I guess the question though, is does everyone doodle in a manner that's relevant to what's being learnt, or are some doodles unrelated?
Do you tend to doodle things that are relevant to the subject at hand, i.e. basically using sketches as a form of notes, or do you mean you just doodle seemingly unrelated objects, but to you they act as a memory prompt or similar?
I know some people just doodle things like random cubes when they're on the phone, and whilst I understand these have phsycological meaning they don't have any relevance to the phone call they had however. I'm sure others though, possibly like yourself when you doodle tend to doodle things that are indeed more directly related to the subject at hand?
The only related article I recall recently was stating that people who multi-task a lot end up being less productive overall, but the problem is the experiment for the basis for their claim wasn't actually very good at demonstrating what they claimed, it was quite heavily flawed.
There's also the issue that even multitasking isn't simply defined by multiple tasks, because some tasks are easier to do at the same time as others than others are. Whilst doing a Rubik's cube whilst driving probably isn't going to end well, listening to music whilst driving is not something many people struggle with. Similarly, in a class room, I'm pretty sure there are some people who passively listen and take things in even if they are doing other things at the time- just as doodlers do in fact.
Following from that, back to the point in question, even if no one can multitask well then is the parents assertion that doodling is less of a distraction than using IM or similar not still false? It's still multi-tasking either way.
As an aside regarding multi-tasking, I think one of the difficulties about the multi-tasking debate, is that it's hard for humans to tell if they are really multi-tasking, or if they're just good at dividing their time into small slots to make it feel like they're multi-tasking- just as it often works computing.
In fact, I just dug up the article I believe you're referring too, there are some interesting points there and a more detailed explanation of why the experiments in that test seemed to be flawed a little further down:
Either way, I'm not sure that it's something we have a conclusive answer about one way or another, so I think to assert something which I believe is entirely unproven as the parent did is a little misleading.
Thank you for your in depth explanation and plethora of citations you have provided to back up your claim. Your ability to demonstrate your assertion as fact has completely and utterly opened my mind, I feel enlightened by the evidence presented demonstrating the truthfulness of your point.
Or in other words, [citation needed]. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I'm a little skeptical that doodling is any less a distraction than pratting around on a laptop is. You need to do a little more work to demonstrate that what you said is anything more than just your personal opinion.
I'm pretty sure different people think different anyway, some are fine with multi-tasking, others not so, I'd imagine those crap at multi-tasking will struggle with taking notes at the same time as listening regardless of what method they use, whilst those great at it, will likely be able to play an FPS or whatever and still take in what the professor is saying.
The problems I have with it are that it gets stored- sorry, but they have fuck all need to store data on me outside the purposes of checking I'm okay to fly through, and the fact that they take and store such data even if I cancel my flight, or even if I'm simply flying via the US (I'm not even sure you have to land- just via US airspace AFAIK).
Really, the US is just trying to build a database of as much of the world's population as possible, and it's really that that I have a problem with. I don't mind them checking I'm safe to fly, but I don't need to be part of their data whoring experiment.
Interestingly there's also a movement in the EU now to do away with the airline data sharing deal whereby something like 49 pieces of information like e-mail address, name, address, telephone number, credit card details and so forth are sent to the US before people are allowed to fly there from Europe.
It's quite a turn around since the Lisbon treaty and the last set of European elections, I was concerned there'd be less standing up to the US, but there is in fact even more now.
The stats are quite interesting, although I'm not sure that the low amount of people who see corporate prescence on the internet as a problem is a good thing, particularly when violent/explicit content is rated so highly. I'm not convinced content is ever a problem- if you don't want to see it, don't look at or for it, but then, that's just my personal view. I guess by the stats I'm quite a minority although I do share the sentiment that privacy is a big issues online, as is fraud for those not aware of the various online scams that get pulled.
More likely what happened is they shopped around, bought from some dodgy company without actually checking what was being shipped. They probably just assumed they were getting a good deal, and that the i7s they'd just bought a ton of were in fact i7s without ever even bothering to check.
It's not necessarily the case that they knowingly tried to pull this off, simply that they unknowingly did whilst thinking they'd got a deal from some dodgy supplier.
