I started programming in the '80s, when many companies thought it was a good idea to roll their own scripting languages rather than simply extending BASIC or some existing language. (Hint: creating a new language is a LOT more work than you think it is!) Flash forward to 2012, where are VP of engineering decided to have our QA guy create a new language for writing test scripts "Hey, just use Yacc/Bison and lex/flex... how hard could it be?" Surprise, suprise... they never got it working.
Just had a conversation with a recruiter Monday, who told me that had a client working on a mesh network. "Which one, Zigbee of Zwave?" I asked. "Neither. They are inventing their own." was his reply.
You are correct, NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome is still running strong in engineering. On the bright side, the majority of new products are now based on Linux, which significantly reduces development time.
My thoughts exactly. A human-spoken language designed from scratch to be simple and easy to learn? It's been done, Esperanto. And, since my mother learned it in the '50s, it's been around for a while. How long have UN documents been available in Eperanto? Been there, done that... Why reinvent the wheel?
Agreed; I've seen good H1-b visa workers subject to exploitative conditions. Working on an H1-B visa is remarkably similar to indentured servitude. While it may be preferable to letting your family starve, you may have to put up with abusive conditions.
Also, companies are lying when they say they can't find US workers to do the same job. The problems isn't that US workers are not available, the problem is that US workers are not willing to work as cheaply as the H1-B workers.
We need more foreign engineers, and yet I and many other citizens don't have a job. This isn't about not being able to find qualified people at home. This is about foreign talent being cheaper! And one of the reasons that they are cheaper is that is much more difficult to verify the claims made in their resume/CV if they are from a different country. Granted, some H1-B workers are brilliant, smarter than I am. But I suspect many of them are flat out lying about their experience to get the job, and come from a culture where that is regarded as business-as-usual.
If the government can see MY junk, their spy satellites must have really impressive image magnification!
Er... just kidding. Like the Great Wall of China, it's visible from space...
"Choosing your battles" is pragmatism, not hypocrisy; Tim Cook is doing the best he can given the circumstances. Don't have much to say about Hillary, except that if she gets the nomination, we will undoubtedly see the worst election in history for personal attacks and outright misrepresentation. The Republicans apparently hate her so much they will stop at nothing to discredit her and see her lose. To them, winning is everything, and it doesn't matter who you have to harm to win. That Hillary still chooses to run despite having a good idea of what is in store for her, says a lot for either her balls or her stupidity, I'm not sure which.
Newer "5K" retina displays are 5120-by-2880, so yes, the horizontal resolution exceeds the limits of human perception. Going higher than that is only useful if you are focusing in on a small subsection of the display, no not useful for most applications.
I'm waiting for OLED UHD displays to drop in price. That's pretty much the point of diminishing returns wherein further improvements in technology don't appreciably improve the picture. 8K displays are useless for most application because human beings can't perceive the difference when the entire screen is in their field of view.
No, higher than 8K has no "visual advantage" due to limits of human perception. See "Angular resolution" in this article: http://io9.com/5926643/10-fund.... Basically, if you can see all 4000 pixels across, you can't distinguish the individual pixels, so adding more resolution doesn't improved the perceived image.
4K is the limit of human visual perception. More than 4K is only useful if you are planning on taking a small section of the image and blowing it up; that's the only time ridiculously high resolution makes sense. So, useful for still images, yes. Useful for a television or tablet screen? I don't think so.
4k is the limit of human perception, i.e. if you can see a line 4000 pixels long, you cannot discern the individual pixels. More than 4K is only useful if you are zooming in on smaller regions of the screen and not viewing the entire image. So yes, more that 4K/UHD isn't useful for a tablet. 4K is the point of diminishing returns; going higher res costs you a lot more in bandwidth and memory without significantly improving your perception of the image. The good news is that once everyone adopts UHD, the standards should stabilize and stop changing, at least for 2D images.
"conservative" is by definition resistant to change. Of course those who have wealth and power don't want change, and of course they will use the legal system to try to maintain their privileged position -- that's basic human nature. That's not something the increasingly corrupt politicians in the US invented; it's been going on for thousands of years.
What's the solution? I can think of any that doesn't involve taking up arms, which usually makes things much worse in the short term. Theoretically, one should be able to achieve change in a direct democracy without resorting to violence. Unfortunately, we are a representative democracy and do not have a sufficiently informed voting populace for direct democracy to work anyway. Plus, there's the old "people will always vote for their own pocketbook" rule, meaning decisions are made for personal benefit rather than societal good no matter what you do.
