... but I'd rather make an effort myself to view and treat everyone equally and pass these lessons on to future children, and hope that those around me do the same, and disassociate with those who believe race is some sort of hierarchy of superiority. Who knows, maybe someday this will catch on to the majority of the population and race will be the least of all our issues?
Eventually, someone will figure out an even more private method, like some kind of wire.
Surely you're not talking about fibre optics, since we already know those can be tapped. There is always at least one weak point in any data transmission medium. Anyone persistent enough will get whatever information they want from anyone they want.
Most of us posting here probably do not currently live in an oppressive nation so your example with the young lady doesn't really apply much to us First Worlders. However, we do need pseudonymous social networking because we don't always want our employers, estranged spouses, etc, being privy to our personal lives.
Not really, just replying to a comment. Or are all/. users defensive?
Being creative to solve a problem is great, but being creative has nothing to do with learning the basics. I don't believe that creativity matters when learning how to implement a linked list, writing a binary search, OOP concepts, and other CS topics, any more than I think that creativity has to do with learning how to factor polynomials. Creativity is absolutely a great attribute in any field, including software development, but I was referring to learning.
Problem solving is the cornerstone of Comp. Sci. and that requires creative thinking and coming up with different ways to do something. Just learning what stuff is, like integers or linked lists, isn't enough. OOP is definitely something that requires creative thinking to be able to properly design a program. Being creative and learning goes hand in hand in Comp. Sci., just don't mistake it with the "creative writing" sort of creative because that's different.
I take it from your examples that you are a web developer.
So what? You can talk to any programmer, call them a web developer and half the time you would be right. But you would be mistaken in thinking that's all I do if that's what you're implying. However, I need to pay the bills, so that's what my profession is and I love it! It's not like web developers do anything much different than what's on the desktop, most of the code we write runs on the server anyway, but we just happen to be skilled in client side technologies as well. I take it from your comment that your not a web developer? I could be wrong.
Java is the absolute top language today. It is used in enterprise applications, server applications, and Android mobile applications, to name a few examples. It certainly won't be that way forever, and I have no idea how long it will be this way, but it is the most used language today. Google it. (here's the first hit from my google search: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ) And as far as runtime environments go, that is a problem that all teaching environment languages suffer from. Even JavaScript can function differently on different browsers.
P.S. I don't think Java is the best language, the end-all language, etc. And yes, this is all opinion in the way of how to best teach programming and computer science concepts, but it is not an opinion when stating that Java is or isn't a dead language; factually it isn't.
A little hyperbole spices up a comment. A language never really "dies", but it does lose relevance over time to the point where it might as well be dead to many developers. COBOL is still around, mostly because it would be too expensive and risky to roll over to something else, and there's a similar case with Java. 10 years ago, I wouldn't be saying these things about Java at all and it would have been my first choice for any project. However, times change and newer languages are on the rise to take Java's place. Java's popularity on that list of yours is just a residual effect of its past industry penetration, same as with C (disclaimer: C is still very, very relevant, and one of my absolute favorite languages). There will still be plenty of jobs for these languages as systems currently using them will need to be maintained for some time. Java is factually dead to me and many others since, like me, many can largely ignore it and not suffer from it. Sure, Java is on Android, a modified version of it at least, but the platform has enough of it's own issues (e.g. fragmentation) that it's struggling to keep up with iOS and Objective C (yes, Objective C is #6 and increasing on that list of yours even though it's only relevance is on Apple hardware).
I think it helps very much to have a statically typed language instead of a dynamically typed language used in teaching (regardless of Python vs. Java). Much better feedback for the student in figuring out why things work and don't work, enforcing designs, and lots more than I won't bother to enumerate.
In the words of a great dude, "That's just, like, your opinion, man". Seriously, many people have learned programming on a dynamically typed language, myself included. Maybe statically typed languages are what you're most comfortable with and therefore you conclude that it's better for teaching. However, dynamically typed languages allow for more creativity in solving problems, something that students don't get a true taste for in statically typed languages with more stringent rules. This debate can go on ad nauseum and is pointless. That being said, I was mostly referring to the licenses associated with programming languages and you can easily replace Python in my above comment with any other language not owned by a sue-happy corporation. I guess the context wasn't clear, mea culpa.
