The only result of this study is the knowledge that a percentage of the people who use IM believe it to be "productive". It has no actual proof that the activity of IM actually increases productivity in a measurable way.
I've dealt with a lot of people who think IM makes them productive, and I tend to disagree.
I think that any "faithful" who can't reconcile god and evolution in their heads have problems. The system is so unutterably cool and tightly interwoven that it is far far easier to say, "God created all the plants and animals through this process called evolution" than it is to say, "God made everything out of nothing."
The fact that the latter interpretation is very popular among certain types of religious people is why they feel "bludgeoned" by the vast array of facts that in no way agree with their belief.
Yea I agree...Mind you, one of the main jobs of the warrior was always TO tank, but you were supposed to haggle out how you were going to get the monsters attention, and role play it, not just use a special ability.
Used to be you had the "rules" and you had the "setting" and they were different things. Now it's like they rolled a lot of the setting into the rules, and that doesn't do it for me.
I'm hardly a D&D purist...The best times I ever had with D&D were all in systems so hacked up the only way to tell that it was still D&D was the fact that we still used 20-sided dice.
Still I guess D&D has always been the "Starter RPG"; there are still plenty of more complex games out there.
I know; I lol'd when I saw that...You still have the spectrum, right, because it goes from good to evil and law to chaos, but you're forced to give yourself a number on the evil-o-meter to get an alignment that's not one of the primaries.
Like if +100 is LG then maybe +25 is chaotic good? Then -25 would be lawful evil?
The only thing more meaningless than a two word title (e.g. Chaotic Good) is a fricking number. (I see that thou alignment be a mere 14, I will smite thee not-quite-evil-doer!)
They simplified a lot of things. All combat actions are basically the same now, mage, warrior, cleric, whatever. You declare your attack, be it weapon, spell, whatever, roll your check vs their resist check, and if yours is higher you do damage.
No more memorized spells at all...you learn, "Otlukes flaming bunghole" you can cast it every round like you were swinging a sword.
Some abilities are "per encounter" meaning you can only use it once per combat. Others are "per day", so once per day.
I don't know. I haven't finished going through the rules yet, but I'm not pleased. A lot of things that I never thought "had to be said" are now filled in for you...like the "party role" for your class...Fighters now have "tanking" abilities that "force" the monster to attack them...What the hell is that about? Didn't everyone and their mother used to role play that? Instead of being a simple framework, D&D is more like a complete game.
Some people may be pleased with that, but to me its like someone pre-chewed my dinner.
Well, like anything else, it depends on how much hardware you want to throw at it. There are big apps out there that use Rails, though I think most of them end up regretting it.
Actually, no. "Weak" typing means that if you feed an int into a variable, and then do a string operation on it, the interpreter will run with that, and try to convert your int to string. The opposite of "weak" typing is "strong" typing; in strong typing, once the variable type is set it cannot be changed (without implicit casting) and if you mix types you will have problems.
Dynamic typing means that the interpreter handles types for you; if you put a string into a variable, it casts that variable as string. The opposite of dynamic is "static"; in static typing you declare the variable type when you declare the variable.
You can have weak static languages (C), you can have strong static languages (Java), you can have strong dynamic languages (Python), and you can have weak dynamic languages (Ruby).
While it is true that quality programming can overcome this stuff, the stark reality in the industry is that the vast majority of programming isn't high quality. It's like C; sure you can make sure you don't have overflows and null pointer problems, but we see them all the time anyway!
Far better, especially in the context of the web, to trust a language that is unable to be spoofed in that manner.
I could definitely see Python, with its ability to incorporate C libraries, bridging that sort of gap. Still, even there, you've got a solution without a problem...It'd be easy to remove some of the roadblocks between user and data, but when you do that, you're compromising security.
A strongly typed language is much less vulnerable to injection/overflow issues because it won't try and play with anything that doesn't match its strict criteria. A weakly typed language, when presented with something that doesn't "fit" will try various methods to make it fit, and this has serious security implications.
Ruby is weakly typed, and dynamically typed, which means, as a programmer, you have a huge amount of freedom in what you can feed into a variable. It also means that you can effectively give it any input maliciously, and it will try and do something with it instead of rejecting it.
Java is the opposite. It will not accept data that does not match the variable declaration, and it will not allow variables of different types to interact without an explicit cast.
It's like java, but not as fast, secure, or scalable.
It's syntax is "intuitive" which would mean good things if you were someone off the street, but for the rest of us who've spent decades working with languages that are basically C syntax, it's a p.i.t.a, and the syntax doesn't really add anything.
Rails is a cool new idea, but the implementation is horrorshow; Django got a later start and is already ahead in performance.
