You do know that pretty much every ebook reader ever sold supports plain.txt/rtf formats, right?
OTOH, ASCII has limitations. For example, no formatting, no images, no MathML. ASCII is fine if all you care about is the latest Dirk Pitt novel, but it is woefully inadequate for everything else.
Blowing up your own tanker that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and carries another 100+ million in cargo is better than paying 2 million in ransom? Yeah, that'll teach them to screw with us. Now they have the crew and no prize. Guess what's getting ransomed now. And hey, then we can start dropping bombs, and instead of ransoming the crew, they'll just execute them instead.
Use the stick too much, and the animal bites back.
This is pennies on the dollar. To a business, this is no different than greasing the local zoning board before getting permits for a new building complex.
Sounds like my method for dealing with political activists. I always find out who they are campaigning for and tailor my response to fit, with the goal of choosing the least compatible option. For example, I respond to Republicans with "Anarchist". Other fun responses are Green Party and "Can't vote, I'm a convicted felon".
No, no, you're looking at it all wrong. What he really means is that securing windows is much easier when you use a blunt stick. Like, say, a sledgehammer.
I've always had the same reaction. As a kid, I had lots of issues. Rheumatic fever, asthma for many years, chicken pox, plenty of sick days.
As an adult, nothing. In the 8 years since I left home, I've had *one* sick day. I had three roommates at the time all flattened out for a week by a stomach flu. Three sick people, two bathrooms to throw up in. Toward the end, I had one queasy night, threw up once, and was out golfing the next morning.
I've always attributed it to the fact that I was exposed to so much stuff as a kid. Even the stuff that caused me asthma as a kid (talking "rush me to the hospital" asthma), nowadays it just makes my eyes dry (cat dander).
I've never been obsessed about germs. I hardly ever wash my hands, I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough, etc. The body needs, to quote George Carlin, "germs to practice on".
I spent two weeks in London a few years ago. Bringing a machine depends on where you are staying. I was staying in a residence for study-abroad students owned by a local uni (I wasn't a student, but knew someone at the uni who secured a room for me), and they had a few computers in the den for use. Much easier than bringing my own.
A few things every geek should do in London: --British Library. I could have spent all two weeks here and never gone outside. The collections are incredible. --Hit a pub and catch a soccer match with the locals. These guys make football fans in sports bars look like pansies. You'll have a great time. --Depending on your history/cultural interests, you could hit places like Leeds (I suggest avoiding it) or the White Cliffs (not worth the ride). Lots of castles, Tower of London, etc. The only one I really enjoyed was Raynham Hall. That was really only because (a) it was my family's estate back in the pre-revolutionary era, and (b) it is the site of a famous haunting. --Take a day trip to Ireland. --Just take a walking tour of the city. No directions, no destination. Just walk. You'll be amazed at how many interesting things you find that you'd never normally notice. --The squares are great for people watching. --Plenty of awesome museums (think along the lines of the Smithsonian in D.C.) --Madame Tussads is a good place to kill an hour or two. --Head across the channel and spend a day in France. --Be careful what you eat. I managed to get food poisoning on the third day, and spend the remainder of my trip living on soups and salads (all I could keep down). That being said, some of the food over there is fantastic (and I continue to search for a decent replica in the States).
A) Okay, I created one. Now what? B) Would it be better if he necessarily confused them? C) A game review about a potentially up-and-coming game seems appropriate. Is this any different than reviewing a book? Besides, no one made you read it, and I'm sure some gamers out there found it useful. D)Go back and read your post. Do you *really* want to be a pedant about sentence composition? E) Did you miss the part about finding them "aesthetically pleasing"? He was clearly referring to the "clean" style of graphics found in Wii games and the OSX GUI. Oh, and BTW, the Wii console has had RTS games for at least two years now (one example: Battalion Wars 2).
May I suggest a follow-up post entitled "Learn to read..."? I'll even help get you started: A) Read the entire sentence, instead of cherry-picking fragments. B) Research helps you form valid opinions, and makes you look like less of a tool when you state them.
