It varies immensely depending on your field.
Some like your standard degree. It's good enough.
Some - acturial sciences springs to mind - have a serious negative towards masters (and, heaven forefend, PhDs) without real-world experience.
And then, of course, there's math... where one degree leads to the next leads to the next leads to an academic position...;) (Actually, this holds true for certain University positions - e.g. English, History - but is completely reversed for others - e.g. Engineering - where they pretty much won't touch you without a good deal of real world experience (which was learned the hard way when the professors came staight from the ranks of the grads for many generations, and were teaching steam engines when the world was running on IC)
More seriously, sometimes continuing on the 'education' track is easier without taking time off... you don't lose the mind-set. And sometimes (oh, Engineering and certain Sciences) the 'education' following your first degree becomes indistinguishable from 'work' (i.e. research)
There is a growing trend, in certain fields, for 'continuing' education. The acturies mentioned above generally follow a fairly rigid timeline... degree and certification, two years work, masters, two-three years more work, PhD. Life Insurance has the LOMA series (which is taken concurrently with working, and averages four or five years to complete). And I can't remember the number of times I've smiled politely and declined when some !@#$ suggested I take an M$CE/SA/xy course.
Best advice I have was originally coined awhile back... "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
Re:live with it indeed
on
ISP Chief on Spam
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· Score: 3, Interesting
There have been dozens (OK, probably thousands) of solutions floated, of which many are feasible. A couple of (US) states have passed laws prohibiting 'spam'. And, as the number of judgements against those companies violating those laws increases, we will see a number of things:
-Spammers moving offshore (as if Asia wasn't already the #1 spam source)
-The amounts of the judgements increased (hitting a company where it hurt$ get$ their attention)
-The ease of getting a judgement against them increases. (which also magnifies the previous point)
Personally, I liked the simple idea of requiring all unsolicited business offers to have "Advertisement" as the first word in the subject line... it would have made filtertering them trivial.
And, perhaps more important, falsifying headers gets slapped down under existing criminal wire laws. Either way, they're fairly easy laws to define and implement... all it takes is getting the attention of politicos long enough to pass the laws, and then the law enforcement branches to enforce them.
Unsolicited faxes are the closest example - unwanted, and they cost the end-user - and every year some company gets slapped down hard (the most recent one I read of filed for bankruptcy due to the magnitude of the fine) - because laws were passed and enforced. That's all it would take to bring the spam problem down to manageable levels.
Flip side of the coin is that MANAGERS don't like telecommuting... kinda shows that they're not as necessary as they'd like the upper levels (not to mention the workers) to believe.
And, to be perfectly honest, given the 'immediacy' trend currently sweeping through the business world - (i.e. being able to get hold of people immediately - cell phones, pagers, e-mail, v-mail, etc - to make up for poor planning) - most of the time your physical presence is required.
Flying back at the weekend is kinda going out of fashion. Money is _the_ issue. I had the other route, three hour drive Friday evening/Sunday night for a couple of years. It works, but it also takes a chunk out of my life that could of been used more productively (1. It's unsafe to play Quake at ~77 mph, 2. There's large zones where there's no phone service, let alone wireless, in the midwest;)
Support works remotely, and has done for years, but, again, biz types feel the need to see your face in the office (which looks like an extra from any ED flick after fixing problems throughout the night. Did work at one place that had a dedicated support group... which worked very well, apart from the detail most people hate working midnight till 8... but, again, cancelled due to management concerns.
The value of actually sitting with someone cannot be underestimated. There's a gazillion cues in face to face, of which teleconferencing (assuming you'd have such a thing at your home) captures only a fraction. A quick sketch on a napkin can convey more than pages of e-mail.
Been at a couple of places that do use telecommuting for help desks. Then again, helpdesks have pretty much completed the transformation into helpless desks, a source of infinite frustration to be used after everything else has failed.
And, one option that works to varying degrees, is partial telecommuting. I.e. you show your face at the office once a week, or go in for a week once a month. _Some_ companies have pulled this off to the point where they have double the number of programmers than desks.
Translation work functions fine for telecommuting. Know of several people and places that do this. Not quite your line, but anyway...
And you mentioned working at a bank. There's another issue working against you there... managers don't like the 'security risk' of people dialing in remotely. Place I was at just tossed Citrix (128 bit SSL) for MickeySloth's 'more secure' version. Technical reality is not the same as managerial decision making reality... what is technically best (including telecommuting) does not include all the other factors (cost, perception, fitting in with the corporate image) that managers also use.
In short, I'd say, if you can get it, go for a place that offers telecommuting, but the odds are still against never having to don a suit again.
"Do I have to pull the Java version of Wordperfect out of it's grave to remind you of what people are capable of doing?:)"
There are some serious rumours to the effect that product was deliberately... how to put this... less than polisished... as an attempt to appease M$, who were in 'negotiations' for the 25% (hah!) buy-in.
That said, I've always prefered WP over Word (OK, excluding that Java pos)... it's always been more stable, more customizable, generally more powerful, and basically just that much better for the thinking user than Word. I've seen people whacking their computers over 'smart' features built into Word.
And Star Office retails around ~$80 US hereabouts... about ten bucks more than I paid two months back for the latest (legit) Corel Suite (WordPerfect, QuattroPro, Paradox, Dragon Speak (still the best voice recognition out there)).
"That being said, it's not the right tool for most software development being done currently."
The older I get, the more I find this problem... people get locked into 'language' mind-sets, without evaluating what is the best choice for the task at hand.
Take a look at VB. It's the McDonald's paradigm... fast, and any grunt can do it with minimal training. Tasks can be easily seperated. Of course, the flip side is that debugging is hell (wtf is that code?), typing is next to useless, and performance... not to mention it runs on windows;)
Compare that to something like assembler... takes forever to code, and, in most respects, kinda hard to debug. But runs great, and all the code in one place.
For projects like this, where the requirements are stability, stability and stability, you don't want any language known for problems in that area. Modularity is good, and forcing strong constraints (whether OO or not (e.g. Java and Pascal)) is vital.
I'm not sure I'd actually use Ada (and it's ilk)... any language where you're putting all the info on one line (e.g. Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line("Eject!")) is following the McDonald's paradigm, to an extent. Not to mention that sort of line level complexity severely impacts comprehension.
*Send Eject Message to Screen and HUD
Msg="Eject!;"
Send Msg to Screen;
Send Msg to HUD;
Return;
Is a heck of a lot clearer, and thus less prone to errors. One of the cardinal rules about languages... less errors per line and less lines required are both good and multiplicative. And choosing the languuage appropriate to the task (e.g. don't use Assembler for Web sites;) reduces the number of lines
Remember the Yorktown? The ship that was dead in the water for hours, thanks to forgetting that rule... anything requiring stability shouldn't be built on Windows (NT, IIRC)
Got that right... for the most part, politcos are smart, just that they've spent their time and energy applying their brains to politics, not science (including computers).
Most of them can pick up the salient points on any topic very quickly... but the single most important thing most people forget is that their priorities are not those of the general public. Saving money by cutting police budgets? Sure, after all, every congressman, senator and the like has his/her own private security force, a home in the middle of the lowest crime zones... similarly, great sound bites can be had from railing against certain groups... after all, who has more money, a bunch of paranoid corporate suits lobbying for harsher penalties for hacking, or a group of hackers and civil libertarians?
They are basically clueless about science, compared to the/. crowd... no surprise there. What's frightening is that some of them are really ignorant on science, in total, and have the power to enact stupid legislation based on those ideas (take the requirement for filters on public libraries as a perfect example... the fact that no such workable technology exists doesn't stop them from getting their sound bite).
The only way for politicians to notice anyone is through greasing their palms... the most powerful politicians are those that take the most graft. And while talk about the constitution, civil rights, science and even reality are nice, they don't put any money in a politicos pocket. They work in a slightly different reality, and, if you want something done, you need to remember that.
Plus, of course, no one likes to be called stupid... it's a really bad way to start off when trying to convince a politico (who already have large egos) of anything.
Yeah, obviously, don't know what I'm talking about... althought, it's possible, given the way I described the test scenario created, that we weren't playing with the Volume License.
As to disabling the auto-update feature, yeah, no problem... oops, wait a minute, there is a problem... as other users point out, when you slap on a service pack, the auto-update feature gets turned back on.
Personally, I kinda liked the 'security' feature whereby the autoupdates can only go to an IP address in the registry... except that entering another value there (trivial if the user actually runs IE) circumvents that entirely. Oh, and automatically grants all ops/applets/apps at that IP admin rights.
There have also been issues with server packs resetting certain 'things'... and although I have not witnessed the auto-update feature on PCs attached changed, there have been other settings on the PC that were.
As a rule, corporate lawyers like centralized control of all the PCs, but, from both a technical and security standpoint, it is generally a nightmare to implement.
With you on that! A friend did ~300 PCs for a couple of hundred using Linux (RedHat), along with the servers. Compared to the $100,000 + doing it the M$ way would have cost.
However, I think M$ has done one thing that is really starting to backfire in the corporate world... intrusive software. XP, with it's online licensing was barely tolerable for most, and completely intolerable for some (you try connecting to the internet when in the Arctic doing geological work... it involves sitting down and taking ~15 - 20 minutes to hook up the sattelite link, assuming you lugged the gear into the field. Heard similar horror stories from others who work in truly remote locations (Amazon, and huge parts of Africa). But now their software is coming with 'call into microsoft' features, which violate virtually every corporate security standard. In the security world, this is called a BACK DOOR and is something to be dreaded and/or blocked by anti-virus software. And now Microsoft is putting it in their products and claiming it as a feature?!?!
At one place, we ran a little test using IP hijacking, with a server outside the corporate firewall. Win XP, Office XP, and the standard suite of apps... and managed to hack the network in less than 20 minutes. Couldn't have done it without the PC automagically dialling out for 'updates'. Which, when you consider this company (which shall remain nameless) has assets over half a trillion, and the toughest security setup possible (under M$ products), is damn scary.
We won't even get into the hassles people are running into when their software tells them it's expired, and to contact their nearest M$ rep... especially when it hasn't.
Sure, Word et. at are slick, but the cost of running them - in terms of money, security, and hassles - are pushing people to other OS.
The money is one issue but... way more important is the fact the medical profession is Conservative to the point of absurdity. There are numerous factors... but the two most important are fear of lawsuits, and the ever popular old-boys syndrome.
A new technology is adopted if and only if there are valid scientific - which now means 'able to stand up in court' - studies to support it (or, more cynically, a drug company paying the doctor to use something as part of a 'study'). A new process... such as not having interns work 48 hours straight... just isn't going to happen anytime soon. That's part of the old-boys hazing mentality... we had to do it, so we'll inflict it on those below us! The recently proposed bill to legislate the maximum number of hours an intern could work per week had 100 hours suggested!!! Does this sound like a group who would gladly acccept a 'new' technology just because it _could_ help?
To be fair, many doctors get into the field out of an honest desire to help people... and this could help adoption of the technology. BUT there are so many forces and traditions against change in the profession, it will be a long time, if ever, before such a technology sees widespread use.
Doctors are using Palm Pilots now... but it is my understanding that that is for note taking only... when asked, every company that does software (including some medical software) has so far declined to do anything like the article suggests. The fear of lawsuits has been cited by a couple.
" Microsoft does believe they have IP claims against fragment shaders, too.
"
I find the use of the word 'believe' quite funny in the minutes (used multiple times). Microsoft probably knows damn well they don't have any IP claims, but simply throwing their weight around like this serves their purposes quite well... the extension ain't gonna see the light of day for some time, while people there scurry around in fear of an M$ lawsuit.
And let's not forget their kind offer "They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions." !!! This to OpenGL?!?!
Typical corporate tactics these days, mores the pity.
"The keyboard that I've found works best and feels best to me is the original Microsoft Natural keyboard. It is ergonomically designed with no extra frills like app buttons across the top. It's also larger and a little sturdier than the Natural Light keyboards Microsoft is pushing these days with their freaky arrow keys and misaligned Insert/Delete/Home/End/PageUp/PageDown key block."
