In college a friend had her car stolen...when it was recovered, it also had illegal cargo...a dead body in the trunk.... [waaa-waa-waaaaaaaaa] true story, though. you just never know what a car might get heisted for.
which isn't software focused, but contains principles *absolutely* useful for software as well as other types of engineering is Inviting Disaster. It's an easy, highly entertaining read, with the bonus that you (ought to) learn something as well. I highly recommend it.
Strawmen. Those data points don't change every six months to something relatively arbitrary. Even the last world series question (the only one of your questions which EVER changes) has a very finite set of possible correct answers. Even more problematic, the many different systems with passwords usually have different schedules on which passwords need to be changed, and different ways of defining "strong" passwords, so you can't use the same "strong" password across multiple systems. I don't have post-its for my passwords, but the only way I've been able to escape that is by coming up with a system for my passwords which allows me to make minor, memorable variations each time I have to change one of my passwords. If it were just one password, well, okay, but voicemail and multiple system logins each with different password requirements and change-schedules? Some of which I only use intermittently? I'm sorry, but at some point these requirements become completely counterproductive.
I have wondered the same thing. I'm not yet at a decision point about it, but when I think seriously about the future, I worry about whether staying in hardcore development and architecture is going to be sustainable or not. There seems to be so much less room in the world for "senior" technologists than for equally senior managers, and I am not sure what that will mean for my career. I can not imagine how I would get on not being able to get my hands in there and solve the really hard problems, but I wonder if I'll have to step back from doing that simply to be able to stay in the game. As much as I would have a hard time contemplating a career in management, I would have an even harder time being an old, unemployed developer who can't get an interesting job b/c he's too "senior". Aging sucks. At any rate, for myself, I think I'm pretty committed to trying to ride the technical path as far as I possibly can simply b/c I care so much more about it. Here's hoping....
The grown-up way which involves invoking claims like, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? I think it's a misunderstanding of science to think that scientists should throw up their hands in glee when someone comes along with a revolutionary idea. Science depends on a LOT of skepticism. Scientists wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't try to tear new theories to shreds. If you want to propose new theories and can't handle the scrutiny, either grow up, or find a different profession. Quite frankly, it's not enough to dream up the right idea, you have to prove it, and you have to make sure other people can prove it to.
Even if you were correct (and I suspect quantum mechanics would have a LOT to say about that theory), it's sort of missing the point, which was that we generally define analogue as being something above the atomic level.
By your definition, no physical medium is analogue. After all, they're all made up of molecules and atoms, and other sub-atomic particles. Electricity (and electric devices) couldn't be analogue, among other things, the electron count is discrete.
Are you sure you understand silver-halide exposure? You're aware that individual grains are NOT either "exposed" or "unexposed". Instead, a certain number of silver nuclei in each crystal (or grain) will be present depending on how many photons the grain was exposed to. Developing helps amplify the effect, causing more of the grain to be "exposed", but by no means is it "all" or "none". Read about the chemistry of film here. In short, though, it's pretty darn analog.
Did I say that? No. I said "fancy new hardware". And it goes like this: "Hi, Mr. Doesn't-Know-What-You-Really-Need-From-U-Wisconsin, let me tell you what you need: you want a solution that is going to last you another 20 years, right? So we need to get you a cluster of fancy machines. These babies are really good, they're probably more than what you need right now, but you need a solution which is going to keep your new system up and running for the next 20 years, you need something with room to grow, not a solution which you're going to outgrow in 2 years. Now, we're going to set up a cluster of 4 of these in production to help make sure that you are safe in case any one of them breaks. And we're going to need another 2 for testing and development to make sure that we can test any new fixes or changes without disrupting production. Why not as many as production? We'll, we're trying to save you some money. Well, yeah, it won't let us *exactly* duplicate the production environment, and of course that would be better.... Okay, sure, so, we'll say 4 for testing as well. So that's 8 machines total. And of course your data is critical, so we're going to recommend this SAN storage device to store this highly critical information on. And you'll want 2 of those, one for production, one for testing. Oh, and here's a good tape backup solution so we can make sure that you have quality backups of all that critical information."
I mean, just saying.... The other folks are probably right that perhaps my staff estimates were low, perhaps more trainers (which I'd put in my worker bee category), more managers. So that would drop the hardware cost down a bit, but I think it's very easy to come up with a scenario where someone gets sold WAY more hardware than they need. And could that cost $10+ million? You betcha!:)
First, it's not really $40m, it's only $40m b/c they're doing it 2x. It's closer to $20m. And...it's not just upgrading, as pointed out. It's a complete new system. Any system as old as their previous system is probably in need of replacement rather than simply refactoring and basic updating.
