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I would be the last person to deny that. I just spent the last year writing about Java. When it comes to creating web pages, my mantra is "code to the standard, not the browser!"

But there's more to creating a commercially successful application than writing code. There's QA, distribution, support, marketing, grabbing space on retail shelves and online distribution channels. These things cost money, and doing them for marginal platforms actually costs more: it's harder to hire people with the necessary expertise. People who insist that software developers can easily support every little platform out there are ignorant of the way the marketplace works.

Here it is, another intellectual, versus another incumbent authoritarian in a major election. I completely agree with John Dean, in his book Conservatives without Conscience, that there is a very pathological aspect to modern conservative authoritarians, but what can change the nature of the electorate? Intellectuals will continue to be perceived as wishy-washy no matter how bad the existing authoritarian, and the defense of increasingly authoritarian rule will not have a real challenge unless that changes. It seems that the only challenge to modern authoritarian rule is catastrophic failure across the whole society.

Will the honest questions of an intellectual ever not be a liability? Or will politicians always continue to have to be liars wearing masks of false confidence, grabbing all power available in order to hold onto any power at all? Must the functional brains of our society continue to be the most cruel amongst us?

Ryan Fenton

'The Road to Reality' (Roger Penrose) http://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-Guide- Universe/dp/0679454438/
Great discussion about physics laws and math, one of the bests titles of Mr Penrose, and yes, the ' dodecahedral/tetrahedral/octahedral space' possibilities are also explained from the ground up.

The author mentions K. Eric Drexler and his book Engines of Creation, but I'm wondering if he actually read it. TFA says "Folks like Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy and Eric Drexler have raised some alarms, but they are too dazzled by the complexity and power of human cybersystems, devices and networks to see it coming. Well, I took Engines of Creation to be one great big warning almost from start to finish about the same kind of thing this article talks about, so what am I missing? He's invented some new words for stuff, but other than that...

Louis L'Amour wrote a book like this called The Haunted Mesa. Apparently the parallel universe is where the Anasazi went. Much different from the stuff he usually wrote, but it's not a bad read.

May I suggest 'Pocket Ref' by Thomas J Glover. It's one of the most compact and useful reference books out there. It will fit on any shelf, bench, in a drawer, or literally in your pocket. But it contains useful charts, conversions, and other general information about more topics than I can list here.

http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Ref-Thomas-J-Glover/d p/1885071337/
Or go down to your local hardware store, most of them stock it too.

Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney

From the article: "This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way,'' Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow.''

They aren't even trying to justify their actions anymore. They're just filtering science from public view, and insisting that it is improvement.

Ryan Fenton

This is wonderful news. The Russians can join the Konverts from Kansas and increase the ranks of the Pastafarians.

Anyone have this kid's (or the Russian Court's) mailing address? I want to send them a copy of the holy text The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

May they be Touched by His Noodly Appendage.

The ARRL has plenty of books on how to study for the FCC exams. I recently just received my technicians license, which is the most basic license. There are books there that will teach you all of the requirements that you need to learn to pass the FCC exam. However, if you want to learn about electronics, then any Ham will tell you to pick up a copy of the ARRL Handbook.

I own the Handbook and am an electrical engineer by trade. The Handbook is certainly a book that will give you examples of how to build radios yourself without bogging the explanations down with a lot of math. If you like explanations with more mathematical rigor, then you will have to go elsewhere. However, the book does an effective job of explaining circuits with some very creative examples.

The ARRL web site also has a directory of local clubs and events. Usually there is a point of contact associated with the club and they can give you a hand.

There are only two books: The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie; and Expert C Programming by Peter van der Linden.

Contrary to popular belief, the former is suitable for beginners - they just require guidance. Do them a favour and don't buy any books that pretend to make it easier: more pages; less content. Most of them are named "C Programminig for {Scientists,Engineers}".

Finally, steal lecture slides from your local university's first C course. You might also wish to teach them something of a non-procedural paradigm like a functional language (Haskell is cool).

...is a valid, legal hobby in the US. And there are a lot of people who can help you. What you describe is quite achievable, and can be made quite safe. However, I do not believe you will be able to get it together in your extremely short timeframe, unless you have only a few fuses to light. And if you only have a few fuses to light, you don't need computer choreography.

