"And you "pay" again by watching advertising during your shows. "
Sorry, I neglected to address this in my first reply.
Let's say I'm new to the net. Let's say I'm told it's like my cable TV access. With that, I might imagine I need to suffer through commercials to get programming I want.
After being on the net a while, I realize I'm getting a half dozen ads in my mailbox every day. More, likely, if I'm signed up with someplace like emachines for my PC.
So, I think, I pay for my net access a second time in the tons of spam I get.
Nope, you're paying for the privelege of getting all that spam. Whee!
Ok, maybe I pay for my net access a second time in the form of banner ads -- ads which are deliberately made to confuse users (popups with fake "close" buttons, etc) in a way no "real" advertising would get away with. Oh, that doesn't pay for it either?
How many times do I have to pay for this internet, anyway?
Not only that, are you trying to tell me the quality of service on the net is anywhere near the quality of service I get when I pay for my cable TV? How many times has your ISP been down compared to your cable TV in the past year? How many times has slashdot been down compared to CNN in the past year?
Add to that the fact that it's silly to pay for something you can get for free... legality doesn't come into play here, folks. If someone says, "I'll wash your car for 10$" and someone else says, "I'll wash your car for free" you're likely to get it washed for free. This is true even if the guy offerng to wash your car for free seems to be a little shady. And let's say that guy gets put out of business by the feds for washing cars with stolen water. You don't think you'd still be reluctant to pay $10 for something you got for free a month ago?
The things you describe, to me, are either services (massage, education), or entertainment (theatre). They don't really fit the web paradigm.
Let's say you're at the massage. You paid $100 for this massage. The guy applies pressure to one spot on your back, and then says, "If you liked that, would you mind paying an extra dime for a little more pressure?"
Ok, obviously I'm stretching an already bad analogy.
As for entertainment, I don't spend money on movies I've never heard of. I already spend 20$ a month to get 20 movie channels. I'm only going to spend 20$ a night to watch a movie if that movie comes highly recommended to me.
And that's not a micropayment anyway. It would be more like I went to the movies, paid my 20$, and then every so often I had to pay more to enjoy some part of the show even more. "Would you like to recline your seat? Insert a dollar. Would you like the guy in front of you to take off his hat? Insert a dollar." Look, I already paid for the movie, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I already paid for my internet, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I know it doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't work that way. But John Q. Public doesn't know that, and as long as companies keep selling the Internet like it's another kind of cable TV, people will expect their flat rate to pay for everything.
You pay for cable service, but that's not something you can "hold in your hands."
Like I said -- cable service is a service, not a thing. I pay for cable once, and not again when I watch the show. For those that say I pay again with advertising -- true, for channels that run ads. But when I watch HBO (or any of the other 20 movie channels), I get no ads.
You pay for a newspaper subscription. Yes, you can physically touch the newspaper today, but once the recycling truck drives off, it's gone.
But the point stands -- I get something to hold in my hands. I can read it on the john. I can take it to a friend's house. I don't get 404 errors when I try and follow a link (i.e. turn the page). And I pay _once_, and get a wealth of stuff. I pay my measly 10 bucks a month, and I get all the news I can handle, with rather high quality reporting on world and local events, as well as sports, commentary, and comics (why pay a micropayment for Penny Arcade when I can pay a micropayment [50 cents] and get an entire newspaper, including 20+ comics?).
There's a few big reasons people are reluctant to pay for "content" online.
One is that they don't have anything to hold in their hands in exchange for their money.
If I buy a book, I have a physical artifact which will last much longer than my lifespan.
I still have tapes I bought when I was in middle school.
I still have the original floppies from computer games I bought around the same time.
What do I get to hold on to if I buy a year's subscription to a web news site, for example? Do I get access to archives of that year forever, even if the company that made the site goes under in the next recession? Please.
Another big reason is that if people aren't thinking in terms of buying a "thing" they're thinking in terms of a service. We pay for plenty of things we don't get to hold onto -- electricity, cable television, taxes, etc. But the thing is, you're already paying someone for the "service" part of your net connection -- your ISP.
It's just not in the normal buying pattern of people to pay for content on a medium they're already paying for. You can get people to upgrade to a higher quality service (sure, I'll buy digital cable), but to pay for the very thing you're already paying for?
I sign up for "Everything" with my cable company. They charge me like 60 bucks a month, and I get every channel they offer (except for PPV), 24/7.
Let's put it this way. I love the Sopranos. It's the best thing on TV these days. But I wouldn't want to have to give you my credit card every time I watch an episode, nor would I pay 2 bucks an episode to watch it. I pay $20 a month extra to be able to watch all the Sopranos I can handle, as well as all the other stuff I can handle on 20 other movie channels (yay Digital Cable).
If you could offer people the same deal on the net, they'd take it. But the net _isn't_ tv. Part of what makes it great is that it isn't tv. I don't want an Internet where every site I visit is controlled by one of 3 major companies.
So, we're screwed. People are used to paying one fee and getting a bunch of stuff with it. They pay their ISP 20 bucks a month (more for cable/dsl) and expect the same sort of deal.
"The way I see it, we are not teaching people to drive the car we are teaching people to build it. So yes you teach people to build an engine by ripping one apart."
