They'll be great at brainstorming innovative ways of suckering gullible investors out of money, not sure what else "Silicon Valley CEOs, thinkers and venture capitalists" can do though.
Ahaaa but we can't stop famine and wars if we do not have total control over the world's population (e.g., knowing where everybody is and what they are doing, you know, for statistical and planning purposes). Do you think that 20Mbps link is unidirectional???
Just be aware that plugs/earphones mostly cut off ventilation into the ear. Prolonged users tend to have more ear/nose/throat infections. Not sure if there is a solution for it.
I once had a colleague that walked around with this A4-sized (close to Letter size for you USians) hardbound notebook. He took notes of telephone conversations, in-person conversations, meetings, and other significant events. At the time he had just completed some civil court case, where there was some disagreement about certain events a couple of years in the past. He proceeded to pull out the relevant journal, and could provide a much more detailed version of the events (in his favour, of course) including dates, times and actual discussions.
At the time I thought it is cool, but one certainly has to decide how much or how little one needs to record. In my own experience (e.g. meeting minutes) one often disregards little side points that at the time seem unimportant, but become crucial at a later date. On the other hand, recording EVERYTHING might not be practical (depending on technology), as one could spend your whole life just "recording".
The extreme example would be: recording that you where recording that you where recording....
Take for example, two metal workers...both with the same training, equipment, environment and requirements...likely it will be difficult to spot too much of a great difference in the resulting product. Same goes for photography...same camera, settings, direction, time of day, physical location etc...you end up with the same shot (as this article eludes to)....very difficult to tell the difference between two works of craft produced in the same way.
I might not be much of a photographer, have been looking at what some others do though. I think a lot of artistry goes into choosing the right time, position, angle, focus, f-stop,...; arranging subject(s), setting up lighting, etc. etc., to get the result that s/he envisions. Also some do a lot of (digital) post-processing these days. I've seen a lot of photographs that are just beautiful to look at. They become more than a realistic representation of a piece of reality: they tell a story to the viewer (depending on the essences that the photographer chose to show), and often different viewers see different stories. OK, so I'm sure art academics have a lot more precise terms and elaborate explanations of what I'm trying to say, but this for me makes them art, instead of a mere craft.
As an aside, photographers often also develop a distinctive style that one can learn to recognize, just as with paintings or literature, say.
OK, so once someone has done it, any monkey can come along and copy the "right angle" or distinctive lighting. Not different from painting or whatever. I don't think that's a good criterion.
And then I've seen some paintings, even sold as art, that are simply attempts at representing reality with some "artsy" medium (canvas & acrylics).
Also add the fuel to change the trajectory of the asteroid - or its mined constituents - from buzzing past earth to something resembling orbiting Earth in a fairly useful orbit, from where the materials may be put to further use. Just because that large rock is broken down into microscopic smithereens, does not mean it will stand still in space (relative to Earth or any other chosen reference point) - you still need to apply the necessary F to make it change its path/velocity.
Apparently (from TFA) the purpose for printing on a transparent substrate has to do with creating light-emitting display technology (from cheap, renewable resources, with a low recycling impact). So, probably much less transistor-dense than your great balls of fire GPU.
I've read the fine article, and it might not be immediately clear from the summary that the breakthrough here is not the transistor per se - the important step was in using the "nanopaper" (which is tech that is in fact NOT 2KA old).
And while the nanopaper may be biodegradable, I am wondering about the carbon nanotubes they are printing on top (as conductors). While the toxicity of carbon nanotubes is still being studied, there are good indications that they might behave similar to asbestos fibres. So not something you would necessarily want to throw on your compost heap.
I think not enough people understand that coding is just a small part of producing a working software system. A system starts with an idea in someone's head - when this is formally documented, we often call it User Requirements. Now note that that system already exists, although not in a machine-executable form, but as a vision in someone's head. So formal software lifecycle processes usually define various levels of documentation/specification. Each of these refines and details the previous level. So each level already represents the system, but starting at a very abstract ("in the head") level, until you get to the very concrete ("machine-executable") level. (QA/testing runs in parallel, ensuring that the product at each level complies with what was specified (the product of the previous level).
Enhancements also start as enhancements to the User Requirements and down the process, it is just an incremental addition, which is obviously a smaller work package than the original system. I don't have any experience of Agile methodologies (as you might be able to tell - military market), but if that is your environment you might be able to adapt the above, and allow for the tweaks that make Agile what it is. In effect most Agile methodologies have a lot less levels, and also divide work into a lot more but smaller incremental enhancements, enabling one to go through the remaining levels much quicker. Either some Agile or the older more formal methodologies are good, it depends on your circumstances which would be better.
