When TFA said "losing is an asset", all kinds of red flags went up in my head.
Remember when the tech media was all over the idea of giving away free PCs and Internet access just to make money off the adware and spyware? They also loved those Internet pet stores who spent gazillions on Superbowl ads just to increase "mindshare", not to mention the free delivery-by-bike-messenger-service... you could buy a chocolate bar and some rasta dude with a bright orange and green messenger bag shows up at your office a few hours later... they wouldn't even take tips.
The bubble-era was full of companies with bad ideas, which the media ate up and sold. We all know what happened after.
You figure there was a lesson learned. But when the media starts spouting stupid crap like "losing is an asset", I can't help but worry that another bubble is starting to rise.
I used to own a Mindstorms set. Had a couple of problems with it:
1. Expansion kits were crap. All I want are some extra gears and technics pieces. LEGO doesn't make those anymore, you'd have to troll e-Bay.
2. Stupid 3-input, 3-output limit. I figure they'd come out with an RCX brick that could handle more peripherals, but no.
3. Stupid RCX brick uses AA batteries. You'd have to open it up to put fresh ones in. This really limits the topography of your models... you'd either have to put the RCX brick outside where it's accessible, or take the robot apart just to replace the batteries.
How about using an external battery pack? Rechargeable, even? Better yet, how about solar panel "bricks" (far out, but hey...)? A gyroscopic sensor to detect orientation? A pressure-sensitive touch sensor?
I think LEGO really missed their own boat with this Mindstorms thing. They insisted on marketing it for kids when it's really the geeks and various robotics departments that they should have been selling to.
I thought they gave astronauts mandatory drug tests. This certainly casts some doubt on the shuttle disasters of years past... maybe the pilots were high on crack?
Or maybe it was the mechanics' stash.
With a name like that I'd expect him to lead a team to put together a watermelon gun using an old washing machine, some pvc pipes and an air pump and mount it on the back of a pickup truck so they can all bust out of the locked warehouse and break through a heavily armed military checkpoint, escaping with nary a gun-shot fleshwound inflicted on either side.
The minis are small enough that you can get them through customs w/o anyone blinking an eye. (You might have to take it out of the shiny packaging, tho.)
Spend your hard-earned euros here!!!
Seriously, NYC has never been so cheap for Europeans.
The last IDE I used was Visual Studio, but actually edited my code externally using vi. I just found it much faster to code using vi than the built-in editor. (Once you get used to vi, you can write code faster than you think...) In the end, I would pop into the IDE just to compile and debug.
But your points are true enough... a well designed IDE has its benefits. The bottom line is, an IDE is not a text editor, and vice versa...
I've been programming Java for years and I've always used vi. How much time have I wasted?
I find IDEs a bigger waste of time. IMO, every second my right hand leaves the keyboard to reach for the mouse is time wasted. The only thing you get from a graphical IDE is the ability to step through the instructions. But there are other ways to compensate for that...
And I do find it curious that voting machines are only being questioned in states that Republicans have won. Don't you?
That statement is only true in that Republicans have won in states using voting machines with no paper trails. FYI, they are doing a recount in NH where Kerry won. They aren't contesting the machines, per se, rather the discrepancy between the official tally and the exit poll results.
It is a common misconception, fueled by the media, that the Spanish vote was swayed by the Madrid bombings. Fact of the matter is, a lot of Spaniards came to hate Aznar for several reasons, only one of them being that he practically licked Bush's ass. And it should also be noted that Zapatero had always intended to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, as it had been part of his campaign platform for a long time. None of this had anything to do with the bombings.
The takeaway from the Madrid bombings is not how it swayed Spanish politics, rather how smart and media-savvy the terrorists are for making themselves appear to the rest of the world as having swayed the elections, and in the process embarrasing Bush.
Are we talking about the same John Kerry who has been absent from 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings since he's been there? including all of them in the year following the first World Trade Center attack. Hell, kerry was windsurfing during the RNC. This is the guy you're talking about who is so much better about vacationing when we have security issues?
Yeah, there's also that certain someone who spends more time vacationing--in Camp David and his ranch in Crawford, TX--than any previous president.
