Does he even understand that IE is meant to be the Windows Explorer? The idea is that the operating system browser can browse locally (as a filesystem browser) and remotely (as a web/ftp browser) with transparency. Say what you will about the idea, but clearly Microsoft likes it, and clearly the addition of a third party browser that only does web pages breaks the scheme of a unified OS/Web browser.
Does he understand the insistence on ActiveX? How could an alleged technology writer/pundit not understand such fundamental issues? Microsoft freaking went to court over this issue, it's not like it's a secret. What an idiot.
Actually, programming/SWEng lend themselves perfectly to having a child if any fields do. You can telecommute easily--there's no need for you to physically be at the office.
That's a very good observation about race that hadn't occurred to me. That somewhat supports the point I've made elsewhere that a lot of this is cultural.
What the hell are you talking about, all the women who have been involved in CS are complete hacks, going back to Ada Lovelace through Grace Murray Hooper and Adele Goldberg... What a bunch of losers!! Why would we want them contributing?
On a serious note, the feminine mind is different than the masculine one, and sometimes offers a unique perspective. I think we should welcome and encourage more women to become involved, if they are so inclined.
Err, what do you think I meant by "chicken or egg proposition?" I'm questioning how much of this is nature and how much is nurture, and your entire post completely begs the question based on assumption of the former. You don't know in what measure those behaviors are inherited and in what measure they are learned. If children are as brilliant as you say, then they are brilliant enough to observe the way their gender behaves. Children are impressionable, so it's a short step from those observations to behavior. The point is that it is always assumed that those behaviors are to be expected along the lines of gender, and that nature AS WELL AS nurture play a role. We can't do anything about the nature part (and of course shouldn't want to), but we certainly can do something about the nurture part.
I can cite an example to help clarify. My nieces have very different characteristics from one another. The elder niece has strong nurturing and maternal tendencies. She was playing with dolls tenderly since she was just a few months old. Her younger sister plays with dolls, but does not show them the same regard. She appears to have more athletic inclinations, and also is good at building structures (not to mention tearing them down!), both of which are traditionally masculine enterprises, and I suspect the main reason she plays with dolls is because her sister does, and because her parents provide them. When she gets older, she should be provided with an erector set or other structural toys, beacuse she has shown some characteristics that might indicate an engineer's mind. Many parents would not provide this, and therein lies the problem I'm talking about. The genders are different and THANK GOD for that! But girls and women should feel comfortable pursuing traditionally male-dominated callings.
Sometimes they will AMAZE you with their grasp of what you consider to be very tough social construct topics... like racism, addiction, anger, war, etc
That's an outlandishly hyperbolic statement. A 2.5 year-old has impressed my many times, but never by making some sort of sage analysis of racism, addiction, anger, or war. I've never seen a 2.5 year old chair an AA meeting or provide grief counseling, and I've never seen one negotiate a treaty. The insight you get from a child of that age might seem brilliant, but that's because a lot of these things can be reduced to very simple terms, and they are very simple little people: they haven't been trained to be dogmatic, limited thinkers yet (hopefully). This doesn't make them multidisciplinary geniuses. I've heard fairly deep philosophical insight from a uniquely brilliant 4.5 year old, however.
but instead we think there should just always be 50/50 equality in everything.
Dude, you're setting up a huge strawman there. Where did I say there should be gender equality in every profession? I'll wait for you to find it...
Oh, couldn't find it? That's because I never said that. I said that I thought women were being culturally dissuaded from the sciences. There will likely never be a 50/50 gender split in the sciences, but there should certainly be more than 17% representation, as my field stands today per TFA... and I'd wager if you compared the number of women in science in the US versus other industrialized countries, that you might find a lower percentage. If I'm right about that, then it's very likely culture that accounts for the difference.
