The problem with parsing English lies in the nature of English itself. English was not designed to be parsed. it was not designed with a logical structure that has been consistently implemented.
The question is what do you mean by a grammar checker? If you simply mean a program to read text and try to find obvious errors. You do not need to be able to parse English completely to do this. To extend the example from above you do not need to know exactly what "The cow is brown" means. Only if the tense agree. That program would just need to be able to recognize certain patterns as wrong. That is not impossible.
As for the other side of it, a program that actually understands what you are writing and figures out the best way to communicate that. This is much more complex. It would be a very cool program if it could be completed. Besides, what better than OSS to harness the immense mindshare that would require?
That being said, my grammar is so horrible I would love to see either one working as soon as possible.
You are Misunderstanding the idea of an Apprentice. Let me see if a simple clarification in the term will remove your objection to the idea.
Once you learned UNIX at college what did you do next? You stated it was in your freshman year. Once you had the basics you began to learn the details. You worked with juniors and seniors that had more knowledge them you, and gained experience running a UNIX box for real.
The apprenticeship idea is along the same line, you are working with other more experienced people, learning how to run UNIX for real. Surely you did not know all you needed to know about running a UNIX server after your freshman year.
Apprenticeship is working with a master and learning your craft. If all you needed to be a brilliant Admin was to read a couple books and spend six months with Redhat on your home box. Admins would not get the salary that demand today. Linux had been wonderful for helping a High School Student learn UNIX. I am a senior in High School this year. If it we not for Linux and the buzz it has been generating I would not have began to learn Linux or UNIX as a whole in high school.
So if apprenticeship is defined as a entry level job for high school students during the summer or part time would you be opposed to that?
While the DeCSS breaking is an issue all its own, the lawsuit raised an interesting issue. It postulated the idea that a website has committed a crime if it links to a illegal website. By this logic could a site that links to the site that has thus been declared illegal be illegal as well?
If this is a valid precedent could any site that has illegal mp3s, child porn, or illegally released information contaminate entire sections of the web. This is insane. Thank god the injunction was thrown out.
However, it does raise an interesting question: If you create a link to a site are you responsible for what is on the other side of the link? Is it an implicit vote of confidence? Does the author have any responsibility what so ever? The creators of the Google search engine thought so, they said so in the SciAm article they wrote about it. It is the basis of their search method.
But how much of a help is it. For example I once saw a person who wrote a program to calculate the Pythagorean theorem instead of learning the 30,60, 90 rule all. In the end he learns how to write input lines and solve an equation. However on a multiple choice test when the answer is 3^(1/2) they will not see their answer on the test. How much has the programming helped them then?
I am not decrying programming as a whole, however anything you need to program in a high school class, would best be served writing it at home on a real computer with a real programming language.
Yes, you should spend as much time as you can finding shortcuts and exploring. However, developing the algorithm is just as much a necessity with a TI-30, as it is with a TI-85.
You are explaining why to work on the problem, not why developing a program is important. What value is added by creating the program that cannot be added without it?
Nate Custer
P.S. Sorry to rant again however, this is a very personal issue to me. As a note the majority of the programs one gets are from friends.
As a young geek (17) and a person who loves debates, I think you have got the right idea. You note, correctly that the majority of flaming comes from young people. However, then you go on to claim that it is an issue due to the of loss of territorial dominance.
Using Ocrum's razor could this be more simply explained by the intolerance for lacking and arrogance that is characteristic of teenagers in general.
Your argument could work very well four years ago. However, by now the internet has been easy to get on for the past three to four years, it is less of the case. I did not begin to learn about computers till five years ago. By the time I was competent three years ago going online was a normal thing.
I think the other thing to consider is the ease of response. People respond to flaming quicker than they do to intelligent critique. Teenagers want instant gratification, we are the MTV generation. That is part of what attracts us to computers in the first place.
Knowing what you sacrifice to learn computers and the stigmata that it often carries, one is prone to feel jealous, of those who have not made the same commitments, one has, yet still reap the rewards. This is an affliction that affects all geeks, not just teenagers. Teenagers are just more prone to this behavior.
Finally (the end of this way to long rant) your idea that this behavior is bullying is dead on. Congrats on honest self appraisal something we all struggle with.
I am a high school senior who took Calc last year. I began with a TI-85, I soon abandoned it for a TI-32 (Scientific). The majority of Calc and above does not focus on how well you can apply a certain formula; but how well you can tell which formula to apply and how to do it. The only thing a calculator is good for is calculating trig, log, and strange exponential functions (x^7/3 etc.).
If you are taking Algebra or Al. II. I have found that all the programmable functions are useful for is playing games. The majority of the games I have found are for the TI series so that is what I would recommend.
Are you really going to spend that much time writing your own programs? It will usually take more time to develop a program to automate the solution, then you would learning do it by yourself. Thus spend the $30 on a TI-30 and spend the rest on a memory upgrade, a Linux book, or some other tool to better yourself in the long run, not some way to cheat and save ten seconds.
"Even though there is new Linux certification it's not as highly respected as that of MSCE."
But why is the MSCE so highly respected? Not just because it comes from Microsoft, but also because it has been around for a while and obviously big corporations believe that it means they will get good people. Perception is reality folks.
I have worked with two MSCEs. One was both an MSCE and a MCD - he was brilliant. The other had just gone to a bunch of classes and had no real-world experience, he sucked. He was convinced that reboot was the fix to everything.
Going to a MSCE course and then passing the test no more makes you a good Admin, then being in a barn makes you a good cow. However, to extend the analogy you have a better chance to find a cow in a barn then in the population of earth as a whole.
Give the Linux cert. some time. It could become a very good thing. However, no amount of book learning can be a substitute for real world practice. Why not make some time in the real-world be a qualifier for a second enhanced cert.? A couple of good recommendations and a resume should serve as a substitute.
As a high school student now, I think a apprenticeship section would be great. I have spend the past three summers programming in VBA because that is the jobs I could get. I am beginning to gain experience with Linux, however the best way to learn is to have a network to practice on. Ever tried to learn NFS with a standalone machine. It is not easy.
I have found the HOWTO's to be a great help. Thanks to all who maintain them. However, as many are quick to point out there is nothing like experience. An Intern or Apprenticeship section for people to gain experience would be great. I would love to get a job as such.
If you have installfests to help newbies, why not an Internship program? I work at a lot less then the normal Admin, am willing to work crazy hours, and spend a lot more time learning my craft then many of the Admins I have met. I get good experience, my employer gets cheap labor. Who losses?
My LUG is great but, I want hands on experience before I tell an employer I can be his primary Admin. For a Admin department who needs some help but doesn't have a great deal of cash, I'm perfect.
I recently read a thread that complained about how Admins were responsible for most of the security wholes, why not educate them.
Have a take a geek to work week or something. If you want to convince Admins to use Linux, train them when they are young. Linux's price and idealism are most congruent with a young and idyllic kid.
"You can't patent a finger, but you can patent a process that will create fingers."
More than that, you can also patent the knowledge of how a gene works. You cannot patent AATTCG, however if you find, that string means this protein is built you can secure the rights to use that knowledge.
If I spend $50,000 to research a target population for a politician, No one here would claim that I have to release this information to the public, at least I hope not.
Patents by their nature, are designed to get me to release this information. And to protect my investment, if I do. This is what it is designed to do.
That being said I do think that this is a good case for eminent domain.
"Genes are a natural resource. They are a natural resource for building life. Humans did not invent them, so how can a human have a right to patent it?"
But if you invent a new ceramic material you can patent it, if you find some gene that in a certain combination can prevent diabetes why can't you patent that?
If company A does the research and finds this marvelous combination, shouldn't they benefit from it? If you can't offer them the rewards for their time, why should they research in the first place.
No company should be able to lock up genetic material forever, but how about have the government provide it a reward for each patent, there is precedent for giving the government resources they need (land for roads, etc.).