Care to back that up?
Gladly! Java has failed to penetrate in most applications and is more or less a dead language:
PHP > JSP
SOAP (implementable in several languages, incl. Java) > Java RMI
QT > Swing
HTML 5 > Flash > Java Applets (former not really languages, but easily replaces Java nonetheless)
For desktop applications, C and Python do the job much better and don't depend on clunky runtime environments. If you're in Windows,.NET C# does everything that Java does and more, while using native UI instead of Swing.
BTW, if you're going to harp on about teachable languages, then students might as well be learning Pascal in university since Java is pretty much approaching that level of real world relevance, which is pretty close to zero.
With the exception of multiple users (which is a good idea for phones BTW), this has already been solved with the N900. I can store a backup of all my important data secured on the phone's internal memory with a numeric password that is several characters long (should probably be alphanumeric, but this is still a phone we're talking about, not quite a computer). There is no way someone can get my data unless I store it on a micro SD. They can take the phone, but the internal memory would have to be wiped before being able to access it. Thanks to the N900, I have peace of mind that I have a secured backup of all my important data with me at all times. Hopefully when Meego is finally released to a device, this kind of security is retained from Maemo.
Better late than never I suppose. This is good news nonetheless, makes it easier for us Debian/Ubuntu fans to use a 64bit OS. Score one more point for the Linux world!
...*Ahem*, I mean GNU/Linux world, there, happy RMS?:)
... for schools to switch from using Java as a teaching language to something like Python. Years out of school and I can't think of any practical reason to use Java other than to run programs (like SmartGit, my only use for Java ATM) built with it. For everything that Java does, there is a better alternative under a more functional language.
Maybe this was true then, but if the barriers are effectively broken down, why aren't we seeing the influx? We probably would if it was absolutely essential for women to hold software development jobs. However, the negative representation of programmers in Western media has much more to do nowadays in keeping women away than anything. They most likely will work and study in places where people are seen as more attractive. In India, where Western influences aren't as strong, the ratio of female to male software developers is much more even (according to my Indian co-worker).
If your TV breaks, go to the movies,
If your music player gets dipped in the toilet, see a live band,
If your bike bites the dust, go for a jog,
If you can't learn something in school, educate yourself,
And finally,
If you can't have a social network that respects your privacy, find some real friends that will and socialize with them IRL
Resourcefulness, or just willing to go without, is something that is increasingly lost on this society.
Conservatives get criticized for creating an ungodly mess and Liberals then get criticized for failing to create that mess while pursuing their own personal interests. I probably won't live to see someone come in and clean all of the shit these two parties have created and I'm still at the tender age of 29.
P.S. I'm relatively impartial to any Canadian party, but I will support anyone who is willing to and actually does serve the people of Canada.
Because we can't determine the rights we should do away with all of them?
You're clearly extrapolating. Let me make this more clear: How can we determine what acceptable rights are for animals when we can't do that for ourselves? How do we know we actually are protecting their rights in this situation? How can we even identify what their rights are when we have enough trouble with that ourselves? The most powerful nation on Earth can't even identify what the individual rights of their own people are; their race and health care issues are only the tip of the iceberg. Did I say we shouldn't try to examine what rights of humans and animals are? Absolutely not. All I'm saying is we would have a better understanding of what the rights of animals are if we clean up our own backyard first. The euthanasia issue (and the fact that we are still debating it) is a very good example of what happens when we focus on the rights of animals before our own.
This is further complicated in context by the fact that at some point we may have [arbitrarily identified] animals to be intelligent and therefore ethically should we not afford them the same rights/freedoms as us? And prevent abuse on them too?
We have PETA for that already. On that note, I would have no problem with burning the ethics committee.
P.S. I love animals as much as the next person, but I don't think we're in the place of determining acceptable rights for different species if we can't do that for ourselves first.
