I mentioned SRGs myself in the previous Mars' stories. RTGs (which are orders of magnitudes less efficient than SRGs) produce about 75Watts per 2.5 pounds of Plutonium, so weight is not a huge issue. About 5 pounds is all it would take to power all the rover's systems. Another poster even pointed out that when asked, the Mars rover scientists stated that they really wanted an RTG so they could drive the thing around for years instead of 90 days.
Besides the time value (and we would have alot more on the planet with robots rather then humans) is there any reason for they to be there?
When Edmond Hillary was asked why he climbed Everest, he answered, "Because it's there."
Shouldn't one of the technologies developed be to resolve the above technical problems?
No need. We already have the technology. A NERVA rocket could power HUMANS to Mars in a fraction of the time it takes a chemical rocket. And those nuclear reactor can go to good use for "living off the land".
Class action or not, if the defending company stands to lose more money by settling than dragging the litigation out appeal after appeal after appeal
No, it would be FAR less expensive to settle. Layers cost big bucks. An agreement to not harrass you about your bandwidth usage, plus your legal fees, plus a few thousand for damages is going to cost WAY less than dragging a case through court. And if there is a potential for a class action suit, the company will want to cover it up as fast as possible. Once a law firm hears "class-action", they won't stop until they have BLOOD.
Be careful, it sounds like you're giving me legal advice!
Ahh, what the hell. Here's my fool proof legal advice: Talk to a lawyer.:-)
I can't say I despise the ones who can do a decent job. After all, architects and engineers have to work with construction workers. Programming is not necessarily all that different. The primary difference is that construction workers don't spend time getting masters degrees for their jobs and schools don't dumb down their courses so that just about anyone can become an engineer.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few people who shouldn't be in programming in the first place. They have zero interest in what they're doing, and it shows. Not to mention that there has to be a balance between your architects, engineers, and construction workers.
Architects design something. These guys are rare. Engineers compensate for reality in the design. These guys are more common. Then you have about 10-12 construction workers per engineer to actually build the thing (with constant supervision and help from the engineers of course).
In programming, companies want lots and lots of construction workers and really don't want to pay for architects and engineers. Thus quality suffers, and products are much slower to implement. Companies think that they need more construction workers, so they hire more. Well, that's too expensive, so let's farm it out to somewhere where they'll have even less direction than we've already given.
See where I'm going with this? I really don't care that Bangalore has 150K tech workers, because they are a highly ineffective force. They were made that way by poor management decisions which were based on the idea that hundreds of tech workers costs less than an architect, a few engineers and a dozen or less construction workers.
Hmm... You know, I think that explaination may be one of the better one's I've given. Maybe I should write a dissertation on this...
You're not the only one annoyed with battery power. I tried to suggest a battery that would last years and not a single person would comment on the technical feasability of the design. All I got instead was a lecture on the "dangers of atomics". What's pathetic is that radioisotopes are not much more dangerous than the stuff already in your batteries. *sigh*
How strange. I've never heard Berkley referred to as "Cal", I've always referred to it as "Berkley". Where does this tradition come from? Is it simply a shortening of "California"?
I was saying I "must be against Stanford" because they are our school rival (in terms of sports). It seems like you didn't know that.
As it would seem. Pretty hard when you misinterpret the first reference.:-)
BTW, I should probably mention that I believe that Berkley has historically been a wonderful school. Computer Science has been significantly furthered at that school and to ignore the situation would be foolish. However, I think that many have lost sight of what institutes of higher education are for.
Their original purpose was not so you could get a degree and hit the job market running. Instead, these institutes exist as a gathering place for some of the best minds in the country. A place where research can be discussed, arts can be presents, and experiments performed. As any good scientist can tell you, there is nothing more powerful than peer review. Going to one of these schools was an attempt to enter the world of intellectuals.
