Are you Happy Citzen? Remember, happiness is mandatory. Being unhappy is insuboridination. Friend Computer suggests taking HappyTymNow pills -- guarenteed to improve happiness! Unhappiness is a tool of the commie mutant traitors! Be on your guard! Report those who are unhappy, as they could be communists!
You know you're a Database geek when you see the headline and immediately think: "Ah hah! Clustered indexes! That'll save some time during joins! Oh. Wait. They're talking about boxes. Drat."
Interface, by Stephen Bury (a pseudonym for Neal Stephenson) is a fun exploration of media manipulation coupled with this idea. It goes slightly over the top in assuming the resources mentioned, but in terms of showing what is possible, it's quite interesting.
IT can't be compressed into one track -- you need diffrent skills for diffrent parts. Your webbies will be diffrent from your DBpeople who will be different from your systems people who will be diffrent from your security people who will be diffrent from your HCI people: There's a lot to IT.
There's also a lot of overlap. (I haven't RTFA, sorry. Papers to write.) 1) IT people need to know how to program in a REAL programming language. Right now, we consider that to be java, but that's going to be an internal flamewar. 2) IT people need to know how to speak. Lots of communicatino courses 3) IT people need to know how to get requirements. Lots of HCI fundamentals -- interviewing, STDs, DFDs, etc..
Beyond that, look to RIT to get some specific ideas.
IT is not CS, and it isn't IS. We're happily in the middle.
First, depends on what you mean by failure. For the sake of this discussion of failure, you simply mean a given machine "doesn't work." And stops. For other instances of failure, other discussions should apply.
But, given that definition of failure, the beauty of nanotech is that we can create thousands of machines for any given task, and even if 10% fail right off the bat, we've still got a ton of machines to do our work for us. Even if they do fail -- it's just a few dozen/hundred molecules of junk floating around (which, admitedly poses an issue to our lungs, but that's a mere detail.) The probability of failure increases only if the bots requre each and every bot around them to work. If the bots simply work alone (or in small groups) the probability of failure is a constant, not a limit.
If I mis-understood what you said, please enlighten me to your true arguments. I'm under the influence of a nasty head cold and dayquil right now, so my thinking might be... odd.
Energy -- probably batteries. We're talking about very small scale here, so a nice room-temp supercon (which since we're talking about nanotech, isn't all that far-fetched) should provide for power requirements. Produced, by other nano-assemblers.
Nanoassemblies should be the cheapest and most efficient production system around -- having many many many small machines "placing" molecules on an on-demand fasion (generally at the place of consumption.) What else do you need? There are no middle-men, there are no shipping costs, there are no store costs. Simply ship atoms and some quantity of data to you, and poof! you've got whatever.
How are they going to move? Depends on the structure and the task, just like things of today. Flying is trivial for nanotech, since (assuming sufficently strong nanotech production abilities) it's really easy to make things lighter than air. Once you do that, simply add 3 turbines going through the center of the device for thrust, and poof!.
The principle premise of true "nanotech" is that we can create machines on the molecular level. Given that the initial machines will probably be quite expensive, the initial machines can then make the next generation of machines that make machines (etc..) simply at the cost of a little energy and the moluecules necessary. Nothing else. Miniturization is only a pain when you're talking about going from a macro scale to a micro/nano scale. When your assembly lines operate on that scale, making things on the same scale is trivial.
To me, the most interesting part of any given technology are the cultural implications, especially as how with every advance in technology, our options become more manifest and manifold. (And if that last sentence didn't make sense, blame my cold.)
Stephenson's Diamond Age is a fascinating examination of this. Now, given that the book was written on a victorian framework (which shapes what issues are pondered) it is still an enjoyable read, and an even more enjoyable thought experiment into nanotech.
When people have the ability to build anything they want from the atom up, the only thing constraining us will be those constraints that our society dictates. (Everything else is merely requires sufficently talented engineers.) Unfortunatly, the dangerous aspects of nanotech also are only constrained by our society.
