I thought the World In Conflict storyline for the single-player game was pretty good. Maybe not great, but it was solid writing. I particularly like the non science fiction alternate history aspect of it.
Of course, nobody really played it, since almost everyone who plays that plays nothing but multiplayer, either at the total-n00b level on the public servers, or the "we're professional gamers who play to make a living" on the clan servers. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground, which is why I don't play it anymore.
Yeah, because a written reprimand will sure help his frustration levels. That's on the same level as "You get your work done well, and on-time. However, I think you have a bad attitude, therefore I'm not giving you a raise."
Yeah, great motivator there! Because being denied a raise always makes ME a cheerful person. Why are so many managers like that?
Not bitching at you, because for many managers, it's a spot-on assessment. I've been lucky because I've had only a few bad ones like that. I can almost always smell them during the interview process, and most of my bad managers have come out of reorganizations that take me away from the managers that hired me.
Ah, quite right you are. Thanks for the correction. I've been out of the space game a couple years now, and remembering who's doing what (apart from the things I actually worked on... I was an MGS, Odyssey, & MER guy) isn't part of my daily routine anymore:-). So, yeah, the sentiment still stands, but for the KinetX and Johns Hopkins folks. That's some fancy flying!
Part of the problem, too, is that it's really tricky to get to Mercury due to the amount of delta-v you need to shed Earth orbit, plus unlike Mars, Mercury has a negligible atmosphere which makes aerobraking useless. That's why they did three slingshot maneuvers to get there. The navigation team at JPL has really outdone themselves with this flight, and are to be commended.
It actually takes more delta-v to get to the sun than it takes to leave the solar system from here. This is why that whole "send dangerous waste to the sun" is a really bad idea. It takes a huge amount of fuel and if you miss, you've got a dangerous payload in a highly eccentric orbit that almost certainly crosses the Earth's. What could possibly go wrong?:-)
And maybe it's because I'm a space nerd, but I think MESSENGER is glamorous as hell.
Either a) the guy can't put up in which case he won't take your offer or b) the guy has enough skills to do what he says that $100 profit for day out of his life isn't an offer, it's an insult and he won't take your offer. I don't suppose an offer for a getaway to that paradise that is Cincinnati in January (30F and snowing currently) is especially compelling, either.
On the other hand, a four-way and a couple cheese coneys at Skyline sounds pretty tasty right now.:-)
In my darkest days, I suspect the human race has 5,000 years left, 10,000 tops.
Wow, either you're a boundless optimist or I'm a terrible pessimist, because from my perspective I think another 5,000 years for us as a species would be pretty damned impressive.
Ha, wow, Hemispheres. You're probably a little bit older than me, I would guess. I was only 10 when that came out and still about three to four years from catching the Rush bug. My first Rush concert was the Signals tour.
Agreed. I've seen some great deals at music stores for decent semi-pro gear for just a few hundred dollars. More than adequate for beginners and you won't soon outgrow it. I don't even play drums and I've been considering picking a set up and learning because of it.
Guitar is WAY different, you're not going to learn to play guitar with those colored buttons.
No, but I think it could be good for us guitarists. Most guitarists can't count worth a golly good damn, but Guitar Hero makes a decent rhythm trainer. You're right: not so much for the notes, though. But then, that's not really the point of Guitar Hero, is it? I don't get musicians who look down their nose at it and Rock Band. I'm a decent guitar player, and I've been formally trained in music theory and composition, but think these music games are an absolute blast. I don't own any of them myself, yet, but I plan to.
And "Red Barchetta" is a great song.:-) I actually started as a bass player and it was mostly Geddy Lee who responsible for that.
AS/400 = IBM. VAX = Digital Equipment Corporation, which was bought by Compaq, bought by HP. They are not the same thing and if you make that mistake in meatspace us cranky old farts who have deployed applications on both of them during our careers will snicker.;-)
Value of anything is a human judgment, and as such is not intrinsic to anything. But since you seem to believe differently, I am more than willing to make a great deal with you and sell you two ounces of that valuable copper for every ounce of valueless gold you're talking about.:-P
But that's not what refactoring really is. Refactoring is not about making code "purdy", it's about making it so it's easier to add those layers of bugfixes that all successful production systems have. What you're referring to is a bunch of lazy, vain chuckleheads who don't want to read code. Refactoring is noticing that an enhancement or bugfix that requires you to make a similar change in umpteen places in the code and working to make it so the next enhancement/fix to it doesn't take so much time in the future. Refactoring is noticing that venerable function with all the layers of complexity isn't even used anymore by anything (and KNOWING that, not just assuming it) and giving it a dignified retirement. It's not going through software like the Code Gestapo and looking for everything that doesn't conform to "The Right Thing As I See It."