I agree -- but most people who learn to build a car have at least driven one first:-). I guess, though, with your analogy, the people who are learning to craft software have at least used it before. I should be more careful in my choice of analogies.
There's a certain kind of thinking you need to develop to solve problems in a high level computer language. You will _eventually_ develop this kind of thinking in a lower level (say, assembler) programming language, but there's a lot of baggage to get through first.
I guess I'm looking at my own experiences, where I discovered the high level constructs first and then was interested enough to figure out how it all worked under the covers. I was fascinated when I learned assembly, and finally discovered how you could emulate the control structures I had already learned in assembly. Then... the realization that this was how it got implemented by the mysterious "compiler." Made me want to run out and take compilers classes. Which I did:).
I'm trying to see it from the other side... learning about stacks, branching, etc... without ever seeing an if...then...else in their lives. It seems awfully intidimating.
"Your fresman year should be devoted to assembly language, basic data structures and low level hardware concepts."
You're going to scare away the next generation of developers doing this, IMO. I would never have gone into computers if I couldn't write "hello world" with something as simple as "Print 'hello world'".
Everything else you say is dead on -- a real CS education should teach you about many different types of programming languages. You should feel comfortable talking about declarative, functional, procedural, and object-oriented languages. My favorite CS undergrad class dabbled in C++, Scheme, and Prolog. For our final project, we had to solve the same problem in all three languages. Though we all knew we'd never see Scheme or Prolog once we entered the workforce, it was amazing to see that the chosen problem was an order of magnitude easier to write (and faster to execute) in Prolog than C++.
But, to introduce people to computers, for their very first class where they have to type something in and see a response, do you really think we're going to fill our ranks by making them learn "MOV AX,BX" or letting them learn "A = A + 1"?
That's like saying you can't learn to cook without taking Chemistry first. Sure, if you know chemistry, you'll be a better cook. But to tell someone who thinks they want to cook, "Take chemistry first, then you can learn to sautee vegetables," seems a bit extremee to me.
A lot of comments so far have focused on whether it's good to teach people something high-level as their introduction to CS.
I think it's necessary in some ways. The sort of thinking which is required to succeed as a software developer starts with being able to look at a problem and break it down into loops, conditionals, etc. You need to introduce people into this way of thinking pretty early on.
I can't imagine my first exposure to the logic of computers being C (mine was Apple 2E basic). It's just too hairy, too full of ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Do you need to know that you can shoot yourself easily? Yes. Do you need to know about pointers, about memory allocation, etc? Sure. Which is why, after you understand how to think "like a computer" in some ways, you learn about what's under the hood.
I mean, imagine never even having been in a car and having someone explain driving to you by ripping an engine apart. Whoa, there... I mean, why not show them "look, you hit the gas, it goes faster" and find out if they're at all interested in why, first.
Anyway. Java isn't a toy language, and if it's a fad, so is OO programming itself. Java is a powerful language, being used in some of the biggest software projects out there right now, by some of the biggest software development houses out there. I know because I work at one, and I do Java development.
If you're going to discount Java as an introductory language, do so because it introduces (rather well, actually) the concept of OO on people who are still learning what "if" means, not because it is too simple. If C++ is okay for an introductory language, then Java is strictly better in my opinion. I would probably teach C to today's students the way I was taught assembly language. "You need to know this, it will make you a much better developer, but if you get stuck in a job using it, it's a bad sign."
You didn't even read the quote you included in your article:
"...each new PC that will be running a Microsoft Operating System be pre-installed with an OEM version..."
They're targeting companies that buy a few hundred PCs for their WINTel shop, and say they don't want to buy windows, because they can handle getting Windows themselves.
They don't care about your single PC, and they don't care about a Linux shop. But if a customer says, "yes, I plan to run windows on these" and then doesn't buy Windows, MS wants to know.
So, yes, that's sleazy and underhanded. But it isn't what you're saying it is.
Actually, even big names make a hell of a lot of money touring and selling merchandise. All those backstreet boys t-shirts and britney keychains add up.... (I seem to remember reading that these pop acts make insane amounts of cash selling promo items during their tours... I am having trouble finding a link to back this up, however).
High School can be a wonderful experience, but it can also be a terrible one. I won't lie to you; it's not easy. I hated high school at first, but as it went on, and I found the right friends and the right teachers, I actually enjoyed it.
Everything changes when you go to college. See, in college, everyone there is _paying to go there._ As such, it's a totally different environment. Being one of the "smart kids" earns you respect.
(Note, being a "smart ass" doesn't... being a know-it-all doesn't... but having real intelligence isn't something that gets "squished" in college the same way it might in high school)
You're only a freshman -- give school a little time. Maybe you'll find some people who you feel comfortable letting in to your life. Maybe you won't. But four years is a long time to shut everyone out....
There isn't an easy answer here. In a society where the taxpayer decides what the taxes pay for, you have no guarantee that the taxes are going to fund things like "feed the hungry."
As a society, we must spend our money on many different issues, trying to address many different problems. You rely on the taxpayers to bicker it out amongst each other (directly or through their representatives) how to spend the money, and how much they're willing to pay.
