I guess I confused you by using "water heater" and "sized" next to each other. How about "washing machine sized" or "garbage can sized" instead. I'm not suggesting a water heater (or a washing machine, or a garbage can, just to be clear) I'm suggesting a closed-loop thermonuclear electric generator that likely wouldn't need to be too big to put in your garage.
...I dont comment unless its requested. I'm with Hamilton, I'm surprised your working, or you're working for an idiot who didn't realize that they had to ask you to comment your code.
...Why is it not possible to study science without evolution?...Why can't we teach science how it works TODAY without getting into arguments how things came to be the way they are. You are laboring under the misconception that evolution is something that only happened (past tense) while instead evolution is something that happens (present tense) and not only works today but can be demonstrated easily by watching existing systems in action (I will *not* go into that demonstration, that is your homework). You seem to want to argue that humans did not evolve from monkeys, but using that as a platform from which to argue that evolution doesn't happen is like arguing that a ball once thrown up may not come down because we don't really know if Newton got hit by that apple.
How about using these in a water-heater sized device in your home. With a isotope heat source at the bottom, a coil lined with these strings, filled with some kind of heat transferring liquid (say, water). You could put one of these in every home and without any moving parts (as in a traditional thermonuclear generator with giant turbines) it would be very reliable.
People who have an office can always find a conference room for collaboration (or a custom area just for collaboration, or even do it on-line these days), but people without an office can't go to a conference room to get some serious privacy to concentrate on a task they find difficult (the conference room just can't double for an office for everyone).
I've had jobs with offices and jobs without offices (essentially similar software development jobs, different companies) and all-in-all I prefer telecommuting first, private office second, and having a job of any kind third.
You put a lot of thought into that message, but it is negated by just RTFA which says that the potential applications include "...personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones...". They aren't talking about the cell phone itself drawing the power, but potentially the entire inner surface of a piece of clothing (which would also have the entire outer surface of the piece of clothing as the cooling surface for differential).
However, this does sound like we will only be recharging cell phones this way in the winter...
I have 35 years experience. I agree with your general conclusions - But not necessarily the (PHP, C#, XSL, JavaScript) bit. You don't agree that I use those four languages on a daily basis? Sorry, but that's what they currently pay me for. I wasn't trying to imply that the parent needed those languages.
You did not miss too much from 25-35 years ago, unless you like Fortran or punched card/tapes, or the need to do a low-level format to put the blocks on a disk before it was usable. I'm afraid I did not miss Fortran (both IV and 77) or dropping a stack of punch cards on the floor while loading them into the reader (which I'm happy to say I only did once). But I never had to put my own programs on punch cards, thank goodness, just use them to boot stuff in the computer room (mainly a monster IBM laser printer). I did just miss washing machine sized 1Mb hard drives, and entering machine code using toggle switches (my university still had them, but had just barely stopped using them for assembler classes).
Boy has the world changed in the last 25 years...
I've been programming for 35 years and this is what I've learned: Languages are not hard, data is hard.
By the time you finish school and get a couple of years into your profession, whatever you decide that will be, the languages will have evolved or possibly even changed completely. Spending time worrying about what languages you are using in school is like worrying whether you can operate an iPod. It doesn't matter because by the time you get out of school the iPod will be extinct and you'll have to learn how to operate the next thing (undoubtedly starting with an i).
So, what you should be doing in school is learning the things that don't change: algorithms, data structures, methodology, problem solving. Seek out those professors that are providing problem "contests" and get involved. Find a public source project that is working on something interesting that you've never done and jump in. Get a team together and join one of the online programming contests. Anything you can to get exposed to as many different methodologies and as much data as possible.
You will need to pick some languages (and your professors will force some languages on you), but don't balk at learning any new language. Also, it is my opinion that you should learn at least one assembler language (but it hardly matters which one) because it will force you to look at data in a very different way from programming in a higher-level language, even C. Understanding how things work at the lowest level can only help you to figure out problems later.
Some may argue that learning a slew of languages will cause confusion, but I haven't found that to be the case. I have learned, and used professionally, upwards of 22 languages (so far) though I currently only use about 4 on a weekly basis (PHP, C#, XSL, JavaScript) and maybe add another 3 or 4 that I use occasionally. I didn't learn a single one of these when I was in school (they didn't exist).
So the bottom line here is that flexibility should be your goal. Try to learn in school the things that are common to all software development. Be a generalist until you know what you want to do for the first few years of your professional life, then become a specialist in that (and while you are working those first few years keep an eye to what you want to work on next). Don't ever assume that you are done with your education.
My favorite phrase is: when you stop learning, you start dying.
So you are saying we should let people try over and over until they kill someone. Good thinking there.
Assuming you drive a car, yes, that's exactly what we are doing. We are letting you drive that car over and over again and at the point where you kill someone we will stop you from driving that car. But, feel free to be responsible and hand over your driver's license now instead waiting until you kill someone!
[...] and would never even accidentally shine it near someone's face [...]
"accidentally"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Also, this is a system that can only be employed at the server level. It's not like you could add this technology to your stand alone email client.
Worse than that. Since it works on statistical probabilities it is only accurate if it has a large enough domain to work in. A single server (even with, for example, 100 domains on it) is unlikely to have a statistical domain large enough to provide accurate results.
It's not clear to me whether their appliance actually sends each e-mail (or the headers or something) to their centralized servers for processing to achieve that giant domain, or whether they count on their clients having a large enough domain for the scheme to work. Obviously the larger, the better for this. Maybe they ship a domain summary of some kind to each appliance (like shipping a DNS cache).
What I would love them to do is provide a forwarding/filtering service for individuals and small domains. I currently use gMail for exactly this purpose. They provide a much better spam filter than my host provider or my local SpamBayes, so I forward all mail from my personal domains to gMail and then back to my server (and then to my local computer). It has cut my spam down to a relatively manageable level.
Though if my hosting provider buys one of these I'll gladly give it a shot (they are big enough to get a significant domain all by themselves). I'm certainly curious to hear from any companies that tried it to see what results they get.
It's a big jump from being able to say that something is unique (which is pretty easy to define, even if it is hard to prove) to saying something is important. For one thing the latter is subjective (the former might be wrong, but isn't usually considered subjective). Plus, again, could you have said that the telephone was a world-changing invention when it was first created? How about the integrated circuit?
It would take more than just a smart person, but one with actual prescience to determine that an invention is important.
And who, exactly, would decide what is important and what is non-critical? I would suspect that most inventions that turn out to be Important are not appreciated as such at first, even by their own inventor (post-it notes, scotch guard, and rubber come to mind). You want me to believe that a government worker looking at hundreds of patents a month will be qualified to decide which of the patents will be important? What happens when a patent is marked as "non-critical" and turns out to be important? Will they be reclassified for long-term protection?
So can they even lay claim to something generated by a tool? From the statements on the web site any reasonable person can conclude that the entire web site was generated by a "tool" (regardless of what software he/she used to build the web site)?
What makes you think Germany would do that? Germany has rather harsh laws to protect personal privacy. Forcing people to reveal stuff about themselves to the world doesn't really fit into that.
The reason I included Germany in my comment is that they seem to be amazingly paranoid and they have shown a willingness to enact laws trying to censor information; all under the guise of "protecting" their adult and youth population. Specifically they seem to have a broad definition of what is "harmful" so I could easily see them legislating that lying about your age, sex, and/or race, or having a "risqué" avatar, as being "unsafe".
However, my point wasn't to attempt smear a specific country, but just to point out that as soon as they try to make avatars homogeneous, they not only have to deal with multiple incompatible systems, but political borders.
AFAIK the flash is not used for "normal" last access caching, it must be used intentionally to cache part of the drives data. It appears from what I read that what is in the flash may not actually be stored on the physical platters at all (so the data is in one place or the other, though they appear to be one drive to applications). The upshot is that putting one of these drives into a computer that does not specifically have support for hybrids may not use the flash portion at all.
Someone please correct me if I've misinterpreted this.
To all of those who are crowing that they haven't run virus protection or spyware scanners in xx years. Why are you proud of this fact. I get it that viruses aren't as prevalent as the media wants you to believe. I understand that FUD is everywhere. I get and agree that saying you are "probably infected and just don't know it" is simple paranoia (and is treatable, I hear).
That all being said nobody has given one single reason why they don't run virus protection or spyware scanners. Is there something wrong with being a little paranoid?
I haven't been hit with a virus since I last let a student friend use my computer and put her school floppy in my computer (that should tell you how long ago that was). However, that doesn't stop me from having a hardware firewall, virus scanners on every computer, Ad-Aware pro, and other shit I'm not going to get into. It's just cheap insurance and nobody has given me a reason that I would be better off not buying that insurance.
Do you drive your car without insurance? Do you drive without buckling your seatbelt and leave all of the windows down so that you will be "thrown clear" in the accident?
Sticking your head in the sand may make you feel good, but don't kid yourself that it makes you safer!
