When Virgin Galactic wants a space port they have some decisions to make. They can either spend $27 million now and lose out on the interest over the next 20 years, Borrow $27 million with interest to be payed over the next 20 years or Rent space which allows them to maintain their assets in high yield investments with no additional interest costs.
So you are heading up Virgin Galactic and you are trying to decide were you want to spend $27 million dollars to establish a service catering specifically to the ultra rich. You would probably put it in a state like California, New York, or maybe Virginia, if you don't decided to put it in Dubai or some other country outside the US.
This leads us to New Mexico, home of absolutely nothing, with a less than stellar economy. If you are the governor of New Mexico and you hear that Virgin Galactic is looking for somewhere to spend $27 Million dollars, and bring some of the richest tourist in the world to your state what do you do. You could say, go ahead an build it if you can find someone to sell you the land we will approve the zoning. Or maybe you decided you can sell some public trust land for the project. So far you have made no offer that other wealthier areas couldn't make, and so give no enticement to build in your state. So instead you say, I'll front the money for you to bring in your industry and higher local people to work for you. You might feel that enticing companies to move to your state is a waste of governmental funds, but I think you would be in a minority there.
I think you misunderstood. I was not calling the Wii "last gen," I really don't get into that argument.
What I was saying is that the current leader in install base is the PS2, and there doesn't seem to be any console challenging that at this time. The PS2 has sold over 110 million units as of the end of 2006 (not including the christmas season where it did sell well), while all other consoles (not hand helds obviously) that are currently still on the market total 64 million (approximation, which includes, XBox, Xbox 360, PS3, Game Cube and Wii), with just under half of that being Xbox. So this puts the PS2 as number one, the XBox at number too and the Game Cube at Number 3. The current gen hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of install base. With Sony making a commitment to another 7 years of support for the PS2 (according the Game Stop), it looks like the PS2 will remain the leader through the rest of this years and probably beyond.
The PS2 is also still number one in total monthly game sales, including at least one game in the top 10 each month since it's introduction (with this months God of War 2 easily being a top 5 if not number one).
If Nintendo sold all the consoles they could, they could take over the #1 installed base crown from the Xbox 360 I think what you me is "If Nintendo sold all the consoles they could, they could take over the #2 spot from the XBox (not 360), and still be millions of units behind the PS2 and the number one spot." You can add all the current gen consoles sales together and they don't even scratch the surface of the PS2s install base, which is still growing, even out growing the other consoles individually.
The PS3 doesn't being HDMI or RCA stereo out only. I couldn't determine if you were saying the P3 only had HDMI and RCA outs, or if you receiver doesn't have an optical in. If you were saying the former, and your receiver does have optical in, then you are just wrong because the P3 has a single optical out port. I'm not sure how else you would be hooking up 6/5.1 surround sound (not saying there are no other options), but the preferred method, if you want high quality sound, would be by HDMI or optical. There are a number of covert options available that should allow you to hook the PS3 to your receiver and get full 6/5.1 surround sound if you don't happen to have optical in.
Since you obviously have no clue what I was talking about I assume you are either a manager, and should be letting your programmers do their job, or you don't belong in a position to fire people.
I didn't say anything about reordering methods at all. What I was talking about was making your most frequently used references (or primitives for that matter) in a method be the first four (between method parameters and local references) and if at all possible making there be only 4 in total (including the 'this' reference for instance methods and constructors). This is part of the Java Byte Code and is clearly defined in the specification, if you want to read that. Any java developer worth paying knows byte code, wether they have ever actually written direct byte code or not. All load and store operations in byte code, the most common operations, have 5 different versions. There are 4 that have no arguments (i.e. aload_0 thru aload_3) and one that takes a single argument(i.e. aload x). The byte code specifications states that the first 4 versions will perform as well or better than the final one. On every implementation I have used the first 4 were significantly higher performing. This is because on most platforms those first 4 can be optimized to look at specific registers or register parts, while the last one must load from an in memory array, which at best requires multiple machine code operations against physical memory and at worst has to deal with the over head of virtual memory. Not to mention the fact that the byte code itself is more compact and can be parsed in half the time using the first 4 variants.
Needless to say that you have actually proven my point that understanding the underlying system is very important to actually understanding what effect you are having when writing code. The fact that you "would be sorely tempted to fire" a developer that was writing optimal code shows that you don't understand the effects that pessimal code has on your entire system. But then it's possible that Peter Haggar and I don't know what we are talking about, but I doubt it.