All we need is a minimum resolution of 2560x1600 and 300+ppi to make multi-monitor setups obsolete since all we would need is a 30" screen to view everything on. Of course the OSes have to display everything correctly with this configuration.
Didn't you listen when I said "Useable? Hell no."? Your analogy is also deeply flawed and would make more sense if the iPhone 4 also went through a guillotine, which would break it beyond repair instantly, same effect as with a human being. However, people have survived falls from huge heights, just like this phone did, and both were mangled as a result. The key point here is that in this case, both can be repaired, whereas with the guillotine, both can not be repaired.
Or to put it more simply, the three-races idea can be neatly disposed of with one word: "India."
I read a book that sheds some light on this... this one. Basically, a long time ago, there were people from Africa that couldn't exactly be classified as "black" in the way that we are familiar today. These people migrated to and from Africa at differing points in history and to different places. The further they migrated, the more separated they were from the original people from Africa. The closer they settled, the more they tended to retain the features of the original people due to increased exposure to one another. This can probably explain how Indians are dark, yet many have straight hair like Orientals (some coarse and wavy), and how Greeks have bronze skin with typically curly or wavy hair.
Putting Neanderthals in the mix (not discussed in the book), can probably explain the emergence of Caucasian people in Europe (and possibly Orientals in Asia) due to the fact that mating with a different species is likely to produce some immediately apparent mutation such as low pigmentation (As a side note supporting this theory, given the effects of the sun's rays, light pigmentation isn't likely to be something that would evolve naturally over time). Inter-mating between these people outside of Africa could be responsible for the many variations that we have seen emerge in Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, Africans who have never left the continent, could have simply continued to evolve within the same conditions.
This makes an interesting point apparent to me. One race of people may have "superior" genes, but their evolution could be stunted by not changing their environment for thousands of years. Likewise, other races of people may have "inferior" genes, but have learned to evolve in a more variable and challenging environment. However, all of this is moot in the present given the technology that we have today that enables us to fly halfway across the world within hours to meet and mate with people with varying genetic stock; and also the technology which enables us to learn anything that anyone else in the world can learn. The only thing separating us now is the existence of affluence and freedom of association, since nowadays, this is what basically allows people of differing races to interact with each other, especially in North America and Europe. This also means that it is not conducive to human evolution to separate each other by race just because one group thinks they are better than the other.
This sounds a lot like Data vs. Code. Data comes and goes, but how that data is understood and worked with stays forever. Translated in more biological terms, it doesn't matter what specific facts we know at any one point in time because things change and people can and have rewritten history. How we learn to interpret information and how much better we get at it throughout the ages is what makes or breaks a civilization. It's probably more of a good thing than a bad thing that we have information at our fingertips, then we can focus more on how to interpret information, become more adept at it and less prone to manipulation and misinformation.
I thought those passwords are encrypted, so how do they get the list of those common password?
Common password lists do exist, this has been studied to death. I would imagine that the password is compared with a list that exists on the server before it is encrypted.
There seems to be so many social networking sites in the wild nowadays, that, considering the amount of management that would take place between several of them, it would make more sense to direct that energy into managing our own websites and linking to our friends' websites instead.
All association with a product, person or people, or ideology is a way for people to augment their identity in such a way that they appear to have some level of importance in the social strata of their choosing. Identification with an equally attractive thing risks being ousted from the social strata based on the fanboyism of the original thing or at least being of diminished importance within said fanboy group. This is really just a subset of the social dynamics that exist among peers or in politics. For example, an alpha male does something incredibly asinine, something that anyone outside his group would call him an idiot for. However, within his group, his underlings rally behind his stupidity out of fear of being of less importance in the group, while everyone else who calls him out for his stupidity are instantly shunned.
TL;DR: People tend to make decisions based on how important those decisions make them feel, not so much because of the practicality of those decisions.
Slashdot Mirror
... but I'd rather make an effort myself to view and treat everyone equally and pass these lessons on to future children, and hope that those around me do the same, and disassociate with those who believe race is some sort of hierarchy of superiority. Who knows, maybe someday this will catch on to the majority of the population and race will be the least of all our issues?
