jean_claude

10년 전discuss

The core essence of a video game is the game feel (which not everyone likes, because it's ill-defined). How does a player interact with a game? Via game mechanics. No amount of polish is going to make up for horrible game mechanics.

Jan Willem (of Vlambeer), who hates the phrase "game feel", talks about it through a simple iterative process of improving game mechanics. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

It's about the potential for deadly interactions with police as a consequence of creating new laws for police to enforce. I think the title is slightly obtuse, but it is attention grabbing.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

Well, people are often convicted based on circumstantial evidence. That's why there is a jury, to weigh the available evidence. Personally, I wouldn't give this guy any help based on what I've read, and certainly not without reading the entire record of each trial. Also, the prosecutor should have definitely sought a lower charge of manslaughter after the 2nd hung jury.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/TESTIMONY+IN+2000+SLAYING+CO-W...

Edit: added the following

Yeah, down-voting doesn't invalidate my my feelings on the matter, and looking at the appelate court's decision to uphold the verdict [1] just affirms that I would need a whole lot more convincing this guy is innocent.

[1] http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20CACO%2020111219009/PEOPL...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>Try changing the identity you are to Google,

Delete cache and cookies, block all analytics through a combination of hosts file, adblocker, ghostery, and noscript, and google in private mode. That should help.

>start using the Tor Browser

...and you'll probably join the NSA's ever growing list. Of course, you're probably on the list for reading anything about Tor, Tails, PGP, or other online privacy or security tools, techniques or news[1]. Remember the saying, "you only worry about privacy if you've got something to hide." I think that's how it goes?

[1] http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/interest-privacy-will-ensure-yo...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

Or perhaps many children are raised to conform to particular gender roles that affects their social development, and possibly, just possibly, this might also affect their job opportunities not just by self-selection, but by biases in the interviewer/hiring manager. It seems like a very complicated issue that doesn't have a simplistic answer.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>Well for adult bikes you are pretty much fixed at 700C. If making a bike pedaled contraption not so much.

For racing/road bikes, maybe. You're leaving out the 26" wheel adult bikes (which over time has encompassed 5 different rim diameters[1]) and 24" wheel bikes that are targeted at youth, but smaller adults sometimes prefer (well, those that have been give the option).

My bike pedaled contraption is a rear suspension compact long wheelbase recumbent with two real 20" (406mm rim) tires and they're spectacular.

[1] http://www.sheldonbrown.com/26.html

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

While there may be some power-mad librarians out there in terms of 'there will be silence in the library!', they curate the library's collection for many reasons: to meet the requirements of stakeholders, to meet the needs and shifting interests of the community, to make room for new material...

Really, there are a whole host of reasons for deaccession of library materials that include financial, space, and other concerns that hit the bottom line.

The great thing about technology is we have the ability to collect, classify, add metadata[1], and make all human knowledge accessible to everyone. If only insanely long copyrights and restrictions on scanning and lending copyrighted works were not in the way.

[1] This is not really something a busy librarian has time for, so other methods, such as user-driven tagging and folksonomies[2] are an interesting solution that is being tried.

[2] http://interactivearchivist.archivists.org/technologies/tagg...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

No worries. If you like classical minimalism/ambient music, check out Erik Satie's work, specifically, his three Gymnopédies compositions for piano. If you've played Minecraft, you'll instantly recognize No.1[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

It's... nice? to have the option of purchasing a Steambox with SteamOS pre-installed, if you're unable (or unwilling) to build your own PC and install SteamOS or other Linux flavor. The problem I see, apart from having an underpowered PC or over-priced gaming rig, is the fact many popular games are not available on SteamOS. Also, there is the problem that games are optimized for D3D, which puts you in the Windows camp. Yes, you can get better performance out of OpenGL, but if 90% of your market is Windows, why bother? Ported games generally have poorer performance.

I am hoping that the Vulkan API will be adopted by the games industry to act as a bridge between the two (Windows/Mac and Linux) performance-wise. Microsoft's plans to turn the PC into a glorified tablet or console walled garden is annoying enough. Now they're playing the same trick they pulled on XP users to "upgrade" to Vista, by releasing games that are "exclusive" to Windows 10 on their UWP (Universal Windows Platform). So far, it doesn't seem very consumer-friendly[1].

[1] http://www.pcgamer.com/why-pc-games-should-never-become-univ...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>> Certainly, a sentient being can learn new things, but that's a matter of rule-base and memory. No actual intelligence required, IMO. Sentience, to me, goes toward a concept of self. Of being aware that one exists and is responsible for one's own actions.

I think sentience is somewhat more limited. Most animals are sentient, in that they can feel and perceive and learn from experiences. Few animals besides humans are sapient, in that they can reason about complex and abstract ideas separate from direct experience, have a sense of self, and other criteria.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>>My point is that "Engineer" (software or otherwise) is a legally protected term in many countries (Canada, Switzerland,...)

Actually, you're looking for the term "Professional Engineer" which can only be legally used if you have at least a B.S. or B.Eng. (or local equivalent) in an accredited program, have taken some kind of certifying exam, and may also require a certain number of years working in the field to obtain licensure. In the US, there is a PE certifying exam for ABET accredited Computer Science and Software Engineering program graduates.

Your Wikipedia link had no information about Switzerland, but it did have this interesting bit about the Czech Republic: "In the Czech Republic, the title "engineer" (Ing.) is given to people with a (masters) degree in chemistry, technology or economics for historical and traditional reasons." Every country is different...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

I get where the gp is coming from, to me texture is a big issue with foods that I can eat. I'm mostly vegetarian now, (less than half a kilogram of bison a week) but that last step to cutting out beef is difficult, because I just can't stand the texture/flavor of mushrooms, soy or tofu and other 'meat substitutes'.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>>A friend of mine from India once told me "if a mob would burn down your restaurant if you got caught mixing meat and vegetarian, you'd take it seriously too". I still don't if she was joking with me, and if so to what degree.

Yes, that is (unfortunately) a possible outcome, if not outright murder by an angry mob of people who take their religious and societal taboos too seriously[1].

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/ind...

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

I earned a B.S. in an ABET accredited Computer Science program taught by the College of Science and Mathematics at a state University. Before that, I designed electrical control systems and software for industrial machinery, and I still don't consider myself an engineer.

That said, I think 'Software Engineer' is an acceptable title, and is more representative of the work we do in the profession than simply 'Computer Programmer'.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

  > The idea of using special client to connect a server is somewhat alien to the generation that equates the Internet with the Web.

I think the problem wouldn't so much be needing a special client (app) to access a server (walled garden) as having to discover the existence of USENET, select a client, set up the client to point to their ISP's NNTP server (do ISPs even have NNTP servers these days?) or a premium or free 3rd party server, and then find an appropriate newsgroup(s) to follow.

Walled gardens also have the attraction of having a more user-friendly experience that can work across a variety of devices. The last time I was even moderately active on USENET, I was slurping newsgroups via a scheduled job running Souper and reading/writing posts on Yarn, a console mode program for OS/2. I'm fairly sure SLRN is console mode as well... not really a selling point on today's technology, where many people would be using their phone/tablet.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

Open plan offices are the bane of work requiring uninterrupted thought. I'd say buy a set of good on- or over-the-ear closed headphones and listen to music or soundscape to drown out the distractions when you really need to concentrate.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

>Who writes a linked list in Javascript? Or Python? Or even C++? I haven't had to code a linked list since the 1990s.

Neither have I, but I didn't write that bloody circular queue in SPARC-V9 assembly language for nothing!

But, seriously, so many interviews are full of these sorts of questions. It's almost like they're trying to hire a reference book... or they don't know how to interview and just use the same sort of methods they were exposed to.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

I think the takeaway from his statements are that it is virtually impossible to source the necessary raw materials that go into producing modern electronics from any one country.

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

It isn't just the cost that's an issue, it's the fact that American workers are not as... flexible... on what constitutes an acceptable work/life balance. Would you do what these workers ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and... ) do if you had any other opportunity at all? Labor laws aside, could they pay you enough to live and work like this and still make an affordable device?

Relevant quote from article:

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

jean_claude

10년 전discuss

It's just not always possible to do that. I know it can be frustrating to not have ready access to academic journals, but you can usually find the article one way or another. Many journals are allowing pre-print publications to reside on open-access archives ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_journals_by_p... ), some will allow 'limited' distribution of either pre-print or published papers (generally means you have to ask the author for a PDF directly), and, with apologies to John Gilmore, the internet interprets copyright as damage and routes around it.

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