I'm not sure where it is you live but please let us all know so we don't go looking for IT jobs there. Because that is not the experience were I have lived and worked(Boston - DC corridor and Phoenix). Around these two areas cold calling is what companies are doing to get even half way decent employees. Six figure saralies are not difficult to come by, and job security is pretty much gauranteed, unless you want a raise, but that is another issue. Well, at least when it comes to Software Engineers.
I normally don't just agree, but in this case I can't resist. You have summed up SAP perfectly (though there are certainly more complaints one could make). Heck you are so dead on I have to think we are co-workers.
Let's say you're working on Groovy code which is half-interpreted and half-compiled on a JVM which is written in C, perhaps using JIT or perhaps not, running on a CPU. Nothing that you can possibly known about how registers work or how jumps work will help you to understand the performance of your program several layers up This is incorrect. Spending most of my time dealing with "Java Programmers" (as opposed to software engineers) I can tell you that a little understanding of the hardware, machine code, and by extension assembly, the VM runs on goes a long way towards optimizations. True that the current generation of JVMs and Compilers do a significant amount of optimization, it is never perfect and never will be (All this coming from someone that has argued that odd architectures do not need to be more difficult to program since it can abstracted away). One fine example is a rare known fact that the first 4 references in a method are potentially faster to access than any others. From an well versed java developer this is because the bit code has optimizations for these references through aload_0 thru aload_3 as opposed to aload X, just as one example of where this optimization takes place. But why is this optimization there, why is it only optimized that way on certain architectures and why is only 4 and not 8 or 16 or any other arbitrary number. This is because of the initial target architecture of the Java language, which, after the overhead of the JVM had 4 registers available for storing the address of the object being referenced. So rather than the multiple operations necessary to get the address for an object using aload x, the system could pull the address from a register using aload_0-3. Explain that to most java developers (along with the basics of machine code and registers and so on) they all of a sudden start writing faster, more precise code. Yes it is possible to teach someone these things without understanding the underlying layers but it doesn't stick like it does when you do know what the heck is going on inside the machine.
What is even worse is that languages such as java, as good as it may be for handle complex concepts, have not improved the performance of software or even the maintainability (I let you figure out the whys to that one.). The code I had written to run on a 2 mhz machine how ever many years ago (and I'm not old as developers go), would run faster on the current processors, yet the current programs are often slower to do the act same thing on todays machines. There is one thing high level languages have over machine code, or it's close cousin, assembly, and that is it allows VC to keep getting pumped into vaporware because we can keep it looking like progress is being made.
Then again I was perfectly happy programing before I knew what NAND gates are used in processing a lookup ahead carry adder, but now that I do understand these things I can fathom how I got by without it.
Also, 'freeware' has all the negative connotations of being 'cheap'. Yea, call it what it is "Free Open Source Software" so that it can have the connotations of "zero accountability," "zero support," as well as "cheap."
(there I go risking Karma for the sake of honesty).
The Honda's we have owned in the past only survived 75k, 120k and 90k with religious 3k oil/filter changes. Thanks for backing up my decision to not by a Honda. My experience with small cars is much different from yours with 2 toyotas that never died and where passed on to others after 180k+ and 200+ miles and then having a Hyundai that's still going after 120k+. All this with neglecting oil changes, taking them to places that are inappropriate, bending the frame on one due to impact with the ground and a number of other abuses, and never needing anything more than changing a water pump, an alternator and a clutch cable. I'll come back in ten years after I see how well the new trucks last.
lol, this was unexpected. Well, men with a good image attract women with a good image! If likes attract, explain why it is that men with money attract women without.
I'm thinking there must be a lot of speedo wearers on slashdot if they think that dick size is part of the courting. You do realize women only say "size doesn't matter" when you have a small one.
But had they not included the Blu-Ray player the PS3 would have never been $600... If the PS3 was (simply) the 20GB PS3 without a Blu-Ray player they could have priced it at $300 or $400, launched in April of 2006 with Millions of systems and been the "talk of the town." Sure. But Sony has more forward thinking than that. They have massive royalties coming if Blu-Ray is the dominant format of the next generation of video. This will be considerably more than either of the other two console manufacturers bring in with game and/or console sales. Blu-Ray popularity will also drive HDTV sales, something else Sony stands to profit from. Plus in 5 years games will out grow the limitations of DVD and both the other console manufactures will be far behind in game content (I can't really say anything about quality since that has nothing to do with storage capacity). All of this additional profit drive off of a solid brand name, PlayStation.