Interestingly Canada has one of the most liberal policies on copyright enforcement when it comes to individuals in the West also, and has for many years been the fastest growing economy in the G7 and is the only country in the G7 that did not have to bail out it's banks. The parent misses the point that economic woes will not be helped by keeping or increase reliance on industries that fiddle with imaginary property (banks and the creative industries), but will in fact be helped by reducing reliance on these industries and having a stronger manufacturing, services, and research base- again, manufacturing particularly is why Germany pulled out of recession 6 months before us, and much stronger than us, even though they went a little deeper in at the worst point. As you say, China is also a great example- it's not struggled to grow because it's manufacturing based and produces real, physical products.
That's not fair and it's not the first time I've seen this sort of response on Slashdot, in fact, I've had the same response to an anti-Labour post I made in the past.
Please don't assume that people attacking Labour are pro-Tory, I would hope you were able to realise it is possible to hate Labour AND the Tories just as much as each other. It is this attitude of "you're either Tory, or you're Labour" that is precisely what is wrong with British politics today. People treat politics like a football match, they support red and the other guys must support blue or vice versa. There's an awful lot of parties out there- sure there's the Tories and Labour, but there are the Lib Dems, the Greens, The Pirate Party, The Liberal Party, and unfortunately the far right like UKIP and the BNP.
Hating Labour, does not equal liking Conservatives, please keep that in mind when responding to people in future.
The issue with Mandelson is not so much dirt (although I suspect also that that has at least a little bit of play in it) but that as much as I despise him, he's one of the big boys when it comes to politics- for all the things one can hate him for, his ability to manipulate the political landscape would be quite admirable if it wasn't simultaneously so evil.
He just has the support of the right people (i.e. the Blairites) and the contacts in the right places. Brown needed him back because he was the only person that could keep Brown in power, and as I said in my post above- next time you see Brown on the news, have a look for Mandelson, he's never far away, often right next to him in fact. Mandelson is the one manufacturing Labour's rise in the polls such that they're now only 7 points behind the Tories (they were only as far behind as 2 points a few days ago for a little while!) up from as low as 17 points at the start of the expenses scandal last year.
You apparently know absolutely nothing about British politics. Mandelson has a massive amount of power both official and unofficial. This is precisely why he is a Lord, why he keeps turning back up in government despite repeatedly getting caught red handed in some scheme of corruption or another.
Unofficially, he's one of the most powerful people in the Labour party, and in fact, is the only reason Gordon Brown is still running the party, Brown made Mandelson a Lord and gave him a position on cabinet (more on that later), in return, Mandelson has protected Brown's position as PM. Further, Labour has had a decent jump in the polls since Mandelson was brought back, part of this is the fact Cameron is finally actually unveiling some policies which make the Tories less popular, but part of it is also again down to the fact that Mandelson is if nothing else, skilled at helping sway voter opinion.
If you do live in the UK, here's an exercise for you, go and find a few clips of Brown in public on the news and such, and count how many times Mandelson is less than a few metres from him.
But of course, his unofficial power is unofficial and as such, is open to dispute, even though it's commonly accepted amongst just about all political analysts that Mandelson has a massive amount of unofficial power. There's also his official power though, he is part of the cabinet, he is secretary of state for business, innovation and skills. In this position he was able to unilaterally ensure the return of the possibility of disconnection of repeated file sharers into the bill. Further, he later added clause 17, which would have given him full power to control copyright law enforcement without having to consult parliament, thankfully this was defeated in the Lords.
Combined, the claim that Mandelson has no power to act unilaterally to his interests is ludicrous. He's in a position to construct the bills relevant to his department, and amend as he sees fit and at his will. The Lords is a stumbling point for him because he has less power there, but ultimately if it passes through the Lords, then he has a free run in the commons because Labour has a majority of over 60% such that with the massive amount of power Mandelson holds unofficially within the party, getting laws that have made it through the Lords passed in the commons is, well, a piece of cake for him.
Perhaps the most prominent example since his return to power, is that the government had decided completely and utterly against the idea of 3 strikes, and disconnections for downloading copyright content illegaly, that is until, Mandelson went on holiday with one of Hollywood's richest players:
A day or so later it was rumoured, a few days later it was confirmed, Mandelson after a meeting with Geffen, had decided to bring back the threat of disconnection. This threat now looks to have made it through the Lords, and is now in with a good chance of being passed before the election. This is a pretty blatant example, of Mandelson managing to get his policy through that until that point, the majority of Labour, and certainly the majority of MPs, simply did not want.
