I think it's very difficult to create a randomly generated world or universe that's actually interesting to explore, because human brains are extremely good at recognizing patterns, and people start seeing those same patterns everywhere you go in that universe. The randomly generated universe created an excellent setting for a game, but I don't think that by itself was meaty enough as a game mechanic to keep people satisfied.
You can contrast this experience with Diablo I & II, where exploring a randomly generated world and fighting randomly generated enemies was the foundation of those games, but Blizzard understood that this wasn't enough by itself. Even though I'm an explorer archetype, exploration without a real goal or driving force still gets a bit boring after a while. You need layered mechanics, such as addictive loot collection or an engaging story to help complement the weaker exploration aspect.
The computer doesn't know or care who its users are - you're just a username and password. If you don't mind security, sooner or later, some hacker will be its user, not you.
It won't help in many cases, as I think you hit upon the real problem when talking about Sony execs. The weak point is *users*, not technology. We were to switch to OpenBSD tomorrow, we'd bring the idiot users along, who would happily allow a social engineering attack to compromise their system, or who insist on policies that, for convenience, ego, laziness, costs, whatever... fatally compromise their network. The DNC lost control of a Gmail account not through some masterful OS or network-level hack, but by using some simple social engineering to capture credentials, acquired through a spearphishing attack.
I wouldn't be surprised if this attack originated internally from a contractor or employee that was compromised, and had jack-all to do with the system's end-user-facing security itself, and will probably reveal lax or non-existent security policies internally. No system is secure when the malware has proper authentication. We really have no information yet, so it's hard to say.
Don't worry, it's not just you. Slashdot seems to be filled with mods anxious to silence those they disagree with.
For what it's worth, I do happen to agree with you about No Man's Sky. Too little, too late. Hello Games have already been exposed as liars. And the gameplay is still going to be shallow and repetitive. A few extra features won't make up for that. I was really excited about the game too, as I'm definitely an "explorer" type gamer.
Yep, true. We still do call ourselves a republic on occasion, but it seems a bit more anachronistic these days.
I think it's perhaps because nearly all modern democratic states are actually representative democracies (republics), with various relatively minor flavors among them (such as the differences between the US and UK). Given that *every* modern democratic state is actually a republic, there's less reason to make a distinction between the two in casual speech. Or, to put it another way, since a direct democracy is largely theoretical these days, it's fallen out of the public awareness and speech.
Another possible reason "republic" has fallen out of favor is that the term has been widely used in the title of countries with dictatorial or repressive regimes, and so we're perhaps not as eager to use the same term. I mean, we've coined the phrase "banana republic" to describe this phenomenon among many of our smaller southern neighbors.
Typesetting and printing was quite time-consuming and expensive before the age of personal computers and "desktop publishing." It would generally only be done when the cost of the initial setup would be offset by the ability to print a reasonably large run of high quality documents, like books or leaflets. An internal memo (or frankly, *any* internal office document) would not be a candidate for this, as it would be a one-off document. It would certainly just be typed, and copies would be made if needed. A typical office wouldn't even have the equipment necessary to actually typeset and print documents.
So, in short, it's not very realistic that a memo would be typeset and printed.
Just what do you think Microsoft used as a basis for its default font and spacing?
Microsoft used TrueType fonts, which had kerning compatible with earlier Linotype systems, something those 1970s typewriters did not use. From Wikipedia again:
As Phinney explained, the letterspacing of the Times New Roman font used by Microsoft Word with a modern personal computer and printer employs a system of 18 units relative to the letter height (em), with common characters being 5 to 17 units wide. (The technology allows even finer variability of character widths, but the 18 unit system was chosen for compatibility with the Linotype phototypesetting and earlier hot-metal versions of the font.) In contrast, the variability of character widths available on early 1970s typewriters using proportional letterspacing was more limited, due to the mechanical technology employed. The most sophisticated of these machines, the IBM Selectric Composer, used a system of 9 units relative to the letter height, in which all characters were 3 to 9 units wide. Less complex machines used fewer widths.