Huh. I guess javascript was too fast, to secure, and too well understood for Microsoft's new toy. Or maybe Active X's massive exploitable bugs have been brought under control?
I'm seriously having trouble seeing a use for this. If I can't do it in Javascript, why wouldn't I do it in Java or C#? Instead of throwing another interpreted language on the browser, I'd much rather load an applet created with a static/strongly typed language. Sure, there are all kinds of security issues, but at least they're existing, understood issues. With weakly typed Ruby, you have injection issues coupled with the features that javascript rightly cut out for security reasons.
Obviously it's a big deal for Ruby, but I can't help but think that it's a boneheaded move for Microsoft. They've spent all this time pushing.Net and then they decide they're going to hitch their new flashy webthingy to Ruby...
That puts you well into the $700 dollar territory and only covers the stuff you HAVE to have, and not even monitor, keyboard, OS, etc. I'm about to pick up a new machine myself, and since I've managed to baby my old one since before PCI-E came along and SATA got cheap, I'm going to have to replace everything, and 1K is pretty reasonable if you want multiple HDDs, a motherboard that supports RAID, and DDR3 ram.
I figure if I put ~1,500 into it I'll be able to keep it solid and current for 5 years or so with only minimal investment.
The whole "chad" thing was already a trip down stupid street. Print out a piece of paper with a big fricking box next to every name, give someone a writing utensil, and tell them to make a mark in that box.
What's the worst case scenario? They make to big a mark, and it's unclear? The same thing that would happen with those big stupid machines? At least with the paper, you'd know you screwed it up.
Waste of time. And it's not like you can't make the same stupid mistake on a touch screen. I mean, if you don't go back and check, you don't go back and check. Nothing is going to prevent that.
Where I live the requirement for electronic voting machines means that poorer areas, who can't afford enough of them have lines that routinely take hours to get through, which damn well disenfranchises people every damn election...Lot of poor people have jobs that are real understanding of a 4-hour "vote break".
Don't even try to sell it on that grounds, because there are people all over this country whose franchise would be a lot easier to exercise if they could just use a pencil and a piece of paper.
I always found it funny that, in instances where you could be using computers to remove some of the obscene rote memorization that is pretty much required in all the classes like the ones you mentioned as not "needing" computers, everyone seems to think computers are some kind of handicap.
But it's perfectly normal to have computers in math class, where what you should be learning is a process that you can apply.
Basically, in my world, all classes should be about the process. Memorize a bunch of history? Or spend time digging through it, learning how to find things out, look things up, learning how to determine a good source from a bad source.
Too much school is already about them teaching you to shut up and passively accept what they're telling you is true. We certainly don't need more of that.
It's a better indication of tampering if the election results differ wildly from the exit polls. Simply because a district doesn't go the same way from last time, doesn't mean anything, especially when the party in power has such low approval ratings.
Ideally the machine should spit out a paper confirming your choices, and you should drop that in a box on the way out the door, after you verify it. Generating a piece of paper that the voter never sees is pointless.
Now, you're probably thinking, "That sounds like a paper ballot system? Why would we pay all this money for these fancy machines when we have to basically fall back on a paper ballot system to make sure they're reliable?"
I was thinking, "Lamest game EVER", and then I thought a bit more about how it could be, and maybe framed it in terms of an RPG where you start off with a character who is a new lawyer, and you get to choose career paths, and how the courtroom scenes could be a kind of mini-game where your arguments convince the jury.
You could have stats like "knowledge" which would allow you to more accurately cite precedent to derail your opponent, and "oratory" to baffle with BS...
As you continue through your career you'd have options like moving into the DA's office, or being a defense lawyer...You could offer a "judge" option, though that would involve a whole new game mechanic...
By the time I got done thinking about it, I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. Funny how just about anything can be made into a decent video game...
The only reason that this is the case is because the RTS genre as a whole treats units as unlimited and expendable, which doesn't reflect the real world in any way, due to the actual time it takes to recruit, equip, and train a soldier.
As for paper/rock/scissors, you could you know, scout, do a little recon, figure out what the enemy is doing, rather than just trying to zerg rush/footy rush/chariot rush/insert early unit rush, whatever. I'm frankly bored with rush-style RTS games that are 100% about resource management, and not at all about actual tactics.
This sounds more like a "Myth-style" small unit tactics game, with a resource-managing strategic element.
Slashdot Mirror
The only result of this study is the knowledge that a percentage of the people who use IM believe it to be "productive". It has no actual proof that the activity of IM actually increases productivity in a measurable way.
I've dealt with a lot of people who think IM makes them productive, and I tend to disagree.
I think that any "faithful" who can't reconcile god and evolution in their heads have problems. The system is so unutterably cool and tightly interwoven that it is far far easier to say, "God created all the plants and animals through this process called evolution" than it is to say, "God made everything out of nothing."
The fact that the latter interpretation is very popular among certain types of religious people is why they feel "bludgeoned" by the vast array of facts that in no way agree with their belief.
Not at all! They'll just say, "That's micro evolution. Evolve me a giraffe in a petri dish and I'll be impressed."
It's funny how they are completely non-skeptical when it comes to their book, and how intensely skeptical they are toward things like evolution.
Yea I agree...Mind you, one of the main jobs of the warrior was always TO tank, but you were supposed to haggle out how you were going to get the monsters attention, and role play it, not just use a special ability.
I've never seen an NDA that would restrict someone from saying, "It was a bunch of big programs that took a long time to load."
Seriously. She didn't even say what language or what platform they're running on, which is more useful and easy for even a non-employee to figure out.
Used to be you had the "rules" and you had the "setting" and they were different things. Now it's like they rolled a lot of the setting into the rules, and that doesn't do it for me.
I'm hardly a D&D purist...The best times I ever had with D&D were all in systems so hacked up the only way to tell that it was still D&D was the fact that we still used 20-sided dice.
Still I guess D&D has always been the "Starter RPG"; there are still plenty of more complex games out there.
I know; I lol'd when I saw that...You still have the spectrum, right, because it goes from good to evil and law to chaos, but you're forced to give yourself a number on the evil-o-meter to get an alignment that's not one of the primaries.
Like if +100 is LG then maybe +25 is chaotic good? Then -25 would be lawful evil?
The only thing more meaningless than a two word title (e.g. Chaotic Good) is a fricking number. (I see that thou alignment be a mere 14, I will smite thee not-quite-evil-doer!)
They simplified a lot of things. All combat actions are basically the same now, mage, warrior, cleric, whatever. You declare your attack, be it weapon, spell, whatever, roll your check vs their resist check, and if yours is higher you do damage.
No more memorized spells at all...you learn, "Otlukes flaming bunghole" you can cast it every round like you were swinging a sword.
Some abilities are "per encounter" meaning you can only use it once per combat. Others are "per day", so once per day.
I don't know. I haven't finished going through the rules yet, but I'm not pleased. A lot of things that I never thought "had to be said" are now filled in for you...like the "party role" for your class...Fighters now have "tanking" abilities that "force" the monster to attack them...What the hell is that about? Didn't everyone and their mother used to role play that? Instead of being a simple framework, D&D is more like a complete game.
Some people may be pleased with that, but to me its like someone pre-chewed my dinner.
Well, like anything else, it depends on how much hardware you want to throw at it. There are big apps out there that use Rails, though I think most of them end up regretting it.
Actually, no. "Weak" typing means that if you feed an int into a variable, and then do a string operation on it, the interpreter will run with that, and try to convert your int to string. The opposite of "weak" typing is "strong" typing; in strong typing, once the variable type is set it cannot be changed (without implicit casting) and if you mix types you will have problems.
Dynamic typing means that the interpreter handles types for you; if you put a string into a variable, it casts that variable as string. The opposite of dynamic is "static"; in static typing you declare the variable type when you declare the variable.
You can have weak static languages (C), you can have strong static languages (Java), you can have strong dynamic languages (Python), and you can have weak dynamic languages (Ruby).
While it is true that quality programming can overcome this stuff, the stark reality in the industry is that the vast majority of programming isn't high quality. It's like C; sure you can make sure you don't have overflows and null pointer problems, but we see them all the time anyway!
Far better, especially in the context of the web, to trust a language that is unable to be spoofed in that manner.
I could definitely see Python, with its ability to incorporate C libraries, bridging that sort of gap. Still, even there, you've got a solution without a problem...It'd be easy to remove some of the roadblocks between user and data, but when you do that, you're compromising security.
A strongly typed language is much less vulnerable to injection/overflow issues because it won't try and play with anything that doesn't match its strict criteria. A weakly typed language, when presented with something that doesn't "fit" will try various methods to make it fit, and this has serious security implications.
Ruby is weakly typed, and dynamically typed, which means, as a programmer, you have a huge amount of freedom in what you can feed into a variable. It also means that you can effectively give it any input maliciously, and it will try and do something with it instead of rejecting it.
Java is the opposite. It will not accept data that does not match the variable declaration, and it will not allow variables of different types to interact without an explicit cast.
It's like java, but not as fast, secure, or scalable.
It's syntax is "intuitive" which would mean good things if you were someone off the street, but for the rest of us who've spent decades working with languages that are basically C syntax, it's a p.i.t.a, and the syntax doesn't really add anything.