What I'm saying is that changing the coding to be better alone, is like giving some paracetamol to someone with a brain tumor. Your way of working needs fixing, and it will probably not only involve your coders but all people in the process starting from the people that provide requirements - since everyone works on some level of abstraction of the system. Formalized processes are sometimes helpful in this, as it can be a standard condition of employment to comply with company policies and procedures. In effect, you need to turn your team from a collection of individuals who do much as they please, to a single organism that is "better than the sum of its individual parts" (see "Heterozygous" for a biology analogy).
Furthermore, all the above documentation can be helpful to newcomers (and existing employees) to get up to speed, since one can select the document at the desired level of abstraction and learn what you need to know at the quickest speed. Reading code (even good clean code), being at the lowest level of abstraction, can be quite time-consuming and frustrating.
Now it IS a big problem to get people to write good, to-the-point, unambiguous documentation - documentation that is as terse as possible and still verbose enough to contain everything that is needed - and that can be understood by someone other than the author.
Now to your question: (1) Do developers/employees in general, perceive that there are problems with the way they are working? If they are unhappy, then they might be more open to change that would improve their experience, than if they are quite content. (2) Once they are looking for improvement, it might be shown to them in the form of published work ("best practices") on this, or other companies' way of working, or even a small "pilot study" team in your own organization. (3) Many possible solutions exist, some contradicting others, and your org needs to find the one that will best work for them. I would say if people can provide input, they might be more accepting of the solution. Of course, an organization consists of lots of individuals so management is needed to provide (some) direction. (4) Be open to adapt/tweak for further improvements. (5) Use some carrot and stick to reinforce, but be careful of polarizing management vs employees - rather try to have people praised or censured by their peers, even if it is just weekly voted "biggest boon|booboo awards" that sit on someone's desk but don't do much else.
If you do think the above is quite serious, you might want to look at http://what-if.xkcd.com/23/ (and search for the word "downspouts"). Interesting, or at least entertaining.
While they are busy pumping water out at night, North Sea rains could pour water in their waterhole 24 hours a day. It would be wiser to pump water up into the artificial lake, so that rain will just add energy to the system. But for sure this has been designed by a belgian engineer...
You do realise, do you, that since the rest of the surrounding North Sea isn't roofed over, rainfall will raise the water level both inside and outside by the same amount, so the difference in levels will stay exactly the same?
Having a "hole in the sea" has the added benefit that the melting polar caps (global warming) will raise the sea level, increasing the difference in levels, thus actually adding energy to the system.
Apparently (IANA Dietician), some fruit contain more Fructose than Glucose, which makes the fructose load more problematic. See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption, which has lists. Fructose is further problematic in that it chelates some other nutrients, like Zinc and Iron, removing them from the digestive tract and preventing them from being absorbed (can't find the paragraph on Wikipedia anymore, might be wrong.)
There's another article (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/PRN-this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992.aspx) that did the rounds this morning about the negative effects of fructose on learning and memory.
Of course, this article also mentions omega-3 fatty acids, which are sorely lacking in the modern western diet that relies heavily on wheat, corn, soy and sunflower, as well as on meats, dairy and eggs "grain fed" on these crops instead of natural green pasture. This lack (or rather the imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6 content in modern food because of this) also contributes to obesity (and other "lifestyle diseases" like cancer and diabetes).
Slashdot Mirror
Here is some reading matter regarding GMO foodstuffs, just randomly selected from Google results, which turns up many more.
That's sufficient scientific evidence for me not to touch the stuff with a 500km pole (even considering the sources).
All these articles make me think that it must be really good to be a rat these days, what with all the medical advances available to them.
Not sure if a really sick rat could afford it, though....
Disclaimer: totally facetious, as always....
I know it's in the summary, but why use an abbreviation if it's not immediately clear what the abbreviation stands for?
TMT = Twenty Meter Telescope, Thirty Meter Telescope, Two Mile Telescope (etc.)?
Because "30mT" is not as sezzy?
(Cue flamebait about lazy USians needing TLA's for everything).
(TLA = Three Letter Acronym. Of course)
Hall has used a similar sleight of hand before to show that our moral compass can often be easily reversed.
Wait, what? Wasn't this article all about politics? What in the universe does that have to do with morality?
