"And I am sorry, but any employee who is swayed by stock options IS A TOTAL FSCKING MORON. The only way stock options are valuable is if the stock price of the company significantly increases from the time the options are granted to the time they are vested."
Not necessarily true. In general, the idea behind options is to issue them below the current market price, then after a period of a few years, they vest and the employee can cash them in for real stock. So it works even if the company's stock stays even. However, the whole point is for the stock to go up, so everyone is happy. Some have argued that options have reduced the impetus to give back dividends, since options give you the option to buy the price at X price, they dont give you the actual stock, and thus the dividends that go with it- that takes away alot of motivation to give back dividends now, rather than buoy the stock price a bit by adding growth, even if the total return over the long run would be better to shareholders if a dividend was issued- option holders, IE insiders in the company are better off, and they're making the decisions. Additionally, the lack of dividend trend is primarily caused by owners of the company-IE investors, because they are obsessed with growth. In the past it was somewhat acceptable to be happy with your niche, remain profitable in that, and have your investors gain by giving most of the profit back as dividends. Nowadays, a stock's 'score' is mostly reflected in its stock price, and it is hard to make a case for giving money back to shareholders instead of upgrading your infrastructure and technology.
Google directors get to save a small percentage of the billions they are going to make by skipping on underwriting charges, but the potential for the price being pushed to an artificial high in a auction before a catastrophic crash are large.
I am fairly new to the finance field, but the way IPO's generally work as I understand it is that the underwriting investment banking firm tries to define a target price for the stock, and then buys the stocks for that price minus a spread that serves as the underwriter's fee. The underwriter then resells those shares to the market, taking the risk that there may not be enough demand. However, in the.com case, where a company shoots up to $100+ dollars a share, the issuing company itself does not see the bulk of the wealth, the underwriting firm does. Of course, the issuing company still holds (hopefully) a very substantial number of shares its own stock, so they too get a piece of the paper wealth, as well as cash equal to the number of shares offered * initial price. Its the underwriters who can really make out on the deal, as long as they still hold some shares before the price goes through the roof. So... in doing a direct auction, they save the underwriter's fee (which is not small, or else JP Morgan, Goldman Sach's etc... would not have towering skyscrapers on wall st. ) but more importantly can hopefully get a piece of some of those skyrocketing prices. This also allows the little guy a better chance to get in on the action. IPO's are generally sold off to mutual funds and other institutional investors, and individuals get essentially no chance to get in. Direct auctioning can also give everyone a fairer chance.
crappy anectodal evidence I know, but one of my best friends has high tension lines running through his backyard, about 40 feet from his house and has been living there for about 15 years (They get tax incentives and power discounts). It is a running joke that the grass directly underneath the four corners of the tower is a perfect neon green almost year round(In reality, its really crabgrass). But to throw in my two cents on health problems, the mother had a stroke a few years ago, but the rest of the family has not had any unusual health issues.
The big problem alot of people seem to be having is the difference between a watt and a watt-hour. 20 cents per watt is the ONE TIME cost for a solar panel, essentially $200 per kilowatt. So, you would get a return on your investment in 2000 kilowatt hours. A kilowatt hour is a slightly trickier concept, its the amount of energy your house consumes... so if you consume 2kilowatts of energy for an hour, you used 2 kilowatts. More likely, during peak usage, youre using about 1kilowatt of energy per hour, and during the day, maybe 100 watts per hour. Which for an hour would be 1 kwh, and.1 kwh. The 'average' uses 10-20kwh a day (us dorks w/ our computers and big screens and AC units being on the high end). So with this technology, you will break even in about 1/2 of a year, compared to the current technology, which is about 10 years. And you have that cool geek satisfaction of 'rolling your own.'
Maybe I am just getting F'ed... but I am in the 1-2 years experience range, and I know hardly anyone (programmers included) in the IT field who are making 50k a year (the average reported in the survey is (50,558 for 0-1 year guys w/ a bachelor), and certainly not any sysadmins at all- and thats in the NY metro area, where the costs of living (and thus salaries) are quite high. The fact that those in the 2 year range see a 5k drop in average salaries really makes me wonder if they had enough of a random sample, and a large enough sample altogether. Similarly, when I see average raises in certain metro areas being 87.5%, I think there is something significantly flawed in this survey to actually use it for anything meaningful. I get the feeling this survey attracted types who wanted to show off their earnings, or raises. I mean how can the group of 5-9 years guys get 6.8% average raises, while guys w/ 10-14 years experiene recieved a whopping 22.6% increase, yet their elder 15-19 group also only recieved 6.9% raises. I just cant see how this could happen to the actual group overall. Another glaring hole- guys with 1-2 years experience falling into the ambiguously defined 'level 4' (4 being highest) group. That many people came out of school and rose to CTO in a year? It is interesting, but to use this as a basis for actual salary comparison doesnt seem right. It seems even less scientific than a slashdot poll to me.