I don't recall offhand what sites were open on those times, but my guess would be that it is likely a buggy plugin. I think I had youtube open, so perhaps the problem is the shittastic linux Flash plugin? Next time it happens, i'll be sure to pay closer attention to what is open.
Agreed, I'm hesitant to lay the blame directly at FF. My assumption has been that it is a buggy plugin. Could even be Flash (I didn't pay a ton of attention to exactly what plugins were being utilized by the open sites).
Chrome, on my machine, currently consumes about 22 Meg per tab, as an average. The real advantage over FF is that the usage doesn't keep climbing all day long. And the speed. It is noticeably more responsive.
I still get the memory leaks with FF3. If I leave the browser open with a dozen tabs overnight, when I get up in the morning it will be spiking at over 1GB.
A few weeks ago, I went out of town for 3 days. When I came back (I'd left FF open) it had eaten up 3GB of RAM and 95% of my swap.
But that movie taught me that we just need to drop a giant ice cube in the ocean, like daddy puts in his dwink evewy morning. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
I'm confused...what does this have to do with my comment about the development time of GUIs???
I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, but I've seen it enough times as well. I've seen company websites "developed" by non-CS people that have homebrew content management scripts written in VB.net and that embed a dozen MS Word widgets in the page, *and* the CMS stores the login passwords plaintext in a file. I've seen apps written by CS graduates that are full of anti-patterns, misnamed functions, no error checking, input fields that can't even deal with whitespace gracefully, etc.
It has nothing to do with the degree. A shitty developer is a shitty developer, regardless of whether he went to ITT Tech or graduated from a uni 350th in a class of 350. Similarly, a great programmer will be a great programmer, no matter if his degree is Comp Sci or Hospitality Management.
I agree that all of those courses are useful, though my response was specifically aimed at the assertion that advanced math is necessary for any development.
Interestingly, two of the three courses you mentioned would *not* count towards a comp sci degree at the uni I attended (but they *did* count toward my degree).
I wasn't saying you won't learn the fundamentals at a uni, I was saying that uni's are better at teaching the fringe topics than self-teaching.
And come on, no serious developer would use a "Teach Yourself X in Y" book to learn anything. A dev worth his title would use academic papers, real textbooks, etc.
As far as why vs how, you really don't get into the why until grad school. In fluid mechanics, we learned how to use the Navier-Stokes equation, we didn't derive it step-by-step from Newton's Second Law to examine why it works. The "why"s are mostly grad school material. My experience: outside of schools like MIT or CalTech, most undergrad instructors don't fully grok the why themselves.
Agreed, it can be useful, but that's really a fringe case. Let's face it: on how many projects do you really have the time to properly implement algorithmic layouts? The GUI is usually the area of an app that gets the least love when it comes to development time, which is partly why so many apps have such shitty GUIs.
My experience is that you can learn, through vocational schools or self-teaching, the fundamentals. Linked lists, basic sorting algorithms, etc. The real advantage to the college degree is that you tend to learn the "fringe cases" in more detail. A basic algorithms class will cover algorithms I've never used, and likely never will need.
For really advanced development (OS, compiler development, science apps) the degree helps a lot. But for basic app development, you can learn what you need on your own with a bit of self discipline.
This is coming from a former software developer (now working in the systems and networking side of IT) with a degree (albeit in Archaeology). In my experience, the purpose of the degree is to help you learn "how" to solve problems, work in groups, deal with writing reports and proposals, etc. A good dev will be able to learn the technical details himself, but the college experience really helps "round you out" as a coworker, something that is much more difficult to learn by yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
You do know that pretty much every ebook reader ever sold supports plain .txt/rtf formats, right?
OTOH, ASCII has limitations. For example, no formatting, no images, no MathML. ASCII is fine if all you care about is the latest Dirk Pitt novel, but it is woefully inadequate for everything else.
Blowing up your own tanker that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and carries another 100+ million in cargo is better than paying 2 million in ransom? Yeah, that'll teach them to screw with us. Now they have the crew and no prize. Guess what's getting ransomed now. And hey, then we can start dropping bombs, and instead of ransoming the crew, they'll just execute them instead.
