If we find out consciousness is a matter of physics and can be controlled, it opens up all new ways to threaten people, to torture people, to enslave people.
Well, we already know that consciousness can be affected by chemicals, magnetic fields, and IIRC a few other things. Sounds like physics may just have something to do with it.
And though AIUI not a matter of consciousness per se, it has long been known that a simple squirt of cold water onto the eardrum will cause the two halves of your brain to dissociate.
Now imagine the scenario where you have windows machines on the same network as your SCADA devices because the tools you've bought or built work this way. Someone attaches an unauthorized device to your network and fail, fail.
Aren't those development tools rather than run-time tools? If so, isolate your system and get serious about how you allow stuff to be moved over to it.
Maybe there should be a clause that unless the charges are actually terrorist/intelligence related, that any information obtained under the guise of "terror" should be inadmissible for any other offenses
Maybe we should just require a warrant, period.
In addition to the philosophical question of whether you should sell your freedom for improved (illusion of) security, there's the simple fact that 9/11 didn't succeed because it was too hard to get warrants; it succeeded because no one high enough up the chain of command connected the dots between the various hints that something was afoot.
But for the most part, the FBI has done a darn good job of busting up domestic terror plots for decades - warrants and all.
This is not about "No student left behind". This is not about "People must be able to get the degree". This is about setting a standard and if you get that standard, you pass and if not, you fail.
Yeah, but you aren't expected to have mastered the degree before you start.
The purpose of the early classes in CS - or any other major - should be to ensure that the people who want to study the subject and have the basic aptitude for it, are taught the foundations.
Sure, in CS - or any other major - some students will be way ahead of others on Day One. So you need remedial classes for the noobz and/or a mechanism for the more experienced to skip a class or two. But you can't require people to enter their freshman year with the knowledge and skills of a sophomore.
For a systems programming course taught in the 4th year, learning C in 3 weeks should be a non-issue. By that time they should have enough basic programming skills and conceptualization to make picking up another imperative language be a pushover. (In fact, I think a good CS curriculum would *make* students pick up a new language on their own at least once per year.)
And I would question the wisdom of teaching a systems programming course any earlier.
It's not necessary for doctors. To be a successful programmer you need a certain way of algorithmic thinking that takes a certain talent to master. It's about truly understanding something, and applying it in new situations.
I agree that program takes a certain way of thinking that isn't what ordinary people use for anything else they do before they finish high school. And I think the ability to write programs isn't a matter of "smarts", but rather a matter of switching to a new mode of thinking that you haven't ever used before.
In my experience, some newbs pick it up immediately, some have to struggle with it, and some never catch on. And IMO, CS programs should try to serve both the first two categories, not just people who have already made the leap before they start. (Alas, the third category is going to flunk out or change majors no matter what you do in CS I.)
To be a successful doctor, you need to be able to memorize lots of things, but there's nothing to 'understand'.
Frankly, I hope my doctor understands a *lot* of things about the physiological processes that my health depends on.
Of course, this takes your team three months to do it, while my brain damaged soul completes it in two days.
If you don't have to work to specs and standards, it should take a lot less than two days. Just write a "Hello, World!" program for every programming job that's assigned to you.
So far as "self-taught" programmers go they're the worst sort. They learn the syntax and the hacks and they think they're professionals.
I think there are both pros and cons to hiring self-taught programmers. In my somewhat limited experience, a lot of the self-taughties have more self-confidence, initiative, and creativity than a lot of the school-taughties. But those attributes can cause problems at times too.
One thing that is (in my experience) always a minus with the self-taught types, is that I've never met one who knew the first thing about computational complexity, and their idea of a good program tends to be one where they introduce a trick to shave a microsecond off a loop (not realizing that a modern optimizing compiler will do far better without their help), and as a side effect makes the code incomprehensible to anyone else. Meanwhile, their program uses an exponential-growth algorithm, so that towards the end of a month the business-process types enter a query and take the rest of the day off, knowing that they will be lucky if they have the answer when they come back tomorrow.
Even if you're hiring some to be "just" a programmer, they need to know a lot more than the syntax and semantics of the language de jour. IMO the CS curriculum that business whinge so much about (because it doesn't teach all the languages and middleware de jour) is actually pretty darn close to what those businesses really need their new-hires to know.