Well actually, it takes just one 'industry leader' to step up, make that first move and make money off of it. Important difference. Several manufacturers have already made forays into offering linux. The reality then- which I doubt has changed much- is that linux users are the types to build their own white boxes anyway. HP is also not likely to throw any marketing money behind it either. Its most likely going to be that PC in the back of the row of other boxes that none of the sales reps or customers have any real idea about. I dont know about you, but I am only going to get excited once I see these things featured in commercials on national stations touting the features of linux, or I walk into Best Buy and see the sales reps pushing the linux boxes equally as hard as the windows machines. Im surprised HP has even tried this, considering the lucrative discounts MS gives for 'exclusive' distribution rights on a company's machines. I bet the fact that they are competing in the server market w/ other OS's already precludes them from these deals.
well, I think youre not taking into accound the vast distances between the earth and this asteroid. The russians supposedly detonated a 50 megaton bomb in the 60's. So... using your logic, you would only need about 20 of these things to produce 1 billion tons of force. But... it gets better still. 1m/s is a huge number for an object so far away. If the asteroid is headed for the dead center of the earth, the earths radius is 6378 kilometers- which would be the distance that the asteroid would have to be pushed off course. If you do the math, we would only need 74 days from impact to knock it off course completely. Now obviously this is a grossly simplified and erroneous model assuming all that force could be directly applied to knocking the asteroid off course, but the real point is that reading your post kind of made think of austin powers when dr. evil tried to ransom the world for 1 million dollars:) - Your sense of magnitude was just a bit off.
These comments are filling up fast, and I am pretty sure this will get lost in the shuffle, but I think you need to look at the cost/benefit analysis of getting a PHD in CS. It is going to take many years of hand numbing hard work. It is also going to cost a small fortune, though most seem to get by. It will net you (maybe) a job for 100k or so. More likely from what I have seen (or guessed from the quality of CS PHD's lifestyles) around 80k or so.
The
years
spent not working and making real money in addition to the significant but not mind blowing increase in salary seems to me to not be anywhere near worth it from a monetary standpoint. Every PHD I met as an undergrad seemed to be fully intent upon spending the rest of their lives studying the subject of their thesis, or a closely related field. Being a PHD pretty much puts a label on you that says "hes a damn smart guy, and knows a crapload about a very narrow subject area" Alot of people tend to put their focus on the very narrow subject area though, me included. I mean yeah, obviously your problem solving skills and ability to meet goals is very high, but you also spent X years studying a subject involving words with an excessive number of syllables that has no relation to the problems and challenges typically encountered in the business world.
I think you will only 'cash in' and be happy in the field if you study something of very practical use to a company- IE Software engineering processes, automated AI Bug finding techniques, etc. Then the IBM's and MS's (IE very large companies) of the world will probably look at you as having alot of value, but still as a research type and not as a guy in the trenches coding type. Either way, pick your thesis topic carefully, because you will most likely be roped into that area for the rest of your life.
I did a bit of work like this on a palm pilot like device a few years ago. It was essentially a PDA w/ a laser scanner built into it made by symobl. It ran Windows CE- whose SDK is real nice, and makes it simple to make apps. the modem thing... that might be a little tricky- and expensive. How about USB? and the handwriting recognition API may need to be licensed- you would have to look at specific devices and platforms. But in essence, yes this is very doable, and probably not that hard. I was surprised how easy it was to program these things- there is nothing low-level involved at all.
Sony and the RIAA pulled this on me and my (old) school 5 years ago when I was a freshman undergrad and had an FTP site serving MP3's advertised through IRC chatrooms. This was back in the days before it was socially acceptable or at least popular to do these things, right before napster got big. My school threw the book at me, cutting me off from internet access for a semester ( a *HUGE* blow to a freshman CS major) and giving me disciplinary probation for a year. Guys on my floor would get caught smoking weed and get a mere slap on the wrists. But, what they did do for me was the same thing- promised to not release my name, or any personal information about me, essentially washing my hands of the situation (well except for that whole explaining to the parents as to why I am on disciplinary probation).
100 does seem to be a bit much, but think less in terms of people, and more in terms of devices- think alarm clocks that use network time servers linked to GPS to always keep your time right (no more running around the house after power outages to reset all the clocks), cars hooked up to the internet to deliver news, traffic, etc to you on the morning commute. Think net connected webcams to keep an eye on your house while youre away. it goes on and on, cellphones, pda's, cable boxes, VOIP phones. This is a list devised in a few minutes so yeah some of the examples seem like overkill- but also take into account the plummeting prices of electronics. I dont think wireless networks that work pretty much flawlessly with as much of a market saturation as internet access is science fiction; and once that occurs, adding wireless capability to everyday items (for whatever reason) is cheap enough where that net connected alarm clock isnt such a silly idea anymore. IPV6 is meant for the very long haul, and applications not even dreamed of yet.
