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Whose [

sic] to say they couldn't have different argumentative rules for what "proves" a result? Or a different philosophy for what is a sound, provable result. I think there is more politics in mathematics than you'd wish to admit.

Who's to say not? I will say we do have different rules; there have been, and continue to be, divisions on what is a sound proof. I do not think this supports the relativist position, however, and I reject your inflammatory word "politics". Politics is in the Departments and Socieities; in Math, the respected Journals have published papers that pushed the accepted bounds of proof.

E.g., the Constructivists accept only those proofs of the Classicists which do not use the Principal of the Excluded Middle (in the unsafe infinite cases). (This is a slight over simplification.) PoEM is a rule of inference, not an axiom per se; and it is a matter of philosophical contention.

As another poster has mentioned, there are some postulated like the Axiom of Choice which are independent of the main axioms which seem to be required to prove some things, but we can otherwise live without. (Whether the AoC is properly an Axiom or a Rule of Inference I'll not debate, as that would require descent into type theory?) A Mathematician will likely have a strong preference for using or not using AoC or PoEM, but as with the Parallel Postulates, can verify (or debunk) a proof as being correct with (or without) the assumption of the additional postulate -- as could an alien mathematician.

Acceptance of the computer assisted proof of the 4-Color Map Theorem was slow in coming, as it necessitated debate over how one peer-reviewed a computer program as part of the proof. I won't even mention the Formalists, or labelling the computational exploratory dynamicists and their opponents, or try to differentiate the Intuitionists from the Constructivists (since I'm not sure which I am, or wish I was).

In Geometry, there are several different geometries with the several different Parallel postulates (which map to different physical models: flat, hyperbolic, and spherical), the infinity (normal) or discreteness of points (which has more computer-like models!); some proofs work in all or most of these geometries, some work in only one; some theorems require different proofs in them. With AC and PoEM, however, you have layers of proven theorems; more things are demonstrably true the more axioms you have, but since alternate axioms are not on offer, there aren't alternate theorems. (Sometimes alternate proofs are possible, shorter with the high-power axioms, longer without; of course, with one too many axioms, even FALSE is provable, so you must avoid that ... but it is proven that there are unprovable truths if FALSE is unprovable, alas.) The Constructivists have reconstructed almost all (the useful bits anyway) of Classical Analysis ("Calculus made Difficult"), thus demonstrating that the Science and Engineering built on Calculus is not falsified by Constructivist logic questioning the (in their minds) dubious assumptions of the original proofs.

Constructivists and Classicists recognize that each other are doing Mathematics, getting the mostly same results, but by different rules, different means -- and cherishing where there are demonstrable differences in what can be proven. Geometers may specialize in Hyperbolic or Spherical or Discrete, only because looking nearer the lamppost is better hunting ... not because the others are "false" in their eyes.

In short, relations between Mathematicians of differing philosophies is far less "political" and far more academically fruitful than in some other (unnamed) fields.

Whose [

sic] to say they couldn't have different argumentative rules for what "proves" a result? Or a different philosophy for what is a sound, provable result. I think there is more politics in mathematics than you'd wish to admit.

Who's to say not? I will say we do have different rules; there have been, and continue to be, divisions on what is a sound proof. I do not think this supports the relativist position, however, and I reject your inflammatory word "politics". Politics is in the Departments and Socieities; in Math, the respected Journals have published papers that pushed the accepted bounds of proof.

E.g., the Constructivists accept only those proofs of the Classicists which do not use the Principal of the Excluded Middle (in the unsafe infinite cases). (This is a slight over simplification.) PoEM is a rule of inference, not an axiom per se; and it is a matter of philosophical contention.

As another poster has mentioned, there are some postulated like the Axiom of Choice which are independent of the main axioms which seem to be required to prove some things, but we can otherwise live without. (Whether the AoC is properly an Axiom or a Rule of Inference I'll not debate, as that would require descent into type theory?) A Mathematician will likely have a strong preference for using or not using AoC or PoEM, but as with the Parallel Postulates, can verify (or debunk) a proof as being correct with (or without) the assumption of the additional postulate -- as could an alien mathematician.

