Re:If you only want to do pure research, maybe
on
Is Computer Science Dead?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Specalised applications are a pain in the neck to support, the real issue here is that who ever implemented them did not fully understand what the end user requirements were. There is a real art of extracting that sort of information out of people and it requires an inquiring mind, good communication and people skills. There are application houses that milk corporations of money due to scope changes because they couldn't get the original spec right... [sic]
I strongly agree. I recently changed positions in one of those evil corporate monoliths to do exactly that - extract the critical requirements early in the project phase so the solution winds up being more than a new set of problems. That's simply the changing nature of the landscape - the technical folks from a few years ago who have good communication skills and a willingness to listen are in an excellent position to provide consultation. I can not emphasize enough the importance of this basic tenet: you must listen to what the client wants, and not assume you have the answer simply because you know apt-get. Understand their needs and come up with a solution that a) meets them as much as possible b) within the project scope and budget c) with as minimal an impact as possible to daily operations.
But if this is not what you want to do with your background in CS, then don't do it - there are an ever-increasing number of companies that do need things built from the ground up with serious attention to low-level detail: medical research facilities, geographic planning organizations, and metropolitan governments aren't going to find all they need on a shelf somewhere. They just don't post the positions on careerbuilder.com, so you have to pound on doors, wedge your foot inside, and make yourself indispensable.
dark matter = stuff at the bottom of my laundry sucking up available light
dark energy = abundant local olfactory distortions generated by the stuff at the bottom of my laundry
mystery solved, case closed...
but the science geek side of me wants to see them prove the existence of (not) "normal" dark matter or dark energy because it's just plain cool. and i want my personal teleportation device that skirts the fringes of the space-time continuum!
I'll grant that as a rebuttal to the parent post, but the unfortunate truth in the U.S. is that a dramatic lack of historical scholarship and a distinct inability to grasp the nuances of the presence means that thousands of "decision-makers" around the country will look at this headline and say "well, if France is doing it, it must be anti-American since they support back invading Iraq". The fact that is was probably a smart call doesn't matter to people who's only worries are the three-month and six-month profit forecasts. Those decision-makers - many of whom have no excuse other than their own inadequacies - will see this as (optimistic) a ratification of Americanization and choose RedHat or (pessimistic) view it as yet another transgression by the neo-socialist liberals against the goodness of capitalism and choose Microsoft.
So far, Kubuntu (I like KDE, what can I say?) has been excellent as both a laptop and workstation platform, and I do have Ubuntu on a handful of servers. My personal choice would be Ubuntu/Kubuntu over just about anything else, and I applaud the decision and hope (uber-optimistically) that it's the beginning of this so-called tipping point for Linux on the desktop.
almost 30,000 files that had to be examined either by script or by hand/eye (give you two guesses which instance was more frequent) for relevance because of an outdated and essentially useless form of content management, then organized and documented according to sensitivity level, freshness, potential legal/compliance relevance, and any noted security concerns. anything that couldn't be archived off the live site had to go through secondary examination for exploits, holes, and the like before being blessed to stay, and there were pages and pages of things to fix. combination of too many sloppy coders, too few quality folks, not enough time spent doing real maintenance, and some really ugly offshore code. yup, that one sucked. if someone tries to put you in the middle of one of those, run like hell.
sorry, but i'm still going to make sure all the workstations in the office that aren't mine (i.e. the MicroWinTelExplorer ones) have whatever CA comes up with to "shield" them from the everyday variants and nuisance payloads. the guy's in marketing as a product chief - i think we all know better than to believe any statement from marketing at face value. usually it's face value with considerable depreciation and heavy exposure to inflationary pressures.
someone stop spiking his triple-splenda extra hot venti chai latte, ok? silly twits
Anyone know what the total cost will be? The U.S. version was supposed to top $US 8 billion, and I saw something about a U.S. government grant of $US 500 million in the late 90s. Curious to know if there were lessons learned and if the approach wound up making more fiscal sense.
SAN is not always the answer to large storage. Take Oracle 10G RAQ, for example: say you have a multi-master setup in several datacenters, and you want dedicated high-speed fault-tolerant local storage for each instance. You set up a 4900 with internal storage for the OS and Oracle, then add your data partition(s) on a Thumper in each location. Even the best fiber mpxio connection from the 4900 would be hard-pressed to match the speed, reliability, and responsiveness of a tuned array.
Given the disasters I've seen with SAN storage, I would happily spend 25% more to get the Thumper and know I could rely on Sun to have someone onsite fixing whatever problems we have within four hours - and know that the person who shows up knows not only what to do with the Thumper, but also what to do with the 4900 once things are fixed.
... for me to relax and enjoy SLED. It's here, it rocks, and it will more than handle anything I throw at it for less than 1/4th the price of (whatever becomes of) Vista. Sorry Bill, I just can't see paying for another Microsoft OS ever again.
&laz;
(and yes, I have paid for a couple, even added $100 to my first Dell to upgrade to Win2K... but that was the last time)
I would call you a moron, but morons everywhere would take offense and I would suffer karmically (in life and on/.), most likely returning in my next iteration as some sort of lower life-form like yourself.
So, I'll just settle for calling you a bloody fool.
The rest of us can sit back and be thankful for the fact that Google would never willingly hire anyone like you, and therefore is - for the forseeable future - fairly safe from becoming another kicked-to-the-curb innovator burdened by the pervasive Corporate America philosophies of greed, greed, and more greed.
Much more likely scenario, from Business Week (marginally more reliable than ML, perhaps?):
Exclusive: PS3 HUB; September Launch: Next Generation reveals that, in addition to the PlayStation 3 -- now expected to launch in September -- Sony is planning an online games service...
When one has a whole site dedicated to the topic DON'T TRUST MERRILL LYNCH, one does need to take a moment and decide how much faith to place in such an ambiguous collection of prognostication.
I think I will wait for a review from EGM and prices displayed prominently on Amazon...
What ever happened to the good old days when people would make simple rocket nozzles by hand and call it good?
Big bucks college scholarships happened. Parents know a good project might get their kid "seen" by a top college, getting them in and maybe a scholarship (a top school could run $200,000 these days).
Agreed; however, this may also be attributable to the way science was represented and taught in US schools over the past few decades. My science schooling, most of which occured ~15 years ago, consisted of much the same format and content as that which was taught in the 1970s. I'm sure this was in part because the school district was rural and poor, but in the intervening years I've met many people from suburban backgrounds who went to well-to-do schools, and they often had the same textbooks and labwork.
So now we have the web coming in to many schools, and that makes up for a lot of the gaps - but you still need the teaching methods and the practicuum experiences to leap forward in conjunction with the wealth of information. That means re-training many instructors and ensuring the newest graduates who will be teaching science are equipped to help make the changes happen at all the early levels of education.
I am greatly concerned because the latest federal budget hamstrings many such programs, and state governments are following in the same vein. Now I am looking into ways of teaching my child science and technology at home in case her schools are never given the opportunity to retool and retrain. I encourage all parents to do the same if they want their children exposed to the challenges of science and scientific thinking.
Well - the court WILL decide, not a bunch of us tech-wheenies on Slashdot.
And this is desirable because... ? I certainly hold no illusions that the legal system is looking out for the best interests of the average citizen. I applaud any corporation that wants to curb the intrusive and quasi-legal steamroller fostered by the former US Attorney General.
Damnitall, folks, start taking a stand now while we still have the freedom of speech and free press (at least free press not run by the Rupert Murdochs of the world). Copping out with the excuse "oh, well someone agreed to do it, everyone should follow" is just as bad as running blindly after the lemmings in their shiny metal boxes as they jump off a cliff.
Wait, can lemmings jump?
Regardless, it shouldn't just be the court deciding something that affects democracy, freedom and privacy. The legislative branch is part of the checks-and-balances system in the US, not the representative branch of government that is empowered to decide whether or not freedoms can be suspended when it suits the interest of political agenda or socio-political pandering. Granted, actions such as the Patriot Act hardly commend them as being stewards of said freedoms, but thankfully many in the representative branch seem to be coming to their senses.
You have to keep the pressure on so this process continues - people died for the freedoms we're taking for granted every day in the US, so don't squander them simply so you can sit back and chortle about winning and fanboy/flamebait war.
Because all too often the modern workplace focuses more on appearance, propriety, and popularity - and less on true productivity and a healthy, relaxed environment.
I'm just amazed that Bloomberg has managed to completely revitalize the lower east side and stomp out crime in all the boroughs, and now has enough time on his hands to wander around snooping on his staff, looking for the evil sol.exe.
I've had a pair of MDR (the MD5 series) headphones for years, and they do a fair job of filtering noise while still allowing you to hear things like the tap-tap or the shuffle-stop. I know Sony's on the fscker-company list right now because of DRM and DVD wars, but they make a nice affordable set of headphones. Heck, you can always take them back if they don't work for you - might as well try a variety.
Amendment time: medical practicioners of Ancient Egypt did have an understanding of the fact that bacteria do not grow well in honey, so it's possible the King would have received timely treatment of a tasty type (ahh, alliteration). It is hard to tell from the resources I read if that understanding or the effectiveness was as extensive as that surrounding moulds (PP).
No luck yet on the poison angle - looks like it was most commonly administered by drink, and often by members of the religious sects. Gee, whoulda thunk...
No matter how advanced they were, nothing indicates they had any more understanding of antibiotics than other cultures of similar cultural and scientific precedence:
From Wikipedia
Many ancient cultures, including the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese, already used moulds and other plants to treat infection. This worked because some moulds produce antibiotic substances. However, they couldn't distinguish or distill the active component in the moulds.
Now, poison is an intriguing idea and an interesting point of research. Was poisoning prevalent in the days of Tutankhamen, and who would dare use it against a King, knowing such an action, if discovered, could lead to drastic retribution? My curiosity is piqued, and thus my productivity is about to decline rapidly as I start bringing up history sites in other tabs...
Looks more like a business relationship to me, actually. They have a storefront hosted at stores.yahoo.com that appears identical to www.despair.com, and they have several examples of partnership scattered around other areas of Yahoo, including anti-greeting cards. Yahoo billed them as a cool site a while back, which hints at some sort of vested interest.
While I can not argue with your character assassination, it probably wouldn't matter who was in the hot seat and whether or not they could form any opinions of their own. Anyone with the moral and intellectual standards required to absorb, interpret, and act on this information has long sense run from DC (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, but what is one man against a morass of immorality and corruption...?).
With most of the US government now effectively driven by the needs of multinational corporations, most of which benefit from the status quo, we won't see anything positive in this arena until there is some economic benefit to action. Right now, inaction serves the corporations more than any reforms or long-term plans, so that is what they require. Hybrid cars and talk of alternative energies are encouraging, but hardly make a dent in what really needs to be accomplished over the next 100 years.
When an industry dedicated to making a commodity out of conservation has a lobby - that's when you'll see things changing in DC.
IMO, it's not so much a who's-buying-who equation as an attempt to become innovative again. The animosity between Michael Eisner and... well, everybody else... created such friction within Disney as a corporation that it began to logjam as a creative entity. And Eisner was hardly the kind of person to maintain anything remotely related to a vision:
Like everything else in my life it's like, 'Let's go put on a show.'... Frankly, I want to have a good time. (from an interview)
Walt Disney was definitely interested in a good time, but he tended to put the emphasis on other people. Now, Disney gets the benefit of direct interaction with very driven cultural contributors who aren't in the business of having a good time, but rather in the business of being innovators.
"... The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions... "
And soon afterwards the robots will find themselves breaking down into puddles of circuitry trying to decide which microban body paneling will look tres chic at the premier of "I, Robot 10". Of course, they're gonna need to get a lot cuter than the version in TFA, otherwise they won't make it past the bouncers.
Seriously tho, I'm wondering how big this step is in reality? This section in particular:
To mimic this dynamic, a robot needs a common area in its neural network that is able to process information on both cognition and behavior.
