People love to demonize parents for not getting involved in the lives of the children but when those children are outside of their control for eight hours a day what are they to do?
It is under parents control to choose whether to enroll their children in government schools, with their government agenda, private schools, which offer a variety of agendas, or to home school them, and teach them exactly what they wish.
Indeed, it is likely that the rigorous crew training and constant drill practice responding to situations like these is responsible there being so *few* injuries, and that both ships can still steam under their own power back to port.
Pirated copies of all kinds of things are sold at shops out in the open for all to see. They don't even try to hide it.
The government does have periodic crackdowns, however, though whether these are for show or for real is hard to say.
The most recent time I was was in Shenzhen, a group of us were at the shopping mall adjacent to the train station. Outside, random strangers would accost us in the typical way, asking "DVD? DVD?" (They were competing for our attention with the ones asking "Massage, massage?":-)
On a lark, we said okay (to the DVD hawker), and this woman walked (the five of) us up to the very top (9th?) floor to a stereo shop without a DVD or CD in sight.
Once inside, they pulled down the aluminum sliding door as if they were closing shop. Another person climbed a ladder, removed two speakers from a display, then removed a section of false ceiling above the speakers. Climbing inside, he began to lower down box upon box of copied DVDs, probably a couple thousand in total, all the time telling us in fairly good English about how the local police don't really care as long as it is kept out of sight. These were DVD-9s with original cover art and packaging, recent releases, going for about 10-20 RMB ($1-$3 or so) depending on quantity and bargaining skills.
I have a very small hadful of relatives that have no electricity and no running water. They live in the mountains of East Tennessee (Appalachia). But, they are far from uneducated. While they are not too up on modern stuff - theater, pop culture, music, and generally "new" stuff I would bet on them for reading, math, and history over the average "educated" person in any western world (not the top, but the average).
Ironically, I'd bet they are happier than most as well. In the end, isn't that what counts?
I've had the very fortunate experience of traveling to a number of third-world countries in south-east Asia. While they are of course very different individually, a common theme seems to recur.
While in the Phillipines, I was staying with a host that lived in a very poor and densely populated part of Quezon City, just northeast of Manila. The per-capita income there is far less than say, south central Los Angeles (home of the Rodney King riots). Yet, as this sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb-big-white-dude was walking around, people were smiling, children were playing in the street, and I didn't feel the slightest bit of hostility or ill-will from anyone I came across. As a community, these people were tightly knit, looked out for each other, and their network of inter-personal friendships and contacts was amazing. In short, they were very happy. Literacy for reading and writing their local native dialect and for spoken English was in the high 90% range, and violent and/or property crime was at levels comparable to "suburbia" in America.
Of course, they envied the nice things they saw on American television, and dreamed of going to America with a sort of naivete that was touching but sort of sad as well. Would they ever be able to be this happy in a typical American city?
I suspect that many rural, poor areas of Africa are the same way.
We are so much better off here in terms of health care, nutrition, types of shelter, opportunities to engage our intellect in creative activities, and basic day-to-day security. This is good and has many reasons (stability, democracy, capitalism), but in the end, are we any happier for it?
Agreed. However, a degree does indicate that someone had the discipline and attention span to follow through with something that takes four or more years to attain. That in and of itself is worth at least something when I interview a candidate.
Our current mass storage interface standards encompass concepts firmly attached to the physical model of rotating disk(s) with read/write head(s) that can operate on cylindrical tracks.
If flash memory drives become the norm, are these interfaces (ATA, SCSI, etc.) obsolete? Is there a set of primitive operations that map to a flash drive better than retaining those created for spinning media? Could flash drives like these simply be memory mapped and treated more like a cache?
He used a Xilinx FPGA and a genetic algorithm (implemented separately) to evolve a circuit which could distinguish (IIRC) two different frequency tones on the input as a logic level output. The "program" was allowed to interconnect the FPGA configurable logic blocks in any old sort of way internally and between CLBs. This would include ways which would cause logic designers to shudder in horror:), and did not include a clock input to the circuit at all.