Personally, I liked the old old IBM keyboards... 24 function keys, and, more importantly, 9 cursor control keys, laid out logically (the center key was 'home').
Currently, the MCK version is about as close as you can get.
Plus, massive programability... when people talk about 'ergonomics', they're generally talking about someone whacking away at the keyboard. Start putting strings (like the entire logon sequence) onto a single key. Most of my functions are probably ~11 keystrokes, but I've had them up to 50+ on occasion. One ALT+PF16, and let it play out for the next few seconds... that's ergonomic!
The extra function keys make a dif... I like the CTRL, ALT, and SHIFT combos, dislike three key combos (esp ALT+CTRL+DEL), and the extra keys mean another 36 two finger combos.
"to take our minds off of what may really be happening"
"Media debates about story judgment and ethics are often this hypocritical and disingenuous, mostly because critics and panelists aren't really free to speak the truth -- moral media died decades ago"
Personally, I find it hilarious when people talk about the 'liberal left-wing' media. The primary news sources for 99.9% of Americans are owned by a scant handful of interests. Hell, one company now owns over three quarters of all the radio stations in the US! And these owners have a number of traits in common: f$cking wealthy, believe in the status quo (hey, they got where they are within the system... so don't see any need to change it), and, most disturbing, are taking more and more of an active interest in leaning on (or dumping) reporters who dare to question things.
Politics is still fair game. It's almost entirely rhetoric, the two parties almost always work out a compromise... and, just like the media owners, virtually all politicos come from f$cking wealthy parents (the gentleman in the White House as an example). And both parties are far, far to the right of the average American as a consequence.
OTOH, any reporter who tried to give Nader serious coverage ran into some real problems... geez, we had reporters threatened here in the middle of nowhere (aka Des Moines (although, to be fair, they consider themselves the moral starting point of the Republicans))
For a really scary example, take those two 'reporters' who were captured in Iraq. Due to travel, got to see the stories both in Canada and the US. The Canadian news (government station) talked about their easily established links to the CIA and Military Intelligence, and showed photos of the 'road' where they crossed the border... deep trench, rolls of barbed wire on both sides, and signs (in multiple languages, including English) saying 'Don't cross, Iraqi border'. On the US side, nothing. Well, they were 'innocent victims' who 'accidentally' wandered into Iraq. The media in the US has become self-censoring, the joy of any abusive government.
And think about the coverage anyone who questions the current 'War on Terrorism' gets... either little or none, or is savagely attacked for being unpatriotic.
"I always called Magic the gathering as "Five Color Crack". Its about as addicting, and nearly as expensive."
Of course, if you were just interested in playing the game on a friendly basis, and didn't bother attending the tourneys, there were always the counterfeit cards.
Back in Toronto, there was at least one manufacturer who's product was indistinguishable from the real thing. A complete set - that's f$cking everything that was done to date - in triplicate, used to cost ~$80 cdn.
Which is kinda frightening when you consider how many people are well into the thousands 'invested'.
As for the online game, geez, I'm pretty sure the same thing will happen. Don't think I'm in the the minority here, when I say I really hate to lose because some moron with money has a better deck than me. I like the game (any game, in fact), to be a fair competition, not who has the most spare cash in the RW.
One of the saddest realities is that police spend 99% of their (theft) investigative time on violent theft, which accounts for less than 1% of all money stolen. White collar crime, which accounts for better than 99% of all money stolen, receives less than 1% of their time.
It's really sad in the corporate sector, since even admitting you have been stolen from causes a drastic drop in your stock value. From the typical corp's point of view, better to let Joe Schmoe get away with a couple of hundred grand, than publically go after him, and lose millions on the stock market.
Martha saved herself somewhere between $40,000 - $80,000 through (allegedly) insider trading. Her stock value (MSO) has dropped around $200,000,000!
You can bet Sullivan has sold vast quantities of his stock, and invested it elsewhere, before this news broke. As long as he hasn't broken any laws (and corporate types excel at this, as they have highly paid lawyers to arrange immoral actions in a legal manner), his personal assets are untouchable.
"I mean, if the manufacturers wanted to, it would be easy enough to put a text readout in the dashboard that would say "engine airflow sensor failure" or something similar. Even an error code that you could look up in the manual would be decent."
Actually, some cars have this. Got a Malibu... turn the key slightly differently on start up, and watch the dashboard lights, then cross reference that with the manual (Chilton's, IIRC, not the manufacturers). Yeah, I'd love to have it display "Ignition coil #3 is f$cked", rather than what amounts to a binary display, but, then again, it keeps casual tinkerers out from under the hood... and, IMHO, there's a whole lot more stuff now (compared to a decade back) that is not user servicable.
The other sad thing is that computer diagnostics are replacing brains. Take the alternator... 99% of the time, it's the diode pack. But garages love to go the long route... which involves more parts, more time, and thus more money. One car I've looked at was quite clear on the error message (Dead battery and/or bad ground). Well, at least it had the right system (electrical), but it took a pair of 25 cent brushes (in the alternator) to fix it.
Keeping the error codes secret also hides another problem... a good percentage of the time, the error message is just plain wrong!
"The reality check for today is that no one cares about 99.99999% of the people in this world. "
Two things wrong with this:
First, there are huge industries which keep and use all sorts of personal information. Banks use credit history, insurers use health history, and, in something which everyone in the US and most of Europe is familiar with, marketers use purchase history (and anything else they can get their paws on). It's really not accurate to say most people don't care when there are huge numbers of people employed in industries that do care.
Second, and more insidious, is the effect it has on society. When you have to curtail your own actions, for fear of what might happen - despite the fact your actions would be legal - then we've entered into the "Enemy of the State" scenario. How many people write scathing articles about scientology? Or, with reference to this article, have sex in their enclosed back yard? Both are legal, and both could lead to years of harassment.
On to the technical side of this... I find it damn funny they're talking about removing the vibrations from helicopters to stabilize the picture. Think balloon. Think fixed-wing drone. Heck, I saw a prototype of the latter, with an electric drive, solar cells, and a simple vibration dampened camera (no gyros, no electronic compensation), and around a 30 ft wingspan that gave pictures better than those in the article... back in 1989.