Caveat: the following comes with a massive grain of salt, as it is speculation and generalization:
I was thinking about the dearth of women in science just the other day. I think, as has already been concluded and probably supported, that the difference stems at least in part from the fact that women from a very early age are treated differently. This treatment includes not just how they are treated in the classroom, it also includes what is expected of them. Boys get mechanical toys, erector sets, legos, and other toys that encourage engineering and scientific tendencies. Girls get dolls and other toys that encourage maternal and domestic tendencies. It could certainly be looked at as a chicken-and-egg argument, but perhaps we could start to remedy this phenomenon by encouraging women to build and experiment at a younger age.
It's also evident that girls and boys emulate the people around them, so a more stimulating, interactive and intellectual environment at home could be a boon for either gender.
Is it wise to print a stack trace on a web page exception? I tried to click on the media center and got the following error:
[FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.]
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DoubleType. Parse(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) +195
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +97
[InvalidCastException: Cast from string "" to type 'Integer' is not valid.]
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +212
Shopper.Shop.Home.initializeShop()
Shopper.Shop.Home.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +731
Now i must admit, CD's do have their redeeming qualities, such as their superior sound quality
Yes, I suppose it is superior to some media, but CD sound quality is not that great. It was born in compromise. They decided to take a hit on bit depth (16 instead of maybe 20 or something) so that they could have longer play time when they were developing the standard. If you listen to 24-bit recordings with good earphones or audiophile equipment, the difference is pronounced, especially at lower dynamic levels. I'm ready for the next-generation format to supplant CDs, perhaps (HDDVD || Blu-Ray) DVD-A
Both KDE and Gnome are bloated. The only difference is KDE is a suckier piece of trash.
If you haven't tried a leaner, meaner environment, I suggest xfce
If anyone here has used a recent version of vim, you might notice scroll wheel support in it. And I mean through a terminal window: not talking about gvim/X11. When vi starts having features emacs doesn't have...:P
Why is emacs development so ponderous? I know that RMS has driven away some competitors with his draconianism (which resulted in Xemacs), but emacs is like the first and favored son of the GNU system, right? I guess the emacs code base is very big, but any thoughts on what gives?
Incidentally, there is already a Carbonized version of emacs for OS X that's pretty nice: nicer that the Carbonized version of gvim. I still generally use vim on OS X (or for that matter, Linux) machines though.
It does not say AJAX is "not a fad," it says it is "more than just the latest fad." So he's saying it IS a fad (and the latest one), and more. I don't think that's an objectionable statement.
People who use Firefox are more educated generally (at least in terms of the Internet) than IE users, and it has the integrated Google search bar. As for the wealth thing, there has always been a correlation between Mac users and wealth (and education) and Safari has a Google search bar. Perhaps these factor into the correlation in the study.
Re:GCC is important, but what about progress in C+
on
GCC 4.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
RFID tag embedded under your skin at birth: bad
RFID tag put on your name tag so that you can be tracked by security as you wander around a secure installation that might have sensitive information stashed away here and there: good.
RFID has its purposes, and one of them is name tags. It's a lot easier to manage access and track people by using them, and IMO the UN has the right to manage access and track people in their own buildings. It was generous of RMS to help them out by amplifying the signal.
That's not the point. The point is that they invoked Bletchley at all, and also that they devalue every intellectual endeavor between the two events by doing so. For example, what John Backus' team did in creating FORTRAN was a greater and more valuable intellectual exercise than the creation of Yahoo! Mail. But by Yahoo's estimation, the only other event since WWII to be on their level is their own achievement, and petty achievements like the creation of the transistor, the Internet, operating systems, and programming languages required less brain power. It's an absurd and insulting contention.
I'm glad someone else is put off by this outrageous statement. My eyes goggled (or "Googled!") when I saw it. The Yahoo email team hasn't exercised more brain power than Alan Turing alone, much less the entire Bletchley Park squad. Also, the circumstances of using your brain for survival versus using your brain to "kick" a competitor's "ass" are completely different and don't warrant comparison. It's an offensive statement. I suppose they were trying to be funny, but it's just stupid.