"This brings up another grievance I have with it, that being the lack of an accompanying disc. I feel every book on programming with long examples out to come with a disc containing all example programs, so that the reader can tweak and observe them as he sees fit, without typing in five pages of code. The best way to learn is often by example, and discouraging lazy people doesn't help the learning process along."
Not having a disk forces you to type the programs in. Even in autotype drool mood, you pick up alot more than copying and pasting code and running it. Lazy people wont learn programming by copying and pasting code. They are the type that will read individual words without comprehending their meaning and 'finish' the book, and say they 'know' programming while absorbing mebbe 1% of the material. At least if they have to sit there and type the code, they might pick up something, and when they inevitably make mistakes in copying it, have to figure out how to fix it, which is a forced interactive process that gets the wheels spinning. In a more advanced type book, like a data structures or design pattern type book you can get away with code on a disc, but in a beginner book I do not think it is appropriate.
I think a necessary component of allowing TK's is making the penalty for being killed not that onerous. It sucks to get killed and then lose a level, your equipment, etc, and then have to work your way back up. In addition, PK'ing needs to be tightly controlled, so some level 500 or so player doesnt prey upon some newbie. Confining it to specific areas and allowing it only within certain skill ranges is necessary. In general, it is best to let the noobs run around fighting NPC's, allowing only the higher level characters to kill each other- especially since they are more involved in the game and therefore better equipped to handle it- A player may have a vendetta against another player and use his social connections to seek revenge, and as long as it is all done 'in character' and somewhat maturely, it could add a great storyline to the game.
I know VB is not the way to go for serious programming, but neither is basic. And you know what will turn off kids or even hardware enthusiasts that wannabe programmers most? Typing in a hello world program in C or C++ or whatever, and having it output in a fugly console window. There is no sense of accomplishment in that. Back in 1980, that was pretty cool. in 1990, that was acceptable. But if you want to ignite a spark in someone, that is not going to cut it today. There are free "Student" versions of VB that MS gives away, that doesnt allow you to make a.exe out of your program, you can just compile/run it on the fly from within the program. And if someone really wants to make an.exe out of it, they can acquire VS (acquire being a nice generic term). Playing with the gui window designer, and then putting code behind those buttons and text boxes will make the aspiring programmer feel like he is doing something cool, and then hopefully send him onto bigger and better things, and eventually different languages platfroms. typing gcc helloworld.cpp -o helloworld, and then having it print out "hello world" in a console box is NOT going to cut it. The goal is not to start out making them serious developers, the goal is to get them interested in programming so they want to become serious developers, and MS/VB perform that function well. You can write many cool applications in VB without alot of effort. The only other alternative I can think of is a web based technology like ASP/JSP/PHP, but due to the fact that is difficult to get a decent host for a website on a budget of zero dollars that your friends can go to and say "cool!", I think that those technologies lose their novelty really fast. Plus the bar to entry is a little higher, since you have to understand the relationship between the pages and the webserver, as well as configure things correctly, which VB does not require. Apache/IIS can be a little intimidating at fist and after seeking help and getting a load of RTFM responses, said wannabe programmer will quickly give up and just go back to playing PS2.
You have obviously not played Gran Turismo 3, at least not very far. It is an extremely finesse game. Go ahead, take The Pikes Peak Escudo, put the Stage 4 Turbo on it, giving it I believe 1100hp- the most in the game and we will see how far you get. You will not get much farther than midway through the amateur league, except maybe on a closed in course like tokyo. You get eaten alive doing that on the open courses with large sandpits. You have to get fairly far into the game before you can really start taking shortcuts (IE buying a lancer when at the end of beginner mode and putting rally tires on it, to race in rally mode where the payouts are alot higher, and then doing the circuits gaining enough points to win even though you come in last on the last race of the circuit, saving before the last race, and then keep resetting till you get the best car that circuit has to offer). These take a bit of cleverness and foresight to pull off, especially for a first timer going through the game. I would not call that "very, very easy." Going into rally mode early is taking advantage of something I assume the designers had just not thought of, and using the 'save method' to get the best cars you can win in a circuit is pretty much cheating to me. Otherwise, it is very time consuming to jump ahead of the curve of where you should be in the game, and you will still get cremated on the time trial's, license tests, and series where the cars are limited to a certain type. If by many courses you mean the test track, super speedway, and maybe tokyo, I will give it to you, but what are you going to do on the other 7 races of the circuit. Beat some time trials or get an S license and tell me again how easy it is. Its like youre telling me everyone playing SOCOM sucks because you shoot them by taking advantage of the wall glitches.
