This whole "Manning was a hero" thing is really weird. The guy committed a crime. The crime is pretty clear. He also committed the crime with a pretty blatant disregard for anyone else.
You want an analog? Someone robbed at bank with a weapon to pay for surgery for his son. Was he justified? Maybe... Was anyone hurt? Luckily no one was injured Did he still commit a crime for which he is expected to be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Yes
The fact that no one was injured doesn't prove that it was safe. Drunk drivers get in car crashes all the time and no one is seriously injured or killed. Does that mean that the drunk driver was justified to try driving home? Moral justification also does exempt one from legal ramifications. Christian extremists who bombed abortion clinics felt morally justified and obligated to act in the way that they did. Are you suggesting that if abortion is later outlawed(confirming their justification) that we should also pardon those who bombed abortion clinics?
Finally, journalists do not have any "right" to protect their sources. The journalist-source relationship is probably the least defendable confidentiality relationship. There is not any intrinsic guarantee, and if a journalist is protecting someone guilty of a major crime they can actually be considered an accomplice if they do not divulge their source. Journalists try to protect their sources, but there is no guarantee. Also, how does someone who is not a minister even begin to claim a penitant-priest relationship?
I actually agree with you. I am more willing to believe actual aliens landed than this story. This is probably as crazy as the "9/11 was an inside job" nutjobs, but not as crazy as the "Obama Birth certificate" nutjobs. The birthers were more denialists. They just didn't want to believe a single fact and believed people might be covering up. They were not specific concepts that were massively convoluted and questionable in motive. I would compare the birthers to JFK conspiracy theorists. I would also put "aliens landed at roswell" in the same camp.
Just a quick note, the use of hp and kw is important.
We use both of them because it is customary to express mechanical energy in horsepower and electrical energy in kw. This becomes important in generators and motors where we have both units. If I tell you the horsepower of a motor, I am telling you how much energy it can output. If I tell you the kW of a motor I am telling you how much energy it 'takes' to generate mechanical power.
It would seem really nice to describe power only in kW, but engineers have a long tradition of having two different units for essentially the same thing to describe it under different conditions. (i.e. We use the volt-ampere instead of the watt to describe apparent power. We could just call it "watts of apparent power", but we use two units to keep things clear). While I fully agree on standardizing the units of measure to SI units, we need to remember that certain conventions such as the volt-ampere, the watt-hour, the ampere-hour, horsepower, etc need to stay around to make sure we don't miscommunicate.
Glad that you demonstrated yourself that Americans cant understand or reasonably use reporting. The rate of sea-level rise in North Carolina, according to the source you provided, claimed that it was rising 3 times faster than the normal rate.....not that it was rising 3 times faster than the rest of the Atlantic Coast. "Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years"
People have a tendency to be quick to justify their beliefs. You just did this by using an article incorrectly and quickly referencing multiple disasters that may or may not be the result of global warming. The person who initially posted the question about the missing refugees is just behaving in the same way that you did, but with the opposite belief.
I tend not to listen to anyone who has a strong vested belief in their opinion. If you go into forest looking for pine cones you will find many, but you might not notice the lack of pine trees.
Whatever you start looking for in a criminal via profiling will cause criminals to start acting differently....
If you start pulling aside people who complain, then you will get terrorists who don't complain. You start pulling aside Middle-Eastern men of a certain age group? They find a Jamaican to attack you(this actually happened) You start looking for recent immigrants? They find people who are native citizens You start searching luggage? They send bombs via UPS
Notice a pattern?
How about we start more diligently searching for the following characteristics: 1) Explosives 2) Weapons 3) Trying to bring non-allowed items on to a plane 4) Nervous(perhaps because they are trying to do something illegal and murderous)
Let me pose a hypothetical. Let's cut off all social security. No one gets social security. Now, lets also get rid of the OASDI(social security tax). We wont have to worry about this huge problem anymore
Now, watch as the Tax Revenue of the Federal government drops by more than the spending reductions. Oh, and we had better pay back all the "excess funds" for social security that have built up over the years, but were borrowed to cover other gaps in the budget. Its only fair since most retired people have put 6% of their lifetime income into that tax revenue.
Look, I am not against cutting social security...but it is a bit misleading to claim that social security is a strain on the budget.
Ummm...no! Texas was not making "payroll tax" Texas doesn't have income tax. They have to pay unemployment and that is it. they also make franchise tax (.5%)
Lets see? $250 million in sales tax per year or 1000*$50,000(salary)*2.7%(unemployment)= $1.35 million(and that is simply unemployment) + $17.5 million for franchise tax
So, they are risking $18.5 million in unemployment and franchise tax for $250 million in deserved sales tax. That seems like it makes perfect sense to me.