I agree with what you're saying, but it's not like anyone studies jazz because they can get a steady career out of it with a regular paycheck, health care, and a 401k. My wild-ass guess is there is a higher percentage of people studying jazz at music conservatories because they love it than we will find studying programming and software engineering. There are many people in software development because they perceived it as a good steady career. It doesn't mean that they can't be competent or even great at it, but someone who does something because they have a love for it is more likely (though not certainly) to be more knowledgeable, productive and capable.
Put another way, I'd guess that there are more software engineers who really want to be jazz musicians than jazz musicians who really want to be software engineers. Though I do love what I do for a living, I know I'm one of them.:-) (Un)fortunately, I'm a better engineer than I am a musician.
My guess is you're a very good cardiologist, because otherwise you'd know that malpractice is a civil matter and that a prosecuting attorney is not involved in your case at all (at least in the United States).
Or, you're a really bad one, and your malpractice rose to the level of criminal negligence, which is when a prosecutor would get involved.:-P
As an anecdotal counterpoint to your jury selection process: I was on a jury for a medical malpractice case against the surgeon (an appendectomy that went wrong), and the jury selection process definitely went in the opposite direction. All nine of us (8 jurors, one alternate, which was the standard for Ohio civil suits in 1997) were educated professionals, including a JD, and someone who had some advanced medical training (though admittedly not a doctor). I was actually one of the LEAST schooled members of that jury, with my little bachelor of science degree, and a semester of graduate CS classes. I'm not one to get out of jury duty unless I have a REALLY good reason to, and my employer paid for jury-duty, and even if they didn't, I had more PTO banked up than I could possibly use, anyway.
We also found that the surgeon was not responsible for the problems. If anyone was responsible, it was a radiologist who did a follow-on procedure to drain an infection, and I doubt he did anything wrong either (but that wasn't our job to determine). I felt really bad for the plaintiff, but I think all that happened is that no surgical procedure is risk-free and she rolled snake-eyes. She spent the better part of a year in convalescent care.
We spent a week in court, and it was basically 5 days of nothing but expert testimony, and it was little different than going to class. We had so much knowledge crammed into us during that period that at the end of it I felt that in a worst-case survival scenario, I could've done an appendectomy myself if there were no qualified doctors available.
Champ Mitchell is the CEO of Network Solutions, and according to this domain name which they registered, fair and square, apparently he owes me some money. I'll try to be magnanimous and settle for just one percent.
Your points are well-taken, but the increased cost argument is somewhat lessened by the idea that with these increased costs comes also increased utility (your hot new star's early movie supporting role being an excellent example). That they are storing things now that never got stored at all before makes a direct cost comparison a dicey proposition.
If data volume increases greatly because of technological breakthroughs and how they are used, it stands to reason that archiving that data will become a more expensive proposition. They now want to archive things that 10 and 20 years ago would not have even been captured. It's not shocking to me it's more expensive. I wonder how much it would have cost to produce and archive the film if they used those thousands of hours of movie film like they use the digital formats now.
I suggested she tell the customer to pick up some John Williams or Segovia
You have to be very careful with the average store clerk when you suggest John Williams or they're going to wind up with a bunch of soundtracks to Spielberg and Lucas movies.:-/
I used to play a game with myself when I got stuck in traffic jams when I lived in Phoenix: start at zero, every car that passes me in the other lanes, add one, every car I pass in other lanes, subtract one. It was interesting to find that even after 15 or 20 minutes of this over several miles, the number almost certainly had a single digit absolute value, and if it wasn't, it usually trended back to it very soon.
In the interest of applying the scientific method, I did this many times, sometimes staying in the same lane, and sometimes switching lanes and jockeying for position. It didn't matter, and the rare times where there was a larger skew was almost always due to an accident that had closed one or more lanes.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the World In Conflict storyline for the single-player game was pretty good. Maybe not great, but it was solid writing. I particularly like the non science fiction alternate history aspect of it.
Of course, nobody really played it, since almost everyone who plays that plays nothing but multiplayer, either at the total-n00b level on the public servers, or the "we're professional gamers who play to make a living" on the clan servers. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground, which is why I don't play it anymore.
