Comment Re:Want to swim with dolphins? Better do it now. (Score 1) 194
Slashdot became a lot more fun once I decided to view it like that.
Slashdot became a lot more fun once I decided to view it like that.
Gosh, you're so brave, speaking truth about a movement so powerful that...
Kind of funny that you're using YOUR voice to suggest other people shouldn't use theirs.
You're pissing and moaning on Slashdot because other people aren't behaving how you want them to.
Speaking with your wallet and your wallet alone does nothing - how do the people you're boycotting know why you're boycotting? Speaking up with your wallet and your voice is far more powerful.
You mean Texas where it's pretty much a given that they've executed at least one innocent person, and where the governor doesn't care?
Yeah, I think that's probably not the state you want to be using as an example there, unless you're perfectly OK with innocents being murdered by the state run amok just to (maybe) save a few pennies.
Demonstrating my point pretty well, thank you. You're so off kilter by this idea that you're conflating two very different scenarios - the criminal justice system is rather different than national defense in a number of ways, but your emotionality about the subject is preventing you from making a reasoned argument, and you're flailing around trying to make something - anything - stick.
Which is exactly the opposite of what any person should want from a criminal justice system. We shouldn't want people desperate to extract revenge, but rather people who want to minimize the overall harm done to society.
If I am ever charged with a crime, I want people who aren't going to let some flowery description of what people THINK I might have done causing them to undervalue evidence that is exculpatory. Wouldn't you want the same? Let's say you were accused of raping and murdering a child - would you really want the public's demand for revenge, the jury's disgust with the crime, the prosecutor's inflammatory rhetoric to sway the jury, or would you rather the evidence be evaluated instead, emotions put to the side?
Further, were I actually convicted of a crime, I would want people to decide on what to do with me to be people who are able to resist the urge to merely punish me, but rather seek to rehabilitate me or, if they believe it isn't possible, to be able to recognize that removing me from society so that I can't hurt others while still preserving the ability to release me if I am later found to have been innocent is a vastly better solution than simply killing me, and shrugging it off if I am later found innocent. I can't imagine that you would want people who want to hurt you just because they're enraged at what you did deciding on your punishment, but maybe I'm wrong.
And finally, more harm than good is done by our system as it stands now. This is proven by the fact that other nations with more civilized criminal justice systems have lower crime rates, lower recidivism rates, and overall better outcomes when it comes to people who have interacted with their criminal justice system than we do. If revenge is the best way to handle this, then why do countries like Norway have better outcomes, when everything about their system repudiates the idea of punishment and instead focuses on rehabilitation and the greater public good? If you aren't aware of the evidence I suggest you educate yourself; if you are aware of the evidence then again, you're action on emotion, not reason, and that is not a good thing when talking about a criminal justice system.
Sneer all you like at the idea of doctors and therapists being involved, but the facts - and they are facts - are that approaching criminal justice with the idea of rehabilitation and repair works far, far better than approaching it with the idea of extracting revenge.
Have you actually spent even a second thinking about what you're arguing?
Simple math: Let's take your number - 100k per year per death row inmate. Let's DOUBLE it, to make it even more expensive. 200k per inmate per year. MY GOD, HOW EXPENSIVE!
There are 3,000 people (actually a bit less) on death row in the US, but let's DOUBLE that number, just to make your argument even more powerful. 6,000 people on death row at $200,000 per year in expenses - gosh, that's going to break the bank!
Except it won't. It comes out to 1.2 billion dollars a year to house people on death row. Let's DOUBLE that to 2.4 billion dollars a year just on housing these people.
There are 300 million americans (roughly) but not all of them pay taxes. Mittens got in trouble during the election for saying that 47% don't ever pay taxes, but let's be even more ridiculous - I'm going to say that only 10% of Americans pay income tax. That's 30 million tax payers.
So, 2.4 billion dollars, split by 30 million people... that comes out to.... $80 dollars per year per individual tax payer. Remember, I doubled your estimate of expenses. I doubled the number of people on death row. I doubled the resulting multiplication, and then I took a ridiculously small tax base figure to get to that WHOPPING $80 per year.
What you're saying to me is that $80 per year in your pocket (and it would actually be far, far less) is worth it to you to vastly increase the odds that innocent people will be executed. You're saying to me that you having $80 a year (or about 22 cents a day) is more important than trying to keep the state from murdering innocents or at least reduce the chances of that happening. You're telling me that 22 cents a day (actually a lot less) is more important to you than sparing the families of those wrongly convicted and executed from the anguish of the state run amok.
There's a monster here, but I'm pretty sure it's you.
Just remember that in many cases where someone has been wrongfully convicted, the jurors felt the same as you did about the certainty of the person's guilt based on the evidence they were shown.
Every time someone says they're absolutely certain of the guilt of a person in a given case, especially to the point where they would be willing to execute (not that you were) the person if convicted, they would do well to remember that fact.
They're very emotional about this kind of thing, and as a result they are the absolute worst kind of people to have any kind of say into how people who commit (or, at least, are convicted of committing) crimes are treated.
I don't think they're necessarily bloodthirsty, just incapable of resisting emotionality or using reason when it comes to this stuff. Many - perhaps even most - people are like that. Which is why there's a whole criminal justice system to begin with, as a way to at least try to reduce the impact of people who are not capable of regulating their baser impulses.
