As someone who grew up in the Silicon Valley and went to school there, it sounds like Paul Graham hasn't really spent much time there. He describes a lot of new upcoming tech areas like Portland or Seattle or Boston or wherever... but those are SO NOT SILLICON VALLEY. Heck, even San Francisco isn't Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is suburban sprawl, and all housing in the past few decades is cookie cutter developments. It's also impossible to survive without a car, and a "short" trip is 30 minutes away, with some freeway in-between. It sounds like he's only visited San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley, rather than the rest of Silicon Valley. Try San Jose, Santa Clara, or Cupertino, or Milpitas and you'll realise that Sillicon Valley is nothing like Paul Graham describes.
As much as MS is considered evil, this is a GOOD thing. We've been pooh-poohing MS on their inability to innovate, and how they've been resting on their laurels since Ballmer took over as CEO (yeah yeah, some of you might say since Gates took over...). Now, if they can actually "get in the game," spend money on actual R&D, they can actually compete with the likes of Google -- hence, we all win -- software devs AND end users. Competition is good for customers with better products. Competition is also good cuz it makes us software developers more in demand.
Thta's not just CS, it's college in general. If you go to a "research" oriented school (and all the "top ranked" schools are), all the professors are there to do research.
Some happen to be very excellent teachers, but most are actually very poor teachers with stunted social skills (after all, these professors were undergrads, grad students, and then professors -- never saw the "real world", only the life of a student). Of course I'm generalizing.
A heavy accent doesn't make a bad teacher... if you're a reasonably smart student, your brain will start being able to learn the "new language", and you'll be able to understand. However, it's only going to happen if the professor is a good teacher/communicator in the first place.
> CS enrollments have plummeted from 3.7% in 2000 to just 1.1% last year
That tells me nothing! 2000 was the height of the dot-com bubble. Give me the numbers for planned enrollments from 1990 to 2000. And then 2000 to now! I bet it went up with the boom, shot down with the bust, and has been rising since.
Of course it's up. The market rewards profitability which is revenue minus expenses. Mc Nealy was known for not laying off people which is where almost all expenses go. Expect substantial layoffs in the coming quarters. Expect expenses to go down. Expect profit to go up. And expect the market to reward that. Yes it sucks for those laid off (as well as for morale of those who stay on)... I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying that's the way it is.
I'm not a SUNW owner, but from an "investment"* perspective it might be a good idea in the short run. After the first round of layoffs though, it'll be harder to cut expenses -- all the "easy" stuff wil be done -- and they're going to have to increase revenues, which means they'll actually have to *DO* something useful (like develop new/useful products or change their business plan)... but that's medium to long run.
* ok, maybe it's more "speculation" than "investment"
The real concern I have with Google's future is not technical, but social. They've grown to around 3000 employees in the past few years... a huge rate by any measure, and the thing is no company can survive that kind of growth without some extremely talented/clairvoyent management.
If you've read the Tipping Point by Malcom Blackwell, you'd know that there's a magic number of 150 people in any sort of group. It's the point where the human brain stops being able to remember the (150 choose 2) different individual relationships.
Google is probably superior technically, but no matter how many brainiacs they have, they're still human and the human brain is going to run up to these limitations. As much as slashdotters will hate to admit it, Google's future really does depend on how good the management is.
The point is that there's plenty of free cycles in-between the moments of pressing the key combinations of your name and password. Let's hear it for multitasking!
By looking at the current gov't and level of corruption, i'd say that its been 45-50 years too long for some change.
And what happens when the Taiwanese people democratically elect president Chen-Shui Bian who has a history of strong anti-corruption policy? They are threatened with violence.
I know numerous people from Taiwan, and they all agree (with some reservation) that Taiwan going back to China is a GOOD thing.
I, too, know numerous people from Taiwan including my parents. Fact is, there are PLENTY of Taiwanese who believe that self-determination and democracy is a good thing.
The bottom line is, that Taiwan is NOT an independent nation. And yes, China does have every right to unify its "province". Of course, preferably without force.