***Note*** They may not have been paying that high of a franchise tax either. That would assume that the Texas branch is doing 50% of the revenue of all of Amazon. Since Amazon claimed the facility was owned by a contractor, the actual revenue for the branch might be significantly less. All in all, it will take 10 years minimum for Texas to be losing tax revenue.(and probably more like 20)
Texas has no income tax, but it does have sales tax. If Amazon moves out of state, taking jobs with it...this has a minimum impact on Texas' bottom line. Texas would only be making money off of Amazon employees who buy goods. They don't actually directly make tax money from employees working in Texas.
Amazon could move their operations to a neighboring state that might let them pull this tax trick, but those states have income tax and would be glad to have the jobs.
Texas is sending a message that it will not allow companies to skirt their tax obligations. Corporations love locations in Texas because of the lack of income tax. Texas also has fairly limited Franchise tax. Amazon is losing in this scenario. They will be paying more money in another state(employee income tax) and most states will require them to pay sales tax(unless they move to a state without sales tax).
This is really just Amazon trying to cheat the system.
The tax rate is 8.25% because of local taxes. The state of Texas has a sales tax and then the municipality has a sales tax. Property taxes are local taxes as well.
Texas has one of the lowest per capita tax rates in the country.
Texas operates much the same as New Hampshire. Give the state govt minimum money and you will prevent growing a larger government. If you give the state a bigger budget, you can't ever take it back(or it is incredibly difficult). This is generally true. Government budgets are typically most strained when the economy is bad, paradoxically employment is typically worst at these times. Politicians don't want to be responsible for increasing unemployment so they don't fire anyone. The best time to trim government excess would be during booming economic times, however it is also the time when their is the least interest in this type of move.
You were producing $5k units for $20. However, you didn't take out loans to finance the building, pay for the shop, the tools, the facilities, the training, the engineering, the design, fabrication, or materials.
They might have been able to pay you a bit more, but they couldn't pay you 10x more. Startup costs are the most expensive part of business, and they have to be recovered. People don't think about this, "start your own business" calls attention to this problem.
To the guy who assembled condensers for $10 an hour...they could have replaced you with a robot that ran on $.10 electricity per hour, they just didn't want to make the investment. Programmers can't be replaced by robots.
Programmers produce their "product" without any other input. They "generate" it from thin air(with a minimal investment in equipment). A condenser assemblyman is not creating anything.
If they were all H1B employees, that data MUST be reported to the government. This isn't an issue of the citizenship status of employees, but rather their ethnicity.
To be honest, it probably is a trade secret. If the population of Chinese-American workers suddenly spikes it might be a safe assumption that Google is planning something in China. Gender/ethnicity also have trends. African-American women typically have a greater population in certain career fields than others. If google suddenly had hired a bunch of these women, it might be enough information to start "tipping their hand" to other companies.
This all makes perfect sense. Businesses want to keep their activities private, because privacy is beneficial in a field like technology development. Trying to hide any information about your company that is not legally required to be public knowledge is important.
As an aside, they also may have wanted more than a ethnic/gender makeup of the company. They may have wanted to know the salaries and positions of these employees. Sounds fine, you would want to know if every person of a certain ethnic group was actually part of the janitorial staff.(since that wouldn't really be diversity) Think about it though, do you really think Google wants the salary/position of every employee listed? Going back to the hypothetical influx of Chinese-Americans. Might it not indicate something if they were all either highly paid translators or programmers? This is all just companies who realize that this data could be used for nefarious purposes.
You do realize that they "days" of battery life are due to the fact that it is designed to read books? The battery life on ereaders really should be rated in "page turns". This gets about 2000 page turns on a single charge. Using that color screen all the time or actively using the internet will suck down that battery so fast your head will spin!!!
The battery on this device is going to suck if you are using it to IM your friends or regularly browse the web. The battery on these devices is actually significantly SMALLER than a netbook battery. These devices have a cheap and small cell phone battery.
The real advantage is the internet....but it isn't that big of a deal. The kindle already has a web-browser. Plus, as many have explained...they will just block non-B&N usage if it is abused.
Many sciences are observational in nature, but most of them rely heavily on a hard science. Paleontology is based heavily on evolutionary theory(a hard, research based science). Astronomy is based heavily on physics(a hard, research based science). Geology IS a research-based science.