Acceptance of the computer assisted proof of the 4-Color Map Theorem was slow in coming, as it necessitated debate over how one peer-reviewed a computer program as part of the proof. I won't even mention the Formalists, or labelling the computational exploratory dynamicists and their opponents, or try to differentiate the Intuitionists from the Constructivists (since I'm not sure which I am, or wish I was).

In Geometry, there are several different geometries with the several different Parallel postulates (which map to different physical models: flat, hyperbolic, and spherical), the infinity (normal) or discreteness of points (which has more computer-like models!); some proofs work in all or most of these geometries, some work in only one; some theorems require different proofs in them. With AC and PoEM, however, you have layers of proven theorems; more things are demonstrably true the more axioms you have, but since alternate axioms are not on offer, there aren't alternate theorems. (Sometimes alternate proofs are possible, shorter with the high-power axioms, longer without; of course, with one too many axioms, even FALSE is provable, so you must avoid that ... but it is proven that there are unprovable truths if FALSE is unprovable, alas.) The Constructivists have reconstructed almost all (the useful bits anyway) of Classical Analysis ("Calculus made Difficult"), thus demonstrating that the Science and Engineering built on Calculus is not falsified by Constructivist logic questioning the (in their minds) dubious assumptions of the original proofs.

Constructivists and Classicists recognize that each other are doing Mathematics, getting the mostly same results, but by different rules, different means -- and cherishing where there are demonstrable differences in what can be proven. Geometers may specialize in Hyperbolic or Spherical or Discrete, only because looking nearer the lamppost is better hunting ... not because the others are "false" in their eyes.

In short, relations between Mathematicians of differing philosophies is far less "political" and far more academically fruitful than in some other (unnamed) fields.

Whose [

sic] to say they couldn't have different argumentative rules for what "proves" a result? Or a different philosophy for what is a sound, provable result. I think there is more politics in mathematics than you'd wish to admit.

Who's to say not? I will say we do have different rules; there have been, and continue to be, divisions on what is a sound proof. I do not think this supports the relativist position, however, and I reject your inflammatory word "politics". Politics is in the Departments and Socieities; in Math, the respected Journals have published papers that pushed the accepted bounds of proof.

E.g., the Constructivists accept only those proofs of the Classicists which do not use the Principal of the Excluded Middle (in the unsafe infinite cases). (This is a slight over simplification.) PoEM is a rule of inference, not an axiom per se; and it is a matter of philosophical contention.

As another poster has mentioned, there are some postulated like the Axiom of Choice which are independent of the main axioms which seem to be required to prove some things, but we can otherwise live without. (Whether the AoC is properly an Axiom or a Rule of Inference I'll not debate, as that would require descent into type theory?) A Mathematician will likely have a strong preference for using or not using AoC or PoEM, but as with the Parallel Postulates, can verify (or debunk) a proof as being correct with (or without) the assumption of the additional postulate -- as could an alien mathematician.

Acceptance of the computer assisted proof of the 4-Color Map Theorem was slow in coming, as it necessitated debate over how one peer-reviewed a computer program as part of the proof. I won't even mention the Formalists, or labelling the computational exploratory dynamicists and their opponents, or try to differentiate the Intuitionists from the Constructivists (since I'm not sure which I am, or wish I was).

In Geometry, there are several different geometries with the several different Parallel postulates (which map to different physical models: flat, hyperbolic, and spherical), the infinity (normal) or discreteness of points (which has more computer-like models!); some proofs work in all or most of these geometries, some work in only one; some theorems require different proofs in them. With AC and PoEM, however, you have layers of proven theorems; more things are demonstrably true the more axioms you have, but since alternate axioms are not on offer, there aren't alternate theorems. (Sometimes alternate proofs are possible, shorter with the high-power axioms, longer without; of course, with one too many axioms, even FALSE is provable, so you must avoid that ... but it is proven that there are unprovable truths if FALSE is unprovable, alas.) The Constructivists have reconstructed almost all (the useful bits anyway) of Classical Analysis ("Calculus made Difficult"), thus demonstrating that the Science and Engineering built on Calculus is not falsified by Constructivist logic questioning the (in their minds) dubious assumptions of the original proofs.

