The bloody splatter and such aren't unhealthy.... The north american culture is unhealthy.
That's debatable.
As for sex, that type of stuff should be taught. We should know how sex works and whats "normal".... The last few generations of parent shave been very negligent in teaching this and thats why the US has a very high rate of teen pregnancies compared to the rest of the western world.
I disagree. Students get this information in high school and/or junior high. I think the real problem (both with teen pregnancy and violence/other problems) is that kids don't consider the consequences of their actions --either because they don't think they'll get caught or because they think they can get out of it if they do.
But if your boss
wants you to calculate the roi for a bunch of cash flows, or if you need to know how high the rocket will go, or how come this bubble sort runs all night long, or what interest rate equates to a mortgage payment on a 30-year mortgage of 100,000 with a monthly payment of $500, or what to price your product at to optimize profits, you might just need some math.
Yep. Probably high school math (or lower), except perhaps for the bit about the rocket (but then we equate that particular field with being very smart).
Certainly you want smart people who can find or create solutions to your problems. But that doesn't necessarily mean someone with extensive math skills. Certain areas of compsci/programming will need advanced calculus, probability, etc.... But most CS grads will probably be doing programming or associated work on business apps. Most of the time, that requires little math. Now, tuning those apps (if any tuning is done at all) may call for some math, or not. Most languages and environments have established techniques for improving performance as well as more general methods (e.g. adding or removing an index, removing redundant or extraneous code, etc....) that may be math based but don't really require the programmer to have a detailed understanding of why they work.
If your firm thinks that 3+ years of java experience is the most important quality a new hire can have, then I really don't want to work for them.
Sadly, this is the shortsighted view most hiring managers seem to take. If their requirements say you should have 3 years of Java, you probably won't even get an interview with 2.5 years experience.
I don't think the idea is that this is something new, just that it is getting worse. And that makes sense, given the greater complexity of top-shelf games today. As graphics, physics, AI, variety of gameplay continue to improve, it takes more work to finish a game. To an extent, you can have more people working, but with pressure on publishers to deliver more value without raising prices and do it faster, something has to give. And programmers will do it because there is probably someone in line behind each one thinking it's a dream job.
What I wonder is: Since people get burned out and quit (presumably including top talent), why don't some of these people get together and start a development house that doesn't abuse the talent? Then they can recruit and retain the best people. And since they have the best people, they can be competitive without the grueling working conditions, right? Maybe someone has already done this?
Those batteries can be pretty nasty. I'm not just talking the battery Acid either. Some of the batteries in electric cars have to be heated to 200 degrees to work properly. And a lot of them contain some pretty nasty and toxic chemicals. Far worse than gasoline.
The Prius uses NiMH batteries. They have a highly caustic (pH 13.5) electrolyte, but other than that are apparently non-toxic. Vinegar or Boric acid can be used to neutralize any electrolyte that leaks, but leaks are not likely since the solution is absorbed into the cell plates and shouldn't normally leak even when the battery module is cracked.
The area where I live was covered by ice over 1,000 feet thick just 9,000 years ago, which is when the present-day topography was created.... So what effect did all that ice melting have?
When you say 'area' are you speaking of an area approximately the size of anarctica (5.4 million square miles)? Or a very small fraction thereof? Also keep in mind that the average thickness of the ice sheet covering Antarctica is a bit over 7000 feet. So that's probably not an "apples to apples" comparison.
I want to see some unbiased statistics that indicate how often children who play "violent" games were involved in violent incidents (in school, e.g.) vs. a control group. How come the studies we hear about only seem to contain vague terms like "agression", rather than anything about actual incidents of violence? Could it be because when it comes to actual violence, the correlation becomes statistically insignificant? I'm guessing, not stating that as fact.
If Antartica was ice-free (or mostly so) a few hundred years ago, why wasn't sea level dozens or hundreds of feet higher? Some Antarctica facts. That water/ice had to be somewhere. Another relevant fact, "Antarctica represents about 9 percent of Earth's continental crust and has been in a near-polar position for more than 100 million years".
Near cyprus makes more sense to me. Even the theory that Cuba is the remains of Atlantis sounds more plausible than Antarctica.
I think the article went a bit too far in predicting Sun's demise.
I agree. And when discussing the comeback scenarios, it missed a key possibility: Sun could buy the next up and coming technology. The author dismissed the idea of new initiatives because Sun is too big ("that is the stuff for start-ups"). So let a hot startup come along and leverage some of that $10 billion in revenue to grab it before it gets too expensive. Repeat as necessary while shutting down the lines of business that are flagging.