Then, of course, there's the fact that large parts of urban areas are already covered by cameras. How long will it be before the police request 'access', such that they can track a suspect? I've seen demos where they've tracked people from their apartment to their workdesk. And into the stores and restaurants they hit at lunchtime. These demos were put together after the fact, in part to argue for real-time access for the LE world. Yeah, the eye in the sky is nifty, but hardly earth-breaking with respect to the total lack of privacy we currently exist under.
There's a growing concern about 'Privatization of public space'. This applies to cell phone users, public demonstations, street vendors, and really ought to apply to the LE agencies.
"The best way to have your program compile the first time is to stop putting bugs in them"
Heh! Unfortunately, most of the 'problems' I deal with turn up later... as in, whether an add/modify or new, the business side suddenly starts screaming "That's not right!"
The appropriate quote is "It's just what we asked for, but not what we want!"
I don't think this kind of 'bug' can ever be removed. Despite an understanding of the 'business' side of things, my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of specs suck... whether it's incomplete definitions, contradictions, or questions about what order various rules things should be in. Coding errors should be few and far between. To have them occur generally means that the writing went too fast... although, to be fair, given the "I want those changes yesterday!!!" attitude of the modern business world, this situation seems to occur with more frequency now than it did a decade back.
Wow! Checked out your web site... you desperately need to get a grip! I think you've been swayed way too much by the dominant paradigm (binary) in computers. There's the blindingly obvious advantage of decimal... ten fingers. And there's a damn practical reason why lots of things (i.e. time) are in base 12... it divides into more (common) factors {2,3,4,6} than both 16 {2,4,8} or 10 {2,5}.
The finger counting example (base 6) is pitiful. Why? Because millions of people are taught an alternative method which allows you to reach 99, rather than the maximum of 35 your method allows. (FYI, right fingers:1, right thumb:5, left fingers:10, left thumb:50).
I can't decide whether your website is satirical, or seriously deluded. If the first, it isn't obvious. If the second, then I've got a revelation for you: whatever base we choose is arbitrary.
10 and 12 both offer real advantages over 16. And the rest of the world operates on 10 and 12, not 16. Get over it.
The exam SHOULD be testing your grasp of concepts, not the ability to write large programs on papaer.
That said, I remember one of my worst exams... Pascal. Got the paper back with a mark around 30%... which, after talking to the Prof, jumped to a 90... since the damn markers didn't actually know what routines were on the system, and my code used them extensively.
Like an english paper, marks should be given primarily for content, with spelling (and grammar) subtracting from that slightly.
The best advice is to do a question in three steps:
1/Shetch out the flow of what you want to do.
2/ Write the code, and
3/ At the end of the exam (assuming you have the time), go back over each answer checking the spelling
"Besides, I really doubt that the "Billy Bob" type users will be buying this. They are going to stick with the brand name they know -- Microsoft. It's the somewhat adventurous types who will buy into this, just because it's different, or cutting edge, or "revolutionary". Those are the people who may not have enough money to go out and plunk down $1500 for a new Dell and set out on their own, but lower the entrance barriers just a little bit, and they'll jump for it."
I think you're seriously overestimating the the public's decision making ability. They want cheap. And easy. M$ has made a fortune on selling 'ease of use'... which, to a certain extent, is true: Windows is generally easier to set up for the average user. Crashes and the BSOD? Standard marketing line... lure them in with the lowest price, and promise them the sun and the moon, then, when they're hooked, they have to keep buying 'upgrades' and 'compatible software'.
The other bit of info I think is relevent is just what the average user does... which is, according to numerous studies, the internet (surfing, mail, and IM), and games. Lindows has proved that it handles the first group (i.e., running IE, Outlook/Express, and IM, as well as built in versions) perfectly well. Games? Well, I cried over the death of Loki, but as a programmer, it's generally far easier to write (games) for *nix based systems than trying for compatibility with every damn Windows version. (Anyone still fighting the Netrek addiction?)
I believe *nix was already starting to erode the monopoly the M$ had... this is just another step (although a large one) along that road.
One place I worked at had a couple of interesting little tricks, in the same vein. First, numbers (SSN, cc) were simply encrypted (e.g. SSN + 123456789). Next, there were bogus entries. And a good number (i.e. the first 100 odd records) were not just bogus, they are traps... if someone in the RW tries to use the account, all sorts of alarms go off... the cc co. phones the company that has the trap account on their file, and then all hell breaks loose.
I had to laugh at the one incident that occured while I was there... turned out to be an employee of the cc co. who lifted the file, which caused the headless chicken dance at work.
But, as others have pointed out, keeping the data on another non-internet connected system is probably the simplest and best method
> The FAA ruled quite a while ago that a craft that has to stay in "ground effect" to create lift is not an aircraft and thus isn't regulated by them. A hovercraft actually falls in the same catagory because it to flys in ground effect, it just does it in a completely different way.
The key word is 'has'. Some GE vehicles are just underpowered planes... they can exceed the GE limit, but fly like a drunk duck.
The first real application of GE was WWII, when certain bombers found that they could ride the effect over water, decreasing fuel consumption, and, if rumours can be believed, allowing one of the first autopilots - just blocking the stick in the direction they wanted, altitude takes care of itself. Which works well over water, not so good over land... and is one of the reasons why a lot of the designers (Fischer leaps to mind) don't want to see these in the hands of the civil populace... a vehicle that can drive itself 99% is going to crash an awful lot when the driver/pilot needs to add that last 1% .
>Poor example, I think cadavers provided the data for most anatomy books. Much of that artwork predates Nazis.
Actually, there have been large ethical fights over that issue... some of the best work came from the Nazis. Many schools have pulled the pictures, arguing that to use them validates the Nazis.
>Anyway, I believe we have the right to insist that scientists operate within the ethical guidlines of our society, other societies may choose there own ethical environment.
