The average household is swamped in debt because most people go shopping and buy more and more expensive stuff until someone or something makes them stop.
It's a lifestyle choice. You choose to buy the 2012 F150 instead of the used 1995 Toyota. You choose to buy the 50" 1080p TV and the porterhouse steak instead of the 25" 720p and ramen noodles. You drink Coke and Budweiser instead of water. You shop at Macy's instead of Walmart. And when you can't pay off the credit card at the end of the month, you choose to pay someone like me who didn't run out and spend all his money for the privilege borrowing some of mine.
Not at all. I make no claims about individual resources or specific lifestyles. The claims I do make are these:
1. Given today's technology, the planet can sustain more people in comfort than it currently does. Given tomorrow's technology it's likely to be able to sustain more.
2. Barring an Armageddon that collapses civilization, there is sufficient backpressure as population increases for it to settle into a steady state that matches what the planet can sustain without any artificial stimulus on our part.
3. Even if I'm wrong about #2, overpopulation is, like the eventual heat death of the universe and the Sun's expected expansion into a red giant, not an imminent problem.
But my personal favorite is Fremlin's 1964 observation that the heat dissipation limit requires us to keep the Earth's human population under 10^18 souls.
In 1971, Paul Ehrlich predicted a maximum sustainable world population of 1.2 billion people. By 1994 Ehrlich raised his estimate to 2 billion saying, "the present population of 5.5 billion [..] has clearly exceeded the capacity of Earth to sustain it." Two decades later we're closing in on 7 billion souls the overwhelming majority of which are not expected to starve to death or otherwise suffer a Malthusian catastrophe.
Overpopulation alarmism has become trite and hackneyed.
When I was in high school nearly a quarter century ago there were three computer courses: computer literacy, computer science and advanced placement computer science. The latter ended in a national standard AP test for college credit. Both computer science courses were about programming computers, not using applications. I'm betting things haven't regressed.
You and I both know that home schooling is no joke. Home schooled children are usually academically ahead of their public school peers. But on Slashdot it carries a not-entirely inaccurate stigma of religious nut job. That makes it a reasonably good way to get a rise out of people, especially when combined with an article that implies boastful ignorance on the part of the parents teaching.
I'm grateful for my touch-typing course too. Which I took in the 7th grade. In the '80s before it was obvious how ubiquitous personal computers would become.
I know a few home-schoolers. Their kids are consistently ahead of the public schools. Way ahead. They typically use computers like they were born to them, and in a sense they were.
Google searches for "computer science online curriculum" and "computer literacy online curriculum" answer the OP's question well. The article smells like a set up, designed to subtly press CS grads' buttons with things like failing to dissociate CS and computer literacy. I think he did it for the lulz.
Kids home-schooled into the high school level that don't already have competence with word processors and spreadsheets? A guy with a MS in CS who talks about word processing in the same sentence as computer science? If he wanted to push more buttons he'd have explained that his mom thought Linux was for commies. Seriously, don't feed the troll.
Computing is as much an art as it is engineering and certifications are not well compatible with creative artistry. To be perfectly blunt: the number of lines dedicated to certifications on your resume is inversely proportional to the probability I'll hire you.
I want to see what you've *done*. Work samples show me that. Word choices which reflect a depth of understanding in a given area show me that. A four-year degree shows me that. A certification shows me that you can study for a week or three and then regurgitate the vendor's line. Worse, a certification shows me that you think regurgitating the vendor line is important.
The argument is that if Bin Laden's folks had been more on the ball, Assange's indiscriminate leak would have cost us the opportunity to end Bin Laden.
Not only did I use a unique email address and password for my PSN account (not used for anything else), I gave intentionally dishonest answers to the secondary security question (and wrote them down), an intentionally dishonest DOB and the only purchases I made were made with a debit card I got as a gift.
Yeah, really. Your IT guy sounds abnormally reasonable. Give him the account and be glad the answer wasn't, "No and I'll be auditing you to find out why you're using unapproved equipment."
Most of the USB 2.0 PCI cards don't work under Linux. The kernel driver crashes under even small data loads. And I've tried a number. But, the USB 3.0 card I got works just fine. Hooray!
As I believe I mentioned, no, a fire-and-forget system is not good enough no matter how many bits you send... especially when dealing with a line-of-sight system like IR.
1. Arduino-based IR senders are more than the $40 each the OP says is too expensive.
2. If you used cheap TV remotes, how do you uniquely identify each student?
3. 200+ students at once. That much IR on the TV remote wavelengths will interfere with each other so that nobody's signal gets through. Wireless vote-clickers are actually pretty complicated systems. Not only do they have to avoid interference, the system has to assure that every clicker sent a response (even if it was no-button-clicked).
Slashdot Mirror
Fourteen years later, I'm still using Microsoft Frontpage. They call it Sharepoint now, but it still works with the old Apache server extensions.
The average household is swamped in debt because most people go shopping and buy more and more expensive stuff until someone or something makes them stop.
It's a lifestyle choice. You choose to buy the 2012 F150 instead of the used 1995 Toyota. You choose to buy the 50" 1080p TV and the porterhouse steak instead of the 25" 720p and ramen noodles. You drink Coke and Budweiser instead of water. You shop at Macy's instead of Walmart. And when you can't pay off the credit card at the end of the month, you choose to pay someone like me who didn't run out and spend all his money for the privilege borrowing some of mine.
On the other hand, a fertile acre of land on Hawaii where the growing season is year-round can cost as little as $14k. I know. I just bought three.
Because Ehrlich was wrong in 1971 and he was still wrong in 1994.
Not at all. I make no claims about individual resources or specific lifestyles. The claims I do make are these:
1. Given today's technology, the planet can sustain more people in comfort than it currently does. Given tomorrow's technology it's likely to be able to sustain more.
2. Barring an Armageddon that collapses civilization, there is sufficient backpressure as population increases for it to settle into a steady state that matches what the planet can sustain without any artificial stimulus on our part.
3. Even if I'm wrong about #2, overpopulation is, like the eventual heat death of the universe and the Sun's expected expansion into a red giant, not an imminent problem.
But my personal favorite is Fremlin's 1964 observation that the heat dissipation limit requires us to keep the Earth's human population under 10^18 souls.
http://probaway.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/what-will-be-the-earths-maximum-population/
In 1971, Paul Ehrlich predicted a maximum sustainable world population of 1.2 billion people. By 1994 Ehrlich raised his estimate to 2 billion saying, "the present population of 5.5 billion [..] has clearly exceeded the capacity of Earth to sustain it." Two decades later we're closing in on 7 billion souls the overwhelming majority of which are not expected to starve to death or otherwise suffer a Malthusian catastrophe.
Overpopulation alarmism has become trite and hackneyed.
When I was in high school nearly a quarter century ago there were three computer courses: computer literacy, computer science and advanced placement computer science. The latter ended in a national standard AP test for college credit. Both computer science courses were about programming computers, not using applications. I'm betting things haven't regressed.
You and I both know that home schooling is no joke. Home schooled children are usually academically ahead of their public school peers. But on Slashdot it carries a not-entirely inaccurate stigma of religious nut job. That makes it a reasonably good way to get a rise out of people, especially when combined with an article that implies boastful ignorance on the part of the parents teaching.
I'm grateful for my touch-typing course too. Which I took in the 7th grade. In the '80s before it was obvious how ubiquitous personal computers would become.
I know a few home-schoolers. Their kids are consistently ahead of the public schools. Way ahead. They typically use computers like they were born to them, and in a sense they were.
Google searches for "computer science online curriculum" and "computer literacy online curriculum" answer the OP's question well. The article smells like a set up, designed to subtly press CS grads' buttons with things like failing to dissociate CS and computer literacy. I think he did it for the lulz.
Kids home-schooled into the high school level that don't already have competence with word processors and spreadsheets? A guy with a MS in CS who talks about word processing in the same sentence as computer science? If he wanted to push more buttons he'd have explained that his mom thought Linux was for commies. Seriously, don't feed the troll.
Computing is as much an art as it is engineering and certifications are not well compatible with creative artistry. To be perfectly blunt: the number of lines dedicated to certifications on your resume is inversely proportional to the probability I'll hire you.
I want to see what you've *done*. Work samples show me that. Word choices which reflect a depth of understanding in a given area show me that. A four-year degree shows me that. A certification shows me that you can study for a week or three and then regurgitate the vendor's line. Worse, a certification shows me that you think regurgitating the vendor line is important.
Why pay bug bounties when you have a large backlog of unfixed bugs that were reported to you for free?
The argument is that if Bin Laden's folks had been more on the ball, Assange's indiscriminate leak would have cost us the opportunity to end Bin Laden.
For responding to a factual question with a message indicating a refusal to answer and declining to divulge my date of birth?
Bring it on man.
Not only did I use a unique email address and password for my PSN account (not used for anything else), I gave intentionally dishonest answers to the secondary security question (and wrote them down), an intentionally dishonest DOB and the only purchases I made were made with a debit card I got as a gift.
I feel like a genius.
detachable TOUCH screen remote
And by the way... yuck!
with FM radio and an MP3 player input jack
Fail!
Seriously, it's about $5 worth of electronics for a USB port that accepts a flash stick. Get it right folks.
Yeah, really. Your IT guy sounds abnormally reasonable. Give him the account and be glad the answer wasn't, "No and I'll be auditing you to find out why you're using unapproved equipment."
If Zuckerberg cashed this guy's checks, he's in trouble. If there are no canceled checks... then this guy has nothing. Zip.
No, cards providing USB 3.0 ports. Which are backwards compatible.
Most of the USB 2.0 PCI cards don't work under Linux. The kernel driver crashes under even small data loads. And I've tried a number. But, the USB 3.0 card I got works just fine. Hooray!
So basically when they say "don't panic," that'll turn out to be the wrong advice?
As I believe I mentioned, no, a fire-and-forget system is not good enough no matter how many bits you send... especially when dealing with a line-of-sight system like IR.
1. Arduino-based IR senders are more than the $40 each the OP says is too expensive.
2. If you used cheap TV remotes, how do you uniquely identify each student?
3. 200+ students at once. That much IR on the TV remote wavelengths will interfere with each other so that nobody's signal gets through. Wireless vote-clickers are actually pretty complicated systems. Not only do they have to avoid interference, the system has to assure that every clicker sent a response (even if it was no-button-clicked).
1, 2 and 3 describe the state of the DNS exactly as it is today.
As for #4, why phase out anything?