Climatology is a bit more like economics. It is an attempt to model complex systems mathematically. I am not saying it is any less valid as a science. It is just far more susceptible to error. At the end of the day, paleontologists know that their base model, evolution, is still accurate. If one of their models fails, it is because there was an unknown. Climatologists are dealing with much more complex systems. They have to "tease" out a result, and preconceived notions can go a long way in disrupting data.
Science does need its skepticism....but the rest of your post is silly What in the hell does a theory become except a better theory? A theory is the highest level of scientific knowledge.
A hypothesis should remain a hypothesis until your findings stand up to the scrutiny of skepticism, then it can become a theory (There, I fixed your post)
I have seen 3 pay classes for engineers and similar fields(I would count IT).
1) Salaried-Salaried engineers get paid X dollars for 40 hours a week. They frequently work more than 40 hours, but the expectation is that they will work roughly 40 hours. Any extra time(i.e. to finish a project by deadline) is not compensated. This is typically only for people who are expected to do all of their work in the office.
2) Hourly- Hourly engineers are paid by the hour. This typically amounts to the same pay as a salaried employee. However, hourly employees are expected to perform non-office work or they are expected to work frequently for longer than 8 hours. This is frequently the pay rate for engineers who work "on-site" or supervise technicians. This system compensates them for working overtime. Pay is "straight time" meaning that they keep earning the same hourly rate no matter how many hours it takes. This rate is frequent for engineers who travel as part of their work.
3) Billable- These engineers are paid by the hour, but using the standard convention of time-and-a-half, night differential, etc. This is typically only paid to engineers whose time is being directly billed. This is done because the employer doesn't actually pay the engineers, the contracting company pays them. Typically the contracting company is more concerned with the overall time of the project rather than the cost for employees.
As far as the issue of "being on call": I am on call, but I am almost never contacted. If I am "called", I am paid a premium rate. I would think that some bonus would be part of being "on call" for any employee(i.e. nurses being paid $1-$3 per hour) or a penalty paid for being called.
So, there are really multiple bits of information that the slashdot community needs: 1) IS this IT employee only being paid salary? 2) Is he being rewarded for taking a call? 3) Is his base pay increased to compensate for the frequent disruption of his schedule?
He added the cosmological constant to his general theory of relativity, because if he followed his models...it indicated that the universe was expanding. Einstein didn't like the idea that it was expanding(because it didn't fit the current thinking), so he added the cosmological constant to his equations to make the universe "static".
so, even Einstein fell prey to conventional wisdom and thinking.
Well, I now know that most of the posters on slashdot encourage the use of a pen and paper for various reasons. Let me explain why copying the notes feverishly isn't the best idea.
Yes, a lot of people remember things they have written down. However, I would argue that actually understanding the equation/notes you are writing down is far more important than memorizing it. I say this as someone with a degree in mathematics and engineering.
It really depends on the course and the person if you want to transcribe everything or not. I knew students who would write down the notes, go home and copy them, and then do it again. I also knew a student who never took any notes. He used to say, "the information is in the book, I am trying to understand the lecture". That student is now a professor of Electrical Engineering at a major university.
I am not going to question why the original poster wants to do everything on a computer, I will just help him. Mathcad is exceptionally clean and simple for "writing" math. It is the best solution I have seen. Unfortunately, it is designed for active math solutions...so it may not be the best solution. I would give it a try though. I know that for engineering classes it was one of the most helpful programs I ever used.
As far as "higher level math courses", it depends on what you actually mean. My higher level math courses were all theory courses. If you are having problems with note transcription in number theory, I would recommend learning math proof shorthand rather than trying to use LaTex. Most math shorthand uses Greek symbols, so you can learn the shortcut to them
If your "higher level math courses" are calculus. I think most of the recommendations would be ideal. However, I might recommend a different course. Typically a professor will tell you what he will be discussing next lecture. It might be easier to setup your equations ahead of time. They are almost always available in the book. You could then record your notes for any equations with the main equation. It would still require the use of a math symbol software, but you could make sure that the important equations were already very cleanly entered.
To recap: Number Theory: Learn symbol shorthand Calculus: Can't get much better than LaTex derivatives Engineering/Physics: Try Mathcad. It is designed to give you answers, but it allows you to actively play with equations and input numbers to get a feel for the math.
I hate it when people try to make this argument...
"There is no reason they couldn't have added that feature to version X, rather than waiting till version Y" Of course there is a reason, nobody thought of doing it until version Y!!! The creators of version X lacked either the technology, the vision, or the creativity to add that feature.