Now, I'm not trying to support Sony, just saying that thinking Sony should have released the PS3 without Blu-Ray is a bit short sighted.
Really? Because most people don't have the high-def screens to take advantage of Blu-Ray anyways. I think you need to take demographics into account. I don't have the numbers to say for sure but it makes sense to think that most people that have $600 to spend on a video game console and/or a video player most likely either already have an HDTV or plan on purchasing one very soon.
Anecdotally I can say by speaking with my coworkers that in the upper middle class and above HDTV's are the norm, with everyone on my team owning at least one (well the junior engineer on the team only has an EDTV but there are no SDTV only households).
Not that I care, but to be more accurate what you get for your 35b investment is a media company valued at 25b with 9b in annual revenue and over 1 billion in annual net income.
You forgot the the 35 Billion Dollar purchase also adds 35 billion in value to the company. Purchasing Viacom won't just be a waste of money unless they jut purchase it and then let it fall apart. So not only would purchasing Viacom possibly avoid all the other costs you listed it also adds 35 billion to the bottom line.
and what separates the CS grads from the other employees who have just picked up computers on their own is their fundamental understanding of the logic and layers that actually make up the basis of the "applied" skills You are absolutely correct here, though you have it backward. Having to have wasted my time with many top CS grads in my life I can tell you that most of them don't know what a register is let alone how to use them, or how to design a binary look ahead carry adder. I'll take a continually learning self taught programmer over a CS grad any day. Even the detail knowledge CS grads do have is out of date years before the graduate, I mean after all a quick browse around a site like wikipedia can give you all you need to know about the most current algorithms and security measures, which in the past was about all CS grads were worth.
If you are the kind of person that needs and instructor and to waste thousands of dollars to learn something freely available on the internet then I don't want you on my team. If you just happen to have CS degree I wouldn't hold it against you but the most benefit you are going to get out of it is it shows you can put up with a fair amount of bullshit and pressure.
On the flip side, I don't want a team full of low level thinkers if I'm building Business Applications so maybe all this talk about "understanding... the... layers that... make up the basis" is a mote point.
In the real world they often want as many features as possible with the smallest staff possible. I think you are being even more naive than the parent commenter. What businesses, including governments, want in the real world, is software that produces the most monetary benefit with the least monetary cost over the life of the system. Sometimes there are certain intermediary goals that effect this, but ultimately what I just said is the goal. If your are a software developer and are not attempting this same thing you are doing your client or employer a disservice at best, and at worst stealing. This being said, processes such as DBC are very good at reducing total cost over a life time by reducing maintenance cost dramatically, and having at least a noticeable effect by reducing unnecessary functionality. It just so happens that because we have a bunch of console jockeys as opposed to engineers running software projects most clients are never given the knowledge they need to make valid decisions about how to approach a software project. Luckily it has not gotten so bad as to make everyone believe the hype that off shoring actually cost less than domestic development.
Design by contract seems like a lot of extra work and runtime cost... DBC in use is actually a lot less work and a lot less runtime cost. DBC, if used properly, produces software that has a much shorter testing and debugging period. Regression testing is much faster as the contract will not have changed on any of the prior built parts. The though that there is a performance reduction effect of DBC, which is what I assume is meant by "runtime cost" is a lack of understanding DBC. There is nothing in DBC that says there needs to be any runtime checking of the contract. In fact it is supposed to reduce the need for such runtime checking. Since both sides of any messaging has agreed to the interface contract and all it's restrictions, there is no need to runtime check. If my contract states the pre conditions are a whole number between 1 and 10 the consumer agrees to only supply a whole number between 1 and 10 and the effect of anything else need no be defined. It's a good thing to have those check available, such as through Java's assertions or through languages like Eiffel but these should only be turned on during testing and not in an actually production system. And yes it is possible to check against DBC conditions at compile time as much as you can in any other design methodology since there is nothing saying you can't use static type checking (which is a whole other problem in it's own right).
[DBC]'s heavyweight, costly at runtime, undirected, and likely to catch bugs only after deployment... DBC allows much faster development cycles than other methodologies. By enforcing interface contracts, including, pre/post conditions and invariants, you can actually test your program before the costly effort of actual development takes place. Using DBC you can reduce the very costly effects of re-factoring written code, which is very common in most of todays agile methodologies.
Also try and realize that DBC is nothing new as it has been used for hundreds maybe even thousands of years, it just happens to be new to software. But as I have said many times before if we would move away from software development and toward software engineering DBC wouldn't even be in question, it would be the norm. But then again if we engineered software bugs would be the exception rather than the norm as it is today. (I will note that this applies to Business Application Software and not more life critical systems that are often well designed and use most of the tenants of DBC).