Can it be confirmed or denied that GT4 will have 5.1 sound? The other changes in the game seem to be fairly incremental, but I found the sound ( and soundtrack for that matter) to be kind of lacking. When I play SOCOM (on my pretty spiffy home theater system), it sounds and feels like my room is in the middle of a warzone, but when I play GT3, that roar I would expect to feel coming out of the sub and just a general audio experience as immersive as the visual and gameplay just isnt there. More cars are nice, I will give you that, as well as what I would assume to be marginally tweaked graphics, but I guess we will not see a revolutionary type game until PS3 comes out. The lack of even a rudimentary damage system (car go BAM into wall at X miles an hour = topspeed - X* FACTOR or something similar with handling) is pretty dissapointing though. Hopefully the physics model will be somewhat improved to prevent 'using' walls and spearing opponents. I guess it wouldnt be GT style to have just a basic damage system, if it is going to be done it is going to be done right. And as for the game being changed to have the races 'closer', have some mercy on us! If every series has to be as grueling and difficult as the vitz professional or F1 series, the level of frustration is going to turn many players away- the scarcity of money in the game prevents you from getting a car that is significantly ahead of the curve of where you are in the game, unless you really just sit there doing easy courses for hours stockpiling cash. I LOVED GT3, and I will buy GT4 regardless, but I am not overly optimistic about it being that much of an improvement. I view this more as a 'track and car add-on pack' than anything. I really doubt I will be gaining 100% completion on GT4 (which by the way, after spending 4 months playing, give me a little something better for my accomplishment than a car I already have, and a chance to watch credits which I have already seen again- How about something cool like putting every car in my garage, unlimited cash, or a totally unique super car, course or something. Note to non GT'ers- GT is NOT a 50 hour game. I would say closer to 250, though that is a very rough estimate). And of course, my $50 will be well spent if for only the online mode. I am very curious to see how that will pan out- I know there are some cars that I grew very fond of, and had tweaked oh so nicely, but as my friends and I soon found out, the only real way to race is with two cars set up exactly the same. I hope the game facilitates this somehow, and they can keep cheating out of the game entirely.
That is not entirely true. Horses have not taken over ecosystems and multiplied like wildfire and killed other species in the US. If anything, they probably refill the role of grazing that was lost when buffalo were all but eradicated. Cute and furry animals do get killed all the time- a good example would be kangaroos in Australia, where they apparently just run excessively rampant and the gov't takes steps to control the populations. That does not hold much water I know due to the fact that they are afaik indigenous to the region. I am not an expert on this stuff, so I cant really comment on what furry little animals have moved into ecosystems and destroyed them while humans looked the other way. But I do think you are off base on this. If cute furry litte beavers were taking over lakes in florida, killing off other species, I am pretty sure the EPA would do something.
I didnt mean that 'up to the minute' comment to mean its slow. It is much faster... but I guess I had a whole scenario in my head that I didnt explain enough... What I was saying is that google is constantly updating its database of searches and whatnot, and as most know, its a giant cluster system. So... one node goes out, you lose that latest information on a search. Now.. I have never seen a search fail, so they must use older data for the search. IE lets say a node goes down that has some of the information about the huge tornado storms that have rocked the south in the past week. Now someone does a search on 'tornado south' and they will not get that information in their search. Thats what I was referring to as not being up to the minute. I am not completely pulling this out of my ***. I have read an interview w/ one of the google heads that describes in vague terms how it works. Essentially they go around once a week and just replace failed components. My real point was that RAM is volatile, and you will need to have the DB backed up to a disk at all times- for most applications, you cant lose even a single transaction. And for write intensive applications, you lose alot of the benefits of using RAM disks, since the disk is still a bottleneck anyway. But of course read only oriented applications would rock using a scheme like this.
they too understand the renting cycle and are more than willing to let me stay home and save up for a down payment, rather than throw all my money down a hole. Give me a call in 20 years, we will see who's family is in better financial shape.
this is true, google does hold everything in RAM, but google does not care if one of those boxes goes down and they have to rely on a couple of hours old data for searches. However, a financial institution, or even a webstore, can not afford to just lose a couple of transactions if a machine goes down. I do not think this model would work well except for Databases that are primarily read only (IE you wont have to write to disk that often), since for this to work for most DB's you are going to need an up to the millisecond snapshot of the DB. Google is in a unique position where it is not critical for its data to be 100% up to the minute, and that is why it works. There are many applications for this, but this is not really a one size fits all solution.
student loans are chump change compared to the price of real estate in most areas. im just out of school, and have no loans, and I paid off my car completely (I went to a state school on a scholarship and saved like crazy in high school before you start in about mom and dad), yet can not even begin to think about affording a house. a co-op in my area (LI, NY) goes for 200k and a two bedroom house 280k, at the low end. Apartments alone are like 1000 a month. I am going to have to live at home for another few years to get a down payment (I refuse to rent and perpetuate myself into an endless renting cycle). a degree is a degree, and no one forces you to get one. State schools are still worth it. Why anyone would pay 160k for a degree from CW Post or a no-name private school is beyond me. But values can always be found, whether it be a high end private school, or a state school.
Also remember, that the command line died two years ago. Microsoft had a big party for it and everything. I guess its buried next to the floppy disk, printers ( paperless office), serial port, parallel port, tape backup systems, and mainframes.