'Rights' are more illusory than you might think. Rights are only what society gives, no more, no less, and, contrary to what many believe, there are no universal rights. To bring this back to the topic at hand, I live in America, and I totally support stem cell research and cloning. Unfortuantely, with a (scientifically) ignorant President (low shot, mea culpa, he's quite bright as far as politics and power go), with massive right-wing reactionary Christian fundamentalists supporting him, it doesn't really matter whether or not I am in the majority (according to the polls, I am): the laws have been passed which have virtually stopped research in these areas within the US. (I use the word 'virtually' to dramatize the difference between the rate we're going forward and the rest of the world.)
Now, if you, as a member of the immoral minority get laws passed that run contrary to what large numbers of people agree with, the following occurs: Scientists who disagree may either a/ do what you tell them b/ disregard what the law says and go ahead with the research under threat of severe penalties, or c/ head for some place where the laws allow them to do what they want. Oddly enough, b/ and c/ happen an awful lot more than the politicos would have you believe.
Now for the really scary scenario. The Chinese government is, for the most part, morally bankrupt. Genetic engineering, where the fetus is brought to term. Remember, there's only a two base pair difference between human and simian muscle tissue, and their's is ~15 times stronger. Think they won't be trying this?
"You have to remember though that the people that run AOL don't have the foggiest idea who Red Hat is."
Despite how bad it has been, AOL has made massive improvements over the last few years. Still got a way to go, but...
Switching to a Linux base would be another step on the road - faster, more stable, and no rebooting after the latest 'service pack';)
If it goes through, I foresee a situation like IE vs Netscape, except, in this scenario, millions of homes get a CD with a 'free' OS. There are a growing number of people out there who only use their machine for the net (surfing, e-mail, IM, etc). And there's a small number of companies that sell machines that run from a single CD. MS is no slacker in the 'marketing dirty tricks' division, but AOL could do serious, long term damage with their 'CD in every household' approach.
AOL managers may not know the technical side of Red Hat, but I'm pretty sure they understand what it means to the overall game plan. Two quotes come to mind, one about it's not necessary to make a large profit of every item you sell, as long as it means your competitor doesn't sell one; and from Netscape eons ago, to the effect that every time they sold a copy, it ran on Windows, so the two companies remained tied, but whenver a user opted for IE, then Microsoft won, so that Netscape could never win while it ran under Windows.
The implication is quite clear - if AOL wants to 'win', the best way would be to support an alternative OS.
Slashdot Mirror
Some - acturial sciences springs to mind - have a serious negative towards masters (and, heaven forefend, PhDs) without real-world experience.
And then, of course, there's math ... where one degree leads to the next leads to the next leads to an academic position ... ;) (Actually, this holds true for certain University positions - e.g. English, History - but is completely reversed for others - e.g. Engineering - where they pretty much won't touch you without a good deal of real world experience (which was learned the hard way when the professors came staight from the ranks of the grads for many generations, and were teaching steam engines when the world was running on IC)
More seriously, sometimes continuing on the 'education' track is easier without taking time off ... you don't lose the mind-set. And sometimes (oh, Engineering and certain Sciences) the 'education' following your first degree becomes indistinguishable from 'work' (i.e. research)
There is a growing trend, in certain fields, for 'continuing' education. The acturies mentioned above generally follow a fairly rigid timeline ... degree and certification, two years work, masters, two-three years more work, PhD. Life Insurance has the LOMA series (which is taken concurrently with working, and averages four or five years to complete). And I can't remember the number of times I've smiled politely and declined when some !@#$ suggested I take an M$CE/SA/xy course.
Best advice I have was originally coined awhile back ... "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-Spammers moving offshore (as if Asia wasn't already the #1 spam source)
-The amounts of the judgements increased (hitting a company where it hurt$ get$ their attention)
-The ease of getting a judgement against them increases. (which also magnifies the previous point)
Personally, I liked the simple idea of requiring all unsolicited business offers to have "Advertisement" as the first word in the subject line ... it would have made filtertering them trivial.
And, perhaps more important, falsifying headers gets slapped down under existing criminal wire laws. Either way, they're fairly easy laws to define and implement ... all it takes is getting the attention of politicos long enough to pass the laws, and then the law enforcement branches to enforce them.
Unsolicited faxes are the closest example - unwanted, and they cost the end-user - and every year some company gets slapped down hard (the most recent one I read of filed for bankruptcy due to the magnitude of the fine) - because laws were passed and enforced. That's all it would take to bring the spam problem down to manageable levels.
And, to be perfectly honest, given the 'immediacy' trend currently sweeping through the business world - (i.e. being able to get hold of people immediately - cell phones, pagers, e-mail, v-mail, etc - to make up for poor planning) - most of the time your physical presence is required.
Flying back at the weekend is kinda going out of fashion. Money is _the_ issue. I had the other route, three hour drive Friday evening/Sunday night for a couple of years. It works, but it also takes a chunk out of my life that could of been used more productively (1. It's unsafe to play Quake at ~77 mph, 2. There's large zones where there's no phone service, let alone wireless, in the midwest ;)
Support works remotely, and has done for years, but, again, biz types feel the need to see your face in the office (which looks like an extra from any ED flick after fixing problems throughout the night. Did work at one place that had a dedicated support group ... which worked very well, apart from the detail most people hate working midnight till 8 ... but, again, cancelled due to management concerns.
The value of actually sitting with someone cannot be underestimated. There's a gazillion cues in face to face, of which teleconferencing (assuming you'd have such a thing at your home) captures only a fraction. A quick sketch on a napkin can convey more than pages of e-mail.
Been at a couple of places that do use telecommuting for help desks. Then again, helpdesks have pretty much completed the transformation into helpless desks, a source of infinite frustration to be used after everything else has failed.
And, one option that works to varying degrees, is partial telecommuting. I.e. you show your face at the office once a week, or go in for a week once a month. _Some_ companies have pulled this off to the point where they have double the number of programmers than desks.
Translation work functions fine for telecommuting. Know of several people and places that do this. Not quite your line, but anyway ...
