Re:The best tools stay out of the way...
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
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· Score: 1
Writing my doctoral dissertation in Word back in 2003 was a repeated lesson in pain
Frankly, I'm impressed that you finished your dissertation. I can't imagine having the stamina to do my actual research, analysis, and writing if I were fighting with Word all the time. LaTeX forever!
And in the U.S., you've been able to get them for years from EmperorLinux. (That's where I got mine.) That's still qualitatively distinct from having it come from the OEM.
Something sounds a bit off here. You say that your company is "fully plugged into the open source philosophy," yet nobody is active or well known enough in your local Unix/development communities to know where to find help? Why do you want "to build this cluster using only open source tools" anyway? How do you know that a proprietary solution wouldn't be more cost effective? Even if you're committed to using free software tools for moral reasons (something that I'm not opposed to), what's the cost/benefit versus proprietary solutions?
and to all my friends who can't tell the difference between a pair of B&Ws and a sony all-in-one from circuit city, well, they get through life spending less money than I do.
Ahh, finally a justification for the hearing damage I suffered from standing too close to the speakers at concerts when I was young: in fact, I was actually looking ahead to my middle age. Now I'm saving money!
Almost certainly FLAC will be what most people recommend. And it very well may be the correct choice for your situation. But I'd also take into account longevity of the codec. The fact that FLAC is open source, patent-less, etc is only a buffer against obsolescence, not a guarantee. WAV's, for example, have been around forever and are so entrenched that you can be certain that support for them isn't going anywhere. FLAC, on the other hand, has only been around for about 4 or 5 years.
If you do decide not to go to school next year, I strongly recommend that you not position it as "taking a year off." Essentially, that suggests that you're putting your life on hold for a year. Nobody needs a year-long vacation. Instead, do something productive with that time. Set some sort of goal and meet it. Else, you end up risking the no-end-in-sight-job that many people here are warning you against.
Maybe consider it this way: What can you do for the next year that will help you if/when you do decide to go back to school? What if you decide to not go back to school? Will you be on some sort of career path?
Whatever you decide--just don't put your life on hold for a year. Trust me, you can't get that time back.
Every time I tried quitting smoking, I stopped for a few days, but afterwards, I just had to start again. It wasn't the addiction that much, but simply the fact that I enjoy smoking too much.
This is pretty consistent with what most of my friends who smoke tell me. A number of years ago I heard a story on NPR about addiction. They interviewed a representative from a national drug agency (perhaps NIH, I don't recall). What he emphasized was that it's not the physical addiction that's the problem, we can control that (the patches and gums are examples). But the psychological addiction is what's difficult to kick. (He was actually talking about all drug addictions, but he made special mention of smoking.)
But in reading your post, I realized that I'm not sure what constitutes a psychological addiction. Is it simply the pleasure, as you suggest? Because most of my friends emphasize the role of stimuli. It's easy to quit smoking -- until you go out to a bar or coffee house, or you've been driving for 30 minutes, or you're at a party, etc.
Your point is well-taken, but I'm not sure what roots you're talking about here. Bruce Perens is part of the group that started the Open Source movement--the movement that wants to "sell" Free Software by never mentioning the software freedom and only talking about the practical advantages of a software development methodology. They do this because they believe this will make the software easier for other people (chiefly businesses) to adopt. The advantages that the Open Souce movement touts come from having software freedom, so it's quite ironic that the Open Source movement champions the practical benefits of software freedom while distancing themselves from freedom talk. This leads to a built-in flaw for the Open Source movement: people can't justify choosing the software the Open Source movement wants you to run and develop if there's a proprietary program that better meets your practical needs.
Right. Sounds like you're not aware that Perens has diverged from the Open Source Movement calling it "probably the biggest mistake I've ever made" for precisely the reasons that you state. He's talked about this in a few places. A quick Google search pulls up this comment made on some obscure website called "Slashdot": http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37241&cid= 4000835
So, the 15 vs 19 certainly seems meaningful - maybe there's a stats guy out there who can figure out the actual margin or error.