Make no mistake, Mandelson certainly can act unilaterally, and that, coupled with the fact he has been caught in dodgy deal multiple times is why he is so very very dangerous. You might be right that technically he needs the consent of his colleagues, but getting their consent is hardly a difficult task when they're either given incentives of future positions in the cabinet, or disincentives to vote otherwise such as being shunned indefinetely by the party. So, even if he does require their consent, he doesn't have any problem getting it, even if their consent goes against what they actually believe in- if you want a couple of examples, check the opinions of Stephen Timms, and David Lammy, both prior to
Well, it depends if you bought it from him or simply rent it from him.
That's really the problem here, most companies have no idea whether they bought or rented, they just assume they bought when the developer assumed they were renting.
Can we have a 3 strikes for politicians so that when they've been caught with red handed with their hand in the checkout 3 times they're jailed and banned from ever entering politics again so that the likes of Mandelson would never have got to a position where he could single-handedly manipulate the Digital Economy Bill in the first place?
I was in this situation many many years ago in that I hadn't learnt to type properly and just did what came natural even though it was fast.
I decided I wanted to type properly anyway though, and just spent a few hours on Mavis Beacon's typing tutor app to get an idea of what the right keys are. After that I just made a concious effort each type I sat down at the keyboard to put my fingers on the correct initial keys. It really just came naturally after that- it wasn't a big deal, again, just a few hours with a typing app was enough to let me figure out how it was supposed to be done.
I'd guess if you believe that, you don't really use Visual Studio, or at least don't use it to the extent you're making use of some pretty important features like the debugger and refactoring tools.
VS is far and away better than Eclipse, because it simply has a better UI (more tools at your fingertips), better refactoring support, better intellisense, better dynamic help, better debugging.
Eclipse is also slower, the plugin system is flawed meaning you often need multiple copies of the whole IDE.
The whole Eclipse vs. Visual Studio thing certainly isn't one of personal opinion, VS just does everything Eclipse does, and does it better, and does more to boot, that's the problem with Eclipse. It's not that Eclipse is necessarily bad, just that VS is simply years ahead of it in terms of features and productivity. Visual Studio's intellisense for example is simply unparalleled in any IDE, let alone Eclipse's.
I use Eclipse for Android and PHP (Zend) development for what it's worth, I'd just much rather be using NetBeans (which I've used in the past for Spring) or Visual Studio (which I use for WinForms, MFC and ASP.NET MVC).
Again, it's really not that Eclipse, or many other IDEs for that matter are necessarily bad, it's just from an objective standpoint VS simply does more, and does nearly everything better and allows you to be much more productive.
"Objective-C has advantages, such as that it is compiled."
Huh? Java is compiled too, but it's JIT compilation which is better in that it allows optimisation for the specific device on which it is being run, not the generic platform on which it is expected to be run. The claim that Objective-C being compiled is an advantage makes no sense at all. The rest of that paragraph seems to be based on the false premise that Java is inherently slower than Objective-C which just simply isn't true.
"X-Code is a purpose-built, clean-sheet IDE that may lack a few power features found in Eclipse, and Eclipse has numerous plug-ins, but Eclipse also has a pretty diabolical UI, especially compared to software from Apple."
I do agree, I'm not a fan of Eclipse, but then, Apple's software doesn't come close to beating Visual Studio, so in this respect it's really Windows Mobile that has the IDE advantage of any platform. It's a shame really there's no official support for NetBeans rather than Eclipse for Android, NetBeans is IMHO, much better.
"Java, Eclipse, and the other Android SDK tools are more than good enough, but they are not a big advantage, or, depending on your tastes, any advantage. There is a rough equivalence here that will probably extend to Android doing for client Java what iPhone did for Objective-C - making it popular. That is, Android apps will probably be the most common form of interactive client Java apps, if they have not already eclipsed AWT, Swing, SWT, and other Java UI libraries."
I'm not sure you know too much about Java, but it's far and away the most commonly used language across the globe and has been for many many years. Android is small fry in terms of overall Java development, even on the client side. When you go into a Doctor's surgery to book your appointment, use a system to pickup your prepaid Cinema or Airline tickets, get served by someone at checkout, the chances are these systems are all client side Java. Even on the desktop there are some prominent Java apps- Vuze (Azureus) is a popular BitTorrent client for example that has a pretty nice interface.