I don't pretend to be an expert on neural networks or robotics because I'm not, so how are the findings of Mr. Telenko et. al. so dramatically different from advanced pattern recognition, which is already programatically defined in a variety of different contexts? I'm honestly curious as to how this research leads to such a profound statement re: expressing emotions.
Now that MX 7 allows you to either deploy with the JRun connector (meh...) or go J2EE as an application under a full application server platform like WebLogic or WebSphere, it is gaining more traction and respect in a new light. Not sure if it is truly in re-birth yet, but let's see what the Adobe acquisition does to the picture.
Worth noting that Ben uses hostmysite.com, which is one of the largest ColdFusion hosting companies in the world with several thousand sites.
That was part of my point, and why I was high-lighting specific passages while referring to it as the only real content of the press release. This kind of market-droid crap detracts from the legitimate study and research of AI.
Plus, to your point, I'm not a big fan of the SEC, constantly portrayed (similar at times to the rep of the Fed) as some kind of glorious governmental overseer of all things laissez-faire, when the truth is a little murkier.
Slashdot Mirror
But if this is not what you want to do with your background in CS, then don't do it - there are an ever-increasing number of companies that do need things built from the ground up with serious attention to low-level detail: medical research facilities, geographic planning organizations, and metropolitan governments aren't going to find all they need on a shelf somewhere. They just don't post the positions on careerbuilder.com, so you have to pound on doors, wedge your foot inside, and make yourself indispensable.
&laz;
dark matter = stuff at the bottom of my laundry sucking up available light
...
dark energy = abundant local olfactory distortions generated by the stuff at the bottom of my laundry
mystery solved, case closed
but the science geek side of me wants to see them prove the existence of (not) "normal" dark matter or dark energy because it's just plain cool. and i want my personal teleportation device that skirts the fringes of the space-time continuum!
I'll grant that as a rebuttal to the parent post, but the unfortunate truth in the U.S. is that a dramatic lack of historical scholarship and a distinct inability to grasp the nuances of the presence means that thousands of "decision-makers" around the country will look at this headline and say "well, if France is doing it, it must be anti-American since they support back invading Iraq". The fact that is was probably a smart call doesn't matter to people who's only worries are the three-month and six-month profit forecasts. Those decision-makers - many of whom have no excuse other than their own inadequacies - will see this as (optimistic) a ratification of Americanization and choose RedHat or (pessimistic) view it as yet another transgression by the neo-socialist liberals against the goodness of capitalism and choose Microsoft.
So far, Kubuntu (I like KDE, what can I say?) has been excellent as both a laptop and workstation platform, and I do have Ubuntu on a handful of servers. My personal choice would be Ubuntu/Kubuntu over just about anything else, and I applaud the decision and hope (uber-optimistically) that it's the beginning of this so-called tipping point for Linux on the desktop.
almost 30,000 files that had to be examined either by script or by hand/eye (give you two guesses which instance was more frequent) for relevance because of an outdated and essentially useless form of content management, then organized and documented according to sensitivity level, freshness, potential legal/compliance relevance, and any noted security concerns. anything that couldn't be archived off the live site had to go through secondary examination for exploits, holes, and the like before being blessed to stay, and there were pages and pages of things to fix. combination of too many sloppy coders, too few quality folks, not enough time spent doing real maintenance, and some really ugly offshore code. yup, that one sucked. if someone tries to put you in the middle of one of those, run like hell.
sorry, but i'm still going to make sure all the workstations in the office that aren't mine (i.e. the MicroWinTelExplorer ones) have whatever CA comes up with to "shield" them from the everyday variants and nuisance payloads. the guy's in marketing as a product chief - i think we all know better than to believe any statement from marketing at face value. usually it's face value with considerable depreciation and heavy exposure to inflationary pressures.
someone stop spiking his triple-splenda extra hot venti chai latte, ok? silly twits
The barren tunnels outside Wakahachie, Texas house a testament to the U.S. attempt:
America's Discarded Superconducting Supercollider:
Anyone know what the total cost will be? The U.S. version was supposed to top $US 8 billion, and I saw something about a U.S. government grant of $US 500 million in the late 90s. Curious to know if there were lessons learned and if the approach wound up making more fiscal sense.
