"How about this: a lot of people like to live with people that they have something in common with. And it's not just white and black. It's also: French with French, Poles with Poles, Spanish with Spanish, Chinese with Chinese, Vietnamese with Vietnamese, etc..."
Lets not forget the biggie: Rich with Rich. My personal theories point to a significantly smaller impact of racial based prejudice, and a significantly larger impact of fiscal bigotry.
"Why do I have such a big penis? Does everyone else have a big penis or am I alone in having such a great big penis?"
I too have a great big penis, and my wife assures me that people like you and I are in the vast minority. So I say, enjoy your great big penis, and share it with all who are safely willing.
That's about the sum of it. If there is anyway that municipal WiFi can go bad, he will find it. This man is driving our cities bars out of business, shooting small business owners in the foot, and only increasing the likelihood of the holloween riots. In addition to numerous other incidents that he has handled in the worst possible way.
Luckily there are a few local groups that are pushing for an impeachment. Its doubtfull that they will succed, but hopefully they'll put enough heat on the city alders that Dave's remaining time will be wasted.
Also, the lack of diversity does not imply racism. Especially in Madison. The rest of the state refers to Madison as "A pocket of librals, surrounded by reality". I was born and raised in the Madison area, spent some time in the military, and can honestly say I don't give a crap what color you are, what god you pray too, or where you are from, if you're an asshole, your an asshole. With the exception of Texans, everyone from Texas starts with the check in the 'asshole' box;)
How big of a quota is it for 60 hours? I mean, you'd need to first check against everything that is currently patented, using a keyword search against a database would probrably cut that down to a handful to a few thousand depending on the item. Then you'd need to compare against all of those individually to make sure they are significantly different. Then you'd need to check trade mags and universities for any related publications that could be considered prior art. I could see a single patent taking 60 hours to research if you are familiar with the topic and the industry.
My guess is the PTO relies on the courts to figure it out. If they give a quick flip through and don't see anything too blatant, they'll go ahead and approve it. The patent at that point is still worthless until the owner or a competitor sues. That is when people sink hundreds of hours digging into the subject, confering with the industry and determining origins.
In short, Patents are worthless until you pay a lawyer.
I disagree. I think your statement is superficially true.
Look at health insurance and smoking. Smoking directly effects your health. (Former pack a day smoker for 10 years) You get sick more often, more trips to the doc, higher likelihood of complications at an earlier age then non-smokers, and a higher cost of insurance (If you are paying your own bill or have an employer with a prorating health plan).
One would assume using your logic that the extra cost of health insurance would push people to stop smoking, but it doesn't. Its had little to no effect.
And I wouldn't mind paying a $10 monthly fee to have access to the (completed) Google library. So long as that $10 goes to the authors and editors, not the now defunct publishers who are dragging their feet. Right now, I rairly buy a new book. Terry Goodkind and Rowlings are the only two authors that I actually bother to actively follow. But with paper display e-book and the 'online library' available, I'm sure I would be introduced to other great authors (imagine applying 6 degrees and trending info right in the library). And having case law, peer reviewed journals, etc, scanned and searchable at the touch of a key would be amazing.
Tipper Gore, now there was a wack job. I think Anthrax summed her up the best in their song "Starting up a posse"
And I agree completely with your point, I don't think that video games should be accused of unproven and even refuted statistics. And I definately don't think they should be used as a political agenda.
But at the same time I wouldn't allow my child when he turns 10 to watch COPS (violence, blurred out nudity, cursing, prostitution, drugs, etc) which is pretty comprable to the content of GTA:Vice City(More violence, less nudity). Most movies with COPS like content are rated R, or atleast had been until the rating institute started schluffing off. For reference, The 1970's classic "Stand By Me" (a great movie about 4 early teen boys walking the rail road tracks) is rated R. There is one or maybe two cuss words, and an extremely obscured dead body. Compared to "Dude, where's my car" (a crap tastic story about two losers looking for their car) which is rated PG-13. There are many curse words, drug paraphinalia, drug glorification and instruction, gratuitous panty shots, etc. Now, that movie had some pretty funny parts, but it's nothing I'd want my child to see when he is 13. And PG-13 movies don't usually card kids, so anyone could pretty much walk into that one.
Me personally, if the box says Graphic Violence, Drugs, Nudity, Sexual Content, etc... I'd prefer to have it rated R. That way the parent can purchase or acompany their child for the purchase of the item.
My TV doesn't have a V-Chip. and broad cast TV is a public medium. Try performing acts like those seen on FOX at prime time in front of your local elementary school.
-Rick
"So how is it ok for Fox to display sex and violence everynight where children are most certainly watching, but then its not ok for these things to be in videogames?"
IMO, it's not. I think the FCC should get off their collectively paid off asses and slap the $hit out of FOX and the other broadcast channels for BROADCASTING unexceptable content. Cable on the other hand, I feel should be free to do as it pleases.
And I'm personally okay with this bill (from what I know of it). All it is (so far as I know) is a legal representations of the maturity rating on the box. It would be similar to a law that banned anyone under 18 from seeing an NC17 movie. So far as I know, there is no such law, just an accepted standard at (most) movie theators and rental stores. The only concern I have is who decides the video game rating? A government body? ESRB? Publishers?
The government already has laws barring the sale of pornography to minors. Which is what this seems to most closely related. I mean, if someone went out and made a high quality movie version of GTA, it would be hard pressed to get under a NC17 rating.
To reveal any bias I may have, I'm in my mid twenties, loved GTA and it's spin offs (Vice City was my fav!), and have a 2 year old son. If I as a parent feel my son is mature enough to saftly enjoy GTA, I'll buy him a copy. If I as a parent feel my son is mature enough to saftly enjoy an alcoholic beverage, I'll buy him one. But I don't want my son running out and buying his own alcohol, porn, violent movies and video games on his own. Atleast, not in America, our mind set is way to #$@!ed up for that kind of responcibility.;)
I think it would be significantly more efficient to go the opposite way. Deploy a large PV system on the ISS where they recieve significantly more of the sun's energy and pipe it back down to earth.
Beleive it or not, there has actually been some though about creating an immence orbiting solar array and using microwave to shoot the power back to the surface. The amount of power that could be pushed is insane. The only problem is the 20 mile wide dish and microwave. Anyone gets too close to the dish and they'd pop. Wouldn't that be fun!
Number one montra in business application development. "I'm doing this for the user"
Remember that. The user (customer/client/employee) defines the features they need. These features form the basics of the requirements document.
Your tech lead/analysist/coordinator is going to ask you for time estimates. Business sciences says the way to find this number is to find the Optimal time(a), the most likely time(b), and the worst case time(c) and apply the following formula:
Expected time = (a + 4b + c)/6
If I think I could get a roughed out edition together in 8 hours, I would use a=8, b=16, c=58 for an expected time of 22 hours. You to can sit through hours of business science and learn this too, or just use the old addage of "triple it!" and quote 24 hours;)
So, you kick that number back to the coordinator. The coordinator looks at other projects on your plate and priorities and sends a time estimate back to the manager.
That should take care of the deadlines and feature set. You have a rec document, and a schedule. Next up was code style. Most current business office application development is going to be in a RAD environment. VB and.Net are likely the most widely used and have a collection of the greatest tools (sorry Java guys, eclipse just doesn't hold a candle to Visual Studio). One of the greatest things about developing in.Net is that we (finally!) get true object inheritance. And while people smile and nod and say isn't it great with out knowing why, I can tell you, I can't imagine coding with out it. One of the few things I really agree with Joel Spolanski [sp?] about is code up front. It takes longer to build a completely abstract data layer and impliment a standardized data object (using inheritance and abstract factory classes), but the advantage of having a DLL that can be inserted into any project and give you immediate dev time access to database metadata is immense. Having a series of base classes to handle the user interface, threading, data access, business logic, etc will save significant time in the long run.
Our apps now our no longer even apps. We run a portal like interface, and when we receive new user requests they get developed as modules that are simply plugged into the existing system. Here are some out dated, but still handy looks at the type of design we use.
Once you have a code base. Developing new apps is significantly easier, faster, and the code you produce is more stable. So your tech lead is right, code correctness is very important.