I could (and do) write volumes on the subject of amateur pyrotechnics, but I'll try to keep this response short. Electrical firing systems for pytotechnics are designed to ignite a device known either as an electric match ("e-match," in the vernacular) or an igniter. Occasionally, someone will call it a "squib," but that is incorrect. E-matches are quite easy to fire, are typically wired in series when a lot of devices are fired at once, and are not legal for you to buy unless you hold an ATF license. You can legally make them, but there are requirements for storage and transport.

Hobby rocket igniters are legal for you to buy, store, and transport on the highways, and you should consider using them. But probably not for this New Year's eve. I suggest you work on your firing system for use later in 2007 (with resources I can point you to) and that you hand-light your current show.

You should get a trigger light propane torch. http://www.amazon.com/BernzoMatic-TS3000T-019028-T rigger-Propane/dp/B00008ZA0B It is also good to have a hat, eye protection, and (optionally, depending on your devices) ear protection. Wear long sleeve cotton shirt and cotton pants; jeans are great. On the issue of hats, a hard hat is best, but a cotton ballcap is okay. Synthetic cloth is bad; it offers very little protection. Tape or wire a penlight flashlight to the flame tube of the torch head so that when the light is on, it will show where the torch is pointing. This is so you can light the fuses in the dark without emcumbering both hands; it allows you to turn you body away from the pyro you're about to light.

Set up the devices you intend to use and secure them in place. For rockets, you'll need to build a simple rocket rack, for candles, you can affix lines of them to a board with wire or wire ties. Wire ties are safer, but candles rarely explode these days. Mortar tubes for festival balls should be mounted in a box or milk crate, affixed to a backing board that is attached to stake, or gang-taped and put into a bucket. Drive stakes in the ground and wrap tape around the stake and the outside of cakes (aerial repeaters); it can get a bit exciting if one of them falls over. And it happens frequently enough to make securing them worth the effort. Hang or drape crackerstrings from supported crossmembers; for a nice build up effect wrap them so that they lump up toward the one end of the board, then light a single string left hanging from the other end.

Basically, lay out the stuff to be shot so that you can walk fairly freely between the items. Put some thought into the arrangement so that you won't need to step between the viewing crowd and a row of devices already lit. If you work from front to back, you won't be as noticeable while you're firing the stuff. Work through your shoot order, draw a very simple site plan, and think about the effect each item produces. If you're going to have accompanying music, figure out some very basic time cues and light a group of devices on the cues. We're not talking precision here; just trying to spread the show through the music. IF you're not going to use music, then you can decide to light a new group of devices when the old ones begin to go out. In order to achieve some amount of synchrony, make sure you don't have to walk more than two or three steps to get all the devices in a group lit at the same time. Also, once you've done it a few times, you can light the very end of the first couple of fuses, the middle of the next group and the base of the final

I am just looking it up at wery fine book u can buy here.

I tried organizing textfiles for all the chapters and gifs, but it's much easier to just fork over the money and pay for the printed version. Paper makes for easier reading and browsing, too, like with any other book.

Amazon has it for $25 here:
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Generation-Technic al-Manual/dp/0671704273

Enjoy :)

While we're on the subject, is there a brace style that is most standard in the industry?

First, C is a horrible language to learn on. Try something like Python or Ruby. There's a book out there that teaches Python where every project is some type of game. That's a good one. There's also the free online textbook, How to Think Like a Computer Scientist. Haven't tried that one, but it's free.

Also, you asked about brace style. Yes, there is One True Brace Style . Unfortunately, no one can be told what The One True Brace style is. You have to see it for yourself.

On a similar note, I'm surprised you didn't ask whether to use vi/emacs. Or maybe whether to teach on linux or windows.

He did write his own book. It's not that hard these days, but at least he went through the effort of doing it.

Unfortunately it's a bit pricey off amazon, but read the reviews.
It was much cheaper in the college bookstore.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Programming-Example -John-Perry/dp/0534951406/sr=8-1/qid=1166185131/re f=sr_1_1/103-8230721-4280618?ie=UTF8&s=books

In high school, I took an AP Computer Science class that taught C++. If I understood then what I understand now, learning C++ would have been a whole lot easier. My teacher focused too much on the language instead of concepts.

After several failed attempts at trying to learn how to program, I finally understood basic concepts such as variables, integers, arrays, etc. I then took a more basic computer science class, "Algorithm Design/Problem Solving," that used the book Programming Logic and Design. This book does not use or concentrate on any specific programming language. All our assignments were done in pseudo-code and we had to show the logic of what we wanted accomplished. I have to admit it was a lot easier trying to convey the logic without having to worry about the syntax.

