I guess this is slow news day. Using bits of code without writing everything from scratch - how novel! How controversial! Is there anyone who doesn't do this? What kind of skull-shattering boredom do you have to endure before you start writing blog entries about this?
And the first article suggests that trusting the code is an issue, because you didn't write it. Well let's see - it's short, and you just pasted it into your program. But you're not going to bother to read it? You fail. Seriously.
If you believe the state needs more of your money, it would be at least twice as efficient to just send them a check. Buying lottery tickets is less efficient because your money will be supporting the lottery apparatus - and because about 50% of it will be going to winner payouts.
I also take breaks to go to a window and look off at something on the horizon, it helps prevent the seemingly ubiquitous nearsightedness (literally, not figuratively) among geeks.
This statement isn't supported by current scientific knowledge. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia "Near work has been implicated as a contributing factor to myopia in some studies, but refuted in others."
Personally, I read voraciously, and have stared at a monitor 8+ hours per day for about 20 years. I have no nearsightedness whatsoever.
I think the dumb simplicity of python's print statement is one of my favourite python things.
Interesting. Where other languages have print statements that do exactly what you tell them, Python's print statement has at least two ways of adding unexpected characters. Not what I'd call "dumb simplicity".
While most experienced programmers can predict what a print statement will output, they won't be able to do this with Python's... unless they're experienced with Python.
print "Hello, World!" # One extra character is added here. print "Hello", "world" # Two extra characters are added here. print "Hello", # Guess how many extra characters are added here? Hint: not zero.
Quiz:
* How can you use Python's print statement to print some text without a newline? No fair firing up the interpreter! * Name three languages whose print statement only prints characters that the programmer explicitly passes to it.
New York, a state notorious for its aggressive pro-consumer office of the Attorney General, makes it a crime for someone to "[impersonate] another and [do] an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another."
Crazy. Almost makes me want to move to New York.
New MSN Autos columnist puts his foot in it
on
Green Cars You Can't Buy
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Right, "Green Cars Automakers Won't Sell You". Possibly the most misleading headline you'll see all week.
These vehicles are heavily subsidized by the states where you may sell them, and they're interested in getting their investment back. California lays out wads of cash for some cleaner vehicles, so California wants them driven in California (for example; there are several other states involved). The automakers are not allowed to sell them anywhere else. It's that simple.
If these vehicles were produced without subsidies, they'd be so expensive that no one would buy them. Lawrence Ulrich seems to think that automakers should make a highly expensive clean-burning vehicles on their own and sell them at a loss, perhaps so they can go out of business in two or three years.
At least Slashdot used a non-misleading headline instead. Kudos for that.
'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable
For those of you who scorn this prediction, remember that there are people alive who have seen only a few contemporary movies. For those people, LoTR effects are actually pretty good. After all, computer-generated effects, while still in their infancy, have gotten steadily better over the last couple of decades. So it's inevitable that there will be a few younger folks for whom LoTR's effects, when compared to most other contemporary movies, stand out as examples of quality.
For the majority of us, of course, they look like crap compared to the models or the (gasp) REAL props they were forced to use in the past.
None of the quotes in the article support the reporter's opinion that the intent is to detect adverse effects. It's almost like the reporter is trying to stir things up... troll, if you will, by making it look like the scientists are out to confirm some already-held conclusions that the climate is getting worse.
Because as we all know, bacteria have but one function: to infect humans. And nothing prepares them for the invasion of our helpless tissues like living in a glacier for a few eons.
Well let's look at the data, shall we? We know of one world with life, and on that world, intelligence developed.
So we have a single data point. I propose that your attempt to graph a trend from this data point is premature.
It may be that life was never meant to get smarter than apes are, and humans were an anomaly...
Meant, eh? Occam's Razor doesn't guide us to assuming a driving, intelligent, purposeful force where there's no evidence for any. Are you a Christian or a conspiracy theorist?
A more reasonable method of integrating Automatix's functionality into Ubuntu would be for the Automatix team to provide deb files to act as installers for the software currently provided.