Regarding iPhone books as Amazon top sellers, it's also not really a meaningful metric (although I just had a look myself, and it doesn't even seem to be true- are you sure you weren't looking at your recommendations?). This could simply because Android has great online documentation for example.
Java certainly is an advantage, if not only because it's prominence as a language and portability between Windows, Linux, Mac, Android phones, Blackberrys, Unix and so forth means that even if you have to write the UI, you don't have to re-write the libraries. As pointed out above, it's not as if performance is an issue in Java either, see here, and keep in mind this page is now 6 years old:
The only thing Java really does need is IDE improvements, if NetBeans or Eclipse were taken up to the quality and usefulness of Visual Studio then that'd be awesome.
Well yeah, you're actually right, as it happens, Windows Mobile really is MUCH simpler to develop for than any other phone platform because you get to use Visual Studio and.NET. Just because WinMo itself has been a bit crap for it's past few releases, doesn't mean it doesn't beat the iPhone and Android in terms of ease of development.
I think you're under the assumption that he's saying Android is better than the iPhone overall because it's easier to develop for, he's not, he's saying it's better than the iPhone for developers who actually want to write apps for that phone, which is absolutely true, just as as you say, Windows Mobile is indeed even better again for developers to develop for.
"Most games aren't written in Java for the obvious performance reasons."
What obvious performance reasons would they be?
Java performs perfectly well for game development, the reason developers use C++ still is partly because it's the only language shared between all gaming platforms (PS3, Wii, 360, PC) and partly because it's historically what their developers were trained in because it was historically faster.
There are no performance issues with Java nowadays, it's a complete myth. See here, and keep in mind this page goes as far back as 2004:
Read what it says again- it's not saying that Java is slow, it's just pointing out that apps wont run as fast on a phone as they do on multicore servers, because phones have much lower performance hardware.
Java in terms of speed is fine, it's as fast as C++ apps in the overwhelming majority of cases, and often even faster due to being able to optimise for the specific system the code is being executed on, rather than having to optimise for the general case as C++ compilers have to do.
Or to give a more simple reason why DRM doesn't generally work, PCs are open systems, the content has to become available to the system at some point whether it's encrypted, or sent across the network. It still has to end up on a system whose memory and executable code at run time can be peeked and poked at will.
The only real workaround is to process some game logic and such server side, but that is going to cost the company a lot in terms of processing power, a lot in terms of bandwidth, a lot in terms of additional development effort, but perhaps, a lot of embarassment when said servers fail and the game keels over for a few days.
DRM is pretty much a lost cause from the off, it's not that it requires too high a degree of developer skill to implement properly, it's simply that it really can't be implemented properly, at least, not without massive extra cost to the company that would likely outweigh any profits the game will make, and not without severe detriment to the game experience.
Really, it doesn't matter if you had some god like developer that could implement a DRM scheme without making a single mistake, it'd still be a DRM system designed to run on an open system at the end of the day and would hence still be inherently vulnerable. DRM basically tries to say "You can't do this", except it's saying it on a system where you can anyway, and where that can overrides the can't because the user gets priority over control of the system, not the DRM.
I had a look at the PDF in question, and I think the summary may be somewhat wrong tbh. I'm not convinced this amendment has party support.
The layout of the PDF is confusing, it's hard to tell which names support the amendment, but if it's the ones before it, then the names listed are simply both the Lib Dem and the Tory ministers for culture and sport- i.e. those who are always most closely lobbied by the music industry.
If it's the names after, then it's still the Lib Dem culture and sport minister, coupled with Lord Razzall, one of the few Lib Dems who really did take the piss with expenses so someone whose corrupt to the core anyway.
I wouldn't assume from the summary alone that this is an indication of Lib Dem party support for the position- remember, Lords generally act much more independently and pursue their own paths more commonly than in the commons.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess the question though, is does everyone doodle in a manner that's relevant to what's being learnt, or are some doodles unrelated?
Do you tend to doodle things that are relevant to the subject at hand, i.e. basically using sketches as a form of notes, or do you mean you just doodle seemingly unrelated objects, but to you they act as a memory prompt or similar?
