I teach web design at a technical college -- have been doing so for twelve years -- and I can affirm, from considerable personal experience, that the effort involved in writing lectures notes (documentation) for other people is profoundly easy to underestimate, profoundly difficult to get right.
Writing for oneself, it's easy to believe that one's writing is effective.
Writing for others? For a mixed audience of semi-technical and non-technical laymen? That is tricky: in my experience, writing for anyone other than myself is usually more difficult (and time-consuming) than I expect.
"Jerk-Faced Butthole" is a something of regional insult, here in Minnesota.
I know two guys who use it routinely -- both Native Americans, maybe it's a native thing -- and several other people who have picked up the phrase, perhaps from those two guys.
I worked for a small non-profit organization, years ago, and I can tell you from personal insider experience that charity dinners range from "barely worth the effort" to "financially successful, but an unspoken embarrassment to all involved".
Some of these charity dinners involved Old Money from big names, and when the rich get excited about throwing a charity dinner, said charity will bend itself silly to meet their expectations.
I'm thinking of an Old West theme dinner, which involved wagon wheels, rusty mining tools, and plates piled very high with Beef (no mistaking the capital B in those heaps of meat)... and by "piled very high with Beef", I mean that I could clearly hear the low, laughing embarrassment of several dozen people realizing that there was three times as much meat on their plates than they could possibly eat.
Of course, it was "for the kids" (this was a children's medical charity) so everything was murmur-and-laugh, nobody made a fuss during the speeches. But it was obvious to me that one man's desire to live out his Western fantasies had caused a lot of food to go to waste, at five hundred bucks a plate, and that a lot of people felt not so good about themslves.
Also in attendance: the Chief of a local Indian tribe, in full Plains Warrior regalia (which... isn't that a White Man's misinterpretation of native tradition? not sure)... the tribe has done very well from casino gambling, that eagle-feather headdress looked pretty nice... the tribe donated a speedboat for the silent auction, very generous... but I remember the dark look on that man's face, as he witnessed the sight of rich white folks (in newly bought Western wear) with too much food on their plates. Can't blame him.
The Rosetta Disk fits in the palm of your hand, yet it contains over 13,000 pages of information on over 1,500 human languages. The pages are microscopically etched and then electroformed in solid nickel, a process that raises the text very slightly - about 100 nanometers - off of the surface of the disk. Each page is only 400 microns across - about the width of 5 human hairs - and can be read through a microscope at 650X as clearly as you would from print in a book. Individual pages are visible at a much lower magnification of 100X. The outer ring of text reads "Languages of the World" in eight major world languages.
Had to break the news to her that she was in fact not a vegetarian.
I assume that you did not literally have to break the news.
Rather, you wanted to break the news -- doing so felt good.
Oh yes, I have done the same, and I know that feeling well. There is something wonderfully gratifying, when calling a hypocrite on their hypocrisy, when the hypocrite in question is an ex-wife or -girlfriend. Sweet revenge! Finally!
I have sometimes found this method ("Write comments, convert to code") useful.
Might be especially useful when discussing project requirements with non-technical clients. Obviously coders can't talk code with non-coders; therefore coders must use human languages when talking with non-coders.
Schulze is putting up a one billion dollar equity stake:
To complete a deal, Mr. Schulze will likely need investors to contribute $2 billion toward a buyout, according to people familiar with the matter, which combined with his current $1 billion equity stake, would leave him with a funding hole of around $7 billion in debt.
Wikipedia doesn't go into Graeber's theory about the origin of money (coinage). In short, coins got invented as tokens representing the amount of food a soldier needs to survive for a given period of time. The army enslaves neighboring peoples, using coins to keep track of food requirements; conquered peoples are expected to provide food in return for coins. Enslaved by soldiers, people are kept enslaved by debt.
"Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period approximately 300 million years ago, which resembled and are related to the present-day dragonflies. With wingspans of up to 65 cm (2.1 ft), M. monyi is one of the largest known flying insect species; the Permian Meganeuropsis permiana is another. Meganeura were predatory, and fed on other insects, and even small amphibians.
