At the risk of being flamed for spam, the Virgin Health Miles program was added as a benefit by my human resources department. They handed out these USB pedometers at a health fair. I know it looks dorky to walk around with a pedometer but there was motivation in the form of $. The program pays you $$$ to get steps. Not only that, you see how many steps you've done each day on a bar graph for the history. Makes you want to improve. It really motivated me. I've lost over 10 lbs this year and have noticed my blood pressure going down as well.
The purported reason employers want to do this is to reduce health insurance costs by having hard data to bargain with when making health insurance deals.
Having a brick in my pocket with my iPhone will attract the babes. (referring to pic on one of the sites in the article).
I was expecting something else, like...
Tesla was focused in his research for the practical development of a system for wireless transmission of power and a utilization system. Tesla said, in "On electricity", Electrical Review (Jan. 27, 1897):
"In fact, progress in this field has given me fresh hope that I shall see the fulfillment of one of my fondest dreams; namely, the transmission of power from station to station without the employment of any connecting wires." Tesla Colorado Sprints Wiki
If the audio is just numbers and letters it has to fall to VR. Modern VR can pick letters and numbers out of noise better than many humans. then it is pretty lame.
Why don't they just ask a simple question in the audio ala Turing. IVR isn't going to be able to answer without being intelligent.
"What is the fourth word in this sentence?"
some day we'll see "Spammer solves captcha but his now intelligent computer refuses to spam, says 'there are certain things even a newly sentient computer will not do'."
A programming superstar can think about a problem for 3 months and then write 15000 lines of code in 48 hours to implement a solution that works for 10 years. A programming superstar can spend 2 weeks non-stop in a cold room hammering out a solution to save a company from bankrupcy. A programming superstar can also be faced with a crisis on a Friday evening at 5PM, write 25 lines of code that generate a 120,000 line program from a spreadsheet by 6PM so that programming superstar can go home crisis averted. A programming superstar doesn't care about language* or system or hardware, it doesn't matter... the only thing that matters is the project. Look at the projects your candidates have lead.
One possible way to differentiate the wheat from the chafe is to ask them to write a program to solve a particular maze. The mediocre programmer will write a program that solves your maze, a good programmer will write a program to solve a class of mazes, the superstar will write a program to solve mazes. The main thing is that the superstar will enjoy solving the problem.
*[except Perl, programming superstars hate Perl but love Rexx;) ]
You have to appreciate the limitations of the medium of chess. Then, you have to play through his games. Only then can you appreciate that he was one of the greatest artists of all time. He produced some of the most beautiful works ever made. He contributed immensely to the art of chess during his brief career. He was foremost a great American singlehandedly bringing down the Russians stranglehold of the chess world while inspiring many to practice the beautiful game that makes people think. I mourn the loss of the great artist!!!
truly awesome vim
on
Hacking VIM
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
I have sympathy for you who do not know an editor as fine as Kedit. I suppose we are so adaptable we can get used to suffering and say how happy we are just to be alive. But, with tastes, who can argue? Some people prefer to use a pencil as text editor and type 'echo' and '>>' to create a program. Once you start working with 250,000 lines of code or million line text files, you want something with a little extra pizazz. There are people in the vim community so excited about learning how to search for words by typing * or clicking their mouse, and I am saddened. Truly ignorance is bliss and knowlege brings such sweet sorrow.
I saw this and it made me reminisce about Bill Joy's essay http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." This is the kind of tech that makes me think the future might not only not need us but might want to tidily get us out of the way while it's at it.
This is cool stuff but every instance of this stuff should be registered like a lethal weapon and accounted for and contained in class-4 biocontainment before we figure out how we can learn how to safely get rid of this stuff after we are done with it.
In the article, they concerned themselves with the problems of degraded nano particulate floating around and causing problems. Sure, nano dust could cause people to have more asthma or worse, but on the macro scale the potential for problems are apparant too...
One of the things that concerns me is huge almost invisible ribbons or sails of this stuff floating around in our oceans or in our atmosphere trapping and killing fish, whales, birds, and 747's.
Have you walked along the coast of an ocean beach lately? You cannot walk for 2 meters near the high tide line on just about any beech (u.s. mainland) without finding near-indistructable plastic fishing nets or some other human waste. We make our bed we sleep in it.
Maybe rockets would go into space cheaper if something superheated/eliminated the air in front of them like the way lightning bolts start and the way Lance Armstrong follows his teamates.
On four legs I was a mainframe programmer, on two a Unix Programmer, now that I am ancient and over 40, on three legs I am a Windows programmer.
Here is my quick take on the three lifestyles and some random observances.
Mainframe programming: Company/Intranet Suit and Tie, dress shoes. Languages: ALC, COBOL, Rexx (The Best) Editted with XEDIT, ROSCOE, or the TSO editor. Shells: VM/TSO/Roscoe For me, the mainframe was best for collaboration (A bunch of people working on a big problem together.) and interacting within a large company while still being isolated/protected from the world at large. Instead of being distracted by the world you are distracted by corporate politics. It reminds me of a horse designed by a committee of blind men who are making thier opinions known by feeling different parts of an elephant.