I just did some back of the envelope calculations. So...outside firm bids. Let's say that we'll have 24 minions (basic programmers, project management, requirements, documentation, etc). We'll say they average $70k/year salary. We'll double that for overhead, so $140k/minion/year in salary & overhead ($3.36 mil). Let's say those 24 minions have 8 middle management/tech leads/etc on top of them. We'll say they make on average $100k/year, so $200k/year/manager ($1.6 mil). Finally, we'll say there are two top dogs (architect, partner) on the project. We'll be conservative and put them at $150k/year ($600 k). Now everyone is going to need computers. Let's say $2k/computer ($72 k). This new system isn't going to run on their old hardware, so we'll get them new fancy hardware for $10-$15 million. Finally, the good folks in the payroll dept at the university need new hardware as well to use the new system, so we'll put them down for 20 computers at $2k each as well ($40 k). Grand total is between $15.7-$20.7 million. Granted that this is still less than the $28.4 they actually spent, but clearly there was some overcharging and incompetence going on, so we'll put the extra $8+ million down to false-starts and other poor decisions made by the consulting firm. And, when you're all said and done, the simple project ends up being quite expensive. I have no way of knowing how my cost breakdown compares to how their money was spent, but it makes reasonable sense.
The surface area of the sphere at the altitude the planes are traveling at is a lot larger too. So although the meteor is bigger, the odds of it passing through the same space occupied by the plane are somewhat diminished. You'd have to have good statistics on the size of meteors at different altitudes to determine which, if any, of the two effects would predominate at a given altitude.
it also happened to be traveling through a tremendous serious of thunderstorms, and happened to be a plane from a company which has had some recent problems with its fly-by-wire systems reacting incorrectly to data from sensors on their planes, and it happened to report a series of electronic messages over a span of time indicating a deteriorating flight situation. By george, I think you've got it!
I keenly remember jealously watching my Mac fanatic roommate playing Marathon while I was playing Doom on my PC. Doom deserves to be on the list for its wide impact, but Marathon, I think, has had a far bigger impact on today's game world. It went much further in combining the puzzle and FPS aspects of gameplay, and the legacy, continued in the Halo series, is tremendous.
I'm not trolling here, but why does it seem like the buzz is often about apple products then? I don't see much about people creating art with their blackberry or their palm. Or is there a lot of this going on and I just missed it?
My take is that this is largely about "buzz" being a bit of a feedback loop. Apple has been very good about using prior buzz to create new buzz for its new products. This, in turn, has been great at driving sales to people who want the attributes being marketed (ease-of-use, rich functionality). They, in turn, create content that gets buzz (often simply for being an example of how "buzzworth product x" can be used), which helps reinforce the buzz around the product. It's possible that you could do something similar or even better on another phone, almost certainly on some other portable handheld, but those other devices didn't have the hype, so they're not in the hands of the people who might make use of what they could do. So, you don't hear about them doing "cool things" on the other devices and thus they fall further behind in the hype sweepstakes.
FWIW, we've seen this before with Google. It amazed (and annoyed) me how whenever Google came out with something new on the internet (maps, mail, customizable home pages) so many people I spoke to seemed to honestly think Google had invented those concepts. They hadn't, but, they had the buzz, so they got the mind-share.
to refrain from complaining about a kdawson post, but I saw this early this morning and thought it was cool as well. So sue me. Yes, people have been drawing on computers for a Long Time with lots of different input devices; and no, it's not the best tool (portable or otherwise) for drawing with. And I detest all the often-unmerited love that Apple gets...but this was cool, it is an example of how, even on a converged device that can't touch dedicated devices, technology has become accessible enough that people are able to do real worth with it, no matter where they are. It's similar to Chase Jarvis and his iPhone pictures. It's not the best camera, not even the best camera phone, but it's both a demonstration of how art isn't about the technology, it's about the artist; and it's a demonstration of what we could each accomplish with even these limited tools if we had the talent and discipline to use them to their fullest. It's not, to me, about it being an Apple product, it's about art, talent, and the progress of technology.
1) Well, I won't dispute about Hammurabi, I was simply responding to the GP who was using it as an example of something better than what we've got. I think what you're saying doesn't contradict my point, although I could have used Hammurabi more accurately, as you've pointed out.
