Obviously you did not read my post. I did not say that tools are a bad thing, I claim that they are a bad thing for beginners as they don't teach the necessary skills to truly understand the problem. After one has obtained a decent grasp on a subject, using more sophisticated tools is fine. Usually people who do know understand the most choose to use the most efficient tools. This usually also turns out to be command line tools from my experience.
As usual I get a response from an Anonymous Coward. Quite fitting I suppose considering my previous point about laziness. Try registering an account or having the balls to use it if you wish to reply further.
I agree completely. Let me make a quick analogy by telling a story from my past. I was a graduate student in physics. I of course had worked with equations and physics for many years. While teaching the low level physics courses I found a common theme. Most students had to use their $200 calculators or they couldn't do anything. I basically equate these to fancy IDE's. I of course had a shitty ten year old calculator that worked just fine. Time and time again I would watch these poor fools attempt to use the fancy calculators, not bothering to actually think about the problem or further develop the base skills necessary to solve problems in general. Eventually I would whip out the shitty calculator I had and solve the problems within seconds.
Clearly my calculator did not possess superior functionality, however I did posses much better skills from years of not having the fancy tools to use. I feel that elaborate tools can be useful but not until a person has mastered the subject without any assistance. I am now a programmer and I see the situation to be very much the same. I see the MS monkeys slaving away with Visual Studio and such programs and I just have to laugh. Providing a crutch just produces a cripple.
I agree that command line tools take a significant increase in time to learn however the payoff is immense. Call me oldschool if you will but I view GUI IDE's a lazy person's choice. Then again most people are lazy so the popularity of these packages is not suprising.
"...when other powerful things in their lives help keep them grounded: close relationships with friends and parents, religion, a passion for chess..."
Hahaha, am I the only one that finds the passion for chess and grounded bit funny?
AK preflop is when your two hole cards are Ace, King, like you guessed and the flop has not happened yet. The flop is when community cards are turned over as in Texas Holdem or when you get face up cards as in 7 card stud. For instance in Texas Holdem you are dealt 2 cards face down and three community cards ard also dealt to the middle of the table but also face down to start. You view your hole cards and a round of betting goes on. Then the flop occurs and the three cards are turned up. --------------------------------------------- -----
I had a Lisp prof that showed up all the time with t-shirts which he had written code all over. It was hilarious. Also he told us a story of how he gave his wife a grocery list written in lisp.
I had a funny experience from the old HS days. I had written a mandelbrot program in BASIC and was in our HS library. We had a few 286's and so I started to run the program and test out the speed. Well of course one of the halfwit librarians happened to see the screen with these malicious pixels and forced me to reboot the computer. I was detained in the library until they were satisfied that I had not destroyed the computer. It still amazes me that schools supposedly devoted to education can do such a good job at making sure you don't learn anything.
Later
Wow! Another person that played Tunnels of Doom! That was my first exposure to "RPG" if you can even call it that. I remember Car Wars and Kongo Bongo as well. I was only about 7 or 8 at the time but had my first exposure to programming and had to use that damn tape drive to save my programs. It's amazing to see how far things have come. -----
I would never give up printed manuals. Especially for long reads, who wants to keep scrolling the page and end up with bloodshot eyes? I also think for tutorials, the online stuff can be very agitating, having to switch back and forth windows. Another thing I like to do is have 2 or 3 books open at one time, spread out in front of me so I can scan them all at the same time. While the text searching in electronic media is nice I still see the printed version to be better in the long run. If I find an online manual I usually just end up going to work and printing the entire thing out and then using the hole puncher and putting that in a binder. This is not as great as an actual bound book but it is better than the screen in my opinion. Taking notes in books is also a common thing for me to do. I then have that book forever with my notes so that if I scan through it later on I can read my own stuff. With electronic version you either can't take notes or you will have a different copy by the time you go back to check on something and your notes will be gone.
>There is more evidence that the results are not propreties specific to photons or electrons...
All matter exhibits wave particle duality, the trick is finding objects with a small enough wavelength in order to make the kind of observations you are talking about. Check into de Broglie wavelengths in any physics text for more information.
Also as a general note some of you might want to check out the following books to clear a few things up:
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by P.A.M. Dirac (the master)
And for more of the philosophy try:
Quantum Mechanics and Experience by David Z Albert
I have a graduate physics degree and I will have to say that QM and specifically the philosophy of it are some of the most interesting and difficult topics around.
I recently helped a family member pick out a new computer and promptly reclaimed my old 286 that I had loaned to them. I of course had to hook it up and tinker around. Qmodem is still installed and all my old BBS files are on there. I can vividly remember the excitement of unzipping the latest dl's from various BBS's. I hope that Katz had some idea as to the enjoyment and usefulness that his software provided to a geek such as myself. -Atlas
Does anyone know how well video game systems will use the HDTV technology? Does the DreamCast or PS2 output video that will take advantage of HDTV sets?
