While I do find this alarming, I can't help but thinking, it'll never happen. We love talking about "Big Brother" and predicting the rise of the despotic over-lord megacorporations. Yet, it continues to not happen. Do you know why? It's because we won't let it happen. If I worked for a company and they started doing this sort of thing. I would quit. I would go work for a company that respects me. A lot of people would do that. I refused to sign our employee agreement because I found it to be inappropriate. They didn't like it, but ultimately I am worth more to the company than stupid policies.
The only place where "Big Brother"-esque techniques have a chance of succeeding is in the lower level employment sector. If you know that you can always get a new employee that's just as good as your current one, then you are more liable to implement unpopular policies. Nevertheless, even in these situations, most companies prefer to treat their employees better. Hell, treating your employees well is cheaper than micro-managing them. It also keeps them from being so pissed they commit corporate espionage or just burn the place down.
I'm tired of doomsday predictions. The truth is, working conditions will continue doing the same thing they've been doing for decades, improving.
I've never cared much for the term "computer science." I would love for someone to explain to me how CS could possibly be classified as a science. It's like when mathematics is called a science, which it is not. It seems to me (please correct me if I am wrong) that for something to be a science it must employ the scientific method. Neither mathematics nor CS makes use of the scientific method. No, I much prefer the term "computer engineering," or "software engineering."
Here is possible explanation I have considered. Maybe in times of stress our mind holds onto more information. So, when we think about it, even moments after, it seems like time slowed down simply because of the sheer volume of information that we can recall from during the event.
Re:Vim is painful.
on
Hacking VIM
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It ever amazes me that the most benign, innocuous comments can be met with insult on Slashdot. It is truly amazing.
Re:Vim is painful.
on
Hacking VIM
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I am a vim zealot. I'll put that right out there. I am extremely fast at coding in vim. That said, I also want some of the more advanced features that exist in modern IDEs. As a result, what I generally do is have the same file open in two windows. One is my vim window, the other is my Xcode window. For the things that work best in vim (ie general development), I use vim. For the things that work best in an IDE (ie debugging), I use Xcode. I would love to merge these two. Are there any IDEs out there that have good embedded tools that allow you to run vim inside of an IDE editor window? That would be awesome. But, I have my doubts that such a thing might exist.
Good. It is not the President's job to favor one state over another. If President Clinton had done special things for Arkansas, he would have been failing in his duties as President of the United States, not President of Those Who Supported Him.
And honestly, I am all for stopping the funding of a human mission to Mars. It sounds cool and all, but it isn't worth it right now. Manned missions are so much more expensive than robotic missions. Are they any better? Except for the coolness factor, there isn't much benefit having a human over a robot, especially how robots are improving. We can leave a robot up there indefinitely, we can't do the same (for a while at least) with humans. There are so many reasons why we should be focusing on robotic over human exploration.
Everyone is up in arms about how there's a lot of programs (like the Hubble and the spacestation) that we are abandoning. The reason we are abandoning them is because of a lack of funding. Why is there a lack of funding? One big reason is because we are spending money on human space-travel projects because of this goal to reach Mars. No, instead, let's keep funding the projects that are actually providing us with all sorts of valuable research.
I guess this article just goes to show you that one need not be a huge mega-corporation to create FUDD. Is he really implying a correlation between automatic errata updating and the Ministry of Truth from 1984?! I thought we were supposed to be the tech-savvy level minded people, not the type of people who thought that Y2K was the apocalypse.
All that I want to know is this, who the hell thought 8-bit encryption was sufficient?! You wouldn't even have to use a computer to brute-force this. You could do it by hand. Truly remarkable!
One problem with ID is the assumption that if evolution is wrong then ID must be right. Evolution may very well be wrong. In fact, if we are to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that our current understanding of evolution will most definitely be found to be flawed at some point in the future. Such is the nature of science. That does not in any way, shape, nor form provide any validation for ID. I have read a fair bit of ID literature. Nothing that I have read ever gives reasons to believe in ID. Their literature consists solely of showing the flaws in evolution. They then imply that the only reasonable solution is to believe in ID. Hey, Discover Institute, provide us with some hypothesis and predictions with which we can test ID. Then, and only then, will I listen to you.
Herein lies the difficulty for the media. They are damned if they do, damned if they don't. You have one person claiming they are biased for doing something. The other person is claiming the exact opposite. It's like how Republicans complain about how liberal the media is. Democrats complain about how conservative the media is. We love being the underdog and will fight like hell to assert our position as underdog.
Well, there's a really easy way to fix this. You probably can't expect them to do it themselves (though with the negative PR this is creating, maybe). But the easy thing to do is, if you have one of these phones, have your lawyer call Verizon and tell them, "Hey, we're going to start a class-action lawsuit." You'll see a really quick change on their part. It's the American Way!
Fine, if you stand up for yourself and get fired, then you make bank off the lawsuit you level against the company for unlawful termination. That is of course unless you live in Utah. Our laws here are a bit friendlier to employers than employees.
I think you've hit on something really great here. I here my co-workers complain all the time about being taken advantage of by their boss and so on. Really, the responsibility lies in the employee to make sure that they don't get taken advantage of. Most bosses understand if you put your foot down and say no. Hard as that might be for many people to believe it's true. Bosses take advantage of their employees because they continue to permit it. Since the employee doesn't raise a fuss (apart from over beers with friends on the weekend) the boss continues because he figures that if there was a problem then the employee would complain. Stand up for yourself, like the parent post clearly has, and you will be a lot happier.
This is something I've heard from a number of people. I have one question with regards. Is it a problem if people don't know how to spell? The gut reaction is that yes, people need to know how to spell. But I'm not sure that is true. I've heard people say, well what are they going to do when they need to write something and they don't have a computer. To that, my response is simply, when are you going to write something, where spelling matters, without a computer. I can't remember the last time I wrote something out long-hand. I should note that I'm not disagreeing with you, just posing a thought-provoking (hopefully) question.
Wow! What made you so angry? I was going to respond to your comment, but then I realized that if a rebuttal is given in the form of a personal attack, what's the point?
I think the study is probably not the greatest study. They are using 20 people in each group. That is a ridiculously small sample group. They also claim that people don't improve with experience. Here is the paragraph:
Surprisingly, the study found that iPhone texters don't improve with experience. The researchers also asked users in the other groups to send text messages using the iPhone. These novice iPhone users made mistakes at the same rate as people who have owned iPhones for at least one month, the study found.
With only 20 people in the entire sample group, we are looking at a very small number of people in the novice vs. experienced study.
I love my iPhone's keyboard. Though I admit that it took time to become accustomed to its use, I now find that I am much faster on the iPhone than on other devices. I think one element of the speed is getting to the point where you accept typos because you know that the iPhone's spell-checker will automatically fix the errors.
Yes, I have had the exact opposite experience as this article. It makes me question the validity of the article's claims. The spell-checking on the device is fantastic. If you define typo as input typos, then I may agree that I have lots of typos. But all of those typos are cleaned up by the iPhone. I also love that I don't have to waste a bunch of real estate to a keyboard that I am only using for a very small percentage of my usage time. For me, the keyboard is a home run.
Not true. They server doesn't see the tip until after you leave. Now, your point might be true if you are going to a restaurant that you visit on a regular basis. But you probably still tip when you are on vacation or in a restaurant that you rarely frequent. In such cases, there would be no repercussion in not tipping, yet we still tip.
Slashdot Mirror
While I do find this alarming, I can't help but thinking, it'll never happen. We love talking about "Big Brother" and predicting the rise of the despotic over-lord megacorporations. Yet, it continues to not happen. Do you know why? It's because we won't let it happen. If I worked for a company and they started doing this sort of thing. I would quit. I would go work for a company that respects me. A lot of people would do that. I refused to sign our employee agreement because I found it to be inappropriate. They didn't like it, but ultimately I am worth more to the company than stupid policies.
The only place where "Big Brother"-esque techniques have a chance of succeeding is in the lower level employment sector. If you know that you can always get a new employee that's just as good as your current one, then you are more liable to implement unpopular policies. Nevertheless, even in these situations, most companies prefer to treat their employees better. Hell, treating your employees well is cheaper than micro-managing them. It also keeps them from being so pissed they commit corporate espionage or just burn the place down.
I'm tired of doomsday predictions. The truth is, working conditions will continue doing the same thing they've been doing for decades, improving.
I've had a somewhat similar experience to the parent, as well.
I've never cared much for the term "computer science." I would love for someone to explain to me how CS could possibly be classified as a science. It's like when mathematics is called a science, which it is not. It seems to me (please correct me if I am wrong) that for something to be a science it must employ the scientific method. Neither mathematics nor CS makes use of the scientific method. No, I much prefer the term "computer engineering," or "software engineering."
Here is possible explanation I have considered. Maybe in times of stress our mind holds onto more information. So, when we think about it, even moments after, it seems like time slowed down simply because of the sheer volume of information that we can recall from during the event.
It ever amazes me that the most benign, innocuous comments can be met with insult on Slashdot. It is truly amazing.
I am a vim zealot. I'll put that right out there. I am extremely fast at coding in vim. That said, I also want some of the more advanced features that exist in modern IDEs. As a result, what I generally do is have the same file open in two windows. One is my vim window, the other is my Xcode window. For the things that work best in vim (ie general development), I use vim. For the things that work best in an IDE (ie debugging), I use Xcode. I would love to merge these two. Are there any IDEs out there that have good embedded tools that allow you to run vim inside of an IDE editor window? That would be awesome. But, I have my doubts that such a thing might exist.
Good. It is not the President's job to favor one state over another. If President Clinton had done special things for Arkansas, he would have been failing in his duties as President of the United States, not President of Those Who Supported Him.
My wishlist of features
* tosses out all votes for republicans.