Slashdot Mirror
"And I am sorry, but any employee who is swayed by stock options IS A TOTAL FSCKING MORON. The only way stock options are valuable is if the stock price of the company significantly increases from the time the options are granted to the time they are vested."
Not necessarily true. In general, the idea behind options is to issue them below the current market price, then after a period of a few years, they vest and the employee can cash them in for real stock. So it works even if the company's stock stays even. However, the whole point is for the stock to go up, so everyone is happy. Some have argued that options have reduced the impetus to give back dividends, since options give you the option to buy the price at X price, they dont give you the actual stock, and thus the dividends that go with it- that takes away alot of motivation to give back dividends now, rather than buoy the stock price a bit by adding growth, even if the total return over the long run would be better to shareholders if a dividend was issued- option holders, IE insiders in the company are better off, and they're making the decisions. Additionally, the lack of dividend trend is primarily caused by owners of the company-IE investors, because they are obsessed with growth. In the past it was somewhat acceptable to be happy with your niche, remain profitable in that, and have your investors gain by giving most of the profit back as dividends. Nowadays, a stock's 'score' is mostly reflected in its stock price, and it is hard to make a case for giving money back to shareholders instead of upgrading your infrastructure and technology.
Google directors get to save a small percentage of the billions they are going to make by skipping on underwriting charges, but the potential for the price being pushed to an artificial high in a auction before a catastrophic crash are large.
.com case, where a company shoots up to $100+ dollars a share, the issuing company itself does not see the bulk of the wealth, the underwriting firm does. Of course, the issuing company still holds (hopefully) a very substantial number of shares its own stock, so they too get a piece of the paper wealth, as well as cash equal to the number of shares offered * initial price. Its the underwriters who can really make out on the deal, as long as they still hold some shares before the price goes through the roof. So... in doing a direct auction, they save the underwriter's fee (which is not small, or else JP Morgan, Goldman Sach's etc... would not have towering skyscrapers on wall st. ) but more importantly can hopefully get a piece of some of those skyrocketing prices. This also allows the little guy a better chance to get in on the action. IPO's are generally sold off to mutual funds and other institutional investors, and individuals get essentially no chance to get in. Direct auctioning can also give everyone a fairer chance.
I am fairly new to the finance field, but the way IPO's generally work as I understand it is that the underwriting investment banking firm tries to define a target price for the stock, and then buys the stocks for that price minus a spread that serves as the underwriter's fee. The underwriter then resells those shares to the market, taking the risk that there may not be enough demand. However, in the
crappy anectodal evidence I know, but one of my best friends has high tension lines running through his backyard, about 40 feet from his house and has been living there for about 15 years (They get tax incentives and power discounts). It is a running joke that the grass directly underneath the four corners of the tower is a perfect neon green almost year round(In reality, its really crabgrass). But to throw in my two cents on health problems, the mother had a stroke a few years ago, but the rest of the family has not had any unusual health issues.
The big problem alot of people seem to be having is the difference between a watt and a watt-hour. .1 kwh. The 'average' uses 10-20kwh a day (us dorks w/ our computers and big screens and AC units being on the high end). So with this technology, you will break even in about 1/2 of a year, compared to the current technology, which is about 10 years. And you have that cool geek satisfaction of 'rolling your own.'
20 cents per watt is the ONE TIME cost for a solar panel, essentially $200 per kilowatt. So, you would get a return on your investment in 2000 kilowatt hours. A kilowatt hour is a slightly trickier concept, its the amount of energy your house consumes... so if you consume 2kilowatts of energy for an hour, you used 2 kilowatts. More likely, during peak usage, youre using about 1kilowatt of energy per hour, and during the day, maybe 100 watts per hour. Which for an hour would be 1 kwh, and
Maybe I am just getting F'ed... but I am in the 1-2 years experience range, and I know hardly anyone (programmers included) in the IT field who are making 50k a year (the average reported in the survey is (50,558 for 0-1 year guys w/ a bachelor), and certainly not any sysadmins at all- and thats in the NY metro area, where the costs of living (and thus salaries) are quite high. The fact that those in the 2 year range see a 5k drop in average salaries really makes me wonder if they had enough of a random sample, and a large enough sample altogether. Similarly, when I see average raises in certain metro areas being 87.5%, I think there is something significantly flawed in this survey to actually use it for anything meaningful. I get the feeling this survey attracted types who wanted to show off their earnings, or raises. I mean how can the group of 5-9 years guys get 6.8% average raises, while guys w/ 10-14 years experiene recieved a whopping 22.6% increase, yet their elder 15-19 group also only recieved 6.9% raises. I just cant see how this could happen to the actual group overall. Another glaring hole- guys with 1-2 years experience falling into the ambiguously defined 'level 4' (4 being highest) group. That many people came out of school and rose to CTO in a year? It is interesting, but to use this as a basis for actual salary comparison doesnt seem right. It seems even less scientific than a slashdot poll to me.