And you mentioned working at a bank. There's another issue working against you there ... managers don't like the 'security risk' of people dialing in remotely. Place I was at just tossed Citrix (128 bit SSL) for MickeySloth's 'more secure' version. Technical reality is not the same as managerial decision making reality ... what is technically best (including telecommuting) does not include all the other factors (cost, perception, fitting in with the corporate image) that managers also use.
In short, I'd say, if you can get it, go for a place that offers telecommuting, but the odds are still against never having to don a suit again.
a/ pay twice for the same software, and
b/ 'upgrade' to a version of windows with all of Mickeysloths 'improvements'.
That said, I use the appropriate OS for the task at hand. Finally pulled BeOs - not enough apps for it - but still have 95/2K/SuSe
There are some serious rumours to the effect that product was deliberately ... how to put this ... less than polisished ... as an attempt to appease M$, who were in 'negotiations' for the 25% (hah!) buy-in.
That said, I've always prefered WP over Word (OK, excluding that Java pos) ... it's always been more stable, more customizable, generally more powerful, and basically just that much better for the thinking user than Word. I've seen people whacking their computers over 'smart' features built into Word.
And Star Office retails around ~$80 US hereabouts ... about ten bucks more than I paid two months back for the latest (legit) Corel Suite (WordPerfect, QuattroPro, Paradox, Dragon Speak (still the best voice recognition out there)).
The older I get, the more I find this problem ... people get locked into 'language' mind-sets, without evaluating what is the best choice for the task at hand.
Take a look at VB. It's the McDonald's paradigm ... fast, and any grunt can do it with minimal training. Tasks can be easily seperated. Of course, the flip side is that debugging is hell (wtf is that code?), typing is next to useless, and performance ... not to mention it runs on windows ;)
Compare that to something like assembler ... takes forever to code, and, in most respects, kinda hard to debug. But runs great, and all the code in one place.
For projects like this, where the requirements are stability, stability and stability, you don't want any language known for problems in that area. Modularity is good, and forcing strong constraints (whether OO or not (e.g. Java and Pascal)) is vital.
I'm not sure I'd actually use Ada (and it's ilk)... any language where you're putting all the info on one line (e.g. Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line("Eject!")) is following the McDonald's paradigm, to an extent. Not to mention that sort of line level complexity severely impacts comprehension.
*Send Eject Message to Screen and HUD Msg="Eject!;"
Send Msg to Screen;
Send Msg to HUD;
Return;
Is a heck of a lot clearer, and thus less prone to errors. One of the cardinal rules about languages ... less errors per line and less lines required are both good and multiplicative. And choosing the languuage appropriate to the task (e.g. don't use Assembler for Web sites ;) reduces the number of lines
Remember the Yorktown? The ship that was dead in the water for hours, thanks to forgetting that rule ... anything requiring stability shouldn't be built on Windows (NT, IIRC)
Most of them can pick up the salient points on any topic very quickly ... but the single most important thing most people forget is that their priorities are not those of the general public. Saving money by cutting police budgets? Sure, after all, every congressman, senator and the like has his/her own private security force, a home in the middle of the lowest crime zones ... similarly, great sound bites can be had from railing against certain groups ... after all, who has more money, a bunch of paranoid corporate suits lobbying for harsher penalties for hacking, or a group of hackers and civil libertarians?
They are basically clueless about science, compared to the /. crowd ... no surprise there. What's frightening is that some of them are really ignorant on science, in total, and have the power to enact stupid legislation based on those ideas (take the requirement for filters on public libraries as a perfect example ... the fact that no such workable technology exists doesn't stop them from getting their sound bite).
The only way for politicians to notice anyone is through greasing their palms ... the most powerful politicians are those that take the most graft. And while talk about the constitution, civil rights, science and even reality are nice, they don't put any money in a politicos pocket. They work in a slightly different reality, and, if you want something done, you need to remember that.
Plus, of course, no one likes to be called stupid ... it's a really bad way to start off when trying to convince a politico (who already have large egos) of anything.
As to disabling the auto-update feature, yeah, no problem ... oops, wait a minute, there is a problem ... as other users point out, when you slap on a service pack, the auto-update feature gets turned back on.
Personally, I kinda liked the 'security' feature whereby the autoupdates can only go to an IP address in the registry ... except that entering another value there (trivial if the user actually runs IE) circumvents that entirely. Oh, and automatically grants all ops/applets/apps at that IP admin rights.
There have also been issues with server packs resetting certain 'things' ... and although I have not witnessed the auto-update feature on PCs attached changed, there have been other settings on the PC that were.
As a rule, corporate lawyers like centralized control of all the PCs, but, from both a technical and security standpoint, it is generally a nightmare to implement.
However, I think M$ has done one thing that is really starting to backfire in the corporate world ... intrusive software. XP, with it's online licensing was barely tolerable for most, and completely intolerable for some (you try connecting to the internet when in the Arctic doing geological work ... it involves sitting down and taking ~15 - 20 minutes to hook up the sattelite link, assuming you lugged the gear into the field. Heard similar horror stories from others who work in truly remote locations (Amazon, and huge parts of Africa). But now their software is coming with 'call into microsoft' features, which violate virtually every corporate security standard. In the security world, this is called a BACK DOOR and is something to be dreaded and/or blocked by anti-virus software. And now Microsoft is putting it in their products and claiming it as a feature?!?!
At one place, we ran a little test using IP hijacking, with a server outside the corporate firewall. Win XP, Office XP, and the standard suite of apps ... and managed to hack the network in less than 20 minutes. Couldn't have done it without the PC automagically dialling out for 'updates'. Which, when you consider this company (which shall remain nameless) has assets over half a trillion, and the toughest security setup possible (under M$ products), is damn scary.
We won't even get into the hassles people are running into when their software tells them it's expired, and to contact their nearest M$ rep ... especially when it hasn't.
Sure, Word et. at are slick, but the cost of running them - in terms of money, security, and hassles - are pushing people to other OS.
A new technology is adopted if and only if there are valid scientific - which now means 'able to stand up in court' - studies to support it (or, more cynically, a drug company paying the doctor to use something as part of a 'study'). A new process ... such as not having interns work 48 hours straight ... just isn't going to happen anytime soon. That's part of the old-boys hazing mentality ... we had to do it, so we'll inflict it on those below us! The recently proposed bill to legislate the maximum number of hours an intern could work per week had 100 hours suggested!!! Does this sound like a group who would gladly acccept a 'new' technology just because it _could_ help?