How about we just say: " There is no reason that the ancient Egyptians couldn't have built spaceships" They could have built amazing spaceships, if only they had the technology, the vision, and the 3000 years of human experience to decide that we needed to build spaceships.
Who would store "sensitive" data on a cell phone? Well, consider that most companies, agencies, etc consider their email "sensitive". Why do you think most businesses purchase 'smartphones'? TO ACCESS COMPANY EMAIL It isn't just a matter of company email carrying sensitive data, it carries normal data that would be highly beneficial to a bit of social engineering.
Still don't understand the whole 'smartphone'/sensitive data issue? Ask yourself this question. Why won't the secret service let Obama carry a regular blackberry?
If the Iphone is just a regular phone that can browse the internet, then this news is meaningless. If the Iphone is a 'smartphone' with relevant business applications, then it needs to be capable of quality encryption
You missed something. He didn't just lose the ability to put NEW books on his kindle. He lost the books that were already ON his Kindle.
I have a Sony Reader...and Sony DRM sucks. However, even Sony doesn't try to retro-actively stop your books. Also, the Sony is designed to accept non-DRM books.
In fact, maybe the Sony Reader isn't as bad as I thought. I can put DRM-free books on it without hacking.
All I can say is this: 2 days ago I thought I wanted a Kindle(to replace my Sony). In the last 5 minutes that view has drastically changed. I don't think I could ever own a product that can be remotely killed(and become non-functional).
First, whatever your opinion of "poppycock" degrees, they are drastically different from this degree in creationism. A few examples: Degree in Religion: You have studied and become an expert on the social phenomenon known as religion. You have studied a number of different religions. This degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of history, philosophy, and anthropology. Degree in Divinity: While typically granted by 'Christian' universities, this degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of Christian texts and their interpretations and translations. In practice, it is only slightly different from having a degree in any the study of any ancient manuscripts. Creationism: Creationism 'science' is essentially a list of poorly constructed arguments that attempt to refute evolution. The main requirement for any argument on this list is that they are 'convincing' rather than being accurate. There is no academic rigor to this field. Creationism does not compare to other religious degrees.
Second, Creationism is currently operating under the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity. They don't actually want to be 'accepted', they just want to grab as many headlines as possible. They want big, showy, and silly public debates with well-respected scientists. They don't want to sit down in a lab and prove anything. i.e. Creationists frequently argue that if you place an organism in observation and wait thousands of generations, that organism will not evolve new features. However, no creationist has even attempted to demonstrate this fact. It wouldn't even be particularly difficult to attempt. However, actual scientists have done this experiment and dedicated a massive amount of time to the work. They were rewarded with the exact opposite of the creationists predictions. If you want to know more about this research, please visit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
The third, and biggest problem with Creationism is that it is a concept, not a field of study. You don't grant degrees in 'ideas'. We don't have a degree for perpetual motion machines, proving Goldbach's conjecture, or any other crackpottery you can imagine. A degree is rewarded for a field of study. What exactly are Creationists going to study?
I am not opposed to this "Degree in Creationism" in the same way I am opposed to Creationism. I want to admit that I think Creationism is absurd. However, I am even more opposed to a degree in creationism for the reasons stated above. I would be equally opposed to a degree is Deism, Skepticism, or any other idea I believe in.
After reading this story earlier in the day, I decided to attend. I honestly hadn't been aware that Dawkins was lecturing tonight at OU.
It was a fun speaking engagement, but a bit boring. Dawkins tends to try to do two things at all times: make everything easy to understand AND carefully avoid oversimplification or poor analogy. The result is a very vague and shallow discussion of evolutionary biology.
I expected a bunch of crazy people, but there honestly wasn't anything too bad. One guy asked a question about atheism and morality, but no fireworks or drama.
That was my big FU to those against this OU lecture
They now have a low-power, easily readable display that can be interactive and placed anywhere. How about a "rolled" e-reader. Capable of taking up much less space than a standard book reader?
How about a foldaway display that can function on a number of devices?
Looking with a more futuristic bend, couldn't a flexible, interactive, low-power, non-backlit display be used to adapt common items to interactive displays? The back of an airline seat? Now a menu with options!
If "flexible" displays are so useless, why are they a main goal of almost every display manufacturer? And since when is adding "touchscreen" capabilities to a device a non-important function.
Slashdot Mirror
This whole "Manning was a hero" thing is really weird.
The guy committed a crime. The crime is pretty clear. He also committed the crime with a pretty blatant disregard for anyone else.
You want an analog? Someone robbed at bank with a weapon to pay for surgery for his son.
