certainly a certain amount of technical ability is required not to blow yourself up. However, I'm sitting here in my cube listening to two engineers (who won't shut up) go on about how to solve the world's problems. this one guy is going on about how corrupt the court system is, and how he has some sister-in-law that speeds and gets off by manipulating the system. in his opinion (though he never presents it as his opinion, instead it's factual, according to him) he believes every time someone speeds people should be immediately punished. in a way his sense of justice is really overinflated. i sometimes wonder if there isn't something about engineers having to always be right, that when their worldview is challenged by reality, they can't help but suggest improvements that are less than human. The solution trumps the consequences. sure the solution may kill half the human population, but that's nothing to obtaining a solution to whatever problem is presented to them. also i've met a lot of engineers that think they can solve all problems, no matter how unrelated the topic is to engineering. in general, engineers see their level of education as superior to other sciences, especially social sciences and don't even get them started on religion. now the engineers in the cube next to me are solving the problems with cops and public intoxication. it has nothing to do with the systems engineering job they were hired to do, but they go on and on and on... thank goodness I have earplugs.:)
California state law forbids manufacture, sale, possession or import of any shuiken, star, diamond, trefoil or other edged weapon used for throwing. So it's just as well it was confiscated at the airport.
Especially if they're made of citrus fruit!
--Ray
PS> I once attempted to smuggle authentic maple syrup from Connecticut, but luckily the dilligent bag police kept me from smuggling that very dangerous liquid back to my destination. I shudder to think of the national security implications had I been allowed to keep it.
Programming skills aren't what they used to be. They're often based upon the latest language--most often here they're C#. It's interesting to watch programmers who've been trained in such high level languages adopt low level languages. I work with fresh graduates day in and day out, and while they are energetic, they're also completely unaware of the basics. I have had lengthy discussions of concepts like double-buffering, and queues, and static/dynamic memory allocation, pointers, and such. These are concepts that newbies assume can be handled by an API, or automatically garbage-collected... Sure they've heard of garbage collection but they don't understand the limitations and constraints under which it is useful or hits performance.
Further all programmers want to stick with the tools they learned once--while to stick with programming over time, you have to be used to constantly changing. I think that sometimes older programmers (though I've seen it in newbs too) learned something really well, and want to solve all problems with that toolset alone, because the newer versions just aren't worth the headache of upgrading and potentially breaking something. However if you don't upgrade continually eventually the features that make it worth changing come along and shifting to the new language is a whole new experience.
IMO, indoctrination really is a loaded term, that implies there's a point behind exposing a child to an influence.
It's not indoctrination unless the program is used for the purpose of changing behaviors and exposure is used as part of that program.
All this study really proves is that kids like their minds stimulated. They need to do something they find potentially unpleasant, and find a way to associate it with something that they consider "uplifting" or positive. We all do this--and good thing, else there'd be no engineers in the world, because none of us would have the discipline to get through all those droning lecturers...;)
Just because there are Children that access their imagination to identify with Popeye and create a positive alternative to their perdicament, doesn't imply that such children will be used for evil marketting/nefarious purposes, because ultimately as children age they use other reasoning skills besides fantasy and pleasant dreams upon which to base their decisions.
My daughter had a bad English teacher this year. She was a disorganized mess, who lost most of the assignments, did no follow up, placed random weights on assigned grades, and unlike ALL other teachers she had this year, NEVER had midterm grades ready for Parent-Teacher conferences. She used the excuse that she was working on her advanced degrees, and didn't have a lot of time to spare this year. We moved to this school district and believed her. Come to find out she's one of those teachers the veteran parents of kids know to avoid.
Up to this year, my daughter was gung-ho about writing, now she claims to hate it. She used to enjoy discussing literature, now she only reads what's safe. I've got a lot of un-teaching to do, as a result.
Perhaps there's a valuable life lesson burried under the pile of lost assignments this teacher never graded, but I'm not putting up with this sort of walking trainwreck of a teacher ever again.
All in all, this is what comes of professional educators attempting to rationalize mediocrity. It's all theoretical, and no one is ever affected because it's safely academic.
