As for responding to that clown on your last day, I tend to say something along the lines of "your approval is neither sought nor required" in such a situation.
This is not to counter your argument, but your pinning-on of Adam Smith.
People seem to use "Adam Smith" these days as a synonym for "unregulated capitalist-anarchist jungle". The fact is, Adam Smith was arguing against monopolies by landed gentry/royalty, not complete lack of regulation on business. Indeed, he made a point of saying proper regulation was of utmost importance for the system to work properly.
It seems to me that if some Joe Random Civilian knows enough about locations and troop strengths of army regiments to interest the enemy, then the army already screwed up. Perhaps they ought to be encouraging that kind of posting, to flush out what is already out of the bag (and perhaps to spread misinformation through people making shit up, as people will do).
They administered the test, then gave three weeks of training, then gave it again. There was virtually no change from the first test to the second.
This pretty strongly indicates that either you get it or you don't.
You may now say "well, it just means the training was crap", but we're talking about the simplest of programming concepts here: assignment. How many weeks should it take to "get" assignment? I would think the time should be on the order of an hour, tops.
There's pretty strong evidence that the ability to program is more or less in you or not, and that training won't change that. If we want to start teaching programming to as many people as possible, we should begin with a simple screening test (as in the link) and exempt anyone who doesn't pass. To do otherwise will no doubt result in massively widespread, deep-seated hatred/disdain for programming (and maybe programmers).
Really? Could you give us a list of, say, half-a-dozen posts to this effect?
Or are you just throwing up a laundry list of opinions directly counter to yours and assuming that a load of well-educated and well-informed people will have them? Because I could totally see the logic in that.
Easy fix: electric heating elements and thermostat controllers are well-known, simple technologies. You still end up saving a lot of energy vs. the old lights, as you only use exactly as much energy for heat as you need instead of pouring it out all the time.
These definitions were in use generations ago. Propaganda or not, it's part of the language now.
So what you're saying is that it's legitimate to change the language. Yet it hasn't occurred to you that it's exactly as legitimate for us to try to do the same?
English is spoken a little bit by most people in the world; Chinese is spoken by a few people in most places in the world. It's a subtle but important distinction. English gets that state because everyone wants to know at least a little of it (for business purposes or whatever); Chinese gets that state because the Chinese have a weird habit of holing themselves up together in little enclaves wherever they disperse to. If someone could explain to me why that is, I'd be obliged.
I don't have a problem with people talking on Bluetooth headsets. Doing so can be remarkably helpful, as I myself can attest. What I do mind, however, is people wearing them all the time. This makes the person look as though either (1) he doesn't care that he looks stupid (this would be the "dorky") or (2) he believes he's so incredibly important that any delay at all in answering a call would cause severe anguish in some sector of the world (this would be the "self-important asshole").
The same line of thinking applies, in my opinion, to belt-mounted cell-phone holsters.
do we disregard the results because we believe Chiropractic to be quackery?
One major problem with "chiropractic" is that it reads like an adjective but is used both as an adjective and a noun. It's just screwy. It's as though you would talk about things that are acoustic, and that therefore fall within the field of...acoustic.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
On the other hand, it's like the half-assed nature of the concept is embodied in the half-assed nature of the word, so it sort of makes sense, in a meta kind of way.
You've forgotten the First Tenet of Modern American Dispute Resolution: "Whoever's bigger, richer, and more powerful is in the right, and you're a commie if you say otherwise."
Funny, I always thought of gratis as a kind of slang term -- the kind of thing Good Ol' Tony down at the garage would say while holding up his hands and making a "fugeddaboutit" face when you ask him what you owe him for a simple four-ounce oil top-off.
You'd be surprised. Arcades don't get nearly the traffic they did back then, and since everyone has plenty of gaming hardware firepower at home anyway, the only advantage arcade machines have left anymore is some input method so specialized or finicky that no one would be willing to buy one for their home machine even if it were available. Despite the fragile nature of some of these things, it doesn't seem to be too much trouble to keep them working.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it is used in situations various, sundry, and miscellaneous.
When trying to hide something in plain sight, drown 'em in irrelevant crap.
I'm partial to "I don't remember asking."
This is not to counter your argument, but your pinning-on of Adam Smith.