Already 10 posts! And not one reference on how stupid creationists are! Nor any refs to Nazis either.
Will have to come back later.
Now I know how to help all those sharks on drugs (lab animals from my other evil experiments)....
They'll be great at brainstorming innovative ways of suckering gullible investors out of money, not sure what else "Silicon Valley CEOs, thinkers and venture capitalists" can do though.
It's a sly pun on the "Snakes on a Plane" theme.
100 "innovators" (Silicon Valley CEOs, thinkers and venture capitalists)
How glad I am they put innovators in quotes.
They should have done the same to geeks in the heading.
Ahaaa but we can't stop famine and wars if we do not have total control over the world's population (e.g., knowing where everybody is and what they are doing, you know, for statistical and planning purposes). Do you think that 20Mbps link is unidirectional???
the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.
As as "painfully shy" individual, I can tell you that by the time I have drunk enough to "quell my angst", I don't have much of a mind left to speak.
Also: Ballmer limit.
Just be aware that plugs/earphones mostly cut off ventilation into the ear. Prolonged users tend to have more ear/nose/throat infections. Not sure if there is a solution for it.
The swipe means that everyone's requests are tracked and I'm sure some algorithm somewhere is constantly sorting the data ...
So there's a screen on the front of the vending machine that displays targeted advertising then?
his clientele probably consists of Microsoft employees
5 point, not Sharepoint....
I once had a colleague that walked around with this A4-sized (close to Letter size for you USians) hardbound notebook. He took notes of telephone conversations, in-person conversations, meetings, and other significant events. At the time he had just completed some civil court case, where there was some disagreement about certain events a couple of years in the past. He proceeded to pull out the relevant journal, and could provide a much more detailed version of the events (in his favour, of course) including dates, times and actual discussions.
At the time I thought it is cool, but one certainly has to decide how much or how little one needs to record. In my own experience (e.g. meeting minutes) one often disregards little side points that at the time seem unimportant, but become crucial at a later date. On the other hand, recording EVERYTHING might not be practical (depending on technology), as one could spend your whole life just "recording".
The extreme example would be: recording that you where recording that you where recording....
Take for example, two metal workers...both with the same training, equipment, environment and requirements...likely it will be difficult to spot too much of a great difference in the resulting product. Same goes for photography...same camera, settings, direction, time of day, physical location etc...you end up with the same shot (as this article eludes to)....very difficult to tell the difference between two works of craft produced in the same way.
I might not be much of a photographer, have been looking at what some others do though. I think a lot of artistry goes into choosing the right time, position, angle, focus, f-stop,...; arranging subject(s), setting up lighting, etc. etc., to get the result that s/he envisions. Also some do a lot of (digital) post-processing these days. I've seen a lot of photographs that are just beautiful to look at. They become more than a realistic representation of a piece of reality: they tell a story to the viewer (depending on the essences that the photographer chose to show), and often different viewers see different stories. OK, so I'm sure art academics have a lot more precise terms and elaborate explanations of what I'm trying to say, but this for me makes them art, instead of a mere craft.
As an aside, photographers often also develop a distinctive style that one can learn to recognize, just as with paintings or literature, say.
OK, so once someone has done it, any monkey can come along and copy the "right angle" or distinctive lighting. Not different from painting or whatever. I don't think that's a good criterion.
And then I've seen some paintings, even sold as art, that are simply attempts at representing reality with some "artsy" medium (canvas & acrylics).
Also add the fuel to change the trajectory of the asteroid - or its mined constituents - from buzzing past earth to something resembling orbiting Earth in a fairly useful orbit, from where the materials may be put to further use. Just because that large rock is broken down into microscopic smithereens, does not mean it will stand still in space (relative to Earth or any other chosen reference point) - you still need to apply the necessary F to make it change its path/velocity.
Amazing that this got through to the front page of /. THE FIRST TIME in the same week that it happened!
Fixed that for you.
Apparently (from TFA) the purpose for printing on a transparent substrate has to do with creating light-emitting display technology (from cheap, renewable resources, with a low recycling impact). So, probably much less transistor-dense than your great balls of fire GPU.
And while the nanopaper may be biodegradable, I am wondering about the carbon nanotubes they are printing on top (as conductors). While the toxicity of carbon nanotubes is still being studied, there are good indications that they might behave similar to asbestos fibres. So not something you would necessarily want to throw on your compost heap.
My question is, why isn't anyone talking about the air pollution problems happening this month in China?
Yeah, because what would /. be without dupes?