Right on. Star Wars' popularity has nothing to do with the merits of the movie, but instead with the merits of the event. On a deeper note why is Star Wars an event?
Because it means something to the geeks who write this now. It has meaning as a reminder of the memory of the original Star Wars movies. You remember the fantasies you created in your mind, the challenge of figuring all of Yoda's subtleties out, the amazement at the special effects, the simplicity of the story that allowed you to understand it, and the millions of pieces of merchandise that your parents bought for you.
Why does this remembrance have such an influence on the geek community?
Because fundamentally geeks are big kids. They live among other things to satisfy their curiosity, they can be so obsessed by their ideas that they lose track of their lives, they don't mind staying up till 1:30 to write of Slashdot. They live their lives balancing adult life and child desires, and when they can remember when life was without this stress they enjoy it greatly. And all to often obsess over it. Star Wars is no more of a cultural icon then Rocky Horror Picture Show, yet both have devout followings. For the same reasons.
Is Star Wars valid for Slashdot? The answer lies in the basic identity of Slashdot, is it a cultural center on the internet, or a technical discussion board? If it is the first, it fits perfectly if only the second it should not have been posted here.
While the movie had some obvious Christian archetypal images. It missed the chance to make a much more interesting epistemological points.
The dream motif could have been played with more to stretch the questions out of what real is. If the goal was truly to start epistemological points, it may have even used the archetypes if that was needed to make the point more effectively.
Read Decartes' meditations for a much better and more interesting discussion of what reality really is.
"Anyone who cannot understand math is not human" Lazarus Long
P.S. However, the parody does catch what the true goal of the movie was to be as cyber-punk as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with parsing English lies in the nature of English itself. English was not designed to be parsed. it was not designed with a logical structure that has been consistently implemented.
The question is what do you mean by a grammar checker? If you simply mean a program to read text and try to find obvious errors. You do not need to be able to parse English completely to do this. To extend the example from above you do not need to know exactly what "The cow is brown" means. Only if the tense agree. That program would just need to be able to recognize certain patterns as wrong. That is not impossible.
As for the other side of it, a program that actually understands what you are writing and figures out the best way to communicate that. This is much more complex. It would be a very cool program if it could be completed. Besides, what better than OSS to harness the immense mindshare that would require?
That being said, my grammar is so horrible I would love to see either one working as soon as possible.
Nate Custer
You are Misunderstanding the idea of an Apprentice. Let me see if a simple clarification in the term will remove your objection to the idea.
Once you learned UNIX at college what did you do next? You stated it was in your freshman year. Once you had the basics you began to learn the details. You worked with juniors and seniors that had more knowledge them you, and gained experience running a UNIX box for real.
The apprenticeship idea is along the same line, you are working with other more experienced people, learning how to run UNIX for real. Surely you did not know all you needed to know about running a UNIX server after your freshman year.
Apprenticeship is working with a master and learning your craft. If all you needed to be a brilliant Admin was to read a couple books and spend six months with Redhat on your home box. Admins would not get the salary that demand today. Linux had been wonderful for helping a High School Student learn UNIX. I am a senior in High School this year. If it we not for Linux and the buzz it has been generating I would not have began to learn Linux or UNIX as a whole in high school.
So if apprenticeship is defined as a entry level job for high school students during the summer or part time would you be opposed to that?
Nate Custer
While the DeCSS breaking is an issue all its own, the lawsuit raised an interesting issue. It postulated the idea that a website has committed a crime if it links to a illegal website. By this logic could a site that links to the site that has thus been declared illegal be illegal as well?
If this is a valid precedent could any site that has illegal mp3s, child porn, or illegally released information contaminate entire sections of the web. This is insane. Thank god the injunction was thrown out.
However, it does raise an interesting question: If you create a link to a site are you responsible for what is on the other side of the link? Is it an implicit vote of confidence? Does the author have any responsibility what so ever? The creators of the Google search engine thought so, they said so in the SciAm article they wrote about it. It is the basis of their search method.