True. I though it was kind of out of place in the book. One minute you're reading about boogers and chickets and the next you're into the story about an online relationship, seriously written. Also, hewas definitely scathing towards the online porn industry, another voice from Dave Barry that we rarely hear. The book seemed a little disjointed as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you did not read my post. I did not say that tools are a bad thing, I claim that they are a bad thing for beginners as they don't teach the necessary skills to truly understand the problem. After one has obtained a decent grasp on a subject, using more sophisticated tools is fine. Usually people who do know understand the most choose to use the most efficient tools. This usually also turns out to be command line tools from my experience.
As usual I get a response from an Anonymous Coward. Quite fitting I suppose considering my previous point about laziness. Try registering an account or having the balls to use it if you wish to reply further.
I agree completely. Let me make a quick analogy by telling a story from my past. I was a graduate student in physics. I of course had worked with equations and physics for many years. While teaching the low level physics courses I found a common theme. Most students had to use their $200 calculators or they couldn't do anything. I basically equate these to fancy IDE's. I of course had a shitty ten year old calculator that worked just fine. Time and time again I would watch these poor fools attempt to use the fancy calculators, not bothering to actually think about the problem or further develop the base skills necessary to solve problems in general. Eventually I would whip out the shitty calculator I had and solve the problems within seconds.
Clearly my calculator did not possess superior functionality, however I did posses much better skills from years of not having the fancy tools to use. I feel that elaborate tools can be useful but not until a person has mastered the subject without any assistance. I am now a programmer and I see the situation to be very much the same. I see the MS monkeys slaving away with Visual Studio and such programs and I just have to laugh. Providing a crutch just produces a cripple.
I agree that command line tools take a significant increase in time to learn however the payoff is immense. Call me oldschool if you will but I view GUI IDE's a lazy person's choice. Then again most people are lazy so the popularity of these packages is not suprising.
Later
--
"...when other powerful things in their lives help keep them grounded: close relationships with friends and parents, religion, a passion for chess..."
Hahaha, am I the only one that finds the passion for chess and grounded bit funny?
AK preflop is when your two hole cards are Ace, King, like you guessed and the flop has not happened yet. The flop is when community cards are turned over as in Texas Holdem or when you get face up cards as in 7 card stud. For instance in Texas Holdem you are dealt 2 cards face down and three community cards ard also dealt to the middle of the table but also face down to start. You view your hole cards and a round of betting goes on. Then the flop occurs and the three cards are turned up.- -----
--------------------------------------------
I had a Lisp prof that showed up all the time with t-shirts which he had written code all over. It was hilarious. Also he told us a story of how he gave his wife a grocery list written in lisp.
I had a funny experience from the old HS days. I had written a mandelbrot program in BASIC and was in our HS library. We had a few 286's and so I started to run the program and test out the speed. Well of course one of the halfwit librarians happened to see the screen with these malicious pixels and forced me to reboot the computer. I was detained in the library until they were satisfied that I had not destroyed the computer. It still amazes me that schools supposedly devoted to education can do such a good job at making sure you don't learn anything. Later
Wow! Another person that played Tunnels of Doom! That was my first exposure to "RPG" if you can even call it that. I remember Car Wars and Kongo Bongo as well. I was only about 7 or 8 at the time but had my first exposure to programming and had to use that damn tape drive to save my programs. It's amazing to see how far things have come. -----
I would never give up printed manuals. Especially for long reads, who wants to keep scrolling the page and end up with bloodshot eyes? I also think for tutorials, the online stuff can be very agitating, having to switch back and forth windows. Another thing I like to do is have 2 or 3 books open at one time, spread out in front of me so I can scan them all at the same time. While the text searching in electronic media is nice I still see the printed version to be better in the long run. If I find an online manual I usually just end up going to work and printing the entire thing out and then using the hole puncher and putting that in a binder. This is not as great as an actual bound book but it is better than the screen in my opinion. Taking notes in books is also a common thing for me to do. I then have that book forever with my notes so that if I scan through it later on I can read my own stuff. With electronic version you either can't take notes or you will have a different copy by the time you go back to check on something and your notes will be gone.
Later,
-Atlas-
>There is more evidence that the results are not propreties specific to photons or electrons...
All matter exhibits wave particle duality, the trick is finding objects with a small enough wavelength in order to make the kind of observations you are talking about. Check into de Broglie wavelengths in any physics text for more information.
Also as a general note some of you might want to check out the following books to clear a few things up:
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by P.A.M. Dirac (the master)
And for more of the philosophy try:
Quantum Mechanics and Experience by David Z Albert
I have a graduate physics degree and I will have to say that QM and specifically the philosophy of it are some of the most interesting and difficult topics around.
Later,
-Atlas-
I recently helped a family member pick out a new computer and promptly reclaimed my old 286 that I had loaned to them. I of course had to hook it up and tinker around. Qmodem is still installed and all my old BBS files are on there. I can vividly remember the excitement of unzipping the latest dl's from various BBS's. I hope that Katz had some idea as to the enjoyment and usefulness that his software provided to a geek such as myself. -Atlas
Does anyone know how well video game systems will use the HDTV technology? Does the DreamCast or PS2 output video that will take advantage of HDTV sets?
True. I though it was kind of out of place in the book. One minute you're reading about boogers and chickets and the next you're into the story about an online relationship, seriously written. Also, hewas definitely scathing towards the online porn industry, another voice from Dave Barry that we rarely hear. The book seemed a little disjointed as a result.