Constructivists and Classicists recognize that each other are doing Mathematics, getting the mostly same results, but by different rules, different means -- and cherishing where there are demonstrable differences in what can be proven. Geometers may specialize in Hyperbolic or Spherical or Discrete, only because looking nearer the lamppost is better hunting ... not because the others are "false" in their eyes.

In short, relations between Mathematicians of differing philosophies is far less "political" and far more academically fruitful than in some other (unnamed) fields.

amazon link

isbn.nu link

half.com link

No affiliate tags are used above. But here's the amazon link with my tag, if you feel generous.

Will,

Thanks for your comment.

For more on the textual problem in the Greek NT, check out James White's The King James Only Controversy. White takes on Chick, and minons like him. ISBN.nu is your friend.

What Chick and his minons don't tell you is that there are four Textus Receptuses floating around. One is the Scrivener Textus Receptus, which is dated 1894. Scrivener tried to bring the Textus Receptus back to the Textus Receptus the KJV translators used. The other is the Stephanus Textus Receptus, dated 1550, which (I think) was a spin off of Erasmus' Textus Receptus. The third is the Beza Textus Receptus which is dated 1565-1604, which (I think) was used by the KJV translators. The fourth is the Eramus Textus Receptus, which is dated 1519 and is the first Textus Receptus.

This evidence shows the problem with Chick's viewpoint. If you believe the Textus Receptus is the one and only, then which Textus Receptus? David Cloud (i'm not kidding, that's his real name!), holds some of Chick's views. He wrote an article on this topic called "WHICH EDITION OF THE RECEIVED TEXT IS THE PRESERVED WORD OF GOD?" He didn't opine on which Textus Receptus was The One And Only(TM). Instead he took the cop-out of telling to trust the KJV in textual matters! The site is currently offline. I will be more than happy to send you the piece. My address is in my /. profile.

If you want to see both Textus Receptuses, check out the Bible Gateway. Both Textus Receptuses are there plus the Westcott-Hort Text (which has the Nestle-Aland 27/UBS 4 varants embedded). There's also software that you can download to compare the Textus Receptuses at Crosswire. It's FOSS, and is available for GNU/Linux, Win32, and Mac OS X.

I wish you well.

And don't tell me about the Cerfs defense of Al Gore, he is an VP at WorldCom how has huge goverment contracts. He will not piss off those that write his checks.

Please read this page on the appeal to circumstance.

Two books which may help one become a more logical thinker are Attacking Faulty Reasoning and Asking the Right Questions.

HTH

And don't tell me about the Cerfs defense of Al Gore, he is an VP at WorldCom how has huge goverment contracts. He will not piss off those that write his checks.

Please read this page on the appeal to circumstance.

Two books which may help one become a more logical thinker are Attacking Faulty Reasoning and Asking the Right Questions.

HTH

I use per-month folders and that's worked pretty well for me; the main benefit being that I actually put the papers in the folders. On the rare occasions I've needed to find some scrap of paper, rummaging through a month or two's worth of stuff isn't too bad.

The only drawback I found was at end of year when I wanted to sort out my business expenses so I could deduct them. My solution: two sets of monthly folders: yellow for business, green for personal.

Also, for those fellow geeks who have trouble keeping organized, I strongly recommend the book Organizing from the Inside Out. It's a smart, practical book that really engages your analytical skills. It's done wonders for me.

Speaking of good books as gifts, I'm giving this one to a friend.

Kim Stanley Robinson, in his books Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, had a really interesting system. Instead of keeping a 24 hour day and gradually getting out of sync w/ daylight, they add a 39 minute long "second" at midnight.

Kim Stanley Robinson, in his books Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, had a really interesting system. Instead of keeping a 24 hour day and gradually getting out of sync w/ daylight, they add a 39 minute long "second" at midnight.

Kim Stanley Robinson, in his books Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, had a really interesting system. Instead of keeping a 24 hour day and gradually getting out of sync w/ daylight, they add a 39 minute long "second" at midnight.

I just read Einstein's Bridge by John Cramer. This is a great book about an alternative reason why the SSC was cancelled (SSC was built, and the energy was high enough to attract a hostile alien race, but friendly aliens sent some scientists back in time to prevent it)

But space is not empty. As a spaceship goes faster and faster, it encounters the stray deep space molecule more and more frequently. As you approach the speed of light, your impact rate approaches atmospheric density.