Well actually, it takes just one 'industry leader' to step up, make that first move and make money off of it. Important difference. Several manufacturers have already made forays into offering linux. The reality then- which I doubt has changed much- is that linux users are the types to build their own white boxes anyway. HP is also not likely to throw any marketing money behind it either. Its most likely going to be that PC in the back of the row of other boxes that none of the sales reps or customers have any real idea about. I dont know about you, but I am only going to get excited once I see these things featured in commercials on national stations touting the features of linux, or I walk into Best Buy and see the sales reps pushing the linux boxes equally as hard as the windows machines. Im surprised HP has even tried this, considering the lucrative discounts MS gives for 'exclusive' distribution rights on a company's machines. I bet the fact that they are competing in the server market w/ other OS's already precludes them from these deals.
well, I think youre not taking into accound the vast distances between the earth and this asteroid. The russians supposedly detonated a 50 megaton bomb in the 60's. So... using your logic, you would only need about 20 of these things to produce 1 billion tons of force. But... it gets better still. 1m/s is a huge number for an object so far away. If the asteroid is headed for the dead center of the earth, the earths radius is 6378 kilometers- which would be the distance that the asteroid would have to be pushed off course. If you do the math, we would only need 74 days from impact to knock it off course completely. Now obviously this is a grossly simplified and erroneous model assuming all that force could be directly applied to knocking the asteroid off course, but the real point is that reading your post kind of made think of austin powers when dr. evil tried to ransom the world for 1 million dollars :) - Your sense of magnitude was just a bit off.
The "Cell" processor is just that- A processor, a general purpose processor, not a GPU- graphics processing unit.
- years
spent not working and making real money in addition to the significant but not mind blowing increase in salary seems to me to not be anywhere near worth it from a monetary standpoint. Every PHD I met as an undergrad seemed to be fully intent upon spending the rest of their lives studying the subject of their thesis, or a closely related field. Being a PHD pretty much puts a label on you that says "hes a damn smart guy, and knows a crapload about a very narrow subject area" Alot of people tend to put their focus on the very narrow subject area though, me included. I mean yeah, obviously your problem solving skills and ability to meet goals is very high, but you also spent X years studying a subject involving words with an excessive number of syllables that has no relation to the problems and challenges typically encountered in the business world. I think you will only 'cash in' and be happy in the field if you study something of very practical use to a company- IE Software engineering processes, automated AI Bug finding techniques, etc. Then the IBM's and MS's (IE very large companies) of the world will probably look at you as having alot of value, but still as a research type and not as a guy in the trenches coding type. Either way, pick your thesis topic carefully, because you will most likely be roped into that area for the rest of your life.I did a bit of work like this on a palm pilot like device a few years ago. It was essentially a PDA w/ a laser scanner built into it made by symobl. It ran Windows CE- whose SDK is real nice, and makes it simple to make apps. the modem thing... that might be a little tricky- and expensive. How about USB? and the handwriting recognition API may need to be licensed- you would have to look at specific devices and platforms. But in essence, yes this is very doable, and probably not that hard. I was surprised how easy it was to program these things- there is nothing low-level involved at all.
Sony and the RIAA pulled this on me and my (old) school 5 years ago when I was a freshman undergrad and had an FTP site serving MP3's advertised through IRC chatrooms. This was back in the days before it was socially acceptable or at least popular to do these things, right before napster got big. My school threw the book at me, cutting me off from internet access for a semester ( a *HUGE* blow to a freshman CS major) and giving me disciplinary probation for a year. Guys on my floor would get caught smoking weed and get a mere slap on the wrists. But, what they did do for me was the same thing- promised to not release my name, or any personal information about me, essentially washing my hands of the situation (well except for that whole explaining to the parents as to why I am on disciplinary probation).
100 does seem to be a bit much, but think less in terms of people, and more in terms of devices- think alarm clocks that use network time servers linked to GPS to always keep your time right (no more running around the house after power outages to reset all the clocks), cars hooked up to the internet to deliver news, traffic, etc to you on the morning commute. Think net connected webcams to keep an eye on your house while youre away. it goes on and on, cellphones, pda's, cable boxes, VOIP phones. This is a list devised in a few minutes so yeah some of the examples seem like overkill- but also take into account the plummeting prices of electronics. I dont think wireless networks that work pretty much flawlessly with as much of a market saturation as internet access is science fiction; and once that occurs, adding wireless capability to everyday items (for whatever reason) is cheap enough where that net connected alarm clock isnt such a silly idea anymore. IPV6 is meant for the very long haul, and applications not even dreamed of yet.
It is a draft copy, and there is contact info on his site, why not let him know that?
