If by rural America you mean farmers, they are doing fantastic right now. They can either get paid to not grow stuff, grow wheat and sell it for food at record high prices, or grow corn and sell it at record high prices and get the ethanol subsidy from the gov.
I agree that the economy is pretty poor right now, but it's not the farmers who are currently suffering:)
When gas was 99c/gallon, people weren't all that interested in new fuel technology. Now with oil going up and up, I expect we'll finally start seeing some real break throughs in alternative energy research.
OSS should also benefit from a slower economy. Why pay MS 100k for MSSQL licensing when I can get postgres?
Innovation won't stop and will continue to happen. It just might be in different areas.
There was a poll done on black americans and the large majority said they didn't know anything that Obama stood for, except that he was black. I don't see how this is any different than the white bigot who votes against him only because he is black.
Now what would have been interesting is if someone like a Powell or Rice had run. Would black Americans have blindly voted for a black republican?
They might not understand the specifics of tech policy, but a democrat is likely to choose someone who is pro civil-liberties
I'm pretty sure pro civil-liberties and Obama went opposite directions when he started talking about mandating what temperature I keep my house, how much food I can eat, or how much gas I can buy.
And this how is this different than another group of Americans who will walk up and say "ok, who was the black guy again? oh yeah" and vote for the latest idiot from the democrats?
I'll add the MBP line is also very comparable right after an update.
Apples problem is that they don't lower the prices of machines over time like the other computer makers do. So, if you buy a Mac right after a refresh the prices are usually very competitive.
What level of detail is enough for someone to you know? You seem to imply C, while the programmers around when C came onto the scene would say you need to know ASM. Wait, does someone then need to know the details of how a transistor works or how electricity works on the molecular level in order to write good software? You can easily enter a never ending spiral of decomposition where you never end up solving the actual problem you set out to solