As an English prof myself, I'd like to confirm that we spend a lot of time on students' papers. Good papers are easy to breeze through, but the worse the paper, the more time it takes.
Interesting. I've found that when I'm interviewing developers for senior level positions, the same holds true. Their knowledge of the subject is immediately obvious and they zoom through the questions in a fraction of the time it takes the poorly prepared to struggle through. (And to be fair, I spend much more time rephrasing and probing to ferret out what they do know.)
> Exactly. like karate lessons. How about teaching your kid how to defend themselves, > along with all the goodness that comes with learning a discipline and being able to > utterly kick the crap out of the playground bullies.
Um... So how does this address the little people getting abducted or lost? Even if they were 2nd degree black belts, it's not like they have the mass to defend themselves against most adults. Sounds like somebody has watched Ninja Kids one time too many.
(BTW: I am enrolling both my toddlers in karate when they're old enough, but mostly for the discipline and a physical outlet.)
Jeez... I was going to mod this one, but as a parent, I've just got to weigh in. Those of you acting like it's some police state conspiracy to track my four-year old, really have no idea what you're talking about. It doesn't change my attitude about keeping an eye on him, it's not invasive or dehumanizing, and the kid doesn't care --the kid probably doesn't even understand. He'd think it was cool to have his own watch.
I lost track of the little guy at a theme park about a year ago when he ran off while I was --ahem-- indisposed in the restroom. We found him 10 minutes later, but it took weeks to get back in my wife's good graces. He's typically obedient, but these things happen --and no, training him in karate, giving him a copy of the Fountainhead, or some other moronic suggestion wouldn't have helped. As he becomes more capable of self-governance and demonstrates responsibility, we will give him increasing autonomy.
I would wager that the decrease in violent crime that have occurred this century are related to the rise of violent life like video games.
Sounds logical. If I'm sitting on my arse, playing video games, I'm not out looking for trouble. And unfortunately, probably getting more sedentary and less able to commit acts of physical violence as well.
My 10 year vision/non-wagering prediction is that the cell phone becomes an identity provider, your storage device for private data, and even your OS. Monitors and all kinds of projected or OLED touch surfaces act as monitors/interfaces wherever you happen to be, tapping into the phone through something like next-gen Bluetooth. Voice recognition and wireless power transmission (to keep the cell's battery constantly charged) also improve greatly.
The new series had even lamer characters, even lamer bad guys, while the old series had state of the art special effects.
The state of the art just wasn't anything to write home about then.
The new series failed as story telling despite being able to keep pretentious critics happy.
Um... Are we talking about the same thing? Battlestar Galactica? I remember being enthralled with the original (1987) series as a kid, but in retrospect it isn't half the show BSG2004 was. My wife hates sci-fi, but loved BSG2004 --it's that good.
Shows like Star Trek TOS and Twilight Zone, both pre-dating BSG1987, will remain in rotation decades from now, but BSG1987 just isn't in the same league. I guess there's no disputing taste, but I'd say most people would agree that the new series had superior acting, writing, story line, characters, plot twists, philosophical questions, art direction, music, and cultural relevance. The effects were better too --although they could have used cardboard models with strings and the new series would still be far more compelling. I think it may hold up as well as 2001 A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner over the years.
What exactly do you consider good sci-fi television and why?
I think you've nailed it. The obvious answer to charges like this is to use the Reagan defense (famously employed in the Iran Contra scandal). Claiming to not remember is altogether different than lying (and there are rooms full of experts that can attest to the fragility and malleability of human memory). I'm not saying it's morally defensible, but if Clinton could have believably used this ploy in Lewinskygate, the country might be better off today.
But Saddam Hussein was doing his best to convince the world that he did have WMDs. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded. Before the invasion, no one argued that he didn't have any WMDs...
Sorry, but despite the Neo-Con belief that reality is whatever they say it is, this is total fiction. Colin Powell's PowerPoint show didn't change the fundamental position of the U.N. Security Council or the opinion of many Americans.
From Wikipedia (and yes there are foreign press sites to back this up): "While Colin Powell's statement to the UN may have been accepted as 'proof' by many in the U.S., this was not the case in Europe, where there was widespread skepticism of any links between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
I'm ready to adapt Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It will be painstakingly true to the original play I struggled to pay attention to in high school. The game will deliver each slow, achingly dull line of dialog with Freddy Krueger flashing on the screen at random 10-20 minute intervals, requiring a quick key-press to prove you're awake. You fall asleep, you die.
1: God-like* alien intelligence is all around us and they're enjoying the show --or completely disinterested. 2: FTL or even near light speed travel is impossible and we're limited to contact with close neighbors. 3: We're the first technological species in the neighborhood (maybe life and/or intelligence is just incredibly unlikely).
----- *They would have tech perhaps millions of years ahead of us
Seems like every AI thread goes something like this, where most people think there's a black and white distinction between strong and weak AI --and often refuse to acknowledge weak AI at all.
Intelligence, as commonly conceived (although I don't think we have a consensus yet), is not a boolean characteristic, but a continuum. If you think of intelligence as a collection of problem-solving abilities, there are many programs with the ability to do certain tasks as well as a human (some parts of the WAIS-IV, for instance); there are some humans that are less capable on some tasks than a well-trained animal. To claim there is no AI until something slam-dunks a Turing test, is to selectively ignore what has been accomplished in the field.
I have a few theories about why we keep moving the goalposts, but the most obvious reason is that it allows us to keep our place in the universe intact --like the Ptolemaic system once did. As long as we continue to be magical beings with a characteristic only we could possibly possess, the universe needs us. Thus, we think that anything we can understand is categorically NOT intelligent. It may take several generations, but this barrier will fall.
> > in order to interpret the results scientifically
> You have to be smoking dope. > There is nothing scientific at all about this claptrap, and there never was.
Actually, speaking as someone who administered the Rorschach many times in a previous life (before turning to coding), I'd say you're wrong. It certainly doesn't have the psychometric characteristics of a good personality test, but it does have considerable empirical data to aid in its interpretation. It's nowhere near the validity and reliability of instruments like the MMPI or NEO PI-R, but it does have its uses --especially when assessing those who might try to fool a psychologist using these more face-valid psychological measures.
its main selling points are speed, simplicity and security
Oh... I'm sure if you push the envelope and try to do all the things you can on your Windows box, you can negate all these advantages. Users are much more resourceful than we imagine.
Some versions of Microsoft Word have a really cool feature called "Save as HTML". Saves simple one-page documents as fantastically redundant HTML in less than a terabyte --and you might even get a cute little paperclip to help you through the process!
How about better users and better sysadmins? Seriously, sysadmins ought to have some liability when they aren't doing their due diligence. There was a critical patch that would have prevented Conflicker released way back in October.
I got a Thinkpad last Summer and I've been really happy with it. However, it was a rough start --had to remove crapware that crashed Vista frequently. But Lenovo made it easy enough to get a fresh install with no extras. (see this comment: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1282033&cid=28470885 ) Since that re-install it's worked flawlessly. Customer service seemed good too. I thought I had a bad DVD burner and they happily sent a replacement (in retrospect I think it was just some bad disks, not the drive).
On the one hand, this is silly. If you don't have the mental machinery to reliably type a password, you're likely too dumb to be trusted doing online banking and other important things.
On the other hand, why do so many stupid sites need a 10+ char c0mP13X_p@s5w0rD (hidden with asterisks) just to exchange casserole recipes with other soccer moms?
I am a strong opponent of censorship, but I wonder if society might want to be more careful with games than we are with other media. Reading or watching Lolita seems much less dangerous a thing than playing Humbert Humbert in a FPS environment. And where will we be in 20 years, when your NeuroPlug(tm) makes the gaming experience almost indiscernible from reality?
Music composition seems like a more apt metaphor than art (for all engineering, IMHO). Rules must be applied, there are a limited number of solutions that will work, most of any project is just reuse of what has worked before, and although amateurs can do it, what they create is typically crap.
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As an English prof myself, I'd like to confirm that we spend a lot of time on students' papers. Good papers are easy to breeze through, but the worse the paper, the more time it takes.
Interesting. I've found that when I'm interviewing developers for senior level positions, the same holds true. Their knowledge of the subject is immediately obvious and they zoom through the questions in a fraction of the time it takes the poorly prepared to struggle through. (And to be fair, I spend much more time rephrasing and probing to ferret out what they do know.)
