In 1989, my manager walked into my office and said, "hey, I hear you been learning C. Congratulations, you get to port our software to Unix" (from a (ugh) pr1me). He then rolled in a couple of boxes, and we preceeded to set up BSD derived workstation. Everything I learned during the port has been valid since. Hell, quite a bit of what I wrote still runs just fine.
Counter this with 2 months later when the VP of engineering walks in and says, "One of our clients has been trying to use the DOS port with this windows thing. Load this up and let me know what kind of problems you find." At which point he gave me the 2.0 disks. Off the top of my head, the only thing I 'learned' (vodoo, would be a better description, although I could concede 'rote memorization') which *might* still be valid is F4 (hardcoded) closes a window (Ok, *maybe* now it also will free resources, I don't know, nor do I care).
Interesting how you bemoan 'blanket statements' and turn around and make one about software development. Curiously enough, it is specifically (as we read later) about how you make your living. Then you close with comments about sleeping at night.
On the one hand, you are giving credit to the entire self-serving crap which is leveled against exactly what your trying to defend. On the other hand, the whole 'sleep very well' sounds quite fake.
Ya' know, I used to feel that way, too. Truely, a sub-...., I don't know, mammal? spine'ed? life form.
Then, one day it dawned on me. This peckerhead hates every movie I like. And likes, nay, adores, every movie I believe to be utter swill. Viola! Now I know which movies to go see, and which ones to avoid.
I'll leave the fine points the semantics of art vs. craft to someone else. Given how anything which passes for 'news' is little more than a PR piece, then, Yes, it is not only dead, but it has passed beyond the rotting corpse of a time-lapsed special effect to little more than ashes in the wind.
You do realize you could reverse left in righ in that comment, and it is equally valid don't you?
Try this on for size:
In other words, people who can think in more than one dimension (left right), shut up. People who want to reduce a subject to such a base and low level yes/no discusion that it really serves no purpose whatsoever continue.
> Imagine a tech company staffed by brilliant geeks who are working their asses off to solve customers' problems.
Don't have too. Always have.
> It would be wonderful, except the nature of brilliant geeks is not to solve other peoples' problems, but to work on things that interest them.
BZZZT! Thanks for playing. In my experience the problem comes down to the mgt. insisting on the band-aid approach and nothing but the band-aid approach. I've seen many a 'quick fix' go in ending up being a permenant solution. Yeah, it mad the phone stop ringing for the particular problem, but ends up causing further problems down the road.
Taking the 'geek' side a little more here (and, again, this is my experience), it isn't a matter of what 'interests them,' but of solving the actual problem. It really is sad how often the moral equivelant of 'direct stderr to/dev/null' is used.
Now, to be fair, there are times when the effort to get to the root of the problem is not cost effective (for lack of a better term). Again, in my experience, balancing these is what will make the difference between real innovation and mediocrity.
I could almost agree with your arguement if it won't for this premise.....
> I mean, how many people would read the article: "Phone Company research shows that Municipal Wireless is a bad idea" without thinking "Ah, the phone company's just pissed that they're not getting money.
Based on what passes for journalism in the last 10 years, I would have to say 'very few.'
I used to have coworker who was fond of shouting "What if Sparticus had a piper-cub?" in meetings whenever the what-ifs started. My personal favorite is still "What if Aunt May was a Herald of Galactus?" Unfortunately, more people watch SNL than read Marvel comics......
Ya' know, everytime I sit down and watch this, I think "Well, it can't be worse than the last one I watched." And everytime, without fail, I am pleasantly surprised.
> I feel exhilerated every time I get to add "in Japan"
This like the expression tacked on when you read a fortune cookie? ("...in bed." or "...between my thighs")
Re:No, you don't have it straight.
on
Are You Annoying?
·
· Score: 1
Your point is valid, However,
> "Well, my email is working, so it must be a problem on your end."
and
> "Hmm, let me check our mail server - well, everything seems OK there, let's see if the problem is on your computer."
are *NOT* 'Two ways of saying the same thing'
In the second example, the speaker is performing some actions (checking the mail server, and the non-speaker's computer). Unless, of course, this scenerio is taking place over the phone and the speaker is lieing about checking the computers.... Also missing is whether or not this is the 20th time in the last 2 weeks the non-speaker has been screwing around with their system, screwed up email, and approached the speaker with some vague and completely useless observation regarding email not working.
