I have definitely been noticing this trend and I don't like it one bit, but it doesn't seem there is very much I can do about it apart from abandoning some web sites that are not too essential.
For example, I haven't gone to www.washingtonpost.com since they introduced their new "super-nosy" registration policy (and I used to go there almost every day). On some other web sites I give fake information(OK this doesn't really solve anything, but dammit I am not going to let them win...)
In any case, I can easily forsee the day when there won't be any "free" news sites that do not require registration. Except the Onion. There will always be the Onion. (Knock on Wood...).
OK, I am not an Indian but as a foreigner I can answer this.
It is rather difficult to move straight from a foreign country to come work in the US.
There are basically two general ways to go about it:
(1) Family reunification: If your mom,dad, brother, sister, children or wife are American you can apply for US Permanent Resident status(aka Green Card). Obviously most foreigners don't have such family connections and hence are in no position to use this provision of the law.
(2)Employer sponsorship of (H1B | L1 | Green card): An American company has to apply on your behalf for you to get one of these documents( which are significantly different but they all basically allow you to work).
Now suppose you live in Delhi. How are you going to convince an American company in say, Seattle to sponsor you for H1B when they have never even met you? (Each sponsorship takes quite a bit of time and legal effort on the company's part). Not easy.
This is all significantly easier if you are already in the US for some other reason like studying because at least the employer can get to know you through summer internships and such and hence might consider the effort of sponsoring you.
Another option is to try and get a job at an American subsidiary(e.g Microsoft India) then hope to get transferred to the states. Not easy.
So in general it is not that easy for a foreigner to legally come and work in the US without going through a rather roundabout method.(i.e grad school-> interning->H1B->green card)
Disclaimer: I've glossed over the details of the various visas and legalities, but I believe this is how things generally work.
where X and Y are "rational integral functions of degree n" (basically some sort of general polynomials right?) and you want to find the shape of the curve that solves it.
What I don't see is the relationship to the first part. To my untrained eye the second part looks much harder as the function is more complicated.
Did Hilbert just put them together because they were both about "the topology of curves" and there is nothing more to it than that?
I also read something on mathworld about this being related to the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture relating elliptic curves and modular forms that was used in Fermat's Last Theorem but that went WAAAY over my head.
I'd have to say it's (almost) impossible to understand what this problem is about without having a fair amount of mathematical background.
But in brief, it appears to be a problem about the "topology of real algebraic curves"
"Topology" is all about the shape of things. e.g a donut and coffee cup are the same from a topological viewpoint because you can transform one to the other without tearing the donut or coffee cup. There is probably lots of good introductions on the web.
Curves that can be given in implicit form as f(x,y)=0, where f is a polynomial, are called algebraic. The degree of f is called the degree or order of the curve. Thus conics (Section 7) are algebraic curves of degree two. Curves of degree three already have a great variety of shapes, and only a few common ones will be given here.
Basically polynomials of several variables is what they are, as far as I can tell. y = x^2 (which is a parabola) is a simple example.
So Hilbert was asking about the "shape" of algebraic curves (I think).
Now that was just the first part! I am not really sure the second part is about...
I would guess the place would probably be a royal mess if he only cleaned once a week. If he cleans everyday, then he can spend less time on the weekly cleaning.
Plus, the daily cleaning thing is probably his wife's idea. As a generalization, women tend to like things a bit neater than your average slashdotter.
I had this exact same problem and still do to some extent.
What worked for me, was analyzing WHY I was procastinating on a particular task.
It turned out to be mainly for one of two reasons
(1) The task is mind-numbingly boring(e.g tax returns, paying bills, balancing checkbooks).
In this case, I try to get some help on it, break it down into smaller tasks or just postpone it until it becomes more urgent.
(2) I really don't know what I am doing and I am intimidated by the size of the task. In this case, I try to think of a small subproblem in the task or (very important) ASK FOR HELP. I discovered I was wasting way too much time simply because I was so reluctant to ask for help when I was stuck.
In addition of course, it also helps if you get enough sleep and exercise well. If you are well rested you will feel good, and if you feel good you are more likely to be able to 'push' yourself to complete a task.
I have relatives in rural Tanzania and it's pretty much the same situation. Food, water are not really a problem since the food is grown locally and the people are adapted to the water.
But only recently has electricity been introduced, and it is not that reliable.
My sentiments exactly. At first I couldn't place her face and thought she was Claire Forlani(who I liked in Meet Joe Black) but Jennifer is more beautiful IMHO.
But damn, she looked good in her scenes, both from an acting and eye-candy point of view.
"but in Ghana where the average person is less science-savvy than your 6 year old kid, it will bring them forward in leaps and bounds."
I heartily agree with your overall point, but I think you got a bit carried away here in your metaphor there. I mean what does a 6-year old know? All I remember was something about dinosaurs being really huge, big deal.
Also I think you underestimate the knowledge of the average Ghanian. They may not know the theory of Mendelian genetics or whatever, but you bet they know how to breed their cows!
I only stayed in Dar Es Salaam, but it seemed every other block I went there was an internet cafe. The price was about 1$ for an hour of access and they always seemed to be packed.
Of course the connection was a bit slow to say the least, but perfectly sufficient if you primarily wanted to e-mail.
There are many misconceptions on the state of contemporary Africa.
I was in Tanzania last December, and like you said EVERYONE seemed to have a cellphone. Many more people than have a landline even.
It is interesting to speculate how these technologies will play out in less developed countries(i.e will dialup ever become popular or will they "leapfrog" to another form of access)?
I only read the abstract, but it seems they were only looking at the 'increments' between the gaps in prime numbers.
The gaps between prime numbers have been well studied, but perhaps no one has bothered to look at the increments.
Still, I agree that this is does not look all that surprising since the distribution of primes is well-studied, but they may have looked at some wrinkle that people had not looked at before.
Also, the Nature write-up was particularly clueless. "No one has yet proved that their[primes] occurrence follows any pattern, or whether there is definitely no pattern."
1) I think you mean Arthur Andersen's auditing unit, which I believe is now kaput. There is also a consulting side which changed its name to Accenture.
2) Chelsea Clinton has a Stanford bachelor's degree and an Oxford graduate degree. Connections obviously helped, but those are the kind of jobs you get with those kind of qualifications.
Hmmm... okay, strong elements of S&M here, not exactly what I expected(though I should have expected it from the story intro). I can see where the author's interests lie.
I find it somewhat distasteful, but let me read on
Slashdot Mirror
I have definitely been noticing this trend and I don't like it one bit, but it doesn't seem there is very much I can do about it apart from abandoning some web sites that are not too essential.
For example, I haven't gone to www.washingtonpost.com since they introduced their new "super-nosy" registration policy (and I used to go there almost every day). On some other web sites I give fake information(OK this doesn't really solve anything, but dammit I am not going to let them win...)
In any case, I can easily forsee the day when there won't be any "free" news sites that do not require registration. Except the Onion. There will always be the Onion. (Knock on Wood...).
It seems that this is an increasingly popular form of karma-whoring.
Perhaps an entry should be added here: slashdot culture
Why can't you just buy the shares?
I have never understood this part.
Why do you have to make a formal request and everything.
More specifically, why don't they just allow you to buy and buy until you get 51% and can kick the current board out?
Population of India ~ 1 billion(1,000 million).
Population of Britain ~ 50 million.
Hence if 5% of Indians speak English well that equals the entire population of Britain.
At least this is what I understood from this comment.
India is an English speaking country.
In fact all the Indians I have met here in the US have had a pretty good grasp of the English language (albeit with a distinctive Indian accent;)).
OK, I am not an Indian but as a foreigner I can answer this.
It is rather difficult to move straight from a foreign country to come work in the US.
There are basically two general ways to go about it:
(1) Family reunification: If your mom,dad, brother, sister, children or wife are American you can apply for US Permanent Resident status(aka Green Card). Obviously most foreigners don't have such family connections and hence are in no position to use this provision of the law.
(2)Employer sponsorship of (H1B | L1 | Green card):
An American company has to apply on your behalf for you to get one of these documents( which are significantly different but they all basically allow you to work).
Now suppose you live in Delhi. How are you going to convince an American company in say, Seattle to sponsor you for H1B when they have never even met you? (Each sponsorship takes quite a bit of time and legal effort on the company's part). Not easy.
This is all significantly easier if you are already in the US for some other reason like studying because at least the employer can get to know you through summer internships and such and hence might consider the effort of sponsoring you.
Another option is to try and get a job at an American subsidiary(e.g Microsoft India) then hope to get transferred to the states. Not easy.
So in general it is not that easy for a foreigner to legally come and work in the US without going through a rather roundabout method.(i.e grad school-> interning->H1B->green card)
Disclaimer: I've glossed over the details of the various visas and legalities, but I believe this is how things generally work.
Duh.. I meant good luck with the DATE.
I must be more of a geek than I thought.
"But fact is that there ARE some girl that dig dorks..."
... )
True that...Good luck with the data.
Out of curiosity, what aspect of programming languages did you talk about? (I am just trying to picture it
Thanks, that was pretty informative.
Ok, I kinda see what the second part is about:
you have dy/dx = X/Y
where X and Y are "rational integral functions of degree n" (basically some sort of general polynomials right?) and you want to find the shape of the curve that solves it.
What I don't see is the relationship to the first part. To my untrained eye the second part looks much harder as the function is more complicated.
Did Hilbert just put them together because they were both about "the topology of curves" and there is nothing more to it than that?
I also read something on mathworld about this being related to the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture relating elliptic curves and modular forms that was used in Fermat's Last Theorem but that went WAAAY over my head.
But in brief, it appears to be a problem about the "topology of real algebraic curves"
"Topology" is all about the shape of things. e.g a donut and coffee cup are the same from a topological viewpoint because you can transform one to the other without tearing the donut or coffee cup. There is probably lots of good introductions on the web.