Some people are born without the ability to develop empathy. Though it may be true that certain abnormalities in the brain could cause someone to be unable to develop empathy and affect this has never been proven and is even only suspected in certain rare cases. More commonly accepted is that certain abnormalities, most likely in chemical regulation, increases a persons risk of developing psychological disorders when exposed to environmental factors. Please not that this does not take into account medical conditions that are known to have effects on empathy and affect such as autism, or head traumas, nor does it reflect the common scientific consensus on schizophrenia and/or mood disorders such as Manic Depressive Disorder
Psychological narcissism is far different than an infant's lack of ego boundaries. First Psychological Narcissism is neither good nor bad it is something all humans have, Pathological Narcissism on the other hand has been shown to have both benefits and detriments (though that may be more a semantic issue than anything else). An Infants lack of ego boundaries differs from pathological narcissism only in the respect that it is an accepted norm in infants and not in adults. Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder form when an infant, or a person in an infantile state (due to psychological trauma), is unable to grow, or return, to what is considered healthy levels of Narcissism. This normally happens when a person in the position to form the disorder is not treated by empathic individuals during and shortly after the infantile state, such as being isolated or mistreated.
Psychological narcissism is related to antisocial personality disorder, though. Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder are accepted as two entirely separate disorders that can appear in conjunction or without relation. There are anti-social aspects of narcissism and narcissistic aspects of anti-social disorder, but this is true of all psychological constructs good and bad. Every person will, in their life, express both narcissistic and anti-social aspects, they are often required for survival and evolution of society.
It sounds like you may be confusing evolutionary benefits on two levels: useful to the individual, and useful to society as a whole.
Nothing I have every read about Natural Selection or Evolutions has ever implied that the process cared about the rest of society unless caring about the rest of society benefited the individual. Your prisoners dilemma analogy is at best unsupported and at worst highly flawed. You don't show anywhere how Anti-Social behavior benefits from either other anti-social behavior or social behavior.
But don't make the mistake of implying that our definition of "normal" is arbitrary.
Our definition of "normal" is undoubtedly arbitrary. Each year a certain number of people in the world are born with "defects" such as Webbed hands and/or feet, or gills. These are always classified as defects in the current scientific climate. But if the world contained more water than it does today (not trying to reference "water world" it just seems that way) then these defects would be considered evolutionary leaps. I have a very close relationship with a person who was born with a "defect" causing here to not have wisdom teeth (this is fairly common but not normal), which has saved here from the more common problems that lead to the removal of wisdom teeth after they appear. So what we call a defect is not based on the impact of the mutation, just on the fact that it is outside the socially accepted norm.
Some people are born withour empathy and an ability to envision the consequences of their actions.
I would like you to find a reference, from a reputable scientific resource, that say some people are born without empathy or the ability to comprehend consequences. If you look, what you are going to find is that everyone is born without empathy or the ability to comprehend consequences. Most psychological resources have agreed that children are born extremely narcissistic, believing not only that they are the center of all things but that they are all things. In the first months of childhood children do not show any sign that they separate themselves from that which is around them. Parents are often treated as extensions of the child, more like a limb than like another being their to help them. This is even the core of the Object-Relation school of psychology which is arguably the most widely accepted school in modern time.
There are many good references on this, but for those that don't have a background in psychoanalysis you might do well to read Solomon's Narcissism and Intimacy which has a few very good chapters on the topic (the rest of the book is very valuable in the current age as well).
If they're favored by natural selection, why aren't they the norm? Why exactly would natural selection favor humans who don't get along with or care about the well-being of others? Seems highly counter-productive if you think about some sort of pre-historic environment where tribes have to survive againts wildlife and nature.
Actually Personality disordered people grow towards being the norm more and more every year as the rate of affliction rises, but that is beside the point. Most personality disorders, as defined in the ICD and DSM afflict people of technologically advanced cultures where direction socially acceptable interaction with other people is neither required or in some case common. Being self reliant and lacking affect (empathy and emotional response) are very beneficial when attempting to reap monetary gain in short periods of time. The western civilization zeitgeist breads anti-social, narcissistic and other disorders through it's entertainment, education and general interaction. luckily to reach personality disordered levels one must undergo extreme trauma usually early in life, and so the number of afflicted individuals is kept lower, but what is usually accepted as extreme trauma lessens in intensity each year, as our lives become easier it takes much less to be traumatic.