Worries about grey-goo scenarios and DNA plagues shouldn't stop us from researching nanotech -- if only for the reason that solutions to these problems can only be found through nanotechnological means.
Anyways, I digress -- for a fascinating study of nanotech, read the Diamond Age.
A Palm with weasel reader is precicely what you want. There are many many books out there (some legal, most not.) And they compress nicly. Weasel gets you 4 diffrent sizes (I personally prefer the large, bold size, right now.)
My m505 has 12-20 hours of battery life on a nice 1-2 hour charge (e.g. when sleeping.) A great backlight, and a slot for an SD card. While yes, I do read hardcovers once in a while, I actually find the palm more convient than paperbacks. All the words are arranged evenly on the screen, and the backlight means that I don't have to worry about good lighting.
Ah. Why does science-fiction have to happen in the future? I have no doubt that the Baroque cycle will be sci-fi esque, just like cryptonomicon. The best example of this, however, is Drake's Belisarius series. Set in Rome, it's a really fun look at what the Romans would have been like if they were accelerated technologically. (And AFAIK, at least the first two books are available from the Baen free library, which is just wonderful.)
Sci-fi, as others have stated, is a state of mind. Stephenson's Diamond age is a good example of this. Yes, it has nanotech, but the main focus of the book is on the culutral implications of technology -- which is why it is just a great read, if you want military sci-fi, Ringo's works are quite fun, as well as Weber's.::Shrug:: A genre is how you define it. If you ask a healthy and diverse sampling of people to pigeonhole a sum of books, I can almost guarentee that each persons' definition of a genre will differ to a greater or lesser degree with other people's.
As other's have said. Don't. It's a losing proposition.
However, if you do persist in the notion that web design is a profitable small business, some points to consider.
First, always always always get the requirements in writing and have the customer sign off on them. When the customer changes their mind 75% through the project (which they always will) you can then legitimatly charge them more.
Second, charge what you're worth. Remember when doing charge sheets that unpaid documentation/beancounting will take up 40% or more of your time, have your prices reflect that.
Third, learn php and SQL. Webdev these days is generally not about static pages. If you can design your own implmentations of some of the more common applications, you can roll out projects and get a much higher return on your time. Prefabbed components are worth investing and coding in.
Mock up the entire website in pencil, and when you're showing it to the client, let the client "interact" with the environment.
In essence, don't do web design. It takes too much time, your customers take forever to pay, and it's not worth the aggrivation of keeping up with the various standards.
RIT has some decent engineering programs. I, personally, am delighted by the Information Technology program at RIT, and if you're in the area, you should meet with Al Biles just to hear his sphiel. It's worth it.
Weather in rochester blows (both literally and figurativly) but it is a very nice engineering college.
Ah.. but therin lies the trick. _I_ choose whether my vote is anonomyous with the camera. If there are databases out there that link my name with my vote, life is bad, because I am depreived of that liberty.
And why does secrecy prohibit a rational and fair system?
Rational and fair, as I understand it mean a few things. One, human error should approach to close to zero as possible. Two, systematic error should also approach zero. Three, the person with the most popular support should be elected.
Yes, our current system is flawed. Yes, there are multiple ways to fix it. None of those ways involve eliminating secrecy. And few if any of those ways should require the internet.
Secrecy has nothing to do with any of those points. Secrecy protects my right (and yes, it is a fundamental human right) to vote how I wish, and to only tell people how I voted if I wish.
Ummm. No. The big problem with your scheme is that it makes voting non-anonymous. This is bad. (look at the political machines of the early 1900's in this country for why.)
If I can be connected to how I voted, then a) If I vote for a certain person for some meaningless office, someone will buy me a beer. b) If I can be connected, then everyone else can see: my employer could then offer bonuses to people who voted certain ways (ovbiously using diffrent terminology.)
In terms of verification. They should take our IDs and put somekind of unique and hard to fake ID in some DB somewhere. (to make multiple-voting difficult.) But, they should _not_ timestamp it to any sufficent degree of accruacy. (This prevents comparing the timestamp on the ballot and the timestamp on your entry, and figuring out what you voted.)