As to "real algebraic curves", here is a link:
I quote:
Curves that can be given in implicit form as f(x,y)=0, where f is a polynomial, are called algebraic. The degree of f is called the degree or order of the curve. Thus conics (Section 7) are algebraic curves of degree two. Curves of degree three already have a great variety of shapes, and only a few common ones will be given here.
Basically polynomials of several variables is what they are, as far as I can tell. y = x^2 (which is a parabola) is a simple example.
So Hilbert was asking about the "shape" of algebraic curves (I think).
Now that was just the first part! I am not really sure the second part is about ...
The link again is
here
I welcome corrections from anyone with more math knowledge.
The guy has two small kids.
I would guess the place would probably be a royal mess if he only cleaned once a week. If he cleans everyday, then he can spend less time on the weekly cleaning.
Plus, the daily cleaning thing is probably his wife's idea. As a generalization, women tend to like things a bit neater than your average slashdotter.
But here goes.
I had this exact same problem and still do to some extent.
What worked for me, was analyzing WHY I was procastinating on a particular task.
It turned out to be mainly for one of two reasons
(1) The task is mind-numbingly boring(e.g tax returns, paying bills, balancing checkbooks).
In this case, I try to get some help on it, break it down into smaller tasks or just postpone it until it becomes more urgent.
(2) I really don't know what I am doing and I am intimidated by the size of the task. In this case, I try to think of a small subproblem in the task or (very important) ASK FOR HELP. I discovered I was wasting way too much time simply because I was so reluctant to ask for help when I was stuck.
In addition of course, it also helps if you get enough sleep and exercise well. If you are well rested you will feel good, and if you feel good you are more likely to be able to 'push' yourself to complete a task.
Here in Westchester County, NY a regular ticket is 10.25$
I don't really care about pop-corn and such, if the seats are comfortable and the place well kept I could definitely like something like this.
IBM has larger revenues than Microsoft and is actually doing quite well right now.
Still, the analogy is pretty strained I agree.
I have relatives in rural Tanzania and it's pretty much the same situation. Food, water are not really a problem since the food is grown locally and the people are adapted to the water.
But only recently has electricity been introduced, and it is not that reliable.
Wow.
;)
10 terminators? I suppose that makes sense. But does that mean 7 more movies??
Anyway, with all the time travel paradoxes involved here it's probably not worth thinking too hard about this.
But you sir, I salute. You are a True Geek(tm).
YES!
My sentiments exactly. At first I couldn't place her face and thought she was Claire Forlani(who I liked in Meet Joe Black) but Jennifer is more beautiful IMHO.
But damn, she looked good in her scenes, both from an acting and eye-candy point of view.
Hence no confusion.
Nuff Said.
"but in Ghana where the average person is less science-savvy than your 6 year old kid, it will bring them forward in leaps and bounds."
I heartily agree with your overall point, but I think you got a bit carried away here in your metaphor there. I mean what does a 6-year old know? All I remember was something about dinosaurs being really huge, big deal.
Also I think you underestimate the knowledge of the average Ghanian. They may not know the theory of Mendelian genetics or whatever, but you bet they know how to breed their cows!
This is absolutely true.
I only stayed in Dar Es Salaam, but it seemed every other block I went there was an internet cafe. The price was about 1$ for an hour of access and they always seemed to be packed.
Of course the connection was a bit slow to say the least, but perfectly sufficient if you primarily wanted to e-mail.
There are many misconceptions on the state of contemporary Africa.
I am from Tanzania, so this caught my attention.
I was in Tanzania last December, and like you said EVERYONE seemed to have a cellphone. Many more people than have a landline even.
It is interesting to speculate how these technologies will play out in less developed countries(i.e will dialup ever become popular or will they "leapfrog" to another form of access)?
Was this specific result already found?
I only read the abstract, but it seems they were only looking at the 'increments' between the gaps in prime numbers.
The gaps between prime numbers have been well studied, but perhaps no one has bothered to look at the increments.
Still, I agree that this is does not look all that surprising since the distribution of primes is well-studied, but they may have looked at some wrinkle that people had not looked at before.
Also, the Nature write-up was particularly clueless. "No one has yet proved that their[primes] occurrence follows any pattern, or whether there is definitely no pattern."
Please!
1) I think you mean Arthur Andersen's auditing unit, which I believe is now kaput. There is also a consulting side which changed its name to Accenture.
2) Chelsea Clinton has a Stanford bachelor's degree and an Oxford graduate degree. Connections obviously helped, but those are the kind of jobs you get with those kind of qualifications.
Ok, finished the whole darned thing.
... disturbed.
Its interesting I guess. The details are not plausible but the idea of a Singularity certainly is.
I feel
Hmmm... okay, strong elements of S&M here, not exactly what I expected(though I should have expected it from the story intro). I can see where the author's interests lie.
I find it somewhat distasteful, but let me read on