I know some people just doodle things like random cubes when they're on the phone, and whilst I understand these have phsycological meaning they don't have any relevance to the phone call they had however. I'm sure others though, possibly like yourself when you doodle tend to doodle things that are indeed more directly related to the subject at hand?
The only related article I recall recently was stating that people who multi-task a lot end up being less productive overall, but the problem is the experiment for the basis for their claim wasn't actually very good at demonstrating what they claimed, it was quite heavily flawed.
There's also the issue that even multitasking isn't simply defined by multiple tasks, because some tasks are easier to do at the same time as others than others are. Whilst doing a Rubik's cube whilst driving probably isn't going to end well, listening to music whilst driving is not something many people struggle with. Similarly, in a class room, I'm pretty sure there are some people who passively listen and take things in even if they are doing other things at the time- just as doodlers do in fact.
Following from that, back to the point in question, even if no one can multitask well then is the parents assertion that doodling is less of a distraction than using IM or similar not still false? It's still multi-tasking either way.
As an aside regarding multi-tasking, I think one of the difficulties about the multi-tasking debate, is that it's hard for humans to tell if they are really multi-tasking, or if they're just good at dividing their time into small slots to make it feel like they're multi-tasking- just as it often works computing.
In fact, I just dug up the article I believe you're referring too, there are some interesting points there and a more detailed explanation of why the experiments in that test seemed to be flawed a little further down:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/1245221/Habitual-Multitaskers-Do-It-Badly
Either way, I'm not sure that it's something we have a conclusive answer about one way or another, so I think to assert something which I believe is entirely unproven as the parent did is a little misleading.
Thank you for your in depth explanation and plethora of citations you have provided to back up your claim. Your ability to demonstrate your assertion as fact has completely and utterly opened my mind, I feel enlightened by the evidence presented demonstrating the truthfulness of your point.
Or in other words, [citation needed]. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I'm a little skeptical that doodling is any less a distraction than pratting around on a laptop is. You need to do a little more work to demonstrate that what you said is anything more than just your personal opinion.
I'm pretty sure different people think different anyway, some are fine with multi-tasking, others not so, I'd imagine those crap at multi-tasking will struggle with taking notes at the same time as listening regardless of what method they use, whilst those great at it, will likely be able to play an FPS or whatever and still take in what the professor is saying.
The problems I have with it are that it gets stored- sorry, but they have fuck all need to store data on me outside the purposes of checking I'm okay to fly through, and the fact that they take and store such data even if I cancel my flight, or even if I'm simply flying via the US (I'm not even sure you have to land- just via US airspace AFAIK).
Really, the US is just trying to build a database of as much of the world's population as possible, and it's really that that I have a problem with. I don't mind them checking I'm safe to fly, but I don't need to be part of their data whoring experiment.
Interestingly there's also a movement in the EU now to do away with the airline data sharing deal whereby something like 49 pieces of information like e-mail address, name, address, telephone number, credit card details and so forth are sent to the US before people are allowed to fly there from Europe.
It's quite a turn around since the Lisbon treaty and the last set of European elections, I was concerned there'd be less standing up to the US, but there is in fact even more now.
Here's the article on it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8548190.stm
The stats are quite interesting, although I'm not sure that the low amount of people who see corporate prescence on the internet as a problem is a good thing, particularly when violent/explicit content is rated so highly. I'm not convinced content is ever a problem- if you don't want to see it, don't look at or for it, but then, that's just my personal view. I guess by the stats I'm quite a minority although I do share the sentiment that privacy is a big issues online, as is fraud for those not aware of the various online scams that get pulled.
It's not necessarily a problem employee.
More likely what happened is they shopped around, bought from some dodgy company without actually checking what was being shipped. They probably just assumed they were getting a good deal, and that the i7s they'd just bought a ton of were in fact i7s without ever even bothering to check.
It's not necessarily the case that they knowingly tried to pull this off, simply that they unknowingly did whilst thinking they'd got a deal from some dodgy supplier.
You're welcome to use it all you want!
Interestingly Canada has one of the most liberal policies on copyright enforcement when it comes to individuals in the West also, and has for many years been the fastest growing economy in the G7 and is the only country in the G7 that did not have to bail out it's banks. The parent misses the point that economic woes will not be helped by keeping or increase reliance on industries that fiddle with imaginary property (banks and the creative industries), but will in fact be helped by reducing reliance on these industries and having a stronger manufacturing, services, and research base- again, manufacturing particularly is why Germany pulled out of recession 6 months before us, and much stronger than us, even though they went a little deeper in at the worst point. As you say, China is also a great example- it's not struggled to grow because it's manufacturing based and produces real, physical products.