But then, not many people in HR know anything about computational complexity theory either.
I think programming assignments are unlike any other field in this regard. For an English or Math assignment, it may take a C student three times as long as an A student, and they may get half the questions wrong, but it's still a time-bounded assignment. But when writing a program, the C student takes three times as long and has half the program wrong, and it still doesn't work, and they go back and try to fix it, but they lack the skills, so they go back again, and again, and again... the assignment is no longer time-bounded, and the C students can't believe the prof would assign 50 hours of programming per week. But the A students are spending 2 and the B students are spending 3-5.
I don't know of any other field where this happens. So perhaps the premier question for CS I curriculum design is, how can you design assignments that a C student can finish in a bounded amount of time and still get a C on them, without dumbing down the course until it's useless?
Slashdot Mirror
It allows Big Brother to collect information on you sans any justification whatsoever
The FBI has been doing this for decades. That notorious threat to public safety, Lucille Ball, had an extensive FBI file.
I think they hate us cause of Israel.
Didn't OBL explicitly say that he wanted to bring down the WTC after he saw the ruin of the buildings of Lebanon?
The Rapture is going to occur in October. 2012-2015 aren't of any interest.
I didn't learn anything substantial from this article and I doubt anybody else would have either.
Great - all those years of not RingTFA finally paid off!
If we find out consciousness is a matter of physics and can be controlled, it opens up all new ways to threaten people, to torture people, to enslave people.
Well, we already know that consciousness can be affected by chemicals, magnetic fields, and IIRC a few other things. Sounds like physics may just have something to do with it.
And though AIUI not a matter of consciousness per se, it has long been known that a simple squirt of cold water onto the eardrum will cause the two halves of your brain to dissociate.
Care to state it?
Conflating the unfounded conjecture (AKA WAG) that QM has something to do with consciousness with a claim that QM "explains" consciousness.
Explanations have to actually explain something.
Of course, the fallacy may be on the part of the writer rather than the physicists; I wouldn't know.
I wonder what the "memory" could be — could be a good subject for a science fiction story.
A vague collection of TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
'Indiana Jones is old school, we've moved on from Indy, sorry Harrison Ford.'
I'm calling bullshit on this. Once the sites have been pinpointed from space someone still has to go in and do the dirty work
You mean, go in and steal the artifacts?
I patented the technique of finding pyramids from space years ago! Time to sue them for damages.
Well I patented the technique of patenting stuff so I believe you owe me some money.
Sorry, but I patented the technique of being owed money.
= the act of U.S. agencies using a one-sided extradition agreement to take British citizens without due process or proof
Sorry; we're just getting you back for impounding our citizens into your navy prior to 1812.
A little late, but we slipped in under the 200 year deadline.
Spinning Incubator Babies would be a really excellent name for a rock band.
Spin, Baby, Spin!
Now imagine the scenario where you have windows machines on the same network as your SCADA devices because the tools you've bought or built work this way. Someone attaches an unauthorized device to your network and fail, fail.
Aren't those development tools rather than run-time tools? If so, isolate your system and get serious about how you allow stuff to be moved over to it.
Just pulling the cable when remote access isn't needed is a highly effective, and often neglected, security practice.
I tried that, but my screen went black.
Yeah, well how would you like incubators for human babies to start spinning out of control and destroying themselves?
Do incubators spin?
the Skylon will drop the cost of delivering payloads to orbit from $15,000 per kilo to $1000.
If you weigh your payload in pounds, do you have to pay in Euros?
I'm afraid that any bill that protects any right that isn't about guns is never going to pass the Republican House of Representatives.
The Democrats don't exactly have a strong record of standing up to them these days.
Maybe there should be a clause that unless the charges are actually terrorist/intelligence related, that any information obtained under the guise of "terror" should be inadmissible for any other offenses
Maybe we should just require a warrant, period.
In addition to the philosophical question of whether you should sell your freedom for improved (illusion of) security, there's the simple fact that 9/11 didn't succeed because it was too hard to get warrants; it succeeded because no one high enough up the chain of command connected the dots between the various hints that something was afoot.