But why should an expert share his wisdom with just one apprentice? Thus, the classroom was born. Anywhere from 10 to a hundred students of art or science could listen and absorb the wisdom and knowledge of their superiors.
In addition, these institutes offered great libraries with information on any subject. Everything produced by the greatest minds in history was there to absorb. You may not be able to talk with Isaac Newton, but you could take a journey inside his thoughts to understand his concepts and how he came to his conclusions.
Now let me ask you. Which do you think is more true to that original vision: Self-learners who converse intelligently in worldwide public forums, or the number of degreed individuals who are in the job market today?
Sorry, but to me it looks liek you're just playing with semantics. I think having a degree implies having an education. I do agree, though, that you can educate yourself.
Having a degree implies you attended an educational institute and where able to pass the courses. It does not actually certify that you are educated. An educated individual learns and retains what he knows. The problem with traditional school settings is that most students aren't interested in the subject until they're *out* of school. They then reattend school at a later date to pick up what they missed. They fail to realize that a little research in the subject they are interested in would produce much more plentiful fruits.
But that's not the point. I think there's a difference between being taught methodologies, approaches to problems, working with smart lab partners, etc compared to taking just some technical classes are you local CC, using a "Learn ___ programming in 21 days", etc.
And I think there is a difference between "Learn X in 21 days" and reading "Operating System Design", "Practical Data Structures", "BeOS File System Design", "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" (Sorry, I just REALLY love this book), "Intel x86 Architecture Reference", "Intel x86 Instruction Reference", "Sparc V Architecture Reference", etc. Reading "How-To for Dummies" will help you become what the title says. Reading the books, papers, and history that made the industry what it is today can make you an expert in your field.
To sum things up: If you aren't learning on your own, you don't stand a chance of mastering your chosen profession. That applies whether you chose traditional schooling or self-teaching.
P.S. A positive benefit of self-teaching is that you can become educated enough to be conversant in fields that would have otherwise left you at a loss. While I'm no expert, I'm conversant in history, language semantics, nuclear physics, quantum and relativistic physics, Naval history, and several other subjects I'm probably forgetting. While I'll probably never enter these fields as a worker, they fascinate me and cause me to want to learn more. Besides, you'll never know when information from another field will help you solve a problem in your chosen field. That's why liberal arts degrees are required. (Although I'm not entirely sure I agree with the requirement.)
Are you a lawyer? I'd be careful about making that assumption unless you are. An ISP would be unlikely to want to pursue such a case as it could become a class action suit. The only way to know for sure is to talk with a lawyer.
If a provider tried to enforce this, a lawyer could probably have a judge find this contract "unenforceable" and possibly even be able to get you a hefty settlement. The problem is that sudden changes to the terms of a contract without notification is inherently unfair to the other party. Now if they sent you a warning that you have exceeded their current limits, a judge may find in their favor. However, that warning would probably need to state how much is "too much", otherwise they're leaving themselves open to another "unfair contract" suit.
BTW, IANAL, but you should talk with one anyway. Dollars to doughnuts says he can make it happen.
As a risk averse investor, my long term investments are made up of a series of more predictable short term investments.
Excuse while I go bug eyed at that statement.
*Boing!*
Have you ever heard of "Blue Chip Stocks"? That's what we call "safe investments" because they are unlikely to fluctuate much. Now "small-cap" companies that are growing are considered "high risk, short-term, high-gains". There is no such thing as a "high gain, low risk, short-term investment". If there was, every investor in the world would be after it. Instead, you've taken Blue Chip, expected them to perform on a short term, then sell like crazy (thus killing the stock and losing money) when the news contains information about "long term planning". "Sun only returned a PENNY on their stock this quarter?! How dare they! Feel the wrath of the market you %&$*ers!"
The sooner you people figure out how to actually invest, the sooner the money will start flowing again. No wonder fee based advisors are becoming so popular. You might actually earn some money.
Too many investors don't look at the long term. They want instant gratification and "roll of the dice" situations. The fact that long term planning may result in far greater gains escapes them.