To be fair, many doctors get into the field out of an honest desire to help people ... and this could help adoption of the technology. BUT there are so many forces and traditions against change in the profession, it will be a long time, if ever, before such a technology sees widespread use.
Doctors are using Palm Pilots now ... but it is my understanding that that is for note taking only ... when asked, every company that does software (including some medical software) has so far declined to do anything like the article suggests. The fear of lawsuits has been cited by a couple.
I find the use of the word 'believe' quite funny in the minutes (used multiple times). Microsoft probably knows damn well they don't have any IP claims, but simply throwing their weight around like this serves their purposes quite well ... the extension ain't gonna see the light of day for some time, while people there scurry around in fear of an M$ lawsuit.
And let's not forget their kind offer "They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions." !!! This to OpenGL?!?!
Typical corporate tactics these days, mores the pity.
Personally, I liked the old old IBM keyboards ... 24 function keys, and, more importantly, 9 cursor control keys, laid out logically (the center key was 'home').
Currently, the MCK version is about as close as you can get.
Plus, massive programability ... when people talk about 'ergonomics', they're generally talking about someone whacking away at the keyboard. Start putting strings (like the entire logon sequence) onto a single key. Most of my functions are probably ~11 keystrokes, but I've had them up to 50+ on occasion. One ALT+PF16, and let it play out for the next few seconds ... that's ergonomic!
The extra function keys make a dif ... I like the CTRL, ALT, and SHIFT combos, dislike three key combos (esp ALT+CTRL+DEL), and the extra keys mean another 36 two finger combos.
"Media debates about story judgment and ethics are often this hypocritical and disingenuous, mostly because critics and panelists aren't really free to speak the truth -- moral media died decades ago"
Personally, I find it hilarious when people talk about the 'liberal left-wing' media. The primary news sources for 99.9% of Americans are owned by a scant handful of interests. Hell, one company now owns over three quarters of all the radio stations in the US! And these owners have a number of traits in common: f$cking wealthy, believe in the status quo (hey, they got where they are within the system ... so don't see any need to change it), and, most disturbing, are taking more and more of an active interest in leaning on (or dumping) reporters who dare to question things.
Politics is still fair game. It's almost entirely rhetoric, the two parties almost always work out a compromise ... and, just like the media owners, virtually all politicos come from f$cking wealthy parents (the gentleman in the White House as an example). And both parties are far, far to the right of the average American as a consequence.
OTOH, any reporter who tried to give Nader serious coverage ran into some real problems ... geez, we had reporters threatened here in the middle of nowhere (aka Des Moines (although, to be fair, they consider themselves the moral starting point of the Republicans))
For a really scary example, take those two 'reporters' who were captured in Iraq. Due to travel, got to see the stories both in Canada and the US. The Canadian news (government station) talked about their easily established links to the CIA and Military Intelligence, and showed photos of the 'road' where they crossed the border ... deep trench, rolls of barbed wire on both sides, and signs (in multiple languages, including English) saying 'Don't cross, Iraqi border'. On the US side, nothing. Well, they were 'innocent victims' who 'accidentally' wandered into Iraq. The media in the US has become self-censoring, the joy of any abusive government.
And think about the coverage anyone who questions the current 'War on Terrorism' gets ... either little or none, or is savagely attacked for being unpatriotic.
Of course, if you were just interested in playing the game on a friendly basis, and didn't bother attending the tourneys, there were always the counterfeit cards.
Back in Toronto, there was at least one manufacturer who's product was indistinguishable from the real thing. A complete set - that's f$cking everything that was done to date - in triplicate, used to cost ~$80 cdn.
Which is kinda frightening when you consider how many people are well into the thousands 'invested'.
As for the online game, geez, I'm pretty sure the same thing will happen. Don't think I'm in the the minority here, when I say I really hate to lose because some moron with money has a better deck than me. I like the game (any game, in fact), to be a fair competition, not who has the most spare cash in the RW.
It's really sad in the corporate sector, since even admitting you have been stolen from causes a drastic drop in your stock value. From the typical corp's point of view, better to let Joe Schmoe get away with a couple of hundred grand, than publically go after him, and lose millions on the stock market.
Martha saved herself somewhere between $40,000 - $80,000 through (allegedly) insider trading. Her stock value (MSO) has dropped around $200,000,000!
You can bet Sullivan has sold vast quantities of his stock, and invested it elsewhere, before this news broke. As long as he hasn't broken any laws (and corporate types excel at this, as they have highly paid lawyers to arrange immoral actions in a legal manner), his personal assets are untouchable.
Actually, some cars have this. Got a Malibu ... turn the key slightly differently on start up, and watch the dashboard lights, then cross reference that with the manual (Chilton's, IIRC, not the manufacturers). Yeah, I'd love to have it display "Ignition coil #3 is f$cked", rather than what amounts to a binary display, but, then again, it keeps casual tinkerers out from under the hood ... and, IMHO, there's a whole lot more stuff now (compared to a decade back) that is not user servicable.
The other sad thing is that computer diagnostics are replacing brains. Take the alternator ... 99% of the time, it's the diode pack. But garages love to go the long route ... which involves more parts, more time, and thus more money. One car I've looked at was quite clear on the error message (Dead battery and/or bad ground). Well, at least it had the right system (electrical), but it took a pair of 25 cent brushes (in the alternator) to fix it.
Keeping the error codes secret also hides another problem ... a good percentage of the time, the error message is just plain wrong!
First, there are huge industries which keep and use all sorts of personal information. Banks use credit history, insurers use health history, and, in something which everyone in the US and most of Europe is familiar with, marketers use purchase history (and anything else they can get their paws on). It's really not accurate to say most people don't care when there are huge numbers of people employed in industries that do care.
