You'd be pretty damn surprised if you blew up a balloon and it formed the shape of a cube, wouldn't you?
Oh, I dunno....I can think of one example of that. Ok, so it's an animated bubble and not a physical balloon. Same idea though:-)
(For those not familiar with the movie: At one point in the movie, Timothy Q. Mouse challenges Dumbo to blow a square bubble, to which Dumbo responds with a neatly cube-shaped one. Hard to believe that scene didn't make IMDB's quotes listing.)
You completely missed my point. I meant to indicate that there comes a time in every programmer's life where they have give most of it up, whether it be for family, money, or just plain mental fatigue. I've long since reached that point (mental fatigue and family), and would rather just use what's out there, in ready-to-run form, without some random programmer essentially telling me that if I want a bug fixed, that I have to ignore my desire to walk away from the compiler.
Code if you want to code, just don't expect Joe/Jane User to want to do the same thing, especially to fix bugs you or one of your colleagues introduced, and don't treat him/her as if he/she can make the changes but just won't.
I saw another good example of this yesterday in a bug report my husband filed regarding Kopete. Someone else had beat him to it, and in that person's report, one of the respondants told the user to use something called "valgrind" to produce a more meaningful crash report than that provided by KDE's crash handler.
My husband's first response, when he got to that part of the bug report, was "What the hell is 'valgrind'? Where do I get it? How do I use it?" This coming from a person who was also a programmer at one time (COBOL, on an IBM System/36).
So, two programmers in the house, both of whom are practically burned-out. To both of us, programming isn't fun anymore, it's tedious. So, your point was what exactly?
Why can't you spend just a little efford in helping them to help you fix the problem?
Because I haven't touched any serious program code (in 6502 assembly language to be specific) in 6 years, and in the 20 years I've been in the computer field, I haven't managed to grasp the basics of modern programming languages. That's why.
I have made it my priority to get *away* from programming and code-fixing and all the other things that go along with program maintainance. Why? Because I have a husband and a social life that is more important to me than a bit of program code. Sure, I still have one or two pet projects I'd like to finish (same platform/processor), but that doesn't mean I also have the time to fix someone else's code also.
Modern programs are simply too complex for the average person (that's me) to understand. Sure, I still know how to checkout code by CVS (barely), and how to compile and install things, and maybe even tweak the occasional Makefile by hand if the error is obvious (like a line that was broken/split unintentionally).
Consider a bug I reported to the GIMP team some months back - a little bug where grey squares would randomly dance over the top of a window that has already been fully drawn, visibly independent of the layout of the window. What do they tell me? That it's my computer, it's somehow overloaded and I'm just seeing the window being built up slowly from it's individual components. My computer then was an 800MHz P3. Now, it's a dual-core Athlon64 3800+, and that problem has shown itself at least once on this box, when it was otherwise idle, working on some small ~800x600 image with only a few layers and nothing complex. Overloaded? I think not. I've since updated to a more recent version of The GIMP and haven't seen the bug yet, so it may have been fixed by now, but my point still stands.
As a 'normal' user, how am I supposed to know that the little graphic bug I see in window XYZ is being caused by module abc because of bad data it's getting from function 123?
Frankly, I try not to be one of those people who comes off as "this is horrendously broken, fix it NOW and backport it!" sorts like some people may be, but that doesn't mean I don't depend on the software to work right. My desktop is entirely FOSS except where no option exists (mainly that's just the nvidia driver) because I trust FOSS software to work well and generally keep my data safer. Last thing I need is to trust my data to a certain proprietary, closed-source operating system, and end up having it all wiped out because of some obscure bug that I couldn't fix even if I knew how to.
So, why can't you as the developer listen to my bug report, figure out what's going on, and just tell me "Oh yeah, I see where that's happening. Give me a few days/weeks/months to ready the code for a new release to get that fix out to everyone."?
That means a lot more to someone than saying "the fix is in CVS, try that first".
95% of the people on Slashdot, I said. And with TS so small a portion of the population, it's sort of interesting that one replied to my comment here. Proves one of my points, really.
Which point, exactly? You came off as sounding like practically every single such person is as you believe them to be.
The attacks on Bailey that you link to are a huge mischaracterization of him and his book. They originate from some in the TS community who were highly offended, and not from other scientists.
It doesn't matter where those "attacks" stem from, the simple fact of the matter is that Bailey's "research" and his book are junk science. If you had read the page I linked to, you would have noticed that his statements were false enough to force him to step down from his former position as Chairman of the Psychology Department at Northwestern University in 2004. What more do you need to discard the man's supposed qualifications?
I am sort of interested that you claim to fall into neither of Bailey's groups. Let me get this straight: 1) you are only and always have been sexually attracted to women, and 2) you never have had an urge to try on women's undergarments?