I wonder if this might also reduce the time that lanes are blocked when no work is being done. Seems like much of time when a lane is blocked by orange barrels (significantly slowing traffic), little or no work is being done. But (I suppose) it is not practical or safe for workers to repeatedly deploy and retrieve barrels unless a work stoppage will be for an extended time. But if the process is automated, it seems that it could be done much quicker. So instead of blocking a lane for six miles before getting to any actual roadwork because "we'll be working there eventually", they can adjust the area as needed.
I generally agree with you about spawn camping. Temporary invincibility is one solution, another is a variety of spawn points. Depending on the type of match and map, they could be spread out in a variety of different ways. And if one spawn point is a bit close to a powerful weapon/power-up, you can reduce the frequency for that point. In other words, if there aren't enough spawn points to marginalize the effectiveness of spawn camping, that is a flaw of the game or map.
Well, it seems the writer of the article assumes that just because something can be done in a video game, that it is perfectly acceptable to do so.
Actually, I pretty much agree with that. If there is a strategy that lets a low-skill player dominate the game that can't be effectively countered or marginalized, that's a defect of the game. But unless all participants agree that exploiting the defect is out-of-bounds, it's cheesy but fair. Server admins can set those type of rules, and by joining a game, players accept the limitation. But that kind of thing should be clearly stated up front.
Camping/sniping in general, on the other hand, can be a reasonable, legitimate strategy (that's why real police/military forces use it).
Oh, you don't like my generalizing my experience to all, then don't use your anecdote to generalize it for everyone.
Completely useless indicates that there is no case in which a user can get satisfactory help. So if at least one user has, the assertion is false. QED.
Clearly, you meant "completely useless for an undefined subset of users that includes me." You should have just said that in the first place.
Retraining? I don't see it. I can take any one of our employees and sit them down behind Open Office and have them producing Word documents immediately.
Be sure to charge your time to "end user training".
Everyone always mentions training as a cost for alternatives to MS Office.
It is a cost any time you change to a different application. Perhaps you noticed that I allowed it was indeterminate which upgrade path (Office 2003 or OO.org) might have a greater training cost?
In the open-source world, there are mailing lists you can post to, where you'll actually get useful help.
The same, of course, it true of MS Office, only much moreso due to the massively larger user base.
It has been pointed out again and again and again that Microsoft support for the end-user of Word or Excel is completely useless.
Of course it has. MS bashing is a huge hobby for all kinds of people. I've encountered many problems with Office, all of which I've been able to solve with a little help from support.microsoft.com. Microsoft might not be as helpful and efficient as you'd like, but "completely useless" is overstating the case.
If there were a company with no Finance Department....
Whoa. Don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions. It was your assertion, not an established fact, that so many advanced features are lacking in OO.org that a finance department couldn't function. From the article, however,
Melinda Vause, who works in finance at FN Manufacturing, said Calc felt "similar to Excel, and it would be easy to learn the slight differences."
and
FN Manufacturing bookkeeper Suzan Widener reported that the Excel-formatted spreadsheet she used during the eVal was compatible with Calc.
Finally,
However, Joan Curfman, who tested Office 2003 during the eVal but who had been part of an earlier OpenOffice.org test group, estimated it would take weeks to convert FN Manufacturing spreadsheets from Office 97 and 2000 to OpenOffice.org.
Note that there is no mention of impossibility or the apocalypse.
If there were a company with... no contact with the outside world....
Again, no users cited this as a major issue. Support was also a con, but given the similarity of the apps and the general ease with which the users transitioned, it didn't appear to be a deal breaker. If you've got something besides FUD and hyperbole, I'd be happy to consider your point of view...
Getting support on MS Office from Microsoft is a joke - if you value your time and money, you're better off using Google, just as you would with OpenOffice.
That's probably a fair assessment, but with a vastly larger user base, any issue you encounter in Office is more likely to be known and documented (by someone).
When it comes to advanced features there are a lot of features in MS Office that aren't in OO, however, these are features that aren't used by ~80-95% of your userbase, depending on your industry.
Yeah, that is something you'd have to have your users evaluate, e.g. in a trial conversion.
Cost to install is not the only cost. With a free product, your own IT guys are the only resource if you encounter a bug or difficult error situation. If you're paying for a license, you have another level of support, i.e. the developer.
And while it may seem that OO.org does everything MS Office does, there may be advanced features in Office that either don't exist in OO.org, or aren't compatible from one format to the other. The article mentioned Excel power users as a key area of concern.
