Hooray for exploding dog! Hooray for NYCART! However, I must lament that it has gone down hill in the past few months. The artist hurt his arm, didn't post for about 2 weeks, and then realized that there was a whole world outside of his computer (read: he got laid). A few of us could learn from his example...
Forgive if someone else already posted this... But I just bought an HP printer, and they have the fabulous service... where you can subscribe to a newspaper, and it will go online, download what data it needs, and it will print you out a newspaper on you printer!! Now, call me crazy (crazy) but this sounds like the one of the stupidest uses of modern technology... I mean at first it sounds kinda cool, but how is this at all useful?! Now that most of the world has a flat rate ISP it doesn't MATTER that it only stays online for 5 minutes, instead of the 10 it would take you to read it.
And even if you DO pay by the minute (let's say yr paying for a 1-800 ISP dial up, and they charge you by the minute) the cost of printer ink will far surpass your ISP charge! *(only if they print it out in color... but they DO force you to print out all the pictures and don't allow for much customization...) Never mind that on a desk jet the time spent printing out all your news would take a half hour...
WhatI'm trying to get at, is that at first this seems like a cool usage of technology- but it's modernizing a system (the newspaper) that doesn't need it. This newspaper idea, along with the TV-PRinter, is like the Japanese Un-useless inventions That you can find irght here
Hp should stick to making the printers, and not try at guessing uses for them.
Anyone ever heard of Stereolab? Prolly not, they don't get played on the radio too much. But they have a rabid following and are enormous fans of the fat analog sound. They use Moog's of all shapes and sizes, farfisas, and just about anything else they can get thier hands on. And it's all Brilliant. Influenced by punk, bossanova, 50's space age lounge ( Esquivel), and modern day dance music (jungle/tech-step, trip hop, disco-house) they are what is RIGHT with music today. OH yeah, and their songs get used to sell cars too... (but that's another story)
To blame an INSTRUMENT, a piece of technology for the downfall of modern music is as ignorant as it is ridiculous. All technology can do is bring more power into the hands of individuals. It is up to those individuals whether or not they decide to innovate and pursue art or just mimic everyone else in the quest for the almighty dollar/rupie/pound sterling/lire/yen/etc.
To further calrify, here is a link for the FAMOUS TB-303, a hack if ever there was one. This crappy analog bass synth, when tweaked in just the right way, came up with sounds that couldn't be fit into any preconceived notion of music. It opened doors. IT didn't lead us to Britanny Spears... OTHER HUMANS did.
Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat both involve considerable violence in the sense that the player typically spends a considerable amount of time destroying other creatures.... Of the 911 game classifications made by the participants, 21% were in the fighting category. However, a number of classifications of clearly violent/aggressive games were to one of the other categories. For instance, one person who listed Mortal Kombat as a favorite game classified it as a "sports" game. If these suspect classifications are added to the fighting category, the percentage of violent/aggressive games jumped to almost 33%. If Super Mario Brothers is counted as an aggressive game (even when the participant put it in another category), the percentage jumps to 44%. Uhm, WHAT?! And who says TETRIS isn't an aggressive game?! (you should see the way I play SCRABBLE!)
And of course one must consider the age range we are looking at- Young males at the peak of thier testosterone levels. And I believe there is more than just a causal link between aggression and testosterone. So to say "Hey, look! Young males are aggressive!" is about as revealing as saying "Anyone who thinks Super Mario Brothers is a violent game needs to have their head checked"... it's a no brainer!
In MY (imaginary) world of course the onus is on the user, however in most of the world it never plays out that way, thus the propensity for preventative law making. I think the governments view is that basically people are like lemmings and can't be trusted to make their own decisions... how about the electoral college? (Which, if memory of US gov't serves correct (and it rarely does) was put in place to stop a "rouge", with enough charisma to fool the people, from being elected...) "I thought IBM was born with the world..." Stereolab
I bought that book from PTF... with a $10 discount from amazon... The install was simple and easy on my 7200. The book is pretty straightforward, too. Especially for anyone who plans on doing any kernel hacking/device driver writing. I give it a thumbs up.
Not only that, but what about the article regarding the jamming of GPS? Let's make our troops dependent upon easily corruptible information that can, quite possibly, be spoofed and make them shoot at themselves.
That's kinda funny, the US army beaten by a couple of Uber-geeks from sweden with long hair, tee shirts and an understanding of E&M and computers...
"I thought IBM was born with the word..." Stereloab
As of right now, this is just another example of a neat-o hack; kinda like using an oscilloscope to play video games. You have some lab tools and a bored mind and you have a cute parlor trick!
Regarding some of the issues it brings up: Stochastic processes as better? Maybe I'm out of the loop, but once I read this article I said "the factor that limits the usefulness of this is that it's stochastic! I don't want probabilities that my "computer" MIGHT compute, I want to compute!"
regarding it being Massively parallel; yes it is, but up to a point: there is no inter-processor communication. And not all problems can be broken down into 27000 linear problems that are completely independent. however in the case where a problem can be broken down into 27,000 problems that are all independent, then that's where this takes off! Once you can encode your data in DNA format, you have these special purpose "processors" (enzymes) where all they do is find data to manipulate, and do so. However given the current set up, it's like computing in the old days: get your program together, submit it to the computer people, they processes it over a couple of days and hand you the results back. So my score: Useful? No. Interesting? Yes.
Actually, I think the think with "chick"- is a positive reclamation of a negative name; like how gays have taken back "faggot" and how black people (Well, mostly hip-hop heads, but that's neither here nor there) have taken back the word "nigger".
some of these women appear to embrace a new political value system. They are post-feminists who take their equality for granted and don't make it a central issue in their online lives.
Excuse me?! If they are REALLY "post-feminists" who take their equality for granted and don't make it a central issue, then why are they forming all-girl sites and talk about making it an issue?! And when did complete equality happen in the world? While I was sleeping??
Aside from these very obvious pick-a-part rants, I think this statement is a little over-obvious, and something that has been batted around for ages. Due to the 'facelesness' of the internet, people are not only free from culturally defined gender roles, but they are free to explore themselves... and given the free-form nature of the web/net (whatever it's called these days) people are gonna find something that speaks to them, find other people with the same interests, and form communities. But this is all old news... it was old news when I took that "Rhetoric of New Media" class 4 years ago! Now how does labeling them as "chick-clickers" (a moniker STEEPED in gender) help empower/liberate? Just say no to buzz-words. On a side note: My fiance, who was an international relations major and is about to start law school after working with mutual funds, is one of these self actualized post feminist warriors of the new economy/bleeding edge technology front (as it were); she networked with people who were also applying to law school (to compare lsat statistics, to time acceptance letters, etc.), does 90% of her clothes shopping on line (What better dressing room than your bedroom?), and gets her news from the washington post online, www.obscurestore.com, and The Onion (america's finest news source). And if you called her a chick-clicker she'd slit your face. Word up, murder!
The areas that should be concentrated on to avoid such a "Frankenstein Conquers The World*" problem would be ethics, realistic assesment of the drawbacks of any scientific/technological advances, etc.
I guess the idea is that if you are standing on the threshold of what is obviously the next level of human existence, don't be so consumed by greed. For example, the great Von Neumann (when confronted with the greed of his compatriots**) published papers on EDVAC... there-by preventing anyone from having a patent on the computer (can any of you imagine what would have happened if one company, say IBM owned all of the computers, all of them?) That's why Open-source is the only way for humanity to profit! So the recap: Don't just do it for the cash, do it for the greater good of the world.
*- Anyone ever heard of that hysterical song? **- in my studies of computer architecture It was presented to me that Mauchly and Eckert were in it for the money (which they eventually made)
Hey good point! And waht if it enabled your child to win a prize to go to the moon? And what if the sky was green?/sarcasm
It is not as simple as saying "look at the PONTENTIAL (not *proven*) benefits!" Fine, it may have the potential to save but it puts power in the hands of your childs peers, which is bad for two reasons. Despite the fact that some people say 'no one knows you better than your peers', in this case your peers don't even know themselves very well, so they are in no position to judge. A counsellor has not only gone through it when they were young, but also has probably analyzed it so much that they can tell when it's just something a child has to work out or if it's time to break out the emergency lithium syringe.
Secondly, competition runs rampant in high school between groups and individuals, so the 'motive' for abuse is everywhere. Also, we're talking about TEENAGERS, one of the most fickle and least trustworthy age groupings of all time!
Depression and confusion are an important part of growing up. It's hard to go through, but it is character building; there's something solidifying about "surviving" high school. I went through my phases, I was all over the map, and now I've settled into a well-balanced, emotionally stable (and devilishly handsome;) individual... and being able to work out my depression and wierdness was just what I needed.
Now, had I been approached by "authority" figures who were operating on a hint from one of my classmates, and I was then put into some program or put on some medication, I would have harbored resentment and rage for years to come. What happens to a child in that situation? Would they get over it? Learn to hate the system and become criminals?
And when you get right down to it, I gotta give credit to Morrissey for asking "Is it wrong not to always feel glad?" Depression happens...prozac is NOT always the answer.
I maybe let out a titter the first time I saw MYASS, but now it's been around the block so many times whenever I see an email/post about MYASS my response is: I KNOW WHAT'S COMING NEXT.
big up ya' chest to all of those who replied "you have no idea what 'real time system' means, do you?"
It's not speed/bandwith, its about predictable worst-case latency. BUT its also about the ability to have a fully interruptable OS- I mean the 'basic' definition of a 'real-time system' is a system that can make resources available when they're needed. And what kind of system are you using this for; do you have hard or soft deadlines?
Yeah, but THAT is not the advantage of a super computer. The reason why yr spending a two orders of magnitude more in dollars, is for the CPU interconnects! Sgi has put a lot of time and energy into making sure that when one proc wants some data that's just been crunched on another proc, it'll get to where it needs to be, FAST. You don't want to get hosed on the context switch.
Damn, that even beats out CAMNEERG, the web serving mac plus! (At least camneerg has the added "feature" of displaying everything backwards, thus the name).
Sorry to complain, but this sort of debate has been going on forever- people thought that the powers of radiation were going to either A) make it possible for the lone MAD SCIENTIST to destroy the entire world, or B) it would lead to a new era of peace and prosperity and we'd all be living in the WHITE CITY ON THE HILL.
"Hey mekka, why all caps?" Becuase those are two images that have been culturally ingrained since the dawn of time... any history of science class worth it's weight in silicon introduces this in the first week of class. I'll draw the pattern out for you. 1-> new invention. 2a-> doomsayers predict it will destroy us 2b-> optimists predict it will liberate us 3-> reality is that with new progresses we have new responsibilities. By virtue of their being more to gain we also have more to lose. Automobiles get us there faster, but if not operated properly they can be dangerous and they can kill is. Repeat this example ad infinitum and that's that.
It's a lot more concise than 11 pages. But I will admit, I am making an assumption that people who invent/create do try to think about the social implications.
p.s.- searle's "chinese room" argument can be torn to shreds by any sophomore/junior philosophy major in a matter of seconds.
I don't necessarily agree with you on that one Many of my fellow engineering students went to college simply becuase it's de rigeur- everybody's doing it. So they slack off, they work a little(but not as hard as they could), they copy their homework assignments and they ride the curve towards getting a C (heck, maybe even a B- if they cram for the exams, and then shortly after they forget all that they learned).
where as someone who had to motivate themselves to learn on line might be in a better position- there was no "social momentum" to learn, they supplied it all by themselves.
just becuase someone went to college doesn't mean ANYTHING. What matters is how committed they are.
How do we know that the students aren't also learning C or C++?:) but seriously, I agree with you on the possible "dangers" than can be introduced with Perl as a first language, however if you view it as simply a powerful scripting language, it makes a bit more sense- if you can't do some shell scripting, you don't know how to use UNIX. Besides, they're still young, so it's easier to re-learn how to think about coding.
And considering that in my high school my four years of computer training amounted to learning how to type, learning how to use a cheap spread sheet, a cheap word processor, and then Lotus 123 and Word, I would have KILLED for a real programming class.
Another potential issue: There is one copy of a schedule, and everyone is (unwittingly) 'linked' to it- so what if I change the schedule? Is only my copy changed? that's no good, becuase I want everyone to see my changes. and how does the OS (given the server environment) deal with concurrent writes to the file?
The potential fallout from this feature leaves me way too scared to consider this "an improvement".
I hate when "new innovations" get in the way of my ability to be productive.
I have to disagree with the breadth of your statement. Sure, nothing teaches better than experience, but sometimes it takes a different set of eyes to help you see outside the "box" that you're in.
So if I write 40 programs that use an insane amount of nested loops and goto's, then that's better than two programs using a switch case statement?
or how about a more realistic example- I work really hard on my code, and I try to cut it down to the point where it's only 17 lines... but it is also the most inefficient use of the processor; I pass large structures by value (multiple times), I make the code jump around a lot (losing any points for locality), etc. etc. (think that's so unreasonable? You should have seen my comp-sci major friends! Their code had a complete disregard for the processor underneath)
My point is that experience can take you far, but sometimes you need a smack to the head from an outside source.
I lived off campus my junior year (after having a T1 my sophomore year) and then senior year, I moved back on campus. Why? Climate controlled (I was tired of freezing my ass of becuase the landlord didn't think it would be so cold in october) and becuase of the T1. And with more and more classes moving on-line it's the only thing that made sense! For example: I took a philosophy class and a history of science class- ahd much of the reading was available on-line from the libraries web site (you had to excuse the occaisional OCR glitch). It also makes doing reasearch a snap. For my Microwaves and Highspeed circuits class, I wanted to do a paper on micro strip technology- however the library had very little detail on it. But I found a PhD who had his thesis on microstrip online. It's not just about being a geek and spending your saturday nights surfing the web: it's about high speed access being ubiquitous and improving your life- e-mail is a very social thing and it's how we used to plan big group get togethers. It's to the point where people (yes, lliberal arts majors as well) don't want to go to your pad if you don't have fast access, and if you do have fast access "oh, can I check my e-mail from your machine?" My now fiance, when she came back from spending a year abroad in spain, didn't really know any body anymore, and wanted to go out on a thursday night. She sent me an e-mail (she remembered me from freshman year). I replied back and gave her my cell phone number. She called me in the middle of a capella practice. And now, I'm engaged. Modern communication technology has VASTLY improved my life! Don't knock it 'till ya try it!
Slashdot Mirror
Hooray for exploding dog! Hooray for NYCART! However, I must lament that it has gone down hill in the past few months. The artist hurt his arm, didn't post for about 2 weeks, and then realized that there was a whole world outside of his computer (read: he got laid).
A few of us could learn from his example...
However most of the early stuff is BRILLIANT... I recommend ALL of the robot series Robot eating hair, the AWESOME Smoking Changed my life and my ALL TIME fav-(Depsite being a non-robot picture) Jesus! We're all on speed!
Also check out Narbotic.com and Dumbrella.
Forgive if someone else already posted this... But I just bought an HP printer, and they have the fabulous service... where you can subscribe to a newspaper, and it will go online, download what data it needs, and it will print you out a newspaper on you printer!! Now, call me crazy (crazy) but this sounds like the one of the stupidest uses of modern technology... I mean at first it sounds kinda cool, but how is this at all useful?! Now that most of the world has a flat rate ISP it doesn't MATTER that it only stays online for 5 minutes, instead of the 10 it would take you to read it.
And even if you DO pay by the minute (let's say yr paying for a 1-800 ISP dial up, and they charge you by the minute) the cost of printer ink will far surpass your ISP charge! *(only if they print it out in color... but they DO force you to print out all the pictures and don't allow for much customization...) Never mind that on a desk jet the time spent printing out all your news would take a half hour...
WhatI'm trying to get at, is that at first this seems like a cool usage of technology- but it's modernizing a system (the newspaper) that doesn't need it. This newspaper idea, along with the TV-PRinter, is like the Japanese Un-useless inventions That you can find irght here
Hp should stick to making the printers, and not try at guessing uses for them.
Anyone ever heard of Stereolab? Prolly not, they don't get played on the radio too much. But they have a rabid following and are enormous fans of the fat analog sound. They use Moog's of all shapes and sizes, farfisas, and just about anything else they can get thier hands on. And it's all Brilliant. Influenced by punk, bossanova, 50's space age lounge ( Esquivel), and modern day dance music (jungle/tech-step, trip hop, disco-house) they are what is RIGHT with music today. OH yeah, and their songs get used to sell cars too... (but that's another story)
To blame an INSTRUMENT, a piece of technology for the downfall of modern music is as ignorant as it is ridiculous. All technology can do is bring more power into the hands of individuals. It is up to those individuals whether or not they decide to innovate and pursue art or just mimic everyone else in the quest for the almighty dollar/rupie/pound sterling/lire/yen/etc. To further calrify, here is a link for the FAMOUS TB-303, a hack if ever there was one. This crappy analog bass synth, when tweaked in just the right way, came up with sounds that couldn't be fit into any preconceived notion of music. It opened doors. IT didn't lead us to Britanny Spears... OTHER HUMANS did.
Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat both involve considerable violence in the sense that the player typically spends a considerable amount of time destroying other creatures. ... Of the 911 game classifications made by the participants, 21% were in the fighting category. However, a number of classifications of clearly violent/aggressive games were to one of the other categories. For instance, one person who listed Mortal Kombat as a favorite game classified it as a "sports" game. If these suspect classifications are added to the fighting category, the percentage of violent/aggressive games jumped to almost 33%. If Super Mario Brothers is counted as an aggressive game (even when the participant put it in another category), the percentage jumps to 44%.
Uhm, WHAT?! And who says TETRIS isn't an aggressive game?! (you should see the way I play SCRABBLE!)
And of course one must consider the age range we are looking at- Young males at the peak of thier testosterone levels. And I believe there is more than just a causal link between aggression and testosterone. So to say "Hey, look! Young males are aggressive!" is about as revealing as saying "Anyone who thinks Super Mario Brothers is a violent game needs to have their head checked"... it's a no brainer!
In MY (imaginary) world of course the onus is on the user, however in most of the world it never plays out that way, thus the propensity for preventative law making. I think the governments view is that basically people are like lemmings and can't be trusted to make their own decisions... how about the electoral college? (Which, if memory of US gov't serves correct (and it rarely does) was put in place to stop a "rouge", with enough charisma to fool the people, from being elected...) "I thought IBM was born with the world..." Stereolab
I bought that book from PTF... with a $10 discount from amazon... The install was simple and easy on my 7200. The book is pretty straightforward, too. Especially for anyone who plans on doing any kernel hacking/device driver writing. I give it a thumbs up.
Not only that, but what about the article regarding the jamming of GPS? Let's make our troops dependent upon easily corruptible information that can, quite possibly, be spoofed and make them shoot at themselves.
That's kinda funny, the US army beaten by a couple of Uber-geeks from sweden with long hair, tee shirts and an understanding of E&M and computers...
"I thought IBM was born with the word..." Stereloab
As of right now, this is just another example of a neat-o hack; kinda like using an oscilloscope to play video games. You have some lab tools and a bored mind and you have a cute parlor trick!
Regarding some of the issues it brings up:
Stochastic processes as better? Maybe I'm out of the loop, but once I read this article I said "the factor that limits the usefulness of this is that it's stochastic! I don't want probabilities that my "computer" MIGHT compute, I want to compute!"
regarding it being Massively parallel; yes it is, but up to a point: there is no inter-processor communication. And not all problems can be broken down into 27000 linear problems that are completely independent. however in the case where a problem can be broken down into 27,000 problems that are all independent, then that's where this takes off! Once you can encode your data in DNA format, you have these special purpose "processors" (enzymes) where all they do is find data to manipulate, and do so. However given the current set up, it's like computing in the old days: get your program together, submit it to the computer people, they processes it over a couple of days and hand you the results back.
So my score: Useful? No. Interesting? Yes.
Actually, I think the think with "chick"- is a positive reclamation of a negative name; like how gays have taken back "faggot" and how black people (Well, mostly hip-hop heads, but that's neither here nor there) have taken back the word "nigger".
Viva La revolution!
some of these women appear to embrace a new political value system. They are post-feminists who take their equality for granted and don't make it a central issue in their online lives.
Excuse me?! If they are REALLY "post-feminists" who take their equality for granted and don't make it a central issue, then why are they forming all-girl sites and talk about making it an issue?!
And when did complete equality happen in the world? While I was sleeping??
Aside from these very obvious pick-a-part rants, I think this statement is a little over-obvious, and something that has been batted around for ages. Due to the 'facelesness' of the internet, people are not only free from culturally defined gender roles, but they are free to explore themselves... and given the free-form nature of the web/net (whatever it's called these days) people are gonna find something that speaks to them, find other people with the same interests, and form communities. But this is all old news... it was old news when I took that "Rhetoric of New Media" class 4 years ago!
Now how does labeling them as "chick-clickers" (a moniker STEEPED in gender) help empower/liberate? Just say no to buzz-words.
On a side note: My fiance, who was an international relations major and is about to start law school after working with mutual funds, is one of these self actualized post feminist warriors of the new economy/bleeding edge technology front (as it were); she networked with people who were also applying to law school (to compare lsat statistics, to time acceptance letters, etc.), does 90% of her clothes shopping on line (What better dressing room than your bedroom?), and gets her news from the washington post online, www.obscurestore.com, and The Onion (america's finest news source). And if you called her a chick-clicker she'd slit your face.
Word up, murder!
Click here to read about the tragedy of the commons
someone gets screwed, we all do.
The areas that should be concentrated on to avoid such a "Frankenstein Conquers The World*" problem would be ethics, realistic assesment of the drawbacks of any scientific/technological advances, etc.
I guess the idea is that if you are standing on the threshold of what is obviously the next level of human existence, don't be so consumed by greed. For example, the great Von Neumann (when confronted with the greed of his compatriots**) published papers on EDVAC... there-by preventing anyone from having a patent on the computer (can any of you imagine what would have happened if one company, say IBM owned all of the computers, all of them?)
That's why Open-source is the only way for humanity to profit!
So the recap: Don't just do it for the cash, do it for the greater good of the world.
*- Anyone ever heard of that hysterical song?
**- in my studies of computer architecture It was presented to me that Mauchly and Eckert were in it for the money (which they eventually made)
Hey good point! And waht if it enabled your child to win a prize to go to the moon? And what if the sky was green? /sarcasm
;) individual... and being able to work out my depression and wierdness was just what I needed.
It is not as simple as saying "look at the PONTENTIAL (not *proven*) benefits!" Fine, it may have the potential to save but it puts power in the hands of your childs peers, which is bad for two reasons. Despite the fact that some people say 'no one knows you better than your peers', in this case your peers don't even know themselves very well, so they are in no position to judge. A counsellor has not only gone through it when they were young, but also has probably analyzed it so much that they can tell when it's just something a child has to work out or if it's time to break out the emergency lithium syringe.
Secondly, competition runs rampant in high school between groups and individuals, so the 'motive' for abuse is everywhere. Also, we're talking about TEENAGERS, one of the most fickle and least trustworthy age groupings of all time!
Depression and confusion are an important part of growing up. It's hard to go through, but it is character building; there's something solidifying about "surviving" high school. I went through my phases, I was all over the map, and now I've settled into a well-balanced, emotionally stable (and devilishly handsome
Now, had I been approached by "authority" figures who were operating on a hint from one of my classmates, and I was then put into some program or put on some medication, I would have harbored resentment and rage for years to come. What happens to a child in that situation? Would they get over it? Learn to hate the system and become criminals?
And when you get right down to it, I gotta give credit to Morrissey for asking "Is it wrong not to always feel glad?"
Depression happens...prozac is NOT always the answer.
I maybe let out a titter the first time I saw MYASS, but now it's been around the block so many times whenever I see an email/post about MYASS my response is: I KNOW WHAT'S COMING NEXT.
big up ya' chest to all of those who replied "you have no idea what 'real time system' means, do you?"
It's not speed/bandwith, its about predictable worst-case latency. BUT its also about the ability to have a fully interruptable OS- I mean the 'basic' definition of a 'real-time system' is a system that can make resources available when they're needed. And what kind of system are you using this for; do you have hard or soft deadlines?
But I'm getting ahead of myself there...
Yeah, but THAT is not the advantage of a super computer. The reason why yr spending a two orders of magnitude more in dollars, is for the CPU interconnects! Sgi has put a lot of time and energy into making sure that when one proc wants some data that's just been crunched on another proc, it'll get to where it needs to be, FAST. You don't want to get hosed on the context switch.
Damn, that even beats out CAMNEERG, the web serving mac plus! (At least camneerg has the added "feature" of displaying everything backwards, thus the name).
Appleseed! A parallel mac cluster for numerically intensive computing.
it's a start!
CLICK!
let's see, the ol' chronometer (aka watch) timed that at 1.5 seconds (the lag is prolly due to your usage of bold).
Don't think I could have said it better.
Sorry to complain, but this sort of debate has been going on forever- people thought that the powers of radiation were going to either A) make it possible for the lone MAD SCIENTIST to destroy the entire world, or B) it would lead to a new era of peace and prosperity and we'd all be living in the WHITE CITY ON THE HILL.
"Hey mekka, why all caps?"
Becuase those are two images that have been culturally ingrained since the dawn of time...
any history of science class worth it's weight in silicon introduces this in the first week of class. I'll draw the pattern out for you. 1-> new invention. 2a-> doomsayers predict it will destroy us 2b-> optimists predict it will liberate us 3-> reality is that with new progresses we have new responsibilities. By virtue of their being more to gain we also have more to lose. Automobiles get us there faster, but if not operated properly they can be dangerous and they can kill is. Repeat this example ad infinitum and that's that.
It's a lot more concise than 11 pages. But I will admit, I am making an assumption that people who invent/create do try to think about the social implications.
p.s.- searle's "chinese room" argument can be torn to shreds by any sophomore/junior philosophy major in a matter of seconds.
I don't necessarily agree with you on that one
Many of my fellow engineering students went to college simply becuase it's de rigeur- everybody's doing it. So they slack off, they work a little(but not as hard as they could), they copy their homework assignments and they ride the curve towards getting a C (heck, maybe even a B- if they cram for the exams, and then shortly after they forget all that they learned).
where as someone who had to motivate themselves to learn on line might be in a better position- there was no "social momentum" to learn, they supplied it all by themselves.
just becuase someone went to college doesn't mean ANYTHING. What matters is how committed they are.
How do we know that the students aren't also learning C or C++? :)
but seriously, I agree with you on the possible "dangers" than can be introduced with Perl as a first language, however if you view it as simply a powerful scripting language, it makes a bit more sense- if you can't do some shell scripting, you don't know how to use UNIX. Besides, they're still young, so it's easier to re-learn how to think about coding.
And considering that in my high school my four years of computer training amounted to learning how to type, learning how to use a cheap spread sheet, a cheap word processor, and then Lotus 123 and Word, I would have KILLED for a real programming class.
Another potential issue:
There is one copy of a schedule, and everyone is (unwittingly) 'linked' to it- so what if I change the schedule? Is only my copy changed? that's no good, becuase I want everyone to see my changes. and how does the OS (given the server environment) deal with concurrent writes to the file?
The potential fallout from this feature leaves me way too scared to consider this "an improvement".
I hate when "new innovations" get in the way of my ability to be productive.
I have to disagree with the breadth of your statement. Sure, nothing teaches better than experience, but sometimes it takes a different set of eyes to help you see outside the "box" that you're in.
.sig files are for the weak.
So if I write 40 programs that use an insane amount of nested loops and goto's, then that's better than two programs using a switch case statement?
or how about a more realistic example- I work really hard on my code, and I try to cut it down to the point where it's only 17 lines... but it is also the most inefficient use of the processor;
I pass large structures by value (multiple times), I make the code jump around a lot (losing any points for locality), etc. etc.
(think that's so unreasonable? You should have seen my comp-sci major friends! Their code had a complete disregard for the processor underneath)
My point is that experience can take you far, but sometimes you need a smack to the head from an outside source.
I lived off campus my junior year (after having a T1 my sophomore year) and then senior year, I moved back on campus. Why? Climate controlled (I was tired of freezing my ass of becuase the landlord didn't think it would be so cold in october) and becuase of the T1. And with more and more classes moving on-line it's the only thing that made sense! For example: I took a philosophy class and a history of science class- ahd much of the reading was available on-line from the libraries web site (you had to excuse the occaisional OCR glitch). It also makes doing reasearch a snap. For my Microwaves and Highspeed circuits class, I wanted to do a paper on micro strip technology- however the library had very little detail on it. But I found a PhD who had his thesis on microstrip online. It's not just about being a geek and spending your saturday nights surfing the web: it's about high speed access being ubiquitous and improving your life- e-mail is a very social thing and it's how we used to plan big group get togethers. It's to the point where people (yes, lliberal arts majors as well) don't want to go to your pad if you don't have fast access, and if you do have fast access "oh, can I check my e-mail from your machine?" My now fiance, when she came back from spending a year abroad in spain, didn't really know any body anymore, and wanted to go out on a thursday night. She sent me an e-mail (she remembered me from freshman year). I replied back and gave her my cell phone number. She called me in the middle of a capella practice. And now, I'm engaged. Modern communication technology has VASTLY improved my life! Don't knock it 'till ya try it!