"This brings up another grievance I have with it, that being the lack of an accompanying disc. I feel every book on programming with long examples out to come with a disc containing all example programs, so that the reader can tweak and observe them as he sees fit, without typing in five pages of code. The best way to learn is often by example, and discouraging lazy people doesn't help the learning process along." Not having a disk forces you to type the programs in. Even in autotype drool mood, you pick up alot more than copying and pasting code and running it. Lazy people wont learn programming by copying and pasting code. They are the type that will read individual words without comprehending their meaning and 'finish' the book, and say they 'know' programming while absorbing mebbe 1% of the material. At least if they have to sit there and type the code, they might pick up something, and when they inevitably make mistakes in copying it, have to figure out how to fix it, which is a forced interactive process that gets the wheels spinning. In a more advanced type book, like a data structures or design pattern type book you can get away with code on a disc, but in a beginner book I do not think it is appropriate.
I think a necessary component of allowing TK's is making the penalty for being killed not that onerous. It sucks to get killed and then lose a level, your equipment, etc, and then have to work your way back up. In addition, PK'ing needs to be tightly controlled, so some level 500 or so player doesnt prey upon some newbie. Confining it to specific areas and allowing it only within certain skill ranges is necessary. In general, it is best to let the noobs run around fighting NPC's, allowing only the higher level characters to kill each other- especially since they are more involved in the game and therefore better equipped to handle it- A player may have a vendetta against another player and use his social connections to seek revenge, and as long as it is all done 'in character' and somewhat maturely, it could add a great storyline to the game.
I know VB is not the way to go for serious programming, but neither is basic. And you know what will turn off kids or even hardware enthusiasts that wannabe programmers most? Typing in a hello world program in C or C++ or whatever, and having it output in a fugly console window. There is no sense of accomplishment in that. Back in 1980, that was pretty cool. in 1990, that was acceptable. But if you want to ignite a spark in someone, that is not going to cut it today. There are free "Student" versions of VB that MS gives away, that doesnt allow you to make a .exe out of your program, you can just compile/run it on the fly from within the program. And if someone really wants to make an .exe out of it, they can acquire VS (acquire being a nice generic term). Playing with the gui window designer, and then putting code behind those buttons and text boxes will make the aspiring programmer feel like he is doing something cool, and then hopefully send him onto bigger and better things, and eventually different languages platfroms. typing gcc helloworld.cpp -o helloworld, and then having it print out "hello world" in a console box is NOT going to cut it. The goal is not to start out making them serious developers, the goal is to get them interested in programming so they want to become serious developers, and MS/VB perform that function well. You can write many cool applications in VB without alot of effort.
The only other alternative I can think of is a web based technology like ASP/JSP/PHP, but due to the fact that is difficult to get a decent host for a website on a budget of zero dollars that your friends can go to and say "cool!", I think that those technologies lose their novelty really fast. Plus the bar to entry is a little higher, since you have to understand the relationship between the pages and the webserver, as well as configure things correctly, which VB does not require. Apache/IIS can be a little intimidating at fist and after seeking help and getting a load of RTFM responses, said wannabe programmer will quickly give up and just go back to playing PS2.
You have obviously not played Gran Turismo 3, at least not very far. It is an extremely finesse game. Go ahead, take The Pikes Peak Escudo, put the Stage 4 Turbo on it, giving it I believe 1100hp- the most in the game and we will see how far you get. You will not get much farther than midway through the amateur league, except maybe on a closed in course like tokyo. You get eaten alive doing that on the open courses with large sandpits. You have to get fairly far into the game before you can really start taking shortcuts (IE buying a lancer when at the end of beginner mode and putting rally tires on it, to race in rally mode where the payouts are alot higher, and then doing the circuits gaining enough points to win even though you come in last on the last race of the circuit, saving before the last race, and then keep resetting till you get the best car that circuit has to offer). These take a bit of cleverness and foresight to pull off, especially for a first timer going through the game. I would not call that "very, very easy." Going into rally mode early is taking advantage of something I assume the designers had just not thought of, and using the 'save method' to get the best cars you can win in a circuit is pretty much cheating to me. Otherwise, it is very time consuming to jump ahead of the curve of where you should be in the game, and you will still get cremated on the time trial's, license tests, and series where the cars are limited to a certain type. If by many courses you mean the test track, super speedway, and maybe tokyo, I will give it to you, but what are you going to do on the other 7 races of the circuit. Beat some time trials or get an S license and tell me again how easy it is. Its like youre telling me everyone playing SOCOM sucks because you shoot them by taking advantage of the wall glitches.