And finally, don't be afraid to say no. I have 3 tiers of projects. Immediate, Down the road, and Ignore. If my coordinater drops something on my desk with a very low priority and a very large work load, I usually tell him I'll take care of it right after I clean my desk. Which usually implies that anything on my desk gets round filed. It is your manager and coordinater's job to take care of scheduling. If they are putting to much on your plate, sit them down, prioritize, and give back.
You've never heard of Rocket Surgery? Its a common practice of Killer Coding Ninja Monkeys. The rest of us Code Stealing Drunken Pirates use Occum's Razor to avoid such practices.
"The "you share a subnet with a troll" was pretty direct. As for accomodating, you have to consider the big picture. What's better, to lose half the users due to crapflooding, or lose a handful as collateral damage while blocking bad apples?"
Why not allow registered user accounts to post regardless of IP/Subnet bans? And if the User Account is used to spam/flood/troll ban the account. That way, the IP/Subnet ban will block AC's from posting crap, the user account bans will block spam accounts, and valid users will still have full access. It doesn't seem like rocket surgery to me.
So what this means is that if the bird flu and another strain mutate in one cell, there are hundreds of possibilities. You could wind up with a dead virus, a weak virus, a slight modification of the other strain that the body already has a defence against, a new virus that the immune system can adapt to, a new virus that the body can not adapt to(worst case). Even then, factors involving the virus' survivability outside its host could change dramaticly. How communicable is a virus that can't survive in a temperature under 95 degrees?
I think it's good to be prepaired for a worst case senerio, but in all reality, any two flu strains could merge and create a super flu at any given time, and any two flu strains could merge and die at any given time. So I really don't think its worth panicing, nor posting on SlashDot.
I would say the parent has the right to demand a source. Its a pretty given standard that the person stating a fact is responsible for proving and defending it, while the person recieving the fact is responsibly for looking at it objectivly and questioning it. True, he was a bit blunt, but his response was acceptable.
-Rick
You can, it's called pleading "No Contest". It means you don't admit guilt, but it is easier/cheaper for you to accept a guilty verdict then to fight it.
"Yes, poverty does affect a spectrum of people. Because it affects people of all ethinicity doesn't mean that certain ethnic groups are discriminated against, though."
That's what I'm saying. Poverty is non-descriminatory. Now, past actions have set up the situation we have today, where minorities are statisticly more likely to be poor.
" direct discrimination within IT would probably be easier to "fix", "
What is there to fix? If I put out an add for a new I-II.Net developer position, I would expect to get 200+ resumes. First thing I'd do is round file (ie: Garbage can) any with poor formating. If it takes more then a few seconds to figure out that you have professional experience and a degree, you're done. Next up is to toss out any resumes with out some professional experience and an associates degree. With my history, I would give a bump up to anyone with former military/peace corps time. Once I have the list down to a couple dozen, I'd start actually reading the details. Figure out how their specific skills match up to our needs. Eventually, I'd pick 5, 3 primaries and 2 secondaries. I'd set up initial interviews with the first 3, and until they walk through that door, I have no idea what color they are. Me personally, I don't care. If they are male, female, white, black, red, yellow, orange, purple, etc. If they have good communication skills, a good attitude and pleasant demeanor, and have the skills listed on their resume, then they will be at the top of the list.
The problem is not the hirering managers. The problem is that there are so few skilled, educated, and experienced minorities. If all 5 of my top selections are white based off of nothing but resumes, how would I diversify my staff?
The solution is not new EO laws, but investing in education and motivation in poor communities. One of the things that I thought was awesome was the Highschool in New Mexico (I think) that the three latino kids built a submarine for a colegic competition, and won! It was on/. a great story. Showed how anyone with a good teacher and motivation can do anything, no matter what race they are!
Slashdot Mirror
"How about this: a lot of people like to live with people that they have something in common with. And it's not just white and black. It's also: French with French, Poles with Poles, Spanish with Spanish, Chinese with Chinese, Vietnamese with Vietnamese, etc ..."
Lets not forget the biggie: Rich with Rich. My personal theories point to a significantly smaller impact of racial based prejudice, and a significantly larger impact of fiscal bigotry.
-Rick
"Why do I have such a big penis? Does everyone else have a big penis or am I alone in having such a great big penis?"
I too have a great big penis, and my wife assures me that people like you and I are in the vast minority. So I say, enjoy your great big penis, and share it with all who are safely willing.
-Rick
That's about the sum of it. If there is anyway that municipal WiFi can go bad, he will find it. This man is driving our cities bars out of business, shooting small business owners in the foot, and only increasing the likelihood of the holloween riots. In addition to numerous other incidents that he has handled in the worst possible way.
;)
Luckily there are a few local groups that are pushing for an impeachment. Its doubtfull that they will succed, but hopefully they'll put enough heat on the city alders that Dave's remaining time will be wasted.
Also, the lack of diversity does not imply racism. Especially in Madison. The rest of the state refers to Madison as "A pocket of librals, surrounded by reality". I was born and raised in the Madison area, spent some time in the military, and can honestly say I don't give a crap what color you are, what god you pray too, or where you are from, if you're an asshole, your an asshole. With the exception of Texans, everyone from Texas starts with the check in the 'asshole' box
-Rick
For not curing cancer?
-Rick
How big of a quota is it for 60 hours? I mean, you'd need to first check against everything that is currently patented, using a keyword search against a database would probrably cut that down to a handful to a few thousand depending on the item. Then you'd need to compare against all of those individually to make sure they are significantly different. Then you'd need to check trade mags and universities for any related publications that could be considered prior art. I could see a single patent taking 60 hours to research if you are familiar with the topic and the industry.
My guess is the PTO relies on the courts to figure it out. If they give a quick flip through and don't see anything too blatant, they'll go ahead and approve it. The patent at that point is still worthless until the owner or a competitor sues. That is when people sink hundreds of hours digging into the subject, confering with the industry and determining origins.
In short, Patents are worthless until you pay a lawyer.
-Rick
I disagree. I think your statement is superficially true.
Look at health insurance and smoking. Smoking directly effects your health. (Former pack a day smoker for 10 years) You get sick more often, more trips to the doc, higher likelihood of complications at an earlier age then non-smokers, and a higher cost of insurance (If you are paying your own bill or have an employer with a prorating health plan).
One would assume using your logic that the extra cost of health insurance would push people to stop smoking, but it doesn't. Its had little to no effect.
-Rick
You'll notice also that this does nothing to improve the security of the code. It just makes it more expencive.
-Rick
is through games. This is a great boon to Linux as it would seem that anything built on the Q4 engine should be easily ported to Linux.
-Rick
The programmers pay to code.
Sorry, had too.
-Rick
And I wouldn't mind paying a $10 monthly fee to have access to the (completed) Google library. So long as that $10 goes to the authors and editors, not the now defunct publishers who are dragging their feet. Right now, I rairly buy a new book. Terry Goodkind and Rowlings are the only two authors that I actually bother to actively follow. But with paper display e-book and the 'online library' available, I'm sure I would be introduced to other great authors (imagine applying 6 degrees and trending info right in the library). And having case law, peer reviewed journals, etc, scanned and searchable at the touch of a key would be amazing.
-Rick
The VS.Net 2k5 intro tour is firing up. It would be neat to see a complete list of stops and dates to find a local oppertunity.
-Rick
How Microsoft increasing competition in these areas is a bad thing. So long as they bring competetive software, not competetive marketing controls.
-Rick
Tipper Gore, now there was a wack job. I think Anthrax summed her up the best in their song "Starting up a posse"
And I agree completely with your point, I don't think that video games should be accused of unproven and even refuted statistics. And I definately don't think they should be used as a political agenda.
But at the same time I wouldn't allow my child when he turns 10 to watch COPS (violence, blurred out nudity, cursing, prostitution, drugs, etc) which is pretty comprable to the content of GTA:Vice City(More violence, less nudity). Most movies with COPS like content are rated R, or atleast had been until the rating institute started schluffing off. For reference, The 1970's classic "Stand By Me" (a great movie about 4 early teen boys walking the rail road tracks) is rated R. There is one or maybe two cuss words, and an extremely obscured dead body. Compared to "Dude, where's my car" (a crap tastic story about two losers looking for their car) which is rated PG-13. There are many curse words, drug paraphinalia, drug glorification and instruction, gratuitous panty shots, etc. Now, that movie had some pretty funny parts, but it's nothing I'd want my child to see when he is 13. And PG-13 movies don't usually card kids, so anyone could pretty much walk into that one.
Me personally, if the box says Graphic Violence, Drugs, Nudity, Sexual Content, etc... I'd prefer to have it rated R. That way the parent can purchase or acompany their child for the purchase of the item.
-Rick
My TV doesn't have a V-Chip. and broad cast TV is a public medium. Try performing acts like those seen on FOX at prime time in front of your local elementary school. -Rick
I so need to upgrade!
-Rick
"So how is it ok for Fox to display sex and violence everynight where children are most certainly watching, but then its not ok for these things to be in videogames?"
;)
IMO, it's not. I think the FCC should get off their collectively paid off asses and slap the $hit out of FOX and the other broadcast channels for BROADCASTING unexceptable content. Cable on the other hand, I feel should be free to do as it pleases.
And I'm personally okay with this bill (from what I know of it). All it is (so far as I know) is a legal representations of the maturity rating on the box. It would be similar to a law that banned anyone under 18 from seeing an NC17 movie. So far as I know, there is no such law, just an accepted standard at (most) movie theators and rental stores. The only concern I have is who decides the video game rating? A government body? ESRB? Publishers?
The government already has laws barring the sale of pornography to minors. Which is what this seems to most closely related. I mean, if someone went out and made a high quality movie version of GTA, it would be hard pressed to get under a NC17 rating.
To reveal any bias I may have, I'm in my mid twenties, loved GTA and it's spin offs (Vice City was my fav!), and have a 2 year old son. If I as a parent feel my son is mature enough to saftly enjoy GTA, I'll buy him a copy. If I as a parent feel my son is mature enough to saftly enjoy an alcoholic beverage, I'll buy him one. But I don't want my son running out and buying his own alcohol, porn, violent movies and video games on his own. Atleast, not in America, our mind set is way to #$@!ed up for that kind of responcibility.
-Rick
I think it would be significantly more efficient to go the opposite way. Deploy a large PV system on the ISS where they recieve significantly more of the sun's energy and pipe it back down to earth.
Beleive it or not, there has actually been some though about creating an immence orbiting solar array and using microwave to shoot the power back to the surface. The amount of power that could be pushed is insane. The only problem is the 20 mile wide dish and microwave. Anyone gets too close to the dish and they'd pop. Wouldn't that be fun!
-Rick
Number one montra in business application development. "I'm doing this for the user"
;)
.Net are likely the most widely used and have a collection of the greatest tools (sorry Java guys, eclipse just doesn't hold a candle to Visual Studio). One of the greatest things about developing in .Net is that we (finally!) get true object inheritance. And while people smile and nod and say isn't it great with out knowing why, I can tell you, I can't imagine coding with out it. One of the few things I really agree with Joel Spolanski [sp?] about is code up front. It takes longer to build a completely abstract data layer and impliment a standardized data object (using inheritance and abstract factory classes), but the advantage of having a DLL that can be inserted into any project and give you immediate dev time access to database metadata is immense. Having a series of base classes to handle the user interface, threading, data access, business logic, etc will save significant time in the long run.
Remember that. The user (customer/client/employee) defines the features they need. These features form the basics of the requirements document.
Your tech lead/analysist/coordinator is going to ask you for time estimates. Business sciences says the way to find this number is to find the Optimal time(a), the most likely time(b), and the worst case time(c) and apply the following formula:
Expected time = (a + 4b + c)/6
If I think I could get a roughed out edition together in 8 hours, I would use a=8, b=16, c=58 for an expected time of 22 hours. You to can sit through hours of business science and learn this too, or just use the old addage of "triple it!" and quote 24 hours
So, you kick that number back to the coordinator. The coordinator looks at other projects on your plate and priorities and sends a time estimate back to the manager.
That should take care of the deadlines and feature set. You have a rec document, and a schedule. Next up was code style. Most current business office application development is going to be in a RAD environment. VB and
Our apps now our no longer even apps. We run a portal like interface, and when we receive new user requests they get developed as modules that are simply plugged into the existing system. Here are some out dated, but still handy looks at the type of design we use.
http://ringdev.com/code/GFCTeirDesign.gif
http://ringdev.com/code/GFCNamespace.gif
Once you have a code base. Developing new apps is significantly easier, faster, and the code you produce is more stable. So your tech lead is right, code correctness is very important.
And finally, don't be afraid to say no. I have 3 tiers of projects. Immediate, Down the road, and Ignore. If my coordinater drops something on my desk with a very low priority and a very large work load, I usually tell him I'll take care of it right after I clean my desk. Which usually implies that anything on my desk gets round filed. It is your manager and coordinater's job to take care of scheduling. If they are putting to much on your plate, sit them down, prioritize, and give back.
-Rick
You've never heard of Rocket Surgery? Its a common practice of Killer Coding Ninja Monkeys. The rest of us Code Stealing Drunken Pirates use Occum's Razor to avoid such practices.
-Rick
"The "you share a subnet with a troll" was pretty direct. As for accomodating, you have to consider the big picture. What's better, to lose half the users due to crapflooding, or lose a handful as collateral damage while blocking bad apples?"
Why not allow registered user accounts to post regardless of IP/Subnet bans? And if the User Account is used to spam/flood/troll ban the account. That way, the IP/Subnet ban will block AC's from posting crap, the user account bans will block spam accounts, and valid users will still have full access. It doesn't seem like rocket surgery to me.
-Rick
So why haven't you been in a panic state of fear for the last 40 years?
-Rick
So what this means is that if the bird flu and another strain mutate in one cell, there are hundreds of possibilities. You could wind up with a dead virus, a weak virus, a slight modification of the other strain that the body already has a defence against, a new virus that the immune system can adapt to, a new virus that the body can not adapt to(worst case). Even then, factors involving the virus' survivability outside its host could change dramaticly. How communicable is a virus that can't survive in a temperature under 95 degrees?
I think it's good to be prepaired for a worst case senerio, but in all reality, any two flu strains could merge and create a super flu at any given time, and any two flu strains could merge and die at any given time. So I really don't think its worth panicing, nor posting on SlashDot.
-Rick
I would say the parent has the right to demand a source. Its a pretty given standard that the person stating a fact is responsible for proving and defending it, while the person recieving the fact is responsibly for looking at it objectivly and questioning it. True, he was a bit blunt, but his response was acceptable. -Rick
"I wish I could break laws and not admit guilt."
You can, it's called pleading "No Contest". It means you don't admit guilt, but it is easier/cheaper for you to accept a guilty verdict then to fight it.
-Rick
"Yes, poverty does affect a spectrum of people. Because it affects people of all ethinicity doesn't mean that certain ethnic groups are discriminated against, though."
.Net developer position, I would expect to get 200+ resumes. First thing I'd do is round file (ie: Garbage can) any with poor formating. If it takes more then a few seconds to figure out that you have professional experience and a degree, you're done. Next up is to toss out any resumes with out some professional experience and an associates degree. With my history, I would give a bump up to anyone with former military/peace corps time. Once I have the list down to a couple dozen, I'd start actually reading the details. Figure out how their specific skills match up to our needs. Eventually, I'd pick 5, 3 primaries and 2 secondaries. I'd set up initial interviews with the first 3, and until they walk through that door, I have no idea what color they are. Me personally, I don't care. If they are male, female, white, black, red, yellow, orange, purple, etc. If they have good communication skills, a good attitude and pleasant demeanor, and have the skills listed on their resume, then they will be at the top of the list.
/. a great story. Showed how anyone with a good teacher and motivation can do anything, no matter what race they are!
That's what I'm saying. Poverty is non-descriminatory. Now, past actions have set up the situation we have today, where minorities are statisticly more likely to be poor.
" direct discrimination within IT would probably be easier to "fix", "
What is there to fix? If I put out an add for a new I-II
The problem is not the hirering managers. The problem is that there are so few skilled, educated, and experienced minorities. If all 5 of my top selections are white based off of nothing but resumes, how would I diversify my staff?
The solution is not new EO laws, but investing in education and motivation in poor communities. One of the things that I thought was awesome was the Highschool in New Mexico (I think) that the three latino kids built a submarine for a colegic competition, and won! It was on
-Rick