> Exactly. like karate lessons. How about teaching your kid how to defend themselves,
> along with all the goodness that comes with learning a discipline and being able to
> utterly kick the crap out of the playground bullies.
Um... So how does this address the little people getting abducted or lost? Even if they were 2nd degree black belts, it's not like they have the mass to defend themselves against most adults. Sounds like somebody has watched Ninja Kids one time too many.
(BTW: I am enrolling both my toddlers in karate when they're old enough, but mostly for the discipline and a physical outlet.)
Jeez... I was going to mod this one, but as a parent, I've just got to weigh in. Those of you acting like it's some police state conspiracy to track my four-year old, really have no idea what you're talking about. It doesn't change my attitude about keeping an eye on him, it's not invasive or dehumanizing, and the kid doesn't care --the kid probably doesn't even understand. He'd think it was cool to have his own watch.
I lost track of the little guy at a theme park about a year ago when he ran off while I was --ahem-- indisposed in the restroom. We found him 10 minutes later, but it took weeks to get back in my wife's good graces. He's typically obedient, but these things happen --and no, training him in karate, giving him a copy of the Fountainhead, or some other moronic suggestion wouldn't have helped. As he becomes more capable of self-governance and demonstrates responsibility, we will give him increasing autonomy.
I would wager that the decrease in violent crime that have occurred this century are related to the rise of violent life like video games.
Sounds logical. If I'm sitting on my arse, playing video games, I'm not out looking for trouble. And unfortunately, probably getting more sedentary and less able to commit acts of physical violence as well.
My 10 year vision/non-wagering prediction is that the cell phone becomes an identity provider, your storage device for private data, and even your OS. Monitors and all kinds of projected or OLED touch surfaces act as monitors/interfaces wherever you happen to be, tapping into the phone through something like next-gen Bluetooth. Voice recognition and wireless power transmission (to keep the cell's battery constantly charged) also improve greatly.
Opps. Apologies for my transposition of digits. I watched the first run in 1978. Guess I'm older than I realized.
The new series had even lamer characters, even lamer bad guys, while the old series had state of the art special effects.
The state of the art just wasn't anything to write home about then.
The new series failed as story telling despite being able to keep pretentious critics happy.
Um... Are we talking about the same thing? Battlestar Galactica? I remember being enthralled with the original (1987) series as a kid, but in retrospect it isn't half the show BSG2004 was. My wife hates sci-fi, but loved BSG2004 --it's that good.
Shows like Star Trek TOS and Twilight Zone, both pre-dating BSG1987, will remain in rotation decades from now, but BSG1987 just isn't in the same league. I guess there's no disputing taste, but I'd say most people would agree that the new series had superior acting, writing, story line, characters, plot twists, philosophical questions, art direction, music, and cultural relevance. The effects were better too --although they could have used cardboard models with strings and the new series would still be far more compelling. I think it may hold up as well as 2001 A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner over the years.
What exactly do you consider good sci-fi television and why?
Funny and true.
I think you've nailed it. The obvious answer to charges like this is to use the Reagan defense (famously employed in the Iran Contra scandal). Claiming to not remember is altogether different than lying (and there are rooms full of experts that can attest to the fragility and malleability of human memory). I'm not saying it's morally defensible, but if Clinton could have believably used this ploy in Lewinskygate, the country might be better off today.
But Saddam Hussein was doing his best to convince the world that he did have WMDs. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded. Before the invasion, no one argued that he didn't have any WMDs...
Sorry, but despite the Neo-Con belief that reality is whatever they say it is, this is total fiction. Colin Powell's PowerPoint show didn't change the fundamental position of the U.N. Security Council or the opinion of many Americans.
From Wikipedia (and yes there are foreign press sites to back this up):
"While Colin Powell's statement to the UN may have been accepted as 'proof' by many in the U.S., this was not the case in Europe, where there was widespread skepticism of any links between Iraq and al-Qaeda."
Powell has since expressed shame over the incident.
Just get a bigger monitor.
I'm ready to adapt Thornton Wilder's Our Town . It will be painstakingly true to the original play I struggled to pay attention to in high school. The game will deliver each slow, achingly dull line of dialog with Freddy Krueger flashing on the screen at random 10-20 minute intervals, requiring a quick key-press to prove you're awake. You fall asleep, you die.