Unix Programming: Individual/Network Jeans, Hawiian Shirt, sandles.
C, Regina/Rexx (Rexx is best), Perl (A vile programming language) Editted with vi (An editor that goes well with Perl, tied with edlin for the worst editor ever) Shells: BSH, CSH Best environment for people who do not want distractions. Best place to create your own little world and live in it. The OS most favored by people who either did experience the 60's or wish they had you can tell because when you go to the UNIX conventions everyone looks like Jesus and I had a beard too when I did it this is a run-on sentence I know. Living in unix means your fingers will hurt and you will need to think of everything as a long string of characters because its all going to be one thing at a time and if you make a mistake and enter rm / -r you are screwed because there is no undelete in unix and no trash can and there is nobody to do your backups for you but you.
PC/Windows/Mac: Society/Internet
MS Visual Basic, Regina/Rexx, HTML, Kedit/Kexx, Access/VBA, SQL,.NET jeans or shorts or underwear, and t-shirt or noshirt, barefoot or tennis shoes Edited with Kedit (The best editor ever.) or the MS editor that comes with the language and pops up all the possible commands and values and properties automagically when you type making programming less of a memorization problem. JAVA and.NET are deep monsters with so many classes no normal human can know them. Shells: DOS/none/or whatever program has the focus The most connected to the world with the most distractions. The best for communicating and the most prone to viruses. Most opportunity and potential for success or failing on your face. The least safe and the most free. A dichotomy at once while still growing.
Last time I puchased a 1/2 pint bottle of Everclear it cost me $8. Don't see how I could afford to run my car on it efficiently but to tell you the truth, after drinking it I could care less.
Another addicting game that saps my time when I'm waiting for my next internet chess opponent to arrive is BlogShares. A market simulation game where you can aspire to "own" Slashdot and other blogs on the internet.
I've just created another legion of internet addicts, so sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
The purported reason employers want to do this is to reduce health insurance costs by having hard data to bargain with when making health insurance deals.
Here's the link for more info on this terrific program. Virgin Health Miles Program FAQ
Having a brick in my pocket with my iPhone will attract the babes. (referring to pic on one of the sites in the article).
I was expecting something else, like...
Tesla was focused in his research for the practical development of a system for wireless transmission of power and a utilization system. Tesla said, in "On electricity", Electrical Review (Jan. 27, 1897):
"In fact, progress in this field has given me fresh hope that I shall see the fulfillment of one of my fondest dreams; namely, the transmission of power from station to station without the employment of any connecting wires."
Tesla Colorado Sprints Wiki
If the audio is just numbers and letters it has to fall to VR. Modern VR can pick letters and numbers out of noise better than many humans. then it is pretty lame.
Why don't they just ask a simple question in the audio ala Turing. IVR isn't going to be able to answer without being intelligent.
"What is the fourth word in this sentence?"
some day we'll see "Spammer solves captcha but his now intelligent computer refuses to spam, says 'there are certain things even a newly sentient computer will not do'."
A programming superstar can think about a problem for 3 months and then write 15000 lines of code in 48 hours to implement a solution that works for 10 years. A programming superstar can spend 2 weeks non-stop in a cold room hammering out a solution to save a company from bankrupcy. A programming superstar can also be faced with a crisis on a Friday evening at 5PM, write 25 lines of code that generate a 120,000 line program from a spreadsheet by 6PM so that programming superstar can go home crisis averted. A programming superstar doesn't care about language* or system or hardware, it doesn't matter... the only thing that matters is the project. Look at the projects your candidates have lead.
;) ]
One possible way to differentiate the wheat from the chafe is to ask them to write a program to solve a particular maze. The mediocre programmer will write a program that solves your maze, a good programmer will write a program to solve a class of mazes, the superstar will write a program to solve mazes. The main thing is that the superstar will enjoy solving the problem.
*[except Perl, programming superstars hate Perl but love Rexx
You have to appreciate the limitations of the medium of chess. Then, you have to play through his games. Only then can you appreciate that he was one of the greatest artists of all time. He produced some of the most beautiful works ever made. He contributed immensely to the art of chess during his brief career. He was foremost a great American singlehandedly bringing down the Russians stranglehold of the chess world while inspiring many to practice the beautiful game that makes people think. I mourn the loss of the great artist!!!
I have sympathy for you who do not know an editor as fine as Kedit. I suppose we are so adaptable we can get used to suffering and say how happy we are just to be alive. But, with tastes, who can argue? Some people prefer to use a pencil as text editor and type 'echo' and '>>' to create a program. Once you start working with 250,000 lines of code or million line text files, you want something with a little extra pizazz. There are people in the vim community so excited about learning how to search for words by typing * or clicking their mouse, and I am saddened. Truly ignorance is bliss and knowlege brings such sweet sorrow.
