The mindset at one place I've worked is that "we're not in the software development business, so we don't want to invest in good software development practices", even though the primary business depended, heart and soul, on very specialized and customized software tools. I can see this kind of thing from a secretarial staffing agency. I can't see this kind of thing from an industrial giant making any sense, but it's really a common attitude. They want to develop tomorrow's products using nothing but COTS tools. Newsflash: if all the tools come in predefined boxes, it's really really tough to think outside the box. Software is soft and malleable for a reason.
Governments have the right and the duty to protect the relatively free market from abusive monopolies. Governments don't have rights. They have powers.
"This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it shows a lack of understanding of the motivations of labor management in the USA."
There, fixed that for ya.
Even the original writeup used the term "self-serving." It's not a misunderstanding of who is available, it's a direct consequence of the idea that, even with air travel expenses and shepherding, getting some third-world contractor to do the coding will save money. Whether this idea is actually defensible on cost-vs-quality terms is debatable, but the idea remains important, in management's view.
Think in four quadrants. The quadrant representing status-quo is high-cost/high-quality of domestic staff. If quality targets can be a bit lax, domestic staff would get restless and churn, while imported staff wins on cost. If the skills of the imported staff are actually above average, they win again. Two winning quadrants, one status-quo, and one quadrant with staff churn. I'm sure I could phrase it better but it sounds like a "slam dunk" in manager-ese.
As an ignorant American youth, the first and only cultural reference I received to Jodrell Bank is the mention of it in the opening of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I figured from context that it's not actually a financial bank, but an observatory of some kind (as they failing to detect the approaching Vogons). Even years later, that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge on it. Thanks for the details.
Okay, I'm not trying for this prize, but there's one thing about Netflix "recommendations" that bugs me so I'm throwing out this complete freebie of an idea. If it helps someone get a 0.001% improvement to add this ONE little additional check, great.
I am learning Japanese. I have been watching several hundred Japanese-language movies for the past couple years. I don't watch movies in Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, Russian, German, or Hebrew. I did watch Amelie four years ago but that doesn't mean I love French movies. Most of my recommendations are for foreign films, but only a small fraction of those recommendations are for Japanese movies.
Apparently, Netflix doesn't have a column in their database saying WHAT language a movie uses principally, it just has a flag saying it is not English. It's the only explanation I can see for not checking for such a strong correlation. I admit, I might not be sharing the experience of the most common movie-renting drone in the bunch, but I doubt I'm the only person who has such a lopsided taste in movies. If the language (or alternate soundtrack languages) ARE known in the database, please see if the renter has a bias for movies in a particular language.
What about the recent case where the driver got to investigate all source code for the breathalyzer? I had heard (perhaps wrongly) that several such cases are dropped because the breathalyzer companies don't want to present the evidence. http://www.news.com/Police-Blotter-Breathalyzer-code-must-be-disclosed/2100-1030_3-6227951.html Dunno what weight this has between jurisdictions but it may be useful.
As far as Gaiman's books go, I found Neverwhere to be much more satisfying read than American Gods. The latter felt more like a cross between the old "Sam & Max" PC game, and the second Dirk Gently story, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, from Douglas Adams, and not as polished or tight (or funny) as either one.
I've not given Adobe a single dime in a decade*. First it was their overpricing themselves out of all but the students-and-pirates market. Then it was about using their corporate power to influence our government against the valid rights of individuals who were speaking out about data security and the freedom to read.
I'm sure some cash went from Canon or Apple to these jackasses, when I bought hardware that bundled their teaser products (which I don't use). I regret even that level of support for Adobe.
Windshield wiper: may scratch panels, causing catastrophic or severe power-gathering capabilities. It's the $2 option on a Terran car, but only because the constraints are well-known and not mission-critical.
Transparent rolling film: works for NASCAR cameras, but film may tear or get caught in winding mechanism. Still needs squeegie (weight) or electrostatic squeegie (power drain) or mission-length supply of film (weight, estimation error). Material science: transparent film is likely plastics-based, which may not deal with low-temperature/low-pressure environment well.
Compressed air: the weight of the canister or pressurizing apparatus is a problem; it's a power drain to actuate (low) or compress more air (high); no guarantee that compressed air would actually clear the surface reliably until we had solid science on the behavior of the dust and seasonal weather. Moving air may cause electrostatic effects (see above). Any nozzle must be dust-proof for all possible sizes and shapes of dust particles.