Making people verify their vote, besides disposing of privacy (as enumerated above.) also will fail due to "lazy" people. Voting, for some people, is difficult enough. Making it so that having an internet connection to make sure you voted, not only adds too much complication, but also discriminates against people who don't have net access. (As hard as that is to believe here on/. there ARE people like that.)
But enough ranting. Having multiple orgs count the votes is a good idea.
-Brian
And here I was hoping for true nanotech.
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 1
The Diamond age has a specific denotation (at least to avid Stephenson readers): The ability to make whatever nanotech stuff you can imagine. (E.g. windows of pure diamond, because they're cheaper. Stadium sized diamond vases as part of a molecular collector, etc..)
While this is a nice first step, they have yet to demonstrate convincing rod-logic or Matter Compiliers. Bah.
Call me when you can hook a feed up into my house.
Well, in terms of a public policy standpoint, mass-transportation suffers as well. It's a tragedy of the commons issue (Everyone wants to use it, and no one wants their taxes to go up.) Even though a car might be more expensive, the average consumer (in most areas) will prefer a car due to the "control."::shrug::
Re:Next Step
on
Nanotechnology
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond age. Not only does he go into the various social implications of nanotech, but he has quite a lot of fun envisioning... less than friendly aspects.
One of my favorites: Cookie cutters, things the size of a blood-cell that contain 2 spinning wedges that spin at oppoisite orientations (to eliminate the gyroscope effects of the spinning mass.) when the detonation command occurs, the central axis disolves and the two wedges fly outwards at above the speed of sound. They are slowed, and the thing that turns your body into a pulpy bag of undiffrential gore are the sonic booms. They are called cookie cutters becuase they pulp everything outside their area of effect, but the inside is relativly untouched.
As a student at the IT dept at RIT, I've had a chance to observe our security firsthand -- it's really quite simple. The easiest security measures are "scramble pads" -- everyone has an ID code, but the numbers on the pad are displayed in random order, so other people cannot observe the code you enter. It seemed to work really well. We use ID card/code right now, and there's quite a lot of grumbling over it.
Either way, they are simple and secure -- don't bother with anything fancy, it isn't worth your time.
If you're a bank, you need to be running a DB that supports transactions. (PostgreSQL/Oracle come to mind). Anything else is taking unnecessary risks with your customers' data. Oracle, while very large, is an incredibly powerful, expensive, and frankly, worthwhile proposition. There are plenty of tools out there to convert your access databases (I wonder if they're even normalized?) to Oracle, and you can use J2EE or Forms, or your dev language of choice to make frontends for all your now happy users.
(Does it show I attended an oracle workshop this morning? Nope? Shucks... )
In all non-decimal systems..
on
Eleventy What?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is, unfortunatly, a point that has been drilled into me by my Discrete Math profs.
All non decimal systems pronounce the digits individally.
E.g. 10 in base 2 is not "ten" but "one zero" And 734 in octal is "seven, three, four. Not seven thirty four, or variations on that theme.
http://www.itconsult.co.uk/stamper.htm -- really, there comes a point where a trusted authority is just required. I know scientists just keep hand-written logbooks, and date each entry and keep it in pen. Nice and old-fashioned, the courts like it. Alternativly, if we don't want to go old-fashioned, you could sign your mails with the above service (but how do you prove that service can be trusted?)
Trust is a really nasty recursive problem. I'd just keep a paper logbook, and other records. It should work well enough.
Infowar is nasty -- the book is a really good read, it is short, and unclassified. If you're in LA -- pick it up at the RAND bookstore @ their HQ. Otherwise... I have no idea where you could get the book.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you Happy Citzen? Remember, happiness is mandatory. Being unhappy is insuboridination. Friend Computer suggests taking HappyTymNow pills -- guarenteed to improve happiness! Unhappiness is a tool of the commie mutant traitors! Be on your guard! Report those who are unhappy, as they could be communists!
Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
You know you're a Database geek when you see the headline and immediately think: "Ah hah! Clustered indexes! That'll save some time during joins! Oh. Wait. They're talking about boxes. Drat."
Interface, by Stephen Bury (a pseudonym for Neal Stephenson) is a fun exploration of media manipulation coupled with this idea. It goes slightly over the top in assuming the resources mentioned, but in terms of showing what is possible, it's quite interesting.
It's also a very fun read.
Avoid Sager, their driver updates are non-existant and their warranty process sucks. I'm typing this from a POS Sager laptop right now.
RIT either has or is working on a Computer Security/Forensics masters. They're good people.
Look at RIT
it.rit.edu
IT can't be compressed into one track -- you need diffrent skills for diffrent parts. Your webbies will be diffrent from your DBpeople who will be different from your systems people who will be diffrent from your security people who will be diffrent from your HCI people: There's a lot to IT.
There's also a lot of overlap. (I haven't RTFA, sorry. Papers to write.)
1) IT people need to know how to program in a REAL programming language. Right now, we consider that to be java, but that's going to be an internal flamewar.
2) IT people need to know how to speak. Lots of communicatino courses
3) IT people need to know how to get requirements. Lots of HCI fundamentals -- interviewing, STDs, DFDs, etc..
Beyond that, look to RIT to get some specific ideas.
IT is not CS, and it isn't IS. We're happily in the middle.
The really old game The Incredible Machine (and the other expansion packs/versions) would give you holday themed objects.
AFAIK, they had a christmas tree, a halloween jack-o-lantern, and a thanksgiving turkey.
That was a great game.
First, depends on what you mean by failure.
... odd.
For the sake of this discussion of failure, you simply mean a given machine "doesn't work." And stops. For other instances of failure, other discussions should apply.
But, given that definition of failure, the beauty of nanotech is that we can create thousands of machines for any given task, and even if 10% fail right off the bat, we've still got a ton of machines to do our work for us. Even if they do fail -- it's just a few dozen/hundred molecules of junk floating around (which, admitedly poses an issue to our lungs, but that's a mere detail.)
The probability of failure increases only if the bots requre each and every bot around them to work. If the bots simply work alone (or in small groups) the probability of failure is a constant, not a limit.
If I mis-understood what you said, please enlighten me to your true arguments. I'm under the influence of a nasty head cold and dayquil right now, so my thinking might be
Energy -- probably batteries. We're talking about very small scale here, so a nice room-temp supercon (which since we're talking about nanotech, isn't all that far-fetched) should provide for power requirements.
Produced, by other nano-assemblers.
Nanoassemblies should be the cheapest and most efficient production system around -- having many many many small machines "placing" molecules on an on-demand fasion (generally at the place of consumption.) What else do you need? There are no middle-men, there are no shipping costs, there are no store costs. Simply ship atoms and some quantity of data to you, and poof! you've got whatever.
How are they going to move? Depends on the structure and the task, just like things of today. Flying is trivial for nanotech, since (assuming sufficently strong nanotech production abilities) it's really easy to make things lighter than air. Once you do that, simply add 3 turbines going through the center of the device for thrust, and poof!.
The principle premise of true "nanotech" is that we can create machines on the molecular level. Given that the initial machines will probably be quite expensive, the initial machines can then make the next generation of machines that make machines (etc..) simply at the cost of a little energy and the moluecules necessary. Nothing else. Miniturization is only a pain when you're talking about going from a macro scale to a micro/nano scale. When your assembly lines operate on that scale, making things on the same scale is trivial.
To me, the most interesting part of any given technology are the cultural implications, especially as how with every advance in technology, our options become more manifest and manifold. (And if that last sentence didn't make sense, blame my cold.)
Stephenson's Diamond Age is a fascinating examination of this. Now, given that the book was written on a victorian framework (which shapes what issues are pondered) it is still an enjoyable read, and an even more enjoyable thought experiment into nanotech.