That's not fair and it's not the first time I've seen this sort of response on Slashdot, in fact, I've had the same response to an anti-Labour post I made in the past.
Please don't assume that people attacking Labour are pro-Tory, I would hope you were able to realise it is possible to hate Labour AND the Tories just as much as each other. It is this attitude of "you're either Tory, or you're Labour" that is precisely what is wrong with British politics today. People treat politics like a football match, they support red and the other guys must support blue or vice versa. There's an awful lot of parties out there- sure there's the Tories and Labour, but there are the Lib Dems, the Greens, The Pirate Party, The Liberal Party, and unfortunately the far right like UKIP and the BNP.
Hating Labour, does not equal liking Conservatives, please keep that in mind when responding to people in future.
See my post here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1574328&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=31399694#31400386
The issue with Mandelson is not so much dirt (although I suspect also that that has at least a little bit of play in it) but that as much as I despise him, he's one of the big boys when it comes to politics- for all the things one can hate him for, his ability to manipulate the political landscape would be quite admirable if it wasn't simultaneously so evil.
He just has the support of the right people (i.e. the Blairites) and the contacts in the right places. Brown needed him back because he was the only person that could keep Brown in power, and as I said in my post above- next time you see Brown on the news, have a look for Mandelson, he's never far away, often right next to him in fact. Mandelson is the one manufacturing Labour's rise in the polls such that they're now only 7 points behind the Tories (they were only as far behind as 2 points a few days ago for a little while!) up from as low as 17 points at the start of the expenses scandal last year.
You apparently know absolutely nothing about British politics. Mandelson has a massive amount of power both official and unofficial. This is precisely why he is a Lord, why he keeps turning back up in government despite repeatedly getting caught red handed in some scheme of corruption or another.
Unofficially, he's one of the most powerful people in the Labour party, and in fact, is the only reason Gordon Brown is still running the party, Brown made Mandelson a Lord and gave him a position on cabinet (more on that later), in return, Mandelson has protected Brown's position as PM. Further, Labour has had a decent jump in the polls since Mandelson was brought back, part of this is the fact Cameron is finally actually unveiling some policies which make the Tories less popular, but part of it is also again down to the fact that Mandelson is if nothing else, skilled at helping sway voter opinion.
If you do live in the UK, here's an exercise for you, go and find a few clips of Brown in public on the news and such, and count how many times Mandelson is less than a few metres from him.
But of course, his unofficial power is unofficial and as such, is open to dispute, even though it's commonly accepted amongst just about all political analysts that Mandelson has a massive amount of unofficial power. There's also his official power though, he is part of the cabinet, he is secretary of state for business, innovation and skills. In this position he was able to unilaterally ensure the return of the possibility of disconnection of repeated file sharers into the bill. Further, he later added clause 17, which would have given him full power to control copyright law enforcement without having to consult parliament, thankfully this was defeated in the Lords.
Combined, the claim that Mandelson has no power to act unilaterally to his interests is ludicrous. He's in a position to construct the bills relevant to his department, and amend as he sees fit and at his will. The Lords is a stumbling point for him because he has less power there, but ultimately if it passes through the Lords, then he has a free run in the commons because Labour has a majority of over 60% such that with the massive amount of power Mandelson holds unofficially within the party, getting laws that have made it through the Lords passed in the commons is, well, a piece of cake for him.
Perhaps the most prominent example since his return to power, is that the government had decided completely and utterly against the idea of 3 strikes, and disconnections for downloading copyright content illegaly, that is until, Mandelson went on holiday with one of Hollywood's richest players:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6797844.ece
A day or so later it was rumoured, a few days later it was confirmed, Mandelson after a meeting with Geffen, had decided to bring back the threat of disconnection. This threat now looks to have made it through the Lords, and is now in with a good chance of being passed before the election. This is a pretty blatant example, of Mandelson managing to get his policy through that until that point, the majority of Labour, and certainly the majority of MPs, simply did not want.
