The evidence for science and against religious origin theories may be obvious to us now. But thinking historically, how is the current situation for laymen different between listening to scientists today vs. priests and scholars in the Dark Ages? In both cases, the uneducated layman sees that every learned person seems to agree on certain basic facts about the universe, and s/he has to choose to either believe that consensus or not. In the absence of an alternative explanation, how is the medieval peasant to know that thunderstorms are *not* the work of God/Satan, or that any number of "miracles" are not caused by what the learned fathers all agree is the cause? After all, it's the best explanation being offered for the phenomena observed. And without a dissenting voice, those scholarly explanations can seem awfully convincing, especially when they get into impressive theological or natural-philosophy jargon that you can only half understand. For many people, the experience today is the same, only with scientists replacing the priests, monks, etc.
Of course to those of us with at least some understanding of science, the difference is obvious; "science works", hypotheses are tested, etc. But to Joe Sixpack who never had an interest, all he has is the consensus of scholars to go by. But of course that consensus now conflicts with the consensus of his peers and the leader(s) of his religious community, so in that sense it's harder for him to believe in science now than it was for our hypothetical peasant to believe in religious explanations back in the day.
I agree that OO in the 101 course is a little much. You should really be focusing on simple programming techniques that a non-major might encounter when, say, writing a batch script or macro. I'm not sure about the second semester courses, though, since those are more for potential majors. Certainly at some point a CS major needs to be exposed to OO, but I don't think it needs to come first.
As for understanding the infrastructure, I do think C/C++ get you closer, but in my experience it doesn't really click until you take some kind of computer architecture course or similar. For instance, I didn't *really* understand pointers until I understood how values and addresses are stored in memory.
One reason I'd like to see lossless files available is so that I could put everything in my preferred lossy format on my devices. Can't fit your whole library in 320kbps? Just re-encode for a lower bitrate. Too snobby for 128kbps? Re-encode for a higher bitrate. That's something you can't do with MP3 source files without enduring multi-generational loss issues.
In my case, I'd prefer to have this capability for a rather unusual reason. Amazon's MP3s are done in a VBR MP3 encoding; for some inexplicable reason, most VBR encoded MP3s give me a slight headache?! This is true even when I'm not aware of the encoding beforehand. I'd much rather have CBR encoded files just to avoid this strange effect, even if I had to use a lower bitrate.
Part of the problem is that there is always going to be some overhead involved in maintaining employees, such that employing 2 workers for 20-hour shifts is always going to cost more than employing 1 worker for a 40-hour shift.
The current arrangement in the US, where health insurance and other important benefits are supplied by the employer, only exacerbates the problem. The per-employee overhead is so high that it presents and almost insurmountable obstacle to any employer who might want to try a shorter work-week in some form.
You can stop them from protesting on private cemetery grounds, but you can't stop them from protesting *outside* the funeral, on public property. There's no fundamental difference between what they're doing and a political protester in any other situation. Just because you (or even "everyone") disagree with them doesn't mean that you can interfere with their right to speak their mind freely.
Yes, they're bat-$#!+ crazy, and yes, their ideas are hateful and nonsensical, but that doesn't mean that the First Amendment ceases to apply to them. If it did, then the government could just declare, say, Green Party activists "offensive loonies" and censor their speech as well.
Political protest is the heart of what the First Amendment was designed to protect, and that's not something to be trifled with. Just ask the reform protesters being gunned down in Bahrain and elsewhere...
Watchmen is like the Citizen Kane of comic books --and that's not a good thing.
Citizen Kane was heralded as a great film, but most of that praise was due to the technical and cinematic innovations, rather than the plot. As a result, modern audiences, who've grown up used to seeing those techniques in every movie, generally have no idea why Kane was ever considered great.
Similarly, Watchmen more or less invented the postmodern supehero comic. At the time, its gritty anti-heroic take on superheroes was groundbreaking, fresh and original, which is why it is so well loved by older comic fans. But because it was never made into a movie or TV franchise back in the day, people outside of the comic book community were never exposed to it until now.
The problem is that modern audiences have already seen dozens of similar dark takes on the superhero genre in films and TV. Those people don't know (or care) that Watchmen was first; to them it's just another take on a well-worn theme. Watchmen has become a victim of its own success, to the point where just seems dated by comparison to later works that took its themes and further developed them.