Great, you've just reduced the problem to "How does my browser identify every possible porn site on the internet?", which is obviously a much easier problem to solve!
And even that would not work. Ever heard of a proxy? Ever heard of using IP addresses instead of host names?
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- John Gilmore
So basically, the Tories believe 12 year olds are too stupid to find directions on the 'net for finding and using a proxy in another country so that they can access porn without age restrictions? Of do they believe they are going to force every server in every country to implement age restrictions?
So, basically, they are FORCING people to buy the Teslas in another state, thus screwing themselves out of several thousand dollars worth of sales taxes per car? Kind of like the Indiana and Arkansas governors signing bills that drive away business... too bad government isn't like corporations, wherein officials are obligated to act in the company's fiduciary interest. In this case, government appears to be screwing themselves to protect specials interests.
Why aren't bounties considered a good idea? Yes, we've always argued that it gives developers an incentive to intentionally insert bugs so that they may profit off of them later. But are there any documented cases of that actually happening? For one, the authors of the code should automatically be prohibited from profiting by their mistakes. For another, there is a huge chance someone else would find and submit the bug first, and only the first finder should get rewarded.
In human behavior, as a general rule, whatever behavior you reward, you create more of. It stands to reason that rewarding people for finding bugs will only result in more bugs being found!
Apparently Feinstein is unfamiliar with John Gilmore's adage, despite the fact they live in the same city: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
My dorm mates in college were into making their own pyrotechnics. Magnesium flares, mercury fulminate, they experimented with lots of things that flashed and went "boom". Apparently they didn't have any problem finding instructions for making them! (By the way, this was in 1980, when you still could just go down the the local chemical supply store and buy all the ingredients necessary for "bomb making". Now I suspect that if you ask for any of that stuff, they immediately dial the FBI.)
Arguing about use of "Usian" vs. "American": Almost as stupid and Diane Feinstein! Can we stick to the subject and avoid going off on pointless tangents, please? If we know what they mean, then it's valid communication. Arguing about correctness is only for pedantics that, well, just like to argue.
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I started programming in the '80s, when many companies thought it was a good idea to roll their own scripting languages rather than simply extending BASIC or some existing language. (Hint: creating a new language is a LOT more work than you think it is!) Flash forward to 2012, where are VP of engineering decided to have our QA guy create a new language for writing test scripts "Hey, just use Yacc/Bison and lex/flex... how hard could it be?" Surprise, suprise... they never got it working. Just had a conversation with a recruiter Monday, who told me that had a client working on a mesh network. "Which one, Zigbee of Zwave?" I asked. "Neither. They are inventing their own." was his reply. You are correct, NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome is still running strong in engineering. On the bright side, the majority of new products are now based on Linux, which significantly reduces development time.
I hear it is double plus good!
Don't Chinese languages already have that?
My thoughts exactly. A human-spoken language designed from scratch to be simple and easy to learn? It's been done, Esperanto. And, since my mother learned it in the '50s, it's been around for a while. How long have UN documents been available in Eperanto? Been there, done that... Why reinvent the wheel?
Agreed; I've seen good H1-b visa workers subject to exploitative conditions. Working on an H1-B visa is remarkably similar to indentured servitude. While it may be preferable to letting your family starve, you may have to put up with abusive conditions. Also, companies are lying when they say they can't find US workers to do the same job. The problems isn't that US workers are not available, the problem is that US workers are not willing to work as cheaply as the H1-B workers.
We need more foreign engineers, and yet I and many other citizens don't have a job. This isn't about not being able to find qualified people at home. This is about foreign talent being cheaper! And one of the reasons that they are cheaper is that is much more difficult to verify the claims made in their resume/CV if they are from a different country. Granted, some H1-B workers are brilliant, smarter than I am. But I suspect many of them are flat out lying about their experience to get the job, and come from a culture where that is regarded as business-as-usual.
If the government can see MY junk, their spy satellites must have really impressive image magnification! Er... just kidding. Like the Great Wall of China, it's visible from space...
Wait... is this a pterodactyl joke?
"Choosing your battles" is pragmatism, not hypocrisy; Tim Cook is doing the best he can given the circumstances. Don't have much to say about Hillary, except that if she gets the nomination, we will undoubtedly see the worst election in history for personal attacks and outright misrepresentation. The Republicans apparently hate her so much they will stop at nothing to discredit her and see her lose. To them, winning is everything, and it doesn't matter who you have to harm to win. That Hillary still chooses to run despite having a good idea of what is in store for her, says a lot for either her balls or her stupidity, I'm not sure which.