Differences in individual character widths accumulate over the length of a line, so that comparatively small differences would become readily apparent. Because of the differing character widths employed, the letterspacing exhibited by the Killian documents (matching that produced by a modern computer and printer) could not have been produced with a mechanical typewriter using proportional letterspacing in the early 1970s. At the time the documents were purportedly created, the matching letterspacing could only have been produced using phototypesetting or hot-metal printing. Since it is not a realistic possibility that Killian would have had these documents printed, Phinney concluded that they are almost certainly modern forgeries.
It's not just that the "documents can't be authenticated." There's essentially a near-zero chance these could have been written on 1970s typewriters at the Texas Air National Guard offices, as claimed. And that doesn't even account for all the inconsistencies in the memo's content.
Nope, not even remotely. It's been confirmed by those who worked at the Texas Air National Guard during that period that they did not use typewriters which could possibly reproduce the proportional fonts and superscripts in that memo, nor that they typed the memo in question. And are you really trying to tell me that you believe it's even remotely plausible that a memo typed in 1972 would just happen to match up with the default MS Word 2003 fonts and spacing?
Please. It was nothing more than a amateurish attempt at a forgery for rather obvious political purposes. There are other serious inconsistencies, such as the use of acronyms that were not in use at the time, incorrect use of IDs vs SSNs, as well as numerous other issues. Hell, even the CBS review panel eventually concluded the documents were not authentic.
This is the point where you need to listen to the wisdom of Occam's razor, not dream up some implausible explanation, simply because you want it to be true.
The term "Democracy" is an umbrella term that represents all systems of "rule by the people", including representative democracies like ours (also known as a republic). While its true that our founding fathers tended to mean "direct democracy" when speaking of "democracy", that's no longer the case. From Wikipedia:
The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticised democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy, often without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights
But, as we all know, language changes over time. It's worthwhile to understand the history of these terms, but really, you're pissing against the wind if you think people are not going to continue to call our government a "democracy". According to Google:
democracy dmäkrs/ noun noun: democracy
a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
This "fake news" is a backlash from the mainstream media that realized that they don't actually *control* alternate media sources, and it terrifies them. Because, after all, those who haven't gone through journalism school and don't work for a real new organization can't possibly take their place in shaping the perceptions of the American public. This is about institutions collectively panicking over lost power and influence, and trying to find someone to blame. It's not that "fake news" doesn't exist, or that it's somehow new (hello National Enquirer), but given that the mainstream media outlets have been solidly pushing for Clinton for the last half year, it's not surprising they'd see this as some sort of watershed moment, and look for a reason that they couldn't convince the American people who they should obviously have been voting for.
In reality, the mainstream media has disenfranchised a large percentage of the population long ago. They're just now realizing that something is very wrong, but as is typical of human nature, it's much easier to find some external boogeyman than to look inward at what they could be doing to regaine people's trust.
Correct. That's just "Feedback frequency". You can't opt-out of telemetry completely, according to their own settings. You can only set "Diagnostics and usage data" to "Full (recommended)", "Enhanced", or "Basic."
This is the part that really bothers me. I'm completely fine with whatever default settings there are, but users should be able to turn it off. It wouldn't have even hurt Microsoft, since most people wouldn't have bothered, but instead they feel the need to force some minimal levels of data collection on everyone.
I expect that they will introduce a subscription model next (they wanted to do this fore Windows 7, IIRC, but was axed because they Ballmer didn't have to cojones to pull it off), or an a la carte Windows licensing model, where you only pay for the features you want (which sounds great in theory, but only means that you'll end up paying 3x more for the feature you already have now).
Uh, no, Microsoft just realized that:
a) PCs are a declining market b) PCs remain viable far longer than they used to c) Very few Windows users upgrade their OS - they "upgrade" when they buy a new computer d) The world is going mobile, multi-platform, and cloud-based
All this means that it's better for MS to just sell (it's no longer free, in case you forgot) one perpetually-updating version of Windows to reduce long-term support commitments, and to encourage as many people as possible to get on board. Windows is now just another platform for their subscription services. But the subscription service is NOT Windows. Instead, you have Office 365, Azure cloud services, Xbox Gold, MSDN, Solitaire Games (seriously?), and so on, and of course, they make money with Windows Store purchases.
The big danger with this, as people rightly point out, that Windows users stop being Microsoft's customers and are instead a captive marketing audience at best, and a product at worst. Thus, decisions like these.
The dairy industry is already highly automated. The modern cow carousel was originally designed in the 1930s, so this isn't anything new. Nowadays, with robotics systems, you don't even need humans to hook the cows up for milking.
So, while I agree that managing animals will always require some human interaction and supervision, the day to day operations are becoming more and more automated. It's no different than other farming operations, letting fewer farmers produce more for less.
One thing that Republicans/Conservatives (speaking as one myself) need to do better is recognized that racism still actually exists, but may not be typically seen by most white people. I heard the lone black Republican senator was pulled over seven times in a year. He admitted a couple of those were for speeding, but others seemed to be for trivial matters, or nothing at all.
Scott went on to describe a time an officer pulled him over and began questioning if the car he was driving was stolen. "An officer pulls me into the median and starts telling me that he thinks perhaps the car is stolen. Well, I started to ask myself because I was smart enough not to ask him, asking myself, is the license plate coming in as stolen? Does the license plate match the car? I was looking for some rational reason that may have prompted him to stopping me on the side of the road."
It's unfortunate that the movement got started on a very questionable incident, in which it became apparent that the police did nothing wrong, because it gave the political opposition a reason to disbelieve the rest of the story. That shows the damage that "fake news" can do.
The question is, at what point is it 'fully automated' and at what point is our entire food chain being run by a singularity (is there a difference?).
Yes, I think there's a difference. You need a lot of advanced robotics and mechanical systems in place, but the control mechanisms don't need to be "intelligent" (if that's what you mean by a "singularity"). They just need to know enough to run the machines and tend to the crops. Those systems will be very specialized, and will in turn need human specialists to manage them. And when those systems need maintenance or repairing, it's still going to be a person that does it, albeit with a lot of sophisticated hardware and software at their disposal.
I'd describe his or her behavior as "unethical", as s/he's defrauding people for money, and directly helping equally unethical businesses sell their wares on false pretenses. On the other hand, it could be worse. She could be a lawyer, I suppose.
In all candor, I hope she quits before she's caught and sued by Amazon. I don't wish that on anyone, but as a heavy user of Amazon that relies on product reviews to help me make good purchases, I wouldn't shed tears were that to happen. After all, as you said elsewhere, she's an adult, and can make her own decisions, good or bad.
I'd have thought so too. But apparently, some fake reviewers buy the products, then return them to the sellers for a refund, plus the fee for the glowing review. It certainly adds a significant shipping cost to the price of each fake review, which is a good thing I guess, but it doesn't completely stop them.
They know when they've actually processed a sale of the item to the person writing the review, i.e. a "verified purchaser", and what that person paid. They ought to provide a way to filter reviews so that one can choose to see only reviews/ratings from verified purchasers.
From what I've heard, fake reviewers often ARE verified purchasers. They work out deals to buy the products, then return them to the seller for a refund.
Reddit isn't some highly respected debate forum that claims to be totally non partisan and allow absolutely any content.
True, but Reddit has no value or purpose in life other than for people to go online and post messages. The Reddit CEO showed incredibly poor judgement, and what the heck do companies pay CEOs six or seven figure salaries for if not for their good judgement?
So... a firing offense? Let's just put it this way: If I posted unauthorized comments about the online game I worked on, let alone editing other users' posts, at the minimum I'd be reprimanded, and I might very well get fired. Were I on the Reddit board, I'd have to consider his continued employment very carefully. If he's doing great work as a CEO, this might be overlooked. If he was performing marginally, this might be the excuse to replace him.
Paper is certainly better than any currently used electronic method, but it seems like we could do better than that. I'd like to see someone investigate the idea of using blockchain technology to create a read-only database of the election results. The entire point of a blockchain is to create a cryptographically signed set of transactions which can't be altered without compromising the database. Banks are investing in this technology, where trillions of dollars are at stake, and in which every penny must be accounted for. Why not voting data as well?
This doesn't preclude the paper ballot backup as well, which I'd also agree is important. Computers are too easy to compromise, so I'd say filling out a paper ballot and having a locked down system scan it would be best. You then have the original form, as well as the convenience of computers to count the data, and finally, the blockchain to ensure no tampering of the digital database.
Are there any obvious downsides I'm missing? We'd need to ensure privacy, but I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. And done correctly, you could even build a verification system for people to check and make sure their individual votes were cast and tallied properly.
Hey, leave Limbo out of this, as that was an awesome game!
But yeah, I can't believe they're trying to get people to pay monthly for this. This is the first time I've felt like the M$ moniker was really appropriate. This seriously makes me want to create a nice, basic Solitaire game for those platforms and sell it for $1, no ads, no bullshit, just to undercut them. Or maybe someone already has.
Really lousy programmers can often otherwise be surprisingly knowledgeable in programming theory. I think it takes a certain type of person to be able to turn that high level theory plus program requirements into actual working code, all using a minimal amount of effort. The guy sounded like he believed every piece of code must belong to one of those patterns, or it wasn't fit to be published.
One of the more valuable things I learned after I had already considered myself a reasonably competent programmer was how to avoid the tendency to over-engineer things (yes, a lot of us have the gang of four patterns book). There are times you don't need three classes and two abstraction layers when a simple one-off function will do. I think there's a real art in deciding how complicated to make your solution in the guise of making them future-proof, or alternatively, when to just keep things *simple*.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's very difficult to create a randomly generated world or universe that's actually interesting to explore, because human brains are extremely good at recognizing patterns, and people start seeing those same patterns everywhere you go in that universe. The randomly generated universe created an excellent setting for a game, but I don't think that by itself was meaty enough as a game mechanic to keep people satisfied.
You can contrast this experience with Diablo I & II, where exploring a randomly generated world and fighting randomly generated enemies was the foundation of those games, but Blizzard understood that this wasn't enough by itself. Even though I'm an explorer archetype, exploration without a real goal or driving force still gets a bit boring after a while. You need layered mechanics, such as addictive loot collection or an engaging story to help complement the weaker exploration aspect.
The computer doesn't know or care who its users are - you're just a username and password. If you don't mind security, sooner or later, some hacker will be its user, not you.
Holy crap, they fell for it! That's awesome! Hey idiot mods, feel free to mod me down as well!
If you mod me down, I will acquire more karma than you can possibly imagine.
It won't help in many cases, as I think you hit upon the real problem when talking about Sony execs. The weak point is *users*, not technology. We were to switch to OpenBSD tomorrow, we'd bring the idiot users along, who would happily allow a social engineering attack to compromise their system, or who insist on policies that, for convenience, ego, laziness, costs, whatever... fatally compromise their network. The DNC lost control of a Gmail account not through some masterful OS or network-level hack, but by using some simple social engineering to capture credentials, acquired through a spearphishing attack.
I wouldn't be surprised if this attack originated internally from a contractor or employee that was compromised, and had jack-all to do with the system's end-user-facing security itself, and will probably reveal lax or non-existent security policies internally. No system is secure when the malware has proper authentication. We really have no information yet, so it's hard to say.
Don't worry, it's not just you. Slashdot seems to be filled with mods anxious to silence those they disagree with.
For what it's worth, I do happen to agree with you about No Man's Sky. Too little, too late. Hello Games have already been exposed as liars. And the gameplay is still going to be shallow and repetitive. A few extra features won't make up for that. I was really excited about the game too, as I'm definitely an "explorer" type gamer.
What I want to know is... which of the stages of grief does this focus on fake news represent? I'm thinking maybe "bargaining".
Yep, true. We still do call ourselves a republic on occasion, but it seems a bit more anachronistic these days.