&laz;
SAN is not always the answer to large storage. Take Oracle 10G RAQ, for example: say you have a multi-master setup in several datacenters, and you want dedicated high-speed fault-tolerant local storage for each instance. You set up a 4900 with internal storage for the OS and Oracle, then add your data partition(s) on a Thumper in each location. Even the best fiber mpxio connection from the 4900 would be hard-pressed to match the speed, reliability, and responsiveness of a tuned array.
Given the disasters I've seen with SAN storage, I would happily spend 25% more to get the Thumper and know I could rely on Sun to have someone onsite fixing whatever problems we have within four hours - and know that the person who shows up knows not only what to do with the Thumper, but also what to do with the 4900 once things are fixed.
&laz;
&laz;
(and yes, I have paid for a couple, even added $100 to my first Dell to upgrade to Win2K
I would call you a moron, but morons everywhere would take offense and I would suffer karmically (in life and on /.), most likely returning in my next iteration as some sort of lower life-form like yourself.
So, I'll just settle for calling you a bloody fool.
The rest of us can sit back and be thankful for the fact that Google would never willingly hire anyone like you, and therefore is - for the forseeable future - fairly safe from becoming another kicked-to-the-curb innovator burdened by the pervasive Corporate America philosophies of greed, greed, and more greed.
&laz;
Much more likely scenario, from Business Week (marginally more reliable than ML, perhaps?):
...
Exclusive: PS3 HUB; September Launch: Next Generation reveals that, in addition to the PlayStation 3 -- now expected to launch in September -- Sony is planning an online games service
&laz;
When one has a whole site dedicated to the topic DON'T TRUST MERRILL LYNCH, one does need to take a moment and decide how much faith to place in such an ambiguous collection of prognostication.
...
I think I will wait for a review from EGM and prices displayed prominently on Amazon
&laz;
So now we have the web coming in to many schools, and that makes up for a lot of the gaps - but you still need the teaching methods and the practicuum experiences to leap forward in conjunction with the wealth of information. That means re-training many instructors and ensuring the newest graduates who will be teaching science are equipped to help make the changes happen at all the early levels of education.
I am greatly concerned because the latest federal budget hamstrings many such programs, and state governments are following in the same vein. Now I am looking into ways of teaching my child science and technology at home in case her schools are never given the opportunity to retool and retrain. I encourage all parents to do the same if they want their children exposed to the challenges of science and scientific thinking.
&laz;
Damnitall, folks, start taking a stand now while we still have the freedom of speech and free press (at least free press not run by the Rupert Murdochs of the world). Copping out with the excuse "oh, well someone agreed to do it, everyone should follow" is just as bad as running blindly after the lemmings in their shiny metal boxes as they jump off a cliff.
Wait, can lemmings jump?
Regardless, it shouldn't just be the court deciding something that affects democracy, freedom and privacy. The legislative branch is part of the checks-and-balances system in the US, not the representative branch of government that is empowered to decide whether or not freedoms can be suspended when it suits the interest of political agenda or socio-political pandering. Granted, actions such as the Patriot Act hardly commend them as being stewards of said freedoms, but thankfully many in the representative branch seem to be coming to their senses.
You have to keep the pressure on so this process continues - people died for the freedoms we're taking for granted every day in the US, so don't squander them simply so you can sit back and chortle about winning and fanboy/flamebait war.
&laz;
Because all too often the modern workplace focuses more on appearance, propriety, and popularity - and less on true productivity and a healthy, relaxed environment.
I'm just amazed that Bloomberg has managed to completely revitalize the lower east side and stomp out crime in all the boroughs, and now has enough time on his hands to wander around snooping on his staff, looking for the evil sol.exe.
&laz;
I've had a pair of MDR (the MD5 series) headphones for years, and they do a fair job of filtering noise while still allowing you to hear things like the tap-tap or the shuffle-stop. I know Sony's on the fscker-company list right now because of DRM and DVD wars, but they make a nice affordable set of headphones. Heck, you can always take them back if they don't work for you - might as well try a variety.
&laz;
Amendment time: medical practicioners of Ancient Egypt did have an understanding of the fact that bacteria do not grow well in honey, so it's possible the King would have received timely treatment of a tasty type (ahh, alliteration). It is hard to tell from the resources I read if that understanding or the effectiveness was as extensive as that surrounding moulds (PP).
...
No luck yet on the poison angle - looks like it was most commonly administered by drink, and often by members of the religious sects. Gee, whoulda thunk
&laz;
Now, poison is an intriguing idea and an interesting point of research. Was poisoning prevalent in the days of Tutankhamen, and who would dare use it against a King, knowing such an action, if discovered, could lead to drastic retribution? My curiosity is piqued, and thus my productivity is about to decline rapidly as I start bringing up history sites in other tabs
&laz;
Looks more like a business relationship to me, actually. They have a storefront hosted at stores.yahoo.com that appears identical to www.despair.com, and they have several examples of partnership scattered around other areas of Yahoo, including anti-greeting cards. Yahoo billed them as a cool site a while back, which hints at some sort of vested interest.
&laz;
While I can not argue with your character assassination, it probably wouldn't matter who was in the hot seat and whether or not they could form any opinions of their own. Anyone with the moral and intellectual standards required to absorb, interpret, and act on this information has long sense run from DC (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, but what is one man against a morass of immorality and corruption...?).
With most of the US government now effectively driven by the needs of multinational corporations, most of which benefit from the status quo, we won't see anything positive in this arena until there is some economic benefit to action. Right now, inaction serves the corporations more than any reforms or long-term plans, so that is what they require. Hybrid cars and talk of alternative energies are encouraging, but hardly make a dent in what really needs to be accomplished over the next 100 years.
When an industry dedicated to making a commodity out of conservation has a lobby - that's when you'll see things changing in DC.
Hmmm, I dunno - I checked and it looks like Pink Floyd still owns all the rights to the Dark Side of the Moon, so America at best owns half...
&laz;
And soon afterwards the robots will find themselves breaking down into puddles of circuitry trying to decide which microban body paneling will look tres chic at the premier of "I, Robot 10". Of course, they're gonna need to get a lot cuter than the version in TFA, otherwise they won't make it past the bouncers.
Seriously tho, I'm wondering how big this step is in reality? This section in particular: I don't pretend to be an expert on neural networks or robotics because I'm not, so how are the findings of Mr. Telenko et. al. so dramatically different from advanced pattern recognition, which is already programatically defined in a variety of different contexts? I'm honestly curious as to how this research leads to such a profound statement re: expressing emotions.
&laz;
... the DHS to harass a college student working on a paper, especially when we have missing truckfulls of radioactive materials, unchecked illegal immigration linked to terrorism, and gross negligence in disaster preparedness? (cause, you know, let's not forget that FEMA is in the DHS now)
<sarcasm>I'm so comforted that a noticable portion of my paycheck gets usurped for such important security concerns.</sarcasm>
If you are a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I advise you to see how your contributions to the government are apportioned and spent.
I would have to say yes, people still use it. It is one of the most prevalent out-of-the-box application server platforms on the net. Want to see more of the list: Who's Using ColdFusion?
...) or go J2EE as an application under a full application server platform like WebLogic or WebSphere, it is gaining more traction and respect in a new light. Not sure if it is truly in re-birth yet, but let's see what the Adobe acquisition does to the picture.
Now that MX 7 allows you to either deploy with the JRun connector (meh
Worth noting that Ben uses hostmysite.com, which is one of the largest ColdFusion hosting companies in the world with several thousand sites.
&laz;
That was part of my point, and why I was high-lighting specific passages while referring to it as the only real content of the press release. This kind of market-droid crap detracts from the legitimate study and research of AI.
Plus, to your point, I'm not a big fan of the SEC, constantly portrayed (similar at times to the rep of the Fed) as some kind of glorious governmental overseer of all things laissez-faire, when the truth is a little murkier.
&laz;