And honestly, I am all for stopping the funding of a human mission to Mars. It sounds cool and all, but it isn't worth it right now. Manned missions are so much more expensive than robotic missions. Are they any better? Except for the coolness factor, there isn't much benefit having a human over a robot, especially how robots are improving. We can leave a robot up there indefinitely, we can't do the same (for a while at least) with humans. There are so many reasons why we should be focusing on robotic over human exploration.
Everyone is up in arms about how there's a lot of programs (like the Hubble and the spacestation) that we are abandoning. The reason we are abandoning them is because of a lack of funding. Why is there a lack of funding? One big reason is because we are spending money on human space-travel projects because of this goal to reach Mars. No, instead, let's keep funding the projects that are actually providing us with all sorts of valuable research.
I have a friend from Uruguay who learned to speak English from playing video games, mostly role-playing games.
I guess this article just goes to show you that one need not be a huge mega-corporation to create FUDD. Is he really implying a correlation between automatic errata updating and the Ministry of Truth from 1984?! I thought we were supposed to be the tech-savvy level minded people, not the type of people who thought that Y2K was the apocalypse.
All that I want to know is this, who the hell thought 8-bit encryption was sufficient?! You wouldn't even have to use a computer to brute-force this. You could do it by hand. Truly remarkable!
One problem with ID is the assumption that if evolution is wrong then ID must be right. Evolution may very well be wrong. In fact, if we are to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that our current understanding of evolution will most definitely be found to be flawed at some point in the future. Such is the nature of science. That does not in any way, shape, nor form provide any validation for ID. I have read a fair bit of ID literature. Nothing that I have read ever gives reasons to believe in ID. Their literature consists solely of showing the flaws in evolution. They then imply that the only reasonable solution is to believe in ID. Hey, Discover Institute, provide us with some hypothesis and predictions with which we can test ID. Then, and only then, will I listen to you.
Herein lies the difficulty for the media. They are damned if they do, damned if they don't. You have one person claiming they are biased for doing something. The other person is claiming the exact opposite. It's like how Republicans complain about how liberal the media is. Democrats complain about how conservative the media is. We love being the underdog and will fight like hell to assert our position as underdog.
Good point. Let's figure that in there as well. Let's see... Carry the one... Insert a placeholder here... Here we go. That results in zero change.
Actually, quite the contrary. He has had plenty of impact. Except the impact has all been positive for the gaming industry.
You've also got to add in the cost of the next terrorist attack on the United States, instigated because America won't mind its own damn business.
Well, there's a really easy way to fix this. You probably can't expect them to do it themselves (though with the negative PR this is creating, maybe). But the easy thing to do is, if you have one of these phones, have your lawyer call Verizon and tell them, "Hey, we're going to start a class-action lawsuit." You'll see a really quick change on their part. It's the American Way!
Fine, if you stand up for yourself and get fired, then you make bank off the lawsuit you level against the company for unlawful termination. That is of course unless you live in Utah. Our laws here are a bit friendlier to employers than employees.
I think you've hit on something really great here. I here my co-workers complain all the time about being taken advantage of by their boss and so on. Really, the responsibility lies in the employee to make sure that they don't get taken advantage of. Most bosses understand if you put your foot down and say no. Hard as that might be for many people to believe it's true. Bosses take advantage of their employees because they continue to permit it. Since the employee doesn't raise a fuss (apart from over beers with friends on the weekend) the boss continues because he figures that if there was a problem then the employee would complain. Stand up for yourself, like the parent post clearly has, and you will be a lot happier.
This is something I've heard from a number of people. I have one question with regards. Is it a problem if people don't know how to spell? The gut reaction is that yes, people need to know how to spell. But I'm not sure that is true. I've heard people say, well what are they going to do when they need to write something and they don't have a computer. To that, my response is simply, when are you going to write something, where spelling matters, without a computer. I can't remember the last time I wrote something out long-hand. I should note that I'm not disagreeing with you, just posing a thought-provoking (hopefully) question.
Wow! What made you so angry? I was going to respond to your comment, but then I realized that if a rebuttal is given in the form of a personal attack, what's the point?
With only 20 people in the entire sample group, we are looking at a very small number of people in the novice vs. experienced study.
I love my iPhone's keyboard. Though I admit that it took time to become accustomed to its use, I now find that I am much faster on the iPhone than on other devices. I think one element of the speed is getting to the point where you accept typos because you know that the iPhone's spell-checker will automatically fix the errors.
Yes, I have had the exact opposite experience as this article. It makes me question the validity of the article's claims. The spell-checking on the device is fantastic. If you define typo as input typos, then I may agree that I have lots of typos. But all of those typos are cleaned up by the iPhone. I also love that I don't have to waste a bunch of real estate to a keyboard that I am only using for a very small percentage of my usage time. For me, the keyboard is a home run.
Not true. They server doesn't see the tip until after you leave. Now, your point might be true if you are going to a restaurant that you visit on a regular basis. But you probably still tip when you are on vacation or in a restaurant that you rarely frequent. In such cases, there would be no repercussion in not tipping, yet we still tip.