And what does the MVP [1] cost [2]? I mean in dollars/euro/whatever, I am aware of the mortal soul thing.
[1] Is this really one of their TLA-named programs? Ya' gotta' be kidding me. Moronic shit like this really, really, *really*, makes me glad I don't have to deal with their tripe.
[2] Not to even bring up the whole issue of 'value'.
You propably are unaware of it, but the PIAT was a British anti-tank weapon during the second world war (a 4LA to be sure, but I have no idea what it is). Similiar in concept to the US Bazooka or the German PanzerFaust. One striking difference though. When the PIAT was aimed at a target below horizontal, the shell would fall out. I guess the designers never thought it would be aimed at a target lower than the operator. So, maybe PIAT is a good 4LA after all....
Slashdot Mirror
> Have you forgotten the age-old maxim? Do not ascribe to greed that which can be readily explained by sheer idiocy.
And as with the original, neither are mutually exclusive. Hmmm, I think I have Mark's Razor.
..."2001, A Space Odyssey" parody [1]:
"What's for dinner?"
"A glass of steak, a glass of potatoes, and a glass of carrots."
"What? Nothing to drink?"
"Oh, and a piece of coffee."
[1] undoubtedly some play on Odyssey -> Idoicy....
Just a FWIW......
In 1989, my manager walked into my office and said, "hey, I hear you been learning C. Congratulations, you get to port our software to Unix" (from a (ugh) pr1me). He then rolled in a couple of boxes, and we preceeded to set up BSD derived workstation. Everything I learned during the port has been valid since. Hell, quite a bit of what I wrote still runs just fine.
Counter this with 2 months later when the VP of engineering walks in and says, "One of our clients has been trying to use the DOS port with this windows thing. Load this up and let me know what kind of problems you find." At which point he gave me the 2.0 disks. Off the top of my head, the only thing I 'learned' (vodoo, would be a better description, although I could concede 'rote memorization') which *might* still be valid is F4 (hardcoded) closes a window (Ok, *maybe* now it also will free resources, I don't know, nor do I care).
> It was reasonable to assume
1) must be some definition of reasonable I'm unfamiliar with.
2) what every phys. ed. says with respect to the word assume.
> and the obvious question:
>
> where are the patches?
No. The obvious question is "WHAT are those patches?" Followed by "where are the patches?"
> Of course, all great art is controversial. True. But not all controversy is greate art, is it now?
Interesting how you bemoan 'blanket statements' and turn around and make one about software development. Curiously enough, it is specifically (as we read later) about how you make your living. Then you close with comments about sleeping at night.
On the one hand, you are giving credit to the entire self-serving crap which is leveled against exactly what your trying to defend. On the other hand, the whole 'sleep very well' sounds quite fake.
Methink, you protest to much.
Ya' know, I used to feel that way, too. Truely, a sub-...., I don't know, mammal? spine'ed? life form.
Then, one day it dawned on me. This peckerhead hates every movie I like. And likes, nay, adores, every movie I believe to be utter swill. Viola! Now I know which movies to go see, and which ones to avoid.
> Since when was that acceptable?
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps about the time rebooting or flat out reinstalling became the accepted means to fix a computer problem?
> Is the art of journalism dead?
I'll leave the fine points the semantics of art vs. craft to someone else. Given how anything which passes for 'news' is little more than a PR piece, then, Yes, it is not only dead, but it has passed beyond the rotting corpse of a time-lapsed special effect to little more than ashes in the wind.
You do realize you could reverse left in righ in that comment, and it is equally valid don't you?
Try this on for size:
In other words, people who can think in more than one dimension (left right), shut up. People who want to reduce a subject to such a base and low level yes/no discusion that it really serves no purpose whatsoever continue.
> Imagine a tech company staffed by brilliant geeks who are working their asses off to solve customers' problems.
/dev/null' is used.