For the past 50 years, Taiwan has been a defacto independent nation. This is not an interpretation issue, the government on Taiwan is seperate from the one on China. The current government on Taiwan has been making its own decisions for the past 50 years. If you care to erase 50 years of history, perhaps you can assert that Taiwan is not an independent nation. Prior to the current government, Taiwan was a Japanese colony. Before that, a Dutch Colony.
After a tumultuous history, the Taiwanese people now are finally able to make their own decisions. This is a GOOD thing. China threatening military invasion because Taiwan democratically elected a president is a BAD thing.
Alphanumerica's David Boswell agrees. "We see Mozilla as an application virtual machine that will allow us to write applications." Because the application can run on any system with a Mozilla browser, developers reach systems running Windows, the Mac OS, Linux, OS/2, and even Amiga and BeOs systems or set-top boxes. Pete Collins pointed out later that "Mozilla is 95% cross-platform code." He described the Mozilla platform as "write-once, run-anywhere -- done correctly."
This statement above, is pretty darn exciting. While many people probably think that the browser wars were just about Microsoft wanting to dominate the client-side browser (and eventually maybe the server side), it was also about Microsoft maintaining it's stranglehold on the desktop operating system. Microsoft was scared that if Netscape became the defacto standard browser, app developers could eventually write to netscape API's, thus bypassing the Windows API and effectively rendering Windows irrelevent. The reason Microsoft was so scared of Netscape was the same reason Microsoft was scared of Java -- they would lose their monopoly on the API in which application developers would have to write to.
So Netscape supposedly "lost" the browser-war. Big deal. It's round two now and Microsoft should be really scared. AOL has released a web appliance running Linux and Mozilla code. No Microsoft there. Mozilla is completely modular, cross-platform, and open-sourced so developers can build apps around it once and have complete control. No need for Microsoft here, either.
Java was a "threat" in that it threatened the dependency on window's API's. However, Sun kinda messed that up by controling it. Mozilla is Open-Sourced, and can't be controlled (or embraced and extended).
These are exciting times. Mozilla may be exactly what is needed to wrench desktop applications control away from Microsoft. If developers start writing to Mozilla API's, that's the foot in the door.
Mozilla as a platform is a pretty darn exciting idea. Maybe the Web Browser really will eventually become "part of the operating system." ^_^
This is the only movie I've ever hated with a passion. Other movies you ignore because they suck, and you go on your way. This one just leaves you feeling utterly ripped off and angry that you spent the time watching it.
The plot was completely predictable, and other than that, there's nothing left in the movie. Matrix, with a typical plot, at least, had cool effects and fights. Existenz, with a so-so plot, had nothing else.
A warning to ANYONE who is thinking of watching this movie. I saw a review of it on Reel and IMDB so I went out and rented it with great hopes, thinking it was an "intellectual matrix". I've never been so angry about renting a movie before.
really, I've never been so vocal about bad movies, but this one really made me feel like I got ripped off. So if you go and rent it, go ahead, but don't say you weren't warned.
to those who did enjoy it, I don't mean to insult you... I guess we're just different types of personalities. I'm not much of an "Art House" geek.
That's where we differ, I guess. I expect the senator to vote based on what he believes is appropriate... not what some political or religious leader thinks. If what he believes falls in line with what a particular leader says, then that's convenient for him.
you state that that the politician should not vote due to his beliefs but on the people's. That, in itself, is some sort of philosophical belief. Thus there's a paradox in that the politician has the belief that he should not vote according to his own belief! My point? Beliefs (whether philosphical or moral or ethical or lack of any of the above) play a huge role in every decision.
Anyhoo, I don't pure think democaracy works because it's often that people doesn't know what they really want or is what is good for them due to ignorance or just plain lack of mental accuity. Apparently, America's forefathers though so, too and made the system a republic, not a democaracy. I think a benevolent dictatorship would work pretty well in theory, except that there aren't any humans who are benevolent enough.
