The biggest trick is the one that Obama is pulling. The one that makes us all think that he is somehow a better choice because he appears smarter, cooler, and more articulate than McCain.
I am against erroneous data. I don't think anyone would be for it (except to manufacture evidence).
So what's the big deal with it? I'll tell you.
The big deal is that if Mr. Herring wasn't an unlicensed gun-toting drug user, the detrimental effects of the bad data would be obvious. But since Mr. Herring is actually a "bad guy" and Americans love to see bad guys put away, it makes it hard for anyone to sympathize with him.
The ACLU couldn't have picked a worse poster child in this case.
Mac OS and GNOME put Cancel (brake) on the left and OK (gas) on the right. Windows and some other environments do it the other way around.
In right-hand drive cars, the Japanese manufacturers put the turn signal lever on the right of the steering column and the windshield wiper controls on the left. European manufacturers put the turn signal on the right and the windshield wiper on the left.
When you are not used to it, it's not uncommon to sweat a little when the wipers come on instead of the turn signal.
If 1 in 25 is angry or dissatisfied enough to return the device, and assuming that only 1 in 10 dissatisfied ever go through with the return, then you are looking at almost half the Linux version customers having a bad experience with their netbook.
Same calculation only yields about 10 in 100 users as truly dissatisfied.
Many users have no qualms about blowing away desktop PC and reinstalling. The same cannot be said for laptops.
Desktops are typically pieced together from standard hardware components. Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, x86-based chipset. All these things are supported out of the box for Windows (and Linux). Even in the worst case scenario, the user would still have the VGA graphics and a mouse and keyboard for input.
But laptops are put together using all sorts of specialized hardware. Touch panel input. Scrolling zone on the touch panel. LCD backlight drivers. Specialized keyboards. Built-in wifi. Assuming that the Windows (or Linux) disk comes with the correct drivers pre-packaged is dangerous. You may be left with a laptop in which half the hardware is not working because it didn't get the correct drivers installed during setup.
It's safer to assume that the restore CD contains the correct drivers and simply backup from that. It also means having to go through and uninstall all the crap bundled in there. But even that is difficult to do since you never know if the bundled program is something critical (like audio or DVD).
Add to this that you may be swapping out the OS for something almost completely foreign, and you have set your users up for severe disappointment and given them nowhere to turn unless you provide them exactly what they want up front. They don't have any option except to return the laptop if they are not satisfied with it.
The intellectual abilities of both men and women are essentially equal. The key differentiation between the cognitive abilities of men and women is that men are able to confront a problem by breaking things down into smaller parts and focus on solving those to form a complete solution while the minds of women take problems holistically and solve based on tradeoffs between different sections of a problem area.
This would seem to benefit women chess players, but the fact is that chess is a game with many intricacies and the ability to analyze at the micro level (as in visualizing x number of steps ahead) is a critical skill. To take the game holistically works fine at the lower levels (and may be a superior form of cognition for those levels) because a full understanding of the game as an exhibition of ebb and flow gives various insights that a purely logical player would not apprehend immediately. What is clear, though, is that male chess grand champions are able to apprehend the holistic game while female chess grand champions are not able to make the jump to pure logic and focus.
This is the unfortunate truth about the split in chess rankings. It is also why men won't stop for directions when lost and women are able to care for families so well.
You're missing the most radical language of all
on
C# In-Depth
·
· Score: 4, Funny
So what you're saying is that someone who is not good (perhaps a newly-graduated engineer) should be forced to work any hours an employer sees fit? You don't have a problem, in general, with overworking employees and not compensating them for the overtime?
The complaints that are most often heard from people in the IT workforce are not about pay and benefits. It is almost solely about overwork and unpaid overtime.
Those other companies that promise better pay and working conditions may deliver on the former but invariably fall in line with standard industry practice on the latter. Collective bargaining would be able to force the industry to adopt more reasonable working conditions.
Then again, the loss of productivity due to such a largescale change might be hobbling to the entire industry (though it seems to be fine in Sweden, for example).
Ah, but even those who excel will be subject to long hours, weekend work, and other working conditions that the company demands. It is the nature of the creative workflow that makes it difficult to determine when an employee will be most productive. Therefore, as time on a project runs out, all team members are pressed into working those long hours to make up for "wasted" time.
Even if an exceptional engineer were to leave, the work environment at most competitive companies is similar across the board, so there is little net benefit for the engineer.
A balance must be struck between the freedom of each individual and the responsibility of each individual to support colleagues.
By joining a union, an individual gives up personal freedom and the opportunity for exceptional advancement. But he gains the power of collective bargaining and the benefit of a standardized work environment.
It surprises me to see how a group of individuals so smart in some ways would not also see the benefit inherent in joining together to avoid being subject to exactly the type of persecution described in the article.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should McCain be against takedowns? That seems to be the entirety of his election strategy this year.
Every time I fly, I am reminded just how much we lost in the years following that day.
When you put it in perspective, Mafiaboy's exploits are pretty minor compared to the damage wrought by the reaction to the terrorism of 9/11.
I don't know what kind of fancy shmancy programming language you use in your astronomy work, but Perl and wget can do the job pretty well.
vote Bush out
He's gone, regardless. He's limited to two terms.
Shocking? Where do you get the idea that you have any privacy or anonymity whatsoever, Paul?
The biggest trick is the one that Obama is pulling. The one that makes us all think that he is somehow a better choice because he appears smarter, cooler, and more articulate than McCain.
