It'd be interesting to know what those reasons are - I'm still not seeing the incentive here. I note that the Brazilian factory is still owned by Foxconn, so it's not like they're changing manufacturers. I'd expect Foxconn would manufacture them wherever they could build them the cheapest. What advantage does Brazil offer? Still not seeing it....
Well, the Foxconn factory is within the Free Economic Zone of Manaus. The Brazilian government offers various significant tax incentives/exemptions to industries there. Those incentives, coupled with location advantages just might make up for the increase in wages as compared to China, although I don't know enough about it to state that this is a fact.
And after research, I would agree with their "absolutely no chance" of a correctly repositioned flap being moveable again after a week, let alone a year
Not enough research, apparently. Try up to seven years.
Yeah, we can debate the meaning of "correctly repositioned" and due diligence. Also no permanent damage to any of the patients in the study, which is good. Overall low chance of it happening makes for a relatively safe procedure. Still, it's most certainly not "absolutely no chance."
If an object were to have truly no mass it wouldn't be bound by the same speed limits as normal matter.
Actually, according to relativity, objects with mass must travel slower than light and objects with no mass must travel at the speed or light. No more, no less.
And of course, if you're into tachyons, objects with imaginary mass (whatever that physically means) must travel faster than light, and cannot slow down to the speed of light or below.
It's impossible according to current theories. It's not impossible that current theories are wrong, but very highly improbable to be wrong in this way, given the amount of corroboration we have for the speed of light being an absolute limit and for the time-dilation effects, which would cause faster-than-light particles to violate causality.
Nevertheless, the data is the data, and that's why they're publishing it. Somebody else will find a measurement error (most likely) or we'll get exciting new physics (much less likely, but would be pretty awesome).
Many have posted that the instruments were flawed or the scientists made a mistake, but not too long ago scientists were 100% certain that the world was flat too.
Actually, I'd say that was very long ago. Considering Eratosthenes not only knew that the Earth was round, but was able to calculate the circumference to remarkable accuracy way back in ~200 BC. Note that it wasn't him that decided the Earth was round, that was already common knowledge. He figured out the circumference.
Just because scientists currently believe that nothing can go faster than the speed of light doesn't make it so. Our views of the universe are always changing and saying that a result is "impossible", no matter how unlikely the result, is a bit short sided.
That's true, however as many others have pointed out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A single experiment just isn't enough. If we have sufficient confirmation of faster than light effects, scientists will most certainly welcome the result. Unexpected data opens up new opportunities for lots of papers. Scientists live for that, literally. It's what puts food on the table:)
Hypothetical situation: Mom's computer gets infected with a rootkit. On the next reboot, the rootkit attempts to take over and load before key OS comments, so it can't be detected.
What is your answer to making sure this situation can't happen?
Keep the machine patched and educate the users. Keep users in non-admin accounts with limited privileges such that the only vectors of attack are vulnerabilities, not the user.
When that doesn't work, full OS reinstall. Don't try to clean up the OS.
The OS is compromised, so you can't trust the OS. Next best thing is to trust something other than the OS. So now we require the BIOS to be the gate keeper. How does the BIOS determine if something is "trustable"?.... Sign it.
All of this stuff is perfectly logical, unless you completely ignore the root-kit problem at hand. But that's willful ignorance.
You're ignoring the possibility of UEFI security vulnerabilities that would allow a virus infection at that level. UEFI is more complex than BIOS, which leads to more opportunities for vulnerabilities.
I also generally dislike things meant to protect people from themselves. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that mom learns how to use a computer responsibly. She learned how to drive responsibly, we don't put things on cars that prevent people from going off road, assuming that's always a mistake. Sometimes you do want to go off-roading.
It's a bit dark to think about, but perhaps some terminally ill children might opt for euthanasia, and they would be the right age group for this kind of thing.
They're not in a position, legally or morally, to understand what they're doing and give consent to end their lives.
On the one hand, I sympathize with your argument, it rings true. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder if anyone else is in position, morally, to deny them the option (obviously there's no choice legally). Forcing a child to die slowly of something like cancer sounds just as bad, perhaps worse.
Obviously this is just a [stupid] publicity stunt, but most of the people that I know that would (would have) opted for euthanasia were elderly. They wouldn't be the type to board a roller coaster.
Heh...tell that to the over 70 group skydiving at my dropzone.
If you're the type of person that enjoyed roller coasters when you were young, you're the type of person that enjoys them when you're old. I still think this is a horrible idea, but not for the same reason you do. Roller coasters are fun, sustained 10G loops that kill you are not, that's just uncomfortable and painful.
They do need an option that is better than putting a gun to the head.
Man is perfectly acceptable for many applications.
It's absolutely unacceptable, and it's telling that you're so out-of-touch that you think it's okay.
He said acceptable for many applications, not all applications. You don't think man is perfectly acceptable documentation for 'ls', or 'find', or 'grep'? If not, why?
dd if=/path/disk of=/path/disk.iso to copy the information to a different medium. Then run GNU ddrescue. FTFY
Uh, no. That defeats the point of ddrescue.
What ddrescue does is to keep trying to read the same sector over and over again until it gets the data. If you can get it all out using dd, then why use ddrescue?
I remember berating my supervisors as to why we're spending millions on microsoft licences when we could just go opensource, the answer, nobody but in a bid to supply support except for microsoft.
Surprising to say the least, since that's Red Hat's and other distros entire business model. That said, I don't doubt Microsoft and Apple are just better at it. Fair enough points.
What Android needs for me to fully enjoy using it as well as for me to suggest it for other users is to provide the option to treat the device like a potentially public device as does Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. It should not be assumed that the primary owner always has control of the device. It should require loging in for any GMAIL user and the device should not be tied directly to a Google account identity.
No. In fact, HELL NO. The number one convenience that comes with android is the automatically tying in to Google services.
I understand your problem, though. You just have the incorrect solution. What tablets need to do is have multiple user accounts (and include a guest account that doesn't even display apps like gmail or facebook). This way you log out, somebody else logs in, they have their account associated with it. Guest accounts for people who shouldn't be keeping a personal profile on your tablet.
There's so much VB6 software out there, that it's the COBOL of the future
Most COBOL software is extremely complex stuff running on mainframes of banks and insurance companies.
Most VB6 software is something that was coded in 15 minutes to fill a need in a lab computer, or a frontend to some command-line program that isn't written in VB. This is not me looking down upon VB6, that's just what VB6 was designed to do: it's easy to learn and you could get something running on it fast, so that's what people did when they just needed something quick. The result of it is that if somebody needs to fix a VB6 app, it's going to be cheaper to hire a common C# developer to recreate it than to pay COBOL money to VB6 developers. They're not complex beasts that need to be extremely well-understood, zero errors, on a machine that can't afford downtime.
More kids will be using Word and Excel later in life than will be coding--by orders of magnitude.
And if you need a class to show you how to use Word and Excel, your computer education has already failed you. And yes, I do use advanced features of each. I clicked around the menus until I found the stuff I needed.
Which is really the difference between computer literate and computer illiterate people. I show my mother how to do something in Word, and she learns that. I sit her in front of libreoffice and she is completely confused. Because she's looking for the exact same menu option located at the exact same place on the screen. When you teach people how to use a particular piece of software, that's what you're breeding. A programming class is more oriented towards thinking about how to solve problems and debugging code, through some trial and error. Perhaps surprisingly to you, that will actually translate into better Word and Excel users, among other things.
I can stand in the rain, and in a shower, but if I stand in front of a firehose I'm going to go flying. If I stand in steam, I get burnt. If I stand in a shower too long I might get hypothermia, or if I drink too much I might... In this analogy I see plenty of room for uncertainty surrounding conditions of exposure.
That said, they are batshiat crazy, since the Universe is the firehose, and we're standing right in front of it.
You're right. In my defense, I used that analogy only after already stating that the amount of energy contained in the EM field these people are complaining about is far less than the amount of background EM, naturally. I'm not arguing that I can't harm you with EM. I can burn you with high energy microwaves pretty easily, but that's not what these people are saying is happening to them.
I'm not prepared to say we know everything, but clearly there's way more science behind its safety than these people are willing to admit. I'm going to go with hypochondria.
There are some things that I feel are a pretty safe bet until somebody proves to me otherwise. Once I first heard of these people, I thought it was a pretty safe bet (about as safe as it gets, I would bet my life on the odds) that it was hypochondria. Now the results are already in, and there's no more uncertainty about it, at all. There have been plenty of studies that prove these people can't tell when a device they complain about is on or off.
I'm not talking about generic safety of the things. However, these people do NOT get headaches and tingly feelings as a result of wifi routers and cell phones.
When my folks first moved to the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio in 1971, they rented a house the back yard of which abutted the fence around the transmission towers of WHIO-FM. My younger brother mounted speakers on the walls of his bedroom and we could clearly hear WHIO's programming through them 24 hours a day, regardless of whether the power to my brother's stereo was on or off.
Congratulations, you just discovered electromagnetic induction. If your body happened to be a pretty good conductor and formed complete circuits (like your radio), that energy might affect you in a similarly significant way. You don't have copper coils as part of your organs, though. Did you ever get skin burns from all that EM? Because the fusion generator in the sky that we call the Sun is so strong that it will give you that if you stand under its light. My electric toothbrush charges via induction, because it's not a good idea to have unshielded conductors in the device I'm dunking under water and putting in my mouth. Being around that energy is safe, even as other devices use Faraday's Law to draw power from it.
I will, however, agree with you that under the situation you speak of we're starting to talk about non-trivial amounts of energy. This is not comparable to your wifi router or your cell phone, as you yourself have stated. At this point detailed blind studies are warranted. I wouldn't even be particularly surprised if it turned out that it increased your risk to certain conditions. That risk is going to be smaller than the increased risk of cancer from being exposed to sunlight.
All of this is ignoring the fact that studies have been performed with the nutjobs who believe wifi routers are giving them headaches. And they confirmed that these people are not susceptible to what they think they are. I'm not saying they're liars and pretenders, but they're either misinterpreting the cause of their pain or suffering from hypochondria.
Suppose any people who were sensitive to the naturally occurring EMF were filtered out by evolution?
What I tried to say in my post is that there's essentially no difference. That's like saying that some people might be allergic to showers, but not rain. Oooh, the rain drops are more organized when they come out of the shower head. It doesn't matter, it's still water.
Again, I'm not defending these people because, like most of the readers here, I really doubt their claims... but it surely seems like it's at least possible that people can be affected by EMFs... not like turning a switch on and off, but overall mood.
Maybe, but that's not what they're saying. They're saying they get affected by wifi and cell towers and nothing else. That's like the showerhead vs. rain example. It's stupidly insane.
I'm not really defending these people - I make no claims to be affected, and I'm sure most of them are hypochondriacs, but isn't it possible that, out of over 300 million people in the U.S., some of them might actually be more sensitive to the effects of electromagnetic fields than you?
No, at least now how they describe it.
They only complain about man-made electromagnetic fields. The Earth has this HUGE magnetic field, maybe you've heard of it. The Sun is positively bombarding us with electromagnetic radiation. Basically, the amount energy from man-made electromagnetic radiation you're exposed to on a regular basis is insignificant compared to the natural kinds. The only difference is that the man-made contains ordered signals instead of being purely random noise. It's limited to particular frequencies instead of being at a broader spectrum. These people moved to a place containing a large number of radio telescopes whose purpose is to, wait for it...detect electromagnetic signals.
Apparently only man-made EM can trigger these people's allergies, which pretty much means that what these people are claiming is literally impossible. In addition, every single study done so far has shown that when you tell these people that you turned off the source of EM they think is the cause of their problem, they get better. Even if you lie to them about it, and the thing is still on. Similarly, if you tell them that you turned a device on, they'll suddenly start getting their headaches, even though nothing was turned on.
Now, if you tell me that in a population of billions, there are some humans that are sensitive to electromagnetic fields in such a way that makes them good at finding north...I'm willing to believe that and run some tests. Sounds plausible and interesting.
I doubt the US Army gave a rat's ass about the social and cultural uniqueness of the indigenous civilizations they wiped out, ditto the Spanish conquistadors a few centuries earlier.
Which indigenous civilizations did the US Army wipe out? And the conquistadors also didn't annihilate everyone, there are plenty of descendents from native tribes living all over the Americas today.
People are thinking that I'm attributing social to peaceful, and that's not the case. I'm not saying that if we had something the aliens found immensely valuable that they wouldn't kill for it. I'm saying that, by being a social species, they have necessarily evolved compassion. By being an intelligent species, they share at least that in similarities with us, which extends some of that compassion here. And by being sufficiently technologically advanced to generate the energies to get here, there is nothing on the planet that they could possibly want that they can't get more easily elsewhere. Other than our knowledge and culture, which they're bound to be curious about, since curiosity is also a necessary trait in explorers.
I don't know : we seem to have no problem killing off our own species, much less other species on this planet.
I didn't say peaceful, I said social. We most certainly kill, but to say that we have "no problem killing off our own species" is hyperbole. The very fact that you're here denouncing the behavior proves that we have compassion as an innate quality.
Sure, it's possible that the Aliens would try to kill or subjugate us to further their own goals, even as they debate the ethics of it within their own society. That said, you have to wonder what those goals would be. Resources? If they can get to Earth they can mine the resources all around the solar system without having to deal with us. Hell, they wouldn't need to make the trip to our system. As this article states, planets are fairly common, I'm sure they can find whatever resources they want pretty close to where they live. Our single most important resource is our knowledge. We're an intelligent species that involved in a different planet, they've got to be as curious about us as we'd be about them.
Basically, we're more likely to react peacefully to another intelligent species than we are to other humans. I'm pretty sure the opposite is also true, as dictated by the curiosity that must exist in any technologically advanced species.
If they are super Aliens then we are probably meaty animals with soft bones that they can easily chew up.
Any species capable of interstellar travel must, by definition, be a social species. It's not the type you technology you can achieve without cooperation. I personally believe that the concept of an alien species who would have no qualms about destroying another sentient species is science fiction, and nothing more.
Anyone capable of coming here would be much more interested in our cultures than in our meat. Earth has plenty of other animals we'd be happy to share with them at a table while talking about our art, our science, our philosophies, and hell, even our reality TV.
I find we have the same issues with summer interns. We always bring some in, or are told to bring some in. When we have a couple specific projects, its great. when we don't, someone has to waste half of their summer managing/handholding the interns. fun fun.
Man, I know that feeling. Lack of planning on our side means that we constantly need to stop what we're doing as the poor intern shows up and asks, "do you have something for me to do?" At that point you usually come up with some busywork that bores the crap out of them. Not what they signed up for.
There's also a related problem on the part of the interns. Some of them expect far too much hand-holding. I had this one guy assigned to my team once and he literally called me to ask a question every single time his code didn't compile. He would ask, "this doesn't work, what should I do?" Well, try reading the compiler error and at least typing it up on google, for god's sake. I don't want people to be stuck on a problem for a week when I could help them in five seconds, but you've got to at least wrestle with the problem for 20 minutes, or you don't learn anything.
This is what showing that you've tried something before talking to a developer accomplishes. You're letting him know that if he sends you in the right direction, you can be counted upon to go off and get something done, you're not just going to make him do the work himself in a less efficient manner through you.
Nothing big, but it was a bug I experienced, I patched it locally, but by pushing it upstream I never had to repatch my own version with the same fixes.
That's exactly the type of thing I advocate. Not only does it mean that things work better for you, but you also get this nice sense of satisfaction from knowing you've contributed something to the whole, instead of just using the work from others. It's a valid sense of satisfaction too. Even if you don't become a regular contributor, you've given back something that was valuable.
Also, if you start off like that and if you keep submitting small patches to the same program, you start to become more and more familiar with the code, from simply performing the exercise of looking around for the cause of your problem. Eventually, submitting larger patches will be easily within your reach, if that's what you want to do.
I have often wondered the same thing. People tell me, "read the code and submit patches!" It may sound like hand-holding to experienced developers, but many new coders could really use an introduction to becoming a part of a community around a project.
I wouldn't call myself an open-source developer by any means, but I've submitted patches to open source projects on occasion, and it wasn't too hard, even back when I had no experience with any large program. The trick is in the approach. Here's my recommendation:
Don't just download the code and start reading trying to figure out how everything works. That's when you drown in too much information, become frustrated, and decide you can't do it. It's a large, complex program. If you don't have a purpose, you can't navigate it. Instead:
Find an open source program which you use and like. This helps keep you interested.
Pick some small bug that annoys you, or a small feature you wish your pet program had that it does not. Emphasis on small here, you don't want to commit yourself to rewriting large portions of code. First, that would be overly challenging; second, the main developers of the project are unlikely to trust a huge infusion of code from someone who never contributed before, unless you can show that it really kicks ass. That's going to lead to a lot of talking back and forth, when you really just want to code.
If your program uses an issue tracker, go there and see if your bug / feature is listed, and if anyone else is working on it. If so, you can post there and offer to work with that person, if they're willing to help you out. This can also save you headaches, as the posts might explain that the simple bug you've chosen has an underlying complex reason which makes it a hard to solve problem.
Try to find the location in the code responsible for the small area which you want to change. Knowing your way around gdb or a frontend to gdb can be helpful here.
If you start getting lost in the code and can't find what you need, contact a developer, tell them what you want to work on, and ask if they can lead you in the right direction as to where in the code you should be looking at. I generally find that it's a lot easier to ask a developer a specific question about a specific problem than a generic, "how can I help out?" The latter will typically get you a response such as, "check out the issue tracker, pick something, and go for it." It's a good answer, but it feels daunting for a beginner. So contact the developer with a purpose and specific questions, and they'll generally be extremely helpful in guiding you through your problems. If you've demonstrated that you tried to read the code on your own first, they'll also be much more likely to take the time to offer you more detailed guidance.
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It'd be interesting to know what those reasons are - I'm still not seeing the incentive here. I note that the Brazilian factory is still owned by Foxconn, so it's not like they're changing manufacturers. I'd expect Foxconn would manufacture them wherever they could build them the cheapest. What advantage does Brazil offer? Still not seeing it....
Well, the Foxconn factory is within the Free Economic Zone of Manaus. The Brazilian government offers various significant tax incentives/exemptions to industries there. Those incentives, coupled with location advantages just might make up for the increase in wages as compared to China, although I don't know enough about it to state that this is a fact.
And after research, I would agree with their "absolutely no chance" of a correctly repositioned flap being moveable again after a week, let alone a year
Not enough research, apparently. Try up to seven years.
Yeah, we can debate the meaning of "correctly repositioned" and due diligence. Also no permanent damage to any of the patients in the study, which is good. Overall low chance of it happening makes for a relatively safe procedure. Still, it's most certainly not "absolutely no chance."
I'm sure this would work well against people who think that something being slightly better than something else means that it is good.
Unfortunately, that describes the vast majority of people. See: Lesser of Two Evils.
If an object were to have truly no mass it wouldn't be bound by the same speed limits as normal matter.
Actually, according to relativity, objects with mass must travel slower than light and objects with no mass must travel at the speed or light. No more, no less.
And of course, if you're into tachyons, objects with imaginary mass (whatever that physically means) must travel faster than light, and cannot slow down to the speed of light or below.
And why would this result be impossible?
It's impossible according to current theories. It's not impossible that current theories are wrong, but very highly improbable to be wrong in this way, given the amount of corroboration we have for the speed of light being an absolute limit and for the time-dilation effects, which would cause faster-than-light particles to violate causality.
Nevertheless, the data is the data, and that's why they're publishing it. Somebody else will find a measurement error (most likely) or we'll get exciting new physics (much less likely, but would be pretty awesome).
Many have posted that the instruments were flawed or the scientists made a mistake, but not too long ago scientists were 100% certain that the world was flat too.
Actually, I'd say that was very long ago. Considering Eratosthenes not only knew that the Earth was round, but was able to calculate the circumference to remarkable accuracy way back in ~200 BC. Note that it wasn't him that decided the Earth was round, that was already common knowledge. He figured out the circumference.
Just because scientists currently believe that nothing can go faster than the speed of light doesn't make it so. Our views of the universe are always changing and saying that a result is "impossible", no matter how unlikely the result, is a bit short sided.
That's true, however as many others have pointed out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A single experiment just isn't enough. If we have sufficient confirmation of faster than light effects, scientists will most certainly welcome the result. Unexpected data opens up new opportunities for lots of papers. Scientists live for that, literally. It's what puts food on the table :)
Hypothetical situation: Mom's computer gets infected with a rootkit. On the next reboot, the rootkit attempts to take over and load before key OS comments, so it can't be detected.
What is your answer to making sure this situation can't happen?
Keep the machine patched and educate the users. Keep users in non-admin accounts with limited privileges such that the only vectors of attack are vulnerabilities, not the user.
When that doesn't work, full OS reinstall. Don't try to clean up the OS.
The OS is compromised, so you can't trust the OS. Next best thing is to trust something other than the OS. So now we require the BIOS to be the gate keeper. How does the BIOS determine if something is "trustable"?.... Sign it.
All of this stuff is perfectly logical, unless you completely ignore the root-kit problem at hand. But that's willful ignorance.
You're ignoring the possibility of UEFI security vulnerabilities that would allow a virus infection at that level. UEFI is more complex than BIOS, which leads to more opportunities for vulnerabilities.
I also generally dislike things meant to protect people from themselves. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that mom learns how to use a computer responsibly. She learned how to drive responsibly, we don't put things on cars that prevent people from going off road, assuming that's always a mistake. Sometimes you do want to go off-roading.
It's a bit dark to think about, but perhaps some terminally ill children might opt for euthanasia, and they would be the right age group for this kind of thing.
They're not in a position, legally or morally, to understand what they're doing and give consent to end their lives.
On the one hand, I sympathize with your argument, it rings true. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder if anyone else is in position, morally, to deny them the option (obviously there's no choice legally). Forcing a child to die slowly of something like cancer sounds just as bad, perhaps worse.
Obviously this is just a [stupid] publicity stunt, but most of the people that I know that would (would have) opted for euthanasia were elderly. They wouldn't be the type to board a roller coaster.
Heh...tell that to the over 70 group skydiving at my dropzone.
If you're the type of person that enjoyed roller coasters when you were young, you're the type of person that enjoys them when you're old. I still think this is a horrible idea, but not for the same reason you do. Roller coasters are fun, sustained 10G loops that kill you are not, that's just uncomfortable and painful.
They do need an option that is better than putting a gun to the head.
I agree with you there.
It's absolutely unacceptable, and it's telling that you're so out-of-touch that you think it's okay.
He said acceptable for many applications, not all applications. You don't think man is perfectly acceptable documentation for 'ls', or 'find', or 'grep'? If not, why?
dd if=/path/disk of=/path/disk.iso to copy the information to a different medium. Then run GNU ddrescue. FTFY
Uh, no. That defeats the point of ddrescue.
What ddrescue does is to keep trying to read the same sector over and over again until it gets the data. If you can get it all out using dd, then why use ddrescue?
I remember berating my supervisors as to why we're spending millions on microsoft licences when we could just go opensource, the answer, nobody but in a bid to supply support except for microsoft.
Surprising to say the least, since that's Red Hat's and other distros entire business model. That said, I don't doubt Microsoft and Apple are just better at it. Fair enough points.
and can you hold any of those like paper? Does nobody read around here anymore?
Apparently not, since he said, 'or two Nooks' if that's you're [sic] thing.'
Well, either you don't read or you don't know what a nook is. If that's the case, you should have looked it up before pouncing on him, though.
Not to mention the whole android tablet option...
What Android needs for me to fully enjoy using it as well as for me to suggest it for other users is to provide the option to treat the device like a potentially public device as does Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. It should not be assumed that the primary owner always has control of the device. It should require loging in for any GMAIL user and the device should not be tied directly to a Google account identity.
No. In fact, HELL NO. The number one convenience that comes with android is the automatically tying in to Google services.
I understand your problem, though. You just have the incorrect solution. What tablets need to do is have multiple user accounts (and include a guest account that doesn't even display apps like gmail or facebook). This way you log out, somebody else logs in, they have their account associated with it. Guest accounts for people who shouldn't be keeping a personal profile on your tablet.
There's so much VB6 software out there, that it's the COBOL of the future
Most COBOL software is extremely complex stuff running on mainframes of banks and insurance companies.
Most VB6 software is something that was coded in 15 minutes to fill a need in a lab computer, or a frontend to some command-line program that isn't written in VB. This is not me looking down upon VB6, that's just what VB6 was designed to do: it's easy to learn and you could get something running on it fast, so that's what people did when they just needed something quick. The result of it is that if somebody needs to fix a VB6 app, it's going to be cheaper to hire a common C# developer to recreate it than to pay COBOL money to VB6 developers. They're not complex beasts that need to be extremely well-understood, zero errors, on a machine that can't afford downtime.
More kids will be using Word and Excel later in life than will be coding--by orders of magnitude.
And if you need a class to show you how to use Word and Excel, your computer education has already failed you. And yes, I do use advanced features of each. I clicked around the menus until I found the stuff I needed.
Which is really the difference between computer literate and computer illiterate people. I show my mother how to do something in Word, and she learns that. I sit her in front of libreoffice and she is completely confused. Because she's looking for the exact same menu option located at the exact same place on the screen. When you teach people how to use a particular piece of software, that's what you're breeding. A programming class is more oriented towards thinking about how to solve problems and debugging code, through some trial and error. Perhaps surprisingly to you, that will actually translate into better Word and Excel users, among other things.
I can stand in the rain, and in a shower, but if I stand in front of a firehose I'm going to go flying. If I stand in steam, I get burnt. If I stand in a shower too long I might get hypothermia, or if I drink too much I might... In this analogy I see plenty of room for uncertainty surrounding conditions of exposure.
That said, they are batshiat crazy, since the Universe is the firehose, and we're standing right in front of it.