If this is anything like most government contracts and big bulky computer database projects, what this probably means is that Google has done a better job on its own implementing patent search on the broken system, than the contractor that they'd hired and was busy spending government money. The say they're seeking a contractor, because the last one probably spent a lot of money and delivered something that was no better than a simple internet search that's free. But they can't say that, because they need the government to continue to spend lots of money on their department, so that they still look relevant, and get paid by taxpayers maintenance/operational costs, once a newer, shinier big expensive system is put into place by some other contractor that they're hoping won't take them to the cleaners. (just a guess... imo...)
it may be the wrong correlation, but your initial paragraph reads like someone who has no interest in discovering the root cause of psychosis at all. There's value in discovering the influences upon human behavior, and like it or not, there are forms of media that affect behavior--that should be studied. Many youth spend ENORMOUS amounts of time on videogames--it can be their primary daily activity, especially during the summer. Games and media are shared more often now than ever before, with games on mobile devices one can literally take everything to the beach, or work, or to church, or to school.
I would rather know that certain forms of videogames HAVE THE POTENTIAL to affect me or my kids' behavior and tendencies, know about mitigating factors, and then from that make an informed decision. Sure life is complex and no one factor is likely to be the sole cause for destructive tendencies, but the more we understand of the underlying factors the more informed we can be as a population on how best to live healthily.
How dare you suggest we use glass, you insensitive clod!
My kids and I have trouble with glass, or should I say Glass Shard Contamination, as they tend to break and send shards of glass into the flesh opening blood-letting wounds... though once upon a time blood-letting was considered a form of medical treatment...
And if you happen to be found with this breast cancer gene, you'll be inviolation of the patent... and once the Ninja-lawyers of Genetic Engineering Taskforce Bureau Enforcement of Native Technologies (aka GETBENT) is in place, you will be forced to pay dearly! (cue evil laughter)
Too bad, though I haven't listened to it in ages... perhaps because what he did, the internet does so much better... I mean he was an aggragate of comedy/weird music in an age before internet searches... It's where I first heard of musical comedians like Tom Lehrer and (not as musical) George Carlin... and of course the god of musical mirth, Weird Al... who has done quite well by evolving with the times... as evidenced by the fact that I still regularly watch his stuff on YouTube...
...as opposed to the price of just letting those toxic substances drift through a community, causing untold amount of additional disease and misery... its refreshing to read of military technology that cleans up destruction, rather than just causing it. I hope that someday a perfect defense isn't just a really good offense, but an ingenious defense.
AMA, and the bar association make sense, because it'd be bad if doctors and lawyers actually had to prove their credentials before they practiced their professions...
I see a lot of baby hating going on here. I think it's cuz it reminds slashdotters how babies are made and how they don't do that activity. So chill and remember: The babies of today will bury you tomorrow.
But this article suggests the origins of life, that's the very first living creatures, not diversification as we find on our own planet. It may be that very stable and nutrient rich solutions with very few variations are necessary to coddle the first stages of life into existence, after which evolutionary processes can start the whole "survival of the fittest" diversification of life, that causes life to evolve into an ability to dwell in more extreme climates. This would also explain why seas were a cradle of life, because even physical movement is restricted, and as competition evolves and the ability of life to move and compete increases, then life would be able to move into more "challenging" ecosystems, like faster moving, air-breathing land-based creatures.
Re:Babylon 5 / Firefly / Star Blazers
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
This is exactly why season 5 of B5 was somewhat awkward, because he'd written to an ending of most of the major threads in Season 4, and then had to setup more "secret sauce" throughout season 5. In my favorite alternate universe, JMS is given 10 years garanteed, and is able to do the telepath war, and all the rest of those dangling threads a bit more justice.
However, this whole discussion highlights the problem with the story arc show. A show that has a story arc and an ending in mind, must sustain itself leading up to the climax and then be interesting even after the climax is complete. A secret is discovered, the secret is uncovered, then the consequences of the secret all have to be worth watching. That's hard to do in a traditional sense. If it's predictable, no one's going to watch. The only other solution is to keep throwing plot-twists at the characters, which gets tiresome and jerks the audience around--eventually they say, "Enough is enough!"