Yeah, because a written reprimand will sure help his frustration levels. That's on the same level as "You get your work done well, and on-time. However, I think you have a bad attitude, therefore I'm not giving you a raise."
Yeah, great motivator there! Because being denied a raise always makes ME a cheerful person. Why are so many managers like that?
Not bitching at you, because for many managers, it's a spot-on assessment. I've been lucky because I've had only a few bad ones like that. I can almost always smell them during the interview process, and most of my bad managers have come out of reorganizations that take me away from the managers that hired me.
Wow... Good times. I haven't thought of that in years. Reference for you young whippersnappers.
Given the housing market, that could be pretty accurate. :-/
Ah, quite right you are. Thanks for the correction. I've been out of the space game a couple years now, and remembering who's doing what (apart from the things I actually worked on... I was an MGS, Odyssey, & MER guy) isn't part of my daily routine anymore :-). So, yeah, the sentiment still stands, but for the KinetX and Johns Hopkins folks. That's some fancy flying!
Part of the problem, too, is that it's really tricky to get to Mercury due to the amount of delta-v you need to shed Earth orbit, plus unlike Mars, Mercury has a negligible atmosphere which makes aerobraking useless. That's why they did three slingshot maneuvers to get there. The navigation team at JPL has really outdone themselves with this flight, and are to be commended.
It actually takes more delta-v to get to the sun than it takes to leave the solar system from here. This is why that whole "send dangerous waste to the sun" is a really bad idea. It takes a huge amount of fuel and if you miss, you've got a dangerous payload in a highly eccentric orbit that almost certainly crosses the Earth's. What could possibly go wrong? :-)
And maybe it's because I'm a space nerd, but I think MESSENGER is glamorous as hell.
Either a) the guy can't put up in which case he won't take your offer or b) the guy has enough skills to do what he says that $100 profit for day out of his life isn't an offer, it's an insult and he won't take your offer. I don't suppose an offer for a getaway to that paradise that is Cincinnati in January (30F and snowing currently) is especially compelling, either.
On the other hand, a four-way and a couple cheese coneys at Skyline sounds pretty tasty right now. :-)
Yes, yes, I can, and as a result, I think there's good money to made in making real-time convolution processor accessories.
"Oh, holy shit, I don't want to see that!" *click* *click* Video Options:Transform:Real Time Blurs:Add Soft Focus.
Wow, either you're a boundless optimist or I'm a terrible pessimist, because from my perspective I think another 5,000 years for us as a species would be pretty damned impressive.
Ha, wow, Hemispheres. You're probably a little bit older than me, I would guess. I was only 10 when that came out and still about three to four years from catching the Rush bug. My first Rush concert was the Signals tour.
Well, politicians are well known for sticking their noses into anything and everything, so I suppose turnabout is fair play.
Agreed. I've seen some great deals at music stores for decent semi-pro gear for just a few hundred dollars. More than adequate for beginners and you won't soon outgrow it. I don't even play drums and I've been considering picking a set up and learning because of it.
Guitar is WAY different, you're not going to learn to play guitar with those colored buttons.No, but I think it could be good for us guitarists. Most guitarists can't count worth a golly good damn, but Guitar Hero makes a decent rhythm trainer. You're right: not so much for the notes, though. But then, that's not really the point of Guitar Hero, is it? I don't get musicians who look down their nose at it and Rock Band. I'm a decent guitar player, and I've been formally trained in music theory and composition, but think these music games are an absolute blast. I don't own any of them myself, yet, but I plan to.
And "Red Barchetta" is a great song. :-) I actually started as a bass player and it was mostly Geddy Lee who responsible for that.
AS/400 = IBM. VAX = Digital Equipment Corporation, which was bought by Compaq, bought by HP. They are not the same thing and if you make that mistake in meatspace us cranky old farts who have deployed applications on both of them during our careers will snicker. ;-)
Value of anything is a human judgment, and as such is not intrinsic to anything. But since you seem to believe differently, I am more than willing to make a great deal with you and sell you two ounces of that valuable copper for every ounce of valueless gold you're talking about. :-P
But that's not what refactoring really is. Refactoring is not about making code "purdy", it's about making it so it's easier to add those layers of bugfixes that all successful production systems have. What you're referring to is a bunch of lazy, vain chuckleheads who don't want to read code. Refactoring is noticing that an enhancement or bugfix that requires you to make a similar change in umpteen places in the code and working to make it so the next enhancement/fix to it doesn't take so much time in the future. Refactoring is noticing that venerable function with all the layers of complexity isn't even used anymore by anything (and KNOWING that, not just assuming it) and giving it a dignified retirement. It's not going through software like the Code Gestapo and looking for everything that doesn't conform to "The Right Thing As I See It."