As much as people try to pick on Bush, it seems to be a government standard. My only guess is that the military types liked the idea of a different name for bombs than energy. Thus "Nukes, nucular" always refers to the things that go BOOM, and "nuclear" refers to energy producing and scientific uses.
75,000 to 250,000 pounds of thrust hardly sounds like "a light push". Think about this for a moment. Given the same amount of propellent, are ION engines more powerful or less powerful than chemical engines?
(insert Jeopardy music here)
If you said "more" you'd be absolutely correct. If they were less efficient, then a slow burning chemical engine would last longer than an ION drive. If they were equally efficient, then what is the point of the fancy ION engine?
The reason the current engines work like they do is that there isn't enough energy available in the system to constantly power tons of propellant. In a nuclear engine, the power is there in the form of heat. All you need to do is find a way to convert that into propulsion. Given that 1 Watt = 0.00134102209 horsepower, we find that a small 10 MW reactor puts out ~13,410 horsepower. That's not too shabby. Increase the power (say like you'd get in a meltdown situation) and you can watch those horsepower figures skyrocket.
BTW, it seems I fibbed a little. Apparently NERVA does exhaust some radiation, so it *may* not be usable in launch situations. I'm still not convinced that it's a problem, but I'll have to do a little more reading to find out how much it puts out and if there is any fallout.
You know, you're sounding awefully insecure about your education. Maybe you need to talk to CalTech's shrink department? That is, assuming Cal *has* a shrink department...
And that, in some way, is meant to make us feel better??!
*chuckle*:-)
No, I meant that the area wasn't destroyed in the meltdown, as many people believe. Stack 4 (IIRC) was more or less gone, but the rest of the stacks continued to operate for a long, long time. I think the new Russian government might have finally decommissioned the remaining reactors, but my memory is a little hazy.
I think people like you who say that education doesn't matter are full of it.
Education matters, degrees don't. Please don't confuse the two. An education is something that can be obtained at a school or with other resources (such as industry research). A degree is someone else certifying that you supposedly know something. I have an education. I know and understand more than 90% of the CS PhDs you'll find. If you want to ask how did I do that, you should ask how did the founders of the computer science field did it. Or for that matter, how did the professors who teach Comp Sci do it?
Computers in their modern form (i.e. mainframes forward), have only been around for a few decades. Think about it.
THe truth is if you want to survive CS programs are GOOD CS schools you either have to 1) know your stuff and be smart or 2) cheat. So a degree does, to some level, guarantee some degree of expertise.
Does it? Are you SURE about that? If you are, perhaps you'd like to explain the number of people I've met who've passed through the masters program, without even an idea on how to code Pong, much less an operating system? Companies have put a great deal of pressure on Universities to put out programmers that could "code in the popular languages". The Universities have been bowing to this pressure and dumbing down their ciriculum.
I can't even tell you how horrified I am when I see textbooks that say, "We'll teach you C/Java because it's the most popular thing on the market right now." NO! They should teach EVERYTHING! Core concepts. Everything from how the computer does it (aseembly) through the evolution of procedural to functional to OO language and design. And if the students can't handle it, they should flunk until they can.
Sir, you are indeed confused as you keep trying to claim I painted a picture that I did not. We'll go through your points together:
How can you call me confused when you point out 3 examples out of the hundreds of thousands of tech workers that exist in the Sillicon Valley?
Very simple. I gave three of the worst examples out of the hundreds I saw. Many were able to do a decent job (e.g. Anderson Consulting employees), but were hardly good programmer material. Others simply applied only what they'd learned and refused to learn anything new. In fact, there were *so many* "get rich quick" programmers in the valley, that it was nigh impossible to find the good ones.
That said, your reference to race is odd at best. I don't see the point and, if anything, just indicates that you have issues with race.