Eventually, someone will figure out an even more private method, like some kind of wire.
Surely you're not talking about fibre optics, since we already know those can be tapped. There is always at least one weak point in any data transmission medium. Anyone persistent enough will get whatever information they want from anyone they want.
Most of us posting here probably do not currently live in an oppressive nation so your example with the young lady doesn't really apply much to us First Worlders. However, we do need pseudonymous social networking because we don't always want our employers, estranged spouses, etc, being privy to our personal lives.
I think you are being a bit too defensive.
Not really, just replying to a comment. Or are all /. users defensive?
Being creative to solve a problem is great, but being creative has nothing to do with learning the basics. I don't believe that creativity matters when learning how to implement a linked list, writing a binary search, OOP concepts, and other CS topics, any more than I think that creativity has to do with learning how to factor polynomials. Creativity is absolutely a great attribute in any field, including software development, but I was referring to learning.
Problem solving is the cornerstone of Comp. Sci. and that requires creative thinking and coming up with different ways to do something. Just learning what stuff is, like integers or linked lists, isn't enough. OOP is definitely something that requires creative thinking to be able to properly design a program. Being creative and learning goes hand in hand in Comp. Sci., just don't mistake it with the "creative writing" sort of creative because that's different.
I take it from your examples that you are a web developer.
So what? You can talk to any programmer, call them a web developer and half the time you would be right. But you would be mistaken in thinking that's all I do if that's what you're implying. However, I need to pay the bills, so that's what my profession is and I love it! It's not like web developers do anything much different than what's on the desktop, most of the code we write runs on the server anyway, but we just happen to be skilled in client side technologies as well. I take it from your comment that your not a web developer? I could be wrong.
Java is the absolute top language today. It is used in enterprise applications, server applications, and Android mobile applications, to name a few examples. It certainly won't be that way forever, and I have no idea how long it will be this way, but it is the most used language today. Google it. (here's the first hit from my google search: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ) And as far as runtime environments go, that is a problem that all teaching environment languages suffer from. Even JavaScript can function differently on different browsers.
P.S. I don't think Java is the best language, the end-all language, etc. And yes, this is all opinion in the way of how to best teach programming and computer science concepts, but it is not an opinion when stating that Java is or isn't a dead language; factually it isn't.
A little hyperbole spices up a comment. A language never really "dies", but it does lose relevance over time to the point where it might as well be dead to many developers. COBOL is still around, mostly because it would be too expensive and risky to roll over to something else, and there's a similar case with Java. 10 years ago, I wouldn't be saying these things about Java at all and it would have been my first choice for any project. However, times change and newer languages are on the rise to take Java's place. Java's popularity on that list of yours is just a residual effect of its past industry penetration, same as with C (disclaimer: C is still very, very relevant, and one of my absolute favorite languages). There will still be plenty of jobs for these languages as systems currently using them will need to be maintained for some time. Java is factually dead to me and many others since, like me, many can largely ignore it and not suffer from it. Sure, Java is on Android, a modified version of it at least, but the platform has enough of it's own issues (e.g. fragmentation) that it's struggling to keep up with iOS and Objective C (yes, Objective C is #6 and increasing on that list of yours even though it's only relevance is on Apple hardware).
I think it helps very much to have a statically typed language instead of a dynamically typed language used in teaching (regardless of Python vs. Java). Much better feedback for the student in figuring out why things work and don't work, enforcing designs, and lots more than I won't bother to enumerate.
In the words of a great dude, "That's just, like, your opinion, man". Seriously, many people have learned programming on a dynamically typed language, myself included. Maybe statically typed languages are what you're most comfortable with and therefore you conclude that it's better for teaching. However, dynamically typed languages allow for more creativity in solving problems, something that students don't get a true taste for in statically typed languages with more stringent rules. This debate can go on ad nauseum and is pointless. That being said, I was mostly referring to the licenses associated with programming languages and you can easily replace Python in my above comment with any other language not owned by a sue-happy corporation. I guess the context wasn't clear, mea culpa.
Care to back that up?