Yeah, because, as we all know, sales figures tell you exactly how good a product is, right? So, in your opinion, the Windows interface must then be much better than the Macintosh interface because Windows outsells Macintosh 50:1, right? Or do sales figures only come into play when they confirm your prejudices?
Straw man. I'm certainly not saying that, but at least I gave some kind of empirical data, instead of talking out of my ass like you did.
You know, looking at your post again, I don't even think you have an iPod with a click wheel:
And the directional pad, which has push to play/pause, up/down for volume, push left/right to skip, and hold left/right to scan, is probably the best of the controls: it's simple, it's tiny, and it's intuitive.
This basically is a description of the click wheel, only it's more powerful because you can either scan by holding or scan by rotating.
I have about a dozen MP3 players, and the clickwheel is not very good:
The first part of this statement doesn't give you any more credibility or validity, and the second part is completely subjective. The click wheel is IMO very usable and superior to any interface I've yet come across, and I think based on sales figures a lot of people agree with that assessment.
Keeping them in the dark with an antiquated, unproven teaching theory is impractical and unhealthy. The theory of evolution remains simply that, a theory. Evolution was used by Charles Darwin to explain the unexplainable.
Since you apparently know nothing about science, allow me to enlighten you as to what the word theory means in science. It does not have the same definition in science that it has in common use. It shows how ignorant you are when you say evolution is "just a theory."
theory (n) (Webster's): a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based
The theory of evolution provides a framework for understanding the origin of species and diversity, and it provides the framework for experimentation in the biological sciences. It is not simply a "hunch."
Darwinists describe evolution as "merely change" in living organisms. How absurd. We just changed from one being to the next? If that's the case, who is responsible for that change?
Mutation is not absurd. It's been observed and documented. Speaking of absurdity, there is an apologetic Christian argument attributed to Tertulian that states "I believe it because it is absurd." Such thinking, a direct rejection of logic and reason, demonstrates how people so desperate to justify their worldview are capable of coming up with insanity such as ID. People like C.S. Lewis have invoked it. So if you think mutation is absurd, perhaps you should believe in evolution.
Well, evolution certainly fails that test. And to simply say intelligent design is not a genuine scientific theory is simply an opinion, not fact. Intelligent design can and has been proved scientifically.
Listen up folks, the guy who doesn't know what a scientific theory is just told us that evolution, the theory that provides the basis for modern biology, fails the scientific test. I'm sure he's about to enlighten us as to why:
Not a compelling argument...
Intelligent design can and has been proved scientifically.
Oh? Care to explain how? Why hasn't this "proof" appeared in any peer-reviewd scientific publications?
* Every living cell contains many ultra-sophisticated molecular machines.
Oooh, "ultra-sophisticated." Let's just throw up our hands, give up on science, and assume that something intelligent must have created everything, ignoring the fact that if everything complex needs an intelligent creator, then who created the complex and divine intelligence that created everything? (a recursive logical fallacy)
Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic signature.
So the fact that you see this "signature" doesn't stem from the fact that human brains are basically pattern-recognition machines, and the fact that we superimpose patterns where they do not exist? Tell me, whose "signature" is on AIDS or the ebola virus?
Darwin's finches and four-winged fruit fly theories cannot account for all features of living things.
That's because Darwin's observations about finches and fruit flies are observations about finches and fruit flies. They are not a theory of "all features of living things, they are specific testable examples that make sense within the framework of evolution.
The point is not that dogs are almost human, but rather that we humans are not so different from dogs.
I definitely agree that we exhibit more similarities to dogs, or especially other primates and hominids, than we do differences. But the differences we do have are profound enough to make us capable of many things that dogs are not capable of. The real point is that a dog would never suffer from the delusion that he was the divinely appointed ruler of earth, or that it was his job to "tame" the earth, or convert the earth into a food supply for his own species, and eliminate other species that would stand in the way of this goal, so that his own species could grow without limit. Even if a dog could suffer from such a delusion, he would lack the means to implement such a strategy. That's why we have in a few short milennia been able to put the world in a precarious ecological situation, though, again, as a part of negative feedback, I think we will be removed well before we have a chance to do too much damage.