Personally, I think the "feed the hungry" banner is flown a little too often (yikes, here come the flames). Many countries are hit by famine not because they don't have enough food, but because of wars, because of corrupt politicians, whatever. It doesn't do any good to send a barge of food to a third-world country if the dictator siezes it upon arrival and shares it with his supporters.
Yes, even the so-called wealthy nations have hungry people living in poverty. But at some level, that's not my fault, and I shouldn't have money taken away from me to fund their food. Before you talk to me about being out of touch, I lived off state-provided money for about 7 years of my childhood. I know what it's like to get foodstamps and government cheese. I also know what it's like to pull yourself out of that gutter, and I know plenty of people who never did. We need a system that feeds those that really need it, without making it so easy for people to milk the system that they stop trying to get off of it. That's a delicate balance, and a problem that won't go away just by throwing money at it.
Why dedicate any money to funding the arts? Why dedicate any money to researching cures for AIDS (after all, it's fairly easy to avoid catching the disease, isn't it [tongue in cheek here, folks])? Why go to the moon?
Millions of reasons. Here's one for you. Because if we hadn't gone to the moon, if we weren't building rockets and space stations, what would I have had to dream about as a kid? What would have inspired me to learn enough math and get good enough at it to get scholarships to college?
We need money to keep people alive, yes. But we also need to keep their dreams alive. IF (and this is a huge IF)...IF we ever find anything out there, it will be the biggest thing to happen to our society EVER. Considering how cheap it is to continue this research, we would be terribly remiss in stopping it.
"instead of hitting Chicago you hit Paris - try apologizing for that one."
Mad Scientist: Sorry, France, but we've blown up Paris.
French: Oooh, that makes us sooo mad. Hmph.
Mad Scientist (blinks several times, waits)....
French: Hey, did that grove of trees we planted to signify our version of the prime meridian help you with your targeting?
Mad Scientist: Uhm, I think I hear Igor calling.
French (puffs on cigarette, drinks glass of wine, goes on with life)
IANAMT (I am not a marketing type) but from what I understand, part of the issue is the targeting of traditional ads.
For example, say you're a pasta company. You notice your sales are slumping. You put a 30 second ad on during Days of Our Lives, which the network assures you is number one program in its time slot among 20-40 year old women. Your marketing data has shown you that 20-40 year old women make a lot of decisions on who buys pasta.
Within weeks, your pasta sales are up. Not only that, but your grocery stores tell you (through their nice discount cards) that sales of your product are up 10% in the Female 20-40 demographic.
See the story about the poor gay guy killed in Wyoming get national coverage with nearly 3100 stories, yet when a gay couple does the same thing (and worse) to a teenage boy in Arkansas there are less than 50 stories.
Perhaps I'm too "leftist" to look at this without bias, but I think this example doesn't quite belong in your argument.
The death of Matthew Shepard made news because it mirrored something terrible and dark about the American consciousness. America in general is uncomfortable with homosexuality. Many men in America, when face to face with a homosexual, feel uncomfortable. Why do you think "fag" is such an insult? How many times have you heard an American man say "Get back in the closet" or "man I don't want to see that"?
So you take that, and you take it beyond vague discomfort and you turn it into active hate. You go beyond a snide remark and into a terrible crime. The result... something that captivates the nation. Add to it the religious right with their signs "Matthew Shepard is in hell"... come on, that's news by any definition. Of course you're going to have a ton of stories about this. Just like you're going to have tons of stories about abortion clinic bombings, school shootings, and Clinton's office blow-jobs.
As for a gay couple torturing and killing a boy in Arkansas... yes, it's a terrible thing. But you can't pretend it's the same kind of news the death of Matthew Spepard was. It's terrible that kids get killed, regardless of who commits the crime. But there's nothing gripping, in terms of the national consciousness, about one person's death. Jon Benet... people wanted to hear about. The mystery, the scandal.... But when we know who did it, we know what they did... well, it's just not the same.
It would be great if violence was so scarce that any violent crimes were given the same attention in the media as Matt Shepard's death. But that's not the world we live in. That's the cold truth of it.
I agree with what everyone here is saying. But "news for nerds" -- all scientists are nerds, not just computer nerds. I mean, we talk about gene splicing and all that crap all the time here. How many times has the ethical quagmire of "cloning" or "designer babies" been discussed to death?
Anyway. I was just surprised to see this topic again and I went on a little rant. Sorry:)
"While open source software may indeed offer advantages that traditional development methods do not, drawing parallels with sacred beliefs borders on absurd."
Heh. You've never talked with a real open source "zealot" have you?:)
I think RMS more "religious" about free software than most church-goers are about what they believe.
I'm sure this will be quickly modded down, but... is this worthy of Slashdot? This is not the first time I've seen this case (if not this one, one _exactly_ like it by the same company).
A few weeks ago, I submitted a story which to me would do us all good to look at. It was a link to an article discussing the ethical dillema facing the health care industry in trying to decide whether to use a live-HIV-virus AIDS vaccine. The issue being, of course, that some people would get AIDS from it. However, statistically, in countries with a high enough infection rate, it would prevent many more deaths than it caused. But in countries like the US with relatively lower rates, it would be a disaster.
The story really hit me, in terms of being something educated scientist-type folks would love to discuss.
It was rejected.