Gladly! Java has failed to penetrate in most applications and is more or less a dead language:
PHP > JSP
SOAP (implementable in several languages, incl. Java) > Java RMI
QT > Swing
HTML 5 > Flash > Java Applets (former not really languages, but easily replaces Java nonetheless)
For desktop applications, C and Python do the job much better and don't depend on clunky runtime environments. If you're in Windows, .NET C# does everything that Java does and more, while using native UI instead of Swing.
BTW, if you're going to harp on about teachable languages, then students might as well be learning Pascal in university since Java is pretty much approaching that level of real world relevance, which is pretty close to zero.
With the exception of multiple users (which is a good idea for phones BTW), this has already been solved with the N900. I can store a backup of all my important data secured on the phone's internal memory with a numeric password that is several characters long (should probably be alphanumeric, but this is still a phone we're talking about, not quite a computer). There is no way someone can get my data unless I store it on a micro SD. They can take the phone, but the internal memory would have to be wiped before being able to access it. Thanks to the N900, I have peace of mind that I have a secured backup of all my important data with me at all times. Hopefully when Meego is finally released to a device, this kind of security is retained from Maemo.
Better late than never I suppose. This is good news nonetheless, makes it easier for us Debian/Ubuntu fans to use a 64bit OS. Score one more point for the Linux world!
...*Ahem*, I mean GNU/Linux world, there, happy RMS? :)
... for schools to switch from using Java as a teaching language to something like Python. Years out of school and I can't think of any practical reason to use Java other than to run programs (like SmartGit, my only use for Java ATM) built with it. For everything that Java does, there is a better alternative under a more functional language.
Maybe this was true then, but if the barriers are effectively broken down, why aren't we seeing the influx? We probably would if it was absolutely essential for women to hold software development jobs. However, the negative representation of programmers in Western media has much more to do nowadays in keeping women away than anything. They most likely will work and study in places where people are seen as more attractive. In India, where Western influences aren't as strong, the ratio of female to male software developers is much more even (according to my Indian co-worker).
If your TV breaks, go to the movies,
If your music player gets dipped in the toilet, see a live band,
If your bike bites the dust, go for a jog,
If you can't learn something in school, educate yourself,
And finally,
If you can't have a social network that respects your privacy, find some real friends that will and socialize with them IRL
Resourcefulness, or just willing to go without, is something that is increasingly lost on this society.
... Liberals then get criticized for failing to create that mess...
Should read "fix that mess" not "create that mess"
Conservatives get criticized for creating an ungodly mess and Liberals then get criticized for failing to create that mess while pursuing their own personal interests. I probably won't live to see someone come in and clean all of the shit these two parties have created and I'm still at the tender age of 29.
P.S. I'm relatively impartial to any Canadian party, but I will support anyone who is willing to and actually does serve the people of Canada.
Because we can't determine the rights we should do away with all of them?
You're clearly extrapolating. Let me make this more clear: How can we determine what acceptable rights are for animals when we can't do that for ourselves? How do we know we actually are protecting their rights in this situation? How can we even identify what their rights are when we have enough trouble with that ourselves? The most powerful nation on Earth can't even identify what the individual rights of their own people are; their race and health care issues are only the tip of the iceberg. Did I say we shouldn't try to examine what rights of humans and animals are? Absolutely not. All I'm saying is we would have a better understanding of what the rights of animals are if we clean up our own backyard first. The euthanasia issue (and the fact that we are still debating it) is a very good example of what happens when we focus on the rights of animals before our own.
This is further complicated in context by the fact that at some point we may have [arbitrarily identified] animals to be intelligent and therefore ethically should we not afford them the same rights/freedoms as us? And prevent abuse on them too?
We have PETA for that already. On that note, I would have no problem with burning the ethics committee.
P.S. I love animals as much as the next person, but I don't think we're in the place of determining acceptable rights for different species if we can't do that for ourselves first.
All we need is a minimum resolution of 2560x1600 and 300+ppi to make multi-monitor setups obsolete since all we would need is a 30" screen to view everything on. Of course the OSes have to display everything correctly with this configuration.