I thought it's "lead" as in the element, Pb.
Then again, what do I know about chip manufacture?
I think not enough people understand that coding is just a small part of producing a working software system. A system starts with an idea in someone's head - when this is formally documented, we often call it User Requirements. Now note that that system already exists, although not in a machine-executable form, but as a vision in someone's head. So formal software lifecycle processes usually define various levels of documentation/specification. Each of these refines and details the previous level. So each level already represents the system, but starting at a very abstract ("in the head") level, until you get to the very concrete ("machine-executable") level. (QA/testing runs in parallel, ensuring that the product at each level complies with what was specified (the product of the previous level).
Enhancements also start as enhancements to the User Requirements and down the process, it is just an incremental addition, which is obviously a smaller work package than the original system. I don't have any experience of Agile methodologies (as you might be able to tell - military market), but if that is your environment you might be able to adapt the above, and allow for the tweaks that make Agile what it is. In effect most Agile methodologies have a lot less levels, and also divide work into a lot more but smaller incremental enhancements, enabling one to go through the remaining levels much quicker. Either some Agile or the older more formal methodologies are good, it depends on your circumstances which would be better.
What I'm saying is that changing the coding to be better alone, is like giving some paracetamol to someone with a brain tumor. Your way of working needs fixing, and it will probably not only involve your coders but all people in the process starting from the people that provide requirements - since everyone works on some level of abstraction of the system. Formalized processes are sometimes helpful in this, as it can be a standard condition of employment to comply with company policies and procedures. In effect, you need to turn your team from a collection of individuals who do much as they please, to a single organism that is "better than the sum of its individual parts" (see "Heterozygous" for a biology analogy).
Furthermore, all the above documentation can be helpful to newcomers (and existing employees) to get up to speed, since one can select the document at the desired level of abstraction and learn what you need to know at the quickest speed. Reading code (even good clean code), being at the lowest level of abstraction, can be quite time-consuming and frustrating.
Now it IS a big problem to get people to write good, to-the-point, unambiguous documentation - documentation that is as terse as possible and still verbose enough to contain everything that is needed - and that can be understood by someone other than the author.
Now to your question: (1) Do developers/employees in general, perceive that there are problems with the way they are working? If they are unhappy, then they might be more open to change that would improve their experience, than if they are quite content. (2) Once they are looking for improvement, it might be shown to them in the form of published work ("best practices") on this, or other companies' way of working, or even a small "pilot study" team in your own organization. (3) Many possible solutions exist, some contradicting others, and your org needs to find the one that will best work for them. I would say if people can provide input, they might be more accepting of the solution. Of course, an organization consists of lots of individuals so management is needed to provide (some) direction. (4) Be open to adapt/tweak for further improvements. (5) Use some carrot and stick to reinforce, but be careful of polarizing management vs employees - rather try to have people praised or censured by their peers, even if it is just weekly voted "biggest boon|booboo awards" that sit on someone's desk but don't do much else.
If you do think the above is quite serious, you might want to look at http://what-if.xkcd.com/23/ (and search for the word "downspouts"). Interesting, or at least entertaining.
While they are busy pumping water out at night, North Sea rains could pour water in their waterhole 24 hours a day. It would be wiser to pump water up into the artificial lake, so that rain will just add energy to the system. But for sure this has been designed by a belgian engineer...
You do realise, do you, that since the rest of the surrounding North Sea isn't roofed over, rainfall will raise the water level both inside and outside by the same amount, so the difference in levels will stay exactly the same?
Having a "hole in the sea" has the added benefit that the melting polar caps (global warming) will raise the sea level, increasing the difference in levels, thus actually adding energy to the system.
Apparently (IANA Dietician), some fruit contain more Fructose than Glucose, which makes the fructose load more problematic. See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption, which has lists. Fructose is further problematic in that it chelates some other nutrients, like Zinc and Iron, removing them from the digestive tract and preventing them from being absorbed (can't find the paragraph on Wikipedia anymore, might be wrong.)
There's another article (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/PRN-this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992.aspx) that did the rounds this morning about the negative effects of fructose on learning and memory.
Of course, this article also mentions omega-3 fatty acids, which are sorely lacking in the modern western diet that relies heavily on wheat, corn, soy and sunflower, as well as on meats, dairy and eggs "grain fed" on these crops instead of natural green pasture. This lack (or rather the imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6 content in modern food because of this) also contributes to obesity (and other "lifestyle diseases" like cancer and diabetes).