As I recall, Marshall Savage did a decent job on the physics of this issue in "The Millenial Project"

this reminds me of Snow Crash where Hiro is just getting out of school and trying to decide between a career in the mafia or the Yakuza. He meets with a "recruiter" from the mafia, and he says, "The Japanese Mafia. Tell me something... you ever hear anyone describe our thing as 'The Sicilian Yakuza?'" :-)

According to ISBN.nu, amazon.co.uk has it for $21.73, and overstock.com has it for $20.59.

Or if you want something that is actually realistic, go read Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven, which is by far the best work on the subject I've ever encountered.

My mom loves the STCB series, and that's the audience No Starch is going for with this book - those that don't really know much about the internet or computer security. It's a good read with interesting anecdotes.

She might also enjoy the earlier writings of Robert Glass, I think Universal Elixir and Other Computing Projects Which Failed and Computing Catastrophes are classic general audience books that anyone could enjoy.

My mom loves the STCB series, and that's the audience No Starch is going for with this book - those that don't really know much about the internet or computer security. It's a good read with interesting anecdotes.

She might also enjoy the earlier writings of Robert Glass, I think Universal Elixir and Other Computing Projects Which Failed and Computing Catastrophes are classic general audience books that anyone could enjoy.

My mom loves the STCB series, and that's the audience No Starch is going for with this book - those that don't really know much about the internet or computer security. It's a good read with interesting anecdotes.

She might also enjoy the earlier writings of Robert Glass, I think Universal Elixir and Other Computing Projects Which Failed and Computing Catastrophes are classic general audience books that anyone could enjoy.

In Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, they bonded the filaments with a double helix of diamond, which seems like an interesting solution.

From the interview, Bunnie Huang said:

"I'm just waiting for someone to scan the book in and put the book on the Net in free electronic form. The book is Creative Commons Licensed, so you're free to do that. I'm not releasing the book on my own in an electronic format, at least for now, because I get better legal protections shipping real paper books than selling electronic books."

We should encourage people to buy the book in addition to getting their copy electronically (for those that haven't read the article, the book is licensed under a Creative Commons license that will allow scanning the book in and distributing electronic copies). This is a great chance not only to show how the DMCA stifles free speech but to point out the hypocrisy of thinking of electronic distribution of information is somehow less worthy of free speech protection than traditional paper books. Huang is probably right that paper books enjoy more free speech protection than electronic distribution and that is sad.

In an effort to make this book easier to find and buy, visit this site and support presses that help society freely distribute information. If you have objections to buying from Amazon (who is listed on isbn.nu's price index), there are other places with better prices and availability. Buying direct from the press gives the press the most money.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson is a very cool use of this idea. An unknown source has "leaked" fragments of a mysterious film onto the Internet, causing an almost cult following.

``My Partner Is a Total Loser'' and Other Excess Ego Problems

This is a terrible slashdot article, no hype, no good in-jokes, no mindless "____ is the next big thing".

Next you'll expect slashdot readers to actually learn something about the history of computing, and the basics of computer science, and information technology.

at ISBN.nu

Since everyone else is mentioning books that you could read to them, how about The Martian Way one of the all time great Asimov stories.

isbn.nu appears to be targeted at comparing pricing and shipping times for purchasing books from online retailers. On the other hand the Internet Book List is more geared towards discovering new and interesting books.

What about isbn.nu? That site's been around for years and does much the same thing as this booklist site.

Look at Lindows. Look at the marketing. Read it, understand that it's not about you, it's about Michael Robertson.

Lindows is not cheaper than XP. Lindows, for a one year subscription to "insider" information and "click-n-run" software is $129 per year. XP is $99 for an upgrade - a one time fee no less.

Flame all you like. I guarantee that Lindows is all about Michael Robertson getting richer, not about doing something really good for consumers. Check with Suse or RedHat or other Linux distributors - they're doing a good thing for the consumers. If Lindows would explain to people it's strengths without ever mentioning a competitor by name, that would be fabulous. Why can't the product stand on its own without constant comparisons?