But for the most part, the FBI has done a darn good job of busting up domestic terror plots for decades - warrants and all.
The Bill will not prevent the FBI from accessing data without a warrant under terrorism and intellgence clauses.
We can't be concerned with trivial things like civil liberties when people are wetting their pants.
is News for Nerds.
This is not about "No student left behind". This is not about "People must be able to get the degree". This is about setting a standard and if you get that standard, you pass and if not, you fail.
Yeah, but you aren't expected to have mastered the degree before you start.
The purpose of the early classes in CS - or any other major - should be to ensure that the people who want to study the subject and have the basic aptitude for it, are taught the foundations.
Sure, in CS - or any other major - some students will be way ahead of others on Day One. So you need remedial classes for the noobz and/or a mechanism for the more experienced to skip a class or two. But you can't require people to enter their freshman year with the knowledge and skills of a sophomore.
Was this a freshman course?
For a systems programming course taught in the 4th year, learning C in 3 weeks should be a non-issue. By that time they should have enough basic programming skills and conceptualization to make picking up another imperative language be a pushover. (In fact, I think a good CS curriculum would *make* students pick up a new language on their own at least once per year.)
And I would question the wisdom of teaching a systems programming course any earlier.
It's not necessary for doctors. To be a successful programmer you need a certain way of algorithmic thinking that takes a certain talent to master. It's about truly understanding something, and applying it in new situations.
I agree that program takes a certain way of thinking that isn't what ordinary people use for anything else they do before they finish high school. And I think the ability to write programs isn't a matter of "smarts", but rather a matter of switching to a new mode of thinking that you haven't ever used before.
In my experience, some newbs pick it up immediately, some have to struggle with it, and some never catch on. And IMO, CS programs should try to serve both the first two categories, not just people who have already made the leap before they start. (Alas, the third category is going to flunk out or change majors no matter what you do in CS I.)
To be a successful doctor, you need to be able to memorize lots of things, but there's nothing to 'understand'.
Frankly, I hope my doctor understands a *lot* of things about the physiological processes that my health depends on.
Of course, this takes your team three months to do it, while my brain damaged soul completes it in two days.
If you don't have to work to specs and standards, it should take a lot less than two days. Just write a "Hello, World!" program for every programming job that's assigned to you.
So far as "self-taught" programmers go they're the worst sort. They learn the syntax and the hacks and they think they're professionals.
I think there are both pros and cons to hiring self-taught programmers. In my somewhat limited experience, a lot of the self-taughties have more self-confidence, initiative, and creativity than a lot of the school-taughties. But those attributes can cause problems at times too.
One thing that is (in my experience) always a minus with the self-taught types, is that I've never met one who knew the first thing about computational complexity, and their idea of a good program tends to be one where they introduce a trick to shave a microsecond off a loop (not realizing that a modern optimizing compiler will do far better without their help), and as a side effect makes the code incomprehensible to anyone else. Meanwhile, their program uses an exponential-growth algorithm, so that towards the end of a month the business-process types enter a query and take the rest of the day off, knowing that they will be lucky if they have the answer when they come back tomorrow.
Even if you're hiring some to be "just" a programmer, they need to know a lot more than the syntax and semantics of the language de jour. IMO the CS curriculum that business whinge so much about (because it doesn't teach all the languages and middleware de jour) is actually pretty darn close to what those businesses really need their new-hires to know.
But then, not many people in HR know anything about computational complexity theory either.
It's not time-consuming for all of us...
I think programming assignments are unlike any other field in this regard. For an English or Math assignment, it may take a C student three times as long as an A student, and they may get half the questions wrong, but it's still a time-bounded assignment. But when writing a program, the C student takes three times as long and has half the program wrong, and it still doesn't work, and they go back and try to fix it, but they lack the skills, so they go back again, and again, and again... the assignment is no longer time-bounded, and the C students can't believe the prof would assign 50 hours of programming per week. But the A students are spending 2 and the B students are spending 3-5.
I don't know of any other field where this happens. So perhaps the premier question for CS I curriculum design is, how can you design assignments that a C student can finish in a bounded amount of time and still get a C on them, without dumbing down the course until it's useless?