Oh yeah... and life isn't a story arc. Life doesn't have a happy ending, it just keeps going way beyond the point where living it was interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Summary: it didn't do what it said it did. Kinda like when I wrote that Perl script that cured cancer.
certainly a certain amount of technical ability is required not to blow yourself up. However, I'm sitting here in my cube listening to two engineers (who won't shut up) go on about how to solve the world's problems. this one guy is going on about how corrupt the court system is, and how he has some sister-in-law that speeds and gets off by manipulating the system. in his opinion (though he never presents it as his opinion, instead it's factual, according to him) he believes every time someone speeds people should be immediately punished. in a way his sense of justice is really overinflated. i sometimes wonder if there isn't something about engineers having to always be right, that when their worldview is challenged by reality, they can't help but suggest improvements that are less than human. The solution trumps the consequences. sure the solution may kill half the human population, but that's nothing to obtaining a solution to whatever problem is presented to them. also i've met a lot of engineers that think they can solve all problems, no matter how unrelated the topic is to engineering. in general, engineers see their level of education as superior to other sciences, especially social sciences and don't even get them started on religion. now the engineers in the cube next to me are solving the problems with cops and public intoxication. it has nothing to do with the systems engineering job they were hired to do, but they go on and on and on... thank goodness I have earplugs. :)
Programming skills aren't what they used to be. They're often based upon the latest language--most often here they're C#. It's interesting to watch programmers who've been trained in such high level languages adopt low level languages. I work with fresh graduates day in and day out, and while they are energetic, they're also completely unaware of the basics. I have had lengthy discussions of concepts like double-buffering, and queues, and static/dynamic memory allocation, pointers, and such. These are concepts that newbies assume can be handled by an API, or automatically garbage-collected... Sure they've heard of garbage collection but they don't understand the limitations and constraints under which it is useful or hits performance.
Further all programmers want to stick with the tools they learned once--while to stick with programming over time, you have to be used to constantly changing. I think that sometimes older programmers (though I've seen it in newbs too) learned something really well, and want to solve all problems with that toolset alone, because the newer versions just aren't worth the headache of upgrading and potentially breaking something. However if you don't upgrade continually eventually the features that make it worth changing come along and shifting to the new language is a whole new experience.
Agreed. We could call it a "Stupid Fee".
HP died with Lew Platt. Carly Fiorina was a trainwreck. The HP Way is gone and done, and has been since the first layoffs just prior to 9/11.
IMO, indoctrination really is a loaded term, that implies there's a point behind exposing a child to an influence.
It's not indoctrination unless the program is used for the purpose of changing behaviors and exposure is used as part of that program.
All this study really proves is that kids like their minds stimulated. They need to do something they find potentially unpleasant, and find a way to associate it with something that they consider "uplifting" or positive. We all do this--and good thing, else there'd be no engineers in the world, because none of us would have the discipline to get through all those droning lecturers... ;)
Just because there are Children that access their imagination to identify with Popeye and create a positive alternative to their perdicament, doesn't imply that such children will be used for evil marketting/nefarious purposes, because ultimately as children age they use other reasoning skills besides fantasy and pleasant dreams upon which to base their decisions.
It's a combination of addictive activities and addictive substances. Internet. Coffee. It's like a perfect storm.
The old games are preserved in the new, as most of the new stuff is just a clone or improvement of the old.
Here's a joke from the Matrix's central core...
Q. How many humans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Humans don't change lightbulbs, they power lightbulbs.
My daughter had a bad English teacher this year. She was a disorganized mess, who lost most of the assignments, did no follow up, placed random weights on assigned grades, and unlike ALL other teachers she had this year, NEVER had midterm grades ready for Parent-Teacher conferences. She used the excuse that she was working on her advanced degrees, and didn't have a lot of time to spare this year. We moved to this school district and believed her. Come to find out she's one of those teachers the veteran parents of kids know to avoid. Up to this year, my daughter was gung-ho about writing, now she claims to hate it. She used to enjoy discussing literature, now she only reads what's safe. I've got a lot of un-teaching to do, as a result. Perhaps there's a valuable life lesson burried under the pile of lost assignments this teacher never graded, but I'm not putting up with this sort of walking trainwreck of a teacher ever again. All in all, this is what comes of professional educators attempting to rationalize mediocrity. It's all theoretical, and no one is ever affected because it's safely academic.
