You shouldn't ask users about UI's. You should just ask them what it is that they need to do. Workflow and business logic. Implement that, then you can tweak layouts and other minor stuff with user input.
The big reason why most babies (in the US) need to be taught how to use a nipple is because they are drugged in utero during the birth, and are separated from their mother too soon after the birth. The standard birthing process that most woman and babies are subjected to (in the US) is every bit as poorly designed as the example house in TFA.
I've always thought Frank Lloyd Wright was overrated. I especially dislike Fallingwater as it ruined a perfectly good naturally beautiful waterfall by putting a boxy concrete monstrosity over it.
Maybe because it seems like so much of what he built values form over function.
As I pointed out in another comment to another story, among software developers the standard wisdom is, "Get in bed with Microsoft, and expect to get screwed." They have repeatedly managed to extract whatever they want from collaborations or licenses and left the other party wondering how it is that they got nothing.
I used to browse at -1 until the spammers made it hard to get through the good stuff in a reasonable time. I started reading at 0. But then this latest crap spammer started copying crap from one thread into another, it wasn't getting modded down, and it was taking too much mental processing separating the copied crap from legitimate replies. So now I'm reading at 1.
There is a lot of controversy over having students compose text on a word processor equipped with spell check. Some feel that it lets students be lazy and not learn correct spellings. But the reality is that the best way to teach is to provide instant correction of mistakes, and that is what instant spell check does. Research shows that students who are allowed word processors with instant spell check turned on become better spellers than those who are not allowed spell check. At my kids' school, spelling lessons given by the teacher are focussed on those words that spell check will not catch, such as "two", "too", and "to".
Of course the difference with calculators is that they don't necessarily provide instant correction of work the student does like a spell checker does. But used in an educational setting correctly, they can be used by a student to provide very fast feedback to work the student is doing. The student doesn't have to hand in homework, and then wait for it to come back from the teacher. Used like this, a calculator can be a very powerful educational tool.
The fact that calculators are dumb machines and will just do what you tell it to, even if you push the wrong buttons is a big reason why you need to have a good mental facility with the underlying math. You need to be able to tell when the calculator is giving a bogus answer because you possibly fat fingered a button.
And then there's some kids who will learn math from calculators. My son memorized most of the addition and subtraction "tables" before he started kindergarten by playing with my calculator. He groks math very well, and after I have explained some concept to him, such as multiplication, decimals, or prime numbers, he will demand the calculator so that he can play with the concept in a rapid fire manner. I'm not inclined to force him to wait to play with higher math until his handwriting improves or he develops fast mental arithmetic skills. I remember being forced into that when I went to school, and for some kids, the "natural developmental progression" isn't very natural at all.
I understand that the way I do things isn't available to most people, but I don't check gmail on any computer that isn't under my control.
You can POP your email off gmail, and you can delete things, so if you want, you can implement the "only the latest email on the Web server" idea if you like.
I mostly like the fact that I can access gmail from anywhere. That way I don't have to boot a kid from the one computer that has my email on it, I can just use another one.
I don't think it's evil. I know a lot of people who hold IP, and if they could, they wouldn't mind most of the infringing uses. Unfortunately, our legal system says that if you don't defend your IP, then you lose it, and losing it usually means that some rapacious evildoer manages to find a way to rook you out of what should be yours. In some cases, the IP holders just ask that you write and ask permission, that's all, then nobody needs to get into take down notices.
But being polite goes a long way in my book. Nothing says a take down notice can't be nice and polite.
All you people who claim to use Google umpteen thousand times a day are liars, as evidenced by the fact that nobody has mentioned that Google appears to be doing a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright today.
I've already used Google about half dozen times today and I'm just now having breakfast.
Being more intelligent is not necessarily "superior" any more than being taller/shorter or having a lighter/darker skin is.
As an example, there is an article the Life Hacks column of the first issue of Make magazine about "yak shaving" or the tendency to get pulled off track. An illustrative excerpt:
When you have a Swiss Army knife of a mind, everything looks like it should be dismantled.
Other people... don't have this problem. Much of the world, to them, is locked up, nailed to the floor, not something they can do much about. They navigate around mountains, rather than invent a new sort of crampon.