My house was recently burgled. I want a denial weapon to adjunct my burgler alarm. The new Denial of Service attack!
Thus No-thing (ie. space) IS faster than the speed of light.
http://www.geocities.com/icaddict.geo/index.html
Homer was also a genius except he stuffed too many crayons up his nose.
The government now opiates the prolitariate with a much more effective substance known as beer.
'nuff said.
Students are more likely to download music & cheat on tests in school & steal things than non-students. Seems like a tautology to me.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/mechwarrior4/
Microsoft is now going to where the big battle bot bucks are. Hope they protect their interests!
I saw this and it made me reminisce about Bill Joy's essay http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
"Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." This is the kind of tech that makes me think the future might not only not need us but might want to tidily get us out of the way while it's at it.
This is cool stuff but every instance of this stuff should be registered like a lethal weapon and accounted for and contained in class-4 biocontainment before we figure out how we can learn how to safely get rid of this stuff after we are done with it.
In the article, they concerned themselves with the problems of degraded nano particulate floating around and causing problems. Sure, nano dust could cause people to have more asthma or worse, but on the macro scale the potential for problems are apparant too...
One of the things that concerns me is huge almost invisible ribbons or sails of this stuff floating around in our oceans or in our atmosphere trapping and killing fish, whales, birds, and 747's.
Have you walked along the coast of an ocean beach lately? You cannot walk for 2 meters near the high tide line on just about any beech (u.s. mainland) without finding near-indistructable plastic fishing nets or some other human waste. We make our bed we sleep in it.
In my opinion, the best procedural programming language, by far, for beginners (or anyone else for that matter) is Rexx. http://www.rexxla.org/
No one (except possibly a terrorist that we NEED information from) should be subjected to Perl.
Maybe rockets would go into space cheaper if something superheated/eliminated the air in front of them like the way lightning bolts start and the way Lance Armstrong follows his teamates.
Do not say a word. They are listening even as we speak.
On four legs I was a mainframe programmer, on two a Unix Programmer, now that I am ancient and over 40, on three legs I am a Windows programmer.
.NET .NET are deep monsters with so many classes no normal human can know them.
Here is my quick take on the three lifestyles and some random observances.
Mainframe programming: Company/Intranet
Suit and Tie, dress shoes.
Languages: ALC, COBOL, Rexx (The Best)
Editted with XEDIT, ROSCOE, or the TSO editor.
Shells: VM/TSO/Roscoe
For me, the mainframe was best for collaboration (A bunch of people working on a big problem together.) and interacting within a large company while still being isolated/protected from the world at large. Instead of being distracted by the world you are distracted by corporate politics. It reminds me of a horse designed by a committee of blind men who are making thier opinions known by feeling different parts of an elephant.
Unix Programming: Individual/Network
Jeans, Hawiian Shirt, sandles.
C, Regina/Rexx (Rexx is best), Perl (A vile programming language)
Editted with vi (An editor that goes well with Perl, tied with edlin for the worst editor ever)
Shells: BSH, CSH
Best environment for people who do not want distractions. Best place to create your own little world and live in it. The OS most favored by people who either did experience the 60's or wish they had you can tell because when you go to the UNIX conventions everyone looks like Jesus and I had a beard too when I did it this is a run-on sentence I know. Living in unix means your fingers will hurt and you will need to think of everything as a long string of characters because its all going to be one thing at a time and if you make a mistake and enter rm / -r you are screwed because there is no undelete in unix and no trash can and there is nobody to do your backups for you but you.
PC/Windows/Mac: Society/Internet
MS Visual Basic, Regina/Rexx, HTML, Kedit/Kexx, Access/VBA, SQL,
jeans or shorts or underwear, and t-shirt or noshirt, barefoot or tennis shoes
Edited with Kedit (The best editor ever.) or the MS editor that comes with the language and pops up all the possible commands and values and properties automagically when you type making programming less of a memorization problem. JAVA and
Shells: DOS/none/or whatever program has the focus
The most connected to the world with the most distractions. The best for communicating and the most prone to viruses. Most opportunity and potential for success or failing on your face. The least safe and the most free. A dichotomy at once while still growing.
Last time I puchased a 1/2 pint bottle of Everclear it cost me $8. Don't see how I could afford to run my car on it efficiently but to tell you the truth, after drinking it I could care less.
It's not bullet holes that kill people; it is Nature which abhores the vacuum left by the bullet that kills people.
Fly naked!
Notice that scientists eat Cheerios. Notice that you will never see a scientist's picture on a box of Wheaties.
Internet Chess (ICC) is extremely addicting although this account is a smidge jive:
The Internet Chess Addict's Home
Another addicting game that saps my time when I'm waiting for my next internet chess opponent to arrive is BlogShares. A market simulation game where you can aspire to "own" Slashdot and other blogs on the internet.
I've just created another legion of internet addicts, so sorry.
I know your post is FB but I really like this sentence:
It's not that my imagination isn't up to the challenge it's the challenge isn't up to my imagination.