I don't know if Dyson's real agenda is to get the UK to import more cheap foreign labor, but even if it is, his accompanying proposal is better than what we get in the US. He's suggesting scholarships, while FWD.US and it's associated propaganda organizations are proposing an hour of code in public school.
If you're talking about the US, I agree. But the article is about the UK, and as an American I don't really know the situation. I'd love to hear from some Britons.
Apparently tanners and dyers processed the urine to get Ammonia rich solutions which they used to prepare their products.
Urine was also widely used for cleaning (in the Middle Ages that I know of, and probably other times). It's not surprising, when you consider that ammonia is used for cleaning today. Methinks an important step was to thoroughly rinse things after cleaning.
To the countries listed in your first link, I'd add Korea. My father was there in the late 1940's with the US Army, and he said human waste was widely used as fertilizer (Korea was a very different place back then). The army even offered their waste to the locals (an offer genuinely meant to be helpful), but the farmers said that Americans used too much toilet paper.
Re your 2nd link, it's interesting that even in 1909 there were Americans who were interested in how there are parts of East Asia where the same fields have been used for millennia, and are quite productive.
Obviously using raw human waste is a major health problem, but processed stuff works great. The National Geographic article mentions urine in specific, apparently because it takes less energy and effort to separate out the useful stuff. It surprises me that it "contains 80 percent of the nitrogen and 55 percent of the phosphorous", because I usually think of manure being used for fertilizer. Does the animal urine go to waste, or is it used by, for example, having livestock graze in fallow fields?
It's one of the easiest jobs to get provided you're competent.
If you're not "too old", live in the right part of the country, and can put some stuff on your resume that has nothing to do with basic competence or skills, but is currently trendy.
Fundamentals of programming isn't that different from algebra and geometry
Yes it is. Algebra and geometry are fundamental and foundational subjects that also have endless applications. Computer programming is simply a skill that is useful to some people. There is also some theory associated with it, sometimes inaccurately called computer science, but better called software engineering. But that's not so fundamental that it's particularly useful to non-programmers. To the extent that some people argue it is, what they're really talking about is the math that it's based on, like graph theory.
In my day we walked barefoot in the snow to get to school. Five miles - uphill both ways!
How old are you? Seriously, I'm an old fart and I love to make fun of people younger than me who say "why in my day". Did you have such a vastly better education than what's offered today, or do you just fancy yourself part of some elite? If the former, how do you know what's taught today? Do you at least have kids in high school?
my monkey programming in C is going to leave at least one dangling pointer. Does that make C a horrible language?
The difference is that there are good reasons for that design tradeoff in C. The point of C is that it's fast as hell and gives you almost complete control. You need that to implement a kernel, which is what C was originally designed for. The downside is that you have to watch out for things like dangling pointers.
The GP's complaints are a result of what tradeoffs in JS?
Latency over 1ms are distressing to human subconscious under those conditions.
Do you have more info on that? Seriously, no snark, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical. I've never heard of human perception time being less than 30ms. I hate slow responses in UI's with a passion, but 1ms?
Browsers don't reliably implement strict mode yet, so don't blindly depend on it. Strict mode changes semantics. Relying on those changes will cause mistakes and errors in browsers which don't implement strict mode.
It sounds like adding a source of errors more than removing one.
But did that really have anything to do with it being a byte code interpreter, as opposed to a lousy implementation of one? Or perhaps applets having access to library functions that were too difficult to make secure?
In other words, is a byte code interpreter necessarily less secure than say a JavaScript interpreter? I honestly don't know, and would be interested if anyone can explain this.
The real reason you don't remember as many new things as you get older, is that you realize just how useless most of the stuff you already remember is.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if Dyson's real agenda is to get the UK to import more cheap foreign labor, but even if it is, his accompanying proposal is better than what we get in the US. He's suggesting scholarships, while FWD.US and it's associated propaganda organizations are proposing an hour of code in public school.
RTFA, "pay students" means give them scholarships. Do you think there shouldn't be scholarships because they provide some sort of perverse incentive?
You would need to prove yourself worthy of the scholarship
Academic requirements for a scholarship? What a clever idea. I wonder why no one else has thought of that.
If you're talking about the US, I agree. But the article is about the UK, and as an American I don't really know the situation. I'd love to hear from some Britons.
Your contribution is small. Does a bear piss in the forest?
Apparently tanners and dyers processed the urine to get Ammonia rich solutions which they used to prepare their products.
Urine was also widely used for cleaning (in the Middle Ages that I know of, and probably other times). It's not surprising, when you consider that ammonia is used for cleaning today. Methinks an important step was to thoroughly rinse things after cleaning.
To the countries listed in your first link, I'd add Korea. My father was there in the late 1940's with the US Army, and he said human waste was widely used as fertilizer (Korea was a very different place back then). The army even offered their waste to the locals (an offer genuinely meant to be helpful), but the farmers said that Americans used too much toilet paper.
Re your 2nd link, it's interesting that even in 1909 there were Americans who were interested in how there are parts of East Asia where the same fields have been used for millennia, and are quite productive.
Obviously using raw human waste is a major health problem, but processed stuff works great. The National Geographic article mentions urine in specific, apparently because it takes less energy and effort to separate out the useful stuff. It surprises me that it "contains 80 percent of the nitrogen and 55 percent of the phosphorous", because I usually think of manure being used for fertilizer. Does the animal urine go to waste, or is it used by, for example, having livestock graze in fallow fields?
Coding is about to be obsolete. There are no mysteries anymore, and it is being automated.
They said manufacturing was going to be "automated" too, but in politicalspeak "automated" means sent to cheap labor countries.
It's one of the easiest jobs to get provided you're competent.
If you're not "too old", live in the right part of the country, and can put some stuff on your resume that has nothing to do with basic competence or skills, but is currently trendy.
Fundamentals of programming isn't that different from algebra and geometry
Yes it is. Algebra and geometry are fundamental and foundational subjects that also have endless applications. Computer programming is simply a skill that is useful to some people. There is also some theory associated with it, sometimes inaccurately called computer science, but better called software engineering. But that's not so fundamental that it's particularly useful to non-programmers. To the extent that some people argue it is, what they're really talking about is the math that it's based on, like graph theory.
+5
In my day we walked barefoot in the snow to get to school. Five miles - uphill both ways!
How old are you? Seriously, I'm an old fart and I love to make fun of people younger than me who say "why in my day". Did you have such a vastly better education than what's offered today, or do you just fancy yourself part of some elite? If the former, how do you know what's taught today? Do you at least have kids in high school?
you can run through a minefield at high speed if you know where the mines are!
That doesn't sound like a very enticing analogy for a programming language. Then again I use a lot of C++, so who am I to talk?
my monkey programming in C is going to leave at least one dangling pointer. Does that make C a horrible language?
The difference is that there are good reasons for that design tradeoff in C. The point of C is that it's fast as hell and gives you almost complete control. You need that to implement a kernel, which is what C was originally designed for. The downside is that you have to watch out for things like dangling pointers.
The GP's complaints are a result of what tradeoffs in JS?
Latency over 1ms are distressing to human subconscious under those conditions.
Do you have more info on that? Seriously, no snark, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical. I've never heard of human perception time being less than 30ms. I hate slow responses in UI's with a passion, but 1ms?
From your link:
Browsers don't reliably implement strict mode yet, so don't blindly depend on it. Strict mode changes semantics. Relying on those changes will cause mistakes and errors in browsers which don't implement strict mode.
It sounds like adding a source of errors more than removing one.
I think you should stop using computers for a year and meanwhile try to get laid by an actual homo sapiens woman.
Why are you in favor of inter-species mating?
But did that really have anything to do with it being a byte code interpreter, as opposed to a lousy implementation of one? Or perhaps applets having access to library functions that were too difficult to make secure?
In other words, is a byte code interpreter necessarily less secure than say a JavaScript interpreter? I honestly don't know, and would be interested if anyone can explain this.
a/k/a the Race to the Bottom
emergency procedures (which had to test 100% correct or you were pulled from flight duty)
It's good that they're concerned about flight crew safety, but what about procedures of the release of nuclear weapons?
how to properly authenticate and decode Action Messages and Emergency Action Messages
Such as those received via the CRM-114? "Ain't nobody got the go code yet!"
zero chance of human extinction from nuke war ... America and Russia have less than 1/3 of the nukes that we used to have.
So we've gone from 6x overkill to 2x. I feel so much safer.
Both countries have a very good track record of not accidentally launching nuclear missiles?
And they both have a track record of coming awfully close.
Not a missile but maybe something that is mistaken for one. The Soviets were once very, very close to making that mistake.
Thank you Col. Petrov, for saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
Do you think the US is immune to making such a mistake?
In fact we've come pretty close..
The real reason you don't remember as many new things as you get older, is that you realize just how useless most of the stuff you already remember is.
The brain functions as a large associated mesh. The more memories you have ...
In other words, you're proud of your ignorance.