"Controversy has prevailed as to how insects of the Carboniferous period were able to grow so large. The way oxygen is diffused through the insect's body via its tracheal breathing system puts an upper limit on body size, which prehistoric insects seem to have well exceeded. It was originally proposed (Harlé & Harlé, 1911) that Meganeura was only able to fly because the atmosphere at that time contained more oxygen than the present 20%. This theory was dismissed by fellow scientists, but has found approval more recently through further study into the relationship between gigantism and oxygen availability. If this theory is correct, these insects would have been susceptible to falling oxygen levels and certainly could not survive in our modern atmosphere. Other research indicates that insects really do breathe, with "rapid cycles of tracheal compression and expansion". Recent analysis of the flight energetics of modern insects and birds suggests that both the oxygen levels and air density provide a bound on size.
"A general problem with all oxygen-related explanations of the giant dragonflies is the circumstance that very large Meganeuridae with a wing span of 45 cm also occurred in the Upper Permian of Lodève in France, when the oxygen content of the atmosphere was already much lower than in the Carboniferous and Lower Permian.
"Bechly (2004) suggested that the lack of aerial vertebrate predators allowed pterygote insects to evolve to maximum sizes during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, maybe accelerated by an evolutionary "arms race" for increase in body size between plant-feeding Palaeodictyoptera and Meganisoptera as their predators."
(Executive mandate issued to to project leaders at a certain Company X, when the appalling failure of Outsourcing (then ten years old) became too horrible to ignore any longer.)
Consider: men can't destroy a planet's ecology, not with hydrogen bombs, not with nonreturnable bottles (remember them?). All they can do is change it. Even a featureless radioactive ball of a planet has an ecology, albeit not a complex one.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa dude, better pump the breaks ... Unreal Engine 3 is a rockin' fine gaming engine!
... Except when the editor crashes during lighting compile ... then it's a piece of worthless shit, indeed.
But when it's great, it's great! Check out my maps: handyvandal.com.
Agreed.
I teach web design at a technical college -- have been doing so for twelve years -- and I can affirm, from considerable personal experience, that the effort involved in writing lectures notes (documentation) for other people is profoundly easy to underestimate, profoundly difficult to get right.
Writing for oneself, it's easy to believe that one's writing is effective.
Writing for others? For a mixed audience of semi-technical and non-technical laymen? That is tricky: in my experience, writing for anyone other than myself is usually more difficult (and time-consuming) than I expect.
"Jerk-Faced Butthole" is a something of regional insult, here in Minnesota.
I know two guys who use it routinely -- both Native Americans, maybe it's a native thing -- and several other people who have picked up the phrase, perhaps from those two guys.
I worked for a small non-profit organization, years ago, and I can tell you from personal insider experience that charity dinners range from "barely worth the effort" to "financially successful, but an unspoken embarrassment to all involved".
Some of these charity dinners involved Old Money from big names, and when the rich get excited about throwing a charity dinner, said charity will bend itself silly to meet their expectations.
I'm thinking of an Old West theme dinner, which involved wagon wheels, rusty mining tools, and plates piled very high with Beef (no mistaking the capital B in those heaps of meat) ... and by "piled very high with Beef", I mean that I could clearly hear the low, laughing embarrassment of several dozen people realizing that there was three times as much meat on their plates than they could possibly eat.
Of course, it was "for the kids" (this was a children's medical charity) so everything was murmur-and-laugh, nobody made a fuss during the speeches. But it was obvious to me that one man's desire to live out his Western fantasies had caused a lot of food to go to waste, at five hundred bucks a plate, and that a lot of people felt not so good about themslves.
Also in attendance: the Chief of a local Indian tribe, in full Plains Warrior regalia (which ... isn't that a White Man's misinterpretation of native tradition? not sure) ... the tribe has done very well from casino gambling, that eagle-feather headdress looked pretty nice ... the tribe donated a speedboat for the silent auction, very generous ... but I remember the dark look on that man's face, as he witnessed the sight of rich white folks (in newly bought Western wear) with too much food on their plates. Can't blame him.