Ace Frehley is rolling over in his grave at this trumped up story.
CNN has no responsibility to police its message boards. Just like Slashdot has no responsibility to do so here either.
Now that's a name that'll be remembered
I am against erroneous data. I don't think anyone would be for it (except to manufacture evidence).
So what's the big deal with it? I'll tell you.
The big deal is that if Mr. Herring wasn't an unlicensed gun-toting drug user, the detrimental effects of the bad data would be obvious. But since Mr. Herring is actually a "bad guy" and Americans love to see bad guys put away, it makes it hard for anyone to sympathize with him.
The ACLU couldn't have picked a worse poster child in this case.
Mac OS and GNOME put Cancel (brake) on the left and OK (gas) on the right. Windows and some other environments do it the other way around.
In right-hand drive cars, the Japanese manufacturers put the turn signal lever on the right of the steering column and the windshield wiper controls on the left. European manufacturers put the turn signal on the right and the windshield wiper on the left.
When you are not used to it, it's not uncommon to sweat a little when the wipers come on instead of the turn signal.
If 1 in 25 is angry or dissatisfied enough to return the device, and assuming that only 1 in 10 dissatisfied ever go through with the return, then you are looking at almost half the Linux version customers having a bad experience with their netbook.
Same calculation only yields about 10 in 100 users as truly dissatisfied.
Many users have no qualms about blowing away desktop PC and reinstalling. The same cannot be said for laptops.
Desktops are typically pieced together from standard hardware components. Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, x86-based chipset. All these things are supported out of the box for Windows (and Linux). Even in the worst case scenario, the user would still have the VGA graphics and a mouse and keyboard for input.
But laptops are put together using all sorts of specialized hardware. Touch panel input. Scrolling zone on the touch panel. LCD backlight drivers. Specialized keyboards. Built-in wifi. Assuming that the Windows (or Linux) disk comes with the correct drivers pre-packaged is dangerous. You may be left with a laptop in which half the hardware is not working because it didn't get the correct drivers installed during setup.
It's safer to assume that the restore CD contains the correct drivers and simply backup from that. It also means having to go through and uninstall all the crap bundled in there. But even that is difficult to do since you never know if the bundled program is something critical (like audio or DVD).
Add to this that you may be swapping out the OS for something almost completely foreign, and you have set your users up for severe disappointment and given them nowhere to turn unless you provide them exactly what they want up front. They don't have any option except to return the laptop if they are not satisfied with it.
Mock stupid people.
You're a bit mistaken.
The intellectual abilities of both men and women are essentially equal. The key differentiation between the cognitive abilities of men and women is that men are able to confront a problem by breaking things down into smaller parts and focus on solving those to form a complete solution while the minds of women take problems holistically and solve based on tradeoffs between different sections of a problem area.
This would seem to benefit women chess players, but the fact is that chess is a game with many intricacies and the ability to analyze at the micro level (as in visualizing x number of steps ahead) is a critical skill. To take the game holistically works fine at the lower levels (and may be a superior form of cognition for those levels) because a full understanding of the game as an exhibition of ebb and flow gives various insights that a purely logical player would not apprehend immediately. What is clear, though, is that male chess grand champions are able to apprehend the holistic game while female chess grand champions are not able to make the jump to pure logic and focus.
This is the unfortunate truth about the split in chess rankings. It is also why men won't stop for directions when lost and women are able to care for families so well.
The Roctothorpe!
*insert headbanging graphic here*
Well. Isn't that spatial.
So what you're saying is that someone who is not good (perhaps a newly-graduated engineer) should be forced to work any hours an employer sees fit? You don't have a problem, in general, with overworking employees and not compensating them for the overtime?
The complaints that are most often heard from people in the IT workforce are not about pay and benefits. It is almost solely about overwork and unpaid overtime.
Those other companies that promise better pay and working conditions may deliver on the former but invariably fall in line with standard industry practice on the latter. Collective bargaining would be able to force the industry to adopt more reasonable working conditions.
Then again, the loss of productivity due to such a largescale change might be hobbling to the entire industry (though it seems to be fine in Sweden, for example).
It is not laziness to want to eat dinner with one's family. Nor is it laziness to want to spend the weekend caring for them.
It is ridiculous to think that the company owns so much of your life that work should take the highest priority in one's life.
Ah, but even those who excel will be subject to long hours, weekend work, and other working conditions that the company demands. It is the nature of the creative workflow that makes it difficult to determine when an employee will be most productive. Therefore, as time on a project runs out, all team members are pressed into working those long hours to make up for "wasted" time.
Even if an exceptional engineer were to leave, the work environment at most competitive companies is similar across the board, so there is little net benefit for the engineer.
A balance must be struck between the freedom of each individual and the responsibility of each individual to support colleagues.
By joining a union, an individual gives up personal freedom and the opportunity for exceptional advancement. But he gains the power of collective bargaining and the benefit of a standardized work environment.
It surprises me to see how a group of individuals so smart in some ways would not also see the benefit inherent in joining together to avoid being subject to exactly the type of persecution described in the article.
Yet another first person shooter
It doesn't seem like there is much more innovation left in this genre.
Please let the U.S. government in on your theory, because for the past 6 years the silent majority has been riding roughshod over the vocal minority.
Face it, when you need a real time operating system, Linux is not the choice of a new generation.
Information servers, fancy GUI update stuff, maybe. Missiles and flight control systems, not so much.