This is just utter silliness. To get a job by learning scripting, one has to reach a level today that is likely unattainable to her. This is because scripting by itself is not sufficient (even if she can learn enough). One has to understand the context in which it will be used. That means most likely a decent understanding of either system administration or QA. And you want her to learn that with this voucher?
PowerPoint is used in corporations in thousands of situations, many of them not requiring any specialized knowledge. What's more, just by learning proper presentation design, she could be polishing other peoples PowerPoint stacks. So yes, it is a desirable skills, and it is learnable within a reasonable time.
This is nothing new. I've had comments modded down by militant cretins on/. before. We really should have a scoring systems for moderators. Let's call it "IQ". Every member eligible to mod gets 100 points in a year. For each verified dumb mod you lose 5 points. You then better hope someone marks you for an especially clever catch and good mod, cause if you end up with a deficit at the end of the quarter, you are ineligible for another 3 months, at which point your score resets.
Pity the study did not compare the grades of students who used other social network sites. It might possibly be that Facebook attracted people of lower learning ability than some other sites did. Studying those relationships could be interesting.
Online media, unless operating purely on subscription basis, needs ads. Ads are priced according to unique clicks and time spent on that page by readers (reader's interest). A lot of posts indicate interest. Controversial, or even flamebait articles frequently generate the longest comment trails. Scholarly, analytical articles go with scarcely a comment. Thus the tendency of some online media to adjust their content downward.
This is not a new phenomenon. TV has learned it a while ago - witness daytime shows, Ricki Lakes, Montel Williamses, Jerry Springers, and other tabloid trash programs. The difference now is with the immediacy of feedback, hence this spiral happens much faster. Anonymous posts (and to a lesser degree even nicknamed posts, like mine), only add an accelerant to this process.
Because most people in the media are not smart enough to use Skype or YIM. Those are programs, therefore by definition they are too hard and too geeky to learn. The media automatons' $200 hairdos might overheat.
What is this obsession so many of my countrymen have with spreading our model of democracy to every country in the world? There are so many different possible versions, some dramatically different from one another. Even our own democracy has changed significantly over since 1787. The current model we use, one person one vote without regard for their contribution, is fraught with obvious dangers (once the number of people feeding off the system exceeds the contributors, the system could spiral down into economic collapse). Yet, while we're walking through this marsh trying to find a way ourselves, we keep convincing others that our path is the only righteous one. It's almost as if to some this wasn't just another political system but a religion.
That, of course, assuming that democracy is even the correct path for everyone to take. Considering that it is contrary to basic laws of nature (domination over others assures better propagation of our own DNA), I wouldn't even be so sure of it. I think we should display a little more intellectual honesty and admit we're in early testing stages. Nobel prize is still far beyond the horizon.
What is all this crying, moaning, and whining about RD and other comedies not being broadcast on US network TV? Who cares if it plays on ABC, CBS, or NBC. Everyone has cable or satellite these days anyway, and even if not, it plays on local PBS stations. So yes, you can watch it if you want. I've seen more BBC comedy series than most friends I talk to in UK. On top of that, we get more reruns probably than UK market gets on BBC of those shows.
I just hope the new episodes manage to recapture some of the original freshness of the show. Last season was weak.
And while we're bitching about unfinished BBC shows, why don't they go back and finish Mulberry, for crying out loud? With Lill Roughley, please.
Such capability is very useful to network folks to predict application behavior and best management approaches in various environments. We used FreeBSD for that purpose, but the effect was the same. We injected 350ms latency in each direction, and presto - satellite communication. That is enough to cripple TCP connectivity through a sizable pipe (latency will preclude the flow from taking entire pipe). By testing various acceleration methodologies, you can see first hand which one will allow you to fully utilize the bandwidth you are paying for, all in the comfort of your lab.
Hand up everyone who is sick and tired of hearing about "digital divide". Anyone who would rather have a fifth of whiskey is not very likely to make much use of the free broadband. We are not talking about equatorial Africa, we are talking about western world. No one faces a choice of "starvation or Internet". There are so many other, more serious deprivations that people can face, that this obsession with providing free Internet access smacks of elitism.
While I am happy with the savings from using CFLs, I would not hesitate to spend a little more up front to get even more savings and greater longevity from LED lights. Does anyone have solid data on how the three types differ? For example, if to produce the same amount of light incandescent uses 100W, CFL uses 60W (including power losses), how much would LED require? Also, of the above three light sources, if the incandescent lasts 6 months, CFL lasts 10 months, how long would the LED last?
wondering whether the laws have become so Byzantine that they could dig up dirt on anybody
I will go with this one. The system is so broken, no reasonable person follows all the rules. It doesn't, of course, excuse those who make the rules and then don't bother following them. They should be held to account.
I do believe, however, that it is time to elect a para-libertarian government who would purge many of the idiotic laws and regulations.
And at the same time flagrant tax cheats and criminals are nominated to cabinet positions with scantly a snicker from the media. We are at war in this country, and neither side displays even the slightest shred of integrity or ethics.
My favorite RFC of all time: 1438. The rule "once everyone has approved the document by falling asleep over it, the process ends and the document is discarded" has been a guiding light for corporate management nationwide.
The current media player classic homecinema is small, fast, and cute in its simplicity, but alas, when it starts skipping and repeating my mp3s like a stuck gramophone, I switch to less nostalgic but more reliable tools.
So basically if somebody came up with a workable "theory of everything" but spoke English poorly and made a few common spelling errors, you think it would be appropriate to dismiss the theory with a hand wave?
Please bother to read what I wrote before replying. Otherwise our conversation is pointless. This has nothing to do with poor English skills or a few common spelling errors.
By the way, if someone came up with a "theory of everything", but couldn't be bothered to get the basic concepts right, yes, I would dismiss it out of hand since I could not trust their mental discipline.
This is not a minor technical error. When someone writes "Gb", then next one writes "gb", when both mean "GB", it doesn't say "technical error" to me. I says, "I cannot be bothered". If someone cannot be bothered, then it does invalidate the rest of their argument. It's not precision, it's the attitude.
The parent is NOT offtopic. What the hell? And yes, he is absolutely right. This is/. - get your *&$#%^ units right. Gb != GB. This is not nuclear science. It automatically invalidates anything else you might have to say.
It almost broke my heart when during the remodeling I finally decided to put my old Sun workstation out to pasture - literally, into the backyard, to be picked up by trash folks later. It looked at me with that big monitor, "is that what you do to your elders?". A few years back it was my first Pentium, all SCSIed up and nowhere to go. Then it was my first 386, with extra drives hanging on ribbons out of a half-opened case. Before that it was my XT, along with its sharp yellow Casper monitor. I couldn't bear even to look at it. We spent so much time together. The only thing that remains from those days is my VT220 terminal which I used to log in to work through a modem to work remotely.
I never owned an SGI machine, but I knew people who worked there. SGI was in my back yard, so to speak. We were all so proud or "our" companies and "our" valley. There was no cooler place to live on the planet.
I also remember when Computer Literacy Bookstore closed down. I remember looking into the empty space at North First St. I remember when Kim Vestal's "Get your buns out of bed!" did not ring out in the morning.
Our friends leave us every day. Every time the world gets a little grayer. When it's all colorless, it may be time for us to go.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just utter silliness. To get a job by learning scripting, one has to reach a level today that is likely unattainable to her. This is because scripting by itself is not sufficient (even if she can learn enough). One has to understand the context in which it will be used. That means most likely a decent understanding of either system administration or QA. And you want her to learn that with this voucher?
PowerPoint is used in corporations in thousands of situations, many of them not requiring any specialized knowledge. What's more, just by learning proper presentation design, she could be polishing other peoples PowerPoint stacks. So yes, it is a desirable skills, and it is learnable within a reasonable time.
This is nothing new. I've had comments modded down by militant cretins on /. before. We really should have a scoring systems for moderators. Let's call it "IQ". Every member eligible to mod gets 100 points in a year. For each verified dumb mod you lose 5 points. You then better hope someone marks you for an especially clever catch and good mod, cause if you end up with a deficit at the end of the quarter, you are ineligible for another 3 months, at which point your score resets.
This is awful. US is refusing to train Al Qaida. Oh the injustice, the inequality.
There are college students on myspace???
Pity the study did not compare the grades of students who used other social network sites. It might possibly be that Facebook attracted people of lower learning ability than some other sites did. Studying those relationships could be interesting.
And that's the story, folks.
Online media, unless operating purely on subscription basis, needs ads. Ads are priced according to unique clicks and time spent on that page by readers (reader's interest). A lot of posts indicate interest. Controversial, or even flamebait articles frequently generate the longest comment trails. Scholarly, analytical articles go with scarcely a comment. Thus the tendency of some online media to adjust their content downward.
This is not a new phenomenon. TV has learned it a while ago - witness daytime shows, Ricki Lakes, Montel Williamses, Jerry Springers, and other tabloid trash programs. The difference now is with the immediacy of feedback, hence this spiral happens much faster. Anonymous posts (and to a lesser degree even nicknamed posts, like mine), only add an accelerant to this process.
(or mIRC or others like it, for that matter)
Because most people in the media are not smart enough to use Skype or YIM. Those are programs, therefore by definition they are too hard and too geeky to learn. The media automatons' $200 hairdos might overheat.
What is this obsession so many of my countrymen have with spreading our model of democracy to every country in the world? There are so many different possible versions, some dramatically different from one another. Even our own democracy has changed significantly over since 1787. The current model we use, one person one vote without regard for their contribution, is fraught with obvious dangers (once the number of people feeding off the system exceeds the contributors, the system could spiral down into economic collapse). Yet, while we're walking through this marsh trying to find a way ourselves, we keep convincing others that our path is the only righteous one. It's almost as if to some this wasn't just another political system but a religion.
That, of course, assuming that democracy is even the correct path for everyone to take. Considering that it is contrary to basic laws of nature (domination over others assures better propagation of our own DNA), I wouldn't even be so sure of it. I think we should display a little more intellectual honesty and admit we're in early testing stages. Nobel prize is still far beyond the horizon.
... Dead Like Me...
What is all this crying, moaning, and whining about RD and other comedies not being broadcast on US network TV? Who cares if it plays on ABC, CBS, or NBC. Everyone has cable or satellite these days anyway, and even if not, it plays on local PBS stations. So yes, you can watch it if you want. I've seen more BBC comedy series than most friends I talk to in UK. On top of that, we get more reruns probably than UK market gets on BBC of those shows.
I just hope the new episodes manage to recapture some of the original freshness of the show. Last season was weak.
And while we're bitching about unfinished BBC shows, why don't they go back and finish Mulberry, for crying out loud? With Lill Roughley, please.
Please read my original post again. I quote: "in each direction".
Such capability is very useful to network folks to predict application behavior and best management approaches in various environments. We used FreeBSD for that purpose, but the effect was the same. We injected 350ms latency in each direction, and presto - satellite communication. That is enough to cripple TCP connectivity through a sizable pipe (latency will preclude the flow from taking entire pipe). By testing various acceleration methodologies, you can see first hand which one will allow you to fully utilize the bandwidth you are paying for, all in the comfort of your lab.
Hand up everyone who is sick and tired of hearing about "digital divide". Anyone who would rather have a fifth of whiskey is not very likely to make much use of the free broadband. We are not talking about equatorial Africa, we are talking about western world. No one faces a choice of "starvation or Internet". There are so many other, more serious deprivations that people can face, that this obsession with providing free Internet access smacks of elitism.
While I am happy with the savings from using CFLs, I would not hesitate to spend a little more up front to get even more savings and greater longevity from LED lights. Does anyone have solid data on how the three types differ? For example, if to produce the same amount of light incandescent uses 100W, CFL uses 60W (including power losses), how much would LED require? Also, of the above three light sources, if the incandescent lasts 6 months, CFL lasts 10 months, how long would the LED last?
I will go with this one. The system is so broken, no reasonable person follows all the rules. It doesn't, of course, excuse those who make the rules and then don't bother following them. They should be held to account.
I do believe, however, that it is time to elect a para-libertarian government who would purge many of the idiotic laws and regulations.
And at the same time flagrant tax cheats and criminals are nominated to cabinet positions with scantly a snicker from the media. We are at war in this country, and neither side displays even the slightest shred of integrity or ethics.
Quo vadis, USA?
My favorite RFC of all time: 1438. The rule "once everyone has approved the document by falling asleep over it, the process ends and the document is discarded" has been a guiding light for corporate management nationwide.
...bipolar
The current media player classic homecinema is small, fast, and cute in its simplicity, but alas, when it starts skipping and repeating my mp3s like a stuck gramophone, I switch to less nostalgic but more reliable tools.
Please bother to read what I wrote before replying. Otherwise our conversation is pointless. This has nothing to do with poor English skills or a few common spelling errors.
By the way, if someone came up with a "theory of everything", but couldn't be bothered to get the basic concepts right, yes, I would dismiss it out of hand since I could not trust their mental discipline.
This is not a minor technical error. When someone writes "Gb", then next one writes "gb", when both mean "GB", it doesn't say "technical error" to me. I says, "I cannot be bothered". If someone cannot be bothered, then it does invalidate the rest of their argument. It's not precision, it's the attitude.
The parent is NOT offtopic. What the hell? And yes, he is absolutely right. This is /. - get your *&$#%^ units right. Gb != GB. This is not nuclear science. It automatically invalidates anything else you might have to say.
It almost broke my heart when during the remodeling I finally decided to put my old Sun workstation out to pasture - literally, into the backyard, to be picked up by trash folks later. It looked at me with that big monitor, "is that what you do to your elders?". A few years back it was my first Pentium, all SCSIed up and nowhere to go. Then it was my first 386, with extra drives hanging on ribbons out of a half-opened case. Before that it was my XT, along with its sharp yellow Casper monitor. I couldn't bear even to look at it. We spent so much time together. The only thing that remains from those days is my VT220 terminal which I used to log in to work through a modem to work remotely.
I never owned an SGI machine, but I knew people who worked there. SGI was in my back yard, so to speak. We were all so proud or "our" companies and "our" valley. There was no cooler place to live on the planet.
I also remember when Computer Literacy Bookstore closed down. I remember looking into the empty space at North First St. I remember when Kim Vestal's "Get your buns out of bed!" did not ring out in the morning.
Our friends leave us every day. Every time the world gets a little grayer. When it's all colorless, it may be time for us to go.