Link
The cattle industry will never throw away animal hides, or any other part of the animal. It all goes into some industrial process, every last scrap.
I assume that you did not literally have to break the news.
Rather, you wanted to break the news -- doing so felt good.
Oh yes, I have done the same, and I know that feeling well. There is something wonderfully gratifying, when calling a hypocrite on their hypocrisy, when the hypocrite in question is an ex-wife or -girlfriend. Sweet revenge! Finally!
I have sometimes found this method ("Write comments, convert to code") useful.
Might be especially useful when discussing project requirements with non-technical clients. Obviously coders can't talk code with non-coders; therefore coders must use human languages when talking with non-coders.
No figures for intentional fall injuries ...?
Schulze is putting up a one billion dollar equity stake:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444246904577572842651243850.html
Schulze is worth an estimated two and a half billion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_M._Schulze
Can I supersize that Lettre de Cachet into a Star Chamber ...?
It's not like sending convicts to Australia.
It's like setting up a brothel full of hot Sheilas in Australia, and inviting every bloke in the world to jet in for a beer and a bang.
Money, hell -- let's rethink debt.
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
Wikipedia doesn't go into Graeber's theory about the origin of money (coinage). In short, coins got invented as tokens representing the amount of food a soldier needs to survive for a given period of time. The army enslaves neighboring peoples, using coins to keep track of food requirements; conquered peoples are expected to provide food in return for coins. Enslaved by soldiers, people are kept enslaved by debt.
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/draft-rule.htm
http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm
Well said.
You are so right. Wish I had mod points.
Indeed.
Memo to self: NBC has a self-congratulatory tone I find annoying.
- S.T.
Please remove "specially" from the phrase "specially engineered viruses". We all understand that engineered viruses are very special.
"Specially": it's not just redundant, it has a self-congratulatory tone I find annoying.
Sincerely, the Specially Troll
"Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period approximately 300 million years ago, which resembled and are related to the present-day dragonflies. With wingspans of up to 65 cm (2.1 ft), M. monyi is one of the largest known flying insect species; the Permian Meganeuropsis permiana is another. Meganeura were predatory, and fed on other insects, and even small amphibians.
"Controversy has prevailed as to how insects of the Carboniferous period were able to grow so large. The way oxygen is diffused through the insect's body via its tracheal breathing system puts an upper limit on body size, which prehistoric insects seem to have well exceeded. It was originally proposed (Harlé & Harlé, 1911) that Meganeura was only able to fly because the atmosphere at that time contained more oxygen than the present 20%. This theory was dismissed by fellow scientists, but has found approval more recently through further study into the relationship between gigantism and oxygen availability. If this theory is correct, these insects would have been susceptible to falling oxygen levels and certainly could not survive in our modern atmosphere. Other research indicates that insects really do breathe, with "rapid cycles of tracheal compression and expansion". Recent analysis of the flight energetics of modern insects and birds suggests that both the oxygen levels and air density provide a bound on size.
"A general problem with all oxygen-related explanations of the giant dragonflies is the circumstance that very large Meganeuridae with a wing span of 45 cm also occurred in the Upper Permian of Lodève in France, when the oxygen content of the atmosphere was already much lower than in the Carboniferous and Lower Permian.
"Bechly (2004) suggested that the lack of aerial vertebrate predators allowed pterygote insects to evolve to maximum sizes during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, maybe accelerated by an evolutionary "arms race" for increase in body size between plant-feeding Palaeodictyoptera and Meganisoptera as their predators."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura
"We need to hire more A-Players."
(Executive mandate issued to to project leaders at a certain Company X, when the appalling failure of Outsourcing (then ten years old) became too horrible to ignore any longer.)
Thanks! Made me laugh!
Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman
Never mind the site cleanup. Let's brew uncommon beer.
I think AC's tend to suffer excessively negative modding, irrespective of post content. Totally anecdotal, but that's my impression.
Thank you for this clear, concise explanation. You have nicely summarized the essence of the matter (for this novice, anyway).