... The group that writes the software for the gadget is probably a totally different group than the one that writes the desktop interface software...
It could even be worse than this. Often a company that is good at embedded systems (like TomTom) is no good at writing application software, so they completely outsource the development of the application and just provide them with API documentation for the device. I don't know that this is the case with TomTom, but I've known of companies that did this (they even stupidly closed the vendor contract after the application software was written, thereby making updates both expensive and difficult).
The world is not homogeneous...
Re:I really wanted to like bioshock...
on
BioShock Review
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· Score: 1
You complain about the AI being too stupid, yet you had to switch to the easy setting to finish the game? If you think the AI was too stupid, shouldn't you be playing on the Hard setting? *roll eyes* I've never understood people who equate the number of goons to be shot with whether or not the game is boring. For example, in Doom 3 turning up the difficulty past hard did not make the game more fun, or more interesting, it just made it take longer to finish (in my opinion, of course).
I completely understood his turning the game down to easy just to complete the game in a shorter amount of time. Quicker through the game == less time being bored by the story
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I confused you by using "water heater" and "sized" next to each other. How about "washing machine sized" or "garbage can sized" instead. I'm not suggesting a water heater (or a washing machine, or a garbage can, just to be clear) I'm suggesting a closed-loop thermonuclear electric generator that likely wouldn't need to be too big to put in your garage.
I really have to ask: What the heck is "spamming" on a resume?
...I dont comment unless its requested. I'm with Hamilton, I'm surprised your working, or you're working for an idiot who didn't realize that they had to ask you to comment your code.
...Why is it not possible to study science without evolution?...Why can't we teach science how it works TODAY without getting into arguments how things came to be the way they are. You are laboring under the misconception that evolution is something that only happened (past tense) while instead evolution is something that happens (present tense) and not only works today but can be demonstrated easily by watching existing systems in action (I will *not* go into that demonstration, that is your homework). You seem to want to argue that humans did not evolve from monkeys, but using that as a platform from which to argue that evolution doesn't happen is like arguing that a ball once thrown up may not come down because we don't really know if Newton got hit by that apple.How about using these in a water-heater sized device in your home. With a isotope heat source at the bottom, a coil lined with these strings, filled with some kind of heat transferring liquid (say, water). You could put one of these in every home and without any moving parts (as in a traditional thermonuclear generator with giant turbines) it would be very reliable.
People who have an office can always find a conference room for collaboration (or a custom area just for collaboration, or even do it on-line these days), but people without an office can't go to a conference room to get some serious privacy to concentrate on a task they find difficult (the conference room just can't double for an office for everyone).
I've had jobs with offices and jobs without offices (essentially similar software development jobs, different companies) and all-in-all I prefer telecommuting first, private office second, and having a job of any kind third.
You put a lot of thought into that message, but it is negated by just RTFA which says that the potential applications include "...personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones...". They aren't talking about the cell phone itself drawing the power, but potentially the entire inner surface of a piece of clothing (which would also have the entire outer surface of the piece of clothing as the cooling surface for differential).
However, this does sound like we will only be recharging cell phones this way in the winter...
And, of course, on re-reading it I realize that I should have taken more math in college. I only have 25 years of experience, not 35. Oops.
I've been programming for 35 years and this is what I've learned: Languages are not hard, data is hard.
By the time you finish school and get a couple of years into your profession, whatever you decide that will be, the languages will have evolved or possibly even changed completely. Spending time worrying about what languages you are using in school is like worrying whether you can operate an iPod. It doesn't matter because by the time you get out of school the iPod will be extinct and you'll have to learn how to operate the next thing (undoubtedly starting with an i).
So, what you should be doing in school is learning the things that don't change: algorithms, data structures, methodology, problem solving. Seek out those professors that are providing problem "contests" and get involved. Find a public source project that is working on something interesting that you've never done and jump in. Get a team together and join one of the online programming contests. Anything you can to get exposed to as many different methodologies and as much data as possible.
You will need to pick some languages (and your professors will force some languages on you), but don't balk at learning any new language. Also, it is my opinion that you should learn at least one assembler language (but it hardly matters which one) because it will force you to look at data in a very different way from programming in a higher-level language, even C. Understanding how things work at the lowest level can only help you to figure out problems later.
Some may argue that learning a slew of languages will cause confusion, but I haven't found that to be the case. I have learned, and used professionally, upwards of 22 languages (so far) though I currently only use about 4 on a weekly basis (PHP, C#, XSL, JavaScript) and maybe add another 3 or 4 that I use occasionally. I didn't learn a single one of these when I was in school (they didn't exist).