Not sure if you're confused, or just trolling. In any case, his assertion is that the best way to prevent DUI is by raising the penalties so much that they become a more effective deterrent. People would be less likely to push the legal limit if they knew that a tiny bit over the limit == automatic jail time.
Of course this might not deter the hardcore alcoholics. But at least they'd be off the street for a year, and maybe while they're inside they'd sober up long enough to think about what they've been doing (probably a longshot, but hey...).
Liability; if the BAC tester is mis-calibrated, it could lead someone to think they're ok to drive when they're not. If that results in an accident, the bar could be sued over it.
What you're talking about is Overdrive, which is specifically designed to "conserve" energy in that situation by reducing engine drag so that the car coasts further/faster on the residual momentum.
Overdrive is a specific "feature" that can be disabled on most automatics simply by shifting the lever from "[D]" into the top gear number. Some trucks even have two Drive modes, one with Overdrive and one without.
In a hybrid, where the energy siphoned off by engine drag is conserved, there's no real need for Overdrive.
Part of the reason is because of cases like this. The company wants to jump on the new hotness now, and they don't want to wait for their current staff to ramp up their knowledge of the new technology. They'd rather poach a developer from another company that's already working with that tech. That way they don't have to wait, don't have to pay for training, and they're capturing an expert who might otherwise end up working for the competition.
In the early days, internet service did not require regulation because there was plenty of competition. The barriers to entry were low; anyone could set up a modem bank and T1 service and start serving dial-up customers. My provider was a local one-man operation, with service just as good as (and cheaper than) the big names.
But with the transition to broadband, the incumbent phone and cable providers gained immense power. Their existing physical infrastructure gave them a largely insurmountable advantage over potential new entrants. This created an effective duopoly, one that still persists today in many markets. In such a situation, the free market cannot function, and government regulation is required to prevent abuses.
Wow, almost the exact opposite of my response. If your post wasn't older, I'd almost think you were trolling me;)
To wit: If you can't understand the tremendous difference between physical coordination and abstract reasoning/creativity, I feel for ya, but I'm not likely to hire you...
My typing speed maxed out in high school typing class. 15 years of daily programming has done nothing to increase it beyond that level.
There is a wide variability in individuals' ability to type fast; it's one of those things where innate talent really *is* as important as learned skill. But there is no evidence I'm aware that that particular talent is in any way correlated with superior programming ability. It's a matter of physical coordination, which is based in the cerebellum, and has nothing to do with cerebral functioning.
Of course, I consider myself well into the "moderate" range (~50wpm), so maybe I'm not who you're talking about (but then that's Cook's whole point). And I would hope that any serious programmer would take the time to take a typing class, so 2-fingers is indeed a bit suspect. But even now I stumble a bit with the occasional special character (and doubly so when another person is watching). Heck, if I had good coordination, I would would have been an athlete instead! (or a pianist...)
I've been told that this is how it works in at least some European firms. You can take as many sick days as you like, but heaven help you if you aren't at home (or place of treatment) when someone shows up to check on you --and they WILL show up.
The whole point of B&N (or Amazon) releasing their own e-reader is to lock people into buying e-books exclusively from them. I'm wiling to bet that they subsidize the cost of their devices in exchange for the expected profits from this vendor lock-in. If so, then every Nook that isn't used to buy e-books, or that is used to buy e-books from a rival source, represents a net loss for B&N. Allowing the Nook Color to remain rooted would encourage just such alternative uses, which is why I don't expect it to be tolerated.
Currently it's an "X" button that appears to the right of each post when you mouse over it. Click and you'll get options to Hide posts from that user, or from that application if it's an app-generated message (eg. Farmville crud).
I've noticed this myself when watching Netflix streams. I'm only bothered by low picture quality for the first few minutes; once I'm into the story I don't notice it at all. Even crappy "Starz play" is fine after a while. And this is on a 100" projector display.
The Register has an interesting piece on Net Neutrality and Google's co-location deals. El Reg posits that Google is trying to eat its cake and have it too: appearing to be the good-guy by supporting Net Neutrality, while knowing that its own private backbone network and ISP server co-location will give it a de-facto advantage regardless:
Temperament doesn't change; that is, your basic innate tendency to react one way or another. However, personality is more than just temperament; it also includes emotional scars, life lessons, and the results of concerted effort to control your innate tendencies.
Basically, a naturally timid individual will never become a natural daredevil --though s/he might learn to fake it very well. In fact, sometimes people learn to fake it so well that they even manage to fool themselves, with the truth only revealed once the constant strain of impulse-denial and self-deception finally gets the better of them.