Was he justified? Maybe...
Was anyone hurt? Luckily no one was injured
Did he still commit a crime for which he is expected to be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Yes
The fact that no one was injured doesn't prove that it was safe. Drunk drivers get in car crashes all the time and no one is seriously injured or killed. Does that mean that the drunk driver was justified to try driving home? Moral justification also does exempt one from legal ramifications. Christian extremists who bombed abortion clinics felt morally justified and obligated to act in the way that they did. Are you suggesting that if abortion is later outlawed(confirming their justification) that we should also pardon those who bombed abortion clinics?
Finally, journalists do not have any "right" to protect their sources. The journalist-source relationship is probably the least defendable confidentiality relationship. There is not any intrinsic guarantee, and if a journalist is protecting someone guilty of a major crime they can actually be considered an accomplice if they do not divulge their source. Journalists try to protect their sources, but there is no guarantee. Also, how does someone who is not a minister even begin to claim a penitant-priest relationship?
I actually agree with you. I am more willing to believe actual aliens landed than this story.
This is probably as crazy as the "9/11 was an inside job" nutjobs, but not as crazy as the "Obama Birth certificate" nutjobs. The birthers were more denialists. They just didn't want to believe a single fact and believed people might be covering up. They were not specific concepts that were massively convoluted and questionable in motive. I would compare the birthers to JFK conspiracy theorists. I would also put "aliens landed at roswell" in the same camp.
Just a quick note, the use of hp and kw is important.
We use both of them because it is customary to express mechanical energy in horsepower and electrical energy in kw. This becomes important in generators and motors where we have both units. If I tell you the horsepower of a motor, I am telling you how much energy it can output. If I tell you the kW of a motor I am telling you how much energy it 'takes' to generate mechanical power.
It would seem really nice to describe power only in kW, but engineers have a long tradition of having two different units for essentially the same thing to describe it under different conditions. (i.e. We use the volt-ampere instead of the watt to describe apparent power. We could just call it "watts of apparent power", but we use two units to keep things clear). While I fully agree on standardizing the units of measure to SI units, we need to remember that certain conventions such as the volt-ampere, the watt-hour, the ampere-hour, horsepower, etc need to stay around to make sure we don't miscommunicate.
Glad that you demonstrated yourself that Americans cant understand or reasonably use reporting. The rate of sea-level rise in North Carolina, according to the source you provided, claimed that it was rising 3 times faster than the normal rate.....not that it was rising 3 times faster than the rest of the Atlantic Coast.
"Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years"
People have a tendency to be quick to justify their beliefs. You just did this by using an article incorrectly and quickly referencing multiple disasters that may or may not be the result of global warming. The person who initially posted the question about the missing refugees is just behaving in the same way that you did, but with the opposite belief.
I tend not to listen to anyone who has a strong vested belief in their opinion. If you go into forest looking for pine cones you will find many, but you might not notice the lack of pine trees.
Whatever you start looking for in a criminal via profiling will cause criminals to start acting differently....
If you start pulling aside people who complain, then you will get terrorists who don't complain.
You start pulling aside Middle-Eastern men of a certain age group? They find a Jamaican to attack you(this actually happened)
You start looking for recent immigrants? They find people who are native citizens
You start searching luggage? They send bombs via UPS
Notice a pattern?
How about we start more diligently searching for the following characteristics:
1) Explosives
2) Weapons
3) Trying to bring non-allowed items on to a plane
4) Nervous(perhaps because they are trying to do something illegal and murderous)
Ponder Stibbons figured this out a long time ago....this is why HEX is so efficient
Really? Social Security?
Let me pose a hypothetical. Let's cut off all social security. No one gets social security.
Now, lets also get rid of the OASDI(social security tax). We wont have to worry about this huge problem anymore
Now, watch as the Tax Revenue of the Federal government drops by more than the spending reductions. Oh, and we had better pay back all the "excess funds" for social security that have built up over the years, but were borrowed to cover other gaps in the budget. Its only fair since most retired people have put 6% of their lifetime income into that tax revenue.
Look, I am not against cutting social security...but it is a bit misleading to claim that social security is a strain on the budget.
Ummm...no! Texas was not making "payroll tax" Texas doesn't have income tax.
They have to pay unemployment and that is it.
they also make franchise tax (.5%)
Lets see?
$250 million in sales tax per year or 1000*$50,000(salary)*2.7%(unemployment)= $1.35 million(and that is simply unemployment) + $17.5 million for franchise tax
So, they are risking $18.5 million in unemployment and franchise tax for $250 million in deserved sales tax. That seems like it makes perfect sense to me.
