Perhaps some of this is an outgrowth of a misunderstanding of Agile Development, or at least a miscalculation of the relative costs of investing a little something for the future.
While I'm completely on-board with the Agile Development concepts in general, many developers do seem to use it as an excuse to put zero investment into making the code base understandable to future developers. (including themselves months or years from later)
The large percentage of development being web-based, and moving very fast, probably has something to do with it as well. If the code, and the company, doesn't stay around very long, then perhaps the comments don't matter. But if the company is successful and that code sticks around for a few years and turns into a million lines of code, then that missing contextual information will become a huge problem.
And the problem is there whether management or the original developers recognize it or not.
All that said, really good TDD probably helps quite a bit, where the tests become the documentation. (though I don't think it can entirely replace well-placed comment blocks, by people who can step outside their own headspace once in a while)
Agree; however, the complexity and the magnitude of the code and logic inter-dependency of the snippet you posted is not relevant at all for the sake of this topic. Post a snippet of some hundreds of lines where multiple logic flow paths have to be managed and split between various modules and then we have a starting point for the smacking:-). The code as posted lives only in samples, the one I mentioned is the real deal you face every moment of doing real, business programming.
Thanks for responding for me. That was perfect, and probably better than I would have done.
The point is not to comment already clear code. The point is be explicit about the context in which that code lives.
Information that is in my head at the moment, but will be gone 3 months later; and someone else new to the code never had at all.
I have gotten to the point where the dentist is actually pleasant, even when drilling and doing all manner of things in my mouth, because I don't resist it. Kind of a zen thing. If I explained it you would not get it. LOL
Ah, you're assuming I'm a typical "intellect as religion" geek. I'm not. Not by a very, very long ways...
My comment wasn't to imply what you thought. It was a response to the idea of resistance through blunting the senses. I didn't try to communicate what you're saying though. I don't try that sort of thing very often here. Non-resistance is one thing. Actively seeking out abuse is something else entirely...:)
While it may not be your preference, applications written in Ruby are supposed to be written in such a way that they are self documenting. Contrary to other languages, the expressiveness of Ruby allows the developer to write code that means as much, if not more, than formal documentation.
Yeah, sure... I've inherited plenty of code by people who were religious about the "no comments" idea. Utter nonsense.
Yes, my own code is as self documented as possible. It shows HOW, but it can't show WHY. Code alone can 't describe the overall context of why that code, and now some other code, or how it fits into the whole. That's what comment blocks are for.
Otherwise, you're just doing like the current US government, and burdening future generations with the true cost of today's "short cuts." It's self-centered and short-sighted.
If it is truly "throw away" code, fine. Don't comment it. But that is about 0.001 % of all the code I've seen in the last 25 years.. Good rule of thumb is that all code lives forever, and will be read 100 times for every time it is read. Thus the ROI on comments is enormous and always worth doing.
Bone makes a very good conductor of sound vibrations right to your ear. Smell maybe, though you'll still taste it, which might be much of what is actually happening anyway.
Likely because all the antiseptics killed the normal "good bacteria" in your mouth. Very much like our skin and intestines, there are bacteria which is supposed to be there.
I'm curious which parts you're using that you find so robust, and how? Do you mean like high drive I/O pins, which inherently have better protection for ESD and overloading? Or something else?
Sounds like all the right things to do, given that environment. There is no escaping looking over the compiler's shoulder in those cases, and often having to just do it yourself.
I was mostly responding to the fact that in _most_ environments, people often get all hung up on C++ being supposedly slower. Often it's because they don't understand how the implementation actually works, and are invoking (multiple) constructors on every function call. I do my best to have NO dynamic memory allocation happening in embedded systems. If there is, it's my own fixed block I'm managing. (though with larger Linux systems it's a bit different...)
With very small micros controlling hardware, it's more like hardware programming. But still a lot easier than FPGAs, which have their own tool set issues. (though they also have speed a micro just can't touch, if that is needed, as it is at my current job) They do fill a nice little niche, especially for the price!