2) On this, I disagree. I think that technology, in particular, makes things more complex. I agree that society in ancient times had many complexities: complex rules regarding status, religion, many customs, complex cultures. But there are a whole host of situations pertinent to law where our society is, in fact, more complex. I would say that the extra legal complexity largely is derived from the necessity to more precisely define legal terms as they relate to new technology. For example, I referred to defining "death", which is more complex than it once was due to technical advances. Or...there have been many examples on/. of the struggles in defining how to apply law to the interactions which take place on the internet. The extra complexity must be either codified in the legal code, or it will get defined by precedent; but it will have to be dealt with. Another example which is not part of the law of the land, but comes to mind is the difficulty some Jews have had with defining what "work" means wrt technology and the sabbath. There's that whole interesting (I think) aspect of "not starting a fire" and the question of whether completing an electrical circuit is proscribed or not. I know it's not applicable to most people (including me), but it is a good example of how a long-standing "simple" statement has to have its definition enhanced to cope with technological advances.
3) This is a problem I've pondered about quite a bit. I'm not sure how to deal with it. It seems that there is something inherent in the system which causes things to grow and grow. I think part of it is the human desire to stay busy, to cause change, to feel as though we've improved something. I think we do need lawmakers, but it's sort of a Faustian bargain...we have lawmakers to write laws as the need arises, but we in turn have to deal with laws we don't really need. I see this on the job as well, people rarely seem to be able to say, "You know what, I think this works well, we shouldn't change it." It's seen as more "responsible" to have a "plan" for changing things. I don't happen to think change is always such a laudable thing, but I'm not sure how you'd set up a system to discourage it a bit more. Perhaps if you set up a constitution as the foundation but then required that all laws on top of it have expiration dates and must be individually renewed. It would certainly discourage lawmakers from creating too many new laws as at some point they simply would run out of time to create new laws and renew existing laws.
You've stated a lot of things categorically, let me state one: the populace should be able to memorize and understand the principles behind the law. That's where I differ from you. I think there should be a set of simple *principles* upon which the law is founded which all people can understand. It is a mistake to conflate those principles with the law itself. The law is society's collective interpretation of those principles. I expect people to know and adhere to the principles of the law. I firmly believe that any code of laws sufficient to handle all different situations will be too lengthy for most people to memorize. However, the length off the law exists (or should exist) not to make interpretation more difficult, but to circumscribe interpretation.
The problem with your comparison between law and science is that lack of ambiguity in science comes from math. Science is mathematical. To the extent that something scientific can be described in mathematical terms, it becomes unambiguous. It is worth noting that this does not equate with "easy to understand". Yes, maybe a scientific principle can be distilled to a "simple" equation, but it is just as likely that most laypeople (the people you say should FULLY understand the law) would not be able to understand the equation or its implications.
Law, on the other hand, is verbal and conceptual. Most of the difficulty is that the actors in the law, humans, are not governed by math equations. Perhaps using symbolic maths you could come up with a mathematical representation of law, but the ability to represent that in verbal terms that most people can understand would probably be fraught with difficulty. Just look at how long the descriptions are of even simple equations in physics texts. If, however, you confine yourself to natural language, you require interpretation. You might want to believe that no interpretation would be necessary, but I assure that people would find ways to come to differences of opinion about what the law was actually saying. Many people would, in fact, be strongly motivated to do so. Someone would have to arbitrate about whose opinion of the law was correct. That could be a judge, it could be a jury, but someone would be interpreting. Language is open to interpretation. People can't even agree on what it means to be alive (conception? birth?) or dead (brain death? vegetative state? no ability to support bodily functions?). How can you possibly expect to define a simple set of laws which requires no interpretation? Just because you define "death" as X doesn't make it so. Reasonable people can disagree about that. The law, however, ought to specify, otherwise there will be ambiguity about whether someone has "killed" or merely "seriously injured" someone else.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks.
Look, I appreciate that this seems like common sense, but as someone else pointed out, you end up with at least one of two problems. First, people don't like hard-and-fast "zero-tolerance" rules. They tend to think they are unjust. A simple "Do not kill" *seems* clear...and yet, you have a) is it okay to kill in self-defense? b) is it okay to kill to protect others? and for both a) & b): what are the circumstances which justify lethal action, is it only protecting from imminent death? etc. You write fairly intelligently, so I'm sure you can extrapolate the many questions people might ask about "Do not kill". Either you a) put lots of power to *interpret* the simple "Do not kill" statute in the hands of, say, the court, or b) you write longer laws to more precisely specify what exactly we want. But...the longer law might end up requiring someone trained in the law to understand all the different exceptions and conditions.
The second, related problem is the ambiguity of language. How do I determine someone has violated "Do not kill"? Do they have to have killed someone with their own hands? How about if they cause an avalanche which kills someone? If they put poison in the water? How about if they put poison in the water as part of poor waste disposal in their job at a company? Or as I suggested in the "self-defense" exception...what does "self-defense" mean? How can we more precisely specify the conditions which constitute self defense?
You, or maybe someone else, might say in response to this, "The hell with writing all these exclusions, stick with the basic 'Do not kill' and have done. We don't need to make the laws so complex they need interpretation." But the truth is, they always need interpretation by *someone*. Simple statements are, in fact, not precise. And whoever is responsible for administering the law has to determine what the statement means (aka, *interpret* the law). If we, as society, do not specify precisely what we believe is correct, we are apt to have people interpret the law in ways we do not agree with.
The fact of the matter is that modern society is complex. That complexity is, generally, seen as a good thing. We have a plethora of jobs, technologies, industries, means of transportation, foods, you-name-it. The society of Hammurabi was vastly simpler. There were fewer different types of interactions to govern. A simple situation with few interactions can be dealt with by simple rules. More complex situations and interactions require more complex rules. It's simply impractical to expect that modern society, with all its complexities, could be governed by a set of rules which everyone is capable of memorizing. If we want to go back to a primarily agrarian society, if we want to do away with all our extra "stuff", fine, we can go back to a simpler set of rules. But I do not think that is the direction society wants to go.
FWIW, I do think there are certainly aspects of the law which end up becoming overly complex. And it is always good to look to simplify where it makes sense. However, I, for one, would much rather have a larger body of law which more precisely spells out my rights and responsibilities than a small body of law which entirely cedes that judgment to the administrators of the law.
This. I love that there are plugins which allow you to select alternate tab topologies. Tab-mix plus does a great job with the "traditional" tabs, and other plugins allow you to organize yourself in other ways. If they want to provide more flexibility, simply look to incorporate some of those plugins into the browser and provide simple configuration for users to pick which style works best for them.
I completely agree. I will go down a web page full of links (like, say, my homepage; or a page of search results), pop each one that piques my interest into a tab, then go through the 10 or 20 resulting tabs, read each tab, close it, move on. i would absolutely abhor having to try to do with multiple windows, it would be exceedingly cumbersome. 20+ sessions isn't difficult at all if you use, say, tab mix plus and have the tabs nicely flow into multiple rows with decent minimum sizes.
You seem to have drunk the kool-aid about Catholics not being Christian. I *could* take the opposite position, that most right-wing "Christians" in the USA aren't Christians because they often support war and capitol punishment. Or I could ask why people don't say Christian when speaking about Catholics, and [insert sect name] when speaking about non-Catholics. But I think it's a silly thing to start playing the "you're not a Christian" game. I think it's more correct to take the position that if someone self-identifies as Christian that they are. Labels can be applied to help categorize their theology (baptist, catholic, orthodox), but those labels are ALL labels for Christian theologies. So, it's not "Catholic" vs "Christian", it's "Catholic Christian", "Baptist Christian", "Orthodox Christian", etc. Those various sects will inherently disagree about who has a better handle on "The Truth", but saying any one of them isn't Christian is irrational, inflammatory, and inaccurate. FWIW, I'm not nor have I ever been Catholic, but I do think this whole "Catholics aren't Christians" thing is complete sectarian, petty rubbish.
A statement as broad as yours requires more than a couple of anecdotal links to back it up. All your links prove is that *some* Protestants don't believe Catholics are Christians. You imply it's the general rule, which I'll be generous and assume means a simple majority. FYI, I've also attended well over a dozen churches across the spectrum on a regular basis over the years. I would agree that some of the fundamentalist Protestants might believe a statement as strongly worded as that. However, I suspect even in those communities that if you gave them a choice between "Catholics aren't Christian" and "Catholics have lots of wrong beliefs but are Christians if they believe Jesus is Lord" you'd get a lot of people picking the second statement. That said, it would be a mistake to assume that Protestants are "generally" fundamentalist, there are a *lot* of mainstream Protestant denominations across the world which get along just fine with Catholics.
Call you paranoid? Gladly. By "something else", you of course mean the "browser history", if you read what you responded to. If you don't like that your "surfing habits" are being "tracked" then turn off the browser history. ABP wouldn't be "tracking" your habits, it'd simply be looking at the "tracking" data stored on your computer by your browser and doing some simple addition.
But does that include updates? It certainly includes the same person downloading it across multiple computers, or when upgrading to a new computer. I'd rather suspect it includes updates, which means the actual growth rate is not +800k/week. When ABP pushes a new version, I personally account for 4 of those, my wife for another 2. That's for every new patch. I have other accounts which would, when I use them, account for another 7 or 8 downloads. Computing actual humans from download stats is a terribly tricky thing....