So the bottom line here is that flexibility should be your goal. Try to learn in school the things that are common to all software development. Be a generalist until you know what you want to do for the first few years of your professional life, then become a specialist in that (and while you are working those first few years keep an eye to what you want to work on next). Don't ever assume that you are done with your education.
My favorite phrase is: when you stop learning, you start dying.
Well, you know I slept in this morning, so I have "time credits" to spare today. Just $5 per second. Check eBay later today...
Assuming you drive a car, yes, that's exactly what we are doing. We are letting you drive that car over and over again and at the point where you kill someone we will stop you from driving that car. But, feel free to be responsible and hand over your driver's license now instead waiting until you kill someone!
"accidentally"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Worse than that. Since it works on statistical probabilities it is only accurate if it has a large enough domain to work in. A single server (even with, for example, 100 domains on it) is unlikely to have a statistical domain large enough to provide accurate results.
It's not clear to me whether their appliance actually sends each e-mail (or the headers or something) to their centralized servers for processing to achieve that giant domain, or whether they count on their clients having a large enough domain for the scheme to work. Obviously the larger, the better for this. Maybe they ship a domain summary of some kind to each appliance (like shipping a DNS cache).
What I would love them to do is provide a forwarding/filtering service for individuals and small domains. I currently use gMail for exactly this purpose. They provide a much better spam filter than my host provider or my local SpamBayes, so I forward all mail from my personal domains to gMail and then back to my server (and then to my local computer). It has cut my spam down to a relatively manageable level.
Though if my hosting provider buys one of these I'll gladly give it a shot (they are big enough to get a significant domain all by themselves). I'm certainly curious to hear from any companies that tried it to see what results they get.
It would take more than just a smart person, but one with actual prescience to determine that an invention is important.
And who, exactly, would decide what is important and what is non-critical? I would suspect that most inventions that turn out to be Important are not appreciated as such at first, even by their own inventor (post-it notes, scotch guard, and rubber come to mind). You want me to believe that a government worker looking at hundreds of patents a month will be qualified to decide which of the patents will be important? What happens when a patent is marked as "non-critical" and turns out to be important? Will they be reclassified for long-term protection?
Legally-Binding: By responding to this request you waive all copyrights past, present, and future for the response sent.
Quick, someone submit a feature request for Firefox!The reason I included Germany in my comment is that they seem to be amazingly paranoid and they have shown a willingness to enact laws trying to censor information; all under the guise of "protecting" their adult and youth population. Specifically they seem to have a broad definition of what is "harmful" so I could easily see them legislating that lying about your age, sex, and/or race, or having a "risqué" avatar, as being "unsafe".
However, my point wasn't to attempt smear a specific country, but just to point out that as soon as they try to make avatars homogeneous, they not only have to deal with multiple incompatible systems, but political borders.
Someone please correct me if I've misinterpreted this.
Forget corporate requirements, I could see Germany or China weighing in with rules like:
- You must reflect your real sex
- You must reflect your real race
- You must reflect your actual age
- You must define one avatar for adults to see and another for children to see
Plus, who wants to be known as Joe the wizard dwarf everywhere they go?To all of those who are crowing that they haven't run virus protection or spyware scanners in xx years. Why are you proud of this fact. I get it that viruses aren't as prevalent as the media wants you to believe. I understand that FUD is everywhere. I get and agree that saying you are "probably infected and just don't know it" is simple paranoia (and is treatable, I hear).
That all being said nobody has given one single reason why they don't run virus protection or spyware scanners. Is there something wrong with being a little paranoid?
I haven't been hit with a virus since I last let a student friend use my computer and put her school floppy in my computer (that should tell you how long ago that was). However, that doesn't stop me from having a hardware firewall, virus scanners on every computer, Ad-Aware pro, and other shit I'm not going to get into. It's just cheap insurance and nobody has given me a reason that I would be better off not buying that insurance.
Do you drive your car without insurance? Do you drive without buckling your seatbelt and leave all of the windows down so that you will be "thrown clear" in the accident?
Sticking your head in the sand may make you feel good, but don't kid yourself that it makes you safer!
... The group that writes the software for the gadget is probably a totally different group than the one that writes the desktop interface software...It could even be worse than this. Often a company that is good at embedded systems (like TomTom) is no good at writing application software, so they completely outsource the development of the application and just provide them with API documentation for the device. I don't know that this is the case with TomTom, but I've known of companies that did this (they even stupidly closed the vendor contract after the application software was written, thereby making updates both expensive and difficult).
The world is not homogeneous...