The result was a successful circuit that used a relatively small portion of the FPGA. But trying to work out how it was accomplished the tone discrimination was impossible. There were sub-circuits that were isolated from the rest of the circuit but when removed would cause the circuit to fail. Thompson hypothesized that the circuits were taking advantage of "out of band" communication via electromagnetic or thermal influences on adjacent CLBs.
Furthermore, the circuits turned out to be very specific to the ambient temperature during training and usage, as well as being specific to a particular FPGA used (a working circuit on one would fail on another.)
In any case it was a fascinating small-scale exploration of what reconfigurable hardware and genetic algorithms could accomplish, when not constrained by the "clock driven sequential logic" paradigm nearly all human engineered circuits use.
Re:How about NO TV? Works for me in a weird way
on
National TV Turn Off Week
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I can echo a lot of the same. I turned off the TV when my son was born in 1991. One of the last things I watched was the opening salvo of the first Iraq war, on CNN.
It's true what you say about not living in quite the same world as others around you. There are many cultural references which have their basis in TV shows and commercials, and people act strangely when I mention I have no idea what they are talking about. And I occasionally miss out on such gems as the (Honda?) commercial with the Rube Goldberg setup with all the auto parts:)
For news I've relied on the 'net--and the fact that I can get viewpoints from journalists outside the US very easily. What is fascinating is not so much the different spin put on world events from different parts of the world (everybody has spin), but rather what gets reported and what doesn't, or how long international events stay in the collective attention span of a region. From the attention given in America, you'd think the recent bombing in Spain or the Bali bombing never happened. When 9/11 happened they put CNN on 24x7 on a wall-sized display in our office cafeteria for a week. (Okay, different magnitude of events but the horror is the same.)
I travel a lot internationally for business, and I do occasionally turn on the TV set in the hotel room. Commercials the world over are hilarious, and frightening. Television advertising is a multi-billion industry subject to the same market efficiencies as everything else--only the most effective advertising techniques tend to survive in the long run. So what you see in TV commercials is the way it is because it works--a scary commentary on our collective psyche.
I've even turned off the radio, for the most part. Between the blandness of the FM dial and the hysterical pomp of AM talk radio, there just isn't anything worth listening to anymore. Try turning on a shortwave radio and tuning in to English language broadcasts to witness the vast variety "world band" radio has to offer. Yeah, there are still nutcases, but you also hear about a lot of things we never hear about in our cozy suburban comfort zone.
Re:Maybe no security at all
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 1
For example, back when I was going to the University and was living in a slummy student complex where everything that could be stolen was, I used to have a shitty car, and I used to leave my car doors unlocked at night. My car wasn't a good candidate for theft, but when it *was* stolen (it happened twice), it was for joyrides and at least the robbers didn't burst the locks.
I wish I were that lucky. My first car's stereo was stolen *twice* by having the window broken. The stereo itself was not that expensive; in fact, the window repair cost just as much. So I finally started leaving the doors unlocked, figuring if someone wants to take the stereo, at least I won't be paying for the window repair...
Needless to say, one day I found my car: stereo gone, doors unlocked, and window broken:-)
All that water's going somewhere, and that somewhere is the oceans. Global sea levels are rising, and you only have to look at the situation in Tuvalu in the Pacific or Venice, Italy to see that the threat of rising tides isn't a myth.
The Arctic ice cap is floating in the ocean, not on land, and is already displacing seawater. As it melts, the water released to the ocean does not raise sea levels.
If global sea levels are rising, it is NOT because the Arctic ice is melting.
When the ice cubes in your glass of soft drink melt, the level doesn't increase.
The situation, of course, is different in Antarctica because there the mass of ice is largely sitting on land and as it melts into the ocean it *is* raising global sea levels.
The increase in melting ice may disrupt ocean currents, however, as the difference in salinity and density may cause convective flows that aren't normally there.