Slashdot Mirror
In college a friend had her car stolen...when it was recovered, it also had illegal cargo...a dead body in the trunk.... [waaa-waa-waaaaaaaaa] true story, though. you just never know what a car might get heisted for.
which isn't software focused, but contains principles *absolutely* useful for software as well as other types of engineering is Inviting Disaster. It's an easy, highly entertaining read, with the bonus that you (ought to) learn something as well. I highly recommend it.
Strawmen. Those data points don't change every six months to something relatively arbitrary. Even the last world series question (the only one of your questions which EVER changes) has a very finite set of possible correct answers. Even more problematic, the many different systems with passwords usually have different schedules on which passwords need to be changed, and different ways of defining "strong" passwords, so you can't use the same "strong" password across multiple systems. I don't have post-its for my passwords, but the only way I've been able to escape that is by coming up with a system for my passwords which allows me to make minor, memorable variations each time I have to change one of my passwords. If it were just one password, well, okay, but voicemail and multiple system logins each with different password requirements and change-schedules? Some of which I only use intermittently? I'm sorry, but at some point these requirements become completely counterproductive.
I have wondered the same thing. I'm not yet at a decision point about it, but when I think seriously about the future, I worry about whether staying in hardcore development and architecture is going to be sustainable or not. There seems to be so much less room in the world for "senior" technologists than for equally senior managers, and I am not sure what that will mean for my career. I can not imagine how I would get on not being able to get my hands in there and solve the really hard problems, but I wonder if I'll have to step back from doing that simply to be able to stay in the game. As much as I would have a hard time contemplating a career in management, I would have an even harder time being an old, unemployed developer who can't get an interesting job b/c he's too "senior". Aging sucks. At any rate, for myself, I think I'm pretty committed to trying to ride the technical path as far as I possibly can simply b/c I care so much more about it. Here's hoping....
The grown-up way which involves invoking claims like, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? I think it's a misunderstanding of science to think that scientists should throw up their hands in glee when someone comes along with a revolutionary idea. Science depends on a LOT of skepticism. Scientists wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't try to tear new theories to shreds. If you want to propose new theories and can't handle the scrutiny, either grow up, or find a different profession. Quite frankly, it's not enough to dream up the right idea, you have to prove it, and you have to make sure other people can prove it to.
Even if you were correct (and I suspect quantum mechanics would have a LOT to say about that theory), it's sort of missing the point, which was that we generally define analogue as being something above the atomic level.
By your definition, no physical medium is analogue. After all, they're all made up of molecules and atoms, and other sub-atomic particles. Electricity (and electric devices) couldn't be analogue, among other things, the electron count is discrete.
Are you sure you understand silver-halide exposure? You're aware that individual grains are NOT either "exposed" or "unexposed". Instead, a certain number of silver nuclei in each crystal (or grain) will be present depending on how many photons the grain was exposed to. Developing helps amplify the effect, causing more of the grain to be "exposed", but by no means is it "all" or "none". Read about the chemistry of film here. In short, though, it's pretty darn analog.
Did I say that? No. I said "fancy new hardware". And it goes like this: "Hi, Mr. Doesn't-Know-What-You-Really-Need-From-U-Wisconsin, let me tell you what you need: you want a solution that is going to last you another 20 years, right? So we need to get you a cluster of fancy machines. These babies are really good, they're probably more than what you need right now, but you need a solution which is going to keep your new system up and running for the next 20 years, you need something with room to grow, not a solution which you're going to outgrow in 2 years. Now, we're going to set up a cluster of 4 of these in production to help make sure that you are safe in case any one of them breaks. And we're going to need another 2 for testing and development to make sure that we can test any new fixes or changes without disrupting production. Why not as many as production? We'll, we're trying to save you some money. Well, yeah, it won't let us *exactly* duplicate the production environment, and of course that would be better.... Okay, sure, so, we'll say 4 for testing as well. So that's 8 machines total. And of course your data is critical, so we're going to recommend this SAN storage device to store this highly critical information on. And you'll want 2 of those, one for production, one for testing. Oh, and here's a good tape backup solution so we can make sure that you have quality backups of all that critical information."
I mean, just saying.... The other folks are probably right that perhaps my staff estimates were low, perhaps more trainers (which I'd put in my worker bee category), more managers. So that would drop the hardware cost down a bit, but I think it's very easy to come up with a scenario where someone gets sold WAY more hardware than they need. And could that cost $10+ million? You betcha! :)
First, it's not really $40m, it's only $40m b/c they're doing it 2x. It's closer to $20m.
And...it's not just upgrading, as pointed out. It's a complete new system. Any system as old as their previous system is probably in need of replacement rather than simply refactoring and basic updating.