Newer "5K" retina displays are 5120-by-2880, so yes, the horizontal resolution exceeds the limits of human perception. Going higher than that is only useful if you are focusing in on a small subsection of the display, no not useful for most applications.
I'm waiting for OLED UHD displays to drop in price. That's pretty much the point of diminishing returns wherein further improvements in technology don't appreciably improve the picture. 8K displays are useless for most application because human beings can't perceive the difference when the entire screen is in their field of view.
No, higher than 8K has no "visual advantage" due to limits of human perception. See "Angular resolution" in this article: http://io9.com/5926643/10-fund.... Basically, if you can see all 4000 pixels across, you can't distinguish the individual pixels, so adding more resolution doesn't improved the perceived image.
4K is the limit of human visual perception. More than 4K is only useful if you are planning on taking a small section of the image and blowing it up; that's the only time ridiculously high resolution makes sense. So, useful for still images, yes. Useful for a television or tablet screen? I don't think so.
4k is the limit of human perception, i.e. if you can see a line 4000 pixels long, you cannot discern the individual pixels. More than 4K is only useful if you are zooming in on smaller regions of the screen and not viewing the entire image. So yes, more that 4K/UHD isn't useful for a tablet. 4K is the point of diminishing returns; going higher res costs you a lot more in bandwidth and memory without significantly improving your perception of the image. The good news is that once everyone adopts UHD, the standards should stabilize and stop changing, at least for 2D images.
You obviously have seen the movie 50 Shades of Grey...
"conservative" is by definition resistant to change. Of course those who have wealth and power don't want change, and of course they will use the legal system to try to maintain their privileged position -- that's basic human nature. That's not something the increasingly corrupt politicians in the US invented; it's been going on for thousands of years. What's the solution? I can think of any that doesn't involve taking up arms, which usually makes things much worse in the short term. Theoretically, one should be able to achieve change in a direct democracy without resorting to violence. Unfortunately, we are a representative democracy and do not have a sufficiently informed voting populace for direct democracy to work anyway. Plus, there's the old "people will always vote for their own pocketbook" rule, meaning decisions are made for personal benefit rather than societal good no matter what you do.
Great, you've just reduced the problem to "How does my browser identify every possible porn site on the internet?", which is obviously a much easier problem to solve! And even that would not work. Ever heard of a proxy? Ever heard of using IP addresses instead of host names?
Every 10-year-old has already figured out how to lie about their age; they HAVE to in order to create a Facebook account!
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- John Gilmore So basically, the Tories believe 12 year olds are too stupid to find directions on the 'net for finding and using a proxy in another country so that they can access porn without age restrictions? Of do they believe they are going to force every server in every country to implement age restrictions?
So, basically, they are FORCING people to buy the Teslas in another state, thus screwing themselves out of several thousand dollars worth of sales taxes per car? Kind of like the Indiana and Arkansas governors signing bills that drive away business... too bad government isn't like corporations, wherein officials are obligated to act in the company's fiduciary interest. In this case, government appears to be screwing themselves to protect specials interests.
Why aren't bounties considered a good idea? Yes, we've always argued that it gives developers an incentive to intentionally insert bugs so that they may profit off of them later. But are there any documented cases of that actually happening? For one, the authors of the code should automatically be prohibited from profiting by their mistakes. For another, there is a huge chance someone else would find and submit the bug first, and only the first finder should get rewarded. In human behavior, as a general rule, whatever behavior you reward, you create more of. It stands to reason that rewarding people for finding bugs will only result in more bugs being found!
Apparently Feinstein is unfamiliar with John Gilmore's adage, despite the fact they live in the same city: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
My dorm mates in college were into making their own pyrotechnics. Magnesium flares, mercury fulminate, they experimented with lots of things that flashed and went "boom". Apparently they didn't have any problem finding instructions for making them! (By the way, this was in 1980, when you still could just go down the the local chemical supply store and buy all the ingredients necessary for "bomb making". Now I suspect that if you ask for any of that stuff, they immediately dial the FBI.)
If you study information theory, you'll find that your statement conveys zero information, i.e. it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know.
Arguing about use of "Usian" vs. "American": Almost as stupid and Diane Feinstein! Can we stick to the subject and avoid going off on pointless tangents, please? If we know what they mean, then it's valid communication. Arguing about correctness is only for pedantics that, well, just like to argue.