There are a couple of camps that have come forward:
1. Indians can do the job better. 2. Indians can't do jack. 3. Americans good, foreigners bad.
My point was only to show that they are all the same. Each race has good programmers, and each race has bad programmers. Such is the nature of things. I'm also attempting to show that from my experience, there is little to support the idea that the thousands of programmers in Bangalore are any different than the thousands of programmers who were in the Valley during the boom.
Most of the time I feel like I work with a bunch of idiots for legitime, intellectual and technical reasons. I am not confused.
And here you make my point. Most individuals in the tech industry don't belong there. Things would get done much better if we were left with only those who enjoy what they do. Unfortunately, money is a motivating factor for non-geeks to pretend.
You paint the picture that we were bunch of money-hungry bastards and I, personally, reject that notion.
I never said such a thing, nor would I. I have said that many individuals who exist in the field, are there for the money alone. That doesn't mean that all people are in the field just for money.
The difference I painted between the Valley and Bangalore is that many who came to the Valley could get decent paying jobs, but wanted to get stinking rich. Those who come to Bangalore just want a better life. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't automatically make them all good programmers.
Anyway, your remarks about the quality of programmers of SV compared to Chicago is dubious at best.
Why? While in Chicago, we had an easier time separating the wheat from the chaff. Once we got to California, the overriding number of poor programmers made it difficult to near impossible to find decent programmers.
I'm sure there are a bunch of shitty-ass programmer out here [in Chicago]
There are. My company had to fire a few of them during recent downsizings. (I didn't say I was still in CA, did I?)
but many of the engineers out here are UC Berkeley or Stanford graduates. Putting my original point that degrees have very little influence on the quality of a programmer aside, neither Berkley or Stanford could put out anywhere near the number of "programmers" required to produce the bubble. All those "programmers" came from across the nation and abroad looking to get rich.
Companies like Google, Yahoo, E-bay, and biotech companies didn't just sprout out of nowhere.
Yahoo was pre-bubble, but the same thing applies to them. These companies hired SMART PEOPLE AND PROGRAMMERS WHO LIKE TO PROGRAM. Most Dot-Bombs hired anyone who could compile "Hello World" because of the severe shortage. When you have 200+ programmers working on a project, you know there's something wrong.
Agree re: nuclear power. We need to put a spacecraft depot in low-Earth orbit to build and maintain the things, and get on with it.
You'll find that I'm a big proponent of nuclear technologies even here at home. They have the potential to change the world and outer space, but early mishandling of the technology has been spoiling it for everyone.
BTW, if you want a good laugh, read this reply to one of my posts.:-P
To prevent any lost data. JPEGs are lossy and lose or fake a lot of the true image data. Your eye doesn't usually notice it because you aren't trying to analyse the image at a pixel level detail. As a lossless format, Tiffs were probably chosen because it's a format that has been around a long time and is supported by most major imaging packages. (read: Photoshop)
An a side not to that, why do they even have the camera in black and white? Why not do all color?
This I don't know. My guess is that black and white takes less bandwidth and processing power. Thus they can get B&W photos quickly, and then send color versions later. This way, if anything goes wrong, they'll at least have a clue thanks to the B&W.
Wish NASA had a FAQ page with stuff like that instead of the ones they have. You would think a bunch of NASA geeks would have FAQ's like that but maybe they are so smart they don't frequently have to ask a lot of questions.
As I commented previously, their website looks like it's targeted at school children and people looking for pretty pictures. Useful information is pretty sparse and buried.
Slashdot Mirror
I mentioned SRGs myself in the previous Mars' stories. RTGs (which are orders of magnitudes less efficient than SRGs) produce about 75Watts per 2.5 pounds of Plutonium, so weight is not a huge issue. About 5 pounds is all it would take to power all the rover's systems. Another poster even pointed out that when asked, the Mars rover scientists stated that they really wanted an RTG so they could drive the thing around for years instead of 90 days.
Besides the time value (and we would have alot more on the planet with robots rather then humans) is there any reason for they to be there?
