A foetus is much much bigger than 4 to 5 cells by the time a woman knows she is pregnant. This level of division happens before implantation into the uterus lining. Of course in most cases (I think the figure is something like 60 or 70%) after fertilisation the embryo does not actually implant, but is lost during the next mensturation.
We make decisions about life and death constantly. Many industries causes thousands of deaths every year. We know the cost of a life to the nearest penny. And the US, like many of the large western powers is happy to kill as a means to its political ends, if you happen to be born in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I agree that individual life is special and should be protected. I do not understand this fixation on one form of death though, where so many others are common.
Phil
Right so viewing a solar eclipse in a 100x50 window, with the screen refreshing every 5 seconds is going to convey the experience really well.
I am selling 5cm high plastic replicas of Everest if anyone is interested. Why take the risk of climbing the real thing, when you can get the experience from your home in comfort and safety?
"Why is there this huge phobia about genetically engineering the human race? What is so wrong about seeking to be better than you are? "
Because "better" is not an absolute concept. What we feel is better now might not be considered this way in several years time. Should we engineer out homosexuality. Should we engineer our black skin.
You wish to eliminate disease and infirmity? At what cost though. Who is diseased and who is infirm. Even this is not obvious.
Genetic engineering also have a large risks associated with it. Any organism is enormously complex. You change one thing and it impacts on thousands of others. Its very hard to change things for the better without impacting on others. I am short sighted. Wearing glasses is a simple solution and has few side effects. Old simple technology is something the best way forward.
I have no problem with genetic engineering. Indeed I have worked with and produced genetically engineered organisms. If we are too use such organisms we need to go slowly, introduce them incrementally and carefully. And if we are to use these techniques on humans we need to be more careful still. The maxim should be "if you can do no good, then do no harm". Instead what I see is a headlong rush to reduce the time to market, I see short terms financial concerns instead of long term safety. Its not only sad and pathetic, its dangerous.
"Oh, please. Warnings about dangers of smoking were present on tobacco products for the last 30 years"
I'm sorry but his statement is actually quite correct, and has been demonstrated in several courts both in the US and the UK several times. Tobacco companies indeed deliberately suppressed information about the dangers of their product. They deliberately produced counter claims which they knew to be false. And they deliberately tried to suppress research that put their product in a bad light.
The warnings about the dangers of smoking on their products were for instance put there in the face of tremendous opposition.
"how is it different from compulsive and irrational need for bashing and accusing the powerful"
The desire for truth to come out in spite of opposition from enormously powerful concerns is indeed irrational. All power irrationality.
"Yes, it is an old story, but still one worth examining."
The general issue is of course very important, and I would not deny that.
The deep problem here is that as a society we need to decide what role there is for the private sector, and which things we should fund as a society through the public sector. Over the last 30 years there has been an heavy neo-liberal agenda which says that only the free market makes sense. Of course we have add all of this arguments before in society many times, at the turn of 20th century, and again in the middle of it.
I personally think that there is an important role for the public sector. The free market might be a good way of achieving somethings. But not everything. It seems to me what is currently happening in the universities is actually the worse of both worlds. The public get to pay for much of the research, whilst private interests get to control and keep private the research. This seems strange and worrying to me.
"Surely they have a right to see a return on their investment?"
It depends on what you think is the reasons for the existance of the universities. If you think that part of the purpose is to provide an independant view, which can challenge existing ideas then loosing all of this independance is not necessarily a good thing.
If on the other hand you think Universities are there to just produce new technology, then its not so bad.
Personally I think universities are there for both. The new technologies bring up new issues, and the new issues bring new questions. The universities help to bring these issues to a wider audience. How would we have had any debate about the impact of the human genome project if it had taken place behind close doors?
Its not necessarily so hard. There have been plenty of examples of fraud. It takes quite a while to detect in some cases. So for instance if you produced research relating to obesity, you would could probably have the venture capital, and a new house before anyone found that the research was not repeatable. Okay so when they did the company would take a loss, but its quite hard to proof fraud as opposed to just crap results.
Hmmm. This is quite an old story. There were a series of letters about it in nature six months ago.
There are plenty of other examples. One UK university recently took lots of cash from a tobacco company. Amusingly a student who got a major prize from that department publicly turned it down at the prize giving.
As for most of us who have seen the number of NDA's increasing, the patent clauses entering into out contracts, and the number of letters from lawyers suggesting that we talk to them before we talk to our colleagues its definately no surprise. Its not much good for science either, but he who pays the piper....
"One of them (the BSD) is actually more "free" because you can use parts of it in a commercial product and not HAVE to release the new code to the public. "
Have you ever wondered though why Gates and others from M$ are attacking the GPL as constantly as they appear to be doing? The point is that GPL is the incisive defense that free software has against concerns like M$. Without the GPL linux would have been embraced and extended by M$ (in the same way that BSD TCP/IP stack was). I am sure that the same would also have been true of IBM and many other organisations.
You use quotes around "free" for good reasons. There are many definitions of "free", and no one has a monopoly on the word. I think that recent history shows that the GPL has resulted in more free software in the world. It is harder edged, harder nosed, and have a lot more attitude than the BSDL. That is its strength, and its main virtue.
Phil
Re:Unions doing the bashing....
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"Last thing I need is bunch of bullies "advising" me to join their strike ?. "
Can you read?
Its got sod all to do with bullying, its to do with being a part of a democratic organisation. You get to put your point of view, and then you get to vote. Following the vote then you go along with a majority decision whether or not you agree with it.
The whole point of a union is to act together, because that way you can get things done that you can not get done on your own. The nature of any democractic organisation is that sometimes it will do stuff that you do not agree with. Under these circumstances you go with the majority decision.
If you want to act with people then this involves compromise, always. The difference is with a union and company is that with a union everyone gets to express their opinion and everyone gets to vote. With a company you just do what the boss says.
Phil
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"Why should a union worker be unable to feed his family because the sheeple that he works with decided a strike would be a good idea?"
Why should a worker be unable to feed his family because the company that he works for decides everyone should take a pay cut because the management screwed up somewhere.
I presume that you mean you have worked in a unionised workplace. I have never worked for a union myself, but have mostly worked in unionised work places.
My own experience runs counter to this. I have found that the unions have been the main supporters of equal opportunities policies.
For example in my last work place about half of the staff were Christian (this is an unusually high percentage in the UK), and there seemed to be a tradition of only people from the same church. It was the local union steward who ensured that on the interview panels, the interviewers did not known the interviewee's where ever possible, and secondly that appointments were made on the basis of ability. And finally that interviewee's were given written explanations of the reasons for their appointment or otherwise.
It is my believe that all of this increased efficiency for two reasons. Firstly appointment was on the basis of ability. And secondly it protected the company from a large and damaging claim under the equal-opps legislation.
The second issue of "demarkaction" is a more tricky one. Its certainly true that unions do sometimes bring in these rules. My own experience has been that this is usually to prevent abuses by the management who have often used this as a method to institute pay cuts, by reclassifying workers under new contracts. Its not the best solution I agree, and its a pity when the management of a company fail to interact with a union in a positive way (or indeed vice versa). But the cause of this is not always (or often in my experience) the unions.
Phil
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"Actually I'm sure that when I was a member of a union (before I went back to uni) I had the choice wether to pay into the political fund or not".
Yeah this is the direct funding for a politcal party which as you say is a voluntary contribution. The union is essentially just providing the administration.
As well as that the union has to vote on whether it can engage in political campaigning of any sort, and whether funds can be put aside for this. And of course on top of that the individual union branches can give money to who ever they damn well like. So I know quite a few union branches gave money to some of the parties to the left of the labour party at the last election whilst few of the national parties do.
The first two votes are a legal requirement. The first is probably justified, the second is absurd as a non political union is an oxymoron. And the last I don't know about. The union branches have to vote on it if the amount is of any size at all.
Phil
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"Why not instead let each worker choose"
Because its a damn union. Its a democratic organisation. You express your opinion, you vote on it, and then you act on the result of the vote. Even if you do not like the result of the vote you still act with the decision. This is the whole point of a democracy. In the UK the union votes as to whether or not it can engage in politcal activity. And almost all of them do.
This is like saying during a strike that you should only go on strike if you want to. Its crap. If the union membership votes to go on strike, then everyone goes on strike even if they do not agree with it. You can continue to argue that the union should not be striking but you do not work, and you don't cross the picket line.
It works just like a country. You get to vote for the legislature. They make laws. If you break them you get nicked. And just like a countries democracy its flawed. There are lobbiests, the unions are infiltrated people from many organisations (state and political). But like democracy its a hell of a lot better than many of the alternatives, and its a hell of a lot better than having nothing at all.
Phil
Re:Quality of work goes down the toilet
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"If women and minorities are such great computer hackers then they should start their own company and put the "male dominated" companies out of business. "
MLK where are you now?
It wasn't the free market that helped to end segregation, or full enfranchisment. Start a company? You have to get money to do this. Which comes from the market. So if that's sexist or racist then you are still buggered.
The free market is not an engine for social change. As far as I can see it does little but maintain the status quo.
"that information and tech workers already have them, and therefore don't need unionization."
So now we have them the battle is won right? The are constant attempts to curtail things like sickness benefit and the health and safety executive.
"seniority tends to get be emphasized over ability."
So people keep on saying, and backing up with little evidence. Perhaps the union is just acting to counter the massive age prejuidce which goes on in high tech, that reckons if you are over 30 then you are too old.
Phil
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"In the US things get more nasty"
Why? Who is causing the violence? Is this a problem of your society rather than unions?
"does this mean that after the vote, each individual worker has no choice"
They get a choice during the vote. Do you get a choice to have a different president from everyone else if you don't like him.
"Why is it absurd"
Well as I explained a union is a inately political entity. A non political union makes little sense.
"Not true, actually"
Then our experiences differ markedly. The last time that I faced the threat of extreme violence in the shape of a horse back baton charge it was not the union doing it.
Phil
Re:Quality of work goes down the toilet
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I am arguing that it these problems can happen in the presence or absence of a union. I do think that you have established any degree of cause and effect.
You faith in the activity of the free market is touching. Maybe the market will "take care" of it. But when for instance. The market has perhaps taken care of internet hype that we saw. But what has happened in the mean time? The market never did much to prevent the discrimination against women, ethnic minorities.
The market is not some magic entity. Its composed of people. In fact its composed of a sub-set of the population as a whole, because some people have vastly more money than others. These people are as capable of being foolish, prejuidiced, or just wrong as any one else in the population. The market will just reflect these opinions.
Phil
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How many picket lines have you been on I wonder. I the UK at least people are usually perfectly reasonable.
The unions do not force workers to pay political money either. Most unions have a political fund. We vote as to whether we should have such a fund, and where it should do. To be honest though the idea of a union not involved in "politics" is absurd. If work conditions, pay, workers rights, and so on are not part of politics then what is?
No doubt some unions have support violence against workers, and have fought against workers political rights. No movement is universally good. There again I think you will find more of these attacks coming from the multi-nationals.
"Medical benefits? Job security? Work safety regulations? Don't make me laugh. "
I don't know about the US but in the UK the health and safety executive was pushed through due to support from the union movement, in the teeth of opposition from many who said it would cost business too much.
The reality has been a large drop in the rate of industrial accidents, and compensation awards for those who have been injured as the result of company negligence.
So yes the unions have bought me work safety regulations.
Medical benefits. Here the union movement has also had its role. Certainly it was the risk of severe communal action following world war ii which resulted in the national health service. So yes medical benefits.
And Job Security. The union movement also helped set up independant arbitration, and job tribunals, meaning that those suffering discrimination or unfair dismissal have a right to appeal. So yes job security as well.
Unions are not perfect. Of course there is internal politics within the union. As there is within a political party, or a board of directors, of even on a shop floor. Unions could be better, and we should strive to improve them. But without them even as they are, things would be a hell of a lot worse.
And I have worked in real jobs also. I got payed shit, and had one day contracts. At least nowadays the pay would have been better as the UK now has a minimum wage. Put in place as a result of campaigning by the unions....
Phil
Re:Quality of work goes down the toilet
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The sector is swamped with substandard workers who get ridiculous salaries already? So perhaps the conclusion we should draw is that the union has little bearing on this?
Unionisation does not mean promotion by seniority. If anything managerialism is much more guilty of this than a company with a unionised work force.
Yes I am in a union. I have been in the past and intend to be so in the future.
Unions are not perfect and never have been, but it does not take a lot of looking at history to see how many things I have are as a result of union activity. Health and Safety at work, sick pay, various pension rights, industrial tribunals, and so on. It does not take much looking at recent history to see how much we are loosing as the result of the weakening of union power over the last 15 years.
I realise that union bashing appears to be a national sport among the US readers on slashdot. I never understood it myself. Even in the US the union movement has had an important role to play in many industries.
There are several reasons for choosing a language with which to teach students. My current department uses for instance SML as its first langauge. There are many reasons for this. Its a good language, very few people will have used it before so there is a level playing field which makes it easier to teach, and so on.
Now this works well in some circumstances. Mostly those departments which are heavily over subscribed. They can afford to say "we will choose a language for didactic purposes" because students will still come.
In many other cases departments are very constrained, by what the students want. The students come along saying "no one uses SML, so why teach it", or "everybodies advertising for C programmers, so we want to learn C". Now of course there is a place for market driven education, but you can get too much of it. Learning C as a first langauge is really not a good thing to do, what ever the students think. They will probably be better C programmers after 3 years if they start on something else! However as is often the case in many fields we can not just pick the best tool for the job. We have to bow to the pressures of fashion, common practice and so on.
And this is where Java comes in. Its a bit of a God send to be honest. From a teaching point of view its a hell of a lot better than C/C++. And its quite widely used in industry, and currently rather sexy. Of course there are still better languages for teaching, but Java is a really good compromise.
Which is why its becoming so common place in education.
It seems to me that what they are suggesting is a contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics.
Perhaps they are just going for the "do some scientific work. Then make up a press release which sounds impressive and bears little relationship to the work, because the journalists can't tell the difference anyway" approach.
"I believe Tolkien's attention to detail aided the continuity of his storytelling even as detail
after mind-numbing detail aided The Iliad in its telling."
I am sure that his attention to linguistic detail helped Tolkein when he was writing the book to make it coherent, I agree with this. But I don't need to read the linguistic detail is what I am saying.
Its a bit like method acting for instance. I don't really care whether De Niro works in a chip shop for six months to improve his characterisation. He might need to do this, but I would judge his acting by what he does on screen.
Phil
Slashdot Mirror
A foetus is much much bigger than 4 to 5 cells by the time a woman knows she is pregnant. This level of division happens before implantation into the uterus lining. Of course in most cases (I think the figure is something like 60 or 70%) after fertilisation the embryo does not actually implant, but is lost during the next mensturation. We make decisions about life and death constantly. Many industries causes thousands of deaths every year. We know the cost of a life to the nearest penny. And the US, like many of the large western powers is happy to kill as a means to its political ends, if you happen to be born in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I agree that individual life is special and should be protected. I do not understand this fixation on one form of death though, where so many others are common. Phil
I am selling 5cm high plastic replicas of Everest if anyone is interested. Why take the risk of climbing the real thing, when you can get the experience from your home in comfort and safety?
Phil
Because "better" is not an absolute concept. What we feel is better now might not be considered this way in several years time. Should we engineer out homosexuality. Should we engineer our black skin.
You wish to eliminate disease and infirmity? At what cost though. Who is diseased and who is infirm. Even this is not obvious.
Genetic engineering also have a large risks associated with it. Any organism is enormously complex. You change one thing and it impacts on thousands of others. Its very hard to change things for the better without impacting on others. I am short sighted. Wearing glasses is a simple solution and has few side effects. Old simple technology is something the best way forward.
I have no problem with genetic engineering. Indeed I have worked with and produced genetically engineered organisms. If we are too use such organisms we need to go slowly, introduce them incrementally and carefully. And if we are to use these techniques on humans we need to be more careful still. The maxim should be "if you can do no good, then do no harm". Instead what I see is a headlong rush to reduce the time to market, I see short terms financial concerns instead of long term safety. Its not only sad and pathetic, its dangerous.
Phil
I'm sorry but his statement is actually quite correct, and has been demonstrated in several courts both in the US and the UK several times. Tobacco companies indeed deliberately suppressed information about the dangers of their product. They deliberately produced counter claims which they knew to be false. And they deliberately tried to suppress research that put their product in a bad light.
The warnings about the dangers of smoking on their products were for instance put there in the face of tremendous opposition.
"how is it different from compulsive and irrational need for bashing and accusing the powerful"
The desire for truth to come out in spite of opposition from enormously powerful concerns is indeed irrational. All power irrationality.
Phil
The general issue is of course very important, and I would not deny that.
The deep problem here is that as a society we need to decide what role there is for the private sector, and which things we should fund as a society through the public sector. Over the last 30 years there has been an heavy neo-liberal agenda which says that only the free market makes sense. Of course we have add all of this arguments before in society many times, at the turn of 20th century, and again in the middle of it.
I personally think that there is an important role for the public sector. The free market might be a good way of achieving somethings. But not everything. It seems to me what is currently happening in the universities is actually the worse of both worlds. The public get to pay for much of the research, whilst private interests get to control and keep private the research. This seems strange and worrying to me.
Phil
It depends on what you think is the reasons for the existance of the universities. If you think that part of the purpose is to provide an independant view, which can challenge existing ideas then loosing all of this independance is not necessarily a good thing.
If on the other hand you think Universities are there to just produce new technology, then its not so bad.
Personally I think universities are there for both. The new technologies bring up new issues, and the new issues bring new questions. The universities help to bring these issues to a wider audience. How would we have had any debate about the impact of the human genome project if it had taken place behind close doors?
Phil
Its not necessarily so hard. There have been plenty of examples of fraud. It takes quite a while to detect in some cases. So for instance if you produced research relating to obesity, you would could probably have the venture capital, and a new house before anyone found that the research was not repeatable. Okay so when they did the company would take a loss, but its quite hard to proof fraud as opposed to just crap results.
Phil
There are plenty of other examples. One UK university recently took lots of cash from a tobacco company. Amusingly a student who got a major prize from that department publicly turned it down at the prize giving.
As for most of us who have seen the number of NDA's increasing, the patent clauses entering into out contracts, and the number of letters from lawyers suggesting that we talk to them before we talk to our colleagues its definately no surprise. Its not much good for science either, but he who pays the piper....
Phil
Have you ever wondered though why Gates and others from M$ are attacking the GPL as constantly as they appear to be doing? The point is that GPL is the incisive defense that free software has against concerns like M$. Without the GPL linux would have been embraced and extended by M$ (in the same way that BSD TCP/IP stack was). I am sure that the same would also have been true of IBM and many other organisations.
You use quotes around "free" for good reasons. There are many definitions of "free", and no one has a monopoly on the word. I think that recent history shows that the GPL has resulted in more free software in the world. It is harder edged, harder nosed, and have a lot more attitude than the BSDL. That is its strength, and its main virtue.
Phil
Can you read?
Its got sod all to do with bullying, its to do with being a part of a democratic organisation. You get to put your point of view, and then you get to vote. Following the vote then you go along with a majority decision whether or not you agree with it.
The whole point of a union is to act together, because that way you can get things done that you can not get done on your own. The nature of any democractic organisation is that sometimes it will do stuff that you do not agree with. Under these circumstances you go with the majority decision.
If you want to act with people then this involves compromise, always. The difference is with a union and company is that with a union everyone gets to express their opinion and everyone gets to vote. With a company you just do what the boss says.
Phil
Why should a worker be unable to feed his family because the company that he works for decides everyone should take a pay cut because the management screwed up somewhere.
Phil
My own experience runs counter to this. I have found that the unions have been the main supporters of equal opportunities policies.
For example in my last work place about half of the staff were Christian (this is an unusually high percentage in the UK), and there seemed to be a tradition of only people from the same church. It was the local union steward who ensured that on the interview panels, the interviewers did not known the interviewee's where ever possible, and secondly that appointments were made on the basis of ability. And finally that interviewee's were given written explanations of the reasons for their appointment or otherwise.
It is my believe that all of this increased efficiency for two reasons. Firstly appointment was on the basis of ability. And secondly it protected the company from a large and damaging claim under the equal-opps legislation.
The second issue of "demarkaction" is a more tricky one. Its certainly true that unions do sometimes bring in these rules. My own experience has been that this is usually to prevent abuses by the management who have often used this as a method to institute pay cuts, by reclassifying workers under new contracts. Its not the best solution I agree, and its a pity when the management of a company fail to interact with a union in a positive way (or indeed vice versa). But the cause of this is not always (or often in my experience) the unions.
Phil
Yeah this is the direct funding for a politcal party which as you say is a voluntary contribution. The union is essentially just providing the administration.
As well as that the union has to vote on whether it can engage in political campaigning of any sort, and whether funds can be put aside for this. And of course on top of that the individual union branches can give money to who ever they damn well like. So I know quite a few union branches gave money to some of the parties to the left of the labour party at the last election whilst few of the national parties do.
The first two votes are a legal requirement. The first is probably justified, the second is absurd as a non political union is an oxymoron. And the last I don't know about. The union branches have to vote on it if the amount is of any size at all.
Phil
Because its a damn union. Its a democratic organisation. You express your opinion, you vote on it, and then you act on the result of the vote. Even if you do not like the result of the vote you still act with the decision. This is the whole point of a democracy. In the UK the union votes as to whether or not it can engage in politcal activity. And almost all of them do.
This is like saying during a strike that you should only go on strike if you want to. Its crap. If the union membership votes to go on strike, then everyone goes on strike even if they do not agree with it. You can continue to argue that the union should not be striking but you do not work, and you don't cross the picket line.
It works just like a country. You get to vote for the legislature. They make laws. If you break them you get nicked. And just like a countries democracy its flawed. There are lobbiests, the unions are infiltrated people from many organisations (state and political). But like democracy its a hell of a lot better than many of the alternatives, and its a hell of a lot better than having nothing at all.
Phil
MLK where are you now?
It wasn't the free market that helped to end segregation, or full enfranchisment. Start a company? You have to get money to do this. Which comes from the market. So if that's sexist or racist then you are still buggered.
The free market is not an engine for social change. As far as I can see it does little but maintain the status quo.
Phil
So now we have them the battle is won right? The are constant attempts to curtail things like sickness benefit and the health and safety executive.
"seniority tends to get be emphasized over ability."
So people keep on saying, and backing up with little evidence. Perhaps the union is just acting to counter the massive age prejuidce which goes on in high tech, that reckons if you are over 30 then you are too old.
Phil
Why? Who is causing the violence? Is this a problem of your society rather than unions?
"does this mean that after the vote, each individual worker has no choice"
They get a choice during the vote. Do you get a choice to have a different president from everyone else if you don't like him.
"Why is it absurd"
Well as I explained a union is a inately political entity. A non political union makes little sense. "Not true, actually"
Then our experiences differ markedly. The last time that I faced the threat of extreme violence in the shape of a horse back baton charge it was not the union doing it.
Phil
You faith in the activity of the free market is touching. Maybe the market will "take care" of it. But when for instance. The market has perhaps taken care of internet hype that we saw. But what has happened in the mean time? The market never did much to prevent the discrimination against women, ethnic minorities.
The market is not some magic entity. Its composed of people. In fact its composed of a sub-set of the population as a whole, because some people have vastly more money than others. These people are as capable of being foolish, prejuidiced, or just wrong as any one else in the population. The market will just reflect these opinions.
Phil
The unions do not force workers to pay political money either. Most unions have a political fund. We vote as to whether we should have such a fund, and where it should do. To be honest though the idea of a union not involved in "politics" is absurd. If work conditions, pay, workers rights, and so on are not part of politics then what is?
No doubt some unions have support violence against workers, and have fought against workers political rights. No movement is universally good. There again I think you will find more of these attacks coming from the multi-nationals.
Phil
I don't know about the US but in the UK the health and safety executive was pushed through due to support from the union movement, in the teeth of opposition from many who said it would cost business too much.
The reality has been a large drop in the rate of industrial accidents, and compensation awards for those who have been injured as the result of company negligence.
So yes the unions have bought me work safety regulations.
Medical benefits. Here the union movement has also had its role. Certainly it was the risk of severe communal action following world war ii which resulted in the national health service. So yes medical benefits.
And Job Security. The union movement also helped set up independant arbitration, and job tribunals, meaning that those suffering discrimination or unfair dismissal have a right to appeal. So yes job security as well.
Unions are not perfect. Of course there is internal politics within the union. As there is within a political party, or a board of directors, of even on a shop floor. Unions could be better, and we should strive to improve them. But without them even as they are, things would be a hell of a lot worse.
And I have worked in real jobs also. I got payed shit, and had one day contracts. At least nowadays the pay would have been better as the UK now has a minimum wage. Put in place as a result of campaigning by the unions....
Phil
Unionisation does not mean promotion by seniority. If anything managerialism is much more guilty of this than a company with a unionised work force.
Phil
Unions are not perfect and never have been, but it does not take a lot of looking at history to see how many things I have are as a result of union activity. Health and Safety at work, sick pay, various pension rights, industrial tribunals, and so on. It does not take much looking at recent history to see how much we are loosing as the result of the weakening of union power over the last 15 years.
I realise that union bashing appears to be a national sport among the US readers on slashdot. I never understood it myself. Even in the US the union movement has had an important role to play in many industries.
Phil
Now this works well in some circumstances. Mostly those departments which are heavily over subscribed. They can afford to say "we will choose a language for didactic purposes" because students will still come.
In many other cases departments are very constrained, by what the students want. The students come along saying "no one uses SML, so why teach it", or "everybodies advertising for C programmers, so we want to learn C". Now of course there is a place for market driven education, but you can get too much of it. Learning C as a first langauge is really not a good thing to do, what ever the students think. They will probably be better C programmers after 3 years if they start on something else! However as is often the case in many fields we can not just pick the best tool for the job. We have to bow to the pressures of fashion, common practice and so on.
And this is where Java comes in. Its a bit of a God send to be honest. From a teaching point of view its a hell of a lot better than C/C++. And its quite widely used in industry, and currently rather sexy. Of course there are still better languages for teaching, but Java is a really good compromise.
Which is why its becoming so common place in education.
Phil
Perhaps they are just going for the "do some scientific work. Then make up a press release which sounds impressive and bears little relationship to the work, because the journalists can't tell the difference anyway" approach.
Phil
I am sure that his attention to linguistic detail helped Tolkein when he was writing the book to make it coherent, I agree with this. But I don't need to read the linguistic detail is what I am saying. Its a bit like method acting for instance. I don't really care whether De Niro works in a chip shop for six months to improve his characterisation. He might need to do this, but I would judge his acting by what he does on screen. Phil