You're right. In my defense, I used that analogy only after already stating that the amount of energy contained in the EM field these people are complaining about is far less than the amount of background EM, naturally. I'm not arguing that I can't harm you with EM. I can burn you with high energy microwaves pretty easily, but that's not what these people are saying is happening to them.
I'm not prepared to say we know everything, but clearly there's way more science behind its safety than these people are willing to admit. I'm going to go with hypochondria.
There are some things that I feel are a pretty safe bet until somebody proves to me otherwise. Once I first heard of these people, I thought it was a pretty safe bet (about as safe as it gets, I would bet my life on the odds) that it was hypochondria. Now the results are already in, and there's no more uncertainty about it, at all. There have been plenty of studies that prove these people can't tell when a device they complain about is on or off.
I'm not talking about generic safety of the things. However, these people do NOT get headaches and tingly feelings as a result of wifi routers and cell phones.
When my folks first moved to the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio in 1971, they rented a house the back yard of which abutted the fence around the transmission towers of WHIO-FM. My younger brother mounted speakers on the walls of his bedroom and we could clearly hear WHIO's programming through them 24 hours a day, regardless of whether the power to my brother's stereo was on or off.
Congratulations, you just discovered electromagnetic induction. If your body happened to be a pretty good conductor and formed complete circuits (like your radio), that energy might affect you in a similarly significant way. You don't have copper coils as part of your organs, though. Did you ever get skin burns from all that EM? Because the fusion generator in the sky that we call the Sun is so strong that it will give you that if you stand under its light. My electric toothbrush charges via induction, because it's not a good idea to have unshielded conductors in the device I'm dunking under water and putting in my mouth. Being around that energy is safe, even as other devices use Faraday's Law to draw power from it.
I will, however, agree with you that under the situation you speak of we're starting to talk about non-trivial amounts of energy. This is not comparable to your wifi router or your cell phone, as you yourself have stated. At this point detailed blind studies are warranted. I wouldn't even be particularly surprised if it turned out that it increased your risk to certain conditions. That risk is going to be smaller than the increased risk of cancer from being exposed to sunlight.
All of this is ignoring the fact that studies have been performed with the nutjobs who believe wifi routers are giving them headaches. And they confirmed that these people are not susceptible to what they think they are. I'm not saying they're liars and pretenders, but they're either misinterpreting the cause of their pain or suffering from hypochondria.
Is it?
Yes, it is.
Suppose any people who were sensitive to the naturally occurring EMF were filtered out by evolution?
What I tried to say in my post is that there's essentially no difference. That's like saying that some people might be allergic to showers, but not rain. Oooh, the rain drops are more organized when they come out of the shower head. It doesn't matter, it's still water.
Again, I'm not defending these people because, like most of the readers here, I really doubt their claims... but it surely seems like it's at least possible that people can be affected by EMFs... not like turning a switch on and off, but overall mood.
Maybe, but that's not what they're saying. They're saying they get affected by wifi and cell towers and nothing else. That's like the showerhead vs. rain example. It's stupidly insane.
I'm not really defending these people - I make no claims to be affected, and I'm sure most of them are hypochondriacs, but isn't it possible that, out of over 300 million people in the U.S., some of them might actually be more sensitive to the effects of electromagnetic fields than you?
No, at least now how they describe it.
They only complain about man-made electromagnetic fields. The Earth has this HUGE magnetic field, maybe you've heard of it. The Sun is positively bombarding us with electromagnetic radiation. Basically, the amount energy from man-made electromagnetic radiation you're exposed to on a regular basis is insignificant compared to the natural kinds. The only difference is that the man-made contains ordered signals instead of being purely random noise. It's limited to particular frequencies instead of being at a broader spectrum. These people moved to a place containing a large number of radio telescopes whose purpose is to, wait for it...detect electromagnetic signals.
Apparently only man-made EM can trigger these people's allergies, which pretty much means that what these people are claiming is literally impossible. In addition, every single study done so far has shown that when you tell these people that you turned off the source of EM they think is the cause of their problem, they get better. Even if you lie to them about it, and the thing is still on. Similarly, if you tell them that you turned a device on, they'll suddenly start getting their headaches, even though nothing was turned on.
Now, if you tell me that in a population of billions, there are some humans that are sensitive to electromagnetic fields in such a way that makes them good at finding north...I'm willing to believe that and run some tests. Sounds plausible and interesting.
I doubt the US Army gave a rat's ass about the social and cultural uniqueness of the indigenous civilizations they wiped out, ditto the Spanish conquistadors a few centuries earlier.