This is actually a pretty insightful article - half of it is, anyway. The cynical view of large companies, as they interact with "open source" (Free software) is correct. They talk the talk, and manipulate it in other ways, self-interestedly. The article would have stood pretty well if he'd stuck to Microsoft, Sun, Novell, and Cisco and their motivations.
However, his curt dismissal of Free software is blinkered. Open source ran, and runs, a huge chunk of the Internet. Take away bind and Apache and what have you got? AOL. Try to imagine how Google could have grown so big, so fast, if they were paying Sun for every CPU they deploy - the bill would be astronomical. Not only are the motivations of Free software creators and users pragmatic, but they wield great power.
I guess this is a silly place to respond to this, but I don't think switching to Linux should be a nightmare for a Windows super-power user. The underlying framework of Unix is just better designed, simpler, and more consistent than the unholy marriage of MS-DOS and Windows that is cmd.exe and the registry. Sure, bash is different, but a power user should be a power user in whatever environment - and learning bash is, frankly, a delight after command.com and the rogues that inhabit C:\WINDOWS. And the natural integration of Perl, Python, or (say halleluja now) *Ruby* simply makes Linux power-use a dream come true.
I'm confused. Are you saying that she should have rejected Ubuntu entirely because this problem isn't resolvable by a grandma, or that she shouldn't have complained because it isn't Ubuntu's fault?
I read it as: she wanted certain things to work, and this didn't, so there's a red mark. Whose fault it is is irrelevant.
There are several problems with Goetz's analysis. First, (s)he underestimates the difficulty of making explanations both simple and correct. Secondly, Wikipedia varies on any metric you'd care to apply to it, and simple clarity is no different. There are a vast number of easy-to-read, simple articles on difficult subjects, and cherry-picking a few that bother you doesn't change that.
And finally, Wikipedia does such a vastly better job of explaining science than anyone else, that I suspect Goetz's expectations are unrealistic. I mean, if you suddenly decided that 500 mph bullet trains from New York to Los Angeles were essential, would that make the lack of them evidence of some sort of tragedy? Compare your expectations to the real world before complaining that you're not getting what you want! Just try to find a textbook on biology that's anywhere near as clear, direct, and correct as Wikipedia is on epigenetics.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty funny comment :) But I guess the joke is on the mods in this case.
they would be in violation of antitrust legislation if they used an artificially low price to cut into the competition
At which point the Justice Department would swoop in and beg Microsoft for a spanking, I'm sure.
I guess this is slow news day. Using bits of code without writing everything from scratch - how novel! How controversial! Is there anyone who doesn't do this? What kind of skull-shattering boredom do you have to endure before you start writing blog entries about this?
And the first article suggests that trusting the code is an issue, because you didn't write it. Well let's see - it's short, and you just pasted it into your program. But you're not going to bother to read it? You fail. Seriously.
That's because the correct term is oligarchy. While he is powerful, Putin doesn't wield absolute power like Hugo Chavez.
What's this about? Anyone want to clue me in?
If you believe the state needs more of your money, it would be at least twice as efficient to just send them a check. Buying lottery tickets is less efficient because your money will be supporting the lottery apparatus - and because about 50% of it will be going to winner payouts.
This statement isn't supported by current scientific knowledge. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia
"Near work has been implicated as a contributing factor to myopia in some studies, but refuted in others."
Personally, I read voraciously, and have stared at a monitor 8+ hours per day for about 20 years. I have no nearsightedness whatsoever.
Interesting. Where other languages have print statements that do exactly what you tell them, Python's print statement has at least two ways of adding unexpected characters. Not what I'd call "dumb simplicity".
While most experienced programmers can predict what a print statement will output, they won't be able to do this with Python's
print "Hello, World!" # One extra character is added here.
print "Hello", "world" # Two extra characters are added here.
print "Hello", # Guess how many extra characters are added here? Hint: not zero.
Quiz:
* How can you use Python's print statement to print some text without a newline? No fair firing up the interpreter!
* Name three languages whose print statement only prints characters that the programmer explicitly passes to it.
No, it's still slang that doesn't belong in a Slashdot headline. Zonk should show more professionalism.
Crazy. Almost makes me want to move to New York.
Right, "Green Cars Automakers Won't Sell You". Possibly the most misleading headline you'll see all week.
