Which is one of the reasons we need serious campaign finance reform.
Corporate donations should be out, as should corporate lobbying.
Lobbying should be funded solely with private donations that are capped. If you want to do more yourself, then lobby yourself, but organisations should be limited.
And I'd like to make campaigning limited to local funds. I don't want funds from New England rich boys or Texas oil tycoons funding political ads in my state. If you want to campaign for a federal office (House, Senate, or Presidency) in my state, then you should have to have the funding come from MY STATE. If you can't raise funds here for your advertising, well, too bad.
Imagine what THAT would do to corporations. It would strip their power to screw over the average citizen. Then, perhaps, politicians might actually have to listen to their home base, instead of big oil or big media.
The problem, as I see it, is that instant communication often results in managers demanding instant responses. While they can bring up reports quickly that simply pull in the facts and figures stored in a system, asking the analysis to work that way is ridiculous. Yet it happens.
On many projects I have seen lately, there's an expectation, particularly of tech workers, to be able to come up with something immediately. If a project is two weeks' worth of work, then two continguous weeks is plenty of time to do it. They fail to understand the need to plan, look over things with fresh eyes, and plan some more. I have seen too many projects get sidelined by poor planning, and effectively getting redone or shelved, at great cost.
People are not binary supercomputers. If they were, well, we wouldn't need them to look at things. Yet management treats all resources as instant response resources.
If management will continue to consider resources the same, they need to know that the garbage collection in the human brain is bad. There are memory leaks everywhere, and so starting and stopping tons of processes a day results in highly consumed resources, and little productivity.
Of course, any semi-decent manager would know that. Unfortunately, they're often kept in check by sociopaths who run companies.
This sounds like a job wherein I'd never have to use my brain. Is this some kind of civil service position? What are the requirements to get this job? Can I get a work permit if I show that I'm qualified to understand the difference between pirated and simply copied software? (You'd think they'd spend more time cracking down on the people selling on eBay.co.uk, right?)
If the policy for determining such things is the matter of the number of homophobic morons, well, you may want to consider avoiding a great many place in North America, and well as many locales in South America, Africa, Asia, etc.
In fact, well, that would limit a lot of places for you.
The reality is that a game shouldn't be judged like that. It's a game, and it has people. And people are dumb. This is a measure of crowd control. Much like at my job, I don't really care if you're straight or gay, but if you start flaunting it, either way, you get nailed for sexual harassment.
I would love to see better education and enlightenment regarding homosexuality. in society. That would be fantastic. But it ain't happening anytime soon, and I'm not about to think that avoiding things, or creating unconstructive trouble, is going to help.
I'll probably get modded as flamebait, but this argument smacks entirely of the whole 'Fear of Girls' video kind of situation, but in reverse.
Instead of a bunch of people deciding to yank role-playing into their lives, the decided to spend their time in MMORPGs and inject their real lives into role-playing.
Last I checked, WoW didn't have sexual orientation, and Christian beliefs weren't part of the fundamental makeup of multiverse created by Blizzard. If you want to role-play, then role-play and enjoy. If you need to socialise and engage in some kind of group therapy, then seek out a professional.
There is nothing more frustrating, IMHO, that people who usurp a perfectly good RPG to substitute for their real-life needs. Your real personality will of course affect your choices in the game, but it's still a game. If you can't handle that, log off, and go seek some help.
I was asked to explain my personal stance, and more/less accused of not seeing a reason to teach randomness. I figured I answered that fairly well.
My personal beliefs as apply to my daily life, however, and not up for debate. I have no interest in engaging in a philosophical debate over whether or not there is a divine presence.
Scientifically, I cannot see any reason why there isn't randomness in the chain of events. But then again, the concepts behind evolution, natural selection, and so on, have less to do with random events, and more to do with the criteria for survival. If attribute x with a value of 19 means that I will have three more offspring, then no matter how the value is obtained, random or now, natural selection will kick in, and I will have three more offspring, and that trait is more likely to be selected for.
An assumption that someone who believes in a creator is necessarily Christian, or has a belief that such a creator has set everything in motion in a predetermined manner is foolish. Perhaps the creator set certain events in motion, set key triggers for events to happen, and turned on a randomiser (often referred to as free will, chance, etc.). Eventually, those events and items should happen. But when and how exactly? Well, that's the fun thing to watch and see.