When Edmond Hillary was asked why he climbed Everest, he answered, "Because it's there."
Shouldn't one of the technologies developed be to resolve the above technical problems?
No need. We already have the technology. A NERVA rocket could power HUMANS to Mars in a fraction of the time it takes a chemical rocket. And those nuclear reactor can go to good use for "living off the land".
Close, but not quite. Originally you had to be a land owner. (And male.)
Class action or not, if the defending company stands to lose more money by settling than dragging the litigation out appeal after appeal after appeal
:-)
No, it would be FAR less expensive to settle. Layers cost big bucks. An agreement to not harrass you about your bandwidth usage, plus your legal fees, plus a few thousand for damages is going to cost WAY less than dragging a case through court. And if there is a potential for a class action suit, the company will want to cover it up as fast as possible. Once a law firm hears "class-action", they won't stop until they have BLOOD.
Be careful, it sounds like you're giving me legal advice!
Ahh, what the hell. Here's my fool proof legal advice: Talk to a lawyer.
I can't say I despise the ones who can do a decent job. After all, architects and engineers have to work with construction workers. Programming is not necessarily all that different. The primary difference is that construction workers don't spend time getting masters degrees for their jobs and schools don't dumb down their courses so that just about anyone can become an engineer.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few people who shouldn't be in programming in the first place. They have zero interest in what they're doing, and it shows. Not to mention that there has to be a balance between your architects, engineers, and construction workers.
Architects design something. These guys are rare. Engineers compensate for reality in the design. These guys are more common. Then you have about 10-12 construction workers per engineer to actually build the thing (with constant supervision and help from the engineers of course).
In programming, companies want lots and lots of construction workers and really don't want to pay for architects and engineers. Thus quality suffers, and products are much slower to implement. Companies think that they need more construction workers, so they hire more. Well, that's too expensive, so let's farm it out to somewhere where they'll have even less direction than we've already given.
See where I'm going with this? I really don't care that Bangalore has 150K tech workers, because they are a highly ineffective force. They were made that way by poor management decisions which were based on the idea that hundreds of tech workers costs less than an architect, a few engineers and a dozen or less construction workers.
Hmm... You know, I think that explaination may be one of the better one's I've given. Maybe I should write a dissertation on this...
You're not the only one annoyed with battery power. I tried to suggest a battery that would last years and not a single person would comment on the technical feasability of the design. All I got instead was a lecture on the "dangers of atomics". What's pathetic is that radioisotopes are not much more dangerous than the stuff already in your batteries. *sigh*
Cal == UC Berkeley not Cal Tech
:-)
How strange. I've never heard Berkley referred to as "Cal", I've always referred to it as "Berkley". Where does this tradition come from? Is it simply a shortening of "California"?
I was saying I "must be against Stanford" because they are our school rival (in terms of sports). It seems like you didn't know that.
As it would seem. Pretty hard when you misinterpret the first reference.
BTW, I should probably mention that I believe that Berkley has historically been a wonderful school. Computer Science has been significantly furthered at that school and to ignore the situation would be foolish. However, I think that many have lost sight of what institutes of higher education are for.
Their original purpose was not so you could get a degree and hit the job market running. Instead, these institutes exist as a gathering place for some of the best minds in the country. A place where research can be discussed, arts can be presents, and experiments performed. As any good scientist can tell you, there is nothing more powerful than peer review. Going to one of these schools was an attempt to enter the world of intellectuals.
But why should an expert share his wisdom with just one apprentice? Thus, the classroom was born. Anywhere from 10 to a hundred students of art or science could listen and absorb the wisdom and knowledge of their superiors.
In addition, these institutes offered great libraries with information on any subject. Everything produced by the greatest minds in history was there to absorb. You may not be able to talk with Isaac Newton, but you could take a journey inside his thoughts to understand his concepts and how he came to his conclusions.