1: God-like* alien intelligence is all around us and they're enjoying the show --or completely disinterested.
2: FTL or even near light speed travel is impossible and we're limited to contact with close neighbors.
3: We're the first technological species in the neighborhood (maybe life and/or intelligence is just incredibly unlikely).
-----
*They would have tech perhaps millions of years ahead of us
I'd like to see Lode Runner on a 3D isometric grid (like Diablo) with some fresh graphics.
Spy Hunter would be a lot fun with Crazy Taxi or Gran Turismo-style graphics and physics.
(Did I really date myself?)
Sigh...
Seems like every AI thread goes something like this, where most people think there's a black and white distinction between strong and weak AI --and often refuse to acknowledge weak AI at all.
Intelligence, as commonly conceived (although I don't think we have a consensus yet), is not a boolean characteristic, but a continuum. If you think of intelligence as a collection of problem-solving abilities, there are many programs with the ability to do certain tasks as well as a human (some parts of the WAIS-IV, for instance); there are some humans that are less capable on some tasks than a well-trained animal. To claim there is no AI until something slam-dunks a Turing test, is to selectively ignore what has been accomplished in the field.
I have a few theories about why we keep moving the goalposts, but the most obvious reason is that it allows us to keep our place in the universe intact --like the Ptolemaic system once did. As long as we continue to be magical beings with a characteristic only we could possibly possess, the universe needs us. Thus, we think that anything we can understand is categorically NOT intelligent. It may take several generations, but this barrier will fall.
> > in order to interpret the results scientifically
> You have to be smoking dope.
> There is nothing scientific at all about this claptrap, and there never was.
Actually, speaking as someone who administered the Rorschach many times in a previous life (before turning to coding), I'd say you're wrong. It certainly doesn't have the psychometric characteristics of a good personality test, but it does have considerable empirical data to aid in its interpretation. It's nowhere near the validity and reliability of instruments like the MMPI or NEO PI-R, but it does have its uses --especially when assessing those who might try to fool a psychologist using these more face-valid psychological measures.
its main selling points are speed, simplicity and security
Oh... I'm sure if you push the envelope and try to do all the things you can on your Windows box, you can negate all these advantages. Users are much more resourceful than we imagine.
Some versions of Microsoft Word have a really cool feature called "Save as HTML". Saves simple one-page documents as fantastically redundant HTML in less than a terabyte --and you might even get a cute little paperclip to help you through the process!
HTH.
Looking for a Better OS?
How about better users and better sysadmins? Seriously, sysadmins ought to have some liability when they aren't doing their due diligence. There was a critical patch that would have prevented Conflicker released way back in October.
A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor prescribing cigarettes. It creates a lot of extra work.
I am intrigued by your offer to provide Linux support desk services for my aging parents.
I got a Thinkpad last Summer and I've been really happy with it. However, it was a rough start --had to remove crapware that crashed Vista frequently. But Lenovo made it easy enough to get a fresh install with no extras. (see this comment: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1282033&cid=28470885 ) Since that re-install it's worked flawlessly. Customer service seemed good too. I thought I had a bad DVD burner and they happily sent a replacement (in retrospect I think it was just some bad disks, not the drive).
On the one hand, this is silly. If you don't have the mental machinery to reliably type a password, you're likely too dumb to be trusted doing online banking and other important things.
On the other hand, why do so many stupid sites need a 10+ char c0mP13X_p@s5w0rD (hidden with asterisks) just to exchange casserole recipes with other soccer moms?
I am a strong opponent of censorship, but I wonder if society might want to be more careful with games than we are with other media. Reading or watching Lolita seems much less dangerous a thing than playing Humbert Humbert in a FPS environment. And where will we be in 20 years, when your NeuroPlug(tm) makes the gaming experience almost indiscernible from reality?
Music composition seems like a more apt metaphor than art (for all engineering, IMHO). Rules must be applied, there are a limited number of solutions that will work, most of any project is just reuse of what has worked before, and although amateurs can do it, what they create is typically crap.
Except architecture is a highly regulated and licensed profession, whereas any schmuck can write code.
I see you haven't met my parents or wife.
Most people can't get their VCR to stop flashing "12:00" or change the default ringtone on their cell.