Yaay! Breakfast computers. I want one with an edible keyboard, too. If you replaced the CD tray with a small alloy skillet (you could probably augment this if your psu has a spare lead) you could read weight loss pages online while you cook your bacon and eggs. Advise keeping a small bowl under the tray as a grease trap. Remember Video Toaster? No doubt we could wire that in somewhere. I want my computer experience to be physically as well as intellectually nourishing.
And somewhere in all of that is an astounding opportunity for powerful hypocracy, or yet another way to annoy my teenage daughters, which has to be good.
Start them on VBA if they have MS Office of any stripe.
Create a macro in an Excel program (doesn't have to do anything) then whack Alt-F11 and there's a limited but useful IDE.
Considering how some banks I've worked on use Excel (it's scary how much of the world's wealth exists only on such a fragile little thing) and some of the fairly high-powered VBA apps for Excel that exist* it's a good entry level application language with real world applications, and it's easy / cheap to get into. From there folks can see whether the life of a code monkey appeals.
*Handling business problems like "Please take this VMS / ASCII report from a Canadian outsourcer (I think it's sort of CVS format) and do these ATO tax calc conversions, format it this way and have one each for our managed funds customers. Oh, and we have to have the reports out by Thursday or the regulators will fine us $1M for non-compliance. Do a couple for the New Zealand tax standards too, can you? Two big customers have accounts there. Can you add a tab to put a ledger on for each month too? I think I have the files here...
The quick wears off, the dirty survives, but when you're playing ID4 for real it's one of the things you can do.
Easily. At close range, even a.22 would go through plate armor.
Actually, a clothyard arrow launched by a longbow could easily go through medieval armour. Look up "Battle of Agincourt". 1mm mild steel armour is easily punched through with an ordinary bow of less than 50# pull at 30" using ordinary field point arrows. And Maille (or "chain mail" for you Philistines) is not good against anything sufficiently pointy (it's an edge defense).
Some of those shields they used, now, were a different story. They used plywood (true) and laminated pressed leather treated with acids and milk products (a type of plastic).
The race may not be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that's sure as heck how to bet.
Ah ha! Now that you know setp 2 you now do not know step 2. By knowing step 2 you've just unknowed step 2. I welcome/not welcome our quantum overloards.
Excuse me/don't excuse me Ah Clem, you are making/not making the Doctor unhappy/happy, and will be asked to leave the Future immediately.
Just read The Register's BOFH (You don't have the link? Then you don't deserve to read it) to see why metaAdmin's are needed. It's not fiction, I spent 10 years as a BOFH and I laugh at their naiive approach.
On the gripping hand, the retail company I work for at the moment has about 12 thousand servers to admin...
Only in IT could something that was state-of-the-art five years ago and a clear industry standard even a couple of years ago possibly be described as "vintage" today.:-)
Ummm..fashion industry and wines come to mind. And that car you drive? that was so last century. Medical prosthetics, pharmacology, particle accelerators...may be a few more out there. Granted, they wouldn't have advanced without the rather astounding advances in IT over the last few, but IT isn't the only porpoise in the bow wake.
The only game/sport I've done that I think fills the role of golf (for some) is trap shooting.
The problem with (or perhaps an advantage of) that approach is the opportunities it offers to thin out the executive ranks a bit. "Yes, we sure took a bath on that venture. George, you handled the marketing on that didn't you?"...and the rest is, as they say, geography.
Better yet, wear perfectly ordinary steel armor. That way every enemy archer won't be able to aim at you from the other end of the battlefield. Wearing an armor that screams "target me !" just to appease your vanity is a really stupid thing to do.
Acutally, the best thing to do would be to paint a target on your shield. Very hard for them to aim anywhere else, and that's what you want them to hit.
Find and read the short story "Why Johnny Can't Speed", then ask yourself how close we are to that interpretation of the law. Me, I'm going for explosive caltrops and a pocket howitzer for the Patrol. Might still be a bit small for the GAU-7 though, may need a Ford F650...