I think it's perhaps because nearly all modern democratic states are actually representative democracies (republics), with various relatively minor flavors among them (such as the differences between the US and UK). Given that *every* modern democratic state is actually a republic, there's less reason to make a distinction between the two in casual speech. Or, to put it another way, since a direct democracy is largely theoretical these days, it's fallen out of the public awareness and speech.
Another possible reason "republic" has fallen out of favor is that the term has been widely used in the title of countries with dictatorial or repressive regimes, and so we're perhaps not as eager to use the same term. I mean, we've coined the phrase "banana republic" to describe this phenomenon among many of our smaller southern neighbors.
Typesetting and printing was quite time-consuming and expensive before the age of personal computers and "desktop publishing." It would generally only be done when the cost of the initial setup would be offset by the ability to print a reasonably large run of high quality documents, like books or leaflets. An internal memo (or frankly, *any* internal office document) would not be a candidate for this, as it would be a one-off document. It would certainly just be typed, and copies would be made if needed. A typical office wouldn't even have the equipment necessary to actually typeset and print documents.
So, in short, it's not very realistic that a memo would be typeset and printed.
Just what do you think Microsoft used as a basis for its default font and spacing?
Microsoft used TrueType fonts, which had kerning compatible with earlier Linotype systems, something those 1970s typewriters did not use. From Wikipedia again:
As Phinney explained, the letterspacing of the Times New Roman font used by Microsoft Word with a modern personal computer and printer employs a system of 18 units relative to the letter height (em), with common characters being 5 to 17 units wide. (The technology allows even finer variability of character widths, but the 18 unit system was chosen for compatibility with the Linotype phototypesetting and earlier hot-metal versions of the font.) In contrast, the variability of character widths available on early 1970s typewriters using proportional letterspacing was more limited, due to the mechanical technology employed. The most sophisticated of these machines, the IBM Selectric Composer, used a system of 9 units relative to the letter height, in which all characters were 3 to 9 units wide. Less complex machines used fewer widths.
Differences in individual character widths accumulate over the length of a line, so that comparatively small differences would become readily apparent. Because of the differing character widths employed, the letterspacing exhibited by the Killian documents (matching that produced by a modern computer and printer) could not have been produced with a mechanical typewriter using proportional letterspacing in the early 1970s. At the time the documents were purportedly created, the matching letterspacing could only have been produced using phototypesetting or hot-metal printing. Since it is not a realistic possibility that Killian would have had these documents printed, Phinney concluded that they are almost certainly modern forgeries.
It's not just that the "documents can't be authenticated." There's essentially a near-zero chance these could have been written on 1970s typewriters at the Texas Air National Guard offices, as claimed. And that doesn't even account for all the inconsistencies in the memo's content.
Nope, not even remotely. It's been confirmed by those who worked at the Texas Air National Guard during that period that they did not use typewriters which could possibly reproduce the proportional fonts and superscripts in that memo, nor that they typed the memo in question. And are you really trying to tell me that you believe it's even remotely plausible that a memo typed in 1972 would just happen to match up with the default MS Word 2003 fonts and spacing?
Please. It was nothing more than a amateurish attempt at a forgery for rather obvious political purposes. There are other serious inconsistencies, such as the use of acronyms that were not in use at the time, incorrect use of IDs vs SSNs, as well as numerous other issues. Hell, even the CBS review panel eventually concluded the documents were not authentic.
This is the point where you need to listen to the wisdom of Occam's razor, not dream up some implausible explanation, simply because you want it to be true.
The term "Democracy" is an umbrella term that represents all systems of "rule by the people", including representative democracies like ours (also known as a republic). While its true that our founding fathers tended to mean "direct democracy" when speaking of "democracy", that's no longer the case. From Wikipedia:
The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticised democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy, often without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights
But, as we all know, language changes over time. It's worthwhile to understand the history of these terms, but really, you're pissing against the wind if you think people are not going to continue to call our government a "democracy". According to Google:
democracy
dmäkrs/
noun
noun: democracy
a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Don't forget the media themselves have their own controversies, such a rigging car crashes or using laughably fake memos created in MS Word as "proof" to impugn Bush's National Guard activities during the Vietnam War.