Check out the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Other's Don't and read the section on leaders. There's one type that leaves a healthy company behind, there's another that once they leave, the company becomes unsuccessful due to the wreckage left behind. Where is MP3.com today? Where will Lindows be tomorrow?

Birds avoid big spinning things. They can even hear the new, quiet, turbines in the dark. See Peter Asmus's book, Reaping the Wind for more information about birds.

Have you considered what drawing that kind of energy out of the wind might do to the weather?

Yes, it will mitigate about one hundredth of the solar heat we have recently been forcing to stay in the troposphere which has been causing stronger storms and mean windspeeds over the past decade.

The original post suggests that of the 1.5 million windmills needed, only 150,000 of those need to run at peak power to provide the necessary power. As near as I can figure, that's almost a 1000% surplus! So, now your $0.03 looks closer to $0.30

On the contrary, wind power is currently about $0.035/kwh in the U.S. with modern turbines. They aren't much more than swivel-mouned generators with propellor blades on a pole. They are cheap and easy to maintain, and just as subject to economies of scale as any other easily mass-produced product.

On top of all that, the reality is that the wind farms in California have been killing birds and costing at least 2x as much as the rest of our power from the minute they went in.

Nonsense. Birds naturally avoid big spinning white things, even in the dark. Read the book Reaping the Wind for details.

The Altamont Pass wind field is decades old. You should drive through the Riverside County wind fields sometime. The first thing that you will notice is that they are almost all in service, and they don't make any noise.

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright. A look at evolution and nonzero-sum game theory and how they shaped our brains and our culture. I lent my dad my copy and he kept it to read it twice.

I'm aware of two economic methods of generating H2. The least economic is from cracking water using electricity (the topic of this article). The most economic is by cracking natural gas - this is the method used by everybody I know of in the chemical industry.

Consumption of fossil fuels is very rapidly becomming uneconomic. Not only do they pollute, but we have already used more than half our petroleum. Perhaps you have noticed the oil wars that used to be impending?

Proton exchange membrane hydrogen electrolysis systems are about 50% efficient. The most heavily subsidized and poorly-insured nuclear power runs about US$0.12 per kilowatt hour, whereas wind power is already under $0.03/kwh. Therefore, wind-based electrolyzed hydrogen already costs less than nuclear-based hydrogen.

Plus, the new wind turbine models can power the entire U.S. in only 14,000 acres.

I need to check Howard Dean's web site to make sure he knows all this. As if it wasn't inevitable anyway.

I concur. According to isbn.nu, Snow Crash was published in hardcover by Bantam Doubleday Dell on June 1, 1992. Virtual Light's hardcover came out through the same publishing house on September 1, 1993.

That's a span of 15 months. Subtract the time used to actually publish a book -- several months to edit, proofread, design cover, produce galleys, typeset, plan marketing -- and Gibson would probably have to have been on speed to pull off such a feat.

And Philip K. Dick is dead, alas.

What kind of processor was available in 1803?

One of the hats I wear is volunteer for the House Rabbit Society (Michigan chapter). We get hundreds of calls every year from people who get a rabbit for whatever reason -- gift from girl/boyfriend, Easter gift, parents bought to teach kids "responsibility," or like this case, someone who took a stray into his home instead of calling his local animal control facility.

Probably 95% of these calls are dump calls. People get sick of an animal and want to "get rid of" it -- and yes, those are the exact words they use, almost every time, "get rid of."

Most of those are just people who don't know how to take care of the damn thing. For cripe's sakes, people, when you get an animal, go buy a book and read it. Rabbits are not dogs or cats. For starters, they chew. And maybe I'm just in a bad mood but how much of a genius do you have to be to turn a chewing animal loose in your home without protecting your precious computer cables? Baby gates, plexiglass and cable wrap -- this is not rocket science.

How much of a genius, to not realize that an animal that chews through a power cord will very possibly kill itself?

And how much of a humanitarian, to blame the animal for your own fuckup, and dump it on a shelter?

(If you have a rabbit, by the way, we recommend the House Rabbit Handbook because it's simply the best guide out there.)

It must *really* be an executive-level book! Not much better prices at the affiliate-free price check. But WorldCat shows over 400 libraries have it - I'd say check that out!