But it's also possible to truly moderate one's responses, given the right life experiences and lots of hard work. It's not a matter of becoming the opposite of what you are, more of learning to rein in your natural responses when possible, and to compensate for what can't be controlled. You may not ever become, say, more extroverted than Mr. Popularity, but you can still make strides toward the middle of the spectrum, sometimes enough to make your old self seem like a completely different person.
Technically they have no need to "import" workers from outside the country, as they already use their rural population for that purpose. There are really two Chinas; the prosperous, urban free market zones, and the desperately poor rural areas. People from the latter realm are treated as second-class citizens at best, and when they go to the cities for work they are treated essentially as if they were foreign migrant workers: not allowed to settle permanently, forced to live in dormitories, etc.
What's not clear to me is whether these minimum-wage reforms apply to those folks, or just to the "native" urban Chinese, some of whom also work in less-than-ideal conditions? If it applies to the rural migrants, then that really would signal a change in the Chinese government's socio-economic policy.
The two main studies highlighted in the article both suffer from a sort of self-selection bias: the people in the "heavy-multitasking" group(s) are there because of a chosen lifestyle. Perhaps the reason they multitask so much in everyday life is *because* they can't filter out information as well as the average person?
They can't help but be constantly distracted, so they suffer the downsides of multitasking whether they use technology or not. Deliberate multitasking might actually represent a coping mechanism for them, saturating their awareness with tasks and information sources that are at least somewhat productive, thus leaving no room for truly random distractions. Or perhaps priding themselves on their "multitasking skills" is just a way to paper over their inherent weakness and re-frame it as a positive attribute?
i figured that out when the iPad was first announced. $2000 for a glorified $300 DVD system vs $500 for a dumbed down computer that can play movies and games and you don't need to take shiny discs with you that scratch easily
Nope, instead you just take your one shiny $500 device that scratches easily...
Slashdot Mirror
Now that geeks are hip, hipsters are pretending to be geeky...
The evidence for science and against religious origin theories may be obvious to us now. But thinking historically, how is the current situation for laymen different between listening to scientists today vs. priests and scholars in the Dark Ages? In both cases, the uneducated layman sees that every learned person seems to agree on certain basic facts about the universe, and s/he has to choose to either believe that consensus or not. In the absence of an alternative explanation, how is the medieval peasant to know that thunderstorms are *not* the work of God/Satan, or that any number of "miracles" are not caused by what the learned fathers all agree is the cause? After all, it's the best explanation being offered for the phenomena observed. And without a dissenting voice, those scholarly explanations can seem awfully convincing, especially when they get into impressive theological or natural-philosophy jargon that you can only half understand. For many people, the experience today is the same, only with scientists replacing the priests, monks, etc.
Of course to those of us with at least some understanding of science, the difference is obvious; "science works", hypotheses are tested, etc. But to Joe Sixpack who never had an interest, all he has is the consensus of scholars to go by. But of course that consensus now conflicts with the consensus of his peers and the leader(s) of his religious community, so in that sense it's harder for him to believe in science now than it was for our hypothetical peasant to believe in religious explanations back in the day.
I agree that OO in the 101 course is a little much. You should really be focusing on simple programming techniques that a non-major might encounter when, say, writing a batch script or macro. I'm not sure about the second semester courses, though, since those are more for potential majors. Certainly at some point a CS major needs to be exposed to OO, but I don't think it needs to come first.
As for understanding the infrastructure, I do think C/C++ get you closer, but in my experience it doesn't really click until you take some kind of computer architecture course or similar. For instance, I didn't *really* understand pointers until I understood how values and addresses are stored in memory.
One reason I'd like to see lossless files available is so that I could put everything in my preferred lossy format on my devices. Can't fit your whole library in 320kbps? Just re-encode for a lower bitrate. Too snobby for 128kbps? Re-encode for a higher bitrate. That's something you can't do with MP3 source files without enduring multi-generational loss issues.
In my case, I'd prefer to have this capability for a rather unusual reason. Amazon's MP3s are done in a VBR MP3 encoding; for some inexplicable reason, most VBR encoded MP3s give me a slight headache?! This is true even when I'm not aware of the encoding beforehand. I'd much rather have CBR encoded files just to avoid this strange effect, even if I had to use a lower bitrate.
Part of the problem is that there is always going to be some overhead involved in maintaining employees, such that employing 2 workers for 20-hour shifts is always going to cost more than employing 1 worker for a 40-hour shift.
The current arrangement in the US, where health insurance and other important benefits are supplied by the employer, only exacerbates the problem. The per-employee overhead is so high that it presents and almost insurmountable obstacle to any employer who might want to try a shorter work-week in some form.
Is this comment serious?
You can stop them from protesting on private cemetery grounds, but you can't stop them from protesting *outside* the funeral, on public property. There's no fundamental difference between what they're doing and a political protester in any other situation. Just because you (or even "everyone") disagree with them doesn't mean that you can interfere with their right to speak their mind freely.
Yes, they're bat-$#!+ crazy, and yes, their ideas are hateful and nonsensical, but that doesn't mean that the First Amendment ceases to apply to them. If it did, then the government could just declare, say, Green Party activists "offensive loonies" and censor their speech as well.
Political protest is the heart of what the First Amendment was designed to protect, and that's not something to be trifled with. Just ask the reform protesters being gunned down in Bahrain and elsewhere...
Watchmen is like the Citizen Kane of comic books --and that's not a good thing.
Citizen Kane was heralded as a great film, but most of that praise was due to the technical and cinematic innovations, rather than the plot. As a result, modern audiences, who've grown up used to seeing those techniques in every movie, generally have no idea why Kane was ever considered great.
Similarly, Watchmen more or less invented the postmodern supehero comic. At the time, its gritty anti-heroic take on superheroes was groundbreaking, fresh and original, which is why it is so well loved by older comic fans. But because it was never made into a movie or TV franchise back in the day, people outside of the comic book community were never exposed to it until now.
The problem is that modern audiences have already seen dozens of similar dark takes on the superhero genre in films and TV. Those people don't know (or care) that Watchmen was first; to them it's just another take on a well-worn theme. Watchmen has become a victim of its own success, to the point where just seems dated by comparison to later works that took its themes and further developed them.
Not sure if you're confused, or just trolling. In any case, his assertion is that the best way to prevent DUI is by raising the penalties so much that they become a more effective deterrent. People would be less likely to push the legal limit if they knew that a tiny bit over the limit == automatic jail time.
Of course this might not deter the hardcore alcoholics. But at least they'd be off the street for a year, and maybe while they're inside they'd sober up long enough to think about what they've been doing (probably a longshot, but hey...).
Liability; if the BAC tester is mis-calibrated, it could lead someone to think they're ok to drive when they're not. If that results in an accident, the bar could be sued over it.
What you're talking about is Overdrive, which is specifically designed to "conserve" energy in that situation by reducing engine drag so that the car coasts further/faster on the residual momentum.
Overdrive is a specific "feature" that can be disabled on most automatics simply by shifting the lever from "[D]" into the top gear number. Some trucks even have two Drive modes, one with Overdrive and one without.
In a hybrid, where the energy siphoned off by engine drag is conserved, there's no real need for Overdrive.
Part of the reason is because of cases like this. The company wants to jump on the new hotness now, and they don't want to wait for their current staff to ramp up their knowledge of the new technology. They'd rather poach a developer from another company that's already working with that tech. That way they don't have to wait, don't have to pay for training, and they're capturing an expert who might otherwise end up working for the competition.
News Flash! Students in conventional schools often memorize facts without truly understanding them!!!!111!
Film at eleven...
In the early days, internet service did not require regulation because there was plenty of competition. The barriers to entry were low; anyone could set up a modem bank and T1 service and start serving dial-up customers. My provider was a local one-man operation, with service just as good as (and cheaper than) the big names.
But with the transition to broadband, the incumbent phone and cable providers gained immense power. Their existing physical infrastructure gave them a largely insurmountable advantage over potential new entrants. This created an effective duopoly, one that still persists today in many markets. In such a situation, the free market cannot function, and government regulation is required to prevent abuses.
Wow, almost the exact opposite of my response. If your post wasn't older, I'd almost think you were trolling me ;)
To wit: If you can't understand the tremendous difference between physical coordination and abstract reasoning/creativity, I feel for ya, but I'm not likely to hire you...
My typing speed maxed out in high school typing class. 15 years of daily programming has done nothing to increase it beyond that level.