Every single motor on the unit is a potential power drain whether in-use or not. Every single feature of the unit must be able to fold out from its launch-to-landing composition without endangering any other feature. Every actuator circuit takes time to develop and debug beyond a shadow of doubt: sucks when YOUR division by zero breaks a million dollar device. All components must deal with wide temperature swings that include conditions significantly colder and lower air-pressure than Terran ranges, where things get brittle. Anything soft like plastic or rubber will gas-out.
Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP's must block access to YouTube because it was a source of blasphemous content.
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.
--Thomas Jefferson
Apple employees in Apple stores say to you when you buy an iPhone (at least, they said it to me): "You HAVE to activate the iPhone with a 2-year contract with AT&T". The Apple store didn't activate the phone with an AT&T contract. The Apple employee didn't get you to sign anything to the effect of "I hereby owe $X/month for Y months to third-party Z." You just chose to follow the Apple store employee's (scripted) suggestion that the companion service would be appropriate. If I buy a piece of equipment and don't sign a service contract, I have the right to do whatever I want to do with it, including stuff the phone in a blender or get out my soldering iron or reflash the device to work on a different network. As long as I'm not making digital copies of Apple's product available against their copyrights, I'm all good.
Best Buy employees in Best Buy stores say to you when you buy a television (at least, they said it to me): "You HAVE to let me inspect your packages and receipt before you walk out the door". Erm, no, I'll walk where I please with my tangible property, I'll leave how I please, and if you don't like it, don't invite me in the store tomorrow.
Mary said that you just HAVE to try the custard if you're going to order the pork chops. Same weight. No contract signed, I can do whatever I want (and not do what I don't want).
Erm, no, it's more like advertising a box of ACME cake mix as being great with AJAX icing, and also offering a box of AJAX icing (under a deal where AJAX promises a kickback to ACME), and then nobody wants or likes the AJAX icing. The coupons may say there's a certain bundled price, but if customers don't want to bundle them, that is not a cost or a loss of revenue. It's a failed proposition. This isn't about a certain amount of grams per dollar. This is about failing to sell a secondary component in a flavor that people just don't like.
For Apple, the booming overseas market for iPhones is a sign of its marketing prowess but also a blow to Apple's business model, costing the company as much as $1 billion over the next three years, according to some analysts.
Gah, I hate that terminology. Making a business model around a certain fee structure, and then failing to get people to play along with your business model, is not a cost. It's just like those piracy reports where they say they LOST a billion dollars because people who were never going to buy the product ended up not buying the product. Apple may fail to meet projections. Apple may wish more people would fork money over to their exclusive business partners. Apple may have had their heart set on a shiney new building or parking lot or bonus for Steve, but not being able to meet those expectations isn't a loss or a cost. It's a failure.
IANAAP, and I'm not disagreeing with the basic point of what you are saying, but...
from the link you provided, the radius of the Roche limit (1) depends on the structural integrity of the satellite, not just a constant radius from the stronger body, and thus (2) does not apply at all to the pulverized bits of the weaker body.
The Saturn A ring therefore decorates a particular Roche limit that applied to some other body that was pulverized in the past, and not a guaranteed "point of no moons" around Saturn. If the Roche limit were not based on the structural integrity of the moon, then even the broken boulders of an ex-moon would be further pulverized into rocks, then sand, and finally nano-dust. If a boulder survives inside the original body's Roche limit, it must be because it has a new Roche limit that is closer to Saturn.
While I admit that the pulverized bits are unlikely to coalesce into a moon, I wouldn't say they're impossible. If something were to cause a strong self-attractive force, say, some ionizing comet or who knows, the FSM's noodly appendages, a moon that developed into a highly rigid structure could continue to survive there. If we someday mine asteroids in the region, structural integrity of manmade or man-inhabited objects will obviously be of prime importance.
Ugh, please don't tell me that this padawan resembles a Japanese chick. With all the other punly names in Star Wars (Grievous? Porkins?), the cliche phrase, "ah, sou ka?" (Japanese for "oh, really?") is all that comes to mind.
My first thought on this story was to an old article on how someone hooked up an early FPS, either "Wolfenstein 3D" or "Doom", to the Unix 'kill' command. Each mob was a pid, and you could send signals to the processes with your various weapon choices. Anyone else remember this?