As an aside, I don't understand your fixation with programs, but animals certainly can make plans and develop complex collective strategies.
Programs, for reasons already made painstakingly clear, are the crux of the biscuit. Genocide requires a program. Animals cannot implement programs, therefore animals cannot commit genocide. I still haven't heard an example...
You seem to imply that since they didn't develop them the same way we do with ours, their's don't count. If you ever have the bad luck of being chased by a pack of wolves, or pride of lions, try blinding them with logic.
Is this your example? Pack hunting? Can you not tell the difference between pack hunting and wiping out a competitor?
Well, it's a totally different proposition. Let me put it to you this way: do you think that before the pack of wolves or pride of lions goes to sleep, they think to themselves, "You know what would be good tomorrow? Antelope. Why don't we hunt about three antelope tomorrow, and divvy up the meat equally among the adults, and leave a few tender pieces for the pups/cubs."
Obviously, no, they do not think this before they go to sleep. But this could very well be how their next day works out. If it were a tribe of humans, they would think and perhaps even agree as a community on this course of action, and then they would devise a plan to make it happen, and then they would execute that plan.
Taking this a step further, civilization has taken this sort of basic human paradigm and extended into programs, which I keep mentioning for a very good reason. An example of a program would be if this group decided they were sick of living at the whims of where the antelopes might be the next day, and sick of other predators scattering and killing the antelopes, so they embark on a program to eliminate their competitors and corral the antelopes, changing from a nomadic lifestyle to a pastoralist lifestyle. This is clearly different than adaptation.
Language and the ability to think about the past and the future are unique gifts to humans. It's what makes us great trackers and hunters of prey. We cannot sniff out prey as well as the wolf, but we can read its tracks. We are not as formidable an opponent as a tiger, but we are clever. We can eat damn near everything too. These same gifts allow us to exempt ourselves in unique ways--some good, some bad. THAT IS ALL I AM SAYING. It is nothing controversial, and nothing any biologist or ecologist would argue with. Why it's so diffilcult for a couple of Slashdotters to understand, I have no idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Does he understand the insistence on ActiveX? How could an alleged technology writer/pundit not understand such fundamental issues? Microsoft freaking went to court over this issue, it's not like it's a secret. What an idiot.
Actually, programming/SWEng lend themselves perfectly to having a child if any fields do. You can telecommute easily--there's no need for you to physically be at the office.
That's a very good observation about race that hadn't occurred to me. That somewhat supports the point I've made elsewhere that a lot of this is cultural.
On a serious note, the feminine mind is different than the masculine one, and sometimes offers a unique perspective. I think we should welcome and encourage more women to become involved, if they are so inclined.
I can cite an example to help clarify. My nieces have very different characteristics from one another. The elder niece has strong nurturing and maternal tendencies. She was playing with dolls tenderly since she was just a few months old. Her younger sister plays with dolls, but does not show them the same regard. She appears to have more athletic inclinations, and also is good at building structures (not to mention tearing them down!), both of which are traditionally masculine enterprises, and I suspect the main reason she plays with dolls is because her sister does, and because her parents provide them. When she gets older, she should be provided with an erector set or other structural toys, beacuse she has shown some characteristics that might indicate an engineer's mind. Many parents would not provide this, and therein lies the problem I'm talking about. The genders are different and THANK GOD for that! But girls and women should feel comfortable pursuing traditionally male-dominated callings.