When people have the ability to build anything they want from the atom up, the only thing constraining us will be those constraints that our society dictates. (Everything else is merely requires sufficently talented engineers.) Unfortunatly, the dangerous aspects of nanotech also are only constrained by our society.
Worries about grey-goo scenarios and DNA plagues shouldn't stop us from researching nanotech -- if only for the reason that solutions to these problems can only be found through nanotechnological means.
Anyways, I digress -- for a fascinating study of nanotech, read the Diamond Age.
A Palm with weasel reader is precicely what you want. There are many many books out there (some legal, most not.) And they compress nicly. Weasel gets you 4 diffrent sizes (I personally prefer the large, bold size, right now.)
My m505 has 12-20 hours of battery life on a nice 1-2 hour charge (e.g. when sleeping.) A great backlight, and a slot for an SD card. While yes, I do read hardcovers once in a while, I actually find the palm more convient than paperbacks. All the words are arranged evenly on the screen, and the backlight means that I don't have to worry about good lighting.
All you have to do is look and experiment.
Ah. Why does science-fiction have to happen in the future? I have no doubt that the Baroque cycle will be sci-fi esque, just like cryptonomicon. The best example of this, however, is Drake's Belisarius series. Set in Rome, it's a really fun look at what the Romans would have been like if they were accelerated technologically. (And AFAIK, at least the first two books are available from the Baen free library, which is just wonderful.)
::Shrug:: A genre is how you define it. If you ask a healthy and diverse sampling of people to pigeonhole a sum of books, I can almost guarentee that each persons' definition of a genre will differ to a greater or lesser degree with other people's.
Sci-fi, as others have stated, is a state of mind. Stephenson's Diamond age is a good example of this. Yes, it has nanotech, but the main focus of the book is on the culutral implications of technology -- which is why it is just a great read, if you want military sci-fi, Ringo's works are quite fun, as well as Weber's.
Aruging semantics makes for such fun.
As other's have said. Don't. It's a losing proposition.
However, if you do persist in the notion that web design is a profitable small business, some points to consider.
First, always always always get the requirements in writing and have the customer sign off on them. When the customer changes their mind 75% through the project (which they always will) you can then legitimatly charge them more.
Second, charge what you're worth. Remember when doing charge sheets that unpaid documentation/beancounting will take up 40% or more of your time, have your prices reflect that.
Third, learn php and SQL. Webdev these days is generally not about static pages. If you can design your own implmentations of some of the more common applications, you can roll out projects and get a much higher return on your time. Prefabbed components are worth investing and coding in.
Mock up the entire website in pencil, and when you're showing it to the client, let the client "interact" with the environment.
In essence, don't do web design. It takes too much time, your customers take forever to pay, and it's not worth the aggrivation of keeping up with the various standards.
RIT has some decent engineering programs. I, personally, am delighted by the Information Technology program at RIT, and if you're in the area, you should meet with Al Biles just to hear his sphiel. It's worth it.
Weather in rochester blows (both literally and figurativly) but it is a very nice engineering college.
Ah.. but therin lies the trick. _I_ choose whether my vote is anonomyous with the camera. If there are databases out there that link my name with my vote, life is bad, because I am depreived of that liberty.
And why does secrecy prohibit a rational and fair system?
Rational and fair, as I understand it mean a few things. One, human error should approach to close to zero as possible. Two, systematic error should also approach zero. Three, the person with the most popular support should be elected.
Yes, our current system is flawed. Yes, there are multiple ways to fix it. None of those ways involve eliminating secrecy. And few if any of those ways should require the internet.
Secrecy has nothing to do with any of those points. Secrecy protects my right (and yes, it is a fundamental human right) to vote how I wish, and to only tell people how I voted if I wish.
Ummm. No. The big problem with your scheme is that it makes voting non-anonymous. This is bad. (look at the political machines of the early 1900's in this country for why.)
/. there ARE people like that.)
If I can be connected to how I voted, then a) If I vote for a certain person for some meaningless office, someone will buy me a beer. b) If I can be connected, then everyone else can see: my employer could then offer bonuses to people who voted certain ways (ovbiously using diffrent terminology.)
In terms of verification. They should take our IDs and put somekind of unique and hard to fake ID in some DB somewhere. (to make multiple-voting difficult.) But, they should _not_ timestamp it to any sufficent degree of accruacy. (This prevents comparing the timestamp on the ballot and the timestamp on your entry, and figuring out what you voted.)
Making people verify their vote, besides disposing of privacy (as enumerated above.) also will fail due to "lazy" people. Voting, for some people, is difficult enough. Making it so that having an internet connection to make sure you voted, not only adds too much complication, but also discriminates against people who don't have net access. (As hard as that is to believe here on
But enough ranting. Having multiple orgs count the votes is a good idea.
-Brian
The Diamond age has a specific denotation (at least to avid Stephenson readers): The ability to make whatever nanotech stuff you can imagine. (E.g. windows of pure diamond, because they're cheaper. Stadium sized diamond vases as part of a molecular collector, etc..)
While this is a nice first step, they have yet to demonstrate convincing rod-logic or Matter Compiliers. Bah.
Call me when you can hook a feed up into my house.
Well, in terms of a public policy standpoint, mass-transportation suffers as well. It's a tragedy of the commons issue (Everyone wants to use it, and no one wants their taxes to go up.) Even though a car might be more expensive, the average consumer (in most areas) will prefer a car due to the "control." ::shrug::
Read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond age. Not only does he go into the various social implications of nanotech, but he has quite a lot of fun envisioning ... less than friendly aspects.
One of my favorites:
Cookie cutters, things the size of a blood-cell that contain 2 spinning wedges that spin at oppoisite orientations (to eliminate the gyroscope effects of the spinning mass.) when the detonation command occurs, the central axis disolves and the two wedges fly outwards at above the speed of sound. They are slowed, and the thing that turns your body into a pulpy bag of undiffrential gore are the sonic booms. They are called cookie cutters becuase they pulp everything outside their area of effect, but the inside is relativly untouched.
Fun with nanotech!
As a student at the IT dept at RIT, I've had a chance to observe our security firsthand -- it's really quite simple. The easiest security measures are "scramble pads" -- everyone has an ID code, but the numbers on the pad are displayed in random order, so other people cannot observe the code you enter. It seemed to work really well.
We use ID card/code right now, and there's quite a lot of grumbling over it.
Either way, they are simple and secure -- don't bother with anything fancy, it isn't worth your time.
If you're a bank, you need to be running a DB that supports transactions. (PostgreSQL/Oracle come to mind). Anything else is taking unnecessary risks with your customers' data. Oracle, while very large, is an incredibly powerful, expensive, and frankly, worthwhile proposition. There are plenty of tools out there to convert your access databases (I wonder if they're even normalized?) to Oracle, and you can use J2EE or Forms, or your dev language of choice to make frontends for all your now happy users.
(Does it show I attended an oracle workshop this morning? Nope? Shucks... )
This is, unfortunatly, a point that has been drilled into me by my Discrete Math profs.
All non decimal systems pronounce the digits individally.
E.g. 10 in base 2 is not "ten" but "one zero"
And 734 in octal is "seven, three, four. Not seven thirty four, or variations on that theme.
Hope this helps.
I've done my registration at joker.com -- they're cheap, easy, always up, and send pgp signed e-mail verifcations. What's not to like?
http://www.itconsult.co.uk/stamper.htm -- really, there comes a point where a trusted authority is just required. I know scientists just keep hand-written logbooks, and date each entry and keep it in pen. Nice and old-fashioned, the courts like it. Alternativly, if we don't want to go old-fashioned, you could sign your mails with the above service (but how do you prove that service can be trusted?)
Trust is a really nasty recursive problem. I'd just keep a paper logbook, and other records. It should work well enough.
Infowar is nasty -- the book is a really good read, it is short, and unclassified. If you're in LA -- pick it up at the RAND bookstore @ their HQ. Otherwise... I have no idea where you could get the book.