Your comment on tribes actually shows why there is a grown prevalence on personality disorders and when it may very well be a mater of natural selection. Tribes are no loner the norm in the so-called civilized nations. Even neighborhood interactions are becoming more and more minimal in the US and other western cultures. This is why you don't see tribal cultures expressing anything in the way of personality disorders. This is not to say they don't have psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia, only that they rarely have to deal with traumatic situations alone and therefor have no need to express personality disorders.
Read Lasch's Culture of Narcissism if you want to understand this in more depth.
You're not supposed to cherry pick them. A person is defined as a psychopath when enough conditions are met.
The list that was presented is so out dated that it is in direct conflict with the most recent versions of the DSM and ICD. Sexual promiscuity, for example, was once accepted as a criteria for Borderline Personality disorder, but has since been replaced with Impulsivity regarding sexual activity, meaning the amount and variety of sexual activity one engages in is not enough to qualify as a criteria for the disorder. And even impulsive sexual activity is not a criteria for anti-social disorder.
I don't understand what kind of evolutionary purpose is filled by things like cancer, blindness or various syndromes, diseases, genetic defects and so forth.
Evolution is a process of trial an error. Genetic and cellular mutation happens a random, and those random mutations that are valuable continue while those that are not either cease or continue only in that aspect that they arise at random. Cancer is one that is an obviously part of the evolutionary process as it is a mutation that may or may not be beneficial. look at pituitary tumors as an example of the beneficial side effects of cancer. Blindness is also potentially beneficial as it allows the brain to use the energy normally devoted to sight and apply it to other senses that may or may not be beneficial. Genetic defects are only defects because they are different than the current definition of normal. Many genetic defects are actually beneficial. CCR Delta 32 is a defect which negatively effects T-cell production, but has been show to allow those with the mutation to have higher than normal resistance to T-Cell related diseases such as Small Pox, plague and HIV. It has also been shown to be hereditary and therefor appears to have been one of the mutations chosen by Natural Selection to be worth continuing.
Anti-social personality disorder, as is true with all personality disorders, is beneficial. People who have been exposed to the level of abuse that is the usual, dare I say always, cause of Personality Disorders are much better of with the Personality Disorder than without. Personality Disorders are a way of coping with situations the afflicted would not otherwise be able to handle. Every human being will at one point or another in there live express symptoms associated with one or more personality disorders to deal with a situation they would not otherwise be able to. People are only classified as Personality Disordered when the person expressing symptoms does so at all times for all aspects of there life.
Also note that both the ICD and DSM change their list and definitions of Personality Disorders every year. A very pervasive Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, has only been listed in the DSM for just over 20 years (the last 2 versions), and already has an estimated rate of affliction as 1-5% of the american population (3 to 15 million people) and is dramatically more prevalent in advanced cultures that tend towards self reliance and not tribal reliance. And if you really want to see something interesting take a look through the DSM and ICD to look at the estimated percentages of the population afflicted with each type of disorder, Personality or Otherwise and see that the totally percentage is well over 100% of the population. Even taking into account co-morbitity you still are left with the large majority of the population being afflicted with a psychological disorder.
Blaming society, or genetics, or your parents, or video games or anything else for decisions you yourself have made is an insult to everyone who does accept the consequences of their actions.
Acceptance of consequence is a learned behavior. Without proper care all human children would die in the first few weeks of life, and I'm not just talking about food and shelter. Humans must be taught not to touch fire, and not to walk in traffic. The same thing goes for accepting the consequences of other behavior such as theft, rape and murder. Though I agree no form of entertainment can cause someone to commit criminal acts, this does not alleviate parents and society from the responsibility of teaching the acceptance of consequence, and protecting a child who does not have this acceptance from images and substances that might be acted out because of them.
As much as I agree that change requires personal responsibility I disagree with the statement that we all have the power. Until you live in the shoes, or lack there of, a child strapped to a potty chair for the first 10+ years of the life, or locked in a kennel to be raised by dogs, or merely neglected to the point of maladaptation, you probably don't have much room to comment on the lack of parental responsibility in the activities carried out by their offspring.
Getting to know your neighbor may be the first step in avoiding future tragedy. Ignoring the problem does not alleviate your responsibility.
Even people with violent personalities or troubled pasts can still find a positive place in society.
Yes they most certainly can, with the help of loving, caring and supportive people in their lives. You find me a case of a severely abused or neglected person who has gone of to a non-disruptive, productive, interactive life without anyones help and I might change my mind, but I would be seriously surprised if you could find even one.