Then there is training to consider. You could spend a lot getting your users up to speed. More than training on upgrade features of a newer version of Office? Well, that's why you do the comparison, eh?
And then there is the cost of conversion. Despite handling Office file formats fairly well, there are often snags when converting, especially for complex documents/presentations/etc....
The real question is what is important to you. If you have a family, or expect to in the near term, good health insurance should probably be a priority. If you're young and relatively unattached, you might be looking for a fat paycheck or a lot of flexibility (either at work, e.g. working with different tools/technologies/whatever and maybe some say in the projects you work on; or the ability to take a day off on short notice or work odd hours, etc...) or a chance to advance.
Figure out what your short and long term goals are and think about what career tracks are consistent with those. Then you can work on finding a company that can put you where you want to be in a year or 5 years, etc... (even if it isn't with the same company).
From my experience, people make a huge difference. So look for a company that hires the kind of people you would want to work with. Easier said than done, but talking to people who work there is usually a good start.
The grandparent said(emphasis added): "Actually, the Cube is in dead last in 3rd place in the US."
You said: "You dolt. Read this and get a clue."
From the article you linked (emphasis added): "With losses on the Xbox running into multiple billions of dollars, and the company still owning a global market share of the home console market that's slightly behind Nintendo's (albeit certainly leading the GameCube in North America)...."
You should probably read what you're responding to before you start name-calling.
I want to think this was a joke, not hard science.
I hope so. But you never know. Just because it was silly enough to be modded funny doesn't mean the poster wasn't serious. Or maybe I should lighten up.
By the way, I thought clouds hold heat near the earth?
That is also correct. Less heat reaches the surface during the day, but less escapes at night.
Slashdot Mirror
That's debatable.
As for sex, that type of stuff should be taught. We should know how sex works and whats "normal". ... The last few generations of parent shave been very negligent in teaching this and thats why the US has a very high rate of teen pregnancies compared to the rest of the western world.
I disagree. Students get this information in high school and/or junior high. I think the real problem (both with teen pregnancy and violence/other problems) is that kids don't consider the consequences of their actions --either because they don't think they'll get caught or because they think they can get out of it if they do.
Yep. Probably high school math (or lower), except perhaps for the bit about the rocket (but then we equate that particular field with being very smart).
Certainly you want smart people who can find or create solutions to your problems. But that doesn't necessarily mean someone with extensive math skills. Certain areas of compsci/programming will need advanced calculus, probability, etc.... But most CS grads will probably be doing programming or associated work on business apps. Most of the time, that requires little math. Now, tuning those apps (if any tuning is done at all) may call for some math, or not. Most languages and environments have established techniques for improving performance as well as more general methods (e.g. adding or removing an index, removing redundant or extraneous code, etc....) that may be math based but don't really require the programmer to have a detailed understanding of why they work.
If your firm thinks that 3+ years of java experience is the most important quality a new hire can have, then I really don't want to work for them.
Sadly, this is the shortsighted view most hiring managers seem to take. If their requirements say you should have 3 years of Java, you probably won't even get an interview with 2.5 years experience.
What I wonder is: Since people get burned out and quit (presumably including top talent), why don't some of these people get together and start a development house that doesn't abuse the talent? Then they can recruit and retain the best people. And since they have the best people, they can be competitive without the grueling working conditions, right? Maybe someone has already done this?
The Prius uses NiMH batteries. They have a highly caustic (pH 13.5) electrolyte, but other than that are apparently non-toxic. Vinegar or Boric acid can be used to neutralize any electrolyte that leaks, but leaks are not likely since the solution is absorbed into the cell plates and shouldn't normally leak even when the battery module is cracked.
Yeah, you know, the land down under...
When you say 'area' are you speaking of an area approximately the size of anarctica (5.4 million square miles)? Or a very small fraction thereof? Also keep in mind that the average thickness of the ice sheet covering Antarctica is a bit over 7000 feet. So that's probably not an "apples to apples" comparison.
I want to see some unbiased statistics that indicate how often children who play "violent" games were involved in violent incidents (in school, e.g.) vs. a control group. How come the studies we hear about only seem to contain vague terms like "agression", rather than anything about actual incidents of violence? Could it be because when it comes to actual violence, the correlation becomes statistically insignificant? I'm guessing, not stating that as fact.
Near cyprus makes more sense to me. Even the theory that Cuba is the remains of Atlantis sounds more plausible than Antarctica.
I agree. And when discussing the comeback scenarios, it missed a key possibility: Sun could buy the next up and coming technology. The author dismissed the idea of new initiatives because Sun is too big ("that is the stuff for start-ups"). So let a hot startup come along and leverage some of that $10 billion in revenue to grab it before it gets too expensive. Repeat as necessary while shutting down the lines of business that are flagging.
