How eventual is eventual? Useractive's courses have been around since 1998 - and under the O'Reilly banner since 2005. It was CEU then, it's still CEU now. CEU certificates are great for covering unsightly wall blemishes, but not much else. Seems like the money might be better spent on courses that have actual influence over employability.
The problem with books is that they have a very steep learning curve, and piss-poor skill retention - this holds especially true for programming manuals. You read the book, do the examples, try things out as you go, but unless you're already at least familiar with the concept of what you're learning, you're going to be spending a lot of time flipping back and forth through the index.
Training, GOOD training, gives direction - it strings concepts together in a way that flows logically so that your brain can swallow it easier. And keep it down. Then, from that point, you can use your newly-found rudimentary understanding of the concept being learned and go hit a manual.
This company a friend of mine works for offers programming courses in HTML and Javascript - they get pretty advanced later on, but everything there is written by programmers for non-programmers.
I know they already work with several Boys and Girls Associations and school districts to bring computer learning into the classroom. Worth a look, anyway.
"The movie looks visually astonishing: I'm definitely checking it out asap. Hopefully the story can live up the credits (Mike Meyers, John Lithgow, Eddie Murphy) and the visuals (the trailers blow away much of Toy Story 2).
Yeah, except no. Did you SEE Toy Story 2? Or Dinosaur? Shrek might be fun and all, but the quality of the CG in the trailer did not impress me at all. Wait for Square's Final Fantasy movie - if you've checked out any of the new CG technology they've pioneered for that feature, it'll blow your mind. Shrek might be of acceptable quality, but for heaven's sake it doesn't have anything on the last couple of Pixar releases. The textures need work, the human modeling fall short of the mark, and the faces look like they're molded out of plastic. (Which, yeah, I guess they did in Toy Story, too, but they had an excuse.)
I wonder how the Univeristy of Wisconsin's CS department is going to feel about their server getting slashdotted.
Awfully lacking in the stand-alone department.
on
Hannibal's Return
·
· Score: 1
I felt that Hannibal failed to make itself its own movie. I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to understand many of the characters at all had I not seen the first movie. There simply was not enough development; and what's more, I felt that there were deliveries and situations that directly contradicted the characters as they'd been written. Had you only seen Hannibal, I think you would have built entirely different characters in your brain that if you'd only seen Silence.
In fact, it's not really much of a sequel. It's more of an expansion pack.
After reading this article a couple times through, it really upsets me that major studio execs are feeling that 3-d animation needs to replace 2-d animation.
While I am a big fan of CGI films, I have yet to see one that evokes in me the same emotional response as a really good 2-d animated piece. If a 2-d animation team really has their stuff together, tells a good story, develops some real sound characters, and understands how to animate action properly, it can give you goosebumps. It's a fantastic medium for making things feel the way we wish they felt.
3-d CGI has yet to really achieve that, I feel. It's getting there, don't get me wrong, but there's still something missing. (You ever see The Fly with Jeff Goldblum? The steak doesn't quite taste like steak yet.)
There's a lot of anime that serves as a great example of tour-de-force animation. Evangelion, Macross Plus, Escaflowne, all of these are really intense on the big screen. They have these moments where the imagery, the voices, the music all line up perfectly and you can't help but smile and nod your head. Titan A.E. didn't have that. The music was poorly chosen, seemingly more for recognition of the artists than for the theme of the scene. Dialogue was hackneyed and weak. And scenes that really could have popped didn't, due to poor visuals or horribly implemented 3-d. (what was the framerate on those inserted 3-d objects...2fps??)
I'm not convinced that FOX animation shouldn't be dismembered...I'm just concerned that the industry is thinking of punishing 2-d animation as a whole for their sins. Titan A.E. sucked. Flat animation doesn't.
Until Canada can wash it's hand of Quebec as a whole, I don't thing you should be slinging stones, Crush. There is no such thing as a free country. Not in the U.S., not in Canada. The concept of government necessarily dictates removal of freedoms. And, really now, even if I let you dodge the Celine Dion bullet, I still can't forgive you for Bryan Adams or William Shatner.
No matter what the encryption is, or the trick being used to avoid detection, SOMEONE can decrypt or figure out the gimmick. If someone was smart enough to create it, someone is smart enough to break it. And chances are, if someone can break it, the government or security companies will try to get access to that person - bottom line: these agencies and companies put food on the table by monitoring transactions. They're going to figure it out somehow.
Second, here's another thing:
You ask if these countermeasures will return a sense of privacy to the internet. I don't think so. Or, if it does, it will be a sense of privacy heavily laced with paranoia. Using these tools to protect one's anonymity smacks of sneaking around, covering up one's own footprints at all turns and hiding under camoflauge. That's not a sense of privacy. It's a much less comforting, much more anxious feeling. Freedom fighters hiding from Big Brother, if you will. I think that the only thing that could generate a feeling of warm, cuddly, security for internet users (and I won't delve into the feasability or lack thereof of implementing it) would be strict regulation of internet surveillance. STRICT.
"It would be really cool but please don't take me seriously"
Uh...if you wanna talk about building viruses, fine. Free country, etc. But don't try to cover your shiny little butt with a little disclaimer at the end.
"So here's the step-by-step procedure on how to steal 14 million dollars without getting caught...but, uh...please don't do it."
The Human Torch wasn't a mutant. That was Pyro sitting in class. Jubilee and Shadowcat were also in the Prof's office - I can only hope that the kid playing basketball wasn't a weak attempt at a Nightcrawler.
I'm not so sure we were supposed to hate Magneto - I think Singer intentionally "failed" at that task. We were supposed to understand his motivations and realize that there were two sides to this. I think the adjective we were supposed to walk away with for him was "Misguided", not "Evil".
I found that while the movie was very entertaining, a lot was left unexplained. I saw if with four friends. Of them, two had watched the cartoon, and I was the only one who read the comics as a kid. So while I sat in the movie understanding everything and recognizing every cameo and enjoying the animosity between characters, my friends didn't get a lot of it. I found myself doing a lot of "Well, in the comic book....etc." after the show.
Singer didn't leave himself any time for character development. I knew the characters already; and I felt that they were well-illustrated in this movie. But for people who had never seen or read anything X-Men, they really didn't understand some of the interactions. They didn't understand exactly why Cyclops was a dick. "He didn't seem that bad at all, what was that about?"
This movie is a great introductory movie. It sets a stage, it tells a fun story, and it introduces a group of characters. I think this particular franchise would benefit greatly from sequels.
As I sift my way through these posts (most of which are refreshingly well-thought out...or at least more coherent than the usual troll garbage), I can't help but be kinda struck by this type of argument:
"I don't see how you can call our downloading copyrighted songs stealing. the RIAA is stealing from US by gouging us for CD's!"
Hmmm....okay, that's true, the RIAA is stealing from you. But you're stealing from them too. Stealing to get revenge is still stealing. I don't understand why so many people who have opinions on this issue vehemently defend "two wrongs making a right".
I'm not casting down judgement; God knows I've acquired lots and lots of music that I ought to have paid for. God knows I still do. But I know it's technically stealing...and don't try to trick myself into thinking it's anything more righteous than just that. Why do I download music for free? Because the RIAA makes CD's cost too much. Does that make my theft any less theft? No. It just explains my motive. I'm still doing wrong, now you just have a little insight into what makes me do it.
On second though, let me rephrase that last sentence..."now you have a little insight into what makes me CHOOSE to do it."
When I was in the Industrial Design program at the University of Illinois, I had the opportunity to meet a travelling professor who had been doing some (then) cutting-edge work for IBM and several other information systems companies.
He told us about a lot of conceptual projects that were being batted around the industry, and among them was an extremely interesting project involving a new pressure-sensitive polymer. This polymer, upon stimulation by pressure or heat, could be made to change color immediately and precisely. A sheet of it could be stimulated to function as a display, with relatively crisp results.
But here's the cool (and on-topic) part: Being a polymer sheet, it could be easily thermoformed similar to other sheet thermoplastics, allowing it to take many shapes other than a flat screen and still retain it's ability to display pixels on any part of itself.
This material would open the door to a possible revolution in GUI's - It would immediately remove the bounding box of a X-inches by Y-inches flat screen, and allow for some really innovative hardware (and software to go with it). Imagine a GUI based on a circular display. Or even a spherical one.
I wish I had more static information on the project; it was very conceptual at the time that he explained it to us, and I haven't heard anything about it since.
Wasn't it "you Europeans" who cloned that sheep? Don't bitch to me about GM "muck". Plus, Slashdot needs every non-Linux story it can get - it's about News for Nerds, not News for Linux.
Okay - so HERE's what's wrong with weeding out certain genes.
If I had the genes for multiple sclerosis, as an example, I would be quite happy to have them replaced or repaired in my child.
Very understandable. But the problem comes along in drawing the line at what is "eugenics" and when does it become more superficial? What if I happened to fit the genetic profile for obesity? Obviously, having lived my life with a problem that seriously impaired my self-image, health, and most likely caused me a lot of hardship, I would want to eliminate that gene in my child.
Is that still okay? Is obesity (which can be genetically predispositioned) a disease serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Maybe it is.
Let's say that I had horrible, horrible acne as a child. As a result, my face is scarred and pitted, and it has caused me no end of unhappiness. I don't want my children to suffer the ridicule and low self-image that I had to endure.
Is that still okay? Is acne(which can be genetically predispositioned) a disease serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Maybe it is.
Don't worry, almost done. Just one more.
What if I was just plain ugly? I never liked the way I looked, and always got ridiculed, and never went out on dates. Assuming I'd find a way to have a child, I would most certainly not want them to have to suffer from this unfortunate fate...
Is that still okay? Is good ol' fashioned ugliness(which is certainly genetically predispositioned) a condition serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Hmmm...
It's so very very hard to draw the line. Who gets to hold the rubber stamps that say "Unfortunate Enough Problem To Fix With Genetics" and "That's What Nature Intended"? Who has the right to make that call? THAT's why eugenics is so dangerous...it's hard to keep roped up.
Slashdot Mirror
Right - you just provide the $1600 CEU napkin for when he's DONE with the sandwich.
How eventual is eventual? Useractive's courses have been around since 1998 - and under the O'Reilly banner since 2005. It was CEU then, it's still CEU now. CEU certificates are great for covering unsightly wall blemishes, but not much else. Seems like the money might be better spent on courses that have actual influence over employability.
The problem with books is that they have a very steep learning curve, and piss-poor skill retention - this holds especially true for programming manuals. You read the book, do the examples, try things out as you go, but unless you're already at least familiar with the concept of what you're learning, you're going to be spending a lot of time flipping back and forth through the index.
Training, GOOD training, gives direction - it strings concepts together in a way that flows logically so that your brain can swallow it easier. And keep it down. Then, from that point, you can use your newly-found rudimentary understanding of the concept being learned and go hit a manual.
This company a friend of mine works for offers programming courses in HTML and Javascript - they get pretty advanced later on, but everything there is written by programmers for non-programmers.
I know they already work with several Boys and Girls Associations and school districts to bring computer learning into the classroom. Worth a look, anyway.
"The movie looks visually astonishing: I'm definitely checking it out asap. Hopefully the story can live up the credits (Mike Meyers, John Lithgow, Eddie Murphy) and the visuals (the trailers blow away much of Toy Story 2).
Yeah, except no. Did you SEE Toy Story 2? Or Dinosaur? Shrek might be fun and all, but the quality of the CG in the trailer did not impress me at all. Wait for Square's Final Fantasy movie - if you've checked out any of the new CG technology they've pioneered for that feature, it'll blow your mind. Shrek might be of acceptable quality, but for heaven's sake it doesn't have anything on the last couple of Pixar releases. The textures need work, the human modeling fall short of the mark, and the faces look like they're molded out of plastic. (Which, yeah, I guess they did in Toy Story, too, but they had an excuse.)
I wonder how the Univeristy of Wisconsin's CS department is going to feel about their server getting slashdotted.
I felt that Hannibal failed to make itself its own movie. I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to understand many of the characters at all had I not seen the first movie. There simply was not enough development; and what's more, I felt that there were deliveries and situations that directly contradicted the characters as they'd been written. Had you only seen Hannibal, I think you would have built entirely different characters in your brain that if you'd only seen Silence.
In fact, it's not really much of a sequel. It's more of an expansion pack.
They need to find one young white-bred hick,
One hostile race-sensitive minority member,
A gay guy (or girl),
A successful male chauvinist young entrepreneur type,
And a wild and crazy bar chick.
Then we'll find out what happens when people stop being polite...and start being real. In space. With vaccuum toilets.
I liked Shatner's singing, .. Hey Mr. Tambourine Man... brilliant
Ohhh....singing, eh? Is THAT what that's called.