It's good to know that a single black hole can contain an infinite number of bosses... they're not just packed tightly into the space, they're spread out over 17,000 years too.
Face it... you can't manufacture art. The music coming out of the pop-formula organ grinders hasn't been worth buying lately. Both my teenage daughters are telling me they prefer music from one or several decades ago, so it's not just my aging tastes.
If the music isn't any good, people won't buy it, and there will be a downturn in the music industry. Duh.
The most important component in any sound system is the human ear -- everything else is fluff. Get the content compatible with that element first, and there will be an upturn in the music industry. Whether they deserve it or not.
Irrespective of various issues surrounding Windows, the fact that most users are more familiar with that interface makes it fairly easy to do a statistical study on the merits of various distros. Because you can find computer-literate people who aren't clued on Linux, you have the potential for getting clean data to work with.
Simply, pick Windows users to do your tests, rather than people familiar with any *nix distro. Measure their startup learning curve and draw baseline eye-hand performance conclusions.
Set up a table or two and measure the time needed to do certain basic tasks, such as create a WP document, edit a simple text file and store the result, draw a simple picture, store and re-display it, send a simple email to yourself. Use an old-fashioned stop watch and clipboard, perhaps, to abstract the measures from the equipment and ensure independence of the data from extraneous factors.
Include metrics for for these baseline tasks for both the first time they try it and subsequent tries, and how many repetitions it requires before the task becomes "routine" (i.e. point of approach of low stdev between results).
Measure in parallel, different people for each distro. Do a simple typing speed check for each person and a simple mouse-activity rate check (perhaps time needed to move three simple images around in a click/drag exercise) and use these metrics to normalise the baseline capabilities of different test subjects in the above. I'd suggest doing their speed checks on a different platform (even Windows) so as not to corrupt the base test measurements with respect to their startup learning curve.
In short, do stats using fresh test subjects, and measure the results.
Bring in some cross-disciplinary talent to measure other aspects besides raw performance, such as a selection of industrial designers (draw from your student contacts) to rate the esthetics, an ergonomics researcher to measure the carpal damage potential, whatever else you can think of. (Cross-disciplinary assistance brings in a bit of professional polish, but can be academically political, YMMV.)
If it feels right, it's art. If you can measure the feel, it's science.
You have to permit a little mysticism now and again, just don't let it in the bedroom without a bath. It's one of the pathways to imagination that adds a bit of human colour to the clinicism of science. Remember also that a lot of physics started out as metaphysics, too -- read Bacon's "Novum Organum" which was considered in it's day to be the height of medieval occult mysticism. Within the covers of the book, you'll find an early treatise on the scientific method -- experiment to prove theory, the requirement for independent corroboration of results, the use of formal, syllogistic logic. Mysticism or science? We moved a long way forward after we scraped the mud off that pair of boots.
When push comes to shove, Side A may have 20 times as many rifles, pointy sticks, and fists, but my money's still on Side B.
For a disturbingly close coverage of this phenonmenon, pick up an old copy of "Sixth Column", also released as "The Day After Tomorrow" by Robert A. Heinlein, (c) 1941 by Street and Smith. Used SF booksellers everywhere.
It's a beautiful story about an America in the hands of the fundamentalest theocrats being thwarted by a few scientists in hiding. A good potboiler, but poignant in light of the Intelligent Design "debate".
Heavy sigh -- Why did they have to corrupt the word Intelligent for this? Terrible use of a good adjective.
One interesting response to that issue where I used to work (left the bank - YAAY!) was the use of MAID drives -- massive arrays of inactive disks. Most of the hd's in the array were not spinning at any one time, with proactive management software spinning the inactive ones up occasionally and "listening" for bearing noise (or counting tach corrections, or whatever it was they did to contain the smoke). So you've got this huge array of virtualised storage, hundreds of disks, but only spinning the ones that were doing work at any one time. Yes there was a bit of startup latency, but hey, you get that booting a pc too. IMNSHO I believe there should be more of this in the larger data centres.