Nate Custer
But how much of a help is it. For example I once saw a person who wrote a program to calculate the Pythagorean theorem instead of learning the 30,60, 90 rule all. In the end he learns how to write input lines and solve an equation. However on a multiple choice test when the answer is 3^(1/2) they will not see their answer on the test. How much has the programming helped them then?
I am not decrying programming as a whole, however anything you need to program in a high school class, would best be served writing it at home on a real computer with a real programming language.
Yes, you should spend as much time as you can finding shortcuts and exploring. However, developing the algorithm is just as much a necessity with a TI-30, as it is with a TI-85.
You are explaining why to work on the problem, not why developing a program is important. What value is added by creating the program that cannot be added without it?
Nate Custer
P.S. Sorry to rant again however, this is a very personal issue to me. As a note the majority of the programs one gets are from friends.
As a young geek (17) and a person who loves debates, I think you have got the right idea. You note, correctly that the majority of flaming comes from young people. However, then you go on to claim that it is an issue due to the of loss of territorial dominance.
Using Ocrum's razor could this be more simply explained by the intolerance for lacking and arrogance that is characteristic of teenagers in general.
Your argument could work very well four years ago. However, by now the internet has been easy to get on for the past three to four years, it is less of the case. I did not begin to learn about computers till five years ago. By the time I was competent three years ago going online was a normal thing.
I think the other thing to consider is the ease of response. People respond to flaming quicker than they do to intelligent critique. Teenagers want instant gratification, we are the MTV generation. That is part of what attracts us to computers in the first place.
Knowing what you sacrifice to learn computers and the stigmata that it often carries, one is prone to feel jealous, of those who have not made the same commitments, one has, yet still reap the rewards. This is an affliction that affects all geeks, not just teenagers. Teenagers are just more prone to this behavior.
Finally (the end of this way to long rant) your idea that this behavior is bullying is dead on. Congrats on honest self appraisal something we all struggle with.
Nate Custer
Sorry, the chances that an living object you select will be a cow, is significantly less in the real world then in a barn.
/..
That ought to teach me to not check my analogies closely before I post on
I am a high school senior who took Calc last year. I began with a TI-85, I soon abandoned it for a TI-32 (Scientific). The majority of Calc and above does not focus on how well you can apply a certain formula; but how well you can tell which formula to apply and how to do it. The only thing a calculator is good for is calculating trig, log, and strange exponential functions (x^7/3 etc.).
If you are taking Algebra or Al. II. I have found that all the programmable functions are useful for is playing games. The majority of the games I have found are for the TI series so that is what I would recommend.
Are you really going to spend that much time writing your own programs? It will usually take more time to develop a program to automate the solution, then you would learning do it by yourself. Thus spend the $30 on a TI-30 and spend the rest on a memory upgrade, a Linux book, or some other tool to better yourself in the long run, not some way to cheat and save ten seconds.
Nate Custer
"Even though there is new Linux certification it's not as highly respected as that of MSCE."
But why is the MSCE so highly respected? Not just because it comes from Microsoft, but also because it has been around for a while and obviously big corporations believe that it means they will get good people. Perception is reality folks.
I have worked with two MSCEs. One was both an MSCE and a MCD - he was brilliant. The other had just gone to a bunch of classes and had no real-world experience, he sucked. He was convinced that reboot was the fix to everything.
Going to a MSCE course and then passing the test no more makes you a good Admin, then being in a barn makes you a good cow. However, to extend the analogy you have a better chance to find a cow in a barn then in the population of earth as a whole.
Give the Linux cert. some time. It could become a very good thing. However, no amount of book learning can be a substitute for real world practice. Why not make some time in the real-world be a qualifier for a second enhanced cert.? A couple of good recommendations and a resume should serve as a substitute.
Nate Custer
As a high school student now, I think a apprenticeship section would be great. I have spend the past three summers programming in VBA because that is the jobs I could get. I am beginning to gain experience with Linux, however the best way to learn is to have a network to practice on. Ever tried to learn NFS with a standalone machine. It is not easy.