That clears up a lot of confusion for me...thanks! For the longest time, I couldn't figure out WHAT Shatner was doing.
After reading this article a couple times through, it really upsets me that major studio execs are feeling that 3-d animation needs to replace 2-d animation.
While I am a big fan of CGI films, I have yet to see one that evokes in me the same emotional response as a really good 2-d animated piece. If a 2-d animation team really has their stuff together, tells a good story, develops some real sound characters, and understands how to animate action properly, it can give you goosebumps. It's a fantastic medium for making things feel the way we wish they felt.
3-d CGI has yet to really achieve that, I feel. It's getting there, don't get me wrong, but there's still something missing. (You ever see The Fly with Jeff Goldblum? The steak doesn't quite taste like steak yet.)
There's a lot of anime that serves as a great example of tour-de-force animation. Evangelion, Macross Plus, Escaflowne, all of these are really intense on the big screen. They have these moments where the imagery, the voices, the music all line up perfectly and you can't help but smile and nod your head. Titan A.E. didn't have that. The music was poorly chosen, seemingly more for recognition of the artists than for the theme of the scene. Dialogue was hackneyed and weak. And scenes that really could have popped didn't, due to poor visuals or horribly implemented 3-d. (what was the framerate on those inserted 3-d objects...2fps??)
I'm not convinced that FOX animation shouldn't be dismembered...I'm just concerned that the industry is thinking of punishing 2-d animation as a whole for their sins. Titan A.E. sucked. Flat animation doesn't.
Until Canada can wash it's hand of Quebec as a whole, I don't thing you should be slinging stones, Crush. There is no such thing as a free country. Not in the U.S., not in Canada. The concept of government necessarily dictates removal of freedoms. And, really now, even if I let you dodge the Celine Dion bullet, I still can't forgive you for Bryan Adams or William Shatner.
First - here's one thing:
No matter what the encryption is, or the trick being used to avoid detection, SOMEONE can decrypt or figure out the gimmick. If someone was smart enough to create it, someone is smart enough to break it. And chances are, if someone can break it, the government or security companies will try to get access to that person - bottom line: these agencies and companies put food on the table by monitoring transactions. They're going to figure it out somehow.
Second, here's another thing:
You ask if these countermeasures will return a sense of privacy to the internet. I don't think so. Or, if it does, it will be a sense of privacy heavily laced with paranoia. Using these tools to protect one's anonymity smacks of sneaking around, covering up one's own footprints at all turns and hiding under camoflauge. That's not a sense of privacy. It's a much less comforting, much more anxious feeling. Freedom fighters hiding from Big Brother, if you will. I think that the only thing that could generate a feeling of warm, cuddly, security for internet users (and I won't delve into the feasability or lack thereof of implementing it) would be strict regulation of internet surveillance. STRICT.
"But PLEASE don't do this."
"Don't get me wrong; nobody should do this"
"It would be really cool but please don't take me seriously"
Uh...if you wanna talk about building viruses, fine. Free country, etc. But don't try to cover your shiny little butt with a little disclaimer at the end.
"So here's the step-by-step procedure on how to steal 14 million dollars without getting caught...but, uh...please don't do it."
Please.
The Human Torch wasn't a mutant. That was Pyro sitting in class. Jubilee and Shadowcat were also in the Prof's office - I can only hope that the kid playing basketball wasn't a weak attempt at a Nightcrawler.
I was also the only one who laughed at the Toad/Darth Maul thing. I'm not sure people realized it was the same actor.
I'm not so sure we were supposed to hate Magneto - I think Singer intentionally "failed" at that task. We were supposed to understand his motivations and realize that there were two sides to this. I think the adjective we were supposed to walk away with for him was "Misguided", not "Evil".
I found that while the movie was very entertaining, a lot was left unexplained. I saw if with four friends. Of them, two had watched the cartoon, and I was the only one who read the comics as a kid. So while I sat in the movie understanding everything and recognizing every cameo and enjoying the animosity between characters, my friends didn't get a lot of it. I found myself doing a lot of "Well, in the comic book....etc." after the show.
Singer didn't leave himself any time for character development. I knew the characters already; and I felt that they were well-illustrated in this movie. But for people who had never seen or read anything X-Men, they really didn't understand some of the interactions. They didn't understand exactly why Cyclops was a dick. "He didn't seem that bad at all, what was that about?"
This movie is a great introductory movie. It sets a stage, it tells a fun story, and it introduces a group of characters. I think this particular franchise would benefit greatly from sequels.
As I sift my way through these posts (most of which are refreshingly well-thought out...or at least more coherent than the usual troll garbage), I can't help but be kinda struck by this type of argument:
"I don't see how you can call our downloading copyrighted songs stealing. the RIAA is stealing from US by gouging us for CD's!"
Hmmm....okay, that's true, the RIAA is stealing from you. But you're stealing from them too. Stealing to get revenge is still stealing. I don't understand why so many people who have opinions on this issue vehemently defend "two wrongs making a right".
I'm not casting down judgement; God knows I've acquired lots and lots of music that I ought to have paid for. God knows I still do. But I know it's technically stealing...and don't try to trick myself into thinking it's anything more righteous than just that. Why do I download music for free? Because the RIAA makes CD's cost too much. Does that make my theft any less theft? No. It just explains my motive. I'm still doing wrong, now you just have a little insight into what makes me do it.
On second though, let me rephrase that last sentence..."now you have a little insight into what makes me CHOOSE to do it."
They're more tender and flavorful than the old ones.
I also find this Incredibile and am quite Offesed. The story poster is truly a Hipocrat.
It's been scientifically proven that fart, poop, and burp jokes are always funny. Always.
Try it sometime. Squint your eyes and say "feces". It'll always put a smile on your face.
When I was in the Industrial Design program at the University of Illinois, I had the opportunity to meet a travelling professor who had been doing some (then) cutting-edge work for IBM and several other information systems companies.
He told us about a lot of conceptual projects that were being batted around the industry, and among them was an extremely interesting project involving a new pressure-sensitive polymer. This polymer, upon stimulation by pressure or heat, could be made to change color immediately and precisely. A sheet of it could be stimulated to function as a display, with relatively crisp results.
But here's the cool (and on-topic) part: Being a polymer sheet, it could be easily thermoformed similar to other sheet thermoplastics, allowing it to take many shapes other than a flat screen and still retain it's ability to display pixels on any part of itself.
This material would open the door to a possible revolution in GUI's - It would immediately remove the bounding box of a X-inches by Y-inches flat screen, and allow for some really innovative hardware (and software to go with it). Imagine a GUI based on a circular display. Or even a spherical one.
I wish I had more static information on the project; it was very conceptual at the time that he explained it to us, and I haven't heard anything about it since.
Could it be that the author claims Slashdot started up nearly TWO years ago? (Then later talks about 1991, etc etc etc?)
Sell babies.
Each baby'll get you enough for like two years of web hosting.
Wasn't it "you Europeans" who cloned that sheep? Don't bitch to me about GM "muck". Plus, Slashdot needs every non-Linux story it can get - it's about News for Nerds, not News for Linux.
Okay - so HERE's what's wrong with weeding out certain genes.
If I had the genes for multiple sclerosis, as an example, I would be quite happy to have them replaced or repaired in my child.
Very understandable. But the problem comes along in drawing the line at what is "eugenics" and when does it become more superficial? What if I happened to fit the genetic profile for obesity? Obviously, having lived my life with a problem that seriously impaired my self-image, health, and most likely caused me a lot of hardship, I would want to eliminate that gene in my child.
Is that still okay? Is obesity (which can be genetically predispositioned) a disease serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Maybe it is.
Let's say that I had horrible, horrible acne as a child. As a result, my face is scarred and pitted, and it has caused me no end of unhappiness. I don't want my children to suffer the ridicule and low self-image that I had to endure.
Is that still okay? Is acne(which can be genetically predispositioned) a disease serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Maybe it is.
Don't worry, almost done. Just one more.
What if I was just plain ugly? I never liked the way I looked, and always got ridiculed, and never went out on dates. Assuming I'd find a way to have a child, I would most certainly not want them to have to suffer from this unfortunate fate...
Is that still okay? Is good ol' fashioned ugliness(which is certainly genetically predispositioned) a condition serious enough to justify genetic engineering? Hmmm...
It's so very very hard to draw the line. Who gets to hold the rubber stamps that say "Unfortunate Enough Problem To Fix With Genetics" and "That's What Nature Intended"? Who has the right to make that call? THAT's why eugenics is so dangerous...it's hard to keep roped up.