It looks like the reviewer is fairly new to this programming thing, and this was the first insightful book he read on the subject, but he didn't understand everything completely.
By the way, Groovy is compiled. Sort of, in a dynamic way. And it's bloody annoying. When I run Grails and change class A, groovy needs some time to recompile, and then complains it can't cast class A to class A. I never had that problem with Ruby (although Ruby has its own share of reliability issues).
Do the app costs include all the money for purchasing development machines, and writing, building, hosting all the back end servers needing to support the apps?
My guess is the infrastructure costs are included in the costs of the website, and the app is just a little extra that takes advantage of that but makes it a nicer and snappier experience to use it.
But is the government locking out others? There is an Android version of the job seeker app. No idea if there's a Symbian version, but if there isn't, it could be a next step.
Although that data is undiscovered it is not indeterminate, so the data must be split into two sets to avoid counting mutually exclusive events in the statistics.
No it mustn't. It only must in order to satisfy your intuition that's unable to grasp the simple math behind this problem.
What's your opinion on the Monty Hall problem? It's very much the same. Counter-intuitive, yet true, if you work it out.
Someone who explicitly just wants to replace Sony's walled garden with his own, doesn't exactly strike me as a sort of freedom fighters.
I don't know. Plenty of freedom fighters throughout history overthrew a brutal dictatorship just to institute their own. (Most didn't have the decency to tell you this up front, however.)
If that's your issue, then criticize the quality of the apps, not the general fact that the government does something that's only useful to a minority.
We can't justify spending thousands on something that not only an absolute minority can access, but likely only a minority of that minority will ever bother to use anyway.
What the fuck? Governments regularly spend millions on various minorities. How can you possibly not justify spending mere thousands?
If the Government develops iPhone apps, but not apps for the other proprietary platforms, then that could be seen as a Government endorsement of Apple over their competitors.
It's cute you're getting all wound up about this, but there's also an Android version of that app.
If your point is the accessibility of the apps, then maybe it's smarter to ask the government which other platforms they support, and demand that they port those apps to Symbian and MeeGo, instead of demanding that they stop all development completely.
b) If they *only* made a Linux media center application then yes, I would criticize them.
Then you've got no reason to criticize the UK government here, because they also made an Android app. Maybe other platforms too, or maybe those will come in the future.
But what if a website doesn't give the user the power than a native app would? If it can be done cheaply (and this does sound extremely cheap for a government project), then I'm all for native apps for the various mobile platforms.
According to TFA, a whopping 40,000 pounds was wasted on this. Compared to the many millions that are regularly wasted on websites, I don't see this as a terribly big deal. If the apps are useful at all, I'd rather have the government expand this project to other platforms than to stop it completely.
As for wasted tax money, most government websites (where I live at least) cost way more than they should. If you fix that, you can fund thousands of iPhone apps with the money you saved.
But there is still a case for saying the European Cup is harder. Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine and Russia DNQ'd for FIFA 2010, whereas Cameroon, New Zealand and Nigeria (and of course South Africa) did.
Who cares about Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Cameroon, New Zealand or Nigeria? Argentina and Brazil matter far, far more. They're the strongest non-European teams, and any tournament where they're not allowed to compete is poorer for it.
If Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine and Russia are good enough to win the world cup, then they should have no problem qualifying. If they don't qualify, then it's clearly not a good year for them, and not having them in the tournament is not a terrible loss. But not allowing countries to qualify in the first place, means there's a chance that the strongest team in the world is not present in your tournament.
Nobody denies that of any regional tournament, the European championship is by far the strongest, but in the World Cup, you get the best European teams and the best teams of the rest of the world.
FIFA has more members than the Universal Postal Union, so there are more countries interested in playing international football than receiving international mail.
So how do those countries communicate with FIFA in order to enter their team for the qualifiers? Or to get a copy of the rules, or something?
A stronger tournament without Brazil and Argentina? Sounds unlikely.
Look up which countries actually won the World Cup, and how often. South American countries dominate the list. Even a small country like Uruguay has won it more than once.
The reply where you start by agreeing that 1/3 is correct, and then propose some meddling in order to prove your hurt intuition right again?
You're just trying to justify your intuition, and beat the data into a shape that feels right to you. The analysis of the data in the article (and by me) is correct, though. Unfortunately for your intuition.
There can be several levels of helpdesk. First-line helpdesk is the monkey level, but second and third really need people who can think, and preferably people who wrote whatever application the helpdesk is about.
How is that "most if not all", rather than "some". Many RPGs do it quite well. Firstly all of those that don't break laws of physics at all, but also the ones that don't break it in ways that are limited in how far they can be exploited (consider Traveller with its slow FTL travel, and no FTL communication (other than through travel)), the ones that break it in uncontrollable ways (GURPS Voodoo with its powerful but vague spirit-driven magic), and the ones that break it and do draw pretty extensive conclusions from it (GURPS Technomancer with its magic-powered supertech).
The only RPGs that really go very wrong are the D&D-clones that want abundant powerful magic in a still recognizably medieval setting. That just doesn't work. (It might work if magic is rare, though.)
But I think your real complaint is just about badly written storylines in linear computer games.
Intuition would say that it is independent. TFA is all about how intuition is wrong. Just because your data (and theirs) shows that it is not independent doesn't mean it isn't. You may have your data wrong. Intuition may be right.
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It looks like the reviewer is fairly new to this programming thing, and this was the first insightful book he read on the subject, but he didn't understand everything completely.
By the way, Groovy is compiled. Sort of, in a dynamic way. And it's bloody annoying. When I run Grails and change class A, groovy needs some time to recompile, and then complains it can't cast class A to class A. I never had that problem with Ruby (although Ruby has its own share of reliability issues).
Do the app costs include all the money for purchasing development machines, and writing, building, hosting all the back end servers needing to support the apps?
My guess is the infrastructure costs are included in the costs of the website, and the app is just a little extra that takes advantage of that but makes it a nicer and snappier experience to use it.
Doesn't Android run a custom version of J2SE? Still, shouldn't be too hard to port.
But is the government locking out others? There is an Android version of the job seeker app. No idea if there's a Symbian version, but if there isn't, it could be a next step.
Although that data is undiscovered it is not indeterminate, so the data must be split into two sets to avoid counting mutually exclusive events in the statistics.
No it mustn't. It only must in order to satisfy your intuition that's unable to grasp the simple math behind this problem.
What's your opinion on the Monty Hall problem? It's very much the same. Counter-intuitive, yet true, if you work it out.
Someone who explicitly just wants to replace Sony's walled garden with his own, doesn't exactly strike me as a sort of freedom fighters.
I don't know. Plenty of freedom fighters throughout history overthrew a brutal dictatorship just to institute their own. (Most didn't have the decency to tell you this up front, however.)
If that's your issue, then criticize the quality of the apps, not the general fact that the government does something that's only useful to a minority.
We can't justify spending thousands on something that not only an absolute minority can access, but likely only a minority of that minority will ever bother to use anyway.
What the fuck? Governments regularly spend millions on various minorities. How can you possibly not justify spending mere thousands?
If the Government develops iPhone apps, but not apps for the other proprietary platforms, then that could be seen as a Government endorsement of Apple over their competitors.
It's cute you're getting all wound up about this, but there's also an Android version of that app.
If your point is the accessibility of the apps, then maybe it's smarter to ask the government which other platforms they support, and demand that they port those apps to Symbian and MeeGo, instead of demanding that they stop all development completely.
anyone can use linux without paying anybody.
Without a computer?
are you willing to provide a free iphone to everybody who would express interest in running the app ?
Or they can use Android. But they'll still need hardware to run it on.
a) The BBC doesn't receive taxpayer pounds
I wonder where you got that idea.
b) If they *only* made a Linux media center application then yes, I would criticize them.
Then you've got no reason to criticize the UK government here, because they also made an Android app. Maybe other platforms too, or maybe those will come in the future.
But what if a website doesn't give the user the power than a native app would? If it can be done cheaply (and this does sound extremely cheap for a government project), then I'm all for native apps for the various mobile platforms.
According to TFA, a whopping 40,000 pounds was wasted on this. Compared to the many millions that are regularly wasted on websites, I don't see this as a terribly big deal. If the apps are useful at all, I'd rather have the government expand this project to other platforms than to stop it completely.
As for wasted tax money, most government websites (where I live at least) cost way more than they should. If you fix that, you can fund thousands of iPhone apps with the money you saved.
But there is still a case for saying the European Cup is harder. Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine and Russia DNQ'd for FIFA 2010, whereas Cameroon, New Zealand and Nigeria (and of course South Africa) did.
Who cares about Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Cameroon, New Zealand or Nigeria? Argentina and Brazil matter far, far more. They're the strongest non-European teams, and any tournament where they're not allowed to compete is poorer for it.
If Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine and Russia are good enough to win the world cup, then they should have no problem qualifying. If they don't qualify, then it's clearly not a good year for them, and not having them in the tournament is not a terrible loss. But not allowing countries to qualify in the first place, means there's a chance that the strongest team in the world is not present in your tournament.
Nobody denies that of any regional tournament, the European championship is by far the strongest, but in the World Cup, you get the best European teams and the best teams of the rest of the world.
I just shows how little we understand about the immune system still.
We understand it sufficiently to know that gets better as it responds to potential threats. Consider vaccines, for example.
We also know that humans didn't evolve in air-conditioned rooms, but rather outdoors, in forests and savannas.
FIFA has more members than the Universal Postal Union, so there are more countries interested in playing international football than receiving international mail.
So how do those countries communicate with FIFA in order to enter their team for the qualifiers? Or to get a copy of the rules, or something?
A stronger tournament without Brazil and Argentina? Sounds unlikely.
Look up which countries actually won the World Cup, and how often. South American countries dominate the list. Even a small country like Uruguay has won it more than once.
The reply where you start by agreeing that 1/3 is correct, and then propose some meddling in order to prove your hurt intuition right again?
You're just trying to justify your intuition, and beat the data into a shape that feels right to you. The analysis of the data in the article (and by me) is correct, though. Unfortunately for your intuition.
There can be several levels of helpdesk. First-line helpdesk is the monkey level, but second and third really need people who can think, and preferably people who wrote whatever application the helpdesk is about.
Having one of my own, I can assure everybody there's nothing wrong with red-headed offspring.
Are you serious? Taxes take only what you can afford. Debt collectors will take your home, if necessary.
Higher taxes leave you with less to pay bills, buy food, etc.
But so does higher debt.
How is that "most if not all", rather than "some". Many RPGs do it quite well. Firstly all of those that don't break laws of physics at all, but also the ones that don't break it in ways that are limited in how far they can be exploited (consider Traveller with its slow FTL travel, and no FTL communication (other than through travel)), the ones that break it in uncontrollable ways (GURPS Voodoo with its powerful but vague spirit-driven magic), and the ones that break it and do draw pretty extensive conclusions from it (GURPS Technomancer with its magic-powered supertech).
The only RPGs that really go very wrong are the D&D-clones that want abundant powerful magic in a still recognizably medieval setting. That just doesn't work. (It might work if magic is rare, though.)
But I think your real complaint is just about badly written storylines in linear computer games.
Intuition would say that it is independent. TFA is all about how intuition is wrong. Just because your data (and theirs) shows that it is not independent doesn't mean it isn't. You may have your data wrong. Intuition may be right.
Since when does intuition trump data?
See here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1701394&cid=32752678
Nice! Experimental data, even.
Can we agree that that settles the case that the chance is indeed 1/3 if you select by family?
Tell that to the rock.