Now let me ask you. Which do you think is more true to that original vision: Self-learners who converse intelligently in worldwide public forums, or the number of degreed individuals who are in the job market today?
Sorry, but to me it looks liek you're just playing with semantics. I think having a degree implies having an education. I do agree, though, that you can educate yourself.
Having a degree implies you attended an educational institute and where able to pass the courses. It does not actually certify that you are educated. An educated individual learns and retains what he knows. The problem with traditional school settings is that most students aren't interested in the subject until they're *out* of school. They then reattend school at a later date to pick up what they missed. They fail to realize that a little research in the subject they are interested in would produce much more plentiful fruits.
But that's not the point. I think there's a difference between being taught methodologies, approaches to problems, working with smart lab partners, etc compared to taking just some technical classes are you local CC, using a "Learn ___ programming in 21 days", etc.
And I think there is a difference between "Learn X in 21 days" and reading "Operating System Design", "Practical Data Structures", "BeOS File System Design", "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" (Sorry, I just REALLY love this book), "Intel x86 Architecture Reference", "Intel x86 Instruction Reference", "Sparc V Architecture Reference", etc. Reading "How-To for Dummies" will help you become what the title says. Reading the books, papers, and history that made the industry what it is today can make you an expert in your field.
To sum things up: If you aren't learning on your own, you don't stand a chance of mastering your chosen profession. That applies whether you chose traditional schooling or self-teaching.
P.S. A positive benefit of self-teaching is that you can become educated enough to be conversant in fields that would have otherwise left you at a loss. While I'm no expert, I'm conversant in history, language semantics, nuclear physics, quantum and relativistic physics, Naval history, and several other subjects I'm probably forgetting. While I'll probably never enter these fields as a worker, they fascinate me and cause me to want to learn more. Besides, you'll never know when information from another field will help you solve a problem in your chosen field. That's why liberal arts degrees are required. (Although I'm not entirely sure I agree with the requirement.)
For me, OpenOffice starts faster on the Mac than Microsoft Office (Entourage in particular takes FOREVER). Time for an upgrade maybe?
You just keep telling yourself that. Never mind that the rest of the world uses the same type of stock system...
A case like that would drag out for years
Are you a lawyer? I'd be careful about making that assumption unless you are. An ISP would be unlikely to want to pursue such a case as it could become a class action suit. The only way to know for sure is to talk with a lawyer.
If a provider tried to enforce this, a lawyer could probably have a judge find this contract "unenforceable" and possibly even be able to get you a hefty settlement. The problem is that sudden changes to the terms of a contract without notification is inherently unfair to the other party. Now if they sent you a warning that you have exceeded their current limits, a judge may find in their favor. However, that warning would probably need to state how much is "too much", otherwise they're leaving themselves open to another "unfair contract" suit.
BTW, IANAL, but you should talk with one anyway. Dollars to doughnuts says he can make it happen.
As a risk averse investor, my long term investments are made up of a series of more predictable short term investments.
Excuse while I go bug eyed at that statement.
*Boing!*
Have you ever heard of "Blue Chip Stocks"? That's what we call "safe investments" because they are unlikely to fluctuate much. Now "small-cap" companies that are growing are considered "high risk, short-term, high-gains". There is no such thing as a "high gain, low risk, short-term investment". If there was, every investor in the world would be after it. Instead, you've taken Blue Chip, expected them to perform on a short term, then sell like crazy (thus killing the stock and losing money) when the news contains information about "long term planning". "Sun only returned a PENNY on their stock this quarter?! How dare they! Feel the wrath of the market you %&$*ers!"
The sooner you people figure out how to actually invest, the sooner the money will start flowing again. No wonder fee based advisors are becoming so popular. You might actually earn some money.
anandtech happens to have been started by an indian
Read it again. That was his point.
Too many investors don't look at the long term. They want instant gratification and "roll of the dice" situations. The fact that long term planning may result in far greater gains escapes them.