A Midnight Clear is my favorite war movie of all time (All Quiet on the Western Front is a close second, Full Metal Jacket a close third). This is saying a great deal, because the book by William Wharton is one of my favorite books, and usually when I really love a book I hate the movie.

I like your idea... of course, amazon.com is not the best source of info. I have been advocating isbn.nu for years for this sort of thing. They're not perfect, but pretty nice. Of course, you could always just look something up in The Library of Congress (Search their catalog Here).

Indeed... and for those of you who want to look at the source for themselves, check out Lions' Commentary on Unix 6th Edition: with Source Code. Truly amazing stuff...

There was an interesting quote in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash about the Yakuza. When the main character, Hiro Protagonist, was thinking of joining them, some representatives from the Mafia said, "You never hear the Mafia described as the Sicicilian Yakuza"

• Extreme Programming
• Feature-Driven Development
• Scrum
• Crystal

The arguments are weaker if you are monitoring things above the network layer, but I think that they still hold a lot of water.

Nagios apparently uses the polling model, which is good, but seems to use TCP, which is bad. It also seems to have support for so-called mid-level managers (MLMs), that watch subsections of a network and aggregate the results for higher levels. This is a good thing. In order to scale, MLMs should not report a lot of detail unless directly queried. I don't know how well Nagios supports the MLM model. Can anyone tell me more?

I also like ISBN.nu (though they may be having some technical dificulties currently) and Google's new Froogle site, all you have to do is search on the ISBN.

I've tried Froogle for some other products though and was less satisfied, since it seems to grab the price in closest proximity on the page to the search term you used - which is sometimes for a different product or for some other charge besides the product price like the shipping, warranty, cost of a peripheral.

2) near indestructability of prions (1100F for hours, etc.)

3) ability of TSE's to cross species (scrapie in sheep, BSE in cattle, CJD in people, TME in mink, PSE in pigs, etc.) and it's all the same group of diseases. They differ in the speed that they cause damage, but that's about it.

I would really like to see something supporting the idea that a protein can survive 1100 degrees F for any amount of time. For comparison- picked up from various web searches- Aluminum melts around 1220F and Zinc at 787F while fiberglass roofing ignites without exposure to flame at around 900F and rigid PVC pipe does so at 850F. The extreme end of thermophilic bacteria is around 113C (235F) so infectious agents surviving intact for extended periods at 1100F more than highly unlikely.
There were studies that found that prions survived 30 minutes at 134C (273F) in an autoclave but later studies found that 138C (280F) with or without a strong alkaline bath disinfected them. It's now part of nursing curriculum: Decontaminating the Indestructible Prion

Anyone interested in the diseases and cross-species aspects might want to read Paul Ewald's Evolution of Infectious Diseases and Plague Time.


- technik

2) near indestructability of prions (1100F for hours, etc.)

3) ability of TSE's to cross species (scrapie in sheep, BSE in cattle, CJD in people, TME in mink, PSE in pigs, etc.) and it's all the same group of diseases. They differ in the speed that they cause damage, but that's about it.

I would really like to see something supporting the idea that a protein can survive 1100 degrees F for any amount of time. For comparison- picked up from various web searches- Aluminum melts around 1220F and Zinc at 787F while fiberglass roofing ignites without exposure to flame at around 900F and rigid PVC pipe does so at 850F. The extreme end of thermophilic bacteria is around 113C (235F) so infectious agents surviving intact for extended periods at 1100F more than highly unlikely.
There were studies that found that prions survived 30 minutes at 134C (273F) in an autoclave but later studies found that 138C (280F) with or without a strong alkaline bath disinfected them. It's now part of nursing curriculum: Decontaminating the Indestructible Prion

Anyone interested in the diseases and cross-species aspects might want to read Paul Ewald's Evolution of Infectious Diseases and Plague Time.


- technik

For more than 20 years, as a hobby, I've been helping friends re-write their resumes. I've noticed that one factor that affects the hiring of excellent students is that their resumes usually don't communicate clearly.