It sounds like someone said "Well, go do a press release that explains that 'Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers...contracts...stronger than anything you could do with copyrights', and then other person make the release verbatim instead of "explaining" it.
Slashdot Mirror
It is under parents control to choose whether to enroll their children in government schools, with their government agenda, private schools, which offer a variety of agendas, or to home school them, and teach them exactly what they wish.
(Another ex-submariner)
Reminds me of an old paramedic joke:
Q. What do you do when you arrive at a scene with a patient having a seizure in a bathtub?
A. Put in your dirty laundry!
My father recently passed away of lung cancer after a six month painful battle.
No, I never prayed "just in case."
You see how easy that was?
Been there...now I'm going back to UUCP, Fidonet, and Xmodem!
Since when are we not part of the natural world?
Pirated copies of all kinds of things are sold at shops out in the open for all to see. They don't even try to hide it.
The government does have periodic crackdowns, however, though whether these are for show or for real is hard to say.
The most recent time I was was in Shenzhen, a group of us were at the shopping mall adjacent to the train station. Outside, random strangers would accost us in the typical way, asking "DVD? DVD?" (They were competing for our attention with the ones asking "Massage, massage?" :-)
On a lark, we said okay (to the DVD hawker), and this woman walked (the five of) us up to the very top (9th?) floor to a stereo shop without a DVD or CD in sight.
Once inside, they pulled down the aluminum sliding door as if they were closing shop. Another person climbed a ladder, removed two speakers from a display, then removed a section of false ceiling above the speakers. Climbing inside, he began to lower down box upon box of copied DVDs, probably a couple thousand in total, all the time telling us in fairly good English about how the local police don't really care as long as it is kept out of sight. These were DVD-9s with original cover art and packaging, recent releases, going for about 10-20 RMB ($1-$3 or so) depending on quantity and bargaining skills.
Yes, movie piracy is alive and well in China.
Ironically, I'd bet they are happier than most as well. In the end, isn't that what counts?
I've had the very fortunate experience of traveling to a number of third-world countries in south-east Asia. While they are of course very different individually, a common theme seems to recur.
While in the Phillipines, I was staying with a host that lived in a very poor and densely populated part of Quezon City, just northeast of Manila. The per-capita income there is far less than say, south central Los Angeles (home of the Rodney King riots). Yet, as this sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb-big-white-dude was walking around, people were smiling, children were playing in the street, and I didn't feel the slightest bit of hostility or ill-will from anyone I came across. As a community, these people were tightly knit, looked out for each other, and their network of inter-personal friendships and contacts was amazing. In short, they were very happy. Literacy for reading and writing their local native dialect and for spoken English was in the high 90% range, and violent and/or property crime was at levels comparable to "suburbia" in America.
Of course, they envied the nice things they saw on American television, and dreamed of going to America with a sort of naivete that was touching but sort of sad as well. Would they ever be able to be this happy in a typical American city?
I suspect that many rural, poor areas of Africa are the same way.
We are so much better off here in terms of health care, nutrition, types of shelter, opportunities to engage our intellect in creative activities, and basic day-to-day security. This is good and has many reasons (stability, democracy, capitalism), but in the end, are we any happier for it?
There sure is a lot of us vs. them in your comment.
Personally, I am a citizen of the world--the extent to which I feel charitable toward the poor does not follow along national government borders.
If "our" poor are worth helping, what are you doing to help them?
I don't think the camera CCD can deal with that much contrast.
Agreed. However, a degree does indicate that someone had the discipline and attention span to follow through with something that takes four or more years to attain. That in and of itself is worth at least something when I interview a candidate.
Our current mass storage interface standards encompass concepts firmly attached to the physical model of rotating disk(s) with read/write head(s) that can operate on cylindrical tracks.
If flash memory drives become the norm, are these interfaces (ATA, SCSI, etc.) obsolete? Is there a set of primitive operations that map to a flash drive better than retaining those created for spinning media? Could flash drives like these simply be memory mapped and treated more like a cache?
You forgot money laundering, the fourth horseman of the infocolypse...