Then there is the little matter of the naming of the processes on the process list. They rarely correspond at all to what actually started them.
Right click on the Task name, select "Go to Process". Right click on the selected process, click on "End Process".
As much as people try to pick on Bush, it seems to be a government standard. My only guess is that the military types liked the idea of a different name for bombs than energy. Thus "Nukes, nucular" always refers to the things that go BOOM, and "nuclear" refers to energy producing and scientific uses.
Okay, okay. The joke was funny at first, but it's starting to get a bit old.
Sheesh. If I ever want to demonstrate to someone how to effectively kill a joke, I'll send them here.
75,000 to 250,000 pounds of thrust hardly sounds like "a light push". Think about this for a moment. Given the same amount of propellent, are ION engines more powerful or less powerful than chemical engines?
(insert Jeopardy music here)
If you said "more" you'd be absolutely correct. If they were less efficient, then a slow burning chemical engine would last longer than an ION drive. If they were equally efficient, then what is the point of the fancy ION engine?
The reason the current engines work like they do is that there isn't enough energy available in the system to constantly power tons of propellant. In a nuclear engine, the power is there in the form of heat. All you need to do is find a way to convert that into propulsion. Given that 1 Watt = 0.00134102209 horsepower, we find that a small 10 MW reactor puts out ~13,410 horsepower. That's not too shabby. Increase the power (say like you'd get in a meltdown situation) and you can watch those horsepower figures skyrocket.
BTW, it seems I fibbed a little. Apparently NERVA does exhaust some radiation, so it *may* not be usable in launch situations. I'm still not convinced that it's a problem, but I'll have to do a little more reading to find out how much it puts out and if there is any fallout.
You know, you're sounding awefully insecure about your education. Maybe you need to talk to CalTech's shrink department? That is, assuming Cal *has* a shrink department...
And that, in some way, is meant to make us feel better??!
:-)
*chuckle*
No, I meant that the area wasn't destroyed in the meltdown, as many people believe. Stack 4 (IIRC) was more or less gone, but the rest of the stacks continued to operate for a long, long time. I think the new Russian government might have finally decommissioned the remaining reactors, but my memory is a little hazy.
I think people like you who say that education doesn't matter are full of it.
Education matters, degrees don't. Please don't confuse the two. An education is something that can be obtained at a school or with other resources (such as industry research). A degree is someone else certifying that you supposedly know something. I have an education. I know and understand more than 90% of the CS PhDs you'll find. If you want to ask how did I do that, you should ask how did the founders of the computer science field did it. Or for that matter, how did the professors who teach Comp Sci do it?
Computers in their modern form (i.e. mainframes forward), have only been around for a few decades. Think about it.
THe truth is if you want to survive CS programs are GOOD CS schools you either have to 1) know your stuff and be smart or 2) cheat. So a degree does, to some level, guarantee some degree of expertise.
Does it? Are you SURE about that? If you are, perhaps you'd like to explain the number of people I've met who've passed through the masters program, without even an idea on how to code Pong, much less an operating system? Companies have put a great deal of pressure on Universities to put out programmers that could "code in the popular languages". The Universities have been bowing to this pressure and dumbing down their ciriculum.
I can't even tell you how horrified I am when I see textbooks that say, "We'll teach you C/Java because it's the most popular thing on the market right now." NO! They should teach EVERYTHING! Core concepts. Everything from how the computer does it (aseembly) through the evolution of procedural to functional to OO language and design. And if the students can't handle it, they should flunk until they can.
Sir, you are indeed confused as you keep trying to claim I painted a picture that I did not. We'll go through your points together:
How can you call me confused when you point out 3 examples out of the hundreds of thousands of tech workers that exist in the Sillicon Valley?
Very simple. I gave three of the worst examples out of the hundreds I saw. Many were able to do a decent job (e.g. Anderson Consulting employees), but were hardly good programmer material. Others simply applied only what they'd learned and refused to learn anything new. In fact, there were *so many* "get rich quick" programmers in the valley, that it was nigh impossible to find the good ones.