I agree with what you're saying, but it's not like anyone studies jazz because they can get a steady career out of it with a regular paycheck, health care, and a 401k. My wild-ass guess is there is a higher percentage of people studying jazz at music conservatories because they love it than we will find studying programming and software engineering. There are many people in software development because they perceived it as a good steady career. It doesn't mean that they can't be competent or even great at it, but someone who does something because they have a love for it is more likely (though not certainly) to be more knowledgeable, productive and capable.
Put another way, I'd guess that there are more software engineers who really want to be jazz musicians than jazz musicians who really want to be software engineers. Though I do love what I do for a living, I know I'm one of them. :-) (Un)fortunately, I'm a better engineer than I am a musician.
My guess is you're a very good cardiologist, because otherwise you'd know that malpractice is a civil matter and that a prosecuting attorney is not involved in your case at all (at least in the United States).
Or, you're a really bad one, and your malpractice rose to the level of criminal negligence, which is when a prosecutor would get involved. :-P
As an anecdotal counterpoint to your jury selection process: I was on a jury for a medical malpractice case against the surgeon (an appendectomy that went wrong), and the jury selection process definitely went in the opposite direction. All nine of us (8 jurors, one alternate, which was the standard for Ohio civil suits in 1997) were educated professionals, including a JD, and someone who had some advanced medical training (though admittedly not a doctor). I was actually one of the LEAST schooled members of that jury, with my little bachelor of science degree, and a semester of graduate CS classes. I'm not one to get out of jury duty unless I have a REALLY good reason to, and my employer paid for jury-duty, and even if they didn't, I had more PTO banked up than I could possibly use, anyway.
We also found that the surgeon was not responsible for the problems. If anyone was responsible, it was a radiologist who did a follow-on procedure to drain an infection, and I doubt he did anything wrong either (but that wasn't our job to determine). I felt really bad for the plaintiff, but I think all that happened is that no surgical procedure is risk-free and she rolled snake-eyes. She spent the better part of a year in convalescent care.
We spent a week in court, and it was basically 5 days of nothing but expert testimony, and it was little different than going to class. We had so much knowledge crammed into us during that period that at the end of it I felt that in a worst-case survival scenario, I could've done an appendectomy myself if there were no qualified doctors available.
Yeah, you guys are thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of just costing them money, figure out how you can profit from it:
Champ Mitchell is the CEO of Network Solutions, and according to this domain name which they registered, fair and square, apparently he owes me some money. I'll try to be magnanimous and settle for just one percent.
You've really got to stop this shit. The lag is getting unbearable.
Next time, I'm going to play with fewer bots. I really need to get a new computer.
Remove what?
Your points are well-taken, but the increased cost argument is somewhat lessened by the idea that with these increased costs comes also increased utility (your hot new star's early movie supporting role being an excellent example). That they are storing things now that never got stored at all before makes a direct cost comparison a dicey proposition.
If data volume increases greatly because of technological breakthroughs and how they are used, it stands to reason that archiving that data will become a more expensive proposition. They now want to archive things that 10 and 20 years ago would not have even been captured. It's not shocking to me it's more expensive. I wonder how much it would have cost to produce and archive the film if they used those thousands of hours of movie film like they use the digital formats now.
You know there's a cheat code that lets you save your progress before you quit, right? Press escape, then type ":wq" and press enter.
You have to be very careful with the average store clerk when you suggest John Williams or they're going to wind up with a bunch of soundtracks to Spielberg and Lucas movies. :-/
I used to play a game with myself when I got stuck in traffic jams when I lived in Phoenix: start at zero, every car that passes me in the other lanes, add one, every car I pass in other lanes, subtract one. It was interesting to find that even after 15 or 20 minutes of this over several miles, the number almost certainly had a single digit absolute value, and if it wasn't, it usually trended back to it very soon.
In the interest of applying the scientific method, I did this many times, sometimes staying in the same lane, and sometimes switching lanes and jockeying for position. It didn't matter, and the rare times where there was a larger skew was almost always due to an accident that had closed one or more lanes.
I'm not sweating it. SG-1 already defeated Apophis in the fifth season.