Instead, we get a fancy backpack.
This is my first "This isn't news, this doesn't matter" post. I'll try to refrain in the future. But....wow. I'm stunned.
I did discover pause, but I think I never really enjoyed the game of pausing, giving directions, and then watching the time -tick tick tick- by while I waited for something to take place.
I wasn't aware of the Active personality trait -- that would probably help. Oh well:)
I have to agree with you. It was addictive, but there were parts of it that drove me so nuts, it killed the addiction:
1. It takes over half an hour to get out of bed. Come on, people, move.
2. If one sim cuts the other sim off, he sits there like an idiot for, again, half an hour.
3. You had... NO TIME. I don't understand how people got anything done in this game. You barely get out the door in time for work (since it takes you an hour to get up and shower, never mind trying to eat). You get home, and you've got to focus on whatever you need to do to make your sims happy (read, watch TV). You barely have time to make dinner and clean it, never mind tring to make peopl e happy. Then they get so tired they can't even walk to their beds. All so they can get up right away the next AM and do it all again!
4. No weekends. Weekends might have helped solve #3.
5. Suspension of disbelief thrown out the window. Come on. Why do my neighbors just drop by for a visit while I'm in my pajamas?
6. No time! (did I mention this already?) How am I supposed to let my sims socialize when I can barely keep them fed and well-slept? I mean, I can barely make them happy, how am I supposed to supplement this with visiting?
Basically, the sims as an exercise in stress management -- my own stress! Never having enough time, constantly rushing until it's time to sleep. As they sleep, you catch your breath, focus, and get right back into it. It felt more like an action game than a sim game... couldn't stop for a second! Had to be at your quickest reflexes 24/7!
Geez I can feel my heart tensing up as I write this:).
The guns would help no-one - in the extreme event of the soldiers going door to door to collect some religious minority how would guns work?
Well, hopefully, the knowledge that the populace is armed is enough to keep this from ever becoming a reality. But if it were to happen, here are some ways the guns might actually help (btw, I acknowledge all your points about why they wouldn't help):
1. Maybe enough soldiers would be scared of the armed populace to question their orders, leading to a revolt within the military (yes this could happen by force of conscience alone, but fear of armed citizens might help).
2. As news of the action spread (assuming all channels of communication are still open), folks might be able to organize, and those with some military training, etc, might be able to actually turn the ragtag populace into a genuine militia (as per the original definition of militia).
3. The already existing militia groups, no matter how bad a name they have made for themselves, might step in. They have military training and large amounts of weapons, but are not associated with the armed forces.
Ok, we all know this is pretty far-fetched. It's not going to happen. I stand by my statement, however. The only truly free populace is an armed populace. As nervous as the militia groups make me with their conspiracy theories and terrorist tactics, I know that if the shit really hit the fan, they'd probably stand up to the government. Their power to do that would evaporate if their right to be armed were taken away.
I fail to understand why a symbol of some action a group of people are no longer capable of taking is more important than somebodys mother being shot in the stomach and taking 30 minutes to die
Guns don't cause violence. The US culture is a violent culture for many reasons. There are countries out there where guns are very prevalent, but violent crimes are not. The states with the most permissive gun laws are not statistically any more dangerous than the states with strict ones. You cannot blame the guns for someone's mother being killed. You must blame the killer. If you took away the guns, the criminals would still have them (most of the criminals' guns are illegal anyway). Yes, they might have trouble getting more, but with the US's inability to stop contraband from entering the country from Mexico, I imagine we'd have a pretty good flow of illegal arms coming into the country anyway. It just now becomes illegal for me to buy a firearm to protect my home from the crooks who have them.
The gun genie is never going to get stuffed back into the bottle here in America. It's too much a part of our culture. All we can do is pass sane gun control laws and _enforce them_ (why does this step get skipped so often!?). Stop gun manufacturers from making cheap firearms that are only sold in the inner cities, whose chief marketing values are that they fit into your jeans pocket (and which are only useful to shoot someone at point blank range). Make parents legally responsible for their childrens' use of their guns if they aren't secured enough, etc. But don't take away one of the founding freedoms of the nation, just to give an illusion of safety (as much as the guns are an illuision of popular power, the lack of guns would be an illusion of safety).
I REALLY wonder which orifice they pulled this dollar figure out of
The same orifice the classic newsposting quote came from:
"This post will end up costing the net hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Are you sure you want to continue?"
I still chuckle about that one once in a while....
...I guess that's one way to interpret what I said.
I guess what I'm saying is that it would be very difficult for the citizenry to overthrow the US government. With the weapons we're allowed to keep, we'd have little hope against tanks, aircraft, etc.
However, at some level, each citizen may protect himself and his home. If things went all wacky, and we had soldiers going door to door collecting (insert ethnic or religious minority here) for shipment to gas chambers, individuals would have a chance at defending themselves.
So, in a way, it's an illusion. Nobody thinks they could lead a revolution against the state with shotguns and pistols. But at its core, it is a symbol, and as such, worth protecting.
Slashdot Mirror
"And you "pay" again by watching advertising during your shows. "
... legality doesn't come into play here, folks. If someone says, "I'll wash your car for 10$" and someone else says, "I'll wash your car for free" you're likely to get it washed for free. This is true even if the guy offerng to wash your car for free seems to be a little shady. And let's say that guy gets put out of business by the feds for washing cars with stolen water. You don't think you'd still be reluctant to pay $10 for something you got for free a month ago?
Sorry, I neglected to address this in my first reply.
Let's say I'm new to the net. Let's say I'm told it's like my cable TV access. With that, I might imagine I need to suffer through commercials to get programming I want.
After being on the net a while, I realize I'm getting a half dozen ads in my mailbox every day. More, likely, if I'm signed up with someplace like emachines for my PC.
So, I think, I pay for my net access a second time in the tons of spam I get.
Nope, you're paying for the privelege of getting all that spam. Whee!
Ok, maybe I pay for my net access a second time in the form of banner ads -- ads which are deliberately made to confuse users (popups with fake "close" buttons, etc) in a way no "real" advertising would get away with. Oh, that doesn't pay for it either?
How many times do I have to pay for this internet, anyway?
Not only that, are you trying to tell me the quality of service on the net is anywhere near the quality of service I get when I pay for my cable TV? How many times has your ISP been down compared to your cable TV in the past year? How many times has slashdot been down compared to CNN in the past year?
Add to that the fact that it's silly to pay for something you can get for free
The things you describe, to me, are either services (massage, education), or entertainment (theatre). They don't really fit the web paradigm.
Let's say you're at the massage. You paid $100 for this massage. The guy applies pressure to one spot on your back, and then says, "If you liked that, would you mind paying an extra dime for a little more pressure?"
Ok, obviously I'm stretching an already bad analogy.
As for entertainment, I don't spend money on movies I've never heard of. I already spend 20$ a month to get 20 movie channels. I'm only going to spend 20$ a night to watch a movie if that movie comes highly recommended to me.
And that's not a micropayment anyway. It would be more like I went to the movies, paid my 20$, and then every so often I had to pay more to enjoy some part of the show even more. "Would you like to recline your seat? Insert a dollar. Would you like the guy in front of you to take off his hat? Insert a dollar." Look, I already paid for the movie, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I already paid for my internet, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I know it doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't work that way. But John Q. Public doesn't know that, and as long as companies keep selling the Internet like it's another kind of cable TV, people will expect their flat rate to pay for everything.
Like I said -- cable service is a service, not a thing. I pay for cable once, and not again when I watch the show. For those that say I pay again with advertising -- true, for channels that run ads. But when I watch HBO (or any of the other 20 movie channels), I get no ads.
You pay for a newspaper subscription. Yes, you can physically touch the newspaper today, but once the recycling truck drives off, it's gone.
But the point stands -- I get something to hold in my hands. I can read it on the john. I can take it to a friend's house. I don't get 404 errors when I try and follow a link (i.e. turn the page). And I pay _once_, and get a wealth of stuff. I pay my measly 10 bucks a month, and I get all the news I can handle, with rather high quality reporting on world and local events, as well as sports, commentary, and comics (why pay a micropayment for Penny Arcade when I can pay a micropayment [50 cents] and get an entire newspaper, including 20+ comics?).
There's a few big reasons people are reluctant to pay for "content" online.
One is that they don't have anything to hold in their hands in exchange for their money.
If I buy a book, I have a physical artifact which will last much longer than my lifespan.
I still have tapes I bought when I was in middle school.
I still have the original floppies from computer games I bought around the same time.
What do I get to hold on to if I buy a year's subscription to a web news site, for example? Do I get access to archives of that year forever, even if the company that made the site goes under in the next recession? Please.
Another big reason is that if people aren't thinking in terms of buying a "thing" they're thinking in terms of a service. We pay for plenty of things we don't get to hold onto -- electricity, cable television, taxes, etc. But the thing is, you're already paying someone for the "service" part of your net connection -- your ISP.
It's just not in the normal buying pattern of people to pay for content on a medium they're already paying for. You can get people to upgrade to a higher quality service (sure, I'll buy digital cable), but to pay for the very thing you're already paying for?
It's even better than that.
I sign up for "Everything" with my cable company. They charge me like 60 bucks a month, and I get every channel they offer (except for PPV), 24/7.
Let's put it this way. I love the Sopranos. It's the best thing on TV these days. But I wouldn't want to have to give you my credit card every time I watch an episode, nor would I pay 2 bucks an episode to watch it. I pay $20 a month extra to be able to watch all the Sopranos I can handle, as well as all the other stuff I can handle on 20 other movie channels (yay Digital Cable).
If you could offer people the same deal on the net, they'd take it. But the net _isn't_ tv. Part of what makes it great is that it isn't tv. I don't want an Internet where every site I visit is controlled by one of 3 major companies.
So, we're screwed. People are used to paying one fee and getting a bunch of stuff with it. They pay their ISP 20 bucks a month (more for cable/dsl) and expect the same sort of deal.
"The way I see it, we are not teaching people to drive the car we are teaching people to build it. So yes you teach people to build an engine by ripping one apart."
:-). I guess, though, with your analogy, the people who are learning to craft software have at least used it before. I should be more careful in my choice of analogies.
... the realization that this was how it got implemented by the mysterious "compiler." Made me want to run out and take compilers classes. Which I did :).
... learning about stacks, branching, etc ... without ever seeing an if...then...else in their lives. It seems awfully intidimating.
I agree -- but most people who learn to build a car have at least driven one first
There's a certain kind of thinking you need to develop to solve problems in a high level computer language. You will _eventually_ develop this kind of thinking in a lower level (say, assembler) programming language, but there's a lot of baggage to get through first.
I guess I'm looking at my own experiences, where I discovered the high level constructs first and then was interested enough to figure out how it all worked under the covers. I was fascinated when I learned assembly, and finally discovered how you could emulate the control structures I had already learned in assembly. Then
I'm trying to see it from the other side
"Your fresman year should be devoted to assembly language, basic data structures and low level hardware concepts."
You're going to scare away the next generation of developers doing this, IMO. I would never have gone into computers if I couldn't write "hello world" with something as simple as "Print 'hello world'".
Everything else you say is dead on -- a real CS education should teach you about many different types of programming languages. You should feel comfortable talking about declarative, functional, procedural, and object-oriented languages. My favorite CS undergrad class dabbled in C++, Scheme, and Prolog. For our final project, we had to solve the same problem in all three languages. Though we all knew we'd never see Scheme or Prolog once we entered the workforce, it was amazing to see that the chosen problem was an order of magnitude easier to write (and faster to execute) in Prolog than C++.
But, to introduce people to computers, for their very first class where they have to type something in and see a response, do you really think we're going to fill our ranks by making them learn "MOV AX,BX" or letting them learn "A = A + 1"?
That's like saying you can't learn to cook without taking Chemistry first. Sure, if you know chemistry, you'll be a better cook. But to tell someone who thinks they want to cook, "Take chemistry first, then you can learn to sautee vegetables," seems a bit extremee to me.
A lot of comments so far have focused on whether it's good to teach people something high-level as their introduction to CS.
... I mean, why not show them "look, you hit the gas, it goes faster" and find out if they're at all interested in why, first.
I think it's necessary in some ways. The sort of thinking which is required to succeed as a software developer starts with being able to look at a problem and break it down into loops, conditionals, etc. You need to introduce people into this way of thinking pretty early on.
I can't imagine my first exposure to the logic of computers being C (mine was Apple 2E basic). It's just too hairy, too full of ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Do you need to know that you can shoot yourself easily? Yes. Do you need to know about pointers, about memory allocation, etc? Sure. Which is why, after you understand how to think "like a computer" in some ways, you learn about what's under the hood.
I mean, imagine never even having been in a car and having someone explain driving to you by ripping an engine apart. Whoa, there
Anyway. Java isn't a toy language, and if it's a fad, so is OO programming itself. Java is a powerful language, being used in some of the biggest software projects out there right now, by some of the biggest software development houses out there. I know because I work at one, and I do Java development.
If you're going to discount Java as an introductory language, do so because it introduces (rather well, actually) the concept of OO on people who are still learning what "if" means, not because it is too simple. If C++ is okay for an introductory language, then Java is strictly better in my opinion. I would probably teach C to today's students the way I was taught assembly language. "You need to know this, it will make you a much better developer, but if you get stuck in a job using it, it's a bad sign."
Comic movies aren't all bad.
Superman was good.
Batman was decent.
The Crow stands alone atop the heap, however.
I can't believe you liked X-Men but not Superman and Batman.
Kneel before Zod.
You didn't even read the quote you included in your article:
..."
"...each new PC that will be running a Microsoft Operating System be pre-installed with an OEM version
They're targeting companies that buy a few hundred PCs for their WINTel shop, and say they don't want to buy windows, because they can handle getting Windows themselves.
They don't care about your single PC, and they don't care about a Linux shop. But if a customer says, "yes, I plan to run windows on these" and then doesn't buy Windows, MS wants to know.
So, yes, that's sleazy and underhanded. But it isn't what you're saying it is.
Actually, even big names make a hell of a lot of money touring and selling merchandise. All those backstreet boys t-shirts and britney keychains add up.... (I seem to remember reading that these pop acts make insane amounts of cash selling promo items during their tours ... I am having trouble finding a link to back this up, however).
The rest of your life won't be this way.
... being a know-it-all doesn't ... but having real intelligence isn't something that gets "squished" in college the same way it might in high school)
High School can be a wonderful experience, but it can also be a terrible one. I won't lie to you; it's not easy. I hated high school at first, but as it went on, and I found the right friends and the right teachers, I actually enjoyed it.
Everything changes when you go to college. See, in college, everyone there is _paying to go there._ As such, it's a totally different environment. Being one of the "smart kids" earns you respect.
(Note, being a "smart ass" doesn't
You're only a freshman -- give school a little time. Maybe you'll find some people who you feel comfortable letting in to your life. Maybe you won't. But four years is a long time to shut everyone out....
There isn't an easy answer here. In a society where the taxpayer decides what the taxes pay for, you have no guarantee that the taxes are going to fund things like "feed the hungry."
As a society, we must spend our money on many different issues, trying to address many different problems. You rely on the taxpayers to bicker it out amongst each other (directly or through their representatives) how to spend the money, and how much they're willing to pay.