Use the stick too much, and the animal bites back.
This is pennies on the dollar. To a business, this is no different than greasing the local zoning board before getting permits for a new building complex.
If only I had mod points.
The people complaining about this are the same people who would bitch about the lack of scientific rigor in "What kind of geek are you?" quizzes.
Sounds like my method for dealing with political activists. I always find out who they are campaigning for and tailor my response to fit, with the goal of choosing the least compatible option. For example, I respond to Republicans with "Anarchist". Other fun responses are Green Party and "Can't vote, I'm a convicted felon".
No, no, you're looking at it all wrong. What he really means is that securing windows is much easier when you use a blunt stick. Like, say, a sledgehammer.
Install Office 97 and load up the flight sim?
Disconnect all the fans and use it as a space heater on cold nights?
By now, though, I suspect this is the only possible outcome:
http://xkcd.com/350/
You still see them in the medical community (ER docs, nurses, etc), but that's about the only place I ever seen them nowadays.
I've always had the same reaction. As a kid, I had lots of issues. Rheumatic fever, asthma for many years, chicken pox, plenty of sick days.
As an adult, nothing. In the 8 years since I left home, I've had *one* sick day. I had three roommates at the time all flattened out for a week by a stomach flu. Three sick people, two bathrooms to throw up in. Toward the end, I had one queasy night, threw up once, and was out golfing the next morning.
I've always attributed it to the fact that I was exposed to so much stuff as a kid. Even the stuff that caused me asthma as a kid (talking "rush me to the hospital" asthma), nowadays it just makes my eyes dry (cat dander).
I've never been obsessed about germs. I hardly ever wash my hands, I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough, etc. The body needs, to quote George Carlin, "germs to practice on".
George Carlin said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
A $200 netbook is not worth losing the privacy. If I can't run a 7-pass wipe algorithm over my data, I don't want to use it.
I spent two weeks in London a few years ago. Bringing a machine depends on where you are staying. I was staying in a residence for study-abroad students owned by a local uni (I wasn't a student, but knew someone at the uni who secured a room for me), and they had a few computers in the den for use. Much easier than bringing my own.
A few things every geek should do in London:
--British Library. I could have spent all two weeks here and never gone outside. The collections are incredible.
--Hit a pub and catch a soccer match with the locals. These guys make football fans in sports bars look like pansies. You'll have a great time.
--Depending on your history/cultural interests, you could hit places like Leeds (I suggest avoiding it) or the White Cliffs (not worth the ride). Lots of castles, Tower of London, etc. The only one I really enjoyed was Raynham Hall. That was really only because (a) it was my family's estate back in the pre-revolutionary era, and (b) it is the site of a famous haunting.
--Take a day trip to Ireland.
--Just take a walking tour of the city. No directions, no destination. Just walk. You'll be amazed at how many interesting things you find that you'd never normally notice.
--The squares are great for people watching.
--Plenty of awesome museums (think along the lines of the Smithsonian in D.C.)
--Madame Tussads is a good place to kill an hour or two.
--Head across the channel and spend a day in France.
--Be careful what you eat. I managed to get food poisoning on the third day, and spend the remainder of my trip living on soups and salads (all I could keep down). That being said, some of the food over there is fantastic (and I continue to search for a decent replica in the States).
Do the cheats work in real life? With my army of archers disguised as trees and a few cow launchers, I could rule the world!
A) Okay, I created one. Now what?
B) Would it be better if he necessarily confused them?
C) A game review about a potentially up-and-coming game seems appropriate. Is this any different than reviewing a book? Besides, no one made you read it, and I'm sure some gamers out there found it useful.
D)Go back and read your post. Do you *really* want to be a pedant about sentence composition?
E) Did you miss the part about finding them "aesthetically pleasing"? He was clearly referring to the "clean" style of graphics found in Wii games and the OSX GUI. Oh, and BTW, the Wii console has had RTS games for at least two years now (one example: Battalion Wars 2).