Didn't you listen when I said "Useable? Hell no."? Your analogy is also deeply flawed and would make more sense if the iPhone 4 also went through a guillotine, which would break it beyond repair instantly, same effect as with a human being. However, people have survived falls from huge heights, just like this phone did, and both were mangled as a result. The key point here is that in this case, both can be repaired, whereas with the guillotine, both can not be repaired.
I think the most useful point drawn in the article is this:
"It goes to show you if I crash land and need an ambulance, they can still track me down with the GPS"
Useable? Hell, no. Survived? Yes, both you and the phone in the above situation.
Or to put it more simply, the three-races idea can be neatly disposed of with one word: "India."
I read a book that sheds some light on this... this one. Basically, a long time ago, there were people from Africa that couldn't exactly be classified as "black" in the way that we are familiar today. These people migrated to and from Africa at differing points in history and to different places. The further they migrated, the more separated they were from the original people from Africa. The closer they settled, the more they tended to retain the features of the original people due to increased exposure to one another. This can probably explain how Indians are dark, yet many have straight hair like Orientals (some coarse and wavy), and how Greeks have bronze skin with typically curly or wavy hair.
Putting Neanderthals in the mix (not discussed in the book), can probably explain the emergence of Caucasian people in Europe (and possibly Orientals in Asia) due to the fact that mating with a different species is likely to produce some immediately apparent mutation such as low pigmentation (As a side note supporting this theory, given the effects of the sun's rays, light pigmentation isn't likely to be something that would evolve naturally over time). Inter-mating between these people outside of Africa could be responsible for the many variations that we have seen emerge in Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, Africans who have never left the continent, could have simply continued to evolve within the same conditions.
This makes an interesting point apparent to me. One race of people may have "superior" genes, but their evolution could be stunted by not changing their environment for thousands of years. Likewise, other races of people may have "inferior" genes, but have learned to evolve in a more variable and challenging environment. However, all of this is moot in the present given the technology that we have today that enables us to fly halfway across the world within hours to meet and mate with people with varying genetic stock; and also the technology which enables us to learn anything that anyone else in the world can learn. The only thing separating us now is the existence of affluence and freedom of association, since nowadays, this is what basically allows people of differing races to interact with each other, especially in North America and Europe. This also means that it is not conducive to human evolution to separate each other by race just because one group thinks they are better than the other.
This sounds a lot like Data vs. Code. Data comes and goes, but how that data is understood and worked with stays forever. Translated in more biological terms, it doesn't matter what specific facts we know at any one point in time because things change and people can and have rewritten history. How we learn to interpret information and how much better we get at it throughout the ages is what makes or breaks a civilization. It's probably more of a good thing than a bad thing that we have information at our fingertips, then we can focus more on how to interpret information, become more adept at it and less prone to manipulation and misinformation.
I thought those passwords are encrypted, so how do they get the list of those common password?
Common password lists do exist, this has been studied to death. I would imagine that the password is compared with a list that exists on the server before it is encrypted.
http://xkcd.com/792/
There seems to be so many social networking sites in the wild nowadays, that, considering the amount of management that would take place between several of them, it would make more sense to direct that energy into managing our own websites and linking to our friends' websites instead.
All association with a product, person or people, or ideology is a way for people to augment their identity in such a way that they appear to have some level of importance in the social strata of their choosing. Identification with an equally attractive thing risks being ousted from the social strata based on the fanboyism of the original thing or at least being of diminished importance within said fanboy group. This is really just a subset of the social dynamics that exist among peers or in politics. For example, an alpha male does something incredibly asinine, something that anyone outside his group would call him an idiot for. However, within his group, his underlings rally behind his stupidity out of fear of being of less importance in the group, while everyone else who calls him out for his stupidity are instantly shunned.
TL;DR: People tend to make decisions based on how important those decisions make them feel, not so much because of the practicality of those decisions.
An alternate form of his name would be Mickey Dickey. Kinda sounds like a cartoon character.
... they would use this opportunity to tailor Meego to former BB users to fill the gap that will be left by RIM's death.