There is a wide variability in individuals' ability to type fast; it's one of those things where innate talent really *is* as important as learned skill. But there is no evidence I'm aware that that particular talent is in any way correlated with superior programming ability. It's a matter of physical coordination, which is based in the cerebellum, and has nothing to do with cerebral functioning.
Of course, I consider myself well into the "moderate" range (~50wpm), so maybe I'm not who you're talking about (but then that's Cook's whole point). And I would hope that any serious programmer would take the time to take a typing class, so 2-fingers is indeed a bit suspect. But even now I stumble a bit with the occasional special character (and doubly so when another person is watching). Heck, if I had good coordination, I would would have been an athlete instead! (or a pianist...)
I've been told that this is how it works in at least some European firms. You can take as many sick days as you like, but heaven help you if you aren't at home (or place of treatment) when someone shows up to check on you --and they WILL show up.
The whole point of B&N (or Amazon) releasing their own e-reader is to lock people into buying e-books exclusively from them. I'm wiling to bet that they subsidize the cost of their devices in exchange for the expected profits from this vendor lock-in. If so, then every Nook that isn't used to buy e-books, or that is used to buy e-books from a rival source, represents a net loss for B&N. Allowing the Nook Color to remain rooted would encourage just such alternative uses, which is why I don't expect it to be tolerated.
Currently it's an "X" button that appears to the right of each post when you mouse over it. Click and you'll get options to Hide posts from that user, or from that application if it's an app-generated message (eg. Farmville crud).
I've noticed this myself when watching Netflix streams. I'm only bothered by low picture quality for the first few minutes; once I'm into the story I don't notice it at all. Even crappy "Starz play" is fine after a while. And this is on a 100" projector display.
The Register has an interesting piece on Net Neutrality and Google's co-location deals. El Reg posits that Google is trying to eat its cake and have it too: appearing to be the good-guy by supporting Net Neutrality, while knowing that its own private backbone network and ISP server co-location will give it a de-facto advantage regardless:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/09/neutrality_new_net_hypergiants/
Temperament doesn't change; that is, your basic innate tendency to react one way or another. However, personality is more than just temperament; it also includes emotional scars, life lessons, and the results of concerted effort to control your innate tendencies.
Basically, a naturally timid individual will never become a natural daredevil --though s/he might learn to fake it very well. In fact, sometimes people learn to fake it so well that they even manage to fool themselves, with the truth only revealed once the constant strain of impulse-denial and self-deception finally gets the better of them.
But it's also possible to truly moderate one's responses, given the right life experiences and lots of hard work. It's not a matter of becoming the opposite of what you are, more of learning to rein in your natural responses when possible, and to compensate for what can't be controlled. You may not ever become, say, more extroverted than Mr. Popularity, but you can still make strides toward the middle of the spectrum, sometimes enough to make your old self seem like a completely different person.
Yes, they can throttle you. But people get annoyed when they do that, and some even wind up canceling the service.
Getting the USPS to drop Saturday delivery would be a way for them to reduce DVD volume without getting blamed for it.
Technically they have no need to "import" workers from outside the country, as they already use their rural population for that purpose. There are really two Chinas; the prosperous, urban free market zones, and the desperately poor rural areas. People from the latter realm are treated as second-class citizens at best, and when they go to the cities for work they are treated essentially as if they were foreign migrant workers: not allowed to settle permanently, forced to live in dormitories, etc.
What's not clear to me is whether these minimum-wage reforms apply to those folks, or just to the "native" urban Chinese, some of whom also work in less-than-ideal conditions? If it applies to the rural migrants, then that really would signal a change in the Chinese government's socio-economic policy.
The two main studies highlighted in the article both suffer from a sort of self-selection bias: the people in the "heavy-multitasking" group(s) are there because of a chosen lifestyle. Perhaps the reason they multitask so much in everyday life is *because* they can't filter out information as well as the average person?
They can't help but be constantly distracted, so they suffer the downsides of multitasking whether they use technology or not. Deliberate multitasking might actually represent a coping mechanism for them, saturating their awareness with tasks and information sources that are at least somewhat productive, thus leaving no room for truly random distractions. Or perhaps priding themselves on their "multitasking skills" is just a way to paper over their inherent weakness and re-frame it as a positive attribute?
i figured that out when the iPad was first announced. $2000 for a glorified $300 DVD system vs $500 for a dumbed down computer that can play movies and games and you don't need to take shiny discs with you that scratch easily
Nope, instead you just take your one shiny $500 device that scratches easily...