I agree with the GP, there is nothing inherent in C++ that really gets in the way of (almost) any embedded system. And yes, I've been doing embedded system code, right down to the metal, for many years.
You don't need to use new() if you are not going to use malloc. There are no vtables if there are no virtual functions. Even if there are, if the objects are not allocated on the heap (if there is one) then the compiler knows the address ahead of time and doesn't need to use the indirection. There is the extra parameter to pass, which very occasionally might be just too much, but I doubt that happens very often. When it does a static function often will do the trick.
Yes, sometimes it requires writing C++ code in a way that a high level C++ guy would think is crazy. But that is what it takes for deeply embedded systems. For me, I often find it worth it to get the structural advantages of C++. OO code is generally simply more robust and better organized. You can get close by just writing C code properly, but it's not quite the same.
There are a few examples where C is absolutely necessary, as is assembly. But it's normally a very small amount of the total. Unless it's something like a 4-bit processor chosen to shave every last fraction of a penny off. And of course not all microcontrollers even have C++ compilers, and/or don't have stack at all for C either.
I have to assume the reason there is so much focus on the performance in your industry is that you are constrained to use the very cheapest possible processor because it is extremely high volume. If not, I'd question the wisdom of management...
The 'get the people wasting my time...' filter should have been applied to the resumes. Presumably, the ones remaining (i.e., the ones called in for a face-to-face interview) at least have a B.S.
And of course, they will be white, blond haired and at least 6 feet tall... Oh, and good teeth.
News flash: many very smart and capable people do not have a 4-year degree, for any number of reasons. If they are smart, the reason is not because they can't do the work. Often it's because there were more interesting problems to solve at that time in their life and they went and did that instead. And maybe that was early wisdom, as after a few decades one starts to understand just how short life is...
If you want someone for a big company job, it could be that the degree is important, as it shows that after 13 straight years of school, they were willing to spend at least another 4 (by their own choice) in an institutional environment. For some of us, that is not our idea of heaven...
But it you're hiring for an agile startup, you want someone who can think for themselves, wants some creative freedom, and is willing to take risks for larger rewards. Very smart people who got distracted by a more interesting problem on the way to their degree might be the kind of people you want. (Gates, Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, David Geffien, and many others didn't finish their degrees...)
"Son"? Odds are I'm older than you are, and I've experienced both types of stress.
Yes, when my daughters were teens, not attending some party was the end of the world for them. Their pain mattered to them. I cared, but not so much it blinded me to the bigger picture; and what my job was as a parent: to keep them alive and healthy, and to make them ready for the real world, where they might have to endure some things they would rather not. (to put it mildly...)
My having to sometimes work my ass off for idiots to make sure they had food and a place to live sucked. But not like starving. Not like watching your children go hungry. Not like being physically beaten.
Yes, the modern world can suck the life out of you. But first you have to physically survive.
And much of "modern stress" is self-imposed by people's choices; including their choice of beliefs about what is "necessary" to happiness. We often create our own heaven or hell, with no help from anyone else.
I have to assume you haven't suffered any real physical challenges, or you'd understand the difference.
... they may not have the lifestyle their parents had and have to work longer hours for less pay with lots of debt and in shitty long hours work culture.
Oh yeah, that is much worse than starving and being beaten....
And yes, I mean having the shit kicked out of you for real. Multiple times a month. In the actual physical world. Not in a video game.
Unless you actually meant to be sarcastic... which case your post was brilliant! (yet strangely, rated "insightful" which implies there are other completely clueless whiners out there...)
Maybe the reason is that you had tasted the upper levels at one time, and therefore you could not completely go back to living only for the lower level functions. Though I have always had that "problem." I'm just not simple enough I suppose. And maybe he was talking about the development of a human being. But once one is developed (or born that way?) past a point, the upper levels become almost more important then the lower ones.
On the other hand, hold my head under water, and getting air will be the only thing I care about!
I agree, the autisim/vaccine link isn't a link at all, it's yet another band of whack jobs who have zero understanding of the world around them.
