there's only one car company in the city they move to, they are back in the same position they were in before. So, the workers put up with their lowly status and stay put. The car companies know all this, and are able to exploit it for their benefit.
And so we have unions, which (although noble in design) are almost as bad as the companies, because they also exploit their member's positions to force through actions that may not be in the best interest of everyone involved.
How to solve this? I don't know, but I guess that's what government is there for, to look at the bigger societal picture and try to provide some sort of lifeline for its exploited citizens (minimum wage, social security, medicaid, etc.). Free market economists rail against this "welfare-state" system, but I don't know if there's any other way to remove the possibility of exploitation that exists in non-competitive free markets.
"My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night."
I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, we're all just Rooney's in training.
So, using a publicly available 3rd party API is now called "remixing?" Cool.
Re:Education Sucks in the US? That's news to me!
on
Improving Education?
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately, due to wage pressures and the inability of Congress to enact more progressive tax laws, a lot of families need both parents to work in order for them to put food on the table, leaving less time to spend with their kids. If you want more involvement of the parents, you need livable wages and an economy that puts more emphasis on family life.
Not to be blunt, but is it really that hard to learn how to administer more than one OS? I mean, I'm a developer and I'm expected to know either C++, Java or C# and their devlopment tools, or all of the above depending on the job, and usually some scripting language (Perl, Python, or C-shell variant). In addition, I'm required to know my way around any operating system I develop on, including scripting and basic administration. If I develop against a database, I need to know SQL and basic DB administration (doesn't matter which DB, I have to know them all). I'm also expected to know any middleware applications/APIs the company uses, like Tuxedo, TIBCO, or CORBA. Oh yeah, and as a developer, I'm also expected to know the business well enough that I can talk to any client or user in a knowledgeable way. If I start a job and am not an expert in everything they use, I'm expected to become an expert in a very short amount of time.
Of course, I personally love all that stuff, so I'm not complaining.
In today's world, if you're too specialized, you're easy to get rid of. The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn as much as you can. If you expect to get through your career doing the same thing over an over again, you're kidding yourself. Invest some time every week and beef up your domain knowledge. They don't call it lifelong learning for nothing!
Lots of people are calling this LA Times experiment a failure of understanding of what a Wiki should be used for. That using it for an editorial is wrong, but using it for news articles is okay.
I call bullshit.
Who are we to dictate what a Wiki should and shouldn't be used for? Just because we're accustomed to seeing it used to accumulate and summarize the combined knowledge of many people doesn't mean it can't be used to summarize the combined opinions of many people.
Just what if you could use wikis to see in a general way not only what the summarized knowledge of a subject is, but also what the summarized opinion is as well? A topic initiator would post his thoughts and then others would chime in with their own. Some people might remove opinions they disagree with and others might just add counterpoints. It's all very interesting to think about and I think the LA Times experiment was a Good Thing (TM). But, of course childish idiots from Slashdot decided to screw it up.
We sit here and rant and rave about making things more open and increasing communication and understanding between people and then certain members of our community act like asses and destroy something that's trying to do the very thing we've been preaching about.
Here's what I have to say to those who defaced this experiment in democracy.
It's not optional for the ISPs! Plus, it costs them and the government lots of time and money to do it, AND there's nothing proving that it actually helps anybody.
You're saying that I'm imposing my standard on others by letting ISPs not have to provide filtering? What kind of half-assed logic is that? I'm not imposing anything! Whether the ISP provides filtering or not doesn't affect your ability to police your own children.
No, multi-threading vs single-threading has a lot to do with the *type* of problem being solved. A lot of things that programmers write are very serial in nature, in that you have to do A before B and B before C. Only if I can do A, B, and C at the exact same time, with no interdependencies, is multi-threading truly a good solution. A compiler may be able to find some pieces of code that it can put in a separate thread, but usually not. It's up to the programmer to decide the dependencies and structure the program accordingly.
Now, the being said, some computer languages allow the programmer to more easily structure the program to be threading capable, by easily separating objects and tasks from one another, but it's still up the programmer to make the decisions.
True software development is not just about writing code. It's about organizing structured processes for solving problems and understanding the relationships between them.
Actually, his software skills are being used to bring stability to the markets. Arbitrage is almost a non-occurrence in today's markets, as hardly anyone has big price discrepancies. But even if banks do take advantage of these kinds of events, rare as they are, it actually brings the market more in line with what it should be. Removing price discrepancies through arbitrage removes instability, rather than creates it.
All investing is speculation. You can take some risk out of it by doing lots of research, but that still won't always save you. We do have trading rules and the SEC to help out in most cases, but in the end, it's all speculation, you're right.
However, that doesn't change the fact that stock markets create money flow, which is the best thing an economy can have going for it. Economies fail when money stops changing hands. Stock markets make sure that doesn't happen and there are lots of banks that risk lots of their own money to make sure things keep flowing.