It's been a couple semesters since I've taken that class, without any programming in between, and now I've picked up The C Programming Language. I am currently half way through the book and ,I must say, I finally understand and appreciate the concepts being taught. I wouldn't quite recommend this book to the pure beginner, because it assumes knowledge about basic concepts such as variables, compiling, etc. The book, at a little less than 300 pages, is written and presented much better than the 1000+ page programming books I've run across.

If I were back in high school, I would love to have these concepts introduced at a gradual progression. Basic programming concepts -> Logic & Design w/ pseudo-code -> the actual language of choice using an easy to learn (30 minute intro) compiler. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm not too sure if I would have paid as much attention to the first two concepts. Since you are teaching in a high school, I take it you have 2 semesters to teach the class. Perhaps dedicate the first half of the first semester with logic. You can have them play different logic games and tie that in with the lessons.

Creating a good foundation makes learning and teaching a whole lot easier.

In high school, I took an AP Computer Science class that taught C++. If I understood then what I understand now, learning C++ would have been a whole lot easier. My teacher focused too much on the language instead of concepts.

After several failed attempts at trying to learn how to program, I finally understood basic concepts such as variables, integers, arrays, etc. I then took a more basic computer science class, "Algorithm Design/Problem Solving," that used the book Programming Logic and Design. This book does not use or concentrate on any specific programming language. All our assignments were done in pseudo-code and we had to show the logic of what we wanted accomplished. I have to admit it was a lot easier trying to convey the logic without having to worry about the syntax.

It's been a couple semesters since I've taken that class, without any programming in between, and now I've picked up The C Programming Language. I am currently half way through the book and ,I must say, I finally understand and appreciate the concepts being taught. I wouldn't quite recommend this book to the pure beginner, because it assumes knowledge about basic concepts such as variables, compiling, etc. The book, at a little less than 300 pages, is written and presented much better than the 1000+ page programming books I've run across.

If I were back in high school, I would love to have these concepts introduced at a gradual progression. Basic programming concepts -> Logic & Design w/ pseudo-code -> the actual language of choice using an easy to learn (30 minute intro) compiler. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm not too sure if I would have paid as much attention to the first two concepts. Since you are teaching in a high school, I take it you have 2 semesters to teach the class. Perhaps dedicate the first half of the first semester with logic. You can have them play different logic games and tie that in with the lessons.

Creating a good foundation makes learning and teaching a whole lot easier.

1. Realize that you are only qualified to do so much with this. Your job here is to facilitate these students' independent learning, rather than to try to teach them C programming, since you barely understand that yourself.

2. Get a few copies of The C Programming Language, Second Edition, by Kernighan & Ritchie. Aside from the ISO standards, it's the authoritative source for C, and it describes the language in detail without a lot of fluff. As a side benefit, it will also familiarize them with the K&R coding style (but this is by no means important at this stage).

3. Give them some existing code (read: games) to modify. They'll learn a lot just by looking at what other programmers have done, and it they'll be able to see results quickly, which is important if you want to maintain their interest. If you're using Linux, there's a ton of open-source code they'll be able to use. If not, you might be better off with something like writing Quake II mods.

4. If it's not fun, you are failing.

Back in the early 90's, I was working on a Windows application for my company. I was unable to implement a feature in the ideal way because the Win16 API on Windows 3.1 did not give me the necessary support.

Not to long afterwards, I was reading Undocumented Windows by Andrew Schulman and lo and behold, I found that Windows 3.1 actually did support the functionality I had needed.

Most of the functionality in Windows 3.1 was found by reverse engineering various applications, mostly from Microsoft itself. Microsoft application developers were able to access APIs that were not publicly documented.

Microsoft has often claimed that people prefer their applications because they are better. But at least one of the reasons they are better is they gave themselves functionality that non-Microsoft application developers did not know about.

No, we did not lose any business because of the feature I was unable to develop. But it proved to me that Microsoft did not play fair.

Ha, I'd pay $50 for those 5 Metal Slug games!

