This. Back in the day *cough* I was able to spend significant amounts of time reading Slashdot, especially the comments. It was great for topics I was interested in, but didn't know much about; the comments contained a huge wealth of knowledge that I could digest and that gave such insight into the topic, even if I didn't fully comprehend the TFA (not that I ever actually read those articles... *cough*).
If only we could have more articles like this. Maybe we'd have those discussions again...
Learning (spoken) languages after your second is easier because learning the second one taught you *how* to learn a language. Programming languages are like that because you learn logic, control, and algorithms. Once you learn the second language (as long as it's sufficiently different from the first), you've learned that different languages have different syntax issues or handle certain cases in different ways, so when you get to your third language, you already know exactly questions you need to ask to be proficient in it.
Usually the business people want to solve every problem they've thought up. The *incredibly* difficult part is getting the EMTs to the office in time because the business people have a heart attack when they see how much it will cost.
It's a huge problem in American politics. There was a chart (I don't have it handy) that showed how U.S. senators switched party lines when voting. 20 years ago, it was a pretty mixed bag, but now, almost no senator votes against party lines. The polarization of the two parties is really intense, studded very heavily with a "If you don't agree with me, you're my enemy" mentality. It also makes it so someone cannot be on the fence regarding an issue. This is no middle ground, you're either for it or against it. If you were to say, "You know, I'm not sure, I'd have to research the issue and think about it a bit," during a political discussion, you'd garner some mighty weird looks.
You know, I'm really not sure why treating the workplace more like a children's school is such a bad thing. Some parts are pretty obvious (I don't want to have to ask my boss if I can be excused to use the washroom), but there are lots of things both workers and employers could do to make work more fun (or, at least, more interesting).
Obviously the first focus should always be doing your job, but that doesn't need to be the only thing you do. I had an employer that had a "Guess the amount of jelly beans in this jar" contest every week. The winner won the jar. Took 2 minutes to guess, tops. And you know what? I kinda looked forward to going to work on Fridays (Friday!) to see if I'd win. I don't know about you, but that sounds *exactly* like grade school.
There's definitely a way to do it "right," but I'm not sure the same system would work at every company (even companies in the same business). If you have a really cohesive team, then you may be able to pit them against each other and will result in friendly competition. But if your team isn't so cohesive, you may end up promoting a lot of backstabbing, sabotage, and resentful emotions.
A company I worked for had a really simple system to prevent that sort of abuse. Basically, when you really rocked out a project, you got a nail (as in, a straight piece of steel used to hold things together). The developers at the company took a lot of pride in collecting those nails. One guy made a little wooden knickknack and nailed them into it when he got one.
The nails had no intrinsic value, but because everyone at the company praised people when they received one, they became a mark of pride. Managers gave them out fairly infrequently and with totally subjective reasoning, but something about the attitude and respect surrounding them pervaded the company.
Everyone wants to be appreciated and recognized for their hard work. Sometimes, the absolute best motivator a boss or co-worker can provide is simply saying, "You really nailed that project! It looks great!" or "Hey, I really appreciate you working a little overtime to get that project out," or "Thanks for dealing with that unruly client, you're saving our relationship with that company."
Minor praise like that adds up. It makes you want to do better, work harder. Dale Carnegie quoted Charles Schwab and said "Give honest and sincere appreciation - as Charles Schwab said - 'be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise'. This doesn't mean give false praise." and Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "I can live for two months on a good compliment."
Any other external motivator (cash, time off, flexible hours, personal projects) are always nice, but their motivational benefit is going to be fleeting at best. I don't remember specific cash bonuses I've ever received (and I've gotten a few), but I remember the kind words of praise that my co-workers have laid on me as though they happened yesterday.
Couldn't the submitter at least have posted some of the features new to the release?
For those too lazy (or who don't care enough) to RTFA (or is it a press release?):
-Integrated Twitter
-Over-the-air updating (So the device doesn't need to be connected to a computer running iTunes)
-Sync with iTunes via Wifi
-iPad multitasking gestures
-Rich editor for composing emails
How did this get modded up? TARP was allotted about $700,000,000,000. There are approx. 308,195,000 Americans, 138,000,000 of which pay taxes. That is about $2,271.29 per American, or $5072.46 per taxpaying American.