The OP and all other software developers working on trading software are doing nothing close to destroying America. In fact, they're helping make it better.
Wow, dude. You obviously have some self-esteem problems if you'd waste your time putting down others on a nerd internet site. Damn, that's the low of the low.
FWIW, that list is completely useless. It doesn't take into account inflation, nor is it adjusted for the large increase in ticket prices over the years.
Descriptive variable and function names and well organized code can only do so much. Someone still has to understand how that organization scheme came to be and what the relationships are between all those variables and functions. That's where comments come in handy.
They can tell the reader the bigger picture; the reasons behind certain decisions, what relates to what and how things should work. The code itself describes the specifics of how things are done. Comments describe a general overview of the how, and more importantly, why they are done that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow...
Wow...
There are people who would give their lives for the ability to do what you shrug off so easily. Your lack of enthusiasm for the freedoms you've been blessed with is a DISGRACE and you should feel ashamed. You have brains and you've chosen not to use them, which is the most horrible thing anyone could ever do. Go read up on your elected officials and the issues that you have the ability to affect. There's really not that much to learn and it should only take you a couple of hours. It is unacceptable to either not vote or to cast an uninformed vote. The only right thing to do is to get informed and to fulfill your civic DUTY, a duty that people are DYING for even as I write this. Your lack of respect for their sacrifice is astounding. I don't give a rat's ass what your political affiliation is. I'm a liberal at heart, so I probably disagree with some of the things you and your parents believe in, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sit there and say voting isn't important enough for your time.
Way back in July? Hmm... let's see... oh, right! That was right about the time I saw fraudulent activity ON MY CHASE CREDIT CARD! Christ Almighty, is it soooo hard for companies in this country to not be idiotic and to take some f***ing care of their clients' private and sensitive information? I mean, really, is it that hard? "Oh, sorry, we just handed your entire life's story - bank account numbers, social security number, favorite dog's name - to that guy who walked in off the street... We thought he was the compliance officer. Ooops, our bad. Please forgive us." Ugh, this god damn country. Money, money, money, that's all anyone cares about. Wake me when someone in the corporate world finds some heart... oh, and a brain.
But if I'm just browsing around through hundred of documents (not spending much time in each), in multiple shared directories, looking for informative project documentation or whatnot, a few seconds can turn into a few minutes, which can turn into many minutes of lost productivity. Speed does matter. I actually *hate* how long it takes for OpenOffice to load up and open documents. It's a great product, but it's not perfect, and to say that slowness doesn't matter is pretty sad. Slow and steady does not win the race when you're talking about usability.
it's
Monty Python's Flying Circus!
decentsy
Worst. Speller. Ever.
In order for a free market to operate properly, there needs to be competition in the marketplace. If there is only one player, then he is the one who dictates the market. Consider the specialist pits in the NYSE (the beacon of the free market economy). Pre-open, they can (and do) dictate prices way off the market, because they are the only ones setting the prices. Once the market actually opens and there are more players, the true price of the stock is determined. The specialists use this inefficiency to make their money. They exploit their positions of power. This is why the U.S. markets are quickly moving to be all electronic, automatically matching buyers and sellers without use of a middle-man (in 20 years, there will be no exchange floor and no specialists)
If there's only one car company around, then there is no choice for the workers of that company. If they want to change jobs, that involves moving to another city, most likely in another state, uprooting their families in the process. And if there's only one car company in the city they move to, they are back in the same position they were in before. So, the workers put up with their lowly status and stay put. The car companies know all this, and are able to exploit it for their benefit.
And so we have unions, which (although noble in design) are almost as bad as the companies, because they also exploit their member's positions to force through actions that may not be in the best interest of everyone involved.
How to solve this? I don't know, but I guess that's what government is there for, to look at the bigger societal picture and try to provide some sort of lifeline for its exploited citizens (minimum wage, social security, medicaid, etc.). Free market economists rail against this "welfare-state" system, but I don't know if there's any other way to remove the possibility of exploitation that exists in non-competitive free markets.
"My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night."
I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, we're all just Rooney's in training.
That would also explain the huge wet dream we just had "down there."
So, using a publicly available 3rd party API is now called "remixing?" Cool.
Unfortunately, due to wage pressures and the inability of Congress to enact more progressive tax laws, a lot of families need both parents to work in order for them to put food on the table, leaving less time to spend with their kids. If you want more involvement of the parents, you need livable wages and an economy that puts more emphasis on family life.
I wonder what kind of jewelry she'll make from her newly smoking webserver...