Computer programming is too large and too difficult of a subject to learn merely at work. If you're not programming in your off-time, then you probably don't feel very strongly about the subject of computer science. I'd say there's a good chance you care more about the size of your paycheck than you do the quality of your code. I'd also say there's a big chance your skills lack depth. You're the programmer that finds it hard enough to merely get something to work; when asked to improve performance, or to make your code run on multiple non-symmetric processors, I'm guessing you get the "deer-in-the-headlights" look in your eyes.

My favorite interview question, to ask and be asked, is "Show us a piece of code that you wrote, that you're proud of, and explain to us what it does and how it works." That tells me everything I need to know about a programmer.

So what about the ability to get along with others, you ask? Not surprisingly, I say "bollocks" to that. This recent trend of caring more about people's feelings than their brains, ethics, or effort, is a stupid idea that has nothing to do with actual accomplishment or success or anything else, and anyone that subscribes to it is doomed to a downward spiral of irrelevance. You accomplish nothing by getting along fabulously as you run the company straight into the ground. If you're unclear on why, there's a famous book that explains it in voluminous detail.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Animated-Adventure s-Roddenberrys/dp/B000HEWEJ4/sr=8-1/qid=1166128581 /ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-2294669-9642864?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

If you care about.. you know.. paying

I'm sorry, but you now have to pay Robert Asprin tons of royalties.

There are an astounding number of books which cover revisionism in various versions of the bible. You can read some lighter material on this subject which has more citations, I can point you in THAT direction at least. For instance, one great book on the subject is King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel which speculates that the origin of the bible may have been as a history of the life of King David, which was later edited down to try to reconcile some of David's actions which are precisely opposed to the supposed desires of god.

Another excellent book on the birth of christianity is God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism. Both books are from the same author; both books have so far stood up well to criticism.

If you are worshipping the demons, the game is Satanic.

If you are shooting at them, it is not.

However, one of my favorite RTSs allows me to play as the Soviet Union, and another allows me to command armies of demon worshiping psychos, so I'm all for tolerance.

If you are worshipping the demons, the game is Satanic.

If you are shooting at them, it is not.

However, one of my favorite RTSs allows me to play as the Soviet Union, and another allows me to command armies of demon worshiping psychos, so I'm all for tolerance.

Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?

Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want.
Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?

Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.

So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!

Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.

I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.

Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"

How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!

Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.

By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals

Each of us is a programming amateur just once (I hope), but learns many additional languages throughout his career, and I think we want those non-newbie books to be concise and get to the point.

Yes that's a need — but it's a need that's already been met. The first thing anybody does when they're trying to get a new language accepted is to write a language reference. For Java, it's Gosling, Arnold, and Holmes. For C++, it's Stroustrup For Perl, it's the camel book. And so on. Yes, these books meet a big need. But there's no need to write these books over and over. And yet, that's what most programming texts do.

Each of us is a programming amateur just once (I hope), but learns many additional languages throughout his career, and I think we want those non-newbie books to be concise and get to the point.

Yes that's a need — but it's a need that's already been met. The first thing anybody does when they're trying to get a new language accepted is to write a language reference. For Java, it's Gosling, Arnold, and Holmes. For C++, it's Stroustrup For Perl, it's the camel book. And so on. Yes, these books meet a big need. But there's no need to write these books over and over. And yet, that's what most programming texts do.

Each of us is a programming amateur just once (I hope), but learns many additional languages throughout his career, and I think we want those non-newbie books to be concise and get to the point.

Yes that's a need — but it's a need that's already been met. The first thing anybody does when they're trying to get a new language accepted is to write a language reference. For Java, it's Gosling, Arnold, and Holmes. For C++, it's Stroustrup For Perl, it's the camel book. And so on. Yes, these books meet a big need. But there's no need to write these books over and over. And yet, that's what most programming texts do.

It's also worth pointing out that the scores are not really 'free' in the free-software sense, they're released under a fairly restrictive license [redhost24-001.com] that they are claiming applies to the scanned images of the scores, independent of the scores themselves (which should be in the public domain).

The only scores definitely in the public domain are Mozart's original autographs. Engraved editions of his music, provided they were produced after 1923, are under copyright. It's the same situation with books like the Oxford Classical Texts. Whoever wrote out a given papyrus of Herodotos' History has long been dead and lost copyright over his work, but the text that Oxford has compiled by comparing manuscripts is copyright.