I am by far not an Apple fanboy. The only Apple product I've ever owned is my iPhone 3G, and I bought it after becoming utterly fed up with a WinMo phone.
I didn't by it to join some club, or be accepted by some group, I bought it because it did exactly what I wanted in a phone. I love to tinker with things, I have a spare desktop to run debian on, and my work laptop runs Ubuntu. I build and race 1/10th RC's. But I don't want to have to tinker with my phone. I want to look for an app I want/need, install it, and have confidence that it will work with no configuration goofiness. I don't want to have to worry that install the latest FOOBAR app is going to affect my ability to make/receive phone calls, while still having a smartphone and all the goodies and gadgets that go along with that.
Now, what I'm really curious about, is how this turned into an Apple thread. So... for the (on topic) Pre... it seems like it has been hyped up quite a bit. Maybe this is just what I can see as an outsider, but it seems like Palm doesn't have any sort of internal policy, like they're just throwing staff and money to play game in the Blackberry/iPhone/WinMo dominated smartphone market, but their running on a really tight deadline and didn't really think past getting the device out the door (with regards to internal policy and marketing from the view of the potential customer)
Buddhism: The Dalai Lama is in fact a great source of inspiration regarding modern-day buddhists. However, you are leaving off part of the quote from 1997:
"From a Buddhist point of view, [gay sex] is generally considered sexual misconduct." But he did note that this rule is for Buddhists, and from society's viewpoint, homosexual relationships can be "of mutual benefit, enjoyable, and harmless."
Note that he uses words such as "generally considered" and "harmless."
Also, from a Tibetan spokesman: "According to an Office of Tibet spokeman, "His Holiness opposes violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation. He urges respect, tolerance, compassion, and the full recognition of human rights for all." source
Could you show any evidence of a Buddhist leader publicly calling for, or actually enact the death of a homosexual? I searched a bit for it, but I could not find any substantiating article or evidence. Admittedly, I did not spend very long on it.
Taoism was only part of the religion/philosophy in place during Japanese Imperialism, and the broad term used to describe the religion (which covered bits of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) was (is) called Shinto. Sticking just with Taoism, the religion makes no claim against homosexuality, and that it is up to individuals. So no, Taoism does not call for the banning or killing of homosexuals.
Wicca is actually used to describe the followers of the writings of Scott Cunningham in the 1950's. It actively supports homosexuality. What you are referring to are various other pagan religions that are probably not practiced, or at the very least have a marginal population of followers.
The problem is, just about any religion except Christianity has always, for the whole of their history, practiced slavery, execution of homosexuals (note that christianity is the only religion where homosexuality is not punishable by death in it's law*, whereas both sharia** and hindu law*** prescribe stoning), or... and that sort of stuff gets in the way of proclaiming how eeeeeeeeeeevil christianity is)
Guild Leveling, Mentoring, "Alternate XP"... have all been in EQ2 for a long time. WAR has guild levels, and I'm sure there are others that I don't know of.
I like WoW, I raided into the dust before WotLK. I am glad Blizzard is implementing these features, but the blogs and reporting I've seen on the new features make it seem like the WoW team is charting unknown territory, which is frankly untrue. I really don't see anything in the current announcements that aren't in some other MMO, with 2 exceptions: Cross-Server instancing (which is semi-present in other MMO's, namely DDO and GW, in that they really only have 1 server, and different in-town instances), and 'Phasing'.
Phasing is actually pretty awesome, and much needed in the MMO world. It really makes it seem as though your actions really are effecting the world, or, at the very least, it's not some static, unchanging landscape.
Well, sort of. Prior to the Age of Reason, astrologers and astronomers where one in the same. It may have something to do with the increasing amount of mathematics involved in studying what we now call astronomy, and those who had more interest in studying the predictive part of the science (astrology) simply did not have the mathematical know-how to continue. Im not sure.
But they were, at one point, one in the same, and during the 16th century different terms began to be used to differentiate the different studies.
Kids aren't "getting smarter" (by the way, what does "smart" entail?) They're learning to play the game that is the educational system.