That's an outlandishly hyperbolic statement. A 2.5 year-old has impressed my many times, but never by making some sort of sage analysis of racism, addiction, anger, or war. I've never seen a 2.5 year old chair an AA meeting or provide grief counseling, and I've never seen one negotiate a treaty. The insight you get from a child of that age might seem brilliant, but that's because a lot of these things can be reduced to very simple terms, and they are very simple little people: they haven't been trained to be dogmatic, limited thinkers yet (hopefully). This doesn't make them multidisciplinary geniuses. I've heard fairly deep philosophical insight from a uniquely brilliant 4.5 year old, however. Dude, you're setting up a huge strawman there. Where did I say there should be gender equality in every profession? I'll wait for you to find it...Oh, couldn't find it? That's because I never said that. I said that I thought women were being culturally dissuaded from the sciences. There will likely never be a 50/50 gender split in the sciences, but there should certainly be more than 17% representation, as my field stands today per TFA... and I'd wager if you compared the number of women in science in the US versus other industrialized countries, that you might find a lower percentage. If I'm right about that, then it's very likely culture that accounts for the difference.
I was thinking about the dearth of women in science just the other day. I think, as has already been concluded and probably supported, that the difference stems at least in part from the fact that women from a very early age are treated differently. This treatment includes not just how they are treated in the classroom, it also includes what is expected of them. Boys get mechanical toys, erector sets, legos, and other toys that encourage engineering and scientific tendencies. Girls get dolls and other toys that encourage maternal and domestic tendencies. It could certainly be looked at as a chicken-and-egg argument, but perhaps we could start to remedy this phenomenon by encouraging women to build and experiment at a younger age.
It's also evident that girls and boys emulate the people around them, so a more stimulating, interactive and intellectual environment at home could be a boon for either gender.
Is it wise to print a stack trace on a web page exception? I tried to click on the media center and got the following error: [FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DoubleType. Parse(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) +195
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +97
[InvalidCastException: Cast from string "" to type 'Integer' is not valid.]
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +212
Shopper.Shop.Home.initializeShop()
Shopper.Shop.Home.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +731
Free countries do not monitor their citizens without due process and reasonable suspicion.
the word is "numerals" Roman numerals. Not nomenclature. And yes, we are OT
Both KDE and Gnome are bloated. The only difference is KDE is a suckier piece of trash.
If you haven't tried a leaner, meaner environment, I suggest xfce
:%s/competitors/developers/g
If anyone here has used a recent version of vim, you might notice scroll wheel support in it. And I mean through a terminal window: not talking about gvim/X11. When vi starts having features emacs doesn't have... :P
Why is emacs development so ponderous? I know that RMS has driven away some competitors with his draconianism (which resulted in Xemacs), but emacs is like the first and favored son of the GNU system, right? I guess the emacs code base is very big, but any thoughts on what gives?
Incidentally, there is already a Carbonized version of emacs for OS X that's pretty nice: nicer that the Carbonized version of gvim. I still generally use vim on OS X (or for that matter, Linux) machines though.
It does not say AJAX is "not a fad," it says it is "more than just the latest fad." So he's saying it IS a fad (and the latest one), and more. I don't think that's an objectionable statement.
People who use Firefox are more educated generally (at least in terms of the Internet) than IE users, and it has the integrated Google search bar. As for the wealth thing, there has always been a correlation between Mac users and wealth (and education) and Safari has a Google search bar. Perhaps these factor into the correlation in the study.
SSIA
RFID tag put on your name tag so that you can be tracked by security as you wander around a secure installation that might have sensitive information stashed away here and there: good.
RFID has its purposes, and one of them is name tags. It's a lot easier to manage access and track people by using them, and IMO the UN has the right to manage access and track people in their own buildings. It was generous of RMS to help them out by amplifying the signal.
"all your Base are belong to us."
That's not the point. The point is that they invoked Bletchley at all, and also that they devalue every intellectual endeavor between the two events by doing so. For example, what John Backus' team did in creating FORTRAN was a greater and more valuable intellectual exercise than the creation of Yahoo! Mail. But by Yahoo's estimation, the only other event since WWII to be on their level is their own achievement, and petty achievements like the creation of the transistor, the Internet, operating systems, and programming languages required less brain power. It's an absurd and insulting contention.