> however, when making public policy, it is the duty of public officials to not let their philosophical viewpoints influence their decisions! when making a law that makes murder illegal (for example), senator smith should not vote yes on that law because the bible says so; he should vote yes because it is the interest of the public that murder should be illegal.
So how does one determine what is in the interest of the public? Doesn't that decision require some sort of philosophical viewpoint to even be quailified to approach it (I'd prefer a consistent, well-thought out set of philosophical viewpoints)?
Taking your example: let's suppose the public wants murder to be legal. Smith doesn't, due to some personal philosophical beliefs. Now what can Senator Smith do? Impose his intolerant "belongs-in-his-own-house" religion on others, or give the public what it wants? It's a hard question, and I'm not a political scientist, but I'd vote for the guy who follows his conscience and values in a non-hypocritial manner... as long as his values are consistent with mine in most respects.
on a side note: how does one decide what gives society the most overall utility? "Ignorance is bliss," but knowledge and education is pretty good too. I think it takes some philosophical pre-suppositions to make this decision.
Ok, I agree that a state religion would be a bad idea. But any worldview will always affect the person who holds that particular worldview. While that seems fairly obvious, the implications are kind of unnerving.
Take the current state of popular American society: it is only acceptable to make public policy decisions without "bringing religion into it." What that does is effectively strike out any "values" (and I hope that most people do make their decisions based on their own values) that are not either atheist (which strikes a remarkable resemblence to some kind of "religion") or at the very least, diluted enough so it does not make any distinctive statement. It's a discrimination of non-status-quo values.
Now what do we do about it? I have no answer on that, but maybe it gives hints to us that perhaps a true freedom of religion in a heterogenously religious(including anti-religious) society is fundamentally impossible.
>If Jesuss teachings were followed today, we would live in a wonderful world.
...
> I believe religion has no place in politics, education or technology.
Now, something here doesn't seem to bode well. While I can only speak from experience in the Christian faith, pure Christianity affects your whole being: your philosophy, your views on life, politics, friendships... EVERYTHING. It is what makes you you.
Now, I can see where Katz is coming from (people who use their religion as an excuse to push certain political agendas, possibly even those inconsistent with their religion -- such as good ol' christian white supremacy), but if one truly is to be a consistent person, religion has EVERY RIGHT to be in politics, education, and technology. It is DEMANDED... otherwise you're just a hypocrite. In this case, however, there is a clear distinction in sincerity of the motivation of the person.
The problem is is that there are always those of a vocal minority who give everyone a bad name...
"hackers are bad because look at what happened to yahoo and ebay!"
Yes, the correct word is crackers... but now those who are true hackers have to explain themselves...
which is a place where the window manager pretty much has no right to tromp over. (kinda like my opinion about letting applications have control over root window clicks. gmc, IMNSHO, shouldn't take mouseclicks on the root window)
While I can see where he's coming from regarding this (purity and correctness of the application), in order to have a "Desktop" --a la Windoze, Mac, BeOS, and anything with a remotely decent Desktop Environment, you NEED to be able to get root window clicks. Now, one can debate the usefulness of a desktop, but let's not (though my experience has shown me that it is a very useful, time-saving thing), how else could you implement aa desktop?
If Linux becomes insanely popular (such as RedHat, or if AOL ships a distribution on one of those CD's -- complete independence from MS!), we won't flock to a completely new OS, but perhaps an "elite" distribution (like debian or some bastard version -- stay away from those mainstream RPMs!).
Linux is just the kernel... there's a wealth of software that's the actual "value" of and Linux OS (I mean, who has a Linux box that doesn't have any programs except init and mgetty?).
If I recall correctly, Debian is designed so that it's kernel agnostic (you can just drop in a hurd kernel rather than Linux). This is just speculation, but maybe in the future, all "operating environments" will be so modular that you can just pick and choose your kernel?
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> Apparently people prefer a free answer of questionable accuracy to having to pay for an answer.
Sounds like Wikipedia to me.