I wonder if this might also reduce the time that lanes are blocked when no work is being done. Seems like much of time when a lane is blocked by orange barrels (significantly slowing traffic), little or no work is being done. But (I suppose) it is not practical or safe for workers to repeatedly deploy and retrieve barrels unless a work stoppage will be for an extended time. But if the process is automated, it seems that it could be done much quicker. So instead of blocking a lane for six miles before getting to any actual roadwork because "we'll be working there eventually", they can adjust the area as needed.
Wow. Have there always been more than six posts per article?
Well, it seems the writer of the article assumes that just because something can be done in a video game, that it is perfectly acceptable to do so.
Actually, I pretty much agree with that. If there is a strategy that lets a low-skill player dominate the game that can't be effectively countered or marginalized, that's a defect of the game. But unless all participants agree that exploiting the defect is out-of-bounds, it's cheesy but fair. Server admins can set those type of rules, and by joining a game, players accept the limitation. But that kind of thing should be clearly stated up front.
Camping/sniping in general, on the other hand, can be a reasonable, legitimate strategy (that's why real police/military forces use it).
Oh, you don't like my generalizing my experience to all, then don't use your anecdote to generalize it for everyone.
Completely useless indicates that there is no case in which a user can get satisfactory help. So if at least one user has, the assertion is false. QED.
Clearly, you meant "completely useless for an undefined subset of users that includes me." You should have just said that in the first place.
Nevertheless, you haven't presented any evidence that they are not fully aware of their own needs.
Be sure to charge your time to "end user training".
It is a cost any time you change to a different application. Perhaps you noticed that I allowed it was indeterminate which upgrade path (Office 2003 or OO.org) might have a greater training cost?
The same, of course, it true of MS Office, only much moreso due to the massively larger user base.
It has been pointed out again and again and again that Microsoft support for the end-user of Word or Excel is completely useless.
Of course it has. MS bashing is a huge hobby for all kinds of people. I've encountered many problems with Office, all of which I've been able to solve with a little help from support.microsoft.com. Microsoft might not be as helpful and efficient as you'd like, but "completely useless" is overstating the case.
Whoa. Don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions. It was your assertion, not an established fact, that so many advanced features are lacking in OO.org that a finance department couldn't function. From the article, however,
and Finally, Note that there is no mention of impossibility or the apocalypse.If there were a company with ... no contact with the outside world....
Again, no users cited this as a major issue. Support was also a con, but given the similarity of the apps and the general ease with which the users transitioned, it didn't appear to be a deal breaker. If you've got something besides FUD and hyperbole, I'd be happy to consider your point of view...
That's probably a fair assessment, but with a vastly larger user base, any issue you encounter in Office is more likely to be known and documented (by someone).
When it comes to advanced features there are a lot of features in MS Office that aren't in OO, however, these are features that aren't used by ~80-95% of your userbase, depending on your industry.
Yeah, that is something you'd have to have your users evaluate, e.g. in a trial conversion.
And while it may seem that OO.org does everything MS Office does, there may be advanced features in Office that either don't exist in OO.org, or aren't compatible from one format to the other. The article mentioned Excel power users as a key area of concern.
Then there is training to consider. You could spend a lot getting your users up to speed. More than training on upgrade features of a newer version of Office? Well, that's why you do the comparison, eh?
And then there is the cost of conversion. Despite handling Office file formats fairly well, there are often snags when converting, especially for complex documents/presentations/etc....
Figure out what your short and long term goals are and think about what career tracks are consistent with those. Then you can work on finding a company that can put you where you want to be in a year or 5 years, etc... (even if it isn't with the same company).
From my experience, people make a huge difference. So look for a company that hires the kind of people you would want to work with. Easier said than done, but talking to people who work there is usually a good start.
You said: "You dolt. Read this and get a clue."
From the article you linked (emphasis added): "With losses on the Xbox running into multiple billions of dollars, and the company still owning a global market share of the home console market that's slightly behind Nintendo's (albeit certainly leading the GameCube in North America)...."
You should probably read what you're responding to before you start name-calling.
I hope so. But you never know. Just because it was silly enough to be modded funny doesn't mean the poster wasn't serious. Or maybe I should lighten up.
By the way, I thought clouds hold heat near the earth?
That is also correct. Less heat reaches the surface during the day, but less escapes at night.
We run out of turkey parts? But since the technology looks like it will work with many types of waste, even sewage, we might never run out at all.