Well isn't that overwhelming proof... All we should need is your royal opinion, without checking the facts for ourselves, and listening to experts in the field disagree?
And you have some actual data on the number of vaccines per child, the preservative they used, and all the rest of the facts; as compared to the US? All reliable and checked?
The US did not have a big problem either, until the number of required vaccinations for small children rose from 10 in 1976 to the current 36 shots before they start school.
Make sure you're comparing apples to apples. Or at least not a whole bushel of apples to only 1/3 or a bushel.
If I shoot you once, you might be okay. But if I shoot you 3 times, the chance of you bleeding to death is much higher.
....the urge to blame comes up with "it's the vaccines" rather than random bad luck/genes/whatever.
Sounds more like the urge to understand the true cause to me. There is a huge increase in a disease, and people start looking for possible causes based on commonalities between the cases. They find that the vaccines are using Thimerasol, which is 49% mercury, a known toxin with effects on the nervous system.
Coupled with an enormous increase in the number of vaccines given to children in recent years, that means a large increase on the amount of a known nervous system toxin injected into small children.
Possible cause. So more research is attempted... Sounds like science to me...
Except that in this society, the corporations which make billions from the vaccines have huge pull and block attempts at determining the truth. (remember the tobacco companies?)
Is there a proven cause-effect relationship with autism? Not yet, but there is a smoking gun, and definitely reason to investigate more. Some doctors and scientific researchers believe there is no doubt at all. So it's not like people are just making it up themselves. There are doctors saying the same thing.
The truth does not always win out, any more than the superior technology becomes the marketplace standard. It becomes more a matter of politics and money and marketing. Sad thing is that many people who talk so loudly about science get fooled by the loudest yelling instead of researching the issue carefully themselves.
Like many health issues, it's not black and white because different people react differently to different substances. It's much like the way one person can eat peanuts all day, and his brother would die if he ate just one and did not get to an emergency room shortly after. Depending on who is being tested, there will be different results. And that is still ignoring the very substantial effects from $$$$...
You might read those studies with a more critical eye... For instance, from study #2: "That symptom severity did increase during exposure is interesting. These symptoms were not trivial. Indeed, for some they were so severe that exposures had to be stopped early or the participants withdrew from the study"
I've read a lot of medical studies for various things, and I find that the summary often causes my jaw to drop. But then we don't usually know who paid for the study. If you believe that career researchers are willing to bit the hand that feeds them, I have some ocean front properly in Kansas for you...
Sadly, the amount of government sponsored pure research is not what it once was, and corporations or at least their industry groups often pay for "research." The clues are usually there if the study is read carefully, but the summaries are often very misleading.
You're in the wrong place to be one of a small percentage of the population which happens to be sensitive to things other people are not... You'll just hear you're mistaken or you're a hypochondriac (notice that the latter is happening even though you are saying very clearly that you have nothing against the technology and you wish it didn't happen, and that only certain things cause the problem.)
I also am sensitive to cell phones and wi-fi routers and microwave ovens, though they have to be very close. A cell phone held a couple feet away has very little effect, though a wireless router two feet away does bother me and needs to be more like 6 feet away not to notice it.
I can't use a cell phone right next to my head for more than a couple of minutes or I will be naseous. If I talk for 15 minutes like that I'll feel sick for as long as a day or two. Feels very much like altitude sickness, or motion sickness. Maybe it is somehow affecting my inner ear. I don't know.
I don't claim to know exactly why it happens, but it does. I've tracked it carefully for many years, and like you I'm no Luddite. I write SW for a living, mostly for embedded systems, and am around all kinds of hardware. I do understand the square law very well, and it appears whatever is happening is related to the power, as the effect does fall off very quickly as I move the device away from my head. I have no problem with a Bluetooth headset, which has a fraction of the transit power. It doesn't seem to depend on the frequency, but on the transmit power (at least I experience the same effect with old 900 MHz phones and also 2.4 GHz WiFi and microwave ovens, so within the frequency range at least, I am sensitive)
Medical history is full of people being told they were imagining something. Until the particular ailment was identified, and the effect finally understood. Yes some people are just hypochondriacs, but that does not mean we all are, just because the cause is not well understood. To diagnose someone by a web-posting is not just bad science, it's just stupid.