Which indigenous civilizations did the US Army wipe out? And the conquistadors also didn't annihilate everyone, there are plenty of descendents from native tribes living all over the Americas today.
People are thinking that I'm attributing social to peaceful, and that's not the case. I'm not saying that if we had something the aliens found immensely valuable that they wouldn't kill for it. I'm saying that, by being a social species, they have necessarily evolved compassion. By being an intelligent species, they share at least that in similarities with us, which extends some of that compassion here. And by being sufficiently technologically advanced to generate the energies to get here, there is nothing on the planet that they could possibly want that they can't get more easily elsewhere. Other than our knowledge and culture, which they're bound to be curious about, since curiosity is also a necessary trait in explorers.
I don't know : we seem to have no problem killing off our own species, much less other species on this planet.
I didn't say peaceful, I said social. We most certainly kill, but to say that we have "no problem killing off our own species" is hyperbole. The very fact that you're here denouncing the behavior proves that we have compassion as an innate quality.
Sure, it's possible that the Aliens would try to kill or subjugate us to further their own goals, even as they debate the ethics of it within their own society. That said, you have to wonder what those goals would be. Resources? If they can get to Earth they can mine the resources all around the solar system without having to deal with us. Hell, they wouldn't need to make the trip to our system. As this article states, planets are fairly common, I'm sure they can find whatever resources they want pretty close to where they live. Our single most important resource is our knowledge. We're an intelligent species that involved in a different planet, they've got to be as curious about us as we'd be about them.
Basically, we're more likely to react peacefully to another intelligent species than we are to other humans. I'm pretty sure the opposite is also true, as dictated by the curiosity that must exist in any technologically advanced species.
If they are super Aliens then we are probably meaty animals with soft bones that they can easily chew up.
Any species capable of interstellar travel must, by definition, be a social species. It's not the type you technology you can achieve without cooperation. I personally believe that the concept of an alien species who would have no qualms about destroying another sentient species is science fiction, and nothing more.
Anyone capable of coming here would be much more interested in our cultures than in our meat. Earth has plenty of other animals we'd be happy to share with them at a table while talking about our art, our science, our philosophies, and hell, even our reality TV.
I find we have the same issues with summer interns. We always bring some in, or are told to bring some in. When we have a couple specific projects, its great. when we don't, someone has to waste half of their summer managing/handholding the interns. fun fun.
Man, I know that feeling. Lack of planning on our side means that we constantly need to stop what we're doing as the poor intern shows up and asks, "do you have something for me to do?" At that point you usually come up with some busywork that bores the crap out of them. Not what they signed up for.
There's also a related problem on the part of the interns. Some of them expect far too much hand-holding. I had this one guy assigned to my team once and he literally called me to ask a question every single time his code didn't compile. He would ask, "this doesn't work, what should I do?" Well, try reading the compiler error and at least typing it up on google, for god's sake. I don't want people to be stuck on a problem for a week when I could help them in five seconds, but you've got to at least wrestle with the problem for 20 minutes, or you don't learn anything.
This is what showing that you've tried something before talking to a developer accomplishes. You're letting him know that if he sends you in the right direction, you can be counted upon to go off and get something done, you're not just going to make him do the work himself in a less efficient manner through you.
Nothing big, but it was a bug I experienced, I patched it locally, but by pushing it upstream I never had to repatch my own version with the same fixes.
That's exactly the type of thing I advocate. Not only does it mean that things work better for you, but you also get this nice sense of satisfaction from knowing you've contributed something to the whole, instead of just using the work from others. It's a valid sense of satisfaction too. Even if you don't become a regular contributor, you've given back something that was valuable.
Also, if you start off like that and if you keep submitting small patches to the same program, you start to become more and more familiar with the code, from simply performing the exercise of looking around for the cause of your problem. Eventually, submitting larger patches will be easily within your reach, if that's what you want to do.
I have often wondered the same thing. People tell me, "read the code and submit patches!" It may sound like hand-holding to experienced developers, but many new coders could really use an introduction to becoming a part of a community around a project.
I wouldn't call myself an open-source developer by any means, but I've submitted patches to open source projects on occasion, and it wasn't too hard, even back when I had no experience with any large program. The trick is in the approach. Here's my recommendation:
Don't just download the code and start reading trying to figure out how everything works. That's when you drown in too much information, become frustrated, and decide you can't do it. It's a large, complex program. If you don't have a purpose, you can't navigate it. Instead: