stormking

As a german I can tell you that not being able to get rid of certain people because they will always re-enter parliament via party list is annoying as hell.

Not true where and when I grew up (germany, in the 90s). Playing around with computers wouldn't get you any points with the ladys but it wasn't considered "weird", either.

Around 1992, it was totally normal to ask for a C64 or Amiga 500 for Christmas, if one was interested in such a thing and by 1995/96, there were only a handful of people left at school who had no access at all to a personal computer at home. By 2000, basically everyone between the age of 16 and 30 had internet at home.

Both authors assume that what we call "intelligence" and "sentience" is deeply influenced by the environment our species evolved in (plus a billion happenstances) and that therefore any dream of meaningful communication with extraterrestrials is a naive dream.

Now, we don't know if they're right because, as you pointed out, we never met actual aliens. But that doesn't change the fact that their assumptions is based on actual science.

Klingon mating rituals, on the other hand, are not.

That's why the only books that have something meaningful to say about aliens are Solaris and Blindsight.

In case of the fermi paradoxon, I'd add the first two books of Baxter's Manifold series where he offers two distinct explanations, the first one being "it's not a paradox at all, we're truly the first" and "some natural process is killing them off before they can colonize the galaxy".

"Interesting answers means expanded on the rules and story in the fictional universe to provide explanations for mysteries the author(s) set up."

That's the root cause of our disagreement. I simply call that a good story. On the other hand, to me a book gives "interesting answers" to something if it has something meaningful to say about reality, not just the fictional universe.

In Dune, that would be true for politics and religion but not for sandworm biology.

I was referring to "managed to provide some very interesting answers regarding the nature of the cosmic dark forest and higher dimensional space".

No, he was not because his ideas about "the nature of the cosmic dark forest" - allthough having at least some internal consistency - lack any foundation in actual science and his ideas about "higher dimensional space" were pure nonsense.

They were not "answers" but plot devices.

That was the sequel I wanted to read, instead we got more Game of Dogs.

As much as I loved the Tines as an idea, I really hate it when large portions of a scifi book take place on some "medieval" world. If I wanted that, I would just read fantasy novels.

When I read that Ravna had a degree in "Applied Theology", I loughed out loud.

Oh come on, it's a nice book and I enjoyed reading it but his physics are pure bullshit and his game theory is based on pop psychology.

Why on earth would you remake one of the shittiest paint applications ever released?

No, it's a perfect comparison. If I do an art project, I might want to start from the very basics and want to do everything on my own. If I have work to do, a budget and a deadline, I use existing building blocks wherever possible.

I just imagine telling my boss I could do the job in a week in Python ... or I could use this amazing forgotten language that requires me to implement almost everything from scratch. But it will be totally worth it, some day, I swear!

This is ridiculous! When you want to write a book or just take some notes, do you want to make your own paper all the time? Mix your own ink? I see the appeal to do this once or from time to time, but if I have to scribble something down, I'm glad these are ready-made for me. Guess I'm just a lego-based author.

I love Vagrant, it was my secret weapon for years! However, I question the decision to release a complete new implementation under the 2.x version. The Go-based variant should be 3.0 from the start.

I save 160 Euros per month by not commuting. I invested 3 months of these savings in a height-adjustable desk and a 4K monitor. The 90 minutes time each day I keep for myself. I wouldn't call that a bad deal.

To 90% of the population, it's not "obvious" or we would not need T-Shirts labeled "I will not fix your computer for you".

Even a common programmer does not use any actual "computer science" 99% of the time and your typical sysadmin type probably never knew any. So it's simply wrong and confusing to use the same word for it.

In Germany, anything computer-related is subsumed under "Informatik".

- Students learning to use MS Office in school? Informatik.

- People fixing printers and replacing your harddrive? Informatik.

- System administrators managing a datacenter? Informatik.

- Data scientist applying deep learning techiques? Informatik.

- University professor trying to prove P==NP? Informatik.

Honestly, I envy the Americans for their destinction between "computer science" (CS) and "information technology" (IT). Even if computer science is not really about computers.

> For instance a simplistic image viewer which opens internet connections and fetches data from the net

How does the AntiVirus know that /usr/bin/mfvwr is supposed to be an "simplistic image viewer"?

Is an simplistic image viewer that allows you to upload images to an image hoster not simplistic, anymore? And is there another category of semi-simplistic image viewers who are allowed to do that but not scan your home directory? What about mfvwr's new feature of finding all your image files?

Who tells the maintainer of the AV that mfvwr became non-simplistic in version 1.5-rc1 and a fully-fledged image manager in version 1.9-beta2?

What about forks that add new, non-simplistic features but keep the name of the binary to be a drop-in-replacement?

You think wrong, it was exactly the same approach of defining a "nice API" for each type of file.

It failed.

These "nice ideas about different types of file" are not new. On the contrary, before Unix, this was common and it was one of the revolutionary approaches of Unix, that files - from an OS perspective - should be streams of bytes and nothing more.

No, because violence towards women in relationships is not higher than it is towards men. In fact, it's almost 50:50.

I loved the aesthetics and half of the cast (Paul, Leto, Duncan, Lady Jessica), hated the rest.

Oh yeah, the story about the "detailled notes" in a box ... I wouldn't believe any of this.

The prequels are basically Star Wars books set in the Dune universe.

Strange, I'm burdened with a development team that behaves the same, except they usually don't know what the error messages that their own software produces mean, especially not "by heart".

But since the CEO has a development background, always sides with them and in general wants them to build "features", not fix their shit, they never have to take responsibility for anything.

Here in Germany we often jokingly say that the Berlin Wall was the last big public construction project that was completed within time and budget.

;-)

Dear downvoter, how about you join the discussion and point out where I'm wrong?

Well, then you have at least an answer to the question why those managers get stuck at some point ... ;-)

I would ask them why they think they deserve one. And if the answer is, because they have been doing doing such a good job for such a long time ... well, I think you can guess what my answer would be.

On the other hand, if they point out occasions where they stepped out of their comfort zone and succeeded, there might be a promotion on the horizon already and I would discuss with them what's still missing for it to happen.

I still don't see how that's different.

How would a level 1 person "knock it out the park and look like they will succeed doing higher level work" if not by either doing level 2 work or succeeding in some other area that is technically above his paygrade?

Why would you need to explain why someones hasn't got a promotion? As an employee, you can expect a raise, sometimes, or a golden watch, maybe, after x years of service. But there is no reason to promote someone just for doing his job, no matter how good or how long he has been doing it. On the contrary, it would be dumb to do so.

edit: typos

I'm sorry but I fail to see the difference, except "shows the potential to do more valuable work" and "having been operating at a higher level" being not quite the same. But this doesn't change my main conclusion. Can you please elaborate?