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Comment: Re:Making users happy. (Score 1) 473

by AmaDaden (#45168271) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Are the Hardest Things Programmers Have To Do?
The problem you're having is that users don't know what they need, they just know they have problems and they are suggesting solutions for you to implement they think will solve them. The problem with that is they don't know what computers are good at so they make suggestions that sound good but are not likely to work well in practice. You need to take their requests and see what the real problem they are trying to solve is. Then point out the problems in their solution and suggest features that can solve the real problem for them. Just remember to be nice about it so they will learn to trust your judgement. Nobody wants to give in to the guy who loves to yell "I told you so"

Comment: Re:Scala is a scripting language? (Score 1) 577

by AmaDaden (#45109949) Attached to: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy
Java and Scala can both be run in the console but, as the video shows, Scala can be run AS a console. Scala code can be run one line at a time in a Scala console or compiled. Java code can only be compiled. By the above given definition, this makes Scala a scripting language.

Scala does have similar support to eval with the ScalaInterpreter class.


by AmaDaden (#45095435) Attached to: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy
The wiki def for a Scripting language is "A scripting language or script language is a programming language that supports the writing of scripts, programs written for a special run-time environment that can interpret and automate the execution of tasks which could alternatively be executed one-by-one by a human operator." Check out this video and you'll see that Scala can do this. Scala is a weird hybrid. It's a full powered language build on top of the JVM that can run as a script or be compiled directly in to Java bytecode.

Comment: Re: diabetes is no joke! (Score 1) 157

by AmaDaden (#44543099) Attached to: Study Ties High Blood Sugar To Dementia

A lower sugar spike helps but in the end that sugar is still there. The so called healthy "slow release" carbs still release in the end. If the body has too much sugar available it doesn't get round to burning fat. I mean that's the argument, but you'd have to read up to see if it makes sense.

The slow release makes all the difference. The huge insulin spike that triggers the storage of ALL fat only happens when the glucose hits all at once. Slow release insulin means that both glucose and fat can be burned simultaneously as your body continues to digest the food and introduce more glucose in to your bloodstream.

So either something radically changed in our bodies in the last 12000 years, or we are eating an unnatural amount of grains.

Or the grains changed recently. White rice and white flower are much, much more recent inventions. Add to that things like the sugar water (soda, juice, and even beer) that we drink at nearly every meal and you can see how much our much our diets have changed in just the past 100 years.

It sounds like your hinting at the Paleo diet with all this. That diet does work but that's because it's a much more strict version of a low GI diet. I'm not going to argue that low GI is just as good as Paleo but it's certainly much simpler to implement and has most of the same benefits.

For anyone who is interested in the details of why low GI diets work and how we are where we are today I recommend the book Good Calories, Bad Calories


by AmaDaden (#44542811) Attached to: Study Ties High Blood Sugar To Dementia
You're correct but his point is still a valid answer in the general discussion. Most of the studies I've seen point to the main problem with high carbohydrate diets the Glycemic index of the foods eaten, not the number of carbs the food has. Switching over to very low GI foods is comparable to switching to a low carb diet. The short story is the rapid insulin spike and high amounts of glucose slowly causes major damage in the human body. We have little defense against these problems because never before in our history have white bread, white rice, big starchy potatoes, and sugar water been such a large persistent part of our diet. The change in our diet has far out paced evolution.

Comment: Re:No backlash will be headed off (Score 2) 229

by AmaDaden (#44093205) Attached to: Obama's Climate Plans Face Long Fight

it is time to stop trying to drag down those that are actually creating jobs and employing people and start trying to pull everyone else up so that they can have those same successes.

Agreed. However we need to address the rich AND the poor who are abusing the system in order to do that. That is what OWS was truly about for those of us who do have a clue. Those with money who abuse their power are a far larger force for damage then the 4% who "rather sit in their trailer and collect money from the government than work". Minimum wage jobs like working at Walmart are my go to example for this. They pay people so low that huge groups of people have to go on welfare in order to survive. Quite honestly if I looked around and saw that as my only job option you bet I would rather sit around then work. What would be the point?