I just did some back of the envelope calculations. So...outside firm bids. Let's say that we'll have 24 minions (basic programmers, project management, requirements, documentation, etc). We'll say they average $70k/year salary. We'll double that for overhead, so $140k/minion/year in salary & overhead ($3.36 mil). Let's say those 24 minions have 8 middle management/tech leads/etc on top of them. We'll say they make on average $100k/year, so $200k/year/manager ($1.6 mil). Finally, we'll say there are two top dogs (architect, partner) on the project. We'll be conservative and put them at $150k/year ($600 k). Now everyone is going to need computers. Let's say $2k/computer ($72 k). This new system isn't going to run on their old hardware, so we'll get them new fancy hardware for $10-$15 million. Finally, the good folks in the payroll dept at the university need new hardware as well to use the new system, so we'll put them down for 20 computers at $2k each as well ($40 k). Grand total is between $15.7-$20.7 million. Granted that this is still less than the $28.4 they actually spent, but clearly there was some overcharging and incompetence going on, so we'll put the extra $8+ million down to false-starts and other poor decisions made by the consulting firm. And, when you're all said and done, the simple project ends up being quite expensive. I have no way of knowing how my cost breakdown compares to how their money was spent, but it makes reasonable sense.
The surface area of the sphere at the altitude the planes are traveling at is a lot larger too. So although the meteor is bigger, the odds of it passing through the same space occupied by the plane are somewhat diminished. You'd have to have good statistics on the size of meteors at different altitudes to determine which, if any, of the two effects would predominate at a given altitude.
it also happened to be traveling through a tremendous serious of thunderstorms, and happened to be a plane from a company which has had some recent problems with its fly-by-wire systems reacting incorrectly to data from sensors on their planes, and it happened to report a series of electronic messages over a span of time indicating a deteriorating flight situation. By george, I think you've got it!
I keenly remember jealously watching my Mac fanatic roommate playing Marathon while I was playing Doom on my PC. Doom deserves to be on the list for its wide impact, but Marathon, I think, has had a far bigger impact on today's game world. It went much further in combining the puzzle and FPS aspects of gameplay, and the legacy, continued in the Halo series, is tremendous.
No, there's not. You can't reference a "pointer" in a bitwise fashion. Java doesn't have anything which is explicitly a pointer, for starters.
I'm not trolling here, but why does it seem like the buzz is often about apple products then? I don't see much about people creating art with their blackberry or their palm. Or is there a lot of this going on and I just missed it?
My take is that this is largely about "buzz" being a bit of a feedback loop. Apple has been very good about using prior buzz to create new buzz for its new products. This, in turn, has been great at driving sales to people who want the attributes being marketed (ease-of-use, rich functionality). They, in turn, create content that gets buzz (often simply for being an example of how "buzzworth product x" can be used), which helps reinforce the buzz around the product. It's possible that you could do something similar or even better on another phone, almost certainly on some other portable handheld, but those other devices didn't have the hype, so they're not in the hands of the people who might make use of what they could do. So, you don't hear about them doing "cool things" on the other devices and thus they fall further behind in the hype sweepstakes.
FWIW, we've seen this before with Google. It amazed (and annoyed) me how whenever Google came out with something new on the internet (maps, mail, customizable home pages) so many people I spoke to seemed to honestly think Google had invented those concepts. They hadn't, but, they had the buzz, so they got the mind-share.
to refrain from complaining about a kdawson post, but I saw this early this morning and thought it was cool as well. So sue me. Yes, people have been drawing on computers for a Long Time with lots of different input devices; and no, it's not the best tool (portable or otherwise) for drawing with. And I detest all the often-unmerited love that Apple gets...but this was cool, it is an example of how, even on a converged device that can't touch dedicated devices, technology has become accessible enough that people are able to do real worth with it, no matter where they are. It's similar to Chase Jarvis and his iPhone pictures. It's not the best camera, not even the best camera phone, but it's both a demonstration of how art isn't about the technology, it's about the artist; and it's a demonstration of what we could each accomplish with even these limited tools if we had the talent and discipline to use them to their fullest. It's not, to me, about it being an Apple product, it's about art, talent, and the progress of technology.
1) Well, I won't dispute about Hammurabi, I was simply responding to the GP who was using it as an example of something better than what we've got. I think what you're saying doesn't contradict my point, although I could have used Hammurabi more accurately, as you've pointed out.
