I'm not sure I buy this. CS is still one of the best paying degrees out there. Even among engineering degrees, it's high. The only things better that come to mind would be finance (not anymore), law, and medicine. And if $$$ is why women go to college why do so many of them major in psych or English?
One thing that occurred to me on this topic...I know quite a few girls that are fairly nerdy. They like sci fi and graphic novels and video games. But they're not CS types. They major in art or english...the usual stuff. I don't know what keeps them away from Engineering as a career, especially as women are now thriving in areas like Chemistry and Biology.
Well, I think to some extent this DOES happen if not as publicly. I know that the University of Michigan (which had the famous affirmative action supreme court cases a few years back) provided similar benefits to men seeking nursing degrees because they were underrepresented.
I've also heard some murmuring about the lack of men teaching in elementary schools and teaching in general.
What is the deal with this disdain for people trying to earn money? So what if he wrote books that made good blockbusters. There's nothing wrong with that. The world does not consist of writers who are like Steinbeck and worthless hacks, Crichton is one of many pop-fiction writers in the middle. I thought The Lost World was an ok book...not his best, but ok. The movie was awful.
The problem is, you can only deduct the fair market value of your software. Which is likely minimal, especially if it is released under an open source license. The use of something like the GPL as your license substantially devalues holding the actual copyright. How much would you be willing to pay for the copyright assignment on a no-name piece of software that only a few people, or perhaps no one but the charitable organization itself, is using? When you already have full rights to use and distribute the software under the GPL? Probably nothing or close to it.
Down is down, SLA nonwithstanding. All the SLA means is that you may get limited compensation when the service is down. It doesn't get your service up and running one second sooner.
This is true, but an SLA also implies that the provider is taking steps necessary to attempt to comply with the SLA. For example, lets say I run a business running mail servers. I could just take an old desktop, install Linux on it, get an internet connection and start selling accounts. But if I start signing SLAs I'm going to need to take steps to make sure I can meet them. I may need to implement a backup system, ensure I keep a full slate of spare parts on hand for any occurrences of hardware failure, perhaps put together some kind of hot swappable RAID to handle a single failed disk, perhaps invest in multiple internet connections from multiple backbone providers, perhaps figure out a system that is redundant enough that an entire data center could be destroyed without interrupting service. I might hire 24 hour staff to monitor the systems.
It all depends what what level of service I've agreed to provide. I don't think Google really guarantees a particularly high level of service, although one would expect that a system as heavily used as GMail/Google Apps would have pretty effective staff and infrastructure in place anyway.
The problem here is not that they've outsourced an IT function, but that they outsourced it without a service level agreement.
It might be worth it for some companies to accept a bit of downtime in order to have Google handle this for me. If companies really need to guarantee a certain level of uptime then they really ought to be using a contractor or service that contractually provides it. If it is damaging their business rather than just being a really annoying inconvenience then I put at least half the blame on bad management for not having an appropriate contract in place.
I don't think you've got the full understanding. The envelope for a product has to take into account the fact that they need to be able to produce that product in large volumes. There will be many parts that test out as being able to operate at a higher temperature, but perhaps not enough to justify an entire new model of the processor. So to fulfill an order from a single customer for parts rated to a higher temp, all they have to do is set aside some chips that exceed the standard product specs. These parts always exist, you just never have any idea if you've got one or not. Google apparently had the clout to basically get a special processor model available just to them.
The Peace Prize is usually awarded for a recent achievement, or for a lifetime of achievement that is sort of continuing to the present day. If you look at the winners you'll see that they almost always fall into one of these two camps.
As for Arafat, as usual this complaint is provided with no context. I'm not sure how many of the people that raise this issue even know the context, I suspect they just have heard it mentioned and have no idea what the circumstances were. Arafat was awarded the prize jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin after the Oslo Accords were made. It was awarded for a specific and very recent achievement, and while the peace process has not exactly been successful most of the elements in those agreements are still being worked towards. This is the same reason Henry Kissinger won the award, for negotiating peace with Vietnam.
So while you might argue that only really nice people should get the award, the reality is that people that can significantly affect peace in the world are often gigantic assholes. If you refused to recognize them then then you'd be unable to recognize major achievements in peace. Either way has some merit, I don't see anything particularly unreasonable about the path the Peace Prize has taken.
That's a fairly irrelevant distinction. Donations and tuition are all money the college has available to spend, if they didn't use their donations on this they'd maybe be able to charge less for tuition.
But I don't necessarily object to the idea itself. iTouch makes some sense, but an iPhone costs a fucking fortune for service, students presented with the choice may not have time to think through all the ins and outs of this plan and find themselves paying another $1k...
Well up till now the Blackberry limited the types of data you could use somewhat, just based on what the devices could do. Whereas the iPhone and some others are very general platforms.
Another reason SMS is nice other than being cheaper than data, is that it is a push service. On my phone exchange email from my work account is pushed to the phone, but my gmail account only synchronizes when I unlock the phone to do something with it (and therefore wake up more of the OS). So SMS has the advantage of alerting me right away for personal messages.
Another reason is that I don't need to know my friend's carrier to append the right gateway domain when I message them. I've heard there are some free generic domains that will then forward to the correct carrier domain, but I don't know how reliable they are. The point is that SMS does a fairly narrow task and does it very well.
Up till now it worked well in some way. For example, at my airline's website I can click a button on my reservation to ask for SMS updates on departure time and gate locations.
It doesn't cost them anything except a bit of engineering work to set up the system, since I pay to receive the message. Now if they have to pay to send it as well, are they going to continue to offer this service? Many airlines don't offer it now, will any spend money on this if it costs them a fee as well?
There are pros and cons to every combination of who is an isn't charged for these kinds of things.
Nonsense. If you look at the statistics, you'll find that there are plenty of fatal accidents in which the vehicles were going at a high rate of speed. It isn't security theater if it would be effective.
The fallacy is assuming this is being treated as a "solution" to accidents. Of course it isn't. It should help in a few percent of cases though, and that's how vehicle safety has improved over the years. A few percent from the seatbelts, a few percent from the airbags, a few percent from better structural protection in the door, a few percent from better structural protection in the A pillar, a few percent from safer gas tanks, from using tempered glass, from engineering better crumple zones, from better designed head rests, etc, etc. It adds up...vehicle safety is incremental.
I've lived in a place where you didn't really need to get on the freeway, although it could be faster. Most kids weren't allowed to drive on the freeway for a couple of years.
Where I live now I"m not even sure how you could get around without using freeways. They're integral to the city...so I imagine it varies quite a bit depending on locale.
Then slow the fuck down for 20 seconds and let the guy go ahead of you. If you pass him and he's so aggressive, he'll be on your tail before you know it. Let him go by instead of escalating the situation by driving more aggressively than him.
This is a very naive point of view. It's well known that judgement in driving takes a few years to develop. This is why insurance companies usually ask when you got your driver's license regardless of your age. No one starts out as an excellent driver, and most people start out vastly overconfident in their skills because they still have never encountered a variety of unusual situations.
Over the past 10 years or so graduated licensing programs have been implemented in most states for just this reason...limiting night driving, etc.
I think it's fair to say that curbing reckless driving is probably going to save lives. I've driven faster than 80 before but I can't think of a situation where I've ever needed to do that. In fact, if there is some kind of emergency situation it is almost always better to slow down instead of gaining as much speed as possible before you crash.
Seems to me like what you're saying is the same as HIV doesn't kill you, the secondary effects of chronic infection from HIV kill you. That's not a reason to stop trying to prevent HIV infection.
As for Gardasil, it is only recommended for pre-pubescent girls and the FDA rejected a request to expand usage to women in their teens and 20s.
If people want to gripe about Arafat getting it, they might at least not distort what actually happened to make their political point. The award was jointly given to Arafat, Simon Peres, and Yitzak Rabin. The Peace Prize is given typically to a very recent accomplishment so unfortunately by its nature sometimes things that look like they're successful steps toward peace turn out not to be so. Though really they're still trying to implement those agreements, just not very successfully...
This is the problem with many open source advocates....you have it all exactly backwards.
Business manager's instinctive reach for the mainstream or for the "cool" (whichever it might have been) is not a good technical reason for inducing an earthquake in the code base. They have to have more than that, or all the "acceptance" available in business circles really is not good enough reason for this kind of decision.
They're paying a lot of money to fund development of this project...not for fun, but because they think it will be useful. If Squeak is a barrier preventing the target audience from using it then it sure as hell is a good enough business reason to switch to Java. There's nothing wrong with an OSS project being mainstream...that is usually the point when people are actually funding it!
When you let marketing determine the technical directions, you're doing the exact thing that most typically kills projects, and it is exactly what a lot of funding at an inappropriate time tends to do.
Marketing should be determining the requirements of the product. That is one of marketing's primary responsibilities. Usually this means features, but if it is something that users will need to do some coding for their particular use then the language may be a part of it.
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I'm not sure I buy this. CS is still one of the best paying degrees out there. Even among engineering degrees, it's high. The only things better that come to mind would be finance (not anymore), law, and medicine. And if $$$ is why women go to college why do so many of them major in psych or English?
One thing that occurred to me on this topic...I know quite a few girls that are fairly nerdy. They like sci fi and graphic novels and video games. But they're not CS types. They major in art or english...the usual stuff. I don't know what keeps them away from Engineering as a career, especially as women are now thriving in areas like Chemistry and Biology.
Well, I think to some extent this DOES happen if not as publicly. I know that the University of Michigan (which had the famous affirmative action supreme court cases a few years back) provided similar benefits to men seeking nursing degrees because they were underrepresented.
I've also heard some murmuring about the lack of men teaching in elementary schools and teaching in general.
*whoosh*
What is the deal with this disdain for people trying to earn money? So what if he wrote books that made good blockbusters. There's nothing wrong with that. The world does not consist of writers who are like Steinbeck and worthless hacks, Crichton is one of many pop-fiction writers in the middle. I thought The Lost World was an ok book...not his best, but ok. The movie was awful.
The problem is, you can only deduct the fair market value of your software. Which is likely minimal, especially if it is released under an open source license. The use of something like the GPL as your license substantially devalues holding the actual copyright. How much would you be willing to pay for the copyright assignment on a no-name piece of software that only a few people, or perhaps no one but the charitable organization itself, is using? When you already have full rights to use and distribute the software under the GPL? Probably nothing or close to it.
Down is down, SLA nonwithstanding. All the SLA means is that you may get limited compensation when the service is down. It doesn't get your service up and running one second sooner.
This is true, but an SLA also implies that the provider is taking steps necessary to attempt to comply with the SLA. For example, lets say I run a business running mail servers. I could just take an old desktop, install Linux on it, get an internet connection and start selling accounts. But if I start signing SLAs I'm going to need to take steps to make sure I can meet them. I may need to implement a backup system, ensure I keep a full slate of spare parts on hand for any occurrences of hardware failure, perhaps put together some kind of hot swappable RAID to handle a single failed disk, perhaps invest in multiple internet connections from multiple backbone providers, perhaps figure out a system that is redundant enough that an entire data center could be destroyed without interrupting service. I might hire 24 hour staff to monitor the systems.
It all depends what what level of service I've agreed to provide. I don't think Google really guarantees a particularly high level of service, although one would expect that a system as heavily used as GMail/Google Apps would have pretty effective staff and infrastructure in place anyway.
The problem here is not that they've outsourced an IT function, but that they outsourced it without a service level agreement.
It might be worth it for some companies to accept a bit of downtime in order to have Google handle this for me. If companies really need to guarantee a certain level of uptime then they really ought to be using a contractor or service that contractually provides it. If it is damaging their business rather than just being a really annoying inconvenience then I put at least half the blame on bad management for not having an appropriate contract in place.
I don't think you've got the full understanding. The envelope for a product has to take into account the fact that they need to be able to produce that product in large volumes. There will be many parts that test out as being able to operate at a higher temperature, but perhaps not enough to justify an entire new model of the processor. So to fulfill an order from a single customer for parts rated to a higher temp, all they have to do is set aside some chips that exceed the standard product specs. These parts always exist, you just never have any idea if you've got one or not. Google apparently had the clout to basically get a special processor model available just to them.
The Peace Prize is usually awarded for a recent achievement, or for a lifetime of achievement that is sort of continuing to the present day. If you look at the winners you'll see that they almost always fall into one of these two camps.
As for Arafat, as usual this complaint is provided with no context. I'm not sure how many of the people that raise this issue even know the context, I suspect they just have heard it mentioned and have no idea what the circumstances were. Arafat was awarded the prize jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin after the Oslo Accords were made. It was awarded for a specific and very recent achievement, and while the peace process has not exactly been successful most of the elements in those agreements are still being worked towards. This is the same reason Henry Kissinger won the award, for negotiating peace with Vietnam.
So while you might argue that only really nice people should get the award, the reality is that people that can significantly affect peace in the world are often gigantic assholes. If you refused to recognize them then then you'd be unable to recognize major achievements in peace. Either way has some merit, I don't see anything particularly unreasonable about the path the Peace Prize has taken.
That's a fairly irrelevant distinction. Donations and tuition are all money the college has available to spend, if they didn't use their donations on this they'd maybe be able to charge less for tuition.
But I don't necessarily object to the idea itself. iTouch makes some sense, but an iPhone costs a fucking fortune for service, students presented with the choice may not have time to think through all the ins and outs of this plan and find themselves paying another $1k...
Ahh, I thought you were referring to the situation where people with existing tracks can pay to upgrade to the DRM free tracks they offer now.
Well up till now the Blackberry limited the types of data you could use somewhat, just based on what the devices could do. Whereas the iPhone and some others are very general platforms.
Another reason SMS is nice other than being cheaper than data, is that it is a push service. On my phone exchange email from my work account is pushed to the phone, but my gmail account only synchronizes when I unlock the phone to do something with it (and therefore wake up more of the OS). So SMS has the advantage of alerting me right away for personal messages.
Another reason is that I don't need to know my friend's carrier to append the right gateway domain when I message them. I've heard there are some free generic domains that will then forward to the correct carrier domain, but I don't know how reliable they are. The point is that SMS does a fairly narrow task and does it very well.
Up till now it worked well in some way. For example, at my airline's website I can click a button on my reservation to ask for SMS updates on departure time and gate locations.
It doesn't cost them anything except a bit of engineering work to set up the system, since I pay to receive the message. Now if they have to pay to send it as well, are they going to continue to offer this service? Many airlines don't offer it now, will any spend money on this if it costs them a fee as well?
There are pros and cons to every combination of who is an isn't charged for these kinds of things.
Apple doesn't really do that, you just get the privilege of paying a discounted price for the non-DRM version of the songs you already own.
I don't much like it, but I have to point out that the searches are not illegal. They're just objectionable.
I agree. That's why I've put a fully stocked bar in my kid's room.
Nonsense. If you look at the statistics, you'll find that there are plenty of fatal accidents in which the vehicles were going at a high rate of speed. It isn't security theater if it would be effective.
The fallacy is assuming this is being treated as a "solution" to accidents. Of course it isn't. It should help in a few percent of cases though, and that's how vehicle safety has improved over the years. A few percent from the seatbelts, a few percent from the airbags, a few percent from better structural protection in the door, a few percent from better structural protection in the A pillar, a few percent from safer gas tanks, from using tempered glass, from engineering better crumple zones, from better designed head rests, etc, etc. It adds up...vehicle safety is incremental.
I've lived in a place where you didn't really need to get on the freeway, although it could be faster. Most kids weren't allowed to drive on the freeway for a couple of years.
Where I live now I"m not even sure how you could get around without using freeways. They're integral to the city...so I imagine it varies quite a bit depending on locale.
Then slow the fuck down for 20 seconds and let the guy go ahead of you. If you pass him and he's so aggressive, he'll be on your tail before you know it. Let him go by instead of escalating the situation by driving more aggressively than him.
This is a very naive point of view. It's well known that judgement in driving takes a few years to develop. This is why insurance companies usually ask when you got your driver's license regardless of your age. No one starts out as an excellent driver, and most people start out vastly overconfident in their skills because they still have never encountered a variety of unusual situations.
Over the past 10 years or so graduated licensing programs have been implemented in most states for just this reason...limiting night driving, etc.
I think it's fair to say that curbing reckless driving is probably going to save lives. I've driven faster than 80 before but I can't think of a situation where I've ever needed to do that. In fact, if there is some kind of emergency situation it is almost always better to slow down instead of gaining as much speed as possible before you crash.
If you base you business on a free API without a contract, tough shit. Real businesses don't make elementary mistakes like that.
Seems to me like what you're saying is the same as HIV doesn't kill you, the secondary effects of chronic infection from HIV kill you. That's not a reason to stop trying to prevent HIV infection.
As for Gardasil, it is only recommended for pre-pubescent girls and the FDA rejected a request to expand usage to women in their teens and 20s.
If people want to gripe about Arafat getting it, they might at least not distort what actually happened to make their political point. The award was jointly given to Arafat, Simon Peres, and Yitzak Rabin. The Peace Prize is given typically to a very recent accomplishment so unfortunately by its nature sometimes things that look like they're successful steps toward peace turn out not to be so. Though really they're still trying to implement those agreements, just not very successfully...
This is the problem with many open source advocates....you have it all exactly backwards.
Business manager's instinctive reach for the mainstream or for the "cool" (whichever it might have been) is not a good technical reason for inducing an earthquake in the code base. They have to have more than that, or all the "acceptance" available in business circles really is not good enough reason for this kind of decision.
They're paying a lot of money to fund development of this project...not for fun, but because they think it will be useful. If Squeak is a barrier preventing the target audience from using it then it sure as hell is a good enough business reason to switch to Java. There's nothing wrong with an OSS project being mainstream...that is usually the point when people are actually funding it!
When you let marketing determine the technical directions, you're doing the exact thing that most typically kills projects, and it is exactly what a lot of funding at an inappropriate time tends to do.
Marketing should be determining the requirements of the product. That is one of marketing's primary responsibilities. Usually this means features, but if it is something that users will need to do some coding for their particular use then the language may be a part of it.
Exactly. A professional will sit down and take the bad players money while comforting them on their "bad luck."