These vehicles are heavily subsidized by the states where you may sell them, and they're interested in getting their investment back. California lays out wads of cash for some cleaner vehicles, so California wants them driven in California (for example; there are several other states involved). The automakers are not allowed to sell them anywhere else. It's that simple.
If these vehicles were produced without subsidies, they'd be so expensive that no one would buy them. Lawrence Ulrich seems to think that automakers should make a highly expensive clean-burning vehicles on their own and sell them at a loss, perhaps so they can go out of business in two or three years.
At least Slashdot used a non-misleading headline instead. Kudos for that.
Fixed that for you.
For those of you who scorn this prediction, remember that there are people alive who have seen only a few contemporary movies. For those people, LoTR effects are actually pretty good. After all, computer-generated effects, while still in their infancy, have gotten steadily better over the last couple of decades. So it's inevitable that there will be a few younger folks for whom LoTR's effects, when compared to most other contemporary movies, stand out as examples of quality.
For the majority of us, of course, they look like crap compared to the models or the (gasp) REAL props they were forced to use in the past.
None of the quotes in the article support the reporter's opinion that the intent is to detect adverse effects. It's almost like the reporter is trying to stir things up... troll, if you will, by making it look like the scientists are out to confirm some already-held conclusions that the climate is getting worse.
Because as we all know, bacteria have but one function: to infect humans. And nothing prepares them for the invasion of our helpless tissues like living in a glacier for a few eons.
I would really like to know more about what she meant by that.
So we have a single data point. I propose that your attempt to graph a trend from this data point is premature.
Meant, eh? Occam's Razor doesn't guide us to assuming a driving, intelligent, purposeful force where there's no evidence for any. Are you a Christian or a conspiracy theorist?
Duh
I think spelling the title of the book correctly shouldn't be too much to ask.
University students are adults. Why should Ohio University - or any other nearby entity with deep pockets - step in to help them?
This is actually a pretty insightful article - half of it is, anyway. The cynical view of large companies, as they interact with "open source" (Free software) is correct. They talk the talk, and manipulate it in other ways, self-interestedly. The article would have stood pretty well if he'd stuck to Microsoft, Sun, Novell, and Cisco and their motivations.
However, his curt dismissal of Free software is blinkered. Open source ran, and runs, a huge chunk of the Internet. Take away bind and Apache and what have you got? AOL. Try to imagine how Google could have grown so big, so fast, if they were paying Sun for every CPU they deploy - the bill would be astronomical. Not only are the motivations of Free software creators and users pragmatic, but they wield great power.
I guess this is a silly place to respond to this, but I don't think switching to Linux should be a nightmare for a Windows super-power user. The underlying framework of Unix is just better designed, simpler, and more consistent than the unholy marriage of MS-DOS and Windows that is cmd.exe and the registry. Sure, bash is different, but a power user should be a power user in whatever environment - and learning bash is, frankly, a delight after command.com and the rogues that inhabit C:\WINDOWS. And the natural integration of Perl, Python, or (say halleluja now) *Ruby* simply makes Linux power-use a dream come true.
I'm confused. Are you saying that she should have rejected Ubuntu entirely because this problem isn't resolvable by a grandma, or that she shouldn't have complained because it isn't Ubuntu's fault?
I read it as: she wanted certain things to work, and this didn't, so there's a red mark. Whose fault it is is irrelevant.
No.
There are several problems with Goetz's analysis. First, (s)he underestimates the difficulty of making explanations both simple and correct. Secondly, Wikipedia varies on any metric you'd care to apply to it, and simple clarity is no different. There are a vast number of easy-to-read, simple articles on difficult subjects, and cherry-picking a few that bother you doesn't change that.
And finally, Wikipedia does such a vastly better job of explaining science than anyone else, that I suspect Goetz's expectations are unrealistic. I mean, if you suddenly decided that 500 mph bullet trains from New York to Los Angeles were essential, would that make the lack of them evidence of some sort of tragedy? Compare your expectations to the real world before complaining that you're not getting what you want! Just try to find a textbook on biology that's anywhere near as clear, direct, and correct as Wikipedia is on epigenetics.