Reading between the lines, you're dead wrong on both of your assumptions. 1) Attracted to both sexes actually (married to a man though, happily), and 2) it was my desire to change my entire body AND wardrobe *permanently*, not just "try on" a few things. And, at no point did I ever desire to attract a man OR a woman; it was my belief then and now that true love often comes more as a matter of accident than by deliberate attraction, and that's how it happened with my husband.
From my experience (actually, from my asking other TS's outright) I have done nothing particularly unusual relative to the lives of other TS's, except that I kept it hidden better than some do (some go out as teens; I was too afraid of family rejecting me to do that).
Now then, use that scientific mind of yours and do some research - you'll find this is NOT a psychological issue, it's a physical one, as much a birth defect as a malformed arm or a missing toe.
Call me crazy, old-fashioned, or just plain masochistic, but I actually read the f*cking article. *gasp*
When I got my first Playstation, I quickly got used to the controller supplied with it, and I guess for me, it kinda stuck. Today, I don't even own a console anymore, and even with a nice fast computer and video card at my fingertips, I just don't play games that much anymore.
Despite that, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that I've played virtually every basic type of game to have existed over the last ~25 years. Adventure, FPS, street racing, strategy, hack-and-slash, jump-and-run scrollers, shoot-em-ups, puzzle games, you name it. I'd say we all have played most of these, in fact.
I can see the Wiimote working ok for some of these games, but would you honestly want to use one on the latest racing game or FPS? I sure hope Nintendo plans to include a more familiar controller with the Wii to use alongside the Wiimote, or some games just won't be playable. Hell, even your basic "Super Mario Bros." -style side-scroller would be kinda difficult to play on that thing. There are just some things that demand a regular PS-style controller.
Oh, and as for the off-topic portion of this post (you knew it was coming, right?)...
I have to point out that Bailey's 'research' is widely regarded to be right-wing fundamentalist-supported junk science, cut and dried. This man advocates that if you're TS, you're either 1) a gay man trying to attract men by transforming yourself, or 2) you're a man who is actually turned on by the idea/process of becoming a woman. There is plenty of good, honest science to prove Bailey is DEAD wrong, the bulk of the research into which I will leave as an exercise to the hopefully well-educated readership here. I will, however, leave you with a link to a well-known TS-oriented site to start you off:
And yes, I am transsexual, and one who falls well outside of any of Bailey's categories. Your 95% figure is highly skewed, and I dare say that is because you lack the education that is generally expected of people here. In practice, I'd say it's closer to 1-2% of the TS population that falls into either category, with the remaining ~98% being normal TS people trying to figure out what's right for them (to transition or not to transition, that is the question).
The same is true for most of the "generic" items you're going to find at these stores. If you can get over the fact that you're not buying the branded item, you can save a boatload of money while not sacrificing quality one iota.
This isn't always the case! One example of this not working to the customer's advantage is the 1/2 pound bar of Jaques Belgian chocolate Wal*mart used to sell. Months ago (probably over a year by now, I've lost track), they suddenly stopped carrying it, replacing it with a generic "Sam's Choice" thing.
Since chocolate is one of those things you just do not skimp on, I decided immediately not to bother trying it, at least for a while. The thing is, it wasn't until I got a (very quick) reponse to my email to the Jaques chocolate company, that I learned that that generic chocolate was in fact Jaques brand. The representative said that they had signed a contract with Wal*Mart so they could continue selling it for cheap, or some such.
It was at that point that I started buying the generic. It was introduced at the same price ($2/pound) as the branded version, but now, ironically, the generic-labelled version is about 76 cents a pound more expensive, at least in this area. So much for prices going down when you go generic!
Allright....It's been said before in other similar stories, but since you either didn't see it the last few times or you chose not to care, I'll repeat it for you one last time:
If the video source you're watching (that includes the rendered output from your game) does not show full motion blur between frames, 25 fps will sure as hell not be enough. Depending on how good your visual system is, it can take 85+ fps with no motion blur to fully saturate the available bandwidth of your visual system.
The reason is that without the blur, your mind perceives an image that, when moving, suddenly jumps from one position to the next. Your mind normally reads the blurring effect found in film recordings and interprets it as a smooth motion, probably because there is a certain amount of image overlap from one frame to another. Without that blur, there is no overlap, and your mind balks at the idea.
And then there's the issue of when a game drops below some magic number (which varies from one person to another) even for a short time. It's not so much that you're seeing it rendering at 30 fps - it's that your eyes and your mind see a massive loss of framerate when you're used to seeing the game rendering at 60+ fps.
