Comment Re:Why bother with other sources? (Score 1) 186
The "technical reasons" are bunk. It's a computer system, anything is possible if you have the desire to make it so.
The "technical reasons" are bunk. It's a computer system, anything is possible if you have the desire to make it so.
shoup is very easy when it's printed on the side of the machine.
To me voting machines are something that should be handled by the open source community. 100% transparent, by the people for the people in every sense, and ultimately supported financially by governments who buy the machines.
...."I think this has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it's not fair to say Wikipedia is 'self-correcting.'"
It's fair to say Wikipedia is self-reenforcing and subtlety is lost.
To me, Wikipedia is a cult - you can keep sending them money, contributing to their belief system, and you can never leave (I'm serious, they have no way to delete an account)
Regardless of whether you view Snowden as a despicable traitor or an honorable whistleblower, it's worth a watch.
I didn't think so.
Oliver criticized Snowden for his complex descriptions of complex issues, and asserted that it's Snowden's job to make the facts easily digestible and relatable for the general public. It's not. In the first place, it's the media's job to do that. That is their raison d'etre. In the second place, distilling issues down to "dick pics" is part of the problem with the modern media. Why fuel that race to the bottom? Idiocracy was supposed to be satire, not prophecy.
[facepalm] Oliver, via his comedy, was simplifying the issue, making a commentary on the media, and the comprehension level of the American people. It was layered and pointed and even managed some balance all wrapped in humour. Brilliant.
"in VLC every Christmas time the cone gets a Santa hat - it's a nice touch that shows they're thinking about the end user."
unless he's muslim, hindu, baha'i, atheist,
Santa isn't religious - he's actually sacrilegious... the whole idolatry thing. If it was a picture of Jesus or something I'd agree. It's also not shown on Dec. 25th exclusively - it's shown for most of December indicating a season not a Christian holiday.
If you're not checking that a resource exists before using it, it's sloppy code.
You miss the point. If the Easter Egg code is poorly programmed it could cause problems. Since the Easter egg code is neither tested or reviewed by anyone other than the programmer it is quite possible it is poorly writen.
Quite possibly. But then again that calls your entire codebase into question. If you're sloppy in one you're likely sloppy elsewhere. That crash could cause someone to actually put eyes on code that person wrote which may have otherwise gone unnoticed. The "many eyes" concept has repeatedly been proven wrong as people tend not to go looking for problems until one appears.
like in VLC every Christmas time the cone gets a Santa hat
Then when a subsequent maintainer comes along finds the Santa hat graphic, and since it is not in the specs, removes it causing the software to crash the next Xmas there is a problem.
Not if it's programmed properly. Easter Eggs are no excuse for sloppy coding.
If you can get your work done and still have time to "goof off" like this then obviously you could do more work.
That's how a small minded manager would see it for sure. Personally, I do Easter Eggs when a piece of code is just not working and it's starting to get me frustrated - I don't want to lose my momentum/coding mindset so I work on something fun for a bit then come back and work the problem. Better than losing the rest of the day being unproductive due to being frustrated. My favourite is adding a hidden to webpages that does something innocuous. Gotta love the hilarity that is "The Net" https://youtu.be/46qKHq7REI4?t...
Or you could look at it as your employees doing self-training, stress management, staying "productive" while stepping back from a problem set of code, or trying to add value to a product by making small additions. Full blown flight sim is overboard I grant you, but simple things like in VLC every Christmas time the cone gets a Santa hat - it's a nice touch that shows they're thinking about the end user... not every easter egg adds value and some are unprofessional but there should always be room for some expression beyond the bare bones function.
There will be a million different right answers to this question. The problem is that the question is addressing the wrong crowd. Ask the people who work for you/with you what they want, what they find important. Stop guessing/asking strangers and just get to know people.
Classic business theory suggests you should have 3 levels. People doing the work, the people taking care of the day to day management/drama, the decision makers. Communication will flow through a system like that but the moment you add a 4th level it all goes to hell.
I think the intended take away was that people who rely on the internet as an external source of information over estimate their own knowledge even when that resource is unavailable to them regardless of how intelligent they are.
That's a completely different set of skills though. That relates to the individuals ability to retain information and regurgitate it. I had comprehensive testing done on myself and in most natural intelligence areas I was 97th/98th percentile but I can't read a paragraph from a book and regurgitate the information immediately. Take that identical test and make it a picture in a book instead of words and I can tell you almost every detail.
Modern understanding of intelligence, various difference in auditory and visual processing and recall are far more nuanced than this study would suggest. The controls on the individuals taking the test are non-existent. It's junk science based on outdated concepts imo.
Define "smarter". Natural intelligence + easily accessible and disposable facts does not make one more or less intelligent. The problem is the old school definition of intelligence was tested through the ability to recount facts. It was not a reliable indicator of the level of intelligence of an individual. Whether gathered from a book or a search, facts are not always useful without the ability to understand, interpret, and deduce what is not represented by the facts.
...just stop.
"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra
