Most politicians tell you what they think you want to hear. Voters are all uninformed as no-one knows what is really going on in the corridors of power where money and politics meet.
But...and its a big "but"...every elected politician has a job. Are you happy with the results of his work? Are the streets cleaner, or are taxes fairer, or is whatever you see as being the function of that elected offical being done right.
If yes, please do vote for them.
else, throw the bum out - he is not earning his salary.
In a democracy, we all pay the politicians salaries and expenses. Everyone knows if they are satisfied with things or not. So no-one is excluded from voting.
Any talk that "uninformed" people should not vote means that some politician wants to carry on getting the salary, the publicity and power though they know they aren't earning it! Throw that bum out!!
Oracle and "cheap" in same sentence. What next? Microsoft and "gentle"? IBM and "modest"? Enron and "due diligence"?
Seriously, Oracle is never going to be a cheap solution in any market. They claim to be an enterprise software vendor. They charge prices that allow them to provide enterprise solutions very profitably. Oracle clients do not care about the price because they run their business more profitably on Oracle software. In many comapnies, small projects are developed in bitty things like MS Access and then ported to Oracle when they have proven a good idea. Getting your app an Oracle back-end was seen as proof you did a great job when I was contracting at Vodafone for example.
The very fact that they have the Oracle brand behind them means they can and will be the most expensive provider of enterprise level support of Linux.
Unless Red Hat has some aspiration to be more expensive than Oracle, the arrival of Oracle in the market can only be good news as it will grow the overall marketplace.
A bullet requires intelligence as to where the target will be and require stha assassin to face risk of being shot by bodyguards. Digging holes and filling them with explosives requires even better intelligence. The advantage is with the target - by changing his schedule he can make assassination much more difficult.
A flying eye in the sky coupled with a flying bomb gives the assassin all the advantages. If this technology works, we will have to rethink how we do security. It won't change the world but it will be very unpleasant for elected officials while a counter-strategy is being developed.
As an Irishman who lived under British helicopters for a time, I can see that this technology makes the flight and surveillance capabilities that once were restricted to states available to all.
Small irregular groups fighting state armies will use technology like this to balance their lack of cash and lack of supporters.
A simple example would be that an INLA unit instead of shooting a Member of Parliamnet could use a drone to track him and a second drone to dive bomb him with 100kg of C4.
The implication is that an organisation with little popular support and little capital could inflict heavy casualties on anyone it chooses. 100 kg is a LOT of C4. Even bank robbers could use this.
I have deliberately used an example from northern Ireland to avoid people with strong views on Iraq or Israel assuming that I want an off topic debate. Just think bout how this technology changes the balance of power that has traditionally shaped our thinking on policing and military defenses.
Corporate IT taking control of all database activity is an insane idea. The whole point of hirng intelligent people to to let them try ideas. Most ideas will be a total waste of time but the good ones make the whole exercise worthwhile. By all means let IT manage databases that support good ideas but please don't cause the IT department to stifle the creativity that makes innovation possible.
By way of example, I worked in Vodafone's global HQ where a system for billing premium rate SMS was developed and trialled in MS Access. It proved to be hugely profitable and was migrated to Oracle. To my mind, that is the way things should work. Access for quick rollouts of ideas that may or may not work and then corporate IT for databases that perform profitable activities.
One of the bigh imbalances in WoW is that far more people roll "cute" Alliance characters and the Horde is played by people who think about issues like Stun resistance, enhanced melee speed and so on. This makes a HUGE difference in battlegrounds where Horde usually win because they have more thinking players and Alliance have interminable queues becasue there are often 3 to 1 alliance to Horde population imbalances.
I'm an Orc Shaman and we win in battlegrounds 90% of the time. My hope is that this will lift the level of Alliance players a little while encouracing more peope to try Horde characeters.
I had a master ranger/master swordsman and specialsed in supplying cooks and armorsmiths with meat and hides. IT was great being part of player run economy where you chose your own customers, set your own prices and went off hunting whenever you needed cash.
Ranger, swordsman, cook and armorsmith were all dropped as part of the dumbing down of the game. Now we ahve something that seems to be be aimed at console players. Still, its given me time to watch TV and read books - two activities I had dropped to make time for SWG.
I have both and am letting my SWG subscription lapse. WoW has some essential features that make it better right now: 1. "Boss Key" - if I play at work, I MUST be able to Alt-Tab into a work appliaction when someone wanders behind me. WoW does this instantly. SWG takes 3 minutes. 2. Online manual - the manual in the box in now useless the game has changed so much. I took a few months off and found my armor no longer worked, my profession (doctor) changed beyond recognition and my combat skills were all changed. 3. Faster transitions - flying in WoW gets old after a bit. But the shuttling in SWG is just a joke - 2 minutes of your screen just sitting there? Come on, its got to be possible to jsut load the starport if not the whole darn city. 4. Most important - less lag. I can play on full servers on Wow and enjoy the game. I can play on half-deserted servers on SWG and get killed by Stormtroopers cos of lag.
Both are truly great games. But in terms of technical excellents the WoW client is many steps ahead of the SWG one and given the choice I'll take the game where the developers seem to be better. And its just more fun if you can play at work and not worry about lag.
Who believes that censoring your customers is an intelligent business strategy? Particularly if you are censoring the possibility that Customer Service is being off-shored.
Running a business is hard enough with moving into software development. Find off the shelf packages that meet your needs and concentrate on what you are good at.
And there is no replacement for MS Access. IT professionals rightly hate it. But if you are paying salaries, a database that is quick and easy to set up, that anyone can make forms and queries in is waht you need. BUT, move to a SQL backend as soon as is possible and just use Access as a GUI.
There are many players devoting all their gamepaly to the jedi quests and ginding jedi xp. The notion that that all this work will be simply erased amounts to a complete breach of trust.
If my wife were to say that running about killing snakes and rats with a sword was boring, I would be outta the house faster than you can say "Bobbitt".
Most programmers take three years to really 'get' C++ and once they do, any additional experience is of value if it broadens out to particular API. So for example, if I'm looking for a PS2 developer with vector unit experience, an applicant with 1 year of C++ on a PS2 that includes some low level experience will be preferred to an applicant with 10 years MFC C++ experience.
Essentially, its the application environment that is the valued experience after 3 years of C++. Less than 3 years, I need to see if they actually know C++. So your boss is only a little wrong.
I know Macs are things of beauty. I know they are the Lexus of personal computing and so worth paying $500-1000 more for the less RAM and processing power as the Ford of personal computing, ie the x86 architecture.
But lets face it - once you buy a Lexus, you pay double the rate each time your car is serviced. And Apple is like that too - its bigger price and fewer suppliers but WOW! what a gorgeous product!
Me personally - I like to buy my own motherboard, etc. and make what Ars Technica calls a GOD BOX for a week. (Then they call it a legacy product and make me lust for something newer and faster).
Would you consider buying a something that didn't come from Apple next time? Meanwhile, I know your Mac does not work but you could still show it off by putting it on your desktop but having the actaul work doen by a PC in one of the desk drawers:-)
(PS - show this posting to your Apple dealer and I'm sure you'll get better service - hide this part though)
Over-population is real but it begs the question..
on
How To Feed The World
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
...how come sub-Saharan Africa is almost a desert in terms of people per square mile yet we still talk about over-population? Its because uneducated people need a lot more space to feed themselves than weducated people.
The article addresses one part of a bigger problem. A man who who can't read is unlikely to be a productive farmer, let alone care about the environment. So the West ends up making grants and loans to make up for entire countries of uneducated folk in Africa.
Most of Africa's problem could be eased by education. An educated farmer goes out looking for good seed - you have to stop him from being productive. Its a proven fact that female literacy is THE most effective form of birth control in poor countries. I wish we could see grants towards rural schools in Africa instead of dealing with the symptoms of a poorly educated society, namely low productivity, high birth rates and high environmental degradation.
I'll never forget the mess AOL's icq client and Kazaa's browser stuff made of my PC. For most utilities, sourceforge tends to have it. Better still, software from sourceforge doesn't install a ton of spyware, hijack your web browser or do any of the crap that freeware/shareware people are forced to do to pay for hosting.
This is one area where open source works. To see the benefit, compare DC++ or eMule with their proprietary equivalents. Better quality because no annoying attempt to install stuff other than what is needed.
Spyware has killed the freeware/shareware world. The degree to which Miranda and eMule are better than their 'free as in beer' equivalents still amazes me.
Research proves there is no trick or secret. People who rely on calculators are poor at mental math because of lack of practice. While some people do have innate skills in maths, everyone has the ability to train the brain to to basic math. Take a look at this study Memory, mental arithmetic and mathematics
If an Introduction to Java involves too much coding, perhaps this will never be the field you feel really happy in. There's a huge difference between liking computers and choosing to spend your life with them. You will spend almost a third of your life working so avoiding things that don't make you feel good is very important.
Why not take a little time to visit your university career guidance centre, do a few psychometric tests, chat with an adviser and see if there might be a career you are happier in?
Slashdot Mirror
Most politicians tell you what they think you want to hear. Voters are all uninformed as no-one knows what is really going on in the corridors of power where money and politics meet.
But...and its a big "but"...every elected politician has a job. Are you happy with the results of his work? Are the streets cleaner, or are taxes fairer, or is whatever you see as being the function of that elected offical being done right.
If yes, please do vote for them.
else, throw the bum out - he is not earning his salary.
In a democracy, we all pay the politicians salaries and expenses. Everyone knows if they are satisfied with things or not. So no-one is excluded from voting.
Any talk that "uninformed" people should not vote means that some politician wants to carry on getting the salary, the publicity and power though they know they aren't earning it! Throw that bum out!!
Oracle and "cheap" in same sentence. What next? Microsoft and "gentle"? IBM and "modest"? Enron and "due diligence"?
Seriously, Oracle is never going to be a cheap solution in any market. They claim to be an enterprise software vendor. They charge prices that allow them to provide enterprise solutions very profitably. Oracle clients do not care about the price because they run their business more profitably on Oracle software. In many comapnies, small projects are developed in bitty things like MS Access and then ported to Oracle when they have proven a good idea. Getting your app an Oracle back-end was seen as proof you did a great job when I was contracting at Vodafone for example.
The very fact that they have the Oracle brand behind them means they can and will be the most expensive provider of enterprise level support of Linux.
Unless Red Hat has some aspiration to be more expensive than Oracle, the arrival of Oracle in the market can only be good news as it will grow the overall marketplace.
A bullet requires intelligence as to where the target will be and require stha assassin to face risk of being shot by bodyguards. Digging holes and filling them with explosives requires even better intelligence. The advantage is with the target - by changing his schedule he can make assassination much more difficult.
A flying eye in the sky coupled with a flying bomb gives the assassin all the advantages. If this technology works, we will have to rethink how we do security. It won't change the world but it will be very unpleasant for elected officials while a counter-strategy is being developed.
As an Irishman who lived under British helicopters for a time, I can see that this technology makes the flight and surveillance capabilities that once were restricted to states available to all.
Small irregular groups fighting state armies will use technology like this to balance their lack of cash and lack of supporters.
A simple example would be that an INLA unit instead of shooting a Member of Parliamnet could use a drone to track him and a second drone to dive bomb him with 100kg of C4.
The implication is that an organisation with little popular support and little capital could inflict heavy casualties on anyone it chooses. 100 kg is a LOT of C4. Even bank robbers could use this.
I have deliberately used an example from northern Ireland to avoid people with strong views on Iraq or Israel assuming that I want an off topic debate. Just think bout how this technology changes the balance of power that has traditionally shaped our thinking on policing and military defenses.
Corporate IT taking control of all database activity is an insane idea. The whole point of hirng intelligent people to to let them try ideas. Most ideas will be a total waste of time but the good ones make the whole exercise worthwhile. By all means let IT manage databases that support good ideas but please don't cause the IT department to stifle the creativity that makes innovation possible.
By way of example, I worked in Vodafone's global HQ where a system for billing premium rate SMS was developed and trialled in MS Access. It proved to be hugely profitable and was migrated to Oracle. To my mind, that is the way things should work. Access for quick rollouts of ideas that may or may not work and then corporate IT for databases that perform profitable activities.
One of the bigh imbalances in WoW is that far more people roll "cute" Alliance characters and the Horde is played by people who think about issues like Stun resistance, enhanced melee speed and so on. This makes a HUGE difference in battlegrounds where Horde usually win because they have more thinking players and Alliance have interminable queues becasue there are often 3 to 1 alliance to Horde population imbalances.
I'm an Orc Shaman and we win in battlegrounds 90% of the time. My hope is that this will lift the level of Alliance players a little while encouracing more peope to try Horde characeters.
I had a master ranger/master swordsman and specialsed in supplying cooks and armorsmiths with meat and hides. IT was great being part of player run economy where you chose your own customers, set your own prices and went off hunting whenever you needed cash.
Ranger, swordsman, cook and armorsmith were all dropped as part of the dumbing down of the game. Now we ahve something that seems to be be aimed at console players. Still, its given me time to watch TV and read books - two activities I had dropped to make time for SWG.
I have both and am letting my SWG subscription lapse. WoW has some essential features that make it better right now:
1. "Boss Key" - if I play at work, I MUST be able to Alt-Tab into a work appliaction when someone wanders behind me. WoW does this instantly. SWG takes 3 minutes.
2. Online manual - the manual in the box in now useless the game has changed so much. I took a few months off and found my armor no longer worked, my profession (doctor) changed beyond recognition and my combat skills were all changed.
3. Faster transitions - flying in WoW gets old after a bit. But the shuttling in SWG is just a joke - 2 minutes of your screen just sitting there? Come on, its got to be possible to jsut load the starport if not the whole darn city.
4. Most important - less lag. I can play on full servers on Wow and enjoy the game. I can play on half-deserted servers on SWG and get killed by Stormtroopers cos of lag.
Both are truly great games. But in terms of technical excellents the WoW client is many steps ahead of the SWG one and given the choice I'll take the game where the developers seem to be better. And its just more fun if you can play at work and not worry about lag.
Who believes that censoring your customers is an intelligent business strategy? Particularly if you are censoring the possibility that Customer Service is being off-shored.
Just followed your link - what a superb plugin. I need Javascript for a Web application but hate it on most sites.
Thanks for posting the link!
Wrong. Any email address will do - my son has msn with his gmail account and you see lots of business users with the company domains as their msn id.
The home media center market is going to be huge. Sony have PS3. Microsoft have Xbox3.
Now Intel and Apple are teaming to take them on. and IMO have the engineering skill, market credebility and design genius to do very well.
I can't wait...
He says, correctly, that HTML is the standard for documents on the Web.
He says stick to these standards.
His own article is in a crappy PDF - possibly the lamest format possible for web articles.
A case of "do as I say not as I do"
Running a business is hard enough with moving into software development. Find off the shelf packages that meet your needs and concentrate on what you are good at.
And there is no replacement for MS Access. IT professionals rightly hate it. But if you are paying salaries, a database that is quick and easy to set up, that anyone can make forms and queries in is waht you need. BUT, move to a SQL backend as soon as is possible and just use Access as a GUI.
I play SWG - the new dungeons and stuff are fun but the real game is the player economy. Its a blast trading and looting.
There are many players devoting all their gamepaly to the jedi quests and ginding jedi xp. The notion that that all this work will be simply erased amounts to a complete breach of trust.
If my wife were to say that running about killing snakes and rats with a sword was boring, I would be outta the house faster than you can say "Bobbitt".
Most programmers take three years to really 'get' C++ and once they do, any additional experience is of value if it broadens out to particular API. So for example, if I'm looking for a PS2 developer with vector unit experience, an applicant with 1 year of C++ on a PS2 that includes some low level experience will be preferred to an applicant with 10 years MFC C++ experience.
Essentially, its the application environment that is the valued experience after 3 years of C++. Less than 3 years, I need to see if they actually know C++. So your boss is only a little wrong.
I watched the video of Ballmer and McNealy boasting about their new patent regime.
I wonder what open source project will suffer first as they enforce these patents? Mono? JBoss?
I know Macs are things of beauty. I know they are the Lexus of personal computing and so worth paying $500-1000 more for the less RAM and processing power as the Ford of personal computing, ie the x86 architecture.
:-)
But lets face it - once you buy a Lexus, you pay double the rate each time your car is serviced. And Apple is like that too - its bigger price and fewer suppliers but WOW! what a gorgeous product!
Me personally - I like to buy my own motherboard, etc. and make what Ars Technica calls a GOD BOX for a week. (Then they call it a legacy product and make me lust for something newer and faster).
Would you consider buying a something that didn't come from Apple next time? Meanwhile, I know your Mac does not work but you could still show it off by putting it on your desktop but having the actaul work doen by a PC in one of the desk drawers
(PS - show this posting to your Apple dealer and I'm sure you'll get better service - hide this part though)
...how come sub-Saharan Africa is almost a desert in terms of people per square mile yet we still talk about over-population? Its because uneducated people need a lot more space to feed themselves than weducated people.
The article addresses one part of a bigger problem. A man who who can't read is unlikely to be a productive farmer, let alone care about the environment. So the West ends up making grants and loans to make up for entire countries of uneducated folk in Africa.
Most of Africa's problem could be eased by education. An educated farmer goes out looking for good seed - you have to stop him from being productive. Its a proven fact that female literacy is THE most effective form of birth control in poor countries. I wish we could see grants towards rural schools in Africa instead of dealing with the symptoms of a poorly educated society, namely low productivity, high birth rates and high environmental degradation.
I'll never forget the mess AOL's icq client and Kazaa's browser stuff made of my PC. For most utilities, sourceforge tends to have it. Better still, software from sourceforge doesn't install a ton of spyware, hijack your web browser or do any of the crap that freeware/shareware people are forced to do to pay for hosting.
This is one area where open source works. To see the benefit, compare DC++ or eMule with their proprietary equivalents. Better quality because no annoying attempt to install stuff other than what is needed.
Spyware has killed the freeware/shareware world. The degree to which Miranda and eMule are better than their 'free as in beer' equivalents still amazes me.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopic s/Mental_arithmetic.html
Research proves there is no trick or secret. People who rely on calculators are poor at mental math because of lack of practice. While some people do have innate skills in maths, everyone has the ability to train the brain to to basic math. Take a look at this study
Memory, mental arithmetic and mathematics
If an Introduction to Java involves too much coding, perhaps this will never be the field you feel really happy in. There's a huge difference between liking computers and choosing to spend your life with them. You will spend almost a third of your life working so avoiding things that don't make you feel good is very important.
Why not take a little time to visit your university career guidance centre, do a few psychometric tests, chat with an adviser and see if there might be a career you are happier in?