That's what happened to me. I was already rather 'smart,' so I gamed the system so I could get a passing grade while doing as little work as possible. I think a lot of slashdotters were in my position, smart enough to not have to study or work hard.
Well, it came back to bite me when I got to college and had no discipline skills whatsoever. I would skip class, homework, tests, because I had so much practice at it I really thought that I could skate through college (as a comp sci major) like I skated through High School. I was wrong.
I wish someone really held my feet to the fire to just do the busywork, and develop some self-discipline. An external motivator of cash would have gotten me to do it. Really, the solution would have been to make my schooling tough enough that I couldn't just slide through, that I would actually have to study, but I know that destroys America's "Everyone is equal-and-great" attitude.
You're right about how linux has changed from being a 'joke' to a very solid and respected computing platform. All but a few of our company servers run linux (gentoo or debian), though we have a couple of clients that demand Windows Server. I rarely have issues with my linux installs, but something always seems to happen to our Windows installs (I'm not trying to make this an anti-MS rant, just using Windows to compare). I've been reading Slashdot for a really long time (8 years?), and so I've always heard the mantra that Linux Is The Best Everything Ever, but until I started having to actually worry about things like uptime, reliability, ease of configuration, and ease of troubleshooting, I never really considered just what a difference it makes in a server situation.
I could really go for a single tax. No more cigarette tax, alcohol tax, food tax, roadway tolls, gasoline tax, sales tax, cell phone service tax, internet tax, airline tax, or property tax. Just an income tax that isn't automatically deducted from my paycheck, but that I pay once a year. The Local, Federal, State governments can figure out who gets what percentage. I think people would be shocked at how much tax they actually pay(aside from just income tax). Basically, I want a bill at the end of the year, and I want to pay it, and I want to pay the prices that companies post for goods and services.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the explanation, that makes so much more sense now.
Do you, by chance, know why the term "observer" was chosen?
This. Back in the day *cough* I was able to spend significant amounts of time reading Slashdot, especially the comments. It was great for topics I was interested in, but didn't know much about; the comments contained a huge wealth of knowledge that I could digest and that gave such insight into the topic, even if I didn't fully comprehend the TFA (not that I ever actually read those articles... *cough*).
If only we could have more articles like this. Maybe we'd have those discussions again...
Learning (spoken) languages after your second is easier because learning the second one taught you *how* to learn a language. Programming languages are like that because you learn logic, control, and algorithms. Once you learn the second language (as long as it's sufficiently different from the first), you've learned that different languages have different syntax issues or handle certain cases in different ways, so when you get to your third language, you already know exactly questions you need to ask to be proficient in it.
Usually the business people want to solve every problem they've thought up. The *incredibly* difficult part is getting the EMTs to the office in time because the business people have a heart attack when they see how much it will cost.
It's a huge problem in American politics. There was a chart (I don't have it handy) that showed how U.S. senators switched party lines when voting. 20 years ago, it was a pretty mixed bag, but now, almost no senator votes against party lines. The polarization of the two parties is really intense, studded very heavily with a "If you don't agree with me, you're my enemy" mentality. It also makes it so someone cannot be on the fence regarding an issue. This is no middle ground, you're either for it or against it. If you were to say, "You know, I'm not sure, I'd have to research the issue and think about it a bit," during a political discussion, you'd garner some mighty weird looks.
You know, I'm really not sure why treating the workplace more like a children's school is such a bad thing. Some parts are pretty obvious (I don't want to have to ask my boss if I can be excused to use the washroom), but there are lots of things both workers and employers could do to make work more fun (or, at least, more interesting).
Obviously the first focus should always be doing your job, but that doesn't need to be the only thing you do. I had an employer that had a "Guess the amount of jelly beans in this jar" contest every week. The winner won the jar. Took 2 minutes to guess, tops. And you know what? I kinda looked forward to going to work on Fridays (Friday!) to see if I'd win. I don't know about you, but that sounds *exactly* like grade school.
There's definitely a way to do it "right," but I'm not sure the same system would work at every company (even companies in the same business). If you have a really cohesive team, then you may be able to pit them against each other and will result in friendly competition. But if your team isn't so cohesive, you may end up promoting a lot of backstabbing, sabotage, and resentful emotions.