Don't have too. Always have.
> It would be wonderful, except the nature of brilliant geeks is not to solve other peoples' problems, but to work on things that interest them.
BZZZT! Thanks for playing. In my experience the problem comes down to the mgt. insisting on the band-aid approach and nothing but the band-aid approach. I've seen many a 'quick fix' go in ending up being a permenant solution. Yeah, it mad the phone stop ringing for the particular problem, but ends up causing further problems down the road.
Taking the 'geek' side a little more here (and, again, this is my experience), it isn't a matter of what 'interests them,' but of solving the actual problem. It really is sad how often the moral equivelant of 'direct stderr to
Now, to be fair, there are times when the effort to get to the root of the problem is not cost effective (for lack of a better term). Again, in my experience, balancing these is what will make the difference between real innovation and mediocrity.
I could almost agree with your arguement if it won't for this premise.....
> hitting CTRL+F5, or the "!" icon - and it'll run and when it terminates it'll ask you to press a key before finishing.
And people complain about Unix arcania.....
> I mean, how many people would read the article: "Phone Company research shows that Municipal Wireless is a bad idea" without thinking "Ah, the phone company's just pissed that they're not getting money.
Based on what passes for journalism in the last 10 years, I would have to say 'very few.'
I used to have coworker who was fond of shouting "What if Sparticus had a piper-cub?" in meetings whenever the what-ifs started. My personal favorite is still "What if Aunt May was a Herald of Galactus?" Unfortunately, more people watch SNL than read Marvel comics......
Let me quote the first guy I worked for as an engineer:
"If you make it idiot proof, only idiots will use it. Is THAT what you want to support?"
> Which would you wanna tell your friends you wired your house with, hmmmmmmm?
Umm, Romex (tm)?
> The point of the film is summed up early on....
Actually, Rachel's later retort about running the tests on himself is more to the point.
Your point about Noir is spot on, however.
Ya' know, everytime I sit down and watch this, I think "Well, it can't be worse than the last one I watched." And everytime, without fail, I am pleasantly surprised.
> I feel exhilerated every time I get to add "in Japan"
This like the expression tacked on when you read a fortune cookie? ("...in bed." or "...between my thighs")
Your point is valid, However,
> "Well, my email is working, so it must be a problem on your end."
and
> "Hmm, let me check our mail server - well, everything seems OK there, let's see if the problem is on your computer."
are *NOT* 'Two ways of saying the same thing'
In the second example, the speaker is performing some actions (checking the mail server, and the non-speaker's computer). Unless, of course, this scenerio is taking place over the phone and the speaker is lieing about checking the computers.... Also missing is whether or not this is the 20th time in the last 2 weeks the non-speaker has been screwing around with their system, screwed up email, and approached the speaker with some vague and completely useless observation regarding email not working.
And what does the MVP [1] cost [2]? I mean in dollars/euro/whatever, I am aware of the mortal soul thing.
[1] Is this really one of their TLA-named programs? Ya' gotta' be kidding me. Moronic shit like this really, really, *really*, makes me glad I don't have to deal with their tripe.
[2] Not to even bring up the whole issue of 'value'.
Booook? What's a book? Are you implying there is some other form of entertainment than what we are allowed from the benevolant movie and tv people?
> Kennedy was involved in helping start one of the major stompings of a smaller nation of the 20th century, known as the Vietnam War...
Curious. Years ago, while at geek-school, I had to research what happened the day I was born for a composition 10x class. 2 articles stick in my mind:
1) An 'advisor' was killed in Vietnam by followers of Ho Chi Minh (sp).
2) The president had a wonderful game of golf. Yes, that would be Ike, not JFK.
I suppose you want to spew some nonsense about the second world war not starting until 1941, too.
You propably are unaware of it, but the PIAT was a British anti-tank weapon during the second world war (a 4LA to be sure, but I have no idea what it is). Similiar in concept to the US Bazooka or the German PanzerFaust. One striking difference though. When the PIAT was aimed at a target below horizontal, the shell would fall out. I guess the designers never thought it would be aimed at a target lower than the operator. So, maybe PIAT is a good 4LA after all....