Of course one wag suggested I could use one "really huge HDD" instead and use the flywheel effect as a mo-gen UPS and maybe spin it up really fast at night when the electricity was cheap, and dump it into the grid when you needed the data again the next day, selling electricity back at a higher rate. A lateral thinker, that one.
Hmm.....
Re:How did they cause these injuries?
on
Slacker or Sick
·
· Score: 4, Funny
What kind of exercises give rats "wrist injuries"? Did they get little rat-sized keyboards?
Generally, typing up disclaimers, authoring EULA's, looking up court settlements, writing very large bills, initiating and responding to litigation, in no particular order.
Slashdot Mirror
And somewhere in all of that is an astounding opportunity for powerful hypocracy, or yet another way to annoy my teenage daughters, which has to be good.
Create a macro in an Excel program (doesn't have to do anything) then whack Alt-F11 and there's a limited but useful IDE.
Considering how some banks I've worked on use Excel (it's scary how much of the world's wealth exists only on such a fragile little thing) and some of the fairly high-powered VBA apps for Excel that exist* it's a good entry level application language with real world applications, and it's easy / cheap to get into. From there folks can see whether the life of a code monkey appeals.
*Handling business problems like "Please take this VMS / ASCII report from a Canadian outsourcer (I think it's sort of CVS format) and do these ATO tax calc conversions, format it this way and have one each for our managed funds customers. Oh, and we have to have the reports out by Thursday or the regulators will fine us $1M for non-compliance. Do a couple for the New Zealand tax standards too, can you? Two big customers have accounts there. Can you add a tab to put a ledger on for each month too? I think I have the files here...
The quick wears off, the dirty survives, but when you're playing ID4 for real it's one of the things you can do.
Actually, a clothyard arrow launched by a longbow could easily go through medieval armour. Look up "Battle of Agincourt". 1mm mild steel armour is easily punched through with an ordinary bow of less than 50# pull at 30" using ordinary field point arrows. And Maille (or "chain mail" for you Philistines) is not good against anything sufficiently pointy (it's an edge defense).
Some of those shields they used, now, were a different story. They used plywood (true) and laminated pressed leather treated with acids and milk products (a type of plastic).
The race may not be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that's sure as heck how to bet.
Excuse me /don't excuse me Ah Clem, you are making/not making the Doctor unhappy/happy, and will be asked to leave the Future immediately.
On the gripping hand, the retail company I work for at the moment has about 12 thousand servers to admin...
Ummm..fashion industry and wines come to mind. And that car you drive? that was so last century. Medical prosthetics, pharmacology, particle accelerators...may be a few more out there. Granted, they wouldn't have advanced without the rather astounding advances in IT over the last few, but IT isn't the only porpoise in the bow wake.
The problem with (or perhaps an advantage of) that approach is the opportunities it offers to thin out the executive ranks a bit. "Yes, we sure took a bath on that venture. George, you handled the marketing on that didn't you?"...and the rest is, as they say, geography.
Acutally, the best thing to do would be to paint a target on your shield. Very hard for them to aim anywhere else, and that's what you want them to hit.
--unapologetic old SCA'er
They wouldn't need to drop bombs, rocks would do. Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" R.A.Heinlein. Support your local used bookshop.
Find and read the short story "Why Johnny Can't Speed", then ask yourself how close we are to that interpretation of the law. Me, I'm going for explosive caltrops and a pocket howitzer for the Patrol. Might still be a bit small for the GAU-7 though, may need a Ford F650...
It's neither. Inappropriate categorisation. It's a behavioural issue. Some people are prats.
How about this one; MMORPG's as uncensored chat servers, a place to talk where there is less likelyhood of the Mind Police listening?