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20031001.html
As to whether Java is ultimately un-cool: of course it's uncool. It's a programming language, for cryin out loud. But if you/.ers think hacking out one-liner code in C or Perl is cool you are sadly mistaken.
if (geek.isProgrammer()) { cool = false ; }
Speaking from personal experience, I've even gotten laid more since I've started programming in Java, so C/C++ (and perhaps Perl, etc.) are at least as un-cool as Java if not more.
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When TFA said "losing is an asset", all kinds of red flags went up in my head.
Remember when the tech media was all over the idea of giving away free PCs and Internet access just to make money off the adware and spyware? They also loved those Internet pet stores who spent gazillions on Superbowl ads just to increase "mindshare", not to mention the free delivery-by-bike-messenger-service... you could buy a chocolate bar and some rasta dude with a bright orange and green messenger bag shows up at your office a few hours later... they wouldn't even take tips.
The bubble-era was full of companies with bad ideas, which the media ate up and sold. We all know what happened after.
You figure there was a lesson learned. But when the media starts spouting stupid crap like "losing is an asset", I can't help but worry that another bubble is starting to rise.
I used to own a Mindstorms set. Had a couple of problems with it:
1. Expansion kits were crap. All I want are some extra gears and technics pieces. LEGO doesn't make those anymore, you'd have to troll e-Bay.
2. Stupid 3-input, 3-output limit. I figure they'd come out with an RCX brick that could handle more peripherals, but no.
3. Stupid RCX brick uses AA batteries. You'd have to open it up to put fresh ones in. This really limits the topography of your models... you'd either have to put the RCX brick outside where it's accessible, or take the robot apart just to replace the batteries.
How about using an external battery pack? Rechargeable, even? Better yet, how about solar panel "bricks" (far out, but hey...)? A gyroscopic sensor to detect orientation? A pressure-sensitive touch sensor?
I think LEGO really missed their own boat with this Mindstorms thing. They insisted on marketing it for kids when it's really the geeks and various robotics departments that they should have been selling to.
I thought they gave astronauts mandatory drug tests. This certainly casts some doubt on the shuttle disasters of years past... maybe the pilots were high on crack? Or maybe it was the mechanics' stash.
With a name like that I'd expect him to lead a team to put together a watermelon gun using an old washing machine, some pvc pipes and an air pump and mount it on the back of a pickup truck so they can all bust out of the locked warehouse and break through a heavily armed military checkpoint, escaping with nary a gun-shot fleshwound inflicted on either side.
Of course a Cell-based workstation is coming. How else would they develop games that run on PS3?
The minis are small enough that you can get them through customs w/o anyone blinking an eye. (You might have to take it out of the shiny packaging, tho.) Spend your hard-earned euros here!!! Seriously, NYC has never been so cheap for Europeans.
The last IDE I used was Visual Studio, but actually edited my code externally using vi. I just found it much faster to code using vi than the built-in editor. (Once you get used to vi, you can write code faster than you think...) In the end, I would pop into the IDE just to compile and debug. But your points are true enough... a well designed IDE has its benefits. The bottom line is, an IDE is not a text editor, and vice versa...
no, but "mouse" typically is... :P
I've been programming Java for years and I've always used vi. How much time have I wasted? I find IDEs a bigger waste of time. IMO, every second my right hand leaves the keyboard to reach for the mouse is time wasted. The only thing you get from a graphical IDE is the ability to step through the instructions. But there are other ways to compensate for that...
Doh, The Apple brandname is huge *BECAUSE* of the iPod. Not the other way around.
That statement is only true in that Republicans have won in states using voting machines with no paper trails. FYI, they are doing a recount in NH where Kerry won. They aren't contesting the machines, per se, rather the discrepancy between the official tally and the exit poll results.
The takeaway from the Madrid bombings is not how it swayed Spanish politics, rather how smart and media-savvy the terrorists are for making themselves appear to the rest of the world as having swayed the elections, and in the process embarrasing Bush.
As to whether Java is ultimately un-cool: of course it's uncool. It's a programming language, for cryin out loud. But if you /.ers think hacking out one-liner code in C or Perl is cool you are sadly mistaken.
if (geek.isProgrammer()) { cool = false ; }
Speaking from personal experience, I've even gotten laid more since I've started programming in Java, so C/C++ (and perhaps Perl, etc.) are at least as un-cool as Java if not more.