That said, your reference to race is odd at best. I don't see the point and, if anything, just indicates that you have issues with race.
There are a couple of camps that have come forward:
1. Indians can do the job better.
2. Indians can't do jack.
3. Americans good, foreigners bad.
My point was only to show that they are all the same. Each race has good programmers, and each race has bad programmers. Such is the nature of things. I'm also attempting to show that from my experience, there is little to support the idea that the thousands of programmers in Bangalore are any different than the thousands of programmers who were in the Valley during the boom.
Most of the time I feel like I work with a bunch of idiots for legitime, intellectual and technical reasons. I am not confused.
And here you make my point. Most individuals in the tech industry don't belong there. Things would get done much better if we were left with only those who enjoy what they do. Unfortunately, money is a motivating factor for non-geeks to pretend.
You paint the picture that we were bunch of money-hungry bastards and I, personally, reject that notion.
I never said such a thing, nor would I. I have said that many individuals who exist in the field, are there for the money alone. That doesn't mean that all people are in the field just for money.
The difference I painted between the Valley and Bangalore is that many who came to the Valley could get decent paying jobs, but wanted to get stinking rich. Those who come to Bangalore just want a better life. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't automatically make them all good programmers.
Anyway, your remarks about the quality of programmers of SV compared to Chicago is dubious at best.
Why? While in Chicago, we had an easier time separating the wheat from the chaff. Once we got to California, the overriding number of poor programmers made it difficult to near impossible to find decent programmers.
I'm sure there are a bunch of shitty-ass programmer out here [in Chicago]
There are. My company had to fire a few of them during recent downsizings. (I didn't say I was still in CA, did I?)
but many of the engineers out here are UC Berkeley or Stanford graduates.
Putting my original point that degrees have very little influence on the quality of a programmer aside, neither Berkley or Stanford could put out anywhere near the number of "programmers" required to produce the bubble. All those "programmers" came from across the nation and abroad looking to get rich.
Companies like Google, Yahoo, E-bay, and biotech companies didn't just sprout out of nowhere.
Yahoo was pre-bubble, but the same thing applies to them. These companies hired SMART PEOPLE AND PROGRAMMERS WHO LIKE TO PROGRAM. Most Dot-Bombs hired anyone who could compile "Hello World" because of the severe shortage. When you have 200+ programmers working on a project, you know there's something wrong.
BTW, where are you at in Chicago?
Happy to see you're on the right side. :-)
:-)
:-P
Of course.
Agree re: nuclear power. We need to put a spacecraft depot in low-Earth orbit to build and maintain the things, and get on with it.
You'll find that I'm a big proponent of nuclear technologies even here at home. They have the potential to change the world and outer space, but early mishandling of the technology has been spoiling it for everyone.
BTW, if you want a good laugh, read this reply to one of my posts.
Also does anyone know why they even use Tiff's?
To prevent any lost data. JPEGs are lossy and lose or fake a lot of the true image data. Your eye doesn't usually notice it because you aren't trying to analyse the image at a pixel level detail. As a lossless format, Tiffs were probably chosen because it's a format that has been around a long time and is supported by most major imaging packages. (read: Photoshop)
An a side not to that, why do they even have the camera in black and white? Why not do all color?
This I don't know. My guess is that black and white takes less bandwidth and processing power. Thus they can get B&W photos quickly, and then send color versions later. This way, if anything goes wrong, they'll at least have a clue thanks to the B&W.
Wish NASA had a FAQ page with stuff like that instead of the ones they have. You would think a bunch of NASA geeks would have FAQ's like that but maybe they are so smart they don't frequently have to ask a lot of questions.
As I commented previously, their website looks like it's targeted at school children and people looking for pretty pictures. Useful information is pretty sparse and buried.