California taxpayers are spending $86 million a year providing healthcare and other public assistance to the state’s 44,000 Wal-Mart employees, according to a new study by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Industrial Relations.

from http://www.ilsr.org/new-study-finds-walmarts-miserly-wages-cost-taxpayers/

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/hidden-taxpayer-costs This link contains over 20 states that have companies like Walmart as the biggest contributer to "lower-income workers are turning to taxpayer-funded healthcare programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)."

And if you think "that's just the cost of low prices!" well


So I seriously think they can afford to pay much better or at least give decent benefits.

Comment: Re:what gets me... (Score 1) 262

by AmaDaden (#43937369) Attached to: Intelligence Director Claims NSA Surveillance Reports Inaccurate
I'm sure no one who has a good memory and was paying attention was surprised. The big change is that the 9/11 fear and wars are over in the minds of the people. We still have people over there but in the heads of the average American they are all home safe and sound. When the fear was high no price was to large for safety. Now every emailed cat picture from grandma must be sealed from prying eyes.

Comment: Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve (Score 1) 263

by AmaDaden (#40816391) Attached to: Google Announces Plans, Pricing For Kansas City Fiber Network

Why does google express the desire that I "should not" be hosting "any kind of server"? I mean, what reason, that lines up credibly in any way with there prior sentiments about net neutrality, internet entrepeneurship, or anything, could possibly justify that they feel that every user "should not host a server of any kind?" What kind of vision is that for the current and future internet they hope to deliver?

You know what would suck? If people started hosting web sites from their home that were down half of the time. That would be worse for the internet then if an ISP just said "Please go else where to host a server".

This is a new service. Google has no idea what problems they are going to run in to and are taking it slow. How stupid would they have sounded if they came out and said "Hey guys we are starting a new ISP division. Who wants to sign up their mission critical servers to be hosted by us?". It's fine for the internet if a home goes down but not if a business's servers go down. That is why that phrase is perfectly reasonable. You CAN host servers out of your home but you SHOULD not since Google can't guarantee any reasonable QOS yet.

Can you really call yourself an ISP if you disallow such basic functionality as a generic tcp/ip service provided on a port on your computer?

Here is something in my Optimum Online terms of service

Users may not run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums

So yes they can. At lest Google did not say I can't they only said I should not. If you want server support you need to get a business class internet connection, Google is not selling that yet.


by AmaDaden (#40783777) Attached to: Google Announces Plans, Pricing For Kansas City Fiber Network
IANAL but I don't think that the usage of the word 'permitting' would undo the ambiguity of the word 'should' in any court of law. Historically Google does not care much one way or the other what people do with their services as long as they do not cause trouble. Since they clearly have the power to throttle connection speeds I don't think the high usage of having a sever would be causing them any trouble. I'm leaning to they are just recommending you don't do it, not that it is forbidden. However neither of us will have the information to prove who is right until we see the actual contracts.

Comment: Re:Two Words: (Score 1) 405

by AmaDaden (#40166289) Attached to: Do Headphones Help Or Hurt Productivity?

non-vocal music

This is key. The human brain only has one language processing section. Music with lyrics will cause it to compute words rather then letting you read or write what ever you are working on. The article points this out but basically ignores how well people can concentrate when listening to music with-out lyrics. Have any studies actually looked at non-lyric music working?

Comment: Re:Get a copy of The China Study (Score 1) 655

by AmaDaden (#40027739) Attached to: The Mathematics of Obesity
This blog does a great job a ripping Campbell's "The China Study" apart. http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/. The short story is he warped his representation of the numbers to make meat look worse then it is to reach conclusions that not even his academic papers support. I agree that the problem is the western diet, but not because the western diet contains large amounts of meat. I've tried my best to read about this topic with an open mind and I've come to the conclusion that we have two major problems in our western diets that is killing us. 1) Too much sugar. See "Sugar: the bitter truth" and 2) Too much Omega-6 compared to Omega-3. This can be partly tied to meat consumption as corn feed beef is much lower in Omega-3 then grass feed beef is. Cut out the soda and eat good quality meat and you will avoid most of the modern health issues