***Note***
They may not have been paying that high of a franchise tax either. That would assume that the Texas branch is doing 50% of the revenue of all of Amazon. Since Amazon claimed the facility was owned by a contractor, the actual revenue for the branch might be significantly less. All in all, it will take 10 years minimum for Texas to be losing tax revenue.(and probably more like 20)
The Facts:
Texas has no income tax, but it does have sales tax.
If Amazon moves out of state, taking jobs with it...this has a minimum impact on Texas' bottom line. Texas would only be making money off of Amazon employees who buy goods. They don't actually directly make tax money from employees working in Texas.
Amazon could move their operations to a neighboring state that might let them pull this tax trick, but those states have income tax and would be glad to have the jobs.
Texas is sending a message that it will not allow companies to skirt their tax obligations. Corporations love locations in Texas because of the lack of income tax. Texas also has fairly limited Franchise tax. Amazon is losing in this scenario. They will be paying more money in another state(employee income tax) and most states will require them to pay sales tax(unless they move to a state without sales tax).
This is really just Amazon trying to cheat the system.
The tax rate is 8.25% because of local taxes. The state of Texas has a sales tax and then the municipality has a sales tax.
Property taxes are local taxes as well.
Texas has one of the lowest per capita tax rates in the country.
Texas operates much the same as New Hampshire. Give the state govt minimum money and you will prevent growing a larger government. If you give the state a bigger budget, you can't ever take it back(or it is incredibly difficult). This is generally true. Government budgets are typically most strained when the economy is bad, paradoxically employment is typically worst at these times. Politicians don't want to be responsible for increasing unemployment so they don't fire anyone. The best time to trim government excess would be during booming economic times, however it is also the time when their is the least interest in this type of move.
No, these quips make a fairly salient point.
You were producing $5k units for $20. However, you didn't take out loans to finance the building, pay for the shop, the tools, the facilities, the training, the engineering, the design, fabrication, or materials.
They might have been able to pay you a bit more, but they couldn't pay you 10x more. Startup costs are the most expensive part of business, and they have to be recovered. People don't think about this, "start your own business" calls attention to this problem.
To the guy who assembled condensers for $10 an hour...they could have replaced you with a robot that ran on $.10 electricity per hour, they just didn't want to make the investment. Programmers can't be replaced by robots.
Programmers produce their "product" without any other input. They "generate" it from thin air(with a minimal investment in equipment). A condenser assemblyman is not creating anything.
If they were all H1B employees, that data MUST be reported to the government. This isn't an issue of the citizenship status of employees, but rather their ethnicity.
To be honest, it probably is a trade secret. If the population of Chinese-American workers suddenly spikes it might be a safe assumption that Google is planning something in China. Gender/ethnicity also have trends. African-American women typically have a greater population in certain career fields than others. If google suddenly had hired a bunch of these women, it might be enough information to start "tipping their hand" to other companies.
This all makes perfect sense. Businesses want to keep their activities private, because privacy is beneficial in a field like technology development. Trying to hide any information about your company that is not legally required to be public knowledge is important.
As an aside, they also may have wanted more than a ethnic/gender makeup of the company. They may have wanted to know the salaries and positions of these employees. Sounds fine, you would want to know if every person of a certain ethnic group was actually part of the janitorial staff.(since that wouldn't really be diversity) Think about it though, do you really think Google wants the salary/position of every employee listed? Going back to the hypothetical influx of Chinese-Americans. Might it not indicate something if they were all either highly paid translators or programmers? This is all just companies who realize that this data could be used for nefarious purposes.
You do realize that they "days" of battery life are due to the fact that it is designed to read books?
The battery life on ereaders really should be rated in "page turns". This gets about 2000 page turns on a single charge.
Using that color screen all the time or actively using the internet will suck down that battery so fast your head will spin!!!
The battery on this device is going to suck if you are using it to IM your friends or regularly browse the web. The battery on these devices is actually significantly SMALLER than a netbook battery. These devices have a cheap and small cell phone battery.
The real advantage is the internet....but it isn't that big of a deal. The kindle already has a web-browser.
Plus, as many have explained...they will just block non-B&N usage if it is abused.
I have to disagree a bit.
Many sciences are observational in nature, but most of them rely heavily on a hard science. Paleontology is based heavily on evolutionary theory(a hard, research based science). Astronomy is based heavily on physics(a hard, research based science). Geology IS a research-based science.
Climatology is a bit more like economics. It is an attempt to model complex systems mathematically. I am not saying it is any less valid as a science. It is just far more susceptible to error. At the end of the day, paleontologists know that their base model, evolution, is still accurate. If one of their models fails, it is because there was an unknown. Climatologists are dealing with much more complex systems. They have to "tease" out a result, and preconceived notions can go a long way in disrupting data.
Science does need its skepticism....but the rest of your post is silly
What in the hell does a theory become except a better theory? A theory is the highest level of scientific knowledge.
A hypothesis should remain a hypothesis until your findings stand up to the scrutiny of skepticism, then it can become a theory
(There, I fixed your post)
I have seen 3 pay classes for engineers and similar fields(I would count IT).
1) Salaried-Salaried engineers get paid X dollars for 40 hours a week. They frequently work more than 40 hours, but the expectation is that they will work roughly 40 hours. Any extra time(i.e. to finish a project by deadline) is not compensated. This is typically only for people who are expected to do all of their work in the office.
2) Hourly- Hourly engineers are paid by the hour. This typically amounts to the same pay as a salaried employee. However, hourly employees are expected to perform non-office work or they are expected to work frequently for longer than 8 hours. This is frequently the pay rate for engineers who work "on-site" or supervise technicians. This system compensates them for working overtime. Pay is "straight time" meaning that they keep earning the same hourly rate no matter how many hours it takes. This rate is frequent for engineers who travel as part of their work.
3) Billable- These engineers are paid by the hour, but using the standard convention of time-and-a-half, night differential, etc. This is typically only paid to engineers whose time is being directly billed. This is done because the employer doesn't actually pay the engineers, the contracting company pays them. Typically the contracting company is more concerned with the overall time of the project rather than the cost for employees.
As far as the issue of "being on call": I am on call, but I am almost never contacted. If I am "called", I am paid a premium rate. I would think that some bonus would be part of being "on call" for any employee(i.e. nurses being paid $1-$3 per hour) or a penalty paid for being called.
So, there are really multiple bits of information that the slashdot community needs:
1) IS this IT employee only being paid salary?
2) Is he being rewarded for taking a call?
3) Is his base pay increased to compensate for the frequent disruption of his schedule?
Actually, HE DID!
He added the cosmological constant to his general theory of relativity, because if he followed his models...it indicated that the universe was expanding.
Einstein didn't like the idea that it was expanding(because it didn't fit the current thinking), so he added the cosmological constant to his equations to make the universe "static".
so, even Einstein fell prey to conventional wisdom and thinking.
Well, I now know that most of the posters on slashdot encourage the use of a pen and paper for various reasons.
Let me explain why copying the notes feverishly isn't the best idea.
Yes, a lot of people remember things they have written down.
However, I would argue that actually understanding the equation/notes you are writing down is far more important than memorizing it.
I say this as someone with a degree in mathematics and engineering.
It really depends on the course and the person if you want to transcribe everything or not.
I knew students who would write down the notes, go home and copy them, and then do it again.
I also knew a student who never took any notes. He used to say, "the information is in the book, I am trying to understand the lecture". That student is now a professor of Electrical Engineering at a major university.
I am not going to question why the original poster wants to do everything on a computer, I will just help him.
Mathcad is exceptionally clean and simple for "writing" math. It is the best solution I have seen. Unfortunately, it is designed for active math solutions...so it may not be the best solution. I would give it a try though. I know that for engineering classes it was one of the most helpful programs I ever used.
As far as "higher level math courses", it depends on what you actually mean. My higher level math courses were all theory courses.
If you are having problems with note transcription in number theory, I would recommend learning math proof shorthand rather than trying to use LaTex. Most math shorthand uses Greek symbols, so you can learn the shortcut to them
If your "higher level math courses" are calculus. I think most of the recommendations would be ideal.
However, I might recommend a different course. Typically a professor will tell you what he will be discussing next lecture. It might be easier to setup your equations ahead of time. They are almost always available in the book. You could then record your notes for any equations with the main equation.
It would still require the use of a math symbol software, but you could make sure that the important equations were already very cleanly entered.
To recap:
Number Theory: Learn symbol shorthand
Calculus: Can't get much better than LaTex derivatives
Engineering/Physics: Try Mathcad. It is designed to give you answers, but it allows you to actively play with equations and input numbers to get a feel for the math.
I hate it when people try to make this argument...
"There is no reason they couldn't have added that feature to version X, rather than waiting till version Y"
Of course there is a reason, nobody thought of doing it until version Y!!! The creators of version X lacked either the technology, the vision, or the creativity to add that feature.