And if you want to go on about price, consider this: A month or so ago, I spent some $590 to have a new box built (Gigabyte mainboard with an Athlon64 x2 3800+ and 1GB DDR2, 450W power supply which was probably not quite enough, decent case with two extra fans, etc), and I stuck an nv 6800 in it that I paid $134 for from another vendor. I used this nVidia comparison chart to make my selection based on raw performance numbers. I don't trust reviewers not to spin their stats in some certain way, beyond getting an initial idea of the performance of whatever it is I'm leaning toward buying.
To the two people I saw earlier mentioning "WOW!" reactions...this system elicited that same reaction from me, given that it replaced a very old 800 MHz P3:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I dunno....I can think of one example of that. Ok, so it's an animated bubble and not a physical balloon. Same idea though :-)
(For those not familiar with the movie: At one point in the movie, Timothy Q. Mouse challenges Dumbo to blow a square bubble, to which Dumbo responds with a neatly cube-shaped one. Hard to believe that scene didn't make IMDB's quotes listing.)
You completely missed my point. I meant to indicate that there comes a time in every programmer's life where they have give most of it up, whether it be for family, money, or just plain mental fatigue. I've long since reached that point (mental fatigue and family), and would rather just use what's out there, in ready-to-run form, without some random programmer essentially telling me that if I want a bug fixed, that I have to ignore my desire to walk away from the compiler.
Code if you want to code, just don't expect Joe/Jane User to want to do the same thing, especially to fix bugs you or one of your colleagues introduced, and don't treat him/her as if he/she can make the changes but just won't.
I saw another good example of this yesterday in a bug report my husband filed regarding Kopete. Someone else had beat him to it, and in that person's report, one of the respondants told the user to use something called "valgrind" to produce a more meaningful crash report than that provided by KDE's crash handler.
My husband's first response, when he got to that part of the bug report, was "What the hell is 'valgrind'? Where do I get it? How do I use it?" This coming from a person who was also a programmer at one time (COBOL, on an IBM System/36).
So, two programmers in the house, both of whom are practically burned-out. To both of us, programming isn't fun anymore, it's tedious. So, your point was what exactly?
Because I haven't touched any serious program code (in 6502 assembly language to be specific) in 6 years, and in the 20 years I've been in the computer field, I haven't managed to grasp the basics of modern programming languages. That's why.
I have made it my priority to get *away* from programming and code-fixing and all the other things that go along with program maintainance. Why? Because I have a husband and a social life that is more important to me than a bit of program code. Sure, I still have one or two pet projects I'd like to finish (same platform/processor), but that doesn't mean I also have the time to fix someone else's code also.
Modern programs are simply too complex for the average person (that's me) to understand. Sure, I still know how to checkout code by CVS (barely), and how to compile and install things, and maybe even tweak the occasional Makefile by hand if the error is obvious (like a line that was broken/split unintentionally).
Consider a bug I reported to the GIMP team some months back - a little bug where grey squares would randomly dance over the top of a window that has already been fully drawn, visibly independent of the layout of the window. What do they tell me? That it's my computer, it's somehow overloaded and I'm just seeing the window being built up slowly from it's individual components. My computer then was an 800MHz P3. Now, it's a dual-core Athlon64 3800+, and that problem has shown itself at least once on this box, when it was otherwise idle, working on some small ~800x600 image with only a few layers and nothing complex. Overloaded? I think not. I've since updated to a more recent version of The GIMP and haven't seen the bug yet, so it may have been fixed by now, but my point still stands.
As a 'normal' user, how am I supposed to know that the little graphic bug I see in window XYZ is being caused by module abc because of bad data it's getting from function 123?
Frankly, I try not to be one of those people who comes off as "this is horrendously broken, fix it NOW and backport it!" sorts like some people may be, but that doesn't mean I don't depend on the software to work right. My desktop is entirely FOSS except where no option exists (mainly that's just the nvidia driver) because I trust FOSS software to work well and generally keep my data safer. Last thing I need is to trust my data to a certain proprietary, closed-source operating system, and end up having it all wiped out because of some obscure bug that I couldn't fix even if I knew how to.
So, why can't you as the developer listen to my bug report, figure out what's going on, and just tell me "Oh yeah, I see where that's happening. Give me a few days/weeks/months to ready the code for a new release to get that fix out to everyone."?
That means a lot more to someone than saying "the fix is in CVS, try that first".
Which point, exactly? You came off as sounding like practically every single such person is as you believe them to be.
It doesn't matter where those "attacks" stem from, the simple fact of the matter is that Bailey's "research" and his book are junk science. If you had read the page I linked to, you would have noticed that his statements were false enough to force him to step down from his former position as Chairman of the Psychology Department at Northwestern University in 2004. What more do you need to discard the man's supposed qualifications?