A company I worked for had a really simple system to prevent that sort of abuse. Basically, when you really rocked out a project, you got a nail (as in, a straight piece of steel used to hold things together). The developers at the company took a lot of pride in collecting those nails. One guy made a little wooden knickknack and nailed them into it when he got one.
The nails had no intrinsic value, but because everyone at the company praised people when they received one, they became a mark of pride. Managers gave them out fairly infrequently and with totally subjective reasoning, but something about the attitude and respect surrounding them pervaded the company.
Everyone wants to be appreciated and recognized for their hard work. Sometimes, the absolute best motivator a boss or co-worker can provide is simply saying, "You really nailed that project! It looks great!" or "Hey, I really appreciate you working a little overtime to get that project out," or "Thanks for dealing with that unruly client, you're saving our relationship with that company."
Minor praise like that adds up. It makes you want to do better, work harder. Dale Carnegie quoted Charles Schwab and said "Give honest and sincere appreciation - as Charles Schwab said - 'be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise'. This doesn't mean give false praise." and Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "I can live for two months on a good compliment."
Any other external motivator (cash, time off, flexible hours, personal projects) are always nice, but their motivational benefit is going to be fleeting at best. I don't remember specific cash bonuses I've ever received (and I've gotten a few), but I remember the kind words of praise that my co-workers have laid on me as though they happened yesterday.
Couldn't the submitter at least have posted some of the features new to the release? For those too lazy (or who don't care enough) to RTFA (or is it a press release?): -Integrated Twitter -Over-the-air updating (So the device doesn't need to be connected to a computer running iTunes) -Sync with iTunes via Wifi -iPad multitasking gestures -Rich editor for composing emails
How did this get modded up? TARP was allotted about $700,000,000,000. There are approx. 308,195,000 Americans, 138,000,000 of which pay taxes. That is about $2,271.29 per American, or $5072.46 per taxpaying American.
I am by far not an Apple fanboy. The only Apple product I've ever owned is my iPhone 3G, and I bought it after becoming utterly fed up with a WinMo phone.
I didn't by it to join some club, or be accepted by some group, I bought it because it did exactly what I wanted in a phone. I love to tinker with things, I have a spare desktop to run debian on, and my work laptop runs Ubuntu. I build and race 1/10th RC's. But I don't want to have to tinker with my phone. I want to look for an app I want/need, install it, and have confidence that it will work with no configuration goofiness. I don't want to have to worry that install the latest FOOBAR app is going to affect my ability to make/receive phone calls, while still having a smartphone and all the goodies and gadgets that go along with that.
Now, what I'm really curious about, is how this turned into an Apple thread. So... for the (on topic) Pre... it seems like it has been hyped up quite a bit. Maybe this is just what I can see as an outsider, but it seems like Palm doesn't have any sort of internal policy, like they're just throwing staff and money to play game in the Blackberry/iPhone/WinMo dominated smartphone market, but their running on a really tight deadline and didn't really think past getting the device out the door (with regards to internal policy and marketing from the view of the potential customer)
"From a Buddhist point of view, [gay sex] is generally considered sexual misconduct." But he did note that this rule is for Buddhists, and from society's viewpoint, homosexual relationships can be "of mutual benefit, enjoyable, and harmless."
Note that he uses words such as "generally considered" and "harmless."
Also, from a Tibetan spokesman: "According to an Office of Tibet spokeman, "His Holiness opposes violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation. He urges respect, tolerance, compassion, and the full recognition of human rights for all." source
Could you show any evidence of a Buddhist leader publicly calling for, or actually enact the death of a homosexual? I searched a bit for it, but I could not find any substantiating article or evidence. Admittedly, I did not spend very long on it.
Taoism was only part of the religion/philosophy in place during Japanese Imperialism, and the broad term used to describe the religion (which covered bits of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) was (is) called Shinto. Sticking just with Taoism, the religion makes no claim against homosexuality, and that it is up to individuals. So no, Taoism does not call for the banning or killing of homosexuals.
Wicca is actually used to describe the followers of the writings of Scott Cunningham in the 1950's. It actively supports homosexuality. What you are referring to are various other pagan religions that are probably not practiced, or at the very least have a marginal population of followers.