I do not count myself amongst being a 'creationist', given that I'm a staunch proponent of teaching evolution, and staunchly against teaching 'creationism'. Science is science. In a formalised environment, I would never suggest mixing the two. But if one realm reinforces you belief in another, then that is good for you. If not, that is also good.
Major proponents of both sides, that like to shout more than listen, are trying to force all kinds of views. This is common in all humanity.
All people who do anything have an agenda. So pointing out that government-backed education has an agenda is no different that fighting against government-backed anything.
Your view seems to be that people are all sheep, except yourself and your enlightened friends. Again, another agenda, another vocal argument pushing another way of life.
Except, how do I know that you're not some sheep yourself?
Loud arguments mean little, as most of the drivel posts on a topic dealing with religion tend to be. Arguments with real support, factual or anecdotal, show thought.
Attempts to show that the emporer has no clothes, using imperial-style arguments, will be met with mocking of your own nudity.
Too many times, evolution is not taught solely to the theory, but with a bunch of extra hypotheses thrown in, based on the flavour of the day research, and there is no caveat made regarding that.
If more parents knew what was and wasn't in the theory itself, then fewer would oppose the teaching of the theory, or moreover, would not push for some alternative being taught.
I firmly believe that the Theory of Evolution should be taught in our science classes. But we do need to be firm in how it is taught. There are aspects that are not part of the theory that get taught. Can evolution explain everything with certainty? No. However, do we see evolution happen? Yes. Can we look at fossil records and infer evolution happening? Yes.
The problem is that we have shitty textbooks and teachers who don't really understand the scope and limits of the theory, and so they can't teach it well. And that is when you start to find some serious dogmatic clashes happening.
This seems to happen everywhere. Mostly people think that a certain idea, that perhaps has little scientific basis, should be taught in school, when they support the idea.
I believe in a creator. Sure. But should creation be taught in a science class? No. Why?
Because I know that somehow my religious beliefs that I want to teach to my children will not be taught according to how I believe. Worse off would be if they were completely opposed, like someone teaching creation by that damn spaghetti monster.
Keep science to science. Start teaching classes that encourage people to look at other viewpoints and learn to see the downsides of their own arguments. Only then will a generation gain the wisdom to not think this is such a great idea.
Well, this will be a nice change if IE7 is going to play nice.
For work, I guess I will still have to plan workarounds for IE6. However, I generally only support such browsers officially as long as they receive actual support from their publishers. So, as soon as MS drops support for IE6, so will I (unless I'm ordered to keep it up).
Personally, I code to whatever standard I've chosen for the day. If I decided to code to CSS 2.1 and I can see it properly in my browser, well, then I'm happy. Because it's my personal stuff. And if IE7 supports something and IE6 doesn't, well too bad. And same goes for Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, and Opera (although it'll be rare that Opera causes me problems, except when a version has tried to pretend it was IE, but that was work anyway).
Mostly now, since I've grown into being some lazy business analyst with a messy house under renovation, I just blog anyway.
People are better teachers
on
Chess for Kids?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I don't know where you live, but I'm sure that your six year old is not interested in sitting in front of a programme as much as sitting with people. You may not be the greatest chess player ever, but I'm sure you're more social than the machine.
If your child starts to beat you regularly, then it's time to start finding new opponents. There are some places where people do actually meet and play chess. Take a look around. See if anyone you know plays as well.
Starting to look for software right away is similar to using the television as a babysitter. Yes, the child will learn something, but will also not learn plenty of other things.
The Sentinel is a piece of shit rag. The Patriot-News is somewhat better, but it's still not great. What they don't tell you about is that although these guys may have been gamers, the area, despite growth, is a bastion of rednecks.
Domestic violence is a big problem. The local government sucks. So, I'm not surprised. So these guys had different interests than going deer hunting. So they get singled out. (Yes, this area still shuts down schools for the first day of deer season.)
The fact that Dateline is picking this up says even more. It wasn't on any real news, just NBC's crappy psuedo-news show. Yeah, play to magic-loving Christological un-educated rednecks!