.... but we saved billions of Dollars, Euros, Yuan and Rubles that happily multiplied on compound interest all those years.
So this is a world without politicians, multi-national corporate executives, or Wall Street firm executives, so that money was actually put into productive use for the good of society?
I love how Outlook uses almost 300MB of virtual memory at work. Seriously, wtf.
What version are you using? I am using Outlook 2007 (on XP), with over 12,000 emails in my inbox (don't ask...) and it is using 40 MB of virtual memory. This is POP3 on two separate accounts. I also have Thunderbird for another email account, with 4,000 emails in the inbox, and it uses 24 MB of VM, though its working set is larger, at 34 MB (vs 25 MB for Outlook).
Overall, very comparable, though Outlook is vastly more pleasurable to use. I only have Thunderbird installed to keep my work email completely separate from my person email.
(Maybe I can--if the ribbon can be reduced to ~16 or so pixels tall while still giving one-click access to functions, then maybe it's less of an abortion than I've given it credit for.)
Yes you can. Right click on the space next to the ribbon bar tabs, or left click on the stupid looking down arrow thing on the title bar (just to the right of the strange little button bar thing with the save icon and forward/back icons).
Then click on "Minimize the Ribbon." Now it acts almost like a normal menu bar, except you get the full ribbon until you choose an action. Then it hides again.
The only annoying thing is that if you hover over the other tabs it won't switch to that tab like most menus will. You have to actually click on the tab to change to that tab's ribbon.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps some of this is an outgrowth of a misunderstanding of Agile Development, or at least a miscalculation of the relative costs of investing a little something for the future.
While I'm completely on-board with the Agile Development concepts in general, many developers do seem to use it as an excuse to put zero investment into making the code base understandable to future developers. (including themselves months or years from later)
The large percentage of development being web-based, and moving very fast, probably has something to do with it as well. If the code, and the company, doesn't stay around very long, then perhaps the comments don't matter. But if the company is successful and that code sticks around for a few years and turns into a million lines of code, then that missing contextual information will become a huge problem.
And the problem is there whether management or the original developers recognize it or not.
All that said, really good TDD probably helps quite a bit, where the tests become the documentation. (though I don't think it can entirely replace well-placed comment blocks, by people who can step outside their own headspace once in a while)
Agree; however, the complexity and the magnitude of the code and logic inter-dependency of the snippet you posted is not relevant at all for the sake of this topic. :-).
Post a snippet of some hundreds of lines where multiple logic flow paths have to be managed and split between various modules and then we have a starting point for the smacking
The code as posted lives only in samples, the one I mentioned is the real deal you face every moment of doing real, business programming.
Thanks for responding for me. That was perfect, and probably better than I would have done.
The point is not to comment already clear code. The point is be explicit about the context in which that code lives.
Information that is in my head at the moment, but will be gone 3 months later; and someone else new to the code never had at all.
Oh come on, you can't possibly be implying that DHH is self-centered... :)
I have gotten to the point where the dentist is actually pleasant, even when drilling and doing all manner of things in my mouth, because I don't resist it. Kind of a zen thing. If I explained it you would not get it. LOL
Ah, you're assuming I'm a typical "intellect as religion" geek. I'm not. Not by a very, very long ways...
My comment wasn't to imply what you thought. It was a response to the idea of resistance through blunting the senses. I didn't try to communicate what you're saying though. I don't try that sort of thing very often here. Non-resistance is one thing. Actively seeking out abuse is something else entirely... :)
While it may not be your preference, applications written in Ruby are supposed to be written in such a way that they are self documenting. Contrary to other languages, the expressiveness of Ruby allows the developer to write code that means as much, if not more, than formal documentation.
Yeah, sure... I've inherited plenty of code by people who were religious about the "no comments" idea. Utter nonsense.
Yes, my own code is as self documented as possible. It shows HOW, but it can't show WHY. Code alone can 't describe the overall context of why that code, and now some other code, or how it fits into the whole. That's what comment blocks are for.