The criminal justice system we have is pretty shit-tacular in that it does not work (compared to other nations' systems) when it comes to reducing crime, reducing recidivism, protecting society, rehabilitating prisoners or being cost effective. But at least it's better than vigilante mobs formed by the very people who are here screaming for blood and relishing the suffering of those they want to see executed.
People certainly thought those guys deserved the "ultimate" penalty for what they did.
Further, appeals to emotion such as yours above are exactly why we shouldn't have a death penalty. I don't care what someone did, at the very worst we should lock them away, not kill them.
Why don't we ever hear about the lack of rich people who get to sleep under bridges? Why doesn't anyone try to spread polio around 1st world countries so we don't miss out on polio? Like you, I am completely fucking confused by really obvious things!
And gosh, golly gee willikers, I dunno why people by and large aren't trying to get people into low(ish) wage, low prestige jobs that provide zero upward mobility for a traditionally marginalized and disempowered group, vs. getting said traditionally marginalized group into high wage, high(ish) prestige jobs that are one of the key ways people of this generation can attain social mobility and financial security.
It sure is puzzling! Gosh, I hope the fine minds of Slashdot's user base can figure it out!
This article isn't for actual software engineers, but "idea guys" who think making games is easy and don't actually understand what goes into real game design.
I know a ton of people like that - they have an idea for some awesome next level stuff, but it's only a very vague idea with a few neat things in there, without any of the actual work that is needed to turn it into a game design, let alone a spec, let alone a game. Seriously, everyone I know who is a gamer and not an engineer is constantly babbling about how games should do X or Y or Z or whatever, but when you ask them questions about how any of it would actually work, they wave their hands and say it isn't important because the IDEA that they took a whole 30 seconds coming up with and articulating is somehow the hard part.
The idea is the easy part - I can toss out hundreds of ideas for games that would be amazing. Turning that amazing idea into anything resembling a useful thing is another kettle of fish entirely.
Maybe I was unclear - we have an engineering team of about 15 people, 5 of whom work at standing desks. It's not required.
I do development and I work a standing desk (and for a couple of years did a walking desk when I worked at home). I'm actually vastly more comfortable not just at work now but in the rest of my life since switching:
- issues I had with sciatica went away
- I am in better shape/have more endurance & energy
- I sleep better
- I used to feel like shit if I went on a 10 hour coding binge (sluggish and exhausted) but now I just feel pretty much normal
It's only uncomfortable at first, but once you figure out good shoes to wear, good anti-fatigue mats to use and good posture it's much MUCH more comfortable (at least in my experience) and makes your non-work life better as well.
At my office we have 5 people in our engineering team (some IT, some developers) who use standing desks and a few more who are considering making the switch. The oldest stander is me (42) so it's not just something 20-somethings can do.
I completely understand your points, but let me offer a few things:
Shit like this happens to people every single day. Often vastly worse; I volunteered with an organization that sought clemency for people who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned (and in the US that means being subjected to some truly horrific shit). Yet, by and large, despite being completely fucked over by the system and having had years - sometimes decades - of their lives taken away, despite being tortured by beatings, rapes, solitary confinement, these people didn't lose their shit and go on a killing spree. They kept their shit together. My point here is that people get fucked over and there are ways of dealing with it, and sometimes things get handled and sometimes they don't, and you need to move along and get past it.
But, as you say, that takes perspective. Which gets me to my next point: The kid himself may not have perspective, but his parents sure as hell should. Or some other adult. Someone should have sat him down and explained that he was right, the people in power were assholes, and that while he probably is plenty pissed about how it all went down, in the grand scheme of things it's just a run in with assholes, and he's better than that. It is the job of parents not just to teach kids how to not be assholes, but how to deal with the fact that assholes exist and they will try to fuck up your life.
I definitely agree that dealing with bullying needs to be handled better not just because it's the right thing, but because it's an immediate safety issue and letting it keep going perpetuates a culture that accepts it. The problem is that school administrators are short sighted in this country (actually, pretty much everyone involved in public education in this country is extremely short sighted), and they want to maintain control with a minimum amount of hassle.
When I switched from working in an office to working from home for a couple of years, I went to a standing desk and then to a treadmill/walking desk.
Took me about 3 days to get used to standing all the time - as in, able to do it without feeling too much pain in my feet at the end of the day.
The walking desk took about a week to get used to, at first I could only read emails etc. while walking, but after I got used to things I was able to do 4MPH indefinitely while doing basic stuff, and about 2.5MPH while doing stuff that required a bit more precision with a mouse etc. Put it at a 5% incline and it's not a bad workout. My best day was 20 miles.
I wound up losing some weight - 10 lbs. - which wasn't strictly necessary but wasn't a bad thing. My productivity took a hit at the beginning but got back to normal after the first couple of weeks. My energy level went up dramatically after the first month and my general sense of well-being was much improved. Even better, issues I was having with sciatica went away and I would sleep much better.
At my current job I am at a standing desk all day and while it's not nearly as active as my walking desk, it's still working for me.
Some research suggests that it isn't that much better for you (or at all better for you) than a sitting desk, but my personal experience defies that; I'd recommend trying it for a month - commit to it - and see how it works for you.
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
