Comment On Software Bloat

Sad thing is, those will make it into official statistics about the average memory needed to run Java apps.

I make it roughly 189EB (exabytes*), give or take a petabyte or two.

* That's nasty, non-binary exabytes, by the way.

I just wondered what a bad resolution the racing game had until I noticed it wasn't a game. :D

The good news is that "java" needs only 42% of CPU when sleeping.

And I've seen MSN using 36 % when idle.

Vollhorst:

I just wondered what a bad resolution the racing game had until I noticed it wasn't a game. :D

Wtf, I thought that too :D

Would someone care to explain the problem with the race question? The only thing I can see is that it is a smaller list that I would have expected.

What's wrong with the race question? It's a standard demographics question. How else are they supposed to know if they don't ask you?

Yah, I don't get the race one either. Maybe the thin distinction between "Black" and "African-American"?

That doesn't fit with the thrust of the caption, though, that he didn't realize he had a choice in the matter. People do have such a choice, though -- a fourth-generation person with some Central American heritage who has lived all his life in English-speaking culture may consider himself "White" and not "Hispanic". Nothing strange or especially funny about that.

Just so you guys know, -65535 is -((2^16)-1).

It says "consider" rather than "are" you, I could pick black if I consider myself to be black, even if I wasn't. Grasping at straws I guess, I really don't see anything too strange. Except you cannot ask that here anymore.

Tied for last place? That's a minus sign I see...
First place is indicated by a positive 1, second by positive 2, etc...

Seems to me that they are all tied for super dooper, better than ever, completely beyond first place. Everyone wins.

Why would anybody want to know what race you are anyway?
btw it doesn't matter if it's "are you" or "consider yourself to be". If you want to lie, then the word "are" isn't going to stop you.

Whoever wtf'd the race question is a true wtf. Race is attributed to visual aspects of a person. Black, white, hispanic etc.. Reason why jewish is usually added, is due to the usual ability to visually say, yes, this person is jewish.

This doesn't cover outliers. For instance, someone who is half black, half white, may look middle eastern. Someone who is jewish may look more white depending. And yes, there are white people who look hispanic.

So since it's partially subjective, one has to ask, what does one consider themselves since there's no real blood test.

Noob.

chatter:

And I've seen MSN using 36 % when idle.

That's because MSN uses Microsoft Java, which everyone knows is more efficient than Sun Java.

N:

Why would anybody want to know what race you are anyway?
btw it doesn't matter if it's "are you" or "consider yourself to be". If you want to lie, then the word "are" isn't going to stop you.

It's an easy way to qualify for certain things, like scholarships. Sometimes people who gather statistics want to know this. "#% of this type of ethnicity is prone to such a condition."

N:

Why would anybody want to know what race you are anyway?
btw it doesn't matter if it's "are you" or "consider yourself to be". If you want to lie, then the word "are" isn't going to stop you.

True, but if you are white and when asked what race you ARE and you say black, you are lying. If you consider yourself to be black and your asked what race you consider yourself to be, your not lying.

The difference is if someone calls you on it later, in one case, you have to prove some sort of lineage, in the second, you just have to say you feel a great empathy with black people and that's evidence enough.

I did say I was clutching at straws with the "what is the wtf here" and this most likely isn't it.

NaN:

True, but if you are white and when asked what race you ARE and you say black, you are lying. If you consider yourself to be black and your asked what race you consider yourself to be, your not lying.

I don't think there is a legal definition of what makes someone belong to a certain race. Surely it isn't skin color: then an albino would always end up with the Caucasians. Perhaps some genetic marker? Then a very large part of the population will end up in "mixed race".

No, now that I've thought about it: the word "consider" seems to quite appropriate.

The race question isn't a real WTF at all. They ask which race they consider themselves because there are a lot of people of mixed race. A person could be half white half black, so they could "consider" themselves to be one or the other. If you ask somebody what race they ARE, they might feel obligated to fill in every race that they are comprised of, rather than the most characteristic of them.