Personally, I think the "feed the hungry" banner is flown a little too often (yikes, here come the flames). Many countries are hit by famine not because they don't have enough food, but because of wars, because of corrupt politicians, whatever. It doesn't do any good to send a barge of food to a third-world country if the dictator siezes it upon arrival and shares it with his supporters.
Yes, even the so-called wealthy nations have hungry people living in poverty. But at some level, that's not my fault, and I shouldn't have money taken away from me to fund their food. Before you talk to me about being out of touch, I lived off state-provided money for about 7 years of my childhood. I know what it's like to get foodstamps and government cheese. I also know what it's like to pull yourself out of that gutter, and I know plenty of people who never did. We need a system that feeds those that really need it, without making it so easy for people to milk the system that they stop trying to get off of it. That's a delicate balance, and a problem that won't go away just by throwing money at it.
Why dedicate any money to funding the arts? Why dedicate any money to researching cures for AIDS (after all, it's fairly easy to avoid catching the disease, isn't it [tongue in cheek here, folks])? Why go to the moon?
Millions of reasons. Here's one for you. Because if we hadn't gone to the moon, if we weren't building rockets and space stations, what would I have had to dream about as a kid? What would have inspired me to learn enough math and get good enough at it to get scholarships to college?
We need money to keep people alive, yes. But we also need to keep their dreams alive. IF (and this is a huge IF)...IF we ever find anything out there, it will be the biggest thing to happen to our society EVER. Considering how cheap it is to continue this research, we would be terribly remiss in stopping it.
"instead of hitting Chicago you hit Paris - try apologizing for that one."
Mad Scientist: Sorry, France, but we've blown up Paris.
French: Oooh, that makes us sooo mad. Hmph.
Mad Scientist (blinks several times, waits)....
French: Hey, did that grove of trees we planted to signify our version of the prime meridian help you with your targeting?
Mad Scientist: Uhm, I think I hear Igor calling.
French (puffs on cigarette, drinks glass of wine, goes on with life)
Dude, don't use the endurium, you're killing millions of innocent little creatures! (or something, my memory is fuzzy :-) ).
Goddamn what a great game.
IANAMT (I am not a marketing type) but from what I understand, part of the issue is the targeting of traditional ads.
For example, say you're a pasta company. You notice your sales are slumping. You put a 30 second ad on during Days of Our Lives, which the network assures you is number one program in its time slot among 20-40 year old women. Your marketing data has shown you that 20-40 year old women make a lot of decisions on who buys pasta.
Within weeks, your pasta sales are up. Not only that, but your grocery stores tell you (through their nice discount cards) that sales of your product are up 10% in the Female 20-40 demographic.
You can now say your ad campaign was a "success."
See the story about the poor gay guy killed in Wyoming get national coverage with nearly 3100 stories, yet when a gay couple does the same thing (and worse) to a teenage boy in Arkansas there are less than 50 stories.
... something that captivates the nation. Add to it the religious right with their signs "Matthew Shepard is in hell" ... come on, that's news by any definition. Of course you're going to have a ton of stories about this. Just like you're going to have tons of stories about abortion clinic bombings, school shootings, and Clinton's office blow-jobs.
... yes, it's a terrible thing. But you can't pretend it's the same kind of news the death of Matthew Spepard was. It's terrible that kids get killed, regardless of who commits the crime. But there's nothing gripping, in terms of the national consciousness, about one person's death. Jon Benet ... people wanted to hear about. The mystery, the scandal.... But when we know who did it, we know what they did ... well, it's just not the same.
Perhaps I'm too "leftist" to look at this without bias, but I think this example doesn't quite belong in your argument.
The death of Matthew Shepard made news because it mirrored something terrible and dark about the American consciousness. America in general is uncomfortable with homosexuality. Many men in America, when face to face with a homosexual, feel uncomfortable. Why do you think "fag" is such an insult? How many times have you heard an American man say "Get back in the closet" or "man I don't want to see that"?
So you take that, and you take it beyond vague discomfort and you turn it into active hate. You go beyond a snide remark and into a terrible crime. The result
As for a gay couple torturing and killing a boy in Arkansas
It would be great if violence was so scarce that any violent crimes were given the same attention in the media as Matt Shepard's death. But that's not the world we live in. That's the cold truth of it.
I agree with what everyone here is saying. But "news for nerds" -- all scientists are nerds, not just computer nerds. I mean, we talk about gene splicing and all that crap all the time here. How many times has the ethical quagmire of "cloning" or "designer babies" been discussed to death?
:)
Anyway. I was just surprised to see this topic again and I went on a little rant. Sorry
(And I'll check out bottomquark)
"While open source software may indeed offer advantages that traditional development methods do not, drawing parallels with sacred beliefs borders on absurd."
:)
Heh. You've never talked with a real open source "zealot" have you?
I think RMS more "religious" about free software than most church-goers are about what they believe.
I'm sure this will be quickly modded down, but ... is this worthy of Slashdot? This is not the first time I've seen this case (if not this one, one _exactly_ like it by the same company).
A few weeks ago, I submitted a story which to me would do us all good to look at. It was a link to an article discussing the ethical dillema facing the health care industry in trying to decide whether to use a live-HIV-virus AIDS vaccine. The issue being, of course, that some people would get AIDS from it. However, statistically, in countries with a high enough infection rate, it would prevent many more deaths than it caused. But in countries like the US with relatively lower rates, it would be a disaster.