Make no mistake, Mandelson certainly can act unilaterally, and that, coupled with the fact he has been caught in dodgy deal multiple times is why he is so very very dangerous. You might be right that technically he needs the consent of his colleagues, but getting their consent is hardly a difficult task when they're either given incentives of future positions in the cabinet, or disincentives to vote otherwise such as being shunned indefinetely by the party. So, even if he does require their consent, he doesn't have any problem getting it, even if their consent goes against what they actually believe in- if you want a couple of examples, check the opinions of Stephen Timms, and David Lammy, both prior to
I like to start gently, 3 strikes would be enough to get rid of the majority of them.
"Does the builder or architect own my house? No"
Well, it depends if you bought it from him or simply rent it from him.
That's really the problem here, most companies have no idea whether they bought or rented, they just assume they bought when the developer assumed they were renting.
Can we have a 3 strikes for politicians so that when they've been caught with red handed with their hand in the checkout 3 times they're jailed and banned from ever entering politics again so that the likes of Mandelson would never have got to a position where he could single-handedly manipulate the Digital Economy Bill in the first place?
I was in this situation many many years ago in that I hadn't learnt to type properly and just did what came natural even though it was fast.
I decided I wanted to type properly anyway though, and just spent a few hours on Mavis Beacon's typing tutor app to get an idea of what the right keys are. After that I just made a concious effort each type I sat down at the keyboard to put my fingers on the correct initial keys. It really just came naturally after that- it wasn't a big deal, again, just a few hours with a typing app was enough to let me figure out how it was supposed to be done.
"The overwhelming majority of immigrants to Israel are."
Indeed, but that still doesn't answer my question however.
"Which of several thousand causes championed by Jews are you labeling "the Jewish cause"?"
That of protecting the Jewish faith, possibly preferentially, and possibly at the expense of people of other faiths.
I'd guess if you believe that, you don't really use Visual Studio, or at least don't use it to the extent you're making use of some pretty important features like the debugger and refactoring tools.
VS is far and away better than Eclipse, because it simply has a better UI (more tools at your fingertips), better refactoring support, better intellisense, better dynamic help, better debugging.
Eclipse is also slower, the plugin system is flawed meaning you often need multiple copies of the whole IDE.
The whole Eclipse vs. Visual Studio thing certainly isn't one of personal opinion, VS just does everything Eclipse does, and does it better, and does more to boot, that's the problem with Eclipse. It's not that Eclipse is necessarily bad, just that VS is simply years ahead of it in terms of features and productivity. Visual Studio's intellisense for example is simply unparalleled in any IDE, let alone Eclipse's.
I use Eclipse for Android and PHP (Zend) development for what it's worth, I'd just much rather be using NetBeans (which I've used in the past for Spring) or Visual Studio (which I use for WinForms, MFC and ASP.NET MVC).
Again, it's really not that Eclipse, or many other IDEs for that matter are necessarily bad, it's just from an objective standpoint VS simply does more, and does nearly everything better and allows you to be much more productive.
Because if they use a robot, you can just identify it and feed it shit.
It wont be long before people know the details of their crawlers and can just serve them something random.
"Objective-C has advantages, such as that it is compiled."
Huh? Java is compiled too, but it's JIT compilation which is better in that it allows optimisation for the specific device on which it is being run, not the generic platform on which it is expected to be run. The claim that Objective-C being compiled is an advantage makes no sense at all. The rest of that paragraph seems to be based on the false premise that Java is inherently slower than Objective-C which just simply isn't true.
"X-Code is a purpose-built, clean-sheet IDE that may lack a few power features found in Eclipse, and Eclipse has numerous plug-ins, but Eclipse also has a pretty diabolical UI, especially compared to software from Apple."
I do agree, I'm not a fan of Eclipse, but then, Apple's software doesn't come close to beating Visual Studio, so in this respect it's really Windows Mobile that has the IDE advantage of any platform. It's a shame really there's no official support for NetBeans rather than Eclipse for Android, NetBeans is IMHO, much better.
"Java, Eclipse, and the other Android SDK tools are more than good enough, but they are not a big advantage, or, depending on your tastes, any advantage. There is a rough equivalence here that will probably extend to Android doing for client Java what iPhone did for Objective-C - making it popular. That is, Android apps will probably be the most common form of interactive client Java apps, if they have not already eclipsed AWT, Swing, SWT, and other Java UI libraries."