As someone who grew up in the Silicon Valley and went to school there, it sounds like Paul Graham hasn't really spent much time there. He describes a lot of new upcoming tech areas like Portland or Seattle or Boston or wherever... but those are SO NOT SILLICON VALLEY. Heck, even San Francisco isn't Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is suburban sprawl, and all housing in the past few decades is cookie cutter developments. It's also impossible to survive without a car, and a "short" trip is 30 minutes away, with some freeway in-between. It sounds like he's only visited San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley, rather than the rest of Silicon Valley. Try San Jose, Santa Clara, or Cupertino, or Milpitas and you'll realise that Sillicon Valley is nothing like Paul Graham describes.
As much as MS is considered evil, this is a GOOD thing. We've been pooh-poohing MS on their inability to innovate, and how they've been resting on their laurels since Ballmer took over as CEO (yeah yeah, some of you might say since Gates took over...). Now, if they can actually "get in the game," spend money on actual R&D, they can actually compete with the likes of Google -- hence, we all win -- software devs AND end users. Competition is good for customers with better products. Competition is also good cuz it makes us software developers more in demand.
Exciting times. Exciting times.
Thta's not just CS, it's college in general. If you go to a "research" oriented school (and all the "top ranked" schools are), all the professors are there to do research.
Some happen to be very excellent teachers, but most are actually very poor teachers with stunted social skills (after all, these professors were undergrads, grad students, and then professors -- never saw the "real world", only the life of a student). Of course I'm generalizing.
A heavy accent doesn't make a bad teacher... if you're a reasonably smart student, your brain will start being able to learn the "new language", and you'll be able to understand. However, it's only going to happen if the professor is a good teacher/communicator in the first place.
don't worry about it. Around age 12 or so, they'll discover bittorrent, and everything will take care of itself.
> CS enrollments have plummeted from 3.7% in 2000 to just 1.1% last year
That tells me nothing! 2000 was the height of the dot-com bubble. Give me the numbers for planned enrollments from 1990 to 2000. And then 2000 to now! I bet it went up with the boom, shot down with the bust, and has been rising since.
Of course it's up. The market rewards profitability which is revenue minus expenses. Mc Nealy was known for not laying off people which is where almost all expenses go. Expect substantial layoffs in the coming quarters. Expect expenses to go down. Expect profit to go up. And expect the market to reward that. Yes it sucks for those laid off (as well as for morale of those who stay on)... I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying that's the way it is.
I'm not a SUNW owner, but from an "investment"* perspective it might be a good idea in the short run. After the first round of layoffs though, it'll be harder to cut expenses -- all the "easy" stuff wil be done -- and they're going to have to increase revenues, which means they'll actually have to *DO* something useful (like develop new/useful products or change their business plan)... but that's medium to long run.
* ok, maybe it's more "speculation" than "investment"
The real concern I have with Google's future is not technical, but social. They've grown to around 3000 employees in the past few years... a huge rate by any measure, and the thing is no company can survive that kind of growth without some extremely talented/clairvoyent management.
If you've read the Tipping Point by Malcom Blackwell, you'd know that there's a magic number of 150 people in any sort of group. It's the point where the human brain stops being able to remember the (150 choose 2) different individual relationships.
Google is probably superior technically, but no matter how many brainiacs they have, they're still human and the human brain is going to run up to these limitations. As much as slashdotters will hate to admit it, Google's future really does depend on how good the management is.
dude, they're not building the death star... it might not even be a WMD. maybe a large laser like device... or maybe it'll just throw water balloons.
The point is that there's plenty of free cycles in-between the moments of pressing the key combinations of your name and password. Let's hear it for multitasking!
Anyone have any experience with getting a Tech job in Taiwan?
By looking at the current gov't and level of corruption, i'd say that its been 45-50 years too long for some change.
And what happens when the Taiwanese people democratically elect president Chen-Shui Bian who has a history of strong anti-corruption policy? They are threatened with violence.
I know numerous people from Taiwan, and they all agree (with some reservation) that Taiwan going back to China is a GOOD thing.
I, too, know numerous people from Taiwan including my parents. Fact is, there are PLENTY of Taiwanese who believe that self-determination and democracy is a good thing.
The bottom line is, that Taiwan is NOT an independent nation. And yes, China does have every right to unify its "province". Of course, preferably without force.
For the past 50 years, Taiwan has been a defacto independent nation. This is not an interpretation issue, the government on Taiwan is seperate from the one on China. The current government on Taiwan has been making its own decisions for the past 50 years. If you care to erase 50 years of history, perhaps you can assert that Taiwan is not an independent nation. Prior to the current government, Taiwan was a Japanese colony. Before that, a Dutch Colony.
After a tumultuous history, the Taiwanese people now are finally able to make their own decisions. This is a GOOD thing. China threatening military invasion because Taiwan democratically elected a president is a BAD thing.
aol is not the internet hackers are not crackers sushi is not sashimi
Thresh's Firingsquad has an excellent preview and writeup of the first-looks at the Game Developer's Conference.
Alphanumerica's David Boswell agrees. "We see Mozilla as an application virtual machine that will allow us to write applications." Because the application can run on any system with a Mozilla browser, developers reach systems running Windows, the Mac OS, Linux, OS/2, and even Amiga and BeOs systems or set-top boxes. Pete Collins pointed out later that "Mozilla is 95% cross-platform code." He described the Mozilla platform as "write-once, run-anywhere -- done correctly."
This statement above, is pretty darn exciting. While many people probably think that the browser wars were just about Microsoft wanting to dominate the client-side browser (and eventually maybe the server side), it was also about Microsoft maintaining it's stranglehold on the desktop operating system. Microsoft was scared that if Netscape became the defacto standard browser, app developers could eventually write to netscape API's, thus bypassing the Windows API and effectively rendering Windows irrelevent. The reason Microsoft was so scared of Netscape was the same reason Microsoft was scared of Java -- they would lose their monopoly on the API in which application developers would have to write to.
So Netscape supposedly "lost" the browser-war. Big deal. It's round two now and Microsoft should be really scared. AOL has released a web appliance running Linux and Mozilla code. No Microsoft there. Mozilla is completely modular, cross-platform, and open-sourced so developers can build apps around it once and have complete control. No need for Microsoft here, either.
Java was a "threat" in that it threatened the dependency on window's API's. However, Sun kinda messed that up by controling it. Mozilla is Open-Sourced, and can't be controlled (or embraced and extended).
These are exciting times. Mozilla may be exactly what is needed to wrench desktop applications control away from Microsoft. If developers start writing to Mozilla API's, that's the foot in the door.
Mozilla as a platform is a pretty darn exciting idea. Maybe the Web Browser really will eventually become "part of the operating system." ^_^
micros~1 a monopoly? no way! I'm going to go to MS's freedom to innovate site.
hmmm, I want to contact my elected officials. <CLICK>
whoa, it seems like my elected officials are running solaris and powered by linux!
This is the only movie I've ever hated with a passion. Other movies you ignore because they suck, and you go on your way. This one just leaves you feeling utterly ripped off and angry that you spent the time watching it.
The plot was completely predictable, and other than that, there's nothing left in the movie. Matrix, with a typical plot, at least, had cool effects and fights. Existenz, with a so-so plot, had nothing else.
A warning to ANYONE who is thinking of watching this movie. I saw a review of it on Reel and IMDB so I went out and rented it with great hopes, thinking it was an "intellectual matrix". I've never been so angry about renting a movie before.
really, I've never been so vocal about bad movies, but this one really made me feel like I got ripped off. So if you go and rent it, go ahead, but don't say you weren't warned.
to those who did enjoy it, I don't mean to insult you... I guess we're just different types of personalities. I'm not much of an "Art House" geek.