If this is anything like most government contracts and big bulky computer database projects, what this probably means is that Google has done a better job on its own implementing patent search on the broken system, than the contractor that they'd hired and was busy spending government money. The say they're seeking a contractor, because the last one probably spent a lot of money and delivered something that was no better than a simple internet search that's free. But they can't say that, because they need the government to continue to spend lots of money on their department, so that they still look relevant, and get paid by taxpayers maintenance/operational costs, once a newer, shinier big expensive system is put into place by some other contractor that they're hoping won't take them to the cleaners. (just a guess... imo...)
it may be the wrong correlation, but your initial paragraph reads like someone who has no interest in discovering the root cause of psychosis at all. There's value in discovering the influences upon human behavior, and like it or not, there are forms of media that affect behavior--that should be studied. Many youth spend ENORMOUS amounts of time on videogames--it can be their primary daily activity, especially during the summer. Games and media are shared more often now than ever before, with games on mobile devices one can literally take everything to the beach, or work, or to church, or to school.
I would rather know that certain forms of videogames HAVE THE POTENTIAL to affect me or my kids' behavior and tendencies, know about mitigating factors, and then from that make an informed decision. Sure life is complex and no one factor is likely to be the sole cause for destructive tendencies, but the more we understand of the underlying factors the more informed we can be as a population on how best to live healthily.
How dare you suggest we use glass, you insensitive clod! My kids and I have trouble with glass, or should I say Glass Shard Contamination, as they tend to break and send shards of glass into the flesh opening blood-letting wounds... though once upon a time blood-letting was considered a form of medical treatment...
And if you happen to be found with this breast cancer gene, you'll be inviolation of the patent... and once the Ninja-lawyers of Genetic Engineering Taskforce Bureau Enforcement of Native Technologies (aka GETBENT) is in place, you will be forced to pay dearly! (cue evil laughter)
Too bad, though I haven't listened to it in ages... perhaps because what he did, the internet does so much better... I mean he was an aggragate of comedy/weird music in an age before internet searches... It's where I first heard of musical comedians like Tom Lehrer and (not as musical) George Carlin... and of course the god of musical mirth, Weird Al... who has done quite well by evolving with the times... as evidenced by the fact that I still regularly watch his stuff on YouTube...
'Think of the cyberchildren.' that and the cybercitizens who elect cybersenators...
Wait. So they thought that writing an app would be useful? C'mon. Apps aren't useful, they're cute.
Aren't they called Nursing Homes? Care for the Elderly is strangely akin to this...
...as opposed to the price of just letting those toxic substances drift through a community, causing untold amount of additional disease and misery... its refreshing to read of military technology that cleans up destruction, rather than just causing it. I hope that someday a perfect defense isn't just a really good offense, but an ingenious defense.
Okay, I know it's pathetically geeky but everytime I hear the star named Betelgeuse I think of SC2, and the Syrene...
AMA, and the bar association make sense, because it'd be bad if doctors and lawyers actually had to prove their credentials before they practiced their professions...
I see a lot of baby hating going on here. I think it's cuz it reminds slashdotters how babies are made and how they don't do that activity. So chill and remember: The babies of today will bury you tomorrow.
But this article suggests the origins of life, that's the very first living creatures, not diversification as we find on our own planet. It may be that very stable and nutrient rich solutions with very few variations are necessary to coddle the first stages of life into existence, after which evolutionary processes can start the whole "survival of the fittest" diversification of life, that causes life to evolve into an ability to dwell in more extreme climates. This would also explain why seas were a cradle of life, because even physical movement is restricted, and as competition evolves and the ability of life to move and compete increases, then life would be able to move into more "challenging" ecosystems, like faster moving, air-breathing land-based creatures.
This is exactly why season 5 of B5 was somewhat awkward, because he'd written to an ending of most of the major threads in Season 4, and then had to setup more "secret sauce" throughout season 5. In my favorite alternate universe, JMS is given 10 years garanteed, and is able to do the telepath war, and all the rest of those dangling threads a bit more justice.
However, this whole discussion highlights the problem with the story arc show. A show that has a story arc and an ending in mind, must sustain itself leading up to the climax and then be interesting even after the climax is complete. A secret is discovered, the secret is uncovered, then the consequences of the secret all have to be worth watching. That's hard to do in a traditional sense. If it's predictable, no one's going to watch. The only other solution is to keep throwing plot-twists at the characters, which gets tiresome and jerks the audience around--eventually they say, "Enough is enough!"
Oh yeah... and life isn't a story arc. Life doesn't have a happy ending, it just keeps going way beyond the point where living it was interesting.