2) On this, I disagree. I think that technology, in particular, makes things more complex. I agree that society in ancient times had many complexities: complex rules regarding status, religion, many customs, complex cultures. But there are a whole host of situations pertinent to law where our society is, in fact, more complex. I would say that the extra legal complexity largely is derived from the necessity to more precisely define legal terms as they relate to new technology. For example, I referred to defining "death", which is more complex than it once was due to technical advances. Or...there have been many examples on /. of the struggles in defining how to apply law to the interactions which take place on the internet. The extra complexity must be either codified in the legal code, or it will get defined by precedent; but it will have to be dealt with. Another example which is not part of the law of the land, but comes to mind is the difficulty some Jews have had with defining what "work" means wrt technology and the sabbath. There's that whole interesting (I think) aspect of "not starting a fire" and the question of whether completing an electrical circuit is proscribed or not. I know it's not applicable to most people (including me), but it is a good example of how a long-standing "simple" statement has to have its definition enhanced to cope with technological advances.
3) This is a problem I've pondered about quite a bit. I'm not sure how to deal with it. It seems that there is something inherent in the system which causes things to grow and grow. I think part of it is the human desire to stay busy, to cause change, to feel as though we've improved something. I think we do need lawmakers, but it's sort of a Faustian bargain...we have lawmakers to write laws as the need arises, but we in turn have to deal with laws we don't really need. I see this on the job as well, people rarely seem to be able to say, "You know what, I think this works well, we shouldn't change it." It's seen as more "responsible" to have a "plan" for changing things. I don't happen to think change is always such a laudable thing, but I'm not sure how you'd set up a system to discourage it a bit more. Perhaps if you set up a constitution as the foundation but then required that all laws on top of it have expiration dates and must be individually renewed. It would certainly discourage lawmakers from creating too many new laws as at some point they simply would run out of time to create new laws and renew existing laws.
You've stated a lot of things categorically, let me state one: the populace should be able to memorize and understand the principles behind the law. That's where I differ from you. I think there should be a set of simple *principles* upon which the law is founded which all people can understand. It is a mistake to conflate those principles with the law itself. The law is society's collective interpretation of those principles. I expect people to know and adhere to the principles of the law. I firmly believe that any code of laws sufficient to handle all different situations will be too lengthy for most people to memorize. However, the length off the law exists (or should exist) not to make interpretation more difficult, but to circumscribe interpretation.
The problem with your comparison between law and science is that lack of ambiguity in science comes from math. Science is mathematical. To the extent that something scientific can be described in mathematical terms, it becomes unambiguous. It is worth noting that this does not equate with "easy to understand". Yes, maybe a scientific principle can be distilled to a "simple" equation, but it is just as likely that most laypeople (the people you say should FULLY understand the law) would not be able to understand the equation or its implications.
Law, on the other hand, is verbal and conceptual. Most of the difficulty is that the actors in the law, humans, are not governed by math equations. Perhaps using symbolic maths you could come up with a mathematical representation of law, but the ability to represent that in verbal terms that most people can understand would probably be fraught with difficulty. Just look at how long the descriptions are of even simple equations in physics texts. If, however, you confine yourself to natural language, you require interpretation. You might want to believe that no interpretation would be necessary, but I assure that people would find ways to come to differences of opinion about what the law was actually saying. Many people would, in fact, be strongly motivated to do so. Someone would have to arbitrate about whose opinion of the law was correct. That could be a judge, it could be a jury, but someone would be interpreting. Language is open to interpretation. People can't even agree on what it means to be alive (conception? birth?) or dead (brain death? vegetative state? no ability to support bodily functions?). How can you possibly expect to define a simple set of laws which requires no interpretation? Just because you define "death" as X doesn't make it so. Reasonable people can disagree about that. The law, however, ought to specify, otherwise there will be ambiguity about whether someone has "killed" or merely "seriously injured" someone else.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks.
Look, I appreciate that this seems like common sense, but as someone else pointed out, you end up with at least one of two problems. First, people don't like hard-and-fast "zero-tolerance" rules. They tend to think they are unjust. A simple "Do not kill" *seems* clear...and yet, you have a) is it okay to kill in self-defense? b) is it okay to kill to protect others? and for both a) & b): what are the circumstances which justify lethal action, is it only protecting from imminent death? etc. You write fairly intelligently, so I'm sure you can extrapolate the many questions people might ask about "Do not kill". Either you a) put lots of power to *interpret* the simple "Do not kill" statute in the hands of, say, the court, or b) you write longer laws to more precisely specify what exactly we want. But...the longer law might end up requiring someone trained in the law to understand all the different exceptions and conditions.
The second, related problem is the ambiguity of language. How do I determine someone has violated "Do not kill"? Do they have to have killed someone with their own hands? How about if they cause an avalanche which kills someone? If they put poison in the water? How about if they put poison in the water as part of poor waste disposal in their job at a company? Or as I suggested in the "self-defense" exception...what does "self-defense" mean? How can we more precisely specify the conditions which constitute self defense?
You, or maybe someone else, might say in response to this, "The hell with writing all these exclusions, stick with the basic 'Do not kill' and have done. We don't need to make the laws so complex they need interpretation." But the truth is, they always need interpretation by *someone*. Simple statements are, in fact, not precise. And whoever is responsible for administering the law has to determine what the statement means (aka, *interpret* the law). If we, as society, do not specify precisely what we believe is correct, we are apt to have people interpret the law in ways we do not agree with.
The fact of the matter is that modern society is complex. That complexity is, generally, seen as a good thing. We have a plethora of jobs, technologies, industries, means of transportation, foods, you-name-it. The society of Hammurabi was vastly simpler. There were fewer different types of interactions to govern. A simple situation with few interactions can be dealt with by simple rules. More complex situations and interactions require more complex rules. It's simply impractical to expect that modern society, with all its complexities, could be governed by a set of rules which everyone is capable of memorizing. If we want to go back to a primarily agrarian society, if we want to do away with all our extra "stuff", fine, we can go back to a simpler set of rules. But I do not think that is the direction society wants to go.
FWIW, I do think there are certainly aspects of the law which end up becoming overly complex. And it is always good to look to simplify where it makes sense. However, I, for one, would much rather have a larger body of law which more precisely spells out my rights and responsibilities than a small body of law which entirely cedes that judgment to the administrators of the law.
This. I love that there are plugins which allow you to select alternate tab topologies. Tab-mix plus does a great job with the "traditional" tabs, and other plugins allow you to organize yourself in other ways. If they want to provide more flexibility, simply look to incorporate some of those plugins into the browser and provide simple configuration for users to pick which style works best for them.
I completely agree. I will go down a web page full of links (like, say, my homepage; or a page of search results), pop each one that piques my interest into a tab, then go through the 10 or 20 resulting tabs, read each tab, close it, move on. i would absolutely abhor having to try to do with multiple windows, it would be exceedingly cumbersome. 20+ sessions isn't difficult at all if you use, say, tab mix plus and have the tabs nicely flow into multiple rows with decent minimum sizes.
You seem to have drunk the kool-aid about Catholics not being Christian. I *could* take the opposite position, that most right-wing "Christians" in the USA aren't Christians because they often support war and capitol punishment. Or I could ask why people don't say Christian when speaking about Catholics, and [insert sect name] when speaking about non-Catholics. But I think it's a silly thing to start playing the "you're not a Christian" game. I think it's more correct to take the position that if someone self-identifies as Christian that they are. Labels can be applied to help categorize their theology (baptist, catholic, orthodox), but those labels are ALL labels for Christian theologies. So, it's not "Catholic" vs "Christian", it's "Catholic Christian", "Baptist Christian", "Orthodox Christian", etc. Those various sects will inherently disagree about who has a better handle on "The Truth", but saying any one of them isn't Christian is irrational, inflammatory, and inaccurate. FWIW, I'm not nor have I ever been Catholic, but I do think this whole "Catholics aren't Christians" thing is complete sectarian, petty rubbish.
A statement as broad as yours requires more than a couple of anecdotal links to back it up. All your links prove is that *some* Protestants don't believe Catholics are Christians. You imply it's the general rule, which I'll be generous and assume means a simple majority. FYI, I've also attended well over a dozen churches across the spectrum on a regular basis over the years. I would agree that some of the fundamentalist Protestants might believe a statement as strongly worded as that. However, I suspect even in those communities that if you gave them a choice between "Catholics aren't Christian" and "Catholics have lots of wrong beliefs but are Christians if they believe Jesus is Lord" you'd get a lot of people picking the second statement. That said, it would be a mistake to assume that Protestants are "generally" fundamentalist, there are a *lot* of mainstream Protestant denominations across the world which get along just fine with Catholics.
Call you paranoid? Gladly. By "something else", you of course mean the "browser history", if you read what you responded to. If you don't like that your "surfing habits" are being "tracked" then turn off the browser history. ABP wouldn't be "tracking" your habits, it'd simply be looking at the "tracking" data stored on your computer by your browser and doing some simple addition.
But does that include updates? It certainly includes the same person downloading it across multiple computers, or when upgrading to a new computer. I'd rather suspect it includes updates, which means the actual growth rate is not +800k/week. When ABP pushes a new version, I personally account for 4 of those, my wife for another 2. That's for every new patch. I have other accounts which would, when I use them, account for another 7 or 8 downloads. Computing actual humans from download stats is a terribly tricky thing....