Does it still sound like nonsense? If so, perhaps I misunderstood your reply.
you state that that the politician should not vote due to his beliefs but on the people's. That, in itself, is some sort of philosophical belief. Thus there's a paradox in that the politician has the belief that he should not vote according to his own belief! My point? Beliefs (whether philosphical or moral or ethical or lack of any of the above) play a huge role in every decision.
Anyhoo, I don't pure think democaracy works because it's often that people doesn't know what they really want or is what is good for them due to ignorance or just plain lack of mental accuity. Apparently, America's forefathers though so, too and made the system a republic, not a democaracy. I think a benevolent dictatorship would work pretty well in theory, except that there aren't any humans who are benevolent enough.
So how does one determine what is in the interest of the public? Doesn't that decision require some sort of philosophical viewpoint to even be quailified to approach it (I'd prefer a consistent, well-thought out set of philosophical viewpoints)?
Taking your example: let's suppose the public wants murder to be legal. Smith doesn't, due to some personal philosophical beliefs. Now what can Senator Smith do? Impose his intolerant "belongs-in-his-own-house" religion on others, or give the public what it wants? It's a hard question, and I'm not a political scientist, but I'd vote for the guy who follows his conscience and values in a non-hypocritial manner... as long as his values are consistent with mine in most respects.
on a side note: how does one decide what gives society the most overall utility? "Ignorance is bliss," but knowledge and education is pretty good too. I think it takes some philosophical pre-suppositions to make this decision.
Take the current state of popular American society: it is only acceptable to make public policy decisions without "bringing religion into it." What that does is effectively strike out any "values" (and I hope that most people do make their decisions based on their own values) that are not either atheist (which strikes a remarkable resemblence to some kind of "religion") or at the very least, diluted enough so it does not make any distinctive statement. It's a discrimination of non-status-quo values.
Now what do we do about it? I have no answer on that, but maybe it gives hints to us that perhaps a true freedom of religion in a heterogenously religious(including anti-religious) society is fundamentally impossible.
> I believe religion has no place in politics, education or technology.
Now, something here doesn't seem to bode well. While I can only speak from experience in the Christian faith, pure Christianity affects your whole being: your philosophy, your views on life, politics, friendships... EVERYTHING. It is what makes you you.
Now, I can see where Katz is coming from (people who use their religion as an excuse to push certain political agendas, possibly even those inconsistent with their religion -- such as good ol' christian white supremacy), but if one truly is to be a consistent person, religion has EVERY RIGHT to be in politics, education, and technology. It is DEMANDED... otherwise you're just a hypocrite. In this case, however, there is a clear distinction in sincerity of the motivation of the person.
The problem is is that there are always those of a vocal minority who give everyone a bad name...
"hackers are bad because look at what happened to yahoo and ebay!"
Yes, the correct word is crackers... but now those who are true hackers have to explain themselves...
which is a place where the window manager pretty much has no right to tromp over. (kinda like my opinion about letting applications have control over root window clicks. gmc, IMNSHO, shouldn't take mouseclicks on the root window)
While I can see where he's coming from regarding this (purity and correctness of the application), in order to have a "Desktop" --a la Windoze, Mac, BeOS, and anything with a remotely decent Desktop Environment, you NEED to be able to get root window clicks. Now, one can debate the usefulness of a desktop, but let's not (though my experience has shown me that it is a very useful, time-saving thing), how else could you implement aa desktop?
If Linux becomes insanely popular (such as RedHat, or if AOL ships a distribution on one of those CD's -- complete independence from MS!), we won't flock to a completely new OS, but perhaps an "elite" distribution (like debian or some bastard version -- stay away from those mainstream RPMs!).
Linux is just the kernel... there's a wealth of software that's the actual "value" of and Linux OS (I mean, who has a Linux box that doesn't have any programs except init and mgetty?).
If I recall correctly, Debian is designed so that it's kernel agnostic (you can just drop in a hurd kernel rather than Linux). This is just speculation, but maybe in the future, all "operating environments" will be so modular that you can just pick and choose your kernel?
-floorpie
doh. I hit submit instead of preview. Seems like all the new lines got lost. oops. boy I feel sheepish.