The story really hit me, in terms of being something educated scientist-type folks would love to discuss.
It was rejected.
Instead, we get a fancy backpack.
This is my first "This isn't news, this doesn't matter" post. I'll try to refrain in the future. But....wow. I'm stunned.
I did discover pause, but I think I never really enjoyed the game of pausing, giving directions, and then watching the time -tick tick tick- by while I waited for something to take place.
:)
I wasn't aware of the Active personality trait -- that would probably help. Oh well
I have to agree with you. It was addictive, but there were parts of it that drove me so nuts, it killed the addiction:
... NO TIME. I don't understand how people got anything done in this game. You barely get out the door in time for work (since it takes you an hour to get up and shower, never mind trying to eat). You get home, and you've got to focus on whatever you need to do to make your sims happy (read, watch TV). You barely have time to make dinner and clean it, never mind tring to make peopl e happy. Then they get so tired they can't even walk to their beds. All so they can get up right away the next AM and do it all again!
... couldn't stop for a second! Had to be at your quickest reflexes 24/7!
:).
1. It takes over half an hour to get out of bed. Come on, people, move.
2. If one sim cuts the other sim off, he sits there like an idiot for, again, half an hour.
3. You had
4. No weekends. Weekends might have helped solve #3.
5. Suspension of disbelief thrown out the window. Come on. Why do my neighbors just drop by for a visit while I'm in my pajamas?
6. No time! (did I mention this already?) How am I supposed to let my sims socialize when I can barely keep them fed and well-slept? I mean, I can barely make them happy, how am I supposed to supplement this with visiting?
Basically, the sims as an exercise in stress management -- my own stress! Never having enough time, constantly rushing until it's time to sleep. As they sleep, you catch your breath, focus, and get right back into it. It felt more like an action game than a sim game
Geez I can feel my heart tensing up as I write this
The guns would help no-one - in the extreme event of the soldiers going door to door to collect some religious minority how would guns work?
Well, hopefully, the knowledge that the populace is armed is enough to keep this from ever becoming a reality. But if it were to happen, here are some ways the guns might actually help (btw, I acknowledge all your points about why they wouldn't help):
1. Maybe enough soldiers would be scared of the armed populace to question their orders, leading to a revolt within the military (yes this could happen by force of conscience alone, but fear of armed citizens might help).
2. As news of the action spread (assuming all channels of communication are still open), folks might be able to organize, and those with some military training, etc, might be able to actually turn the ragtag populace into a genuine militia (as per the original definition of militia).
3. The already existing militia groups, no matter how bad a name they have made for themselves, might step in. They have military training and large amounts of weapons, but are not associated with the armed forces.
Ok, we all know this is pretty far-fetched. It's not going to happen. I stand by my statement, however. The only truly free populace is an armed populace. As nervous as the militia groups make me with their conspiracy theories and terrorist tactics, I know that if the shit really hit the fan, they'd probably stand up to the government. Their power to do that would evaporate if their right to be armed were taken away.
I fail to understand why a symbol of some action a group of people are no longer capable of taking is more important than somebodys mother being shot in the stomach and taking 30 minutes to die
Guns don't cause violence. The US culture is a violent culture for many reasons. There are countries out there where guns are very prevalent, but violent crimes are not. The states with the most permissive gun laws are not statistically any more dangerous than the states with strict ones. You cannot blame the guns for someone's mother being killed. You must blame the killer. If you took away the guns, the criminals would still have them (most of the criminals' guns are illegal anyway). Yes, they might have trouble getting more, but with the US's inability to stop contraband from entering the country from Mexico, I imagine we'd have a pretty good flow of illegal arms coming into the country anyway. It just now becomes illegal for me to buy a firearm to protect my home from the crooks who have them.
The gun genie is never going to get stuffed back into the bottle here in America. It's too much a part of our culture. All we can do is pass sane gun control laws and _enforce them_ (why does this step get skipped so often!?). Stop gun manufacturers from making cheap firearms that are only sold in the inner cities, whose chief marketing values are that they fit into your jeans pocket (and which are only useful to shoot someone at point blank range). Make parents legally responsible for their childrens' use of their guns if they aren't secured enough, etc. But don't take away one of the founding freedoms of the nation, just to give an illusion of safety (as much as the guns are an illuision of popular power, the lack of guns would be an illusion of safety).
The same orifice the classic newsposting quote came from:
"This post will end up costing the net hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Are you sure you want to continue?"
I still chuckle about that one once in a while....
...I guess that's one way to interpret what I said.
I guess what I'm saying is that it would be very difficult for the citizenry to overthrow the US government. With the weapons we're allowed to keep, we'd have little hope against tanks, aircraft, etc.
However, at some level, each citizen may protect himself and his home. If things went all wacky, and we had soldiers going door to door collecting (insert ethnic or religious minority here) for shipment to gas chambers, individuals would have a chance at defending themselves.
So, in a way, it's an illusion. Nobody thinks they could lead a revolution against the state with shotguns and pistols. But at its core, it is a symbol, and as such, worth protecting.