I have 65355 ports on my TCP/IP stack...
What happened to the other 180 ports?
I always knew there was something familiar about Alec Baldwin!
He used a Xilinx FPGA and a genetic algorithm (implemented separately) to evolve a circuit which could distinguish (IIRC) two different frequency tones on the input as a logic level output. The "program" was allowed to interconnect the FPGA configurable logic blocks in any old sort of way internally and between CLBs. This would include ways which would cause logic designers to shudder in horror :), and did not include a clock input to the circuit at all.
The result was a successful circuit that used a relatively small portion of the FPGA. But trying to work out how it was accomplished the tone discrimination was impossible. There were sub-circuits that were isolated from the rest of the circuit but when removed would cause the circuit to fail. Thompson hypothesized that the circuits were taking advantage of "out of band" communication via electromagnetic or thermal influences on adjacent CLBs.
Furthermore, the circuits turned out to be very specific to the ambient temperature during training and usage, as well as being specific to a particular FPGA used (a working circuit on one would fail on another.)
In any case it was a fascinating small-scale exploration of what reconfigurable hardware and genetic algorithms could accomplish, when not constrained by the "clock driven sequential logic" paradigm nearly all human engineered circuits use.
It's true what you say about not living in quite the same world as others around you. There are many cultural references which have their basis in TV shows and commercials, and people act strangely when I mention I have no idea what they are talking about. And I occasionally miss out on such gems as the (Honda?) commercial with the Rube Goldberg setup with all the auto parts :)
For news I've relied on the 'net--and the fact that I can get viewpoints from journalists outside the US very easily. What is fascinating is not so much the different spin put on world events from different parts of the world (everybody has spin), but rather what gets reported and what doesn't, or how long international events stay in the collective attention span of a region. From the attention given in America, you'd think the recent bombing in Spain or the Bali bombing never happened. When 9/11 happened they put CNN on 24x7 on a wall-sized display in our office cafeteria for a week. (Okay, different magnitude of events but the horror is the same.)
I travel a lot internationally for business, and I do occasionally turn on the TV set in the hotel room. Commercials the world over are hilarious, and frightening. Television advertising is a multi-billion industry subject to the same market efficiencies as everything else--only the most effective advertising techniques tend to survive in the long run. So what you see in TV commercials is the way it is because it works--a scary commentary on our collective psyche.
I've even turned off the radio, for the most part. Between the blandness of the FM dial and the hysterical pomp of AM talk radio, there just isn't anything worth listening to anymore. Try turning on a shortwave radio and tuning in to English language broadcasts to witness the vast variety "world band" radio has to offer. Yeah, there are still nutcases, but you also hear about a lot of things we never hear about in our cozy suburban comfort zone.
Boy, that was a doozy!
I wish I were that lucky. My first car's stereo was stolen *twice* by having the window broken. The stereo itself was not that expensive; in fact, the window repair cost just as much. So I finally started leaving the doors unlocked, figuring if someone wants to take the stereo, at least I won't be paying for the window repair...
Needless to say, one day I found my car: stereo gone, doors unlocked, and window broken :-)
Dude, I've been avoiding all the reviews...you just ruined $24 at the Metreon in SF on Sunday :-)
The Arctic ice cap is floating in the ocean, not on land, and is already displacing seawater. As it melts, the water released to the ocean does not raise sea levels.
If global sea levels are rising, it is NOT because the Arctic ice is melting.
When the ice cubes in your glass of soft drink melt, the level doesn't increase.
The situation, of course, is different in Antarctica because there the mass of ice is largely sitting on land and as it melts into the ocean it *is* raising global sea levels.
The increase in melting ice may disrupt ocean currents, however, as the difference in salinity and density may cause convective flows that aren't normally there.
...eXistenZ
It sounds like someone said "Well, go do a press release that explains that 'Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers...contracts...stronger than anything you could do with copyrights', and then other person make the release verbatim instead of "explaining" it.
I have moderator points right now but there is no choice: Painful