I have found the HOWTO's to be a great help. Thanks to all who maintain them. However, as many are quick to point out there is nothing like experience. An Intern or Apprenticeship section for people to gain experience would be great. I would love to get a job as such.
If you have installfests to help newbies, why not an Internship program? I work at a lot less then the normal Admin, am willing to work crazy hours, and spend a lot more time learning my craft then many of the Admins I have met. I get good experience, my employer gets cheap labor. Who losses?
My LUG is great but, I want hands on experience before I tell an employer I can be his primary Admin. For a Admin department who needs some help but doesn't have a great deal of cash, I'm perfect.
I recently read a thread that complained about how Admins were responsible for most of the security wholes, why not educate them.
Have a take a geek to work week or something. If you want to convince Admins to use Linux, train them when they are young. Linux's price and idealism are most congruent with a young and idyllic kid.
That's just my $.02.
Nate Custer
Top ten teachers of the mil. sure, however when compared to Decartes, Erdos, Godel, and Euler. He just doesn't stack up.
About time Godel was added to the list.
How about Paul Erdos? He never even had a girlfriend, Math was his only thing in his life. Besides his idea of the SF is so damm cool.
Nate
"You can't patent a finger, but you can patent a process that will create fingers."
More than that, you can also patent the knowledge of how a gene works. You cannot patent AATTCG, however if you find, that string means this protein is built you can secure the rights to use that knowledge.
If I spend $50,000 to research a target population for a politician, No one here would claim that I have to release this information to the public, at least I hope not.
Patents by their nature, are designed to get me to release this information. And to protect my investment, if I do. This is what it is designed to do.
That being said I do think that this is a good case for eminent domain.
Nate Custer
"Genes are a natural resource. They are a natural resource for building life. Humans did not invent them, so how can a human have a right to patent it?"
But if you invent a new ceramic material you can patent it, if you find some gene that in a certain combination can prevent diabetes why can't you patent that?
If company A does the research and finds this marvelous combination, shouldn't they benefit from it? If you can't offer them the rewards for their time, why should they research in the first place.
No company should be able to lock up genetic material forever, but how about have the government provide it a reward for each patent, there is precedent for giving the government resources they need (land for roads, etc.).
Nate Custer
Right on. Star Wars' popularity has nothing to do with the merits of the movie, but instead with the merits of the event. On a deeper note why is Star Wars an event?
Because it means something to the geeks who write this now. It has meaning as a reminder of the memory of the original Star Wars movies. You remember the fantasies you created in your mind, the challenge of figuring all of Yoda's subtleties out, the amazement at the special effects, the simplicity of the story that allowed you to understand it, and the millions of pieces of merchandise that your parents bought for you.
Why does this remembrance have such an influence on the geek community?
Because fundamentally geeks are big kids. They live among other things to satisfy their curiosity, they can be so obsessed by their ideas that they lose track of their lives, they don't mind staying up till 1:30 to write of Slashdot. They live their lives balancing adult life and child desires, and when they can remember when life was without this stress they enjoy it greatly. And all to often obsess over it. Star Wars is no more of a cultural icon then Rocky Horror Picture Show, yet both have devout followings. For the same reasons.
Is Star Wars valid for Slashdot? The answer lies in the basic identity of Slashdot, is it a cultural center on the internet, or a technical discussion board? If it is the first, it fits perfectly if only the second it should not have been posted here.
Nate
P.S. TPM was not *that* bad, even with Jar Jar.
While the movie had some obvious Christian archetypal images. It missed the chance to make a much more interesting epistemological points.
The dream motif could have been played with more to stretch the questions out of what real is. If the goal was truly to start epistemological points, it may have even used the archetypes if that was needed to make the point more effectively.
Read Decartes' meditations for a much better and more interesting discussion of what reality really is.
"Anyone who cannot understand math is not human" Lazarus Long
P.S. However, the parody does catch what the true goal of the movie was to be as cyber-punk as possible.