I have had similar discussions with people about the plausibility of creating a "liquid bomb". When I tell them how impractical it is and what would be required to do so, I usually get blank stares

That was at least partly because their "say yes" campaign was ripping off the book Yes Man by Danny Wallace. (Allegedly)

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Developing Java Software.

These are, by far, the best performing mice out there.

One thing's for sure: in no cultural musical traditions in the world, composers and musicians compose like they were drawing mathematical functions.

Totally false. The Greek musical tradition owes so much to Pythagoras and his school, for whom music was an expression of sacred numerology. While to a certain extent Pythagoras was describing an earlier musical tradition, there are areas where he clearly pushed forth new guidelines on musical progression purely for mathematical reasons. See M.L. West's Ancient Greek Music . Furthermore, in Toru Takemitsu's works which he commenced after reconciling himself to his native country's musical tradition, the use of magic squares becomes an important factor.

How to Win Friends & Influence People (Paperback $7.99)

Still, i believe most music lovers really care much more for music with a history of their own to tell, as far as such an abstract art as music permits...

The "meaning" behind any piece of music is arbitrary. I hear people say that they hear the story of the triumph of the human spirit in a certain Beethoven piece. I don't, I just hear a certain well-worn 19th-century structure of sounds without any story behind it. Now, when I hear a work like Boulez's Repons , I hear a rainbow of sound in perpetual expansion, while others say they just hear some sonic noodling.

Just by looking at the indigenous musical traditions of the world, one can see that the notion that music can communicate any objective emotion is preposterous. The diaphonic singing of the Shop people in Bulgaria (yes, a land where minor seconds are considered pleasing to the ear) may sound shrill and angry to many Western listeners. But to the Shop, the music accompanies songs whose lyrics are about love, family life, and so forth.

So, the meaning of a given piece is totally arbitrary, and thus is unsuitable for determining its worth. The early modernist view (especially with Xenakis, perhaps so as well with the serialists) was that the complexity or informational content of a piece is the deciding factor. But since IRCAM led the way in the 1980s with some software capable of automatically generating some hair-raisingly complex music (Magnus Lindberg's piece Engine is an example), even that doesn't work as a standard so much anymore.

So, in the end, one finds that the only objective criterion to determine a piece's worth is its originality: how much can one find here that hasn't been done before? And under that criterion, sorry, much of Aphex Twin loses out to Stockhausen. I will give Richard James credit for one thing (assuming no one else did it before), however, and that is encoding graphical images into the sound that can be viewed with the right software.

Still, i believe most music lovers really care much more for music with a history of their own to tell, as far as such an abstract art as music permits...

The "meaning" behind any piece of music is arbitrary. I hear people say that they hear the story of the triumph of the human spirit in a certain Beethoven piece. I don't, I just hear a certain well-worn 19th-century structure of sounds without any story behind it. Now, when I hear a work like Boulez's Repons , I hear a rainbow of sound in perpetual expansion, while others say they just hear some sonic noodling.

Just by looking at the indigenous musical traditions of the world, one can see that the notion that music can communicate any objective emotion is preposterous. The diaphonic singing of the Shop people in Bulgaria (yes, a land where minor seconds are considered pleasing to the ear) may sound shrill and angry to many Western listeners. But to the Shop, the music accompanies songs whose lyrics are about love, family life, and so forth.

So, the meaning of a given piece is totally arbitrary, and thus is unsuitable for determining its worth. The early modernist view (especially with Xenakis, perhaps so as well with the serialists) was that the complexity or informational content of a piece is the deciding factor. But since IRCAM led the way in the 1980s with some software capable of automatically generating some hair-raisingly complex music (Magnus Lindberg's piece Engine is an example), even that doesn't work as a standard so much anymore.

So, in the end, one finds that the only objective criterion to determine a piece's worth is its originality: how much can one find here that hasn't been done before? And under that criterion, sorry, much of Aphex Twin loses out to Stockhausen. I will give Richard James credit for one thing (assuming no one else did it before), however, and that is encoding graphical images into the sound that can be viewed with the right software.

Definitely. I've said for some time that the search for aliens should begin there; what lives in those depths is likely far more extraterrestrial than we may find in outer space. The BBC documentary "Blue Planet" episode "The Deep" begins to shed light - literally, and some of these creatures have never seen sunlight so I wonder about the effects of exposing them to lamp light.