I'm not sure you know too much about Java, but it's far and away the most commonly used language across the globe and has been for many many years. Android is small fry in terms of overall Java development, even on the client side. When you go into a Doctor's surgery to book your appointment, use a system to pickup your prepaid Cinema or Airline tickets, get served by someone at checkout, the chances are these systems are all client side Java. Even on the desktop there are some prominent Java apps- Vuze (Azureus) is a popular BitTorrent client for example that has a pretty nice interface.
Regarding iPhone books as Amazon top sellers, it's also not really a meaningful metric (although I just had a look myself, and it doesn't even seem to be true- are you sure you weren't looking at your recommendations?). This could simply because Android has great online documentation for example.
Java certainly is an advantage, if not only because it's prominence as a language and portability between Windows, Linux, Mac, Android phones, Blackberrys, Unix and so forth means that even if you have to write the UI, you don't have to re-write the libraries. As pointed out above, it's not as if performance is an issue in Java either, see here, and keep in mind this page is now 6 years old:
http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Computer/javaCbenchmark.html
The only thing Java really does need is IDE improvements, if NetBeans or Eclipse were taken up to the quality and usefulness of Visual Studio then that'd be awesome.
Well yeah, you're actually right, as it happens, Windows Mobile really is MUCH simpler to develop for than any other phone platform because you get to use Visual Studio and .NET. Just because WinMo itself has been a bit crap for it's past few releases, doesn't mean it doesn't beat the iPhone and Android in terms of ease of development.
I think you're under the assumption that he's saying Android is better than the iPhone overall because it's easier to develop for, he's not, he's saying it's better than the iPhone for developers who actually want to write apps for that phone, which is absolutely true, just as as you say, Windows Mobile is indeed even better again for developers to develop for.
"Most games aren't written in Java for the obvious performance reasons."
What obvious performance reasons would they be?
Java performs perfectly well for game development, the reason developers use C++ still is partly because it's the only language shared between all gaming platforms (PS3, Wii, 360, PC) and partly because it's historically what their developers were trained in because it was historically faster.
There are no performance issues with Java nowadays, it's a complete myth. See here, and keep in mind this page goes as far back as 2004:
http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Computer/javaCbenchmark.html
Read what it says again- it's not saying that Java is slow, it's just pointing out that apps wont run as fast on a phone as they do on multicore servers, because phones have much lower performance hardware.
Java in terms of speed is fine, it's as fast as C++ apps in the overwhelming majority of cases, and often even faster due to being able to optimise for the specific system the code is being executed on, rather than having to optimise for the general case as C++ compilers have to do.
Or to give a more simple reason why DRM doesn't generally work, PCs are open systems, the content has to become available to the system at some point whether it's encrypted, or sent across the network. It still has to end up on a system whose memory and executable code at run time can be peeked and poked at will.
The only real workaround is to process some game logic and such server side, but that is going to cost the company a lot in terms of processing power, a lot in terms of bandwidth, a lot in terms of additional development effort, but perhaps, a lot of embarassment when said servers fail and the game keels over for a few days.
DRM is pretty much a lost cause from the off, it's not that it requires too high a degree of developer skill to implement properly, it's simply that it really can't be implemented properly, at least, not without massive extra cost to the company that would likely outweigh any profits the game will make, and not without severe detriment to the game experience.
Really, it doesn't matter if you had some god like developer that could implement a DRM scheme without making a single mistake, it'd still be a DRM system designed to run on an open system at the end of the day and would hence still be inherently vulnerable. DRM basically tries to say "You can't do this", except it's saying it on a system where you can anyway, and where that can overrides the can't because the user gets priority over control of the system, not the DRM.
I had a look at the PDF in question, and I think the summary may be somewhat wrong tbh. I'm not convinced this amendment has party support.
The layout of the PDF is confusing, it's hard to tell which names support the amendment, but if it's the ones before it, then the names listed are simply both the Lib Dem and the Tory ministers for culture and sport- i.e. those who are always most closely lobbied by the music industry.
If it's the names after, then it's still the Lib Dem culture and sport minister, coupled with Lord Razzall, one of the few Lib Dems who really did take the piss with expenses so someone whose corrupt to the core anyway.
I wouldn't assume from the summary alone that this is an indication of Lib Dem party support for the position- remember, Lords generally act much more independently and pursue their own paths more commonly than in the commons.