Yes. Can't forget the solar aspect, all those poor little solar beams are being exploited too. Aren't sunbeams alive too? It's unfair to exploit them.
Sigh... no, the 60's were not good to me at all...
Hmm... better order two.
WoOT! Andromeda Strain. The first SF film I remember oriented toward computers that weren't some variant on a talking card sorter! Brilliant flick.
Face it ... you can't manufacture art. The music coming out of the pop-formula organ grinders hasn't been worth buying lately. Both my teenage daughters are telling me they prefer music from one or several decades ago, so it's not just my aging tastes.
If the music isn't any good, people won't buy it, and there will be a downturn in the music industry. Duh.
The most important component in any sound system is the human ear -- everything else is fluff. Get the content compatible with that element first, and there will be an upturn in the music industry. Whether they deserve it or not.
Sort of like saying the compatibility exists at the data link level, but the user interface sucks?
Sorry...
Simply, pick Windows users to do your tests, rather than people familiar with any *nix distro. Measure their startup learning curve and draw baseline eye-hand performance conclusions.
Set up a table or two and measure the time needed to do certain basic tasks, such as create a WP document, edit a simple text file and store the result, draw a simple picture, store and re-display it, send a simple email to yourself. Use an old-fashioned stop watch and clipboard, perhaps, to abstract the measures from the equipment and ensure independence of the data from extraneous factors.
Include metrics for for these baseline tasks for both the first time they try it and subsequent tries, and how many repetitions it requires before the task becomes "routine" (i.e. point of approach of low stdev between results).
Measure in parallel, different people for each distro. Do a simple typing speed check for each person and a simple mouse-activity rate check (perhaps time needed to move three simple images around in a click/drag exercise) and use these metrics to normalise the baseline capabilities of different test subjects in the above. I'd suggest doing their speed checks on a different platform (even Windows) so as not to corrupt the base test measurements with respect to their startup learning curve.
In short, do stats using fresh test subjects, and measure the results.
Bring in some cross-disciplinary talent to measure other aspects besides raw performance, such as a selection of industrial designers (draw from your student contacts) to rate the esthetics, an ergonomics researcher to measure the carpal damage potential, whatever else you can think of. (Cross-disciplinary assistance brings in a bit of professional polish, but can be academically political, YMMV.)
If it feels right, it's art. If you can measure the feel, it's science.
Will code for food...
I bid 10,000 Quatloos for the Gates-thrall!
You have to permit a little mysticism now and again, just don't let it in the bedroom without a bath. It's one of the pathways to imagination that adds a bit of human colour to the clinicism of science. Remember also that a lot of physics started out as metaphysics, too -- read Bacon's "Novum Organum" which was considered in it's day to be the height of medieval occult mysticism. Within the covers of the book, you'll find an early treatise on the scientific method -- experiment to prove theory, the requirement for independent corroboration of results, the use of formal, syllogistic logic. Mysticism or science? We moved a long way forward after we scraped the mud off that pair of boots.
For a disturbingly close coverage of this phenonmenon, pick up an old copy of "Sixth Column", also released as "The Day After Tomorrow" by Robert A. Heinlein, (c) 1941 by Street and Smith. Used SF booksellers everywhere.
It's a beautiful story about an America in the hands of the fundamentalest theocrats being thwarted by a few scientists in hiding. A good potboiler, but poignant in light of the Intelligent Design "debate".
Heavy sigh -- Why did they have to corrupt the word Intelligent for this? Terrible use of a good adjective.
Of course one wag suggested I could use one "really huge HDD" instead and use the flywheel effect as a mo-gen UPS and maybe spin it up really fast at night when the electricity was cheap, and dump it into the grid when you needed the data again the next day, selling electricity back at a higher rate. A lateral thinker, that one.
Hmm.....
Generally, typing up disclaimers, authoring EULA's, looking up court settlements, writing very large bills, initiating and responding to litigation, in no particular order.
At sea, brass (or bronze) was more reliable than parchment or papyrus.