I scrupulously avoid knowing anyone's password. If they try to give it to me, I attempt to stop them from doing so before they can. What's interesting is that very little kids are having to be trained in this philosophy as well. Kids and daycare staff sometimes use a password in case there's an unforeseen pickup snafu. Now toy codes and login information (like WebKinz) can have big consequences if they're leaked. I felt good when my daughter tried to explain your point to her friend-- she didn't want to know her friend's login.
The current doctrine is focused on the keyword, "unreasonable." It's pretty reasonable to give the once-over to people (citizens and foreign nationals) entering your territory. I totally agree that data mining and archival of my bits is not "reasonable" but this hasn't been tested in the courts yet.
I don't see how the post was seen as flamebait (do you even know what flamebait is? it's not a flame), but whatever.
The point of a name, a trademark, a logo, a signature is to be informative without any other context. A reader shouldn't have to know the company history or the industrial interplays to take an impression from the name. This is *exactly* the same issue as the doublespeak you see in naming legislation these days: USAPATRIOT ACT sounds a hell of a lot more palatable than DESTROYINGDEMOCRACYTOSAVEIT ACT.
Who comes up with these company names? Netrek? Wouldn't ANY group of more than one person say, "um, that could sound like 'net wreck'?" I know that VCs and CEOs have blinders to reality, but are all the rest just yes-men? Anyone ready to name a company should take a lesson from the fountain pen company, Pen Island, on how NOT to name your company. (Hint, their domain name has no punctuation before the dot-com.)
maybe not require me to contort my wrist to bizarre angles in order to successfully collect the stars that are like oxygen to me
If that was a reference to Super Mario Galaxy, I'd have to say you must be playing wrong. SMG leverages far less Wii controller range of motion than most other Wii games I've tried. WarioWare Smooth Moves gives a bunch of cute names to various Wiimote controller positions, so it's handy to talk about other games with these terms too. SMG just uses "Remote Control" and "Umbrella" postures, and to spin you need to shake the Wiimote a little. If you want wacky untenable wrist positions, try some of the later levels of Kokorinpa (Marble Mania). There are wrist positions in that game that even Smooth Moves didn't try to name, but I'll call them "Policeman's Thumblock" and "Say Uncle."
This argument is like the quarterback vs the coach.
While the postgrad may have done 99.9999999% of the annoying and tedious labor-intensive development of the concept, it is often the case that such partnerships start with a short conversation in a hallway, where either one of them could rightly claim to have spawned the insightful flash that led to the exercise in the first place, and neither one of them could rightly deny the claim of the other. Add that to the fact that the lab is provided by the professor's tenure and grant-gathering capabilities, and you really can't say that the professor isn't entitled to being listed prominently.
Python's named after the troupe Monty Python, not after the snake species. I don't think renaming it is a good idea, but suitable successors would be [Life of] Brian, [Fish Called] Wanda, Flying Circus, Holy Grail or perhaps start with sub-versions like Cleese, Chapman and Palin.
Alternatively, pick another troupe or favorite comedy show: Fry and Laurie, Mr. Bean, Fawlty Towers or Red Dwarf. Or my favorite, which brings back in the snake species AND British comedy into circular pun, Blackadder.
While talking about puns, snakes and coming full circle, I suggest Ouroboros.
Slashdot Mirror
The mindset at one place I've worked is that "we're not in the software development business, so we don't want to invest in good software development practices", even though the primary business depended, heart and soul, on very specialized and customized software tools. I can see this kind of thing from a secretarial staffing agency. I can't see this kind of thing from an industrial giant making any sense, but it's really a common attitude. They want to develop tomorrow's products using nothing but COTS tools. Newsflash: if all the tools come in predefined boxes, it's really really tough to think outside the box. Software is soft and malleable for a reason.
There, fixed that for ya.
Even the original writeup used the term "self-serving." It's not a misunderstanding of who is available, it's a direct consequence of the idea that, even with air travel expenses and shepherding, getting some third-world contractor to do the coding will save money. Whether this idea is actually defensible on cost-vs-quality terms is debatable, but the idea remains important, in management's view.
Think in four quadrants. The quadrant representing status-quo is high-cost/high-quality of domestic staff. If quality targets can be a bit lax, domestic staff would get restless and churn, while imported staff wins on cost. If the skills of the imported staff are actually above average, they win again. Two winning quadrants, one status-quo, and one quadrant with staff churn. I'm sure I could phrase it better but it sounds like a "slam dunk" in manager-ese.