How about we just say: " There is no reason that the ancient Egyptians couldn't have built spaceships"
They could have built amazing spaceships, if only they had the technology, the vision, and the 3000 years of human experience to decide that we needed to build spaceships.
Ummm...no
Who would store "sensitive" data on a cell phone?
Well, consider that most companies, agencies, etc consider their email "sensitive". Why do you think most businesses purchase 'smartphones'? TO ACCESS COMPANY EMAIL
It isn't just a matter of company email carrying sensitive data, it carries normal data that would be highly beneficial to a bit of social engineering.
Still don't understand the whole 'smartphone'/sensitive data issue?
Ask yourself this question. Why won't the secret service let Obama carry a regular blackberry?
If the Iphone is just a regular phone that can browse the internet, then this news is meaningless.
If the Iphone is a 'smartphone' with relevant business applications, then it needs to be capable of quality encryption
You missed something.
He didn't just lose the ability to put NEW books on his kindle. He lost the books that were already ON his Kindle.
I have a Sony Reader...and Sony DRM sucks. However, even Sony doesn't try to retro-actively stop your books. Also, the Sony is designed to accept non-DRM books.
In fact, maybe the Sony Reader isn't as bad as I thought. I can put DRM-free books on it without hacking.
All I can say is this: 2 days ago I thought I wanted a Kindle(to replace my Sony). In the last 5 minutes that view has drastically changed. I don't think I could ever own a product that can be remotely killed(and become non-functional).
There are three problems with this idea.
First, whatever your opinion of "poppycock" degrees, they are drastically different from this degree in creationism. A few examples:
Degree in Religion: You have studied and become an expert on the social phenomenon known as religion. You have studied a number of different religions. This degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of history, philosophy, and anthropology.
Degree in Divinity: While typically granted by 'Christian' universities, this degree requires that the student have an advanced understanding of Christian texts and their interpretations and translations. In practice, it is only slightly different from having a degree in any the study of any ancient manuscripts.
Creationism: Creationism 'science' is essentially a list of poorly constructed arguments that attempt to refute evolution. The main requirement for any argument on this list is that they are 'convincing' rather than being accurate. There is no academic rigor to this field.
Creationism does not compare to other religious degrees.
Second, Creationism is currently operating under the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity. They don't actually want to be 'accepted', they just want to grab as many headlines as possible. They want big, showy, and silly public debates with well-respected scientists. They don't want to sit down in a lab and prove anything. i.e. Creationists frequently argue that if you place an organism in observation and wait thousands of generations, that organism will not evolve new features. However, no creationist has even attempted to demonstrate this fact. It wouldn't even be particularly difficult to attempt. However, actual scientists have done this experiment and dedicated a massive amount of time to the work. They were rewarded with the exact opposite of the creationists predictions. If you want to know more about this research, please visit :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
The third, and biggest problem with Creationism is that it is a concept, not a field of study. You don't grant degrees in 'ideas'. We don't have a degree for perpetual motion machines, proving Goldbach's conjecture, or any other crackpottery you can imagine. A degree is rewarded for a field of study. What exactly are Creationists going to study?
I am not opposed to this "Degree in Creationism" in the same way I am opposed to Creationism. I want to admit that I think Creationism is absurd. However, I am even more opposed to a degree in creationism for the reasons stated above. I would be equally opposed to a degree is Deism, Skepticism, or any other idea I believe in.
Here is a simpler solution...
Look at the angle of the camera with respect to the screen.
After reading this story earlier in the day, I decided to attend. I honestly hadn't been aware that Dawkins was lecturing tonight at OU.
It was a fun speaking engagement, but a bit boring. Dawkins tends to try to do two things at all times: make everything easy to understand AND carefully avoid oversimplification or poor analogy. The result is a very vague and shallow discussion of evolutionary biology.
I expected a bunch of crazy people, but there honestly wasn't anything too bad.
One guy asked a question about atheism and morality, but no fireworks or drama.
That was my big FU to those against this OU lecture
E-ink is poised to be a very versatile display.
They now have a low-power, easily readable display that can be interactive and placed anywhere.
How about a "rolled" e-reader. Capable of taking up much less space than a standard book reader?
How about a foldaway display that can function on a number of devices?
Looking with a more futuristic bend, couldn't a flexible, interactive, low-power, non-backlit display be used to adapt common items to interactive displays?
The back of an airline seat? Now a menu with options!
If "flexible" displays are so useless, why are they a main goal of almost every display manufacturer?
And since when is adding "touchscreen" capabilities to a device a non-important function.