People are told that resumes should be only one page. That's not true. When you write any advertisement, you should write as much as you have to say. When you finish telling the entire story, stop writing. This advice is from the famous ad man David Ogilvy, who wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man , an excellent book that is, as you would guess, easy to read. Any library should have it.

Here are PDF examples of the before and after: Original student resume, with beginning corrections. Draft of improved resume, with formatting quirkiness caused by Microsoft Word. (My friend the student did the re-writing, using my suggestions as a guide. The improved version is current as of yesterday.)

It took maybe 10 hours to develop the information. I spent the time because I am a friend. It is easy to understand that a prospective employer would not spend 10 hours getting to know every person who sends a resume.

Notice that the original resume looks like the resume of thousands of recent journalism graduates. The improved resume is an advertisement that gives a complete picture of the person being advertised. The original expects the reader to do the work. The improved version gives as much as possible and asks as little as possible from the reader.

Like the friend in the example, many students have a lot of relevant experiences.

The book Executive Jobs Unlimited is old, but includes a lot of information that is relevant to anyone's effort to write a job-getting advertisement. Most libraries have this book.

A lot of the problems in getting a job are caused by the inexperience and ignorance of the employers. Employers are often no better than applicants at communicating. They often ask for qualities expressed by buzzwords. Often what an employer really wants is very different from what is communicated. Imagine the confusion when both the applicant and the prospective employer communicate poorly.

The most difficult kind of writing is writing an advertisement. The most difficult kind of advertisement to write is an advertisement for a person. The most difficult person about whom to write is yourself. Get help if you can. Write biographies of yourself, so that you will have information to use in the job-getting advertisement. Most people have difficulty believing they are as good as they really are, I've found.

If you are interested, it is okay to mirror the resumes, but the mirror must include a link to this original Slashdot comment.

For more than 20 years, as a hobby, I've been helping friends re-write their resumes. I've noticed that one factor that affects the hiring of excellent students is that their resumes usually don't communicate clearly.

People are told that resumes should be only one page. That's not true. When you write any advertisement, you should write as much as you have to say. When you finish telling the entire story, stop writing. This advice is from the famous ad man David Ogilvy, who wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man , an excellent book that is, as you would guess, easy to read. Any library should have it.

Here are PDF examples of the before and after: Original student resume, with beginning corrections. Draft of improved resume, with formatting quirkiness caused by Microsoft Word. (My friend the student did the re-writing, using my suggestions as a guide. The improved version is current as of yesterday.)

It took maybe 10 hours to develop the information. I spent the time because I am a friend. It is easy to understand that a prospective employer would not spend 10 hours getting to know every person who sends a resume.

Notice that the original resume looks like the resume of thousands of recent journalism graduates. The improved resume is an advertisement that gives a complete picture of the person being advertised. The original expects the reader to do the work. The improved version gives as much as possible and asks as little as possible from the reader.

Like the friend in the example, many students have a lot of relevant experiences.

The book Executive Jobs Unlimited is old, but includes a lot of information that is relevant to anyone's effort to write a job-getting advertisement. Most libraries have this book.

A lot of the problems in getting a job are caused by the inexperience and ignorance of the employers. Employers are often no better than applicants at communicating. They often ask for qualities expressed by buzzwords. Often what an employer really wants is very different from what is communicated. Imagine the confusion when both the applicant and the prospective employer communicate poorly.

The most difficult kind of writing is writing an advertisement. The most difficult kind of advertisement to write is an advertisement for a person. The most difficult person about whom to write is yourself. Get help if you can. Write biographies of yourself, so that you will have information to use in the job-getting advertisement. Most people have difficulty believing they are as good as they really are, I've found.

If you are interested, it is okay to mirror the resumes, but the mirror must include a link to this original Slashdot comment.

This book can be found here on isbn.nu.

I'm all for making this "required reading" for those self-proclaimed "webmasters" and "web developers", who use tables for layout, specify font sizes, override user defaults, remove titlebars, try to disable right-click, and a whole host of other things that define the ineptitude of these individuals, and their lack of skill in proper design.

Come join some of us on #html on Efnet and you'll see the defining class of pedants like myself, and the others who insist that they aren't breaking usability by full-screening a browser window, removing all of the titlebars and then disabling right-click, and setting it to onBlur() by default.