The parents in this case wrote this letter not to alleviate the game manufacturers but to alleviate themselves from the guilt and responsibility or being irresponsible parents.
I don't think there is any question that people can be born bad. It's called anti-social personality disorder, and in its more extreme forms, sociopathic or psychopathic*.
*(note: neither the DSM-IV or the ICD 10 list either sociopath or psychopath as accepted disorders, and are usually accepted to be synonymous with anti-social personality disorder)
Before you can answer the question you have to define "bad." Most psychologist and psychiatrist would not define "bad", but if they had to it would include a need for conscious understanding of consequence. The disorders you mentioned, along with all other personality disorders, cause a block in the psyche that causes the personality disordered to not be able to comprehend the effects of their actions.
Assuming you define "bad" differently and base it solely on action and effect of action regardless of intent, then you still have to accept that this is still a mater of perspective, as can be seen clearly in both the debate over capital punishment as well as Darwin's natural selection. This can be seen clearly in the high number of Sociopathic and Narcissistic CEOs in the world as it shows that sociopathic, narcissistic and to a lesser extent anti-social behavior is favored by natural selection. Even the list you mentioned contained very few things that people generalize perceive as unforgivably "bad".
You also seem to imply that their is scientific consensus that personality disorders are genetically hereditary, though this is neither accepted nor supported by and peer reviewed and accepted studies. THE DSM-IV states "The cause of [anti-social personality disorder] is unknown, but biological or genetic factors may play a role." This is believed because "The incidence of antisocial personality is higher in people who have an antisocial biological parents." The studies so far have had difficulty separating environmental effects of having afflicted parents from the biological ones. Even when the child is separated from the afflicted parent the environmental effect of parental abandonment is still their which is known to be a major factor in the formation of Personality Disorders. So far there has been no prove physical cause for Personality disorders, which is part of what actually qualifies a disorder as being a personality disorder.Treatment of most personality disorders has been shown to allow a person to live a productive and non-distructive life, though admittedly treatment is almost always required for the rest of the afflicted persons life
Beside all of that you do realize that the founding fathers of the United States, and I would assume many other countries, would qualify as anti-social, among other possible disorders, by the law makers and psychoanalyst (if there were any) of the country it had separated from.
From the DSM - IV only three of the following need to be met to qualify as anti-social.
Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
Slashdot Mirror
When Virgin Galactic wants a space port they have some decisions to make. They can either spend $27 million now and lose out on the interest over the next 20 years, Borrow $27 million with interest to be payed over the next 20 years or Rent space which allows them to maintain their assets in high yield investments with no additional interest costs.
So you are heading up Virgin Galactic and you are trying to decide were you want to spend $27 million dollars to establish a service catering specifically to the ultra rich. You would probably put it in a state like California, New York, or maybe Virginia, if you don't decided to put it in Dubai or some other country outside the US.
This leads us to New Mexico, home of absolutely nothing, with a less than stellar economy. If you are the governor of New Mexico and you hear that Virgin Galactic is looking for somewhere to spend $27 Million dollars, and bring some of the richest tourist in the world to your state what do you do. You could say, go ahead an build it if you can find someone to sell you the land we will approve the zoning. Or maybe you decided you can sell some public trust land for the project. So far you have made no offer that other wealthier areas couldn't make, and so give no enticement to build in your state. So instead you say, I'll front the money for you to bring in your industry and higher local people to work for you. You might feel that enticing companies to move to your state is a waste of governmental funds, but I think you would be in a minority there.
I think you misunderstood. I was not calling the Wii "last gen," I really don't get into that argument.
What I was saying is that the current leader in install base is the PS2, and there doesn't seem to be any console challenging that at this time. The PS2 has sold over 110 million units as of the end of 2006 (not including the christmas season where it did sell well), while all other consoles (not hand helds obviously) that are currently still on the market total 64 million (approximation, which includes, XBox, Xbox 360, PS3, Game Cube and Wii), with just under half of that being Xbox. So this puts the PS2 as number one, the XBox at number too and the Game Cube at Number 3. The current gen hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of install base. With Sony making a commitment to another 7 years of support for the PS2 (according the Game Stop), it looks like the PS2 will remain the leader through the rest of this years and probably beyond.
The PS2 is also still number one in total monthly game sales, including at least one game in the top 10 each month since it's introduction (with this months God of War 2 easily being a top 5 if not number one).
Since you obviously have no clue what I was talking about I assume you are either a manager, and should be letting your programmers do their job, or you don't belong in a position to fire people.