Just to point out, this is the same basic region in which they tried to ram intelligent design down students'/teachers' throats not so long ago.
I'm just waiting for the notebook manufacturers out there to start cloning the Apple machines, and stick a cooler processor in with a bigger battery. The specs for the Apple machines aren't unknown, and they are using mostly market pieces.
Yeah, I won't have an Apple that lights up, but I won't be paying the Apple toll for the same hardware either. And, chances are, I'll be able to use OS X.n anyway.
And what kind of AMD laptop do you have? What processor do you have stuck in there? I know that a lot of people buy the wrong processor when they want something to run cool. That's one reason why the Pentium M keeps going well.
On the 64-bit side of things, most retail companies continue to sell the Turion ML series, for which the processor costs $5 less that the MT, but uses another 10w of power. When it comes to running cool, this makes a huge difference. Hence, why my wife's laptop was built into an MSI notebook with a MT chip. Much cooler. Makes my old Pentium Celeron seem exceedingly hot, and runs about the same as my Pentium M from work. Moreover, processing-wise, her machine kicks my work machine's ass.
Without a spell checker of some kind, I think it's not so easy to be certain.
Some of us, well, we get to the point that our fingers are used to typing others words more often. I do this all the time, and I have to be very, very alert in order to catch everything. I would not be surprised if Rob has the same issues I do (and many co-workers over the years do).
I'm sure we're all aware of how important syntax and grammar is, and particularly when it comes lasting documents, it is very important. But the concept of this is as simply feedback is erroneous. We do not all have time to work on checking our spelling constantly. Many of us are (surprise, surprise) not coders, and not writing on systems that lack spell check regularly. So we don't have to be so anal about it.
If you want precision on everything, Slashdot is not the place to be. Like all forums, everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
And various forms of completition totally describes my projects, both being incomplete and of competing interest.
I've been in similar situations and currently work for a Fortune 500 company. My personal preference would be to work somewhere smaller, and since I don't know the scales of the places you're looking at, maybe this would make a difference.
I've worked for a number of start ups and worked with top-tier clients. It's stressful, but can be fun if you succeed. If you work for a large corporation engaging with a Fortune 10 company, you'll have resources, but probably a fair amount of bureaucracy. You'll also encounter power-jockeying, though how often is dependent on the corporate culture (but it pretty much exists across the board). If you work for a small place, you will likely have to plan exceptionally well, and prepare to work really long hours when your client changes their mind, because it WILL happen.
If you work in education, it can be the same. Generally, aside from specific projects, you won't likely have to do lots of extra support. You tend to have a slow time of the year in which you can solidify your systems and prepare for students hammering things. Of course, it depends on who's using your network. Since we're talking Unix Admin, I don't expect you to get the 11 pm calls from the Dean or Chancellor or whomever to fix their VPN, but it can happen depending on the architecture. As mentioned elsewhere, if it's public, salaries tend to be lower, but some of the benefits are great. It's also usually a bit higher on the bureaucracy, but less cutthroat. Private, well, salaries are better, but don't screw up or let some user screw your system. Large places have resources, smaller will let you have more control, usually.
I miss when I used to work in a small university setting. It was fun, I knew the faculty, and problems were easily resolved. The pay sucked, but the benefits were good. It was probably the happiest job I ever had. But as I'm married and we're paying off debts before we have kids, I have the stressful job for now.
Hmm... Given the push for energy independence, why doesn't the U.S. government simply claim eminent domain, pay out for the whopping three or four remainin years left on the patent at a 'fair market rate' and make the information pure public domain.
I would not bet on PS3 sales being all that high in Japan. It depends on how reactions go. If Microsoft were to be smart, they'd start pushing out RPGs and other market appropriate games ASAP.
The PS3 is set for market in May if everything goes well, which I doubt. I would say more likely August, which starts to push it into Nintendo's timeline.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm amazed at how everyone ignores the word serious. That means that people who aren't just doing it for appearance would have to work on it.
Yeah, campaign finance reform has been nominally put in place. But not really, ever.
Which is one of the reasons we need serious campaign finance reform.
Corporate donations should be out, as should corporate lobbying.
Lobbying should be funded solely with private donations that are capped. If you want to do more yourself, then lobby yourself, but organisations should be limited.