Reading between the lines, you're dead wrong on both of your assumptions. 1) Attracted to both sexes actually (married to a man though, happily), and 2) it was my desire to change my entire body AND wardrobe *permanently*, not just "try on" a few things. And, at no point did I ever desire to attract a man OR a woman; it was my belief then and now that true love often comes more as a matter of accident than by deliberate attraction, and that's how it happened with my husband.
From my experience (actually, from my asking other TS's outright) I have done nothing particularly unusual relative to the lives of other TS's, except that I kept it hidden better than some do (some go out as teens; I was too afraid of family rejecting me to do that).
Now then, use that scientific mind of yours and do some research - you'll find this is NOT a psychological issue, it's a physical one, as much a birth defect as a malformed arm or a missing toe.
When I got my first Playstation, I quickly got used to the controller supplied with it, and I guess for me, it kinda stuck. Today, I don't even own a console anymore, and even with a nice fast computer and video card at my fingertips, I just don't play games that much anymore.
Despite that, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that I've played virtually every basic type of game to have existed over the last ~25 years. Adventure, FPS, street racing, strategy, hack-and-slash, jump-and-run scrollers, shoot-em-ups, puzzle games, you name it. I'd say we all have played most of these, in fact.
I can see the Wiimote working ok for some of these games, but would you honestly want to use one on the latest racing game or FPS? I sure hope Nintendo plans to include a more familiar controller with the Wii to use alongside the Wiimote, or some games just won't be playable. Hell, even your basic "Super Mario Bros." -style side-scroller would be kinda difficult to play on that thing. There are just some things that demand a regular PS-style controller.
Oh, and as for the off-topic portion of this post (you knew it was coming, right?)...
I have to point out that Bailey's 'research' is widely regarded to be right-wing fundamentalist-supported junk science, cut and dried. This man advocates that if you're TS, you're either 1) a gay man trying to attract men by transforming yourself, or 2) you're a man who is actually turned on by the idea/process of becoming a woman. There is plenty of good, honest science to prove Bailey is DEAD wrong, the bulk of the research into which I will leave as an exercise to the hopefully well-educated readership here. I will, however, leave you with a link to a well-known TS-oriented site to start you off:
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info /man-who-would-be-queen.html
And yes, I am transsexual, and one who falls well outside of any of Bailey's categories. Your 95% figure is highly skewed, and I dare say that is because you lack the education that is generally expected of people here. In practice, I'd say it's closer to 1-2% of the TS population that falls into either category, with the remaining ~98% being normal TS people trying to figure out what's right for them (to transition or not to transition, that is the question).
This isn't always the case! One example of this not working to the customer's advantage is the 1/2 pound bar of Jaques Belgian chocolate Wal*mart used to sell. Months ago (probably over a year by now, I've lost track), they suddenly stopped carrying it, replacing it with a generic "Sam's Choice" thing.
Since chocolate is one of those things you just do not skimp on, I decided immediately not to bother trying it, at least for a while. The thing is, it wasn't until I got a (very quick) reponse to my email to the Jaques chocolate company, that I learned that that generic chocolate was in fact Jaques brand. The representative said that they had signed a contract with Wal*Mart so they could continue selling it for cheap, or some such.
It was at that point that I started buying the generic. It was introduced at the same price ($2/pound) as the branded version, but now, ironically, the generic-labelled version is about 76 cents a pound more expensive, at least in this area. So much for prices going down when you go generic!
If the video source you're watching (that includes the rendered output from your game) does not show full motion blur between frames, 25 fps will sure as hell not be enough. Depending on how good your visual system is, it can take 85+ fps with no motion blur to fully saturate the available bandwidth of your visual system.
The reason is that without the blur, your mind perceives an image that, when moving, suddenly jumps from one position to the next. Your mind normally reads the blurring effect found in film recordings and interprets it as a smooth motion, probably because there is a certain amount of image overlap from one frame to another. Without that blur, there is no overlap, and your mind balks at the idea.
And then there's the issue of when a game drops below some magic number (which varies from one person to another) even for a short time. It's not so much that you're seeing it rendering at 30 fps - it's that your eyes and your mind see a massive loss of framerate when you're used to seeing the game rendering at 60+ fps.
And if you want to go on about price, consider this: A month or so ago, I spent some $590 to have a new box built (Gigabyte mainboard with an Athlon64 x2 3800+ and 1GB DDR2, 450W power supply which was probably not quite enough, decent case with two extra fans, etc), and I stuck an nv 6800 in it that I paid $134 for from another vendor. I used this nVidia comparison chart to make my selection based on raw performance numbers. I don't trust reviewers not to spin their stats in some certain way, beyond getting an initial idea of the performance of whatever it is I'm leaning toward buying.
To the two people I saw earlier mentioning "WOW!" reactions...this system elicited that same reaction from me, given that it replaced a very old 800 MHz P3 :-)