May I suggest a follow-up post entitled "Learn to read..."? I'll even help get you started:
A) Read the entire sentence, instead of cherry-picking fragments.
B) Research helps you form valid opinions, and makes you look like less of a tool when you state them.
Or anyone who uses acronyms in conversation, particularly if they actually spell them out..."I mean, I was like, O-M-G! And she was all like, T-M-I!"
I don't recall offhand what sites were open on those times, but my guess would be that it is likely a buggy plugin. I think I had youtube open, so perhaps the problem is the shittastic linux Flash plugin? Next time it happens, i'll be sure to pay closer attention to what is open.
Agreed, I'm hesitant to lay the blame directly at FF. My assumption has been that it is a buggy plugin. Could even be Flash (I didn't pay a ton of attention to exactly what plugins were being utilized by the open sites).
Chrome, on my machine, currently consumes about 22 Meg per tab, as an average. The real advantage over FF is that the usage doesn't keep climbing all day long. And the speed. It is noticeably more responsive.
I still get the memory leaks with FF3. If I leave the browser open with a dozen tabs overnight, when I get up in the morning it will be spiking at over 1GB.
A few weeks ago, I went out of town for 3 days. When I came back (I'd left FF open) it had eaten up 3GB of RAM and 95% of my swap.
Is it? We are talking about the browser world. MS only controls about 65% of the browser market right now. Compare that to 90% 4 years ago.
And mutated sea bass patrolling the aisles to maintain security?
But that movie taught me that we just need to drop a giant ice cube in the ocean, like daddy puts in his dwink evewy morning. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
I'm confused...what does this have to do with my comment about the development time of GUIs???
I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, but I've seen it enough times as well. I've seen company websites "developed" by non-CS people that have homebrew content management scripts written in VB.net and that embed a dozen MS Word widgets in the page, *and* the CMS stores the login passwords plaintext in a file. I've seen apps written by CS graduates that are full of anti-patterns, misnamed functions, no error checking, input fields that can't even deal with whitespace gracefully, etc.
It has nothing to do with the degree. A shitty developer is a shitty developer, regardless of whether he went to ITT Tech or graduated from a uni 350th in a class of 350. Similarly, a great programmer will be a great programmer, no matter if his degree is Comp Sci or Hospitality Management.
I agree that all of those courses are useful, though my response was specifically aimed at the assertion that advanced math is necessary for any development.
Interestingly, two of the three courses you mentioned would *not* count towards a comp sci degree at the uni I attended (but they *did* count toward my degree).
I wasn't saying you won't learn the fundamentals at a uni, I was saying that uni's are better at teaching the fringe topics than self-teaching.
And come on, no serious developer would use a "Teach Yourself X in Y" book to learn anything. A dev worth his title would use academic papers, real textbooks, etc.
As far as why vs how, you really don't get into the why until grad school. In fluid mechanics, we learned how to use the Navier-Stokes equation, we didn't derive it step-by-step from Newton's Second Law to examine why it works. The "why"s are mostly grad school material. My experience: outside of schools like MIT or CalTech, most undergrad instructors don't fully grok the why themselves.
Agreed, it can be useful, but that's really a fringe case. Let's face it: on how many projects do you really have the time to properly implement algorithmic layouts? The GUI is usually the area of an app that gets the least love when it comes to development time, which is partly why so many apps have such shitty GUIs.
My experience is that you can learn, through vocational schools or self-teaching, the fundamentals. Linked lists, basic sorting algorithms, etc. The real advantage to the college degree is that you tend to learn the "fringe cases" in more detail. A basic algorithms class will cover algorithms I've never used, and likely never will need.
For really advanced development (OS, compiler development, science apps) the degree helps a lot. But for basic app development, you can learn what you need on your own with a bit of self discipline.
This is coming from a former software developer (now working in the systems and networking side of IT) with a degree (albeit in Archaeology). In my experience, the purpose of the degree is to help you learn "how" to solve problems, work in groups, deal with writing reports and proposals, etc. A good dev will be able to learn the technical details himself, but the college experience really helps "round you out" as a coworker, something that is much more difficult to learn by yourself.