The problem is, just about any religion except Christianity has always, for the whole of their history, practiced slavery, execution of homosexuals (note that christianity is the only religion where homosexuality is not punishable by death in it's law*, whereas both sharia** and hindu law*** prescribe stoning), or ... and that sort of stuff gets in the way of proclaiming how eeeeeeeeeeevil christianity is)
Some people may disagree with you.
Guild Leveling, Mentoring, "Alternate XP"... have all been in EQ2 for a long time. WAR has guild levels, and I'm sure there are others that I don't know of.
I like WoW, I raided into the dust before WotLK. I am glad Blizzard is implementing these features, but the blogs and reporting I've seen on the new features make it seem like the WoW team is charting unknown territory, which is frankly untrue. I really don't see anything in the current announcements that aren't in some other MMO, with 2 exceptions: Cross-Server instancing (which is semi-present in other MMO's, namely DDO and GW, in that they really only have 1 server, and different in-town instances), and 'Phasing'.
Phasing is actually pretty awesome, and much needed in the MMO world. It really makes it seem as though your actions really are effecting the world, or, at the very least, it's not some static, unchanging landscape.
[citation needed]
Seriously, mods, please check to see if stuff like this is real by checking out sources before modding posts up.
Are you kidding? The editors don't even check sources
..what happens there if you aren't insured for this treatment / not very rich? Are you just left to die?
Yep.
Well, sort of. Prior to the Age of Reason, astrologers and astronomers where one in the same. It may have something to do with the increasing amount of mathematics involved in studying what we now call astronomy, and those who had more interest in studying the predictive part of the science (astrology) simply did not have the mathematical know-how to continue. Im not sure.
But they were, at one point, one in the same, and during the 16th century different terms began to be used to differentiate the different studies.
And what post would be complete without the trusty Wikipedia quote.
Your post lacks subtlety! You can't just have your posts say how they feel! That makes me feel angry!
Kids aren't "getting smarter" (by the way, what does "smart" entail?) They're learning to play the game that is the educational system.
That's what happened to me. I was already rather 'smart,' so I gamed the system so I could get a passing grade while doing as little work as possible. I think a lot of slashdotters were in my position, smart enough to not have to study or work hard.
Well, it came back to bite me when I got to college and had no discipline skills whatsoever. I would skip class, homework, tests, because I had so much practice at it I really thought that I could skate through college (as a comp sci major) like I skated through High School. I was wrong.
I wish someone really held my feet to the fire to just do the busywork, and develop some self-discipline. An external motivator of cash would have gotten me to do it. Really, the solution would have been to make my schooling tough enough that I couldn't just slide through, that I would actually have to study, but I know that destroys America's "Everyone is equal-and-great" attitude.
You're right about how linux has changed from being a 'joke' to a very solid and respected computing platform. All but a few of our company servers run linux (gentoo or debian), though we have a couple of clients that demand Windows Server. I rarely have issues with my linux installs, but something always seems to happen to our Windows installs (I'm not trying to make this an anti-MS rant, just using Windows to compare). I've been reading Slashdot for a really long time (8 years?), and so I've always heard the mantra that Linux Is The Best Everything Ever, but until I started having to actually worry about things like uptime, reliability, ease of configuration, and ease of troubleshooting, I never really considered just what a difference it makes in a server situation.
But will it make toast?
I'll just be content when the JavaScript stops eating up all of my clock cycles every time it pulls in more stories.
Agreed! Especially when I view the stories on my phone... it is absolutely useless.
Um... no. RMS is talking about computing on machines you don't control
I could really go for a single tax. No more cigarette tax, alcohol tax, food tax, roadway tolls, gasoline tax, sales tax, cell phone service tax, internet tax, airline tax, or property tax. Just an income tax that isn't automatically deducted from my paycheck, but that I pay once a year. The Local, Federal, State governments can figure out who gets what percentage. I think people would be shocked at how much tax they actually pay(aside from just income tax). Basically, I want a bill at the end of the year, and I want to pay it, and I want to pay the prices that companies post for goods and services.
Oh, and I'd like a pony.