Aphex Twin, as has often been pointed out by music historians, is just repeating what Karlheinz Stockhausen did fifty years ago now in works like Kontakte , except Richard James dumbs it down considerably. Where's the twelve-tone row in a given Aphex Twin track? Where are the aperiodic rhythms?

In showing the legitimacy of creating music from sampling, it's better to use the innovators like Stockhausen or Berio as examples, or those who continue this tradition but at the highest levels of rigour, such as those connected with IRCAM.

Phase-array optics, implemented in a coating several nanometers deep on the inside surface of the lenses, will in theory be able to display virtual images at a comfortable viewing distance. See more here

My only complaint is that it automatically comes on whenever the car is turned on (IMO it should remember the setting). But given that it's so much better than the toggle switch, I just leave it on now anyway

Alan Cooper calls that a dancing bear in his book, and says it's a ridiculous waste of time because it doesn't really do what you want, and I would agree.

What he means is that a dancing bear dances poorly, just stomping and flailing out of rythm, but we put up with it and try to enjoy it because it's amazing to see a bear dance at all. "I've never seen a bear dance before!" we tell ourselves. He also points out that once you've seen a dancing bear it's hard to go back to normal non-dancing bears, but you could always just go with a different animal that can dance if dancing is what you want.

Personally I'll take a boring old human than can dance well (read: rear view mirror that is manual but does what i want) over a bear that dances poorly (read: automagic mirror that doesn't always do what I want).

Have a look at Java Generics and Collections. Very good guide to the new features.

A book has already been written on Luca Turon's controversial theory of smell. it's a great read! http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Scent-Story-Perfume- Obsession/dp/0375759816/sr=8-3/qid=1165952555/ref= pd_bbs_3/105-9158177-5828428?ie=UTF8&s=books

In the US, which is ending Analog TV Broadcasts in a couple of years, it's hard to find a DTV set-top box for less then $200, and they all suck.

It's hard to find a DTV tuner at all-- most salespeople at the major electronics chains such as Best Buy & Circuit City claim they have never heard of a "set-top box" or an external digital TV tuner. Crutchfeld only provides DirectTV tuners boxes, Amazon only has a couple of models.... the selection is horrible.

http://amazon.com/jobs

Amazon is hiring and has a strong preference for generalists. In particular, if you find project management interesting and have a technical background, Amazon would love to have you.

The factors involved seem to be being present when a photo opportunity happens, recognizing a photo opportunity, having a half-decent camera, and having the skill to produce a well composed photograph (instead of a blurry mess with half a thumb).

Being present is somewhat a matter of luck. However, photojournalists (like other journalists) spend more time than most people in many areas where "newsworthy" (IE: "I can turn that into a story!") events are more frequent. This improves their chances.

Recognizing a photo opportunity is a learned skill. Unsubtle ones like the collapse of the World Trade Center can be recognized by any moron with a pulse and an IQ higher than room temperature. However, such moments may be hard to pick out of the crowd of moments around us, as the current Wikipedia example image for Eisenstaedt suggests. The kiss is one amoung millions, probably even millions that day; but capturing it has elevated it. Would you have stopped and taken the shot, or merely smiled kindly at the happy couple and wandered on past? (I don't think "Get a room!" was a current expression at the time; anyone know?)

The ubiquity of cameras has reduced the importance of merely having a camera on the scene. However, all cameras are not created equal. No matter how lucky you are, you won't get the same quality shots with a keychain toy as with a fully kitted Hasselblad. Professionals put serious money into having the best gear, since they can get a return on the investment (and often a tax write-off). The barrier isn't absolute, since the availability of quality and affordable digital camera gear has gone up over the last couple years; there's a lot of "prosumer" grade cameras about. However, the ubiquitous cell phone camera is a lot closer to my first example for quality.

The last element is skill. With the cost of "developing" digital shots so low, it's a lot cheaper to develop the skill of photo composition than it used to be. However, since developing such skill also takes effort, most people still use a RFC 2795-styled approach, taking shots and picking the best afterwards. While a professional does this too, the expert knowlege they possess means they have a higher starting point, and an easier time finding that one utterly outstanding shot.

As Heinlein observed in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, "There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." I wouldn't be too shocked if an "amateur" ended up with a Pulitzer within the next 20 years, but I don't expect the professional photojournalists to die out any time soon.

If you haven't read The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, I highly recommend it for some very!! interesting discussion of host/parasite and male/female genetic arms races. It'll definitely make your mental wheels turn.

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