This "fake news" is a backlash from the mainstream media that realized that they don't actually *control* alternate media sources, and it terrifies them. Because, after all, those who haven't gone through journalism school and don't work for a real new organization can't possibly take their place in shaping the perceptions of the American public. This is about institutions collectively panicking over lost power and influence, and trying to find someone to blame. It's not that "fake news" doesn't exist, or that it's somehow new (hello National Enquirer), but given that the mainstream media outlets have been solidly pushing for Clinton for the last half year, it's not surprising they'd see this as some sort of watershed moment, and look for a reason that they couldn't convince the American people who they should obviously have been voting for.
In reality, the mainstream media has disenfranchised a large percentage of the population long ago. They're just now realizing that something is very wrong, but as is typical of human nature, it's much easier to find some external boogeyman than to look inward at what they could be doing to regaine people's trust.
Correct. That's just "Feedback frequency". You can't opt-out of telemetry completely, according to their own settings. You can only set "Diagnostics and usage data" to "Full (recommended)", "Enhanced", or "Basic."
This is the part that really bothers me. I'm completely fine with whatever default settings there are, but users should be able to turn it off. It wouldn't have even hurt Microsoft, since most people wouldn't have bothered, but instead they feel the need to force some minimal levels of data collection on everyone.
I expect that they will introduce a subscription model next (they wanted to do this fore Windows 7, IIRC, but was axed because they Ballmer didn't have to cojones to pull it off), or an a la carte Windows licensing model, where you only pay for the features you want (which sounds great in theory, but only means that you'll end up paying 3x more for the feature you already have now).
Uh, no, Microsoft just realized that:
a) PCs are a declining market
b) PCs remain viable far longer than they used to
c) Very few Windows users upgrade their OS - they "upgrade" when they buy a new computer
d) The world is going mobile, multi-platform, and cloud-based
All this means that it's better for MS to just sell (it's no longer free, in case you forgot) one perpetually-updating version of Windows to reduce long-term support commitments, and to encourage as many people as possible to get on board. Windows is now just another platform for their subscription services. But the subscription service is NOT Windows. Instead, you have Office 365, Azure cloud services, Xbox Gold, MSDN, Solitaire Games (seriously?), and so on, and of course, they make money with Windows Store purchases.
The big danger with this, as people rightly point out, that Windows users stop being Microsoft's customers and are instead a captive marketing audience at best, and a product at worst. Thus, decisions like these.
The dairy industry is already highly automated. The modern cow carousel was originally designed in the 1930s, so this isn't anything new. Nowadays, with robotics systems, you don't even need humans to hook the cows up for milking.
So, while I agree that managing animals will always require some human interaction and supervision, the day to day operations are becoming more and more automated. It's no different than other farming operations, letting fewer farmers produce more for less.
One thing that Republicans/Conservatives (speaking as one myself) need to do better is recognized that racism still actually exists, but may not be typically seen by most white people. I heard the lone black Republican senator was pulled over seven times in a year. He admitted a couple of those were for speeding, but others seemed to be for trivial matters, or nothing at all.
From the senator:
Scott went on to describe a time an officer pulled him over and began questioning if the car he was driving was stolen. "An officer pulls me into the median and starts telling me that he thinks perhaps the car is stolen. Well, I started to ask myself because I was smart enough not to ask him, asking myself, is the license plate coming in as stolen? Does the license plate match the car? I was looking for some rational reason that may have prompted him to stopping me on the side of the road."
It's unfortunate that the movement got started on a very questionable incident, in which it became apparent that the police did nothing wrong, because it gave the political opposition a reason to disbelieve the rest of the story. That shows the damage that "fake news" can do.
The question is, at what point is it 'fully automated' and at what point is our entire food chain being run by a singularity (is there a difference?).