People seem to use "Adam Smith" these days as a synonym for "unregulated capitalist-anarchist jungle". The fact is, Adam Smith was arguing against monopolies by landed gentry/royalty, not complete lack of regulation on business. Indeed, he made a point of saying proper regulation was of utmost importance for the system to work properly.
It seems to me that if some Joe Random Civilian knows enough about locations and troop strengths of army regiments to interest the enemy, then the army already screwed up. Perhaps they ought to be encouraging that kind of posting, to flush out what is already out of the bag (and perhaps to spread misinformation through people making shit up, as people will do).
You're completely missing the point.
They administered the test, then gave three weeks of training, then gave it again. There was virtually no change from the first test to the second.
This pretty strongly indicates that either you get it or you don't.
You may now say "well, it just means the training was crap", but we're talking about the simplest of programming concepts here: assignment. How many weeks should it take to "get" assignment? I would think the time should be on the order of an hour, tops.
There's pretty strong evidence that the ability to program is more or less in you or not, and that training won't change that. If we want to start teaching programming to as many people as possible, we should begin with a simple screening test (as in the link) and exempt anyone who doesn't pass. To do otherwise will no doubt result in massively widespread, deep-seated hatred/disdain for programming (and maybe programmers).
Thanks.
Really? Could you give us a list of, say, half-a-dozen posts to this effect?
Or are you just throwing up a laundry list of opinions directly counter to yours and assuming that a load of well-educated and well-informed people will have them? Because I could totally see the logic in that.
Easy fix: electric heating elements and thermostat controllers are well-known, simple technologies. You still end up saving a lot of energy vs. the old lights, as you only use exactly as much energy for heat as you need instead of pouring it out all the time.
I don't understand that. The LED light bulb replacements I've seen have massive heat sinks.
So what you're saying is that it's legitimate to change the language. Yet it hasn't occurred to you that it's exactly as legitimate for us to try to do the same?
And that will be their undoing.
English is spoken a little bit by most people in the world; Chinese is spoken by a few people in most places in the world. It's a subtle but important distinction. English gets that state because everyone wants to know at least a little of it (for business purposes or whatever); Chinese gets that state because the Chinese have a weird habit of holing themselves up together in little enclaves wherever they disperse to. If someone could explain to me why that is, I'd be obliged.
I don't have a problem with people talking on Bluetooth headsets. Doing so can be remarkably helpful, as I myself can attest. What I do mind, however, is people wearing them all the time. This makes the person look as though either (1) he doesn't care that he looks stupid (this would be the "dorky") or (2) he believes he's so incredibly important that any delay at all in answering a call would cause severe anguish in some sector of the world (this would be the "self-important asshole").
The same line of thinking applies, in my opinion, to belt-mounted cell-phone holsters.
One major problem with "chiropractic" is that it reads like an adjective but is used both as an adjective and a noun. It's just screwy. It's as though you would talk about things that are acoustic, and that therefore fall within the field of...acoustic.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
On the other hand, it's like the half-assed nature of the concept is embodied in the half-assed nature of the word, so it sort of makes sense, in a meta kind of way.
You've forgotten the First Tenet of Modern American Dispute Resolution: "Whoever's bigger, richer, and more powerful is in the right, and you're a commie if you say otherwise."
Can't you deniers come up with anything new?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
Dude, it's ok. Surely she's not reading this. You can tell it like it really is.
I mean, he had the chance to design his own wife, and look how flat-chested he made her.
What a waste of an opportunity to perfectly legitimately use the word penultimate.
Feh.
Funny, I always thought of gratis as a kind of slang term -- the kind of thing Good Ol' Tony down at the garage would say while holding up his hands and making a "fugeddaboutit" face when you ask him what you owe him for a simple four-ounce oil top-off.
You'd be surprised. Arcades don't get nearly the traffic they did back then, and since everyone has plenty of gaming hardware firepower at home anyway, the only advantage arcade machines have left anymore is some input method so specialized or finicky that no one would be willing to buy one for their home machine even if it were available. Despite the fragile nature of some of these things, it doesn't seem to be too much trouble to keep them working.
Kinda sad, really, says this old arcade rat.
Because the MAFIAA isn't interested in willing anal.
More to the point, it's another form of pollution.