I didn't say anything about reordering methods at all. What I was talking about was making your most frequently used references (or primitives for that matter) in a method be the first four (between method parameters and local references) and if at all possible making there be only 4 in total (including the 'this' reference for instance methods and constructors). This is part of the Java Byte Code and is clearly defined in the specification, if you want to read that. Any java developer worth paying knows byte code, wether they have ever actually written direct byte code or not. All load and store operations in byte code, the most common operations, have 5 different versions. There are 4 that have no arguments (i.e. aload_0 thru aload_3) and one that takes a single argument(i.e. aload x). The byte code specifications states that the first 4 versions will perform as well or better than the final one. On every implementation I have used the first 4 were significantly higher performing. This is because on most platforms those first 4 can be optimized to look at specific registers or register parts, while the last one must load from an in memory array, which at best requires multiple machine code operations against physical memory and at worst has to deal with the over head of virtual memory. Not to mention the fact that the byte code itself is more compact and can be parsed in half the time using the first 4 variants.
Needless to say that you have actually proven my point that understanding the underlying system is very important to actually understanding what effect you are having when writing code. The fact that you "would be sorely tempted to fire" a developer that was writing optimal code shows that you don't understand the effects that pessimal code has on your entire system. But then it's possible that Peter Haggar and I don't know what we are talking about, but I doubt it.
I'm not sure where it is you live but please let us all know so we don't go looking for IT jobs there. Because that is not the experience were I have lived and worked(Boston - DC corridor and Phoenix). Around these two areas cold calling is what companies are doing to get even half way decent employees. Six figure saralies are not difficult to come by, and job security is pretty much gauranteed, unless you want a raise, but that is another issue. Well, at least when it comes to Software Engineers.
I normally don't just agree, but in this case I can't resist. You have summed up SAP perfectly (though there are certainly more complaints one could make). Heck you are so dead on I have to think we are co-workers.
What is even worse is that languages such as java, as good as it may be for handle complex concepts, have not improved the performance of software or even the maintainability (I let you figure out the whys to that one.). The code I had written to run on a 2 mhz machine how ever many years ago (and I'm not old as developers go), would run faster on the current processors, yet the current programs are often slower to do the act same thing on todays machines. There is one thing high level languages have over machine code, or it's close cousin, assembly, and that is it allows VC to keep getting pumped into vaporware because we can keep it looking like progress is being made.
Then again I was perfectly happy programing before I knew what NAND gates are used in processing a lookup ahead carry adder, but now that I do understand these things I can fathom how I got by without it.
Now, I'm not trying to support Sony, just saying that thinking Sony should have released the PS3 without Blu-Ray is a bit short sighted.
Anecdotally I can say by speaking with my coworkers that in the upper middle class and above HDTV's are the norm, with everyone on my team owning at least one (well the junior engineer on the team only has an EDTV but there are no SDTV only households).
Not that I care, but to be more accurate what you get for your 35b investment is a media company valued at 25b with 9b in annual revenue and over 1 billion in annual net income.
You forgot the the 35 Billion Dollar purchase also adds 35 billion in value to the company. Purchasing Viacom won't just be a waste of money unless they jut purchase it and then let it fall apart. So not only would purchasing Viacom possibly avoid all the other costs you listed it also adds 35 billion to the bottom line.
If you are the kind of person that needs and instructor and to waste thousands of dollars to learn something freely available on the internet then I don't want you on my team. If you just happen to have CS degree I wouldn't hold it against you but the most benefit you are going to get out of it is it shows you can put up with a fair amount of bullshit and pressure.
On the flip side, I don't want a team full of low level thinkers if I'm building Business Applications so maybe all this talk about "understanding... the... layers that... make up the basis" is a mote point.
Also try and realize that DBC is nothing new as it has been used for hundreds maybe even thousands of years, it just happens to be new to software. But as I have said many times before if we would move away from software development and toward software engineering DBC wouldn't even be in question, it would be the norm. But then again if we engineered software bugs would be the exception rather than the norm as it is today. (I will note that this applies to Business Application Software and not more life critical systems that are often well designed and use most of the tenants of DBC).
There are many good references on this, but for those that don't have a background in psychoanalysis you might do well to read Solomon's Narcissism and Intimacy which has a few very good chapters on the topic (the rest of the book is very valuable in the current age as well).
Your comment on tribes actually shows why there is a grown prevalence on personality disorders and when it may very well be a mater of natural selection. Tribes are no loner the norm in the so-called civilized nations. Even neighborhood interactions are becoming more and more minimal in the US and other western cultures. This is why you don't see tribal cultures expressing anything in the way of personality disorders. This is not to say they don't have psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia, only that they rarely have to deal with traumatic situations alone and therefor have no need to express personality disorders.
Read Lasch's Culture of Narcissism if you want to understand this in more depth. The list that was presented is so out dated that it is in direct conflict with the most recent versions of the DSM and ICD. Sexual promiscuity, for example, was once accepted as a criteria for Borderline Personality disorder, but has since been replaced with Impulsivity regarding sexual activity, meaning the amount and variety of sexual activity one engages in is not enough to qualify as a criteria for the disorder. And even impulsive sexual activity is not a criteria for anti-social disorder.
Anti-social personality disorder, as is true with all personality disorders, is beneficial. People who have been exposed to the level of abuse that is the usual, dare I say always, cause of Personality Disorders are much better of with the Personality Disorder than without. Personality Disorders are a way of coping with situations the afflicted would not otherwise be able to handle. Every human being will at one point or another in there live express symptoms associated with one or more personality disorders to deal with a situation they would not otherwise be able to. People are only classified as Personality Disordered when the person expressing symptoms does so at all times for all aspects of there life. Also note that both the ICD and DSM change their list and definitions of Personality Disorders every year. A very pervasive Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, has only been listed in the DSM for just over 20 years (the last 2 versions), and already has an estimated rate of affliction as 1-5% of the american population (3 to 15 million people) and is dramatically more prevalent in advanced cultures that tend towards self reliance and not tribal reliance. And if you really want to see something interesting take a look through the DSM and ICD to look at the estimated percentages of the population afflicted with each type of disorder, Personality or Otherwise and see that the totally percentage is well over 100% of the population. Even taking into account co-morbitity you still are left with the large majority of the population being afflicted with a psychological disorder.
As much as I agree that change requires personal responsibility I disagree with the statement that we all have the power. Until you live in the shoes, or lack there of, a child strapped to a potty chair for the first 10+ years of the life, or locked in a kennel to be raised by dogs, or merely neglected to the point of maladaptation, you probably don't have much room to comment on the lack of parental responsibility in the activities carried out by their offspring.
Getting to know your neighbor may be the first step in avoiding future tragedy. Ignoring the problem does not alleviate your responsibility. Yes they most certainly can, with the help of loving, caring and supportive people in their lives. You find me a case of a severely abused or neglected person who has gone of to a non-disruptive, productive, interactive life without anyones help and I might change my mind, but I would be seriously surprised if you could find even one.
The parents in this case wrote this letter not to alleviate the game manufacturers but to alleviate themselves from the guilt and responsibility or being irresponsible parents.
Before you can answer the question you have to define "bad." Most psychologist and psychiatrist would not define "bad", but if they had to it would include a need for conscious understanding of consequence. The disorders you mentioned, along with all other personality disorders, cause a block in the psyche that causes the personality disordered to not be able to comprehend the effects of their actions.
Assuming you define "bad" differently and base it solely on action and effect of action regardless of intent, then you still have to accept that this is still a mater of perspective, as can be seen clearly in both the debate over capital punishment as well as Darwin's natural selection. This can be seen clearly in the high number of Sociopathic and Narcissistic CEOs in the world as it shows that sociopathic, narcissistic and to a lesser extent anti-social behavior is favored by natural selection. Even the list you mentioned contained very few things that people generalize perceive as unforgivably "bad".
You also seem to imply that their is scientific consensus that personality disorders are genetically hereditary, though this is neither accepted nor supported by and peer reviewed and accepted studies. THE DSM-IV states "The cause of [anti-social personality disorder] is unknown, but biological or genetic factors may play a role." This is believed because "The incidence of antisocial personality is higher in people who have an antisocial biological parents." The studies so far have had difficulty separating environmental effects of having afflicted parents from the biological ones. Even when the child is separated from the afflicted parent the environmental effect of parental abandonment is still their which is known to be a major factor in the formation of Personality Disorders. So far there has been no prove physical cause for Personality disorders, which is part of what actually qualifies a disorder as being a personality disorder.Treatment of most personality disorders has been shown to allow a person to live a productive and non-distructive life, though admittedly treatment is almost always required for the rest of the afflicted persons life
Beside all of that you do realize that the founding fathers of the United States, and I would assume many other countries, would qualify as anti-social, among other possible disorders, by the law makers and psychoanalyst (if there were any) of the country it had separated from.
From the DSM - IV only three of the following need to be met to qualify as anti-social.