Not to be blunt, but is it really that hard to learn how to administer more than one OS? I mean, I'm a developer and I'm expected to know either C++, Java or C# and their devlopment tools, or all of the above depending on the job, and usually some scripting language (Perl, Python, or C-shell variant). In addition, I'm required to know my way around any operating system I develop on, including scripting and basic administration. If I develop against a database, I need to know SQL and basic DB administration (doesn't matter which DB, I have to know them all). I'm also expected to know any middleware applications/APIs the company uses, like Tuxedo, TIBCO, or CORBA. Oh yeah, and as a developer, I'm also expected to know the business well enough that I can talk to any client or user in a knowledgeable way. If I start a job and am not an expert in everything they use, I'm expected to become an expert in a very short amount of time.
Of course, I personally love all that stuff, so I'm not complaining.
In today's world, if you're too specialized, you're easy to get rid of. The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn as much as you can. If you expect to get through your career doing the same thing over an over again, you're kidding yourself. Invest some time every week and beef up your domain knowledge. They don't call it lifelong learning for nothing!
I'll believe it when I see it...
You know, that whole quantum thing...
Lots of people are calling this LA Times experiment a failure of understanding of what a Wiki should be used for. That using it for an editorial is wrong, but using it for news articles is okay.
I call bullshit.
Who are we to dictate what a Wiki should and shouldn't be used for? Just because we're accustomed to seeing it used to accumulate and summarize the combined knowledge of many people doesn't mean it can't be used to summarize the combined opinions of many people.
Just what if you could use wikis to see in a general way not only what the summarized knowledge of a subject is, but also what the summarized opinion is as well? A topic initiator would post his thoughts and then others would chime in with their own. Some people might remove opinions they disagree with and others might just add counterpoints. It's all very interesting to think about and I think the LA Times experiment was a Good Thing (TM). But, of course childish idiots from Slashdot decided to screw it up.
We sit here and rant and rave about making things more open and increasing communication and understanding between people and then certain members of our community act like asses and destroy something that's trying to do the very thing we've been preaching about.
Here's what I have to say to those who defaced this experiment in democracy.
"You're a jerk, Dent. A real knee-biter."
Dood! Make sure you give a trackback link so I can comment on your comments!
It's not optional for the ISPs! Plus, it costs them and the government lots of time and money to do it, AND there's nothing proving that it actually helps anybody.
You're saying that I'm imposing my standard on others by letting ISPs not have to provide filtering? What kind of half-assed logic is that? I'm not imposing anything! Whether the ISP provides filtering or not doesn't affect your ability to police your own children.
No, multi-threading vs single-threading has a lot to do with the *type* of problem being solved. A lot of things that programmers write are very serial in nature, in that you have to do A before B and B before C. Only if I can do A, B, and C at the exact same time, with no interdependencies, is multi-threading truly a good solution. A compiler may be able to find some pieces of code that it can put in a separate thread, but usually not. It's up to the programmer to decide the dependencies and structure the program accordingly.
Now, the being said, some computer languages allow the programmer to more easily structure the program to be threading capable, by easily separating objects and tasks from one another, but it's still up the programmer to make the decisions.
True software development is not just about writing code. It's about organizing structured processes for solving problems and understanding the relationships between them.
Wait a dog garn minute, let me get this straight...
I'm going to be able to slack off from my virtual life (and say, read slashdot) while I'm slacking off from my real life playing Second Life?
Okay, and meanwhile, in Darfur...
They've already been yelling for the past couple of years...
"Kazaaaaaaaa!!!"
"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
"STFU, Dave. LOL!"
Actually, his software skills are being used to bring stability to the markets. Arbitrage is almost a non-occurrence in today's markets, as hardly anyone has big price discrepancies. But even if banks do take advantage of these kinds of events, rare as they are, it actually brings the market more in line with what it should be. Removing price discrepancies through arbitrage removes instability, rather than creates it.
All investing is speculation. You can take some risk out of it by doing lots of research, but that still won't always save you. We do have trading rules and the SEC to help out in most cases, but in the end, it's all speculation, you're right.
However, that doesn't change the fact that stock markets create money flow, which is the best thing an economy can have going for it. Economies fail when money stops changing hands. Stock markets make sure that doesn't happen and there are lots of banks that risk lots of their own money to make sure things keep flowing.
The OP and all other software developers working on trading software are doing nothing close to destroying America. In fact, they're helping make it better.
Wow, dude. You obviously have some self-esteem problems if you'd waste your time putting down others on a nerd internet site. Damn, that's the low of the low.
FWIW, that list is completely useless. It doesn't take into account inflation, nor is it adjusted for the large increase in ticket prices over the years.
Singing...
"Clippy the driving Clip.
The Clip who could drive a car.
He drives around
all over the town
Clippy the driving Clip!"
Descriptive variable and function names and well organized code can only do so much. Someone still has to understand how that organization scheme came to be and what the relationships are between all those variables and functions. That's where comments come in handy.
They can tell the reader the bigger picture; the reasons behind certain decisions, what relates to what and how things should work. The code itself describes the specifics of how things are done. Comments describe a general overview of the how, and more importantly, why they are done that way.