I'm glad someone else is put off by this outrageous statement. My eyes goggled (or "Googled!") when I saw it. The Yahoo email team hasn't exercised more brain power than Alan Turing alone, much less the entire Bletchley Park squad. Also, the circumstances of using your brain for survival versus using your brain to "kick" a competitor's "ass" are completely different and don't warrant comparison. It's an offensive statement. I suppose they were trying to be funny, but it's just stupid.
You know, looking at your post again, I don't even think you have an iPod with a click wheel:
This basically is a description of the click wheel, only it's more powerful because you can either scan by holding or scan by rotating.theory (n) (Webster's): a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based
Mutation is not absurd. It's been observed and documented. Speaking of absurdity, there is an apologetic Christian argument attributed to Tertulian that states "I believe it because it is absurd." Such thinking, a direct rejection of logic and reason, demonstrates how people so desperate to justify their worldview are capable of coming up with insanity such as ID. People like C.S. Lewis have invoked it. So if you think mutation is absurd, perhaps you should believe in evolution. Listen up folks, the guy who doesn't know what a scientific theory is just told us that evolution, the theory that provides the basis for modern biology, fails the scientific test. I'm sure he's about to enlighten us as to why:The theory of evolution provides a framework for understanding the origin of species and diversity, and it provides the framework for experimentation in the biological sciences. It is not simply a "hunch."
Not a compelling argument...
Oh? Care to explain how? Why hasn't this "proof" appeared in any peer-reviewd scientific publications? Oooh, "ultra-sophisticated." Let's just throw up our hands, give up on science, and assume that something intelligent must have created everything, ignoring the fact that if everything complex needs an intelligent creator, then who created the complex and divine intelligence that created everything? (a recursive logical fallacy) So the fact that you see this "signature" doesn't stem from the fact that human brains are basically pattern-recognition machines, and the fact that we superimpose patterns where they do not exist? Tell me, whose "signature" is on AIDS or the ebola virus? That's because Darwin's observations about finches and fruit flies are observations about finches and fruit flies. They are not a theory of "all features of living things, they are specific testable examples that make sense within the framework of evolution.Is this your example? Pack hunting? Can you not tell the difference between pack hunting and wiping out a competitor?
Well, it's a totally different proposition. Let me put it to you this way: do you think that before the pack of wolves or pride of lions goes to sleep, they think to themselves, "You know what would be good tomorrow? Antelope. Why don't we hunt about three antelope tomorrow, and divvy up the meat equally among the adults, and leave a few tender pieces for the pups/cubs."
Obviously, no, they do not think this before they go to sleep. But this could very well be how their next day works out. If it were a tribe of humans, they would think and perhaps even agree as a community on this course of action, and then they would devise a plan to make it happen, and then they would execute that plan.
Taking this a step further, civilization has taken this sort of basic human paradigm and extended into programs, which I keep mentioning for a very good reason. An example of a program would be if this group decided they were sick of living at the whims of where the antelopes might be the next day, and sick of other predators scattering and killing the antelopes, so they embark on a program to eliminate their competitors and corral the antelopes, changing from a nomadic lifestyle to a pastoralist lifestyle. This is clearly different than adaptation.
Language and the ability to think about the past and the future are unique gifts to humans. It's what makes us great trackers and hunters of prey. We cannot sniff out prey as well as the wolf, but we can read its tracks. We are not as formidable an opponent as a tiger, but we are clever. We can eat damn near everything too. These same gifts allow us to exempt ourselves in unique ways--some good, some bad. THAT IS ALL I AM SAYING. It is nothing controversial, and nothing any biologist or ecologist would argue with. Why it's so diffilcult for a couple of Slashdotters to understand, I have no idea.