Can it be confirmed or denied that GT4 will have 5.1 sound? The other changes in the game seem to be fairly incremental, but I found the sound ( and soundtrack for that matter) to be kind of lacking. When I play SOCOM (on my pretty spiffy home theater system), it sounds and feels like my room is in the middle of a warzone, but when I play GT3, that roar I would expect to feel coming out of the sub and just a general audio experience as immersive as the visual and gameplay just isnt there. More cars are nice, I will give you that, as well as what I would assume to be marginally tweaked graphics, but I guess we will not see a revolutionary type game until PS3 comes out. The lack of even a rudimentary damage system (car go BAM into wall at X miles an hour = topspeed - X* FACTOR or something similar with handling) is pretty dissapointing though. Hopefully the physics model will be somewhat improved to prevent 'using' walls and spearing opponents. I guess it wouldnt be GT style to have just a basic damage system, if it is going to be done it is going to be done right. And as for the game being changed to have the races 'closer', have some mercy on us! If every series has to be as grueling and difficult as the vitz professional or F1 series, the level of frustration is going to turn many players away- the scarcity of money in the game prevents you from getting a car that is significantly ahead of the curve of where you are in the game, unless you really just sit there doing easy courses for hours stockpiling cash. I LOVED GT3, and I will buy GT4 regardless, but I am not overly optimistic about it being that much of an improvement. I view this more as a 'track and car add-on pack' than anything. I really doubt I will be gaining 100% completion on GT4 (which by the way, after spending 4 months playing, give me a little something better for my accomplishment than a car I already have, and a chance to watch credits which I have already seen again- How about something cool like putting every car in my garage, unlimited cash, or a totally unique super car, course or something. Note to non GT'ers- GT is NOT a 50 hour game. I would say closer to 250, though that is a very rough estimate). And of course, my $50 will be well spent if for only the online mode. I am very curious to see how that will pan out- I know there are some cars that I grew very fond of, and had tweaked oh so nicely, but as my friends and I soon found out, the only real way to race is with two cars set up exactly the same. I hope the game facilitates this somehow, and they can keep cheating out of the game entirely.
That is not entirely true. Horses have not taken over ecosystems and multiplied like wildfire and killed other species in the US. If anything, they probably refill the role of grazing that was lost when buffalo were all but eradicated. Cute and furry animals do get killed all the time- a good example would be kangaroos in Australia, where they apparently just run excessively rampant and the gov't takes steps to control the populations. That does not hold much water I know due to the fact that they are afaik indigenous to the region. I am not an expert on this stuff, so I cant really comment on what furry little animals have moved into ecosystems and destroyed them while humans looked the other way. But I do think you are off base on this. If cute furry litte beavers were taking over lakes in florida, killing off other species, I am pretty sure the EPA would do something.
I would be more concerned if bits of typical Kazaa traffic got mixed in your conversation with your mother ;).
I didnt mean that 'up to the minute' comment to mean its slow. It is much faster... but I guess I had a whole scenario in my head that I didnt explain enough... What I was saying is that google is constantly updating its database of searches and whatnot, and as most know, its a giant cluster system. So... one node goes out, you lose that latest information on a search. Now.. I have never seen a search fail, so they must use older data for the search. IE lets say a node goes down that has some of the information about the huge tornado storms that have rocked the south in the past week. Now someone does a search on 'tornado south' and they will not get that information in their search. Thats what I was referring to as not being up to the minute. I am not completely pulling this out of my ***. I have read an interview w/ one of the google heads that describes in vague terms how it works. Essentially they go around once a week and just replace failed components. My real point was that RAM is volatile, and you will need to have the DB backed up to a disk at all times- for most applications, you cant lose even a single transaction. And for write intensive applications, you lose alot of the benefits of using RAM disks, since the disk is still a bottleneck anyway. But of course read only oriented applications would rock using a scheme like this.
they too understand the renting cycle and are more than willing to let me stay home and save up for a down payment, rather than throw all my money down a hole. Give me a call in 20 years, we will see who's family is in better financial shape.
this is true, google does hold everything in RAM, but google does not care if one of those boxes goes down and they have to rely on a couple of hours old data for searches. However, a financial institution, or even a webstore, can not afford to just lose a couple of transactions if a machine goes down. I do not think this model would work well except for Databases that are primarily read only (IE you wont have to write to disk that often), since for this to work for most DB's you are going to need an up to the millisecond snapshot of the DB. Google is in a unique position where it is not critical for its data to be 100% up to the minute, and that is why it works. There are many applications for this, but this is not really a one size fits all solution.
student loans are chump change compared to the price of real estate in most areas. im just out of school, and have no loans, and I paid off my car completely (I went to a state school on a scholarship and saved like crazy in high school before you start in about mom and dad), yet can not even begin to think about affording a house. a co-op in my area (LI, NY) goes for 200k and a two bedroom house 280k, at the low end. Apartments alone are like 1000 a month. I am going to have to live at home for another few years to get a down payment (I refuse to rent and perpetuate myself into an endless renting cycle). a degree is a degree, and no one forces you to get one. State schools are still worth it. Why anyone would pay 160k for a degree from CW Post or a no-name private school is beyond me. But values can always be found, whether it be a high end private school, or a state school.
Also remember, that the command line died two years ago. Microsoft had a big party for it and everything. I guess its buried next to the floppy disk, printers ( paperless office), serial port, parallel port, tape backup systems, and mainframes.