Second, and more insidious, is the effect it has on society. When you have to curtail your own actions, for fear of what might happen - despite the fact your actions would be legal - then we've entered into the "Enemy of the State" scenario. How many people write scathing articles about scientology? Or, with reference to this article, have sex in their enclosed back yard? Both are legal, and both could lead to years of harassment.
On to the technical side of this ... I find it damn funny they're talking about removing the vibrations from helicopters to stabilize the picture. Think balloon. Think fixed-wing drone. Heck, I saw a prototype of the latter, with an electric drive, solar cells, and a simple vibration dampened camera (no gyros, no electronic compensation), and around a 30 ft wingspan that gave pictures better than those in the article ... back in 1989.
Then, of course, there's the fact that large parts of urban areas are already covered by cameras. How long will it be before the police request 'access', such that they can track a suspect? I've seen demos where they've tracked people from their apartment to their workdesk. And into the stores and restaurants they hit at lunchtime. These demos were put together after the fact, in part to argue for real-time access for the LE world. Yeah, the eye in the sky is nifty, but hardly earth-breaking with respect to the total lack of privacy we currently exist under.
There's a growing concern about 'Privatization of public space'. This applies to cell phone users, public demonstations, street vendors, and really ought to apply to the LE agencies.
The appropriate quote is "It's just what we asked for, but not what we want!"
I don't think this kind of 'bug' can ever be removed. Despite an understanding of the 'business' side of things, my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of specs suck ... whether it's incomplete definitions, contradictions, or questions about what order various rules things should be in. Coding errors should be few and far between. To have them occur generally means that the writing went too fast ... although, to be fair, given the "I want those changes yesterday!!!" attitude of the modern business world, this situation seems to occur with more frequency now than it did a decade back.
The finger counting example (base 6) is pitiful. Why? Because millions of people are taught an alternative method which allows you to reach 99, rather than the maximum of 35 your method allows. (FYI, right fingers:1, right thumb:5, left fingers:10, left thumb:50).
I can't decide whether your website is satirical, or seriously deluded. If the first, it isn't obvious. If the second, then I've got a revelation for you: whatever base we choose is arbitrary.
10 and 12 both offer real advantages over 16. And the rest of the world operates on 10 and 12, not 16. Get over it.
That said, I remember one of my worst exams ... Pascal. Got the paper back with a mark around 30% ... which, after talking to the Prof, jumped to a 90 ... since the damn markers didn't actually know what routines were on the system, and my code used them extensively.
Like an english paper, marks should be given primarily for content, with spelling (and grammar) subtracting from that slightly.
The best advice is to do a question in three steps:
1/Shetch out the flow of what you want to do.
2/ Write the code, and
3/ At the end of the exam (assuming you have the time), go back over each answer checking the spelling
I had to laugh at the one incident that occured while I was there ... turned out to be an employee of the cc co. who lifted the file, which caused the headless chicken dance at work.
But, as others have pointed out, keeping the data on another non-internet connected system is probably the simplest and best method
The key word is 'has'. Some GE vehicles are just underpowered planes
The first real application of GE was WWII, when certain bombers found that they could ride the effect over water, decreasing fuel consumption, and, if rumours can be believed, allowing one of the first autopilots - just blocking the stick in the direction they wanted, altitude takes care of itself. Which works well over water, not so good over land ... and is one of the reasons why a lot of the designers (Fischer leaps to mind) don't want to see these in the hands of the civil populace ... a vehicle that can drive itself 99% is going to crash an awful lot when the driver/pilot needs to add that last 1% .
>Poor example, I think cadavers provided the data for most anatomy books. Much of that artwork predates Nazis.
... some of the best work came from the Nazis. Many schools have pulled the pictures, arguing that to use them validates the Nazis.
Actually, there have been large ethical fights over that issue
>Anyway, I believe we have the right to insist that scientists operate within the ethical guidlines of our society, other societies may choose there own ethical environment.
'Rights' are more illusory than you might think. Rights are only what society gives, no more, no less, and, contrary to what many believe, there are no universal rights. To bring this back to the topic at hand, I live in America, and I totally support stem cell research and cloning. Unfortuantely, with a (scientifically) ignorant President (low shot, mea culpa, he's quite bright as far as politics and power go), with massive right-wing reactionary Christian fundamentalists supporting him, it doesn't really matter whether or not I am in the majority (according to the polls, I am): the laws have been passed which have virtually stopped research in these areas within the US. (I use the word 'virtually' to dramatize the difference between the rate we're going forward and the rest of the world.)
Now, if you, as a member of the immoral minority get laws passed that run contrary to what large numbers of people agree with, the following occurs: Scientists who disagree may either a/ do what you tell them b/ disregard what the law says and go ahead with the research under threat of severe penalties, or c/ head for some place where the laws allow them to do what they want. Oddly enough, b/ and c/ happen an awful lot more than the politicos would have you believe.
Now for the really scary scenario. The Chinese government is, for the most part, morally bankrupt. Genetic engineering, where the fetus is brought to term. Remember, there's only a two base pair difference between human and simian muscle tissue, and their's is ~15 times stronger. Think they won't be trying this?
Despite how bad it has been, AOL has made massive improvements over the last few years. Still got a way to go, but ...
Switching to a Linux base would be another step on the road - faster, more stable, and no rebooting after the latest 'service pack' ;)
If it goes through, I foresee a situation like IE vs Netscape, except, in this scenario, millions of homes get a CD with a 'free' OS. There are a growing number of people out there who only use their machine for the net (surfing, e-mail, IM, etc). And there's a small number of companies that sell machines that run from a single CD. MS is no slacker in the 'marketing dirty tricks' division, but AOL could do serious, long term damage with their 'CD in every household' approach.
AOL managers may not know the technical side of Red Hat, but I'm pretty sure they understand what it means to the overall game plan. Two quotes come to mind, one about it's not necessary to make a large profit of every item you sell, as long as it means your competitor doesn't sell one; and from Netscape eons ago, to the effect that every time they sold a copy, it ran on Windows, so the two companies remained tied, but whenver a user opted for IE, then Microsoft won, so that Netscape could never win while it ran under Windows.
The implication is quite clear - if AOL wants to 'win', the best way would be to support an alternative OS.