Yes, I think there's a difference. You need a lot of advanced robotics and mechanical systems in place, but the control mechanisms don't need to be "intelligent" (if that's what you mean by a "singularity"). They just need to know enough to run the machines and tend to the crops. Those systems will be very specialized, and will in turn need human specialists to manage them. And when those systems need maintenance or repairing, it's still going to be a person that does it, albeit with a lot of sophisticated hardware and software at their disposal.
I'd describe his or her behavior as "unethical", as s/he's defrauding people for money, and directly helping equally unethical businesses sell their wares on false pretenses. On the other hand, it could be worse. She could be a lawyer, I suppose.
In all candor, I hope she quits before she's caught and sued by Amazon. I don't wish that on anyone, but as a heavy user of Amazon that relies on product reviews to help me make good purchases, I wouldn't shed tears were that to happen. After all, as you said elsewhere, she's an adult, and can make her own decisions, good or bad.
I'd have thought so too. But apparently, some fake reviewers buy the products, then return them to the sellers for a refund, plus the fee for the glowing review. It certainly adds a significant shipping cost to the price of each fake review, which is a good thing I guess, but it doesn't completely stop them.
They know when they've actually processed a sale of the item to the person writing the review, i.e. a "verified purchaser", and what that person paid. They ought to provide a way to filter reviews so that one can choose to see only reviews/ratings from verified purchasers.
From what I've heard, fake reviewers often ARE verified purchasers. They work out deals to buy the products, then return them to the seller for a refund.
Reddit isn't some highly respected debate forum that claims to be totally non partisan and allow absolutely any content.
True, but Reddit has no value or purpose in life other than for people to go online and post messages. The Reddit CEO showed incredibly poor judgement, and what the heck do companies pay CEOs six or seven figure salaries for if not for their good judgement?
So... a firing offense? Let's just put it this way: If I posted unauthorized comments about the online game I worked on, let alone editing other users' posts, at the minimum I'd be reprimanded, and I might very well get fired. Were I on the Reddit board, I'd have to consider his continued employment very carefully. If he's doing great work as a CEO, this might be overlooked. If he was performing marginally, this might be the excuse to replace him.
Paper is certainly better than any currently used electronic method, but it seems like we could do better than that. I'd like to see someone investigate the idea of using blockchain technology to create a read-only database of the election results. The entire point of a blockchain is to create a cryptographically signed set of transactions which can't be altered without compromising the database. Banks are investing in this technology, where trillions of dollars are at stake, and in which every penny must be accounted for. Why not voting data as well?
This doesn't preclude the paper ballot backup as well, which I'd also agree is important. Computers are too easy to compromise, so I'd say filling out a paper ballot and having a locked down system scan it would be best. You then have the original form, as well as the convenience of computers to count the data, and finally, the blockchain to ensure no tampering of the digital database.
Are there any obvious downsides I'm missing? We'd need to ensure privacy, but I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. And done correctly, you could even build a verification system for people to check and make sure their individual votes were cast and tallied properly.
Hey, leave Limbo out of this, as that was an awesome game!
But yeah, I can't believe they're trying to get people to pay monthly for this. This is the first time I've felt like the M$ moniker was really appropriate. This seriously makes me want to create a nice, basic Solitaire game for those platforms and sell it for $1, no ads, no bullshit, just to undercut them. Or maybe someone already has.
Really lousy programmers can often otherwise be surprisingly knowledgeable in programming theory. I think it takes a certain type of person to be able to turn that high level theory plus program requirements into actual working code, all using a minimal amount of effort. The guy sounded like he believed every piece of code must belong to one of those patterns, or it wasn't fit to be published.
One of the more valuable things I learned after I had already considered myself a reasonably competent programmer was how to avoid the tendency to over-engineer things (yes, a lot of us have the gang of four patterns book). There are times you don't need three classes and two abstraction layers when a simple one-off function will do. I think there's a real art in deciding how complicated to make your solution in the guise of making them future-proof, or alternatively, when to just keep things *simple*.
Believe me, I can understand how nothing would seem funny when you've got a stick up your ass.