Read my above post. You've got a full population there and not a sample. So there is no margin of error. A margin of error is used to tell you what the chances are that the statistics that you've calculated from a sample of a population actually exist in the overall population. You've already got the entire population, so there's no margin of error. (For clarification, your population is all the people who signed up for trial accounts.)
Another way to say it: the 15 versus 19 percentage is a real difference. It exists in the overall population. The only question is whether or not those 4 percentage points are substantively meaningful. And statistics can't answer that question. Ideally, you would speak with someone who has expertise in software sales. They would be able to tell you if 4 percentage points is considered meaningful in the industry or not.
Your numbers are so close that i dont think you can easily pick a winner. Without having margin of error, or a total sample size how can we realisticly calculate whom is more likely to pay for your software.
It sounds like the 15.6% and 19.3% reflect *all* Linux and Windows users who do the free trial. That is, it's the entire population. Therefore, there's no sample and no margin of error. (A margin of error is a characteristic of a sample used when trying to generalize the results of the sample to the underlying population.)
The reported percentages are close. But since the numbers come from the total population, they are accurate: of those individuals who download the trial version, Linux users are more likely to subscribe than Windows users.
The interesting question is "Why does this difference exist?" But to answer that question, we'd need more information about the people who purchased the game (and, perhaps, information about people who didn't purchase the game).
Re:Consumer Reports - frustrated with reviews
on
Buying a New TV?
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· Score: 1
Consumer Reports vs. C-Net/Amazon/Epinions/etc aren't really comparable in any meaningful sense.
Consumer Reports tests and compares all of the products themselves. They detail their methods, so that you can judge their adequacy. (For example, I don't make use of CR's computer reviews because their requirements don't match my own needs.)
Online sites, on the other hand, make use of a self-selected sample. Basically, it's just a group of people who love the product, hate the product, or just want to have their voice heard. Not the same thing at all.
It's also important to recognize that Consumer Reports tends to privilege value, functionality, and reliability. So it's not the place to go if you're looking for a high-end stereo system or something else that requires specific expertise. But most of the time, I just want good value for my money. In that situation, CR has never let me down.
Your best bet is to do some real research rather than relying upon the anecdotal experiences of Slashdot readers and friends.
Consumer Reports tends to review televisions every few months. Their most recent comprehensive review (27-36 inches, HD-ready, and projection) was in the March 2003 issue. Perhaps your local library has a copy? They also have most of their content online at www.consumerreports.org for a $4.95 monthly subscription ($24 per year).
If you're considering spending $1000, it's worth spending $5 on research.
My color blindness is fairly severe -- red/green, red/black, brown/green, and trouble distinguishing shades. Some people who try to accomodate the color blind only think about red/green -- that doesn't help me.
The cardinal rule for accomodating color blindness is this: don't make color the sole distinguishing aspect. Use text, symbols, whatever -- just make sure that you're using something other than color for identification. Best suggestion -- remove all color from your application and see if you can still use it. If you can, I'll be able to too. (Assuming, of course, that I can distinguish the identification from the color. Black text on a red widget doesn't help me. Think high contrast.)
I took the GRE last summer (although not the CompSci subject test). I went through a number of practice books and tests. By far, the best materials were the ones provided by and published by ETS.
Most of the materials are free for download from their website, including reviews for the subject tests. (Many of these resouces are sent to you when you register.) You can purchase "Practicing to take the GRE General Test" for $18 (I highly recommend this book).
I also used the Princeton Review and one other series that I can't recall offhand. Neither of these resources had the depth of the ETS materials (or the GRE itself). If I had just used the 3rd party materials, I would have been screwed. They simply didn't cover everything that was on the test -- the ETS materials do.
Also, I can't recommend highly enough the practice tests provided by ETS. The 3rd party books also provide practice tests that are largely worthless. But the ETS tests are the real thing. Made a huge difference for me.
I'm a bit confused as to why commercial skip/advance has become so controversial all of a sudden. VCRs have had these features for years: Panasonic, Sony. So why is this a big deal when it comes to PVRs?
I thought you were only on the hook to provide source to whoever you distributed binaries to -- not *everyone* (unless, of course, you are giving away the binaries).
This is a common misunderstanding of the GPL. When you release a binary under the GPL, you are obligated to provide the source code to "any valid third party." The term "any valid third party" indicates anyone who has received a copy of the binary -- whether it came directly from you or not. In effect, you do need to be prepared to distribute source to anyone who requests it (although, technically, I believe that you could require proof of possession). (Also, posting the source publicly (e.g., on a website or ftp server) doesn't necessarily absolve you of your obligation. You still need to provide the sources to anyone who requests them (e.g., if someone doesn't have internet access, you can provide the sources on disk).
The GPL faq is very useful in answering these types of questions.
The problem with these numbers is that CA and NY tend to skew the results dramatically... the one for a BA, (49180) was because NY and CA during the.com era were getting 60k-100k while the rest of the country was getting 20K-30K
The numbers provided above are medians rather than means which helps to minimize the effect of extreme values. But you're correct in that you can't compare your individual salary to these numbers -- you need to correct for local cost of living.
The interest rates [on federal loans] are extremely low (usually near the prime rate)
This is a really important point. My credit cards, which have a far lower balance, cause me much more trouble on a month to month basis than do my student loans, all because of the interest.
Even better, for subsidized federal loans, the feds pay the interest while you're in school at least half time.
Also of benefit -- if you're a bit late on your payments, the DOE doesn't automatically report you to the credit bureaus. It's pretty easy to get a deferral in case of hardship (which helped out when I was unemployed for a year).
Median Annual Income by Educational Degree (No 664) Overall - $32,092 High School Graduate - $27,669 Some college, no degree - $33,035 Bachelor's degree - $49,180 Master's degree - $59,376 Professional degree - $81,606 Doctoral degree - $71,732
Obviously, the answer to your question depends on how much debt you're carrying. But education does pay off.
The wealth numbers (which I don't have on me) are even more striking. The vast majority of Americans are in debt. If you have a college degree or above, you can begin to break even (especially if you own your house and are middle-aged or older). Those with Master's degrees have the most wealth, followed by those with Doctoral degrees. (Master's does better than doctorate, I suspect, because of all the MBAs.)
The current USDA pyramid is flawed and promotes many unhealthy habits. Like much of the field of "nutrition", the pyramid isn't based on scientific facts, but rather conjecture and speculation.
There are definitely problems with the food pyramid. Some of it is, as you note, because of conjecture and speculation in the field of nutrition. But some of the problems are also due to politics as the USDA needed to assuage various competing industries.
NPR's Talk of the Nation had a fairly interesting discussion about this late last year. An archive of the program (Real Player or Windows Media) is available on their site.
You say that you eat twice a day, less than 500 calories per day, and fast once a week? You weigh less than you did in 8th grade?
Might I gently recommend that you visit your doctor just to make sure that you're not underweight? At least check out your body mass index (NHI BMI Calculator). It sounds like you may be starving yourself or, worse, that you might be at risk for developing an eating disorder. You say that you tend toward extreme behavior so you really need to watch out for the latter, an eating disorder will just wreck your health.
If you like gnutrition, why not just update the included USDA Nutrient database? I took a cursory look at the source and it appears that the included database (in the 'data' directory) is simply a dump of the USDA's text files (available here). The developers even include a couple of shell script to convert the USDA files into the correct format for gnumeric (mostly it's just stripping illegal characters).
Slashdot Mirror
Writing my doctoral dissertation in Word back in 2003 was a repeated lesson in pain
Frankly, I'm impressed that you finished your dissertation. I can't imagine having the stamina to do my actual research, analysis, and writing if I were fighting with Word all the time. LaTeX forever!
And in the U.S., you've been able to get them for years from EmperorLinux. (That's where I got mine.) That's still qualitatively distinct from having it come from the OEM.
Something sounds a bit off here. You say that your company is "fully plugged into the open source philosophy," yet nobody is active or well known enough in your local Unix/development communities to know where to find help? Why do you want "to build this cluster using only open source tools" anyway? How do you know that a proprietary solution wouldn't be more cost effective? Even if you're committed to using free software tools for moral reasons (something that I'm not opposed to), what's the cost/benefit versus proprietary solutions?
and to all my friends who can't tell the difference between a pair of B&Ws and a sony all-in-one from circuit city, well, they get through life spending less money than I do.
Ahh, finally a justification for the hearing damage I suffered from standing too close to the speakers at concerts when I was young: in fact, I was actually looking ahead to my middle age. Now I'm saving money!
IBM's website is selling X41s, but I don't see any indication that they're tablet PCs.
Almost certainly FLAC will be what most people recommend. And it very well may be the correct choice for your situation. But I'd also take into account longevity of the codec. The fact that FLAC is open source, patent-less, etc is only a buffer against obsolescence, not a guarantee. WAV's, for example, have been around forever and are so entrenched that you can be certain that support for them isn't going anywhere. FLAC, on the other hand, has only been around for about 4 or 5 years.
If you do decide not to go to school next year, I strongly recommend that you not position it as "taking a year off." Essentially, that suggests that you're putting your life on hold for a year. Nobody needs a year-long vacation. Instead, do something productive with that time. Set some sort of goal and meet it. Else, you end up risking the no-end-in-sight-job that many people here are warning you against.
Maybe consider it this way: What can you do for the next year that will help you if/when you do decide to go back to school? What if you decide to not go back to school? Will you be on some sort of career path?
Whatever you decide--just don't put your life on hold for a year. Trust me, you can't get that time back.
Every time I tried quitting smoking, I stopped for a few days, but afterwards, I just had to start again. It wasn't the addiction that much, but simply the fact that I enjoy smoking too much.
This is pretty consistent with what most of my friends who smoke tell me. A number of years ago I heard a story on NPR about addiction. They interviewed a representative from a national drug agency (perhaps NIH, I don't recall). What he emphasized was that it's not the physical addiction that's the problem, we can control that (the patches and gums are examples). But the psychological addiction is what's difficult to kick. (He was actually talking about all drug addictions, but he made special mention of smoking.)
But in reading your post, I realized that I'm not sure what constitutes a psychological addiction. Is it simply the pleasure, as you suggest? Because most of my friends emphasize the role of stimuli. It's easy to quit smoking -- until you go out to a bar or coffee house, or you've been driving for 30 minutes, or you're at a party, etc.
Your point is well-taken, but I'm not sure what roots you're talking about here. Bruce Perens is part of the group that started the Open Source movement--the movement that wants to "sell" Free Software by never mentioning the software freedom and only talking about the practical advantages of a software development methodology. They do this because they believe this will make the software easier for other people (chiefly businesses) to adopt. The advantages that the Open Souce movement touts come from having software freedom, so it's quite ironic that the Open Source movement champions the practical benefits of software freedom while distancing themselves from freedom talk. This leads to a built-in flaw for the Open Source movement: people can't justify choosing the software the Open Source movement wants you to run and develop if there's a proprietary program that better meets your practical needs.
= 4000835
Right. Sounds like you're not aware that Perens has diverged from the Open Source Movement calling it "probably the biggest mistake I've ever made" for precisely the reasons that you state. He's talked about this in a few places. A quick Google search pulls up this comment made on some obscure website called "Slashdot": http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37241&cid
So, the 15 vs 19 certainly seems meaningful - maybe there's a stats guy out there who can figure out the actual margin or error.
Read my above post. You've got a full population there and not a sample. So there is no margin of error. A margin of error is used to tell you what the chances are that the statistics that you've calculated from a sample of a population actually exist in the overall population. You've already got the entire population, so there's no margin of error. (For clarification, your population is all the people who signed up for trial accounts.)
Another way to say it: the 15 versus 19 percentage is a real difference. It exists in the overall population. The only question is whether or not those 4 percentage points are substantively meaningful. And statistics can't answer that question. Ideally, you would speak with someone who has expertise in software sales. They would be able to tell you if 4 percentage points is considered meaningful in the industry or not.
Your numbers are so close that i dont think you can easily pick a winner. Without having margin of error, or a total sample size how can we realisticly calculate whom is more likely to pay for your software.
It sounds like the 15.6% and 19.3% reflect *all* Linux and Windows users who do the free trial. That is, it's the entire population. Therefore, there's no sample and no margin of error. (A margin of error is a characteristic of a sample used when trying to generalize the results of the sample to the underlying population.)
The reported percentages are close. But since the numbers come from the total population, they are accurate: of those individuals who download the trial version, Linux users are more likely to subscribe than Windows users.
The interesting question is "Why does this difference exist?" But to answer that question, we'd need more information about the people who purchased the game (and, perhaps, information about people who didn't purchase the game).
Consumer Reports vs. C-Net/Amazon/Epinions/etc aren't really comparable in any meaningful sense.
Consumer Reports tests and compares all of the products themselves. They detail their methods, so that you can judge their adequacy. (For example, I don't make use of CR's computer reviews because their requirements don't match my own needs.)
Online sites, on the other hand, make use of a self-selected sample. Basically, it's just a group of people who love the product, hate the product, or just want to have their voice heard. Not the same thing at all.
It's also important to recognize that Consumer Reports tends to privilege value, functionality, and reliability. So it's not the place to go if you're looking for a high-end stereo system or something else that requires specific expertise. But most of the time, I just want good value for my money. In that situation, CR has never let me down.
Your best bet is to do some real research rather than relying upon the anecdotal experiences of Slashdot readers and friends.
Consumer Reports tends to review televisions every few months. Their most recent comprehensive review (27-36 inches, HD-ready, and projection) was in the March 2003 issue. Perhaps your local library has a copy? They also have most of their content online at www.consumerreports.org for a $4.95 monthly subscription ($24 per year).
If you're considering spending $1000, it's worth spending $5 on research.
...it's called a library.
My color blindness is fairly severe -- red/green, red/black, brown/green, and trouble distinguishing shades. Some people who try to accomodate the color blind only think about red/green -- that doesn't help me.
The cardinal rule for accomodating color blindness is this: don't make color the sole distinguishing aspect. Use text, symbols, whatever -- just make sure that you're using something other than color for identification. Best suggestion -- remove all color from your application and see if you can still use it. If you can, I'll be able to too. (Assuming, of course, that I can distinguish the identification from the color. Black text on a red widget doesn't help me. Think high contrast.)
which unconventional/alternative comics would you like to see in game form?
No question -- Spider Jerursalem. I wanna wield the bowel-disruptor.
I took the GRE last summer (although not the CompSci subject test). I went through a number of practice books and tests. By far, the best materials were the ones provided by and published by ETS.
Most of the materials are free for download from their website, including reviews for the subject tests. (Many of these resouces are sent to you when you register.) You can purchase "Practicing to take the GRE General Test" for $18 (I highly recommend this book).
I also used the Princeton Review and one other series that I can't recall offhand. Neither of these resources had the depth of the ETS materials (or the GRE itself). If I had just used the 3rd party materials, I would have been screwed. They simply didn't cover everything that was on the test -- the ETS materials do.
The relevent link: http://www.gre.org/pracmats.html
Also, I can't recommend highly enough the practice tests provided by ETS. The 3rd party books also provide practice tests that are largely worthless. But the ETS tests are the real thing. Made a huge difference for me.
I'm a bit confused as to why commercial skip/advance has become so controversial all of a sudden. VCRs have had these features for years: Panasonic, Sony. So why is this a big deal when it comes to PVRs?
I thought you were only on the hook to provide source to whoever you distributed binaries to -- not *everyone* (unless, of course, you are giving away the binaries).
This is a common misunderstanding of the GPL. When you release a binary under the GPL, you are obligated to provide the source code to "any valid third party." The term "any valid third party" indicates anyone who has received a copy of the binary -- whether it came directly from you or not. In effect, you do need to be prepared to distribute source to anyone who requests it (although, technically, I believe that you could require proof of possession). (Also, posting the source publicly (e.g., on a website or ftp server) doesn't necessarily absolve you of your obligation. You still need to provide the sources to anyone who requests them (e.g., if someone doesn't have internet access, you can provide the sources on disk).
The GPL faq is very useful in answering these types of questions.
The problem with these numbers is that CA and NY tend to skew the results dramatically... the one for a BA, (49180) was because NY and CA during the .com era were getting 60k-100k while the rest of the country was getting 20K-30K
The numbers provided above are medians rather than means which helps to minimize the effect of extreme values. But you're correct in that you can't compare your individual salary to these numbers -- you need to correct for local cost of living.
The interest rates [on federal loans] are extremely low (usually near the prime rate)
This is a really important point. My credit cards, which have a far lower balance, cause me much more trouble on a month to month basis than do my student loans, all because of the interest.
Even better, for subsidized federal loans, the feds pay the interest while you're in school at least half time.
Also of benefit -- if you're a bit late on your payments, the DOE doesn't automatically report you to the credit bureaus. It's pretty easy to get a deferral in case of hardship (which helped out when I was unemployed for a year).
are student loans (and the degree they get you) worth the debt load?
From the 2002 Statistical Abstract of the US (warning - this is a PDF):
Median Annual Income by Educational Degree (No 664)
Overall - $32,092
High School Graduate - $27,669
Some college, no degree - $33,035
Bachelor's degree - $49,180
Master's degree - $59,376
Professional degree - $81,606
Doctoral degree - $71,732
Obviously, the answer to your question depends on how much debt you're carrying. But education does pay off.
The wealth numbers (which I don't have on me) are even more striking. The vast majority of Americans are in debt. If you have a college degree or above, you can begin to break even (especially if you own your house and are middle-aged or older). Those with Master's degrees have the most wealth, followed by those with Doctoral degrees. (Master's does better than doctorate, I suspect, because of all the MBAs.)
The current USDA pyramid is flawed and promotes many unhealthy habits. Like much of the field of "nutrition", the pyramid isn't based on scientific facts, but rather conjecture and speculation.
There are definitely problems with the food pyramid. Some of it is, as you note, because of conjecture and speculation in the field of nutrition. But some of the problems are also due to politics as the USDA needed to assuage various competing industries.
NPR's Talk of the Nation had a fairly interesting discussion about this late last year. An archive of the program (Real Player or Windows Media) is available on their site.
You say that you eat twice a day, less than 500 calories per day, and fast once a week? You weigh less than you did in 8th grade?
Might I gently recommend that you visit your doctor just to make sure that you're not underweight? At least check out your body mass index (NHI BMI Calculator). It sounds like you may be starving yourself or, worse, that you might be at risk for developing an eating disorder. You say that you tend toward extreme behavior so you really need to watch out for the latter, an eating disorder will just wreck your health.
If you like gnutrition, why not just update the included USDA Nutrient database? I took a cursory look at the source and it appears that the included database (in the 'data' directory) is simply a dump of the USDA's text files (available here). The developers even include a couple of shell script to convert the USDA files into the correct format for gnumeric (mostly it's just stripping illegal characters).