Otherwise, you're just doing like the current US government, and burdening future generations with the true cost of today's "short cuts." It's self-centered and short-sighted.
If it is truly "throw away" code, fine. Don't comment it. But that is about 0.001 % of all the code I've seen in the last 25 years.. Good rule of thumb is that all code lives forever, and will be read 100 times for every time it is read. Thus the ROI on comments is enormous and always worth doing.
How about earplugs and noseplugs?
Bone makes a very good conductor of sound vibrations right to your ear. Smell maybe, though you'll still taste it, which might be much of what is actually happening anyway.
Likely because all the antiseptics killed the normal "good bacteria" in your mouth. Very much like our skin and intestines, there are bacteria which is supposed to be there.
If you want to find out more about teeth vs general health. Look up Weston Price's (a dentist) world-wide research for an eye-opener about dental (and general) health:
http://www.westonaprice.org/Nutrition-and-Physical-Degeneration-by-Weston-A.-Price.html
I'm curious which parts you're using that you find so robust, and how? Do you mean like high drive I/O pins, which inherently have better protection for ESD and overloading? Or something else?
Sounds like all the right things to do, given that environment. There is no escaping looking over the compiler's shoulder in those cases, and often having to just do it yourself.
I was mostly responding to the fact that in _most_ environments, people often get all hung up on C++ being supposedly slower. Often it's because they don't understand how the implementation actually works, and are invoking (multiple) constructors on every function call. I do my best to have NO dynamic memory allocation happening in embedded systems. If there is, it's my own fixed block I'm managing. (though with larger Linux systems it's a bit different...)
With very small micros controlling hardware, it's more like hardware programming. But still a lot easier than FPGAs, which have their own tool set issues. (though they also have speed a micro just can't touch, if that is needed, as it is at my current job) They do fill a nice little niche, especially for the price!
I agree with the GP, there is nothing inherent in C++ that really gets in the way of (almost) any embedded system. And yes, I've been doing embedded system code, right down to the metal, for many years.
You don't need to use new() if you are not going to use malloc. There are no vtables if there are no virtual functions. Even if there are, if the objects are not allocated on the heap (if there is one) then the compiler knows the address ahead of time and doesn't need to use the indirection. There is the extra parameter to pass, which very occasionally might be just too much, but I doubt that happens very often. When it does a static function often will do the trick.
Yes, sometimes it requires writing C++ code in a way that a high level C++ guy would think is crazy. But that is what it takes for deeply embedded systems. For me, I often find it worth it to get the structural advantages of C++. OO code is generally simply more robust and better organized. You can get close by just writing C code properly, but it's not quite the same.
There are a few examples where C is absolutely necessary, as is assembly. But it's normally a very small amount of the total. Unless it's something like a 4-bit processor chosen to shave every last fraction of a penny off. And of course not all microcontrollers even have C++ compilers, and/or don't have stack at all for C either.
I have to assume the reason there is so much focus on the performance in your industry is that you are constrained to use the very cheapest possible processor because it is extremely high volume. If not, I'd question the wisdom of management...
If I had a magic time machine and went back to 1999 the only thing I would be doing is selling short.
There's still time....
The 'get the people wasting my time ...' filter should have been applied to the resumes. Presumably, the ones remaining (i.e., the ones called in for a face-to-face interview) at least have a B.S.
And of course, they will be white, blond haired and at least 6 feet tall... Oh, and good teeth.
News flash: many very smart and capable people do not have a 4-year degree, for any number of reasons. If they are smart, the reason is not because they can't do the work. Often it's because there were more interesting problems to solve at that time in their life and they went and did that instead. And maybe that was early wisdom, as after a few decades one starts to understand just how short life is...
If you want someone for a big company job, it could be that the degree is important, as it shows that after 13 straight years of school, they were willing to spend at least another 4 (by their own choice) in an institutional environment. For some of us, that is not our idea of heaven...
But it you're hiring for an agile startup, you want someone who can think for themselves, wants some creative freedom, and is willing to take risks for larger rewards. Very smart people who got distracted by a more interesting problem on the way to their degree might be the kind of people you want. (Gates, Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, David Geffien, and many others didn't finish their degrees...)
"Son"? Odds are I'm older than you are, and I've experienced both types of stress.
Yes, when my daughters were teens, not attending some party was the end of the world for them. Their pain mattered to them. I cared, but not so much it blinded me to the bigger picture; and what my job was as a parent: to keep them alive and healthy, and to make them ready for the real world, where they might have to endure some things they would rather not. (to put it mildly...)
My having to sometimes work my ass off for idiots to make sure they had food and a place to live sucked. But not like starving. Not like watching your children go hungry. Not like being physically beaten.
Yes, the modern world can suck the life out of you. But first you have to physically survive.
And much of "modern stress" is self-imposed by people's choices; including their choice of beliefs about what is "necessary" to happiness. We often create our own heaven or hell, with no help from anyone else.
I have to assume you haven't suffered any real physical challenges, or you'd understand the difference.
Check out Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
... they may not have the lifestyle their parents had and have to work longer hours for less pay with lots of debt and in shitty long hours work culture.
Oh yeah, that is much worse than starving and being beaten....
And yes, I mean having the shit kicked out of you for real. Multiple times a month. In the actual physical world. Not in a video game.
Unless you actually meant to be sarcastic... which case your post was brilliant! (yet strangely, rated "insightful" which implies there are other completely clueless whiners out there...)
Maybe the reason is that you had tasted the upper levels at one time, and therefore you could not completely go back to living only for the lower level functions. Though I have always had that "problem." I'm just not simple enough I suppose. And maybe he was talking about the development of a human being. But once one is developed (or born that way?) past a point, the upper levels become almost more important then the lower ones.
On the other hand, hold my head under water, and getting air will be the only thing I care about!
I agree, the autisim/vaccine link isn't a link at all, it's yet another band of whack jobs who have zero understanding of the world around them.
Well isn't that overwhelming proof... All we should need is your royal opinion, without checking the facts for ourselves, and listening to experts in the field disagree?
And you have some actual data on the number of vaccines per child, the preservative they used, and all the rest of the facts; as compared to the US? All reliable and checked?
The US did not have a big problem either, until the number of required vaccinations for small children rose from 10 in 1976 to the current 36 shots before they start school.
Make sure you're comparing apples to apples. Or at least not a whole bushel of apples to only 1/3 or a bushel.
If I shoot you once, you might be okay. But if I shoot you 3 times, the chance of you bleeding to death is much higher.
....the urge to blame comes up with "it's the vaccines" rather than random bad luck/genes/whatever.
Sounds more like the urge to understand the true cause to me. There is a huge increase in a disease, and people start looking for possible causes based on commonalities between the cases. They find that the vaccines are using Thimerasol, which is 49% mercury, a known toxin with effects on the nervous system.
Coupled with an enormous increase in the number of vaccines given to children in recent years, that means a large increase on the amount of a known nervous system toxin injected into small children.
Possible cause. So more research is attempted... Sounds like science to me...
Except that in this society, the corporations which make billions from the vaccines have huge pull and block attempts at determining the truth. (remember the tobacco companies?)
A few facts:
Thimerosal Fact list
Wikipedia entry:
Thimerosal Toxicology
Is there a proven cause-effect relationship with autism? Not yet, but there is a smoking gun, and definitely reason to investigate more. Some doctors and scientific researchers believe there is no doubt at all. So it's not like people are just making it up themselves. There are doctors saying the same thing.
The truth does not always win out, any more than the superior technology becomes the marketplace standard. It becomes more a matter of politics and money and marketing. Sad thing is that many people who talk so loudly about science get fooled by the loudest yelling instead of researching the issue carefully themselves.
Like many health issues, it's not black and white because different people react differently to different substances. It's much like the way one person can eat peanuts all day, and his brother would die if he ate just one and did not get to an emergency room shortly after. Depending on who is being tested, there will be different results. And that is still ignoring the very substantial effects from $$$$...
Exactly, those who don't know better and/or have less clout pay more.
Essentially covered already today:
Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential
You might read those studies with a more critical eye... For instance, from study #2: "That symptom severity did increase during exposure is interesting. These symptoms were not trivial. Indeed, for some they were so severe that exposures had to be stopped early or the participants withdrew from the study"
I've read a lot of medical studies for various things, and I find that the summary often causes my jaw to drop. But then we don't usually know who paid for the study. If you believe that career researchers are willing to bit the hand that feeds them, I have some ocean front properly in Kansas for you...
Sadly, the amount of government sponsored pure research is not what it once was, and corporations or at least their industry groups often pay for "research." The clues are usually there if the study is read carefully, but the summaries are often very misleading.
You're in the wrong place to be one of a small percentage of the population which happens to be sensitive to things other people are not... You'll just hear you're mistaken or you're a hypochondriac (notice that the latter is happening even though you are saying very clearly that you have nothing against the technology and you wish it didn't happen, and that only certain things cause the problem.)
I also am sensitive to cell phones and wi-fi routers and microwave ovens, though they have to be very close. A cell phone held a couple feet away has very little effect, though a wireless router two feet away does bother me and needs to be more like 6 feet away not to notice it.
I can't use a cell phone right next to my head for more than a couple of minutes or I will be naseous. If I talk for 15 minutes like that I'll feel sick for as long as a day or two. Feels very much like altitude sickness, or motion sickness. Maybe it is somehow affecting my inner ear. I don't know.
I don't claim to know exactly why it happens, but it does. I've tracked it carefully for many years, and like you I'm no Luddite. I write SW for a living, mostly for embedded systems, and am around all kinds of hardware. I do understand the square law very well, and it appears whatever is happening is related to the power, as the effect does fall off very quickly as I move the device away from my head. I have no problem with a Bluetooth headset, which has a fraction of the transit power. It doesn't seem to depend on the frequency, but on the transmit power (at least I experience the same effect with old 900 MHz phones and also 2.4 GHz WiFi and microwave ovens, so within the frequency range at least, I am sensitive)
Medical history is full of people being told they were imagining something. Until the particular ailment was identified, and the effect finally understood. Yes some people are just hypochondriacs, but that does not mean we all are, just because the cause is not well understood. To diagnose someone by a web-posting is not just bad science, it's just stupid.
Damn, if only we could find such a great source of power!
Yeah, we could put all the humans in pods, tapping their power to create a huge virtual reality network. Knock knock, Neo...
.... but we saved billions of Dollars, Euros, Yuan and Rubles that happily multiplied on compound interest all those years.
So this is a world without politicians, multi-national corporate executives, or Wall Street firm executives, so that money was actually put into productive use for the good of society?
Nice idea...
I love how Outlook uses almost 300MB of virtual memory at work. Seriously, wtf.
What version are you using? I am using Outlook 2007 (on XP), with over 12,000 emails in my inbox (don't ask...) and it is using 40 MB of virtual memory. This is POP3 on two separate accounts. I also have Thunderbird for another email account, with 4,000 emails in the inbox, and it uses 24 MB of VM, though its working set is larger, at 34 MB (vs 25 MB for Outlook).
Overall, very comparable, though Outlook is vastly more pleasurable to use. I only have Thunderbird installed to keep my work email completely separate from my person email.
(Maybe I can--if the ribbon can be reduced to ~16 or so pixels tall while still giving one-click access to functions, then maybe it's less of an abortion than I've given it credit for.)
Yes you can. Right click on the space next to the ribbon bar tabs, or left click on the stupid looking down arrow thing on the title bar (just to the right of the strange little button bar thing with the save icon and forward/back icons).
Then click on "Minimize the Ribbon." Now it acts almost like a normal menu bar, except you get the full ribbon until you choose an action. Then it hides again.
The only annoying thing is that if you hover over the other tabs it won't switch to that tab like most menus will. You have to actually click on the tab to change to that tab's ribbon.