As an ignorant American youth, the first and only cultural reference I received to Jodrell Bank is the mention of it in the opening of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I figured from context that it's not actually a financial bank, but an observatory of some kind (as they failing to detect the approaching Vogons). Even years later, that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge on it. Thanks for the details.
Okay, I'm not trying for this prize, but there's one thing about Netflix "recommendations" that bugs me so I'm throwing out this complete freebie of an idea. If it helps someone get a 0.001% improvement to add this ONE little additional check, great.
I am learning Japanese. I have been watching several hundred Japanese-language movies for the past couple years. I don't watch movies in Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, Russian, German, or Hebrew. I did watch Amelie four years ago but that doesn't mean I love French movies. Most of my recommendations are for foreign films, but only a small fraction of those recommendations are for Japanese movies.
Apparently, Netflix doesn't have a column in their database saying WHAT language a movie uses principally, it just has a flag saying it is not English. It's the only explanation I can see for not checking for such a strong correlation. I admit, I might not be sharing the experience of the most common movie-renting drone in the bunch, but I doubt I'm the only person who has such a lopsided taste in movies. If the language (or alternate soundtrack languages) ARE known in the database, please see if the renter has a bias for movies in a particular language.
What about the recent case where the driver got to investigate all source code for the breathalyzer? I had heard (perhaps wrongly) that several such cases are dropped because the breathalyzer companies don't want to present the evidence. http://www.news.com/Police-Blotter-Breathalyzer-code-must-be-disclosed/2100-1030_3-6227951.html Dunno what weight this has between jurisdictions but it may be useful.
As far as Gaiman's books go, I found Neverwhere to be much more satisfying read than American Gods. The latter felt more like a cross between the old "Sam & Max" PC game, and the second Dirk Gently story, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, from Douglas Adams, and not as polished or tight (or funny) as either one.
I've not given Adobe a single dime in a decade*. First it was their overpricing themselves out of all but the students-and-pirates market. Then it was about using their corporate power to influence our government against the valid rights of individuals who were speaking out about data security and the freedom to read.
I'm sure some cash went from Canon or Apple to these jackasses, when I bought hardware that bundled their teaser products (which I don't use). I regret even that level of support for Adobe.
Windshield wiper: may scratch panels, causing catastrophic or severe power-gathering capabilities. It's the $2 option on a Terran car, but only because the constraints are well-known and not mission-critical.
Transparent rolling film: works for NASCAR cameras, but film may tear or get caught in winding mechanism. Still needs squeegie (weight) or electrostatic squeegie (power drain) or mission-length supply of film (weight, estimation error). Material science: transparent film is likely plastics-based, which may not deal with low-temperature/low-pressure environment well.
Electrostatic glass: attracts dust, doesn't eject dust.
Broom: see wiper, except it's even heavier.
Compressed air: the weight of the canister or pressurizing apparatus is a problem; it's a power drain to actuate (low) or compress more air (high); no guarantee that compressed air would actually clear the surface reliably until we had solid science on the behavior of the dust and seasonal weather. Moving air may cause electrostatic effects (see above). Any nozzle must be dust-proof for all possible sizes and shapes of dust particles.
Every single motor on the unit is a potential power drain whether in-use or not. Every single feature of the unit must be able to fold out from its launch-to-landing composition without endangering any other feature. Every actuator circuit takes time to develop and debug beyond a shadow of doubt: sucks when YOUR division by zero breaks a million dollar device. All components must deal with wide temperature swings that include conditions significantly colder and lower air-pressure than Terran ranges, where things get brittle. Anything soft like plastic or rubber will gas-out.
Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP's must block access to YouTube because it was a source of blasphemous content.
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.--Thomas Jefferson
Erm, no, it's more like advertising a box of ACME cake mix as being great with AJAX icing, and also offering a box of AJAX icing (under a deal where AJAX promises a kickback to ACME), and then nobody wants or likes the AJAX icing. The coupons may say there's a certain bundled price, but if customers don't want to bundle them, that is not a cost or a loss of revenue. It's a failed proposition. This isn't about a certain amount of grams per dollar. This is about failing to sell a secondary component in a flavor that people just don't like.
Gah, I hate that terminology. Making a business model around a certain fee structure, and then failing to get people to play along with your business model, is not a cost. It's just like those piracy reports where they say they LOST a billion dollars because people who were never going to buy the product ended up not buying the product. Apple may fail to meet projections. Apple may wish more people would fork money over to their exclusive business partners. Apple may have had their heart set on a shiney new building or parking lot or bonus for Steve, but not being able to meet those expectations isn't a loss or a cost. It's a failure.
IANAAP, and I'm not disagreeing with the basic point of what you are saying, but...
from the link you provided, the radius of the Roche limit (1) depends on the structural integrity of the satellite, not just a constant radius from the stronger body, and thus (2) does not apply at all to the pulverized bits of the weaker body.
The Saturn A ring therefore decorates a particular Roche limit that applied to some other body that was pulverized in the past, and not a guaranteed "point of no moons" around Saturn. If the Roche limit were not based on the structural integrity of the moon, then even the broken boulders of an ex-moon would be further pulverized into rocks, then sand, and finally nano-dust. If a boulder survives inside the original body's Roche limit, it must be because it has a new Roche limit that is closer to Saturn.
While I admit that the pulverized bits are unlikely to coalesce into a moon, I wouldn't say they're impossible. If something were to cause a strong self-attractive force, say, some ionizing comet or who knows, the FSM's noodly appendages, a moon that developed into a highly rigid structure could continue to survive there. If we someday mine asteroids in the region, structural integrity of manmade or man-inhabited objects will obviously be of prime importance.
Ugh, please don't tell me that this padawan resembles a Japanese chick. With all the other punly names in Star Wars (Grievous? Porkins?), the cliche phrase, "ah, sou ka?" (Japanese for "oh, really?") is all that comes to mind.
My first thought on this story was to an old article on how someone hooked up an early FPS, either "Wolfenstein 3D" or "Doom", to the Unix 'kill' command. Each mob was a pid, and you could send signals to the processes with your various weapon choices. Anyone else remember this?
The current doctrine is focused on the keyword, "unreasonable." It's pretty reasonable to give the once-over to people (citizens and foreign nationals) entering your territory. I totally agree that data mining and archival of my bits is not "reasonable" but this hasn't been tested in the courts yet.
We need a "-1 Cynical" (or maybe +1) moderation choice.
I don't see how the post was seen as flamebait (do you even know what flamebait is? it's not a flame), but whatever.
The point of a name, a trademark, a logo, a signature is to be informative without any other context. A reader shouldn't have to know the company history or the industrial interplays to take an impression from the name. This is *exactly* the same issue as the doublespeak you see in naming legislation these days: USAPATRIOT ACT sounds a hell of a lot more palatable than DESTROYINGDEMOCRACYTOSAVEIT ACT.
Who comes up with these company names? Netrek? Wouldn't ANY group of more than one person say, "um, that could sound like 'net wreck'?" I know that VCs and CEOs have blinders to reality, but are all the rest just yes-men? Anyone ready to name a company should take a lesson from the fountain pen company, Pen Island, on how NOT to name your company. (Hint, their domain name has no punctuation before the dot-com.)
If that was a reference to Super Mario Galaxy, I'd have to say you must be playing wrong. SMG leverages far less Wii controller range of motion than most other Wii games I've tried. WarioWare Smooth Moves gives a bunch of cute names to various Wiimote controller positions, so it's handy to talk about other games with these terms too. SMG just uses "Remote Control" and "Umbrella" postures, and to spin you need to shake the Wiimote a little. If you want wacky untenable wrist positions, try some of the later levels of Kokorinpa (Marble Mania). There are wrist positions in that game that even Smooth Moves didn't try to name, but I'll call them "Policeman's Thumblock" and "Say Uncle."
This argument is like the quarterback vs the coach.
While the postgrad may have done 99.9999999% of the annoying and tedious labor-intensive development of the concept, it is often the case that such partnerships start with a short conversation in a hallway, where either one of them could rightly claim to have spawned the insightful flash that led to the exercise in the first place, and neither one of them could rightly deny the claim of the other. Add that to the fact that the lab is provided by the professor's tenure and grant-gathering capabilities, and you really can't say that the professor isn't entitled to being listed prominently.
Python's named after the troupe Monty Python, not after the snake species. I don't think renaming it is a good idea, but suitable successors would be [Life of] Brian, [Fish Called] Wanda, Flying Circus, Holy Grail or perhaps start with sub-versions like Cleese, Chapman and Palin.
Alternatively, pick another troupe or favorite comedy show: Fry and Laurie, Mr. Bean, Fawlty Towers or Red Dwarf. Or my favorite, which brings back in the snake species AND British comedy into circular pun, Blackadder.
While talking about puns, snakes and coming full circle, I suggest Ouroboros.