Unless it was a WTF because it had options for black and african-american. Which is just stupid because you can be black without being african or american (and you can be african-american without being black as well)

Asking what race someone IS is a simplification of race, since races mix (at least outside the US and South Africa they do) and it demands that the respondent understands some "correct" definition of race. Additionally, some people might feel aggrieved at being defined as e.g. "African American" when they were, e.g. Cuban-American, or British nationals. So it's both more politic and a more accurate question to ask people what they consider themselves to be.

In Britain at least, the data is usually used only so that the corporation can say e.g. "25% of our employees are from minority groups even though only 15% of applicants are."

Captain Obvious:

Just so you guys know, -65535 is -((2^16)-1).

Or it is an overflow of a [unsigned] two-bye word.

The real WTF is that Eclipse only uses 168bytes.

N:

Why would anybody want to know what race you are anyway?

There are lots of reasons to ask and lots of times you are required to ask. For example, I believe because of laws ensuring equal opportunity in housing, lending and hiring, you have to collect racial statistics to prove that you're not favoring any one particular group. You'll notice there is also a "decline to answer" option if you are uncomfortable with it as well as an "other" option if you don't fit one of the other categories.

Actually, I think there was a paper recently where they tried to correlate people's self-identified racial group with their genetics and basically came to conclusion that most people don't have a clue about their racial heritage.

I never quite understood all this discussion about RACE.

Don't we all belong to the same race? No matter what your heritage, or the color of your skin or hair you are a member of THE HUMAN RACE.
It might be more accurate to describe our subtle differences as breeds. But, some might take offense to that.

I honestly think if we spent more energy acknowledging our similarities (as human beings) and stop focusing on our differences the world would be a better place.

</soapbox>

Where is Dark Elf? Why we always get this bias against Dark Elf? gezzzz....

I think the "consider" of the race question is substituted for "are" to avoid being sued for racism/discrimination/etc.

Because IIRC, it's illegal to make some person's "race" a criterion for anything (except maybe in the show business). IANAL, but I think it IS illegal in France, at least.

I never quite understood all this discussion about RACE.

Racial heritage can actually be fairly important in medicine, as certain ethnic groups have propensities for different disease (e.g. sickle cell anemia in Africans/African-Americans, cystic fibrosis in caucasians, beta thalassemias in Mediterraneans, etc.. ). What is interesting is that there are differences that segregate by ethnic group in drug-metabolizing enzymes, which causes statistically significant differences in metabolism of certain drugs (pharmacogenomics).

While this is all well and good, I do think it is silly to use race as an excuse for making unsubstantiated judgments about the quality of a person.

-Predicalator

I'd have to pick 'some other race' as Human isn't an option.

These monikers based upon melanin percentage and region are so 1700's.

You are missing the opening soapbox tag.

Since those races are social constructs the true answer to "consider yourself to be" is what they want. The only other possibility is "others consider you to be". There is not true answer to "what race are you".

Perhaps we should leave the WTF to computer technical issues and not try to tell other professions their job. That is reflective WTF.

Benanov:

I'd have to pick 'some other race' as Human isn't an option.

These monikers based upon melanin percentage and region are so 1700's.

Actually, the Real WTF is that they don't have "Decline to Answer" as the default option.

Top marks for using the interrobang character (‽) in the first sentence! Made my day (it's 12:03am here)

Predicalator:

Racial heritage can actually be fairly important in medicine, as certain ethnic groups have propensities for different disease (e.g. sickle cell anemia in Africans/African-Americans, cystic fibrosis in caucasians, beta thalassemias in Mediterraneans, etc.. ). What is interesting is that there are differences that segregate by ethnic group in drug-metabolizing enzymes, which causes statistically significant differences in metabolism of certain drugs (pharmacogenomics).

True, but if you use these criteria (metabolism) to define "races", you end up with:
- far more "races" than most people usually recognise.
- groupings that defy any classification based on visual criteria (some African ethnies seem to be closer genetically to Caucasians than to other African ethnies they're visually identical too - at least to Caucasians -).

While this is all well and good, I do think it is silly to use race as an excuse for making unsubstantiated judgments about the quality of a person.