And I'd like to make campaigning limited to local funds. I don't want funds from New England rich boys or Texas oil tycoons funding political ads in my state. If you want to campaign for a federal office (House, Senate, or Presidency) in my state, then you should have to have the funding come from MY STATE. If you can't raise funds here for your advertising, well, too bad.
Imagine what THAT would do to corporations. It would strip their power to screw over the average citizen. Then, perhaps, politicians might actually have to listen to their home base, instead of big oil or big media.
The problem, as I see it, is that instant communication often results in managers demanding instant responses. While they can bring up reports quickly that simply pull in the facts and figures stored in a system, asking the analysis to work that way is ridiculous. Yet it happens.
On many projects I have seen lately, there's an expectation, particularly of tech workers, to be able to come up with something immediately. If a project is two weeks' worth of work, then two continguous weeks is plenty of time to do it. They fail to understand the need to plan, look over things with fresh eyes, and plan some more. I have seen too many projects get sidelined by poor planning, and effectively getting redone or shelved, at great cost.
People are not binary supercomputers. If they were, well, we wouldn't need them to look at things. Yet management treats all resources as instant response resources.
If management will continue to consider resources the same, they need to know that the garbage collection in the human brain is bad. There are memory leaks everywhere, and so starting and stopping tons of processes a day results in highly consumed resources, and little productivity.
Of course, any semi-decent manager would know that. Unfortunately, they're often kept in check by sociopaths who run companies.
This sounds like a job wherein I'd never have to use my brain. Is this some kind of civil service position? What are the requirements to get this job? Can I get a work permit if I show that I'm qualified to understand the difference between pirated and simply copied software? (You'd think they'd spend more time cracking down on the people selling on eBay.co.uk, right?)
Then again, I think I'd be quite bored.
So, given these practices, I get I can now see why they lowered the "e" in the logo... It's a stylistic hint at their lowered ethical standards.
That's because we thought buying an extra disc for the PSP was stupid, which it is.
Now we're just voicing the fact that when buy DVDs we'll have a useless disc because, well, we weren't going to buy a PSP anyway.
If the policy for determining such things is the matter of the number of homophobic morons, well, you may want to consider avoiding a great many place in North America, and well as many locales in South America, Africa, Asia, etc.
In fact, well, that would limit a lot of places for you.
The reality is that a game shouldn't be judged like that. It's a game, and it has people. And people are dumb. This is a measure of crowd control. Much like at my job, I don't really care if you're straight or gay, but if you start flaunting it, either way, you get nailed for sexual harassment.
I would love to see better education and enlightenment regarding homosexuality. in society. That would be fantastic. But it ain't happening anytime soon, and I'm not about to think that avoiding things, or creating unconstructive trouble, is going to help.
I'll probably get modded as flamebait, but this argument smacks entirely of the whole 'Fear of Girls' video kind of situation, but in reverse.
Instead of a bunch of people deciding to yank role-playing into their lives, the decided to spend their time in MMORPGs and inject their real lives into role-playing.
Last I checked, WoW didn't have sexual orientation, and Christian beliefs weren't part of the fundamental makeup of multiverse created by Blizzard. If you want to role-play, then role-play and enjoy. If you need to socialise and engage in some kind of group therapy, then seek out a professional.
There is nothing more frustrating, IMHO, that people who usurp a perfectly good RPG to substitute for their real-life needs. Your real personality will of course affect your choices in the game, but it's still a game. If you can't handle that, log off, and go seek some help.
I was asked to explain my personal stance, and more/less accused of not seeing a reason to teach randomness. I figured I answered that fairly well.
My personal beliefs as apply to my daily life, however, and not up for debate. I have no interest in engaging in a philosophical debate over whether or not there is a divine presence.
Scientifically, I cannot see any reason why there isn't randomness in the chain of events. But then again, the concepts behind evolution, natural selection, and so on, have less to do with random events, and more to do with the criteria for survival. If attribute x with a value of 19 means that I will have three more offspring, then no matter how the value is obtained, random or now, natural selection will kick in, and I will have three more offspring, and that trait is more likely to be selected for.