Rails is a cool new idea, but the implementation is horrorshow; Django got a later start and is already ahead in performance.
I'm not seeing a problem.
Huh. I guess javascript was too fast, to secure, and too well understood for Microsoft's new toy. Or maybe Active X's massive exploitable bugs have been brought under control?
.Net and then they decide they're going to hitch their new flashy webthingy to Ruby...
I'm seriously having trouble seeing a use for this. If I can't do it in Javascript, why wouldn't I do it in Java or C#? Instead of throwing another interpreted language on the browser, I'd much rather load an applet created with a static/strongly typed language. Sure, there are all kinds of security issues, but at least they're existing, understood issues. With weakly typed Ruby, you have injection issues coupled with the features that javascript rightly cut out for security reasons.
Obviously it's a big deal for Ruby, but I can't help but think that it's a boneheaded move for Microsoft. They've spent all this time pushing
Motherboard: $80
CD/DVD: $50
HDD: $100
Case: $80
Soundcard: $70
That puts you well into the $700 dollar territory and only covers the stuff you HAVE to have, and not even monitor, keyboard, OS, etc. I'm about to pick up a new machine myself, and since I've managed to baby my old one since before PCI-E came along and SATA got cheap, I'm going to have to replace everything, and 1K is pretty reasonable if you want multiple HDDs, a motherboard that supports RAID, and DDR3 ram.
I figure if I put ~1,500 into it I'll be able to keep it solid and current for 5 years or so with only minimal investment.
The whole "chad" thing was already a trip down stupid street. Print out a piece of paper with a big fricking box next to every name, give someone a writing utensil, and tell them to make a mark in that box.
What's the worst case scenario? They make to big a mark, and it's unclear? The same thing that would happen with those big stupid machines? At least with the paper, you'd know you screwed it up.
Waste of time. And it's not like you can't make the same stupid mistake on a touch screen. I mean, if you don't go back and check, you don't go back and check. Nothing is going to prevent that.
Horse. Shit.
Where I live the requirement for electronic voting machines means that poorer areas, who can't afford enough of them have lines that routinely take hours to get through, which damn well disenfranchises people every damn election...Lot of poor people have jobs that are real understanding of a 4-hour "vote break".
Don't even try to sell it on that grounds, because there are people all over this country whose franchise would be a lot easier to exercise if they could just use a pencil and a piece of paper.
I always found it funny that, in instances where you could be using computers to remove some of the obscene rote memorization that is pretty much required in all the classes like the ones you mentioned as not "needing" computers, everyone seems to think computers are some kind of handicap.
But it's perfectly normal to have computers in math class, where what you should be learning is a process that you can apply.
Basically, in my world, all classes should be about the process. Memorize a bunch of history? Or spend time digging through it, learning how to find things out, look things up, learning how to determine a good source from a bad source.
Too much school is already about them teaching you to shut up and passively accept what they're telling you is true. We certainly don't need more of that.
It's a better indication of tampering if the election results differ wildly from the exit polls. Simply because a district doesn't go the same way from last time, doesn't mean anything, especially when the party in power has such low approval ratings.
Ideally the machine should spit out a paper confirming your choices, and you should drop that in a box on the way out the door, after you verify it. Generating a piece of paper that the voter never sees is pointless.
Now, you're probably thinking, "That sounds like a paper ballot system? Why would we pay all this money for these fancy machines when we have to basically fall back on a paper ballot system to make sure they're reliable?"
And that is the real question.
Too easy.
I was thinking, "Lamest game EVER", and then I thought a bit more about how it could be, and maybe framed it in terms of an RPG where you start off with a character who is a new lawyer, and you get to choose career paths, and how the courtroom scenes could be a kind of mini-game where your arguments convince the jury.
You could have stats like "knowledge" which would allow you to more accurately cite precedent to derail your opponent, and "oratory" to baffle with BS...
As you continue through your career you'd have options like moving into the DA's office, or being a defense lawyer...You could offer a "judge" option, though that would involve a whole new game mechanic...
By the time I got done thinking about it, I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. Funny how just about anything can be made into a decent video game...
Oh come on, that's awesome...It's not flamebait to call him a Hippy if his name is Hyppy!
The only reason that this is the case is because the RTS genre as a whole treats units as unlimited and expendable, which doesn't reflect the real world in any way, due to the actual time it takes to recruit, equip, and train a soldier.
As for paper/rock/scissors, you could you know, scout, do a little recon, figure out what the enemy is doing, rather than just trying to zerg rush/footy rush/chariot rush/insert early unit rush, whatever. I'm frankly bored with rush-style RTS games that are 100% about resource management, and not at all about actual tactics.
This sounds more like a "Myth-style" small unit tactics game, with a resource-managing strategic element.