-Predicalator

Amen. Anyway, I feel this "race" word just doesn't fit when trying to indicate differences between human beings. We are far too genetically and phenotypically similar. When scientists use the term "race" to differentiate between various sorts in the same animal species, the genetic differences are far bigger than whatever we can find among humans.

Yep. My brother and I are 25% Chinese, the rest Irish and German. I suppose "technically" we are mixed race but we both consider ourselves to be White; the most exposure we had to Chinese culture was getting Chinese takeout once a month.

I fail to see the issue with the race one.

Also:





Her name is Erica Sullivan. She goes to NYU and is on Facebook. Here she is with her boyfriend:



Sorry.

I can't believe no one understands the race one. There are negative numbers in the -- oh, the OTHER race one. My bust.

How do you manage to get -65535? 65535 I could understand, -32768 I could understand, but -65535? Even if it were a 17-bit int, in two's complement the minimum value would be -65536. Are they using some type that's represented internally as a boolean plus an unsigned short? Because that would be TRWTF. Especially because it should be a plain unsigned char to start with (or an unsigned short if they really plan on having 256 cars in some races).

*** ERROR
*** THE THREAD YOU WERE READING HAS CRASHED DUE TO A RACE CONDITION

mayo:

Wow. It's hard to find someone who looks like a bigger scumbag than THIS guy.


(I don't even like the irish girl).

Also, kudos on the stalking skills mayo.

Jeff:

Unless it was a WTF because it had options for black and african-american. Which is just stupid because you can be black without being african or american (and you can be african-american without being black as well)

Well, since you can be black and, say, african-brittish person, maybe that was their way of saving on quiz questions. They don't have to ask for country, because thanks to the race question they will be able to determine whethre the person is american or not... At least for the black persons... Better than nothing I guess.

Simetrical:

Especially because it should be a plain unsigned char to start with (or an unsigned short if they really plan on having 256 cars in some races).

The -65535 isn't the race position. The race position is in the yellow bit; mr Doornobs is in third place (and driving car no. 14).
The place where -65535 appears is where they show the distance (in seconds) the driver is behind the leader.
+2.628 would be a realistic value.

Race questions in general are a WTF, in my opinion.

I usually reply 'other' just out of spite. (Well, in this case it is in fact usually true).

I had a real mind-boggler on a form for social housing once though: which as far as I know wasn't even legal. It asked about sexual orientation, giving a pretty exhaustive list of choices.

It gave me the greatest of pleasure to reply 'other not listed'.

Serves them right.

chatter:

And I've seen MSN using 36 % when idle.

Obviously not very idle, then, was it?

The racial choice one probably got submitted because "Black" and "African-American" are both listed. Which isn't a WTF, because you could be a black Cuban, in which case you'd also be Hispanic/Latin, because that isn't even a racial designation.

Also, The Real WTF is Erica/IrishGirl's boyfriend. I really hope they're at some sort of costume party with a "lounge" theme. Otherwise, that's a level of skeeze you rarely see.

Javas using 36 % of the processor while sleeping. Guess we need a gun because its not sleeping hard enough.

Hey, it's a WTF with three things about race...

In other news, the real WTF is that the saddest thing for Champ Car fans is that Champ Car got eaten by the IRL.

Good to see some F1 stuff, though right now Mr. Hamilton is leading Alonso by a bit more than that only one race in...

N:

Why would anybody want to know what race you are anyway?

Only for statistical purposes because the government requires it of them, of course. It certainly doesn't affect your eligibility for the job though. Even though they asked you before even doing a phone interview.

I'd stick with asking what race you "are" though. If somebody's answer doesn't match up, either verb will mean they're either a liar or crazy, but the added bonus is that the crazy can be proven to have answered incorrectly, thereby losing points, so it's not discrimination if you don't hire him.

dbomp:

Yah, I don't get the race one either. Maybe the thin distinction between "Black" and "African-American"?

Black people who didn't ancestrally come to the US via slavery don't alwasy think of themselves as "African-American."

Aside: last year, when some major news media was reporting on a story involving some Black people in Europe (I don't remember the details beyond that) the reporter called them "African-American" instead of Black.