An assumption that someone who believes in a creator is necessarily Christian, or has a belief that such a creator has set everything in motion in a predetermined manner is foolish. Perhaps the creator set certain events in motion, set key triggers for events to happen, and turned on a randomiser (often referred to as free will, chance, etc.). Eventually, those events and items should happen. But when and how exactly? Well, that's the fun thing to watch and see.
I do not count myself amongst being a 'creationist', given that I'm a staunch proponent of teaching evolution, and staunchly against teaching 'creationism'. Science is science. In a formalised environment, I would never suggest mixing the two. But if one realm reinforces you belief in another, then that is good for you. If not, that is also good.
Personally, I love pseudo-anarchistic responses.
Major proponents of both sides, that like to shout more than listen, are trying to force all kinds of views. This is common in all humanity.
All people who do anything have an agenda. So pointing out that government-backed education has an agenda is no different that fighting against government-backed anything.
Your view seems to be that people are all sheep, except yourself and your enlightened friends. Again, another agenda, another vocal argument pushing another way of life.
Except, how do I know that you're not some sheep yourself?
Loud arguments mean little, as most of the drivel posts on a topic dealing with religion tend to be. Arguments with real support, factual or anecdotal, show thought.
Attempts to show that the emporer has no clothes, using imperial-style arguments, will be met with mocking of your own nudity.
Thank you! This needed to be pointed out.
Too many times, evolution is not taught solely to the theory, but with a bunch of extra hypotheses thrown in, based on the flavour of the day research, and there is no caveat made regarding that.
If more parents knew what was and wasn't in the theory itself, then fewer would oppose the teaching of the theory, or moreover, would not push for some alternative being taught.
I firmly believe that the Theory of Evolution should be taught in our science classes. But we do need to be firm in how it is taught. There are aspects that are not part of the theory that get taught. Can evolution explain everything with certainty? No. However, do we see evolution happen? Yes. Can we look at fossil records and infer evolution happening? Yes.
The problem is that we have shitty textbooks and teachers who don't really understand the scope and limits of the theory, and so they can't teach it well. And that is when you start to find some serious dogmatic clashes happening.
This seems to happen everywhere. Mostly people think that a certain idea, that perhaps has little scientific basis, should be taught in school, when they support the idea.
I believe in a creator. Sure. But should creation be taught in a science class? No. Why?
Because I know that somehow my religious beliefs that I want to teach to my children will not be taught according to how I believe. Worse off would be if they were completely opposed, like someone teaching creation by that damn spaghetti monster.
Keep science to science. Start teaching classes that encourage people to look at other viewpoints and learn to see the downsides of their own arguments. Only then will a generation gain the wisdom to not think this is such a great idea.
Yeah, again, let's all support Kinky Friedman for Governor!
Oh, and I'd like to see a tax for stupid tax initiatives.
Well, this will be a nice change if IE7 is going to play nice.
For work, I guess I will still have to plan workarounds for IE6. However, I generally only support such browsers officially as long as they receive actual support from their publishers. So, as soon as MS drops support for IE6, so will I (unless I'm ordered to keep it up).
Personally, I code to whatever standard I've chosen for the day. If I decided to code to CSS 2.1 and I can see it properly in my browser, well, then I'm happy. Because it's my personal stuff. And if IE7 supports something and IE6 doesn't, well too bad. And same goes for Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, and Opera (although it'll be rare that Opera causes me problems, except when a version has tried to pretend it was IE, but that was work anyway).
Mostly now, since I've grown into being some lazy business analyst with a messy house under renovation, I just blog anyway.
I don't know where you live, but I'm sure that your six year old is not interested in sitting in front of a programme as much as sitting with people. You may not be the greatest chess player ever, but I'm sure you're more social than the machine.
If your child starts to beat you regularly, then it's time to start finding new opponents. There are some places where people do actually meet and play chess. Take a look around. See if anyone you know plays as well.
Starting to look for software right away is similar to using the television as a babysitter. Yes, the child will learn something, but will also not learn plenty of other things.
LOL - I see some Apple fanboy modded this troll... That's some seriously funny shit!
I grew up in that area.
The Sentinel is a piece of shit rag. The Patriot-News is somewhat better, but it's still not great. What they don't tell you about is that although these guys may have been gamers, the area, despite growth, is a bastion of rednecks.
Domestic violence is a big problem. The local government sucks. So, I'm not surprised. So these guys had different interests than going deer hunting. So they get singled out. (Yes, this area still shuts down schools for the first day of deer season.)
The fact that Dateline is picking this up says even more. It wasn't on any real news, just NBC's crappy psuedo-news show. Yeah, play to magic-loving Christological un-educated rednecks!
Just to point out, this is the same basic region in which they tried to ram intelligent design down students'/teachers' throats not so long ago.
I'm just waiting for the notebook manufacturers out there to start cloning the Apple machines, and stick a cooler processor in with a bigger battery. The specs for the Apple machines aren't unknown, and they are using mostly market pieces.
Yeah, I won't have an Apple that lights up, but I won't be paying the Apple toll for the same hardware either. And, chances are, I'll be able to use OS X.n anyway.
And what kind of AMD laptop do you have? What processor do you have stuck in there? I know that a lot of people buy the wrong processor when they want something to run cool. That's one reason why the Pentium M keeps going well.
On the 64-bit side of things, most retail companies continue to sell the Turion ML series, for which the processor costs $5 less that the MT, but uses another 10w of power. When it comes to running cool, this makes a huge difference. Hence, why my wife's laptop was built into an MSI notebook with a MT chip. Much cooler. Makes my old Pentium Celeron seem exceedingly hot, and runs about the same as my Pentium M from work. Moreover, processing-wise, her machine kicks my work machine's ass.
Without a spell checker of some kind, I think it's not so easy to be certain.
Some of us, well, we get to the point that our fingers are used to typing others words more often. I do this all the time, and I have to be very, very alert in order to catch everything. I would not be surprised if Rob has the same issues I do (and many co-workers over the years do).
I'm sure we're all aware of how important syntax and grammar is, and particularly when it comes lasting documents, it is very important. But the concept of this is as simply feedback is erroneous. We do not all have time to work on checking our spelling constantly. Many of us are (surprise, surprise) not coders, and not writing on systems that lack spell check regularly. So we don't have to be so anal about it.
If you want precision on everything, Slashdot is not the place to be. Like all forums, everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
And various forms of completition totally describes my projects, both being incomplete and of competing interest.
I've been in similar situations and currently work for a Fortune 500 company. My personal preference would be to work somewhere smaller, and since I don't know the scales of the places you're looking at, maybe this would make a difference.
I've worked for a number of start ups and worked with top-tier clients. It's stressful, but can be fun if you succeed. If you work for a large corporation engaging with a Fortune 10 company, you'll have resources, but probably a fair amount of bureaucracy. You'll also encounter power-jockeying, though how often is dependent on the corporate culture (but it pretty much exists across the board). If you work for a small place, you will likely have to plan exceptionally well, and prepare to work really long hours when your client changes their mind, because it WILL happen.
If you work in education, it can be the same. Generally, aside from specific projects, you won't likely have to do lots of extra support. You tend to have a slow time of the year in which you can solidify your systems and prepare for students hammering things. Of course, it depends on who's using your network. Since we're talking Unix Admin, I don't expect you to get the 11 pm calls from the Dean or Chancellor or whomever to fix their VPN, but it can happen depending on the architecture. As mentioned elsewhere, if it's public, salaries tend to be lower, but some of the benefits are great. It's also usually a bit higher on the bureaucracy, but less cutthroat. Private, well, salaries are better, but don't screw up or let some user screw your system. Large places have resources, smaller will let you have more control, usually.
I miss when I used to work in a small university setting. It was fun, I knew the faculty, and problems were easily resolved. The pay sucked, but the benefits were good. It was probably the happiest job I ever had. But as I'm married and we're paying off debts before we have kids, I have the stressful job for now.
Hmm... Given the push for energy independence, why doesn't the U.S. government simply claim eminent domain, pay out for the whopping three or four remainin years left on the patent at a 'fair market rate' and make the information pure public domain.
I would not bet on PS3 sales being all that high in Japan. It depends on how reactions go. If Microsoft were to be smart, they'd start pushing out RPGs and other market appropriate games ASAP.
The PS3 is set for market in May if everything goes well, which I doubt. I would say more likely August, which starts to push it into Nintendo's timeline.