Being able to see a ton of possibilities can oftentimes be paralyzing, while those who see only a few pick one and get on with their lives.
I think the answer lies in any society having a range of intelligence (whatever you define that to be), and valuing that diversity. Having a lot more intelligence than is necessary to get the job at hand done is often a detriment, not a bonus. To use A Bug's Life analogy, having a few Fliks around is good, but if everybody is a Flik, the colony isn't likely to gather enough food to last the winter.
Except that the authors showed mechanisms whereby the genes that cause these diseases could also cause increased intelligence. The sphingolipid cluster has a side effect of promoting axonal growth and branching as well as dendritogenesis. The DNA repair cluster are involved in regulating the proliferation of neurons during fetal development.
The authors also addressed the "bottleneck" theory (a group of people who had genes for these diseases just happened to survive by chance). This is the leading theory today as to why Ashkenazik Jews have such a high prevalence of numerous genetic diseases. In my opinion, they did a very good job of disproving that theory. Bottlenecks lead to severe decreases in genetic variability, and they demonstrate that Ashkenazik Jews are similar in variability to other populations including Europeans in general.
Here is my summary of the paper.
They demonstrate evidence that: 1) Ashkenazik Jews have higher IQ's as a group, but only in the mathematical and verbal subportions of IQ tests. They score lower than average on the visuospatial portions. This difference may be disappearing in recent times. 2) Post-Diaspora Jews were often persecuted and restricted to occupations that the majority (whether Christian or Islam) wouldn't do. In Christian lands, this included lending money for interest, whereas in Islamic areas, this avenue wasn't available, and only the most menial jobs were available to Jews there. 3) A very high percentage (up to 85 percent of adult males) were involved in a very narrow occupation range, mainly that of moneylender or other occupation that involved complex transactions involving money. 4) Those of higher intelligence got richer in these narrow range of occupations. 5) The richer you were the more children survived to adulthood. 6) Ashkenazik Jews were genetically isolated from the surrounding population by self selection. 7) Many of the genetic diseases that are at high incidence among Ashkenazik Jews cluster into only a few "types". 8) Two of these "types" (the sphingolipid storage type and the DNA repair type) are known to have positive effects on neural proliferation and growth.
Thus their conclusion is that these genetic mutations increase intelligence and the situation with Ashkenazik Jews is that the selective pressure towards intelligence was more than enough to outweigh the deleterious effect that these genes have on fitness otherwise. They suggest as a test for their theory, within Ashkenazik populations, heterozygotes for these genes should show increased intelligence relative to those who are not carriers.
It bothers me somewhat that this paper comes out of a Department of Anthropology. When addressing genetics, the quality of researchers in this area can be very widespread. However, I don't see that they have made any errors with respect to the genetics or the neurobiological aspects. It is very common to see in populations that a strong selective pressure at first yields mutations that are negative in some other way, but whose benefit outweighs the negative aspects. Subsequent selection yields compensating mutations (typically in other genes) that temper or eliminate the negative aspects.
In this case, the selection pressure has been removed, Jews are no longer restricted in their choice of profession, so it is likely that the negative aspects of these genes will push back and their incidence among Ashkenazik Jews will diminish, especially if carriers of the most devastating genes (such as Tay-Sachs) choose not to have children at all or fewer of them (such as couples who are both carriers and who have one healthy child deciding not to push the odds with more).
I find it interesting that because of the need for social and verbal ability among financiers, the other sorts of genes related to autism that also often increase intelligence weren't selected for among Ashkenazik Jews.
The thing is that intelligence is not a single dimensional quantity like height is. We pretend it is by assigning an IQ value to some measurement of it, but even scientists who study it will tell you that a major problem in the field is a lack of understanding of just what intelligence is.
They used to carry the print heads in stores, but I just had to replace one on a printer that hadn't been used in a long time, and had to order it, although you can get it from third parties. On this printer (a BJC-6000), the black and color print heads are separate, I had to replace the black one and it was about $35 (inksite.com). Retail stores don't carry them because they are very infrequent purchases.
Depends on your point of view. I've quoted the "exception" below. It allows developers to distribute versions that are linked to non-GPL code as long as those links use approved interfaces. Developers who modify the GPL code are not required to continue the exception in the code they release. I'd put it in the decidedly non-evil camp, but GPL hardliners may view it as evil.
In addition, as a special exception, Red Hat, Inc. gives You the additional right to link the code of this Program with code not covered under the GNU General Public License ("Non-GPL Code") and to distribute linked combinations including the two, subject to the limitations in this paragraph. Non-GPL Code permitted under this exception must only link to the code of this Program through those well defined interfaces identified in the file named EXCEPTION found in the source code files (the "Approved Interfaces"). The files of Non-GPL Code may instantiate templates or use macros or inline functions from the Approved Interfaces without causing the resulting work to be covered by the GNU General Public License. Only Red Hat, Inc. may make changes or additions to the list of Approved Interfaces. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the Program code and other code used in conjunction with the Program except the Non-GPL Code covered by this exception. If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to provide this exception without modification, you must delete this exception statement from your version and license this file solely under the GPL without exception.
It might not produce the effect you expect on women who have breastfed their children for a year or more. If they are currently breastfeeding, the oxytocin will cause the milk to come down, and even if her kids have been weaned for years, she's likely to feel the muscle contractions that would bring the milk down.
I could see this leading to unscrupulous people trying to target nursing mothers and encouraging them to nurse while they try to work on them, because that is a huge shot of endogenous oxytocin right there.
Hah! I've never been able to get a cheaper price on Priceline than I could by booking straight from the airline. I wondered how Priceline could stay in business that way, and I guess now I know.
Yeah, but how can you spoof if you are the recipient? Senders can spoof with UDP, but it's hard to receive a UDP packet if it wasn't addressed to you. Not to mention that a sender that is spoofing has no way of finding out if any packets got lost.
Well, I looked at those other comics, and I disagree. I suppose you have to have lived the life of a sysadmin (down, not across) to get the most out of UF, but it is funny. A lot of those comics are heavily targetted at gamers, and while I enjoy games, I'm not that heavily into it.
Slashdot Mirror
You shouldn't ask users about UI's. You should just ask them what it is that they need to do. Workflow and business logic. Implement that, then you can tweak layouts and other minor stuff with user input.
The big reason why most babies (in the US) need to be taught how to use a nipple is because they are drugged in utero during the birth, and are separated from their mother too soon after the birth. The standard birthing process that most woman and babies are subjected to (in the US) is every bit as poorly designed as the example house in TFA.
There are hinges that allow outward opening of doors without exposing the pins on the outside.
I've always thought Frank Lloyd Wright was overrated. I especially dislike Fallingwater as it ruined a perfectly good naturally beautiful waterfall by putting a boxy concrete monstrosity over it.
Maybe because it seems like so much of what he built values form over function.
As I pointed out in another comment to another story, among software developers the standard wisdom is, "Get in bed with Microsoft, and expect to get screwed." They have repeatedly managed to extract whatever they want from collaborations or licenses and left the other party wondering how it is that they got nothing.
"Get in bed with Microsoft, expect to get screwed."
I used to browse at -1 until the spammers made it hard to get through the good stuff in a reasonable time. I started reading at 0. But then this latest crap spammer started copying crap from one thread into another, it wasn't getting modded down, and it was taking too much mental processing separating the copied crap from legitimate replies. So now I'm reading at 1.
There is a lot of controversy over having students compose text on a word processor equipped with spell check. Some feel that it lets students be lazy and not learn correct spellings. But the reality is that the best way to teach is to provide instant correction of mistakes, and that is what instant spell check does. Research shows that students who are allowed word processors with instant spell check turned on become better spellers than those who are not allowed spell check. At my kids' school, spelling lessons given by the teacher are focussed on those words that spell check will not catch, such as "two", "too", and "to".
Of course the difference with calculators is that they don't necessarily provide instant correction of work the student does like a spell checker does. But used in an educational setting correctly, they can be used by a student to provide very fast feedback to work the student is doing. The student doesn't have to hand in homework, and then wait for it to come back from the teacher. Used like this, a calculator can be a very powerful educational tool.
The fact that calculators are dumb machines and will just do what you tell it to, even if you push the wrong buttons is a big reason why you need to have a good mental facility with the underlying math. You need to be able to tell when the calculator is giving a bogus answer because you possibly fat fingered a button.
And then there's some kids who will learn math from calculators. My son memorized most of the addition and subtraction "tables" before he started kindergarten by playing with my calculator. He groks math very well, and after I have explained some concept to him, such as multiplication, decimals, or prime numbers, he will demand the calculator so that he can play with the concept in a rapid fire manner. I'm not inclined to force him to wait to play with higher math until his handwriting improves or he develops fast mental arithmetic skills. I remember being forced into that when I went to school, and for some kids, the "natural developmental progression" isn't very natural at all.
I understand that the way I do things isn't available to most people, but I don't check gmail on any computer that isn't under my control.
You can POP your email off gmail, and you can delete things, so if you want, you can implement the "only the latest email on the Web server" idea if you like.
Heh, I do store low value passwords in gmail.
I mostly like the fact that I can access gmail from anywhere. That way I don't have to boot a kid from the one computer that has my email on it, I can just use another one.
I don't think it's evil. I know a lot of people who hold IP, and if they could, they wouldn't mind most of the infringing uses. Unfortunately, our legal system says that if you don't defend your IP, then you lose it, and losing it usually means that some rapacious evildoer manages to find a way to rook you out of what should be yours. In some cases, the IP holders just ask that you write and ask permission, that's all, then nobody needs to get into take down notices.
But being polite goes a long way in my book. Nothing says a take down notice can't be nice and polite.
Hmm... the article was submitted by jefp, and from the website: © 2005 by Jef Poskanzer. You don't suppose they could be the same person, hmm?
So do I, but you still end up on a page with a FLW'ized logo.
All you people who claim to use Google umpteen thousand times a day are liars, as evidenced by the fact that nobody has mentioned that Google appears to be doing a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright today.
I've already used Google about half dozen times today and I'm just now having breakfast.
Being more intelligent is not necessarily "superior" any more than being taller/shorter or having a lighter/darker skin is.
As an example, there is an article the Life Hacks column of the first issue of Make magazine about "yak shaving" or the tendency to get pulled off track. An illustrative excerpt:
When you have a Swiss Army knife of a mind, everything looks like it should be dismantled.
Other people... don't have this problem. Much of the world, to them, is locked up, nailed to the floor, not something they can do much about. They navigate around mountains, rather than invent a new sort of crampon.
Being able to see a ton of possibilities can oftentimes be paralyzing, while those who see only a few pick one and get on with their lives.
I think the answer lies in any society having a range of intelligence (whatever you define that to be), and valuing that diversity. Having a lot more intelligence than is necessary to get the job at hand done is often a detriment, not a bonus. To use A Bug's Life analogy, having a few Fliks around is good, but if everybody is a Flik, the colony isn't likely to gather enough food to last the winter.
Except that the authors showed mechanisms whereby the genes that cause these diseases could also cause increased intelligence. The sphingolipid cluster has a side effect of promoting axonal growth and branching as well as dendritogenesis. The DNA repair cluster are involved in regulating the proliferation of neurons during fetal development.
The authors also addressed the "bottleneck" theory (a group of people who had genes for these diseases just happened to survive by chance). This is the leading theory today as to why Ashkenazik Jews have such a high prevalence of numerous genetic diseases. In my opinion, they did a very good job of disproving that theory. Bottlenecks lead to severe decreases in genetic variability, and they demonstrate that Ashkenazik Jews are similar in variability to other populations including Europeans in general.
Here is my summary of the paper.
They demonstrate evidence that:
1) Ashkenazik Jews have higher IQ's as a group, but only in the mathematical and verbal subportions of IQ tests. They score lower than average on the visuospatial portions. This difference may be disappearing in recent times.
2) Post-Diaspora Jews were often persecuted and restricted to occupations that the majority (whether Christian or Islam) wouldn't do. In Christian lands, this included lending money for interest, whereas in Islamic areas, this avenue wasn't available, and only the most menial jobs were available to Jews there.
3) A very high percentage (up to 85 percent of adult males) were involved in a very narrow occupation range, mainly that of moneylender or other occupation that involved complex transactions involving money.
4) Those of higher intelligence got richer in these narrow range of occupations.
5) The richer you were the more children survived to adulthood.
6) Ashkenazik Jews were genetically isolated from the surrounding population by self selection.
7) Many of the genetic diseases that are at high incidence among Ashkenazik Jews cluster into only a few "types".
8) Two of these "types" (the sphingolipid storage type and the DNA repair type) are known to have positive effects on neural proliferation and growth.
Thus their conclusion is that these genetic mutations increase intelligence and the situation with Ashkenazik Jews is that the selective pressure towards intelligence was more than enough to outweigh the deleterious effect that these genes have on fitness otherwise. They suggest as a test for their theory, within Ashkenazik populations, heterozygotes for these genes should show increased intelligence relative to those who are not carriers.
It bothers me somewhat that this paper comes out of a Department of Anthropology. When addressing genetics, the quality of researchers in this area can be very widespread. However, I don't see that they have made any errors with respect to the genetics or the neurobiological aspects. It is very common to see in populations that a strong selective pressure at first yields mutations that are negative in some other way, but whose benefit outweighs the negative aspects. Subsequent selection yields compensating mutations (typically in other genes) that temper or eliminate the negative aspects.
In this case, the selection pressure has been removed, Jews are no longer restricted in their choice of profession, so it is likely that the negative aspects of these genes will push back and their incidence among Ashkenazik Jews will diminish, especially if carriers of the most devastating genes (such as Tay-Sachs) choose not to have children at all or fewer of them (such as couples who are both carriers and who have one healthy child deciding not to push the odds with more).
I find it interesting that because of the need for social and verbal ability among financiers, the other sorts of genes related to autism that also often increase intelligence weren't selected for among Ashkenazik Jews.
The thing is that intelligence is not a single dimensional quantity like height is. We pretend it is by assigning an IQ value to some measurement of it, but even scientists who study it will tell you that a major problem in the field is a lack of understanding of just what intelligence is.
They used to carry the print heads in stores, but I just had to replace one on a printer that hadn't been used in a long time, and had to order it, although you can get it from third parties. On this printer (a BJC-6000), the black and color print heads are separate, I had to replace the black one and it was about $35 (inksite.com). Retail stores don't carry them because they are very infrequent purchases.
I like Canons for that reason too.
I know of a place that uses an internal IRC server for collaborative discussions.
Depends on your point of view. I've quoted the "exception" below. It allows developers to distribute versions that are linked to non-GPL code as long as those links use approved interfaces. Developers who modify the GPL code are not required to continue the exception in the code they release. I'd put it in the decidedly non-evil camp, but GPL hardliners may view it as evil.
In addition, as a special exception, Red Hat, Inc. gives You the additional right to link the code of this Program with code not covered under the GNU General Public License ("Non-GPL Code") and to distribute linked combinations including the two, subject to the limitations in this paragraph. Non-GPL Code permitted under this exception must only link to the code of this Program through those well defined interfaces identified in the file named EXCEPTION found in the source code files (the "Approved Interfaces"). The files of Non-GPL Code may instantiate templates or use macros or inline functions from the Approved Interfaces without causing the resulting work to be covered by the GNU General Public License. Only Red Hat, Inc. may make changes or additions to the list of Approved Interfaces. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the Program code and other code used in conjunction with the Program except the Non-GPL Code covered by this exception. If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to provide this exception without modification, you must delete this exception statement from your version and license this file solely under the GPL without exception.
It might not produce the effect you expect on women who have breastfed their children for a year or more. If they are currently breastfeeding, the oxytocin will cause the milk to come down, and even if her kids have been weaned for years, she's likely to feel the muscle contractions that would bring the milk down.
I could see this leading to unscrupulous people trying to target nursing mothers and encouraging them to nurse while they try to work on them, because that is a huge shot of endogenous oxytocin right there.
Hah! I've never been able to get a cheaper price on Priceline than I could by booking straight from the airline. I wondered how Priceline could stay in business that way, and I guess now I know.
Yeah, but how can you spoof if you are the recipient? Senders can spoof with UDP, but it's hard to receive a UDP packet if it wasn't addressed to you. Not to mention that a sender that is spoofing has no way of finding out if any packets got lost.
Well, I looked at those other comics, and I disagree. I suppose you have to have lived the life of a sysadmin (down, not across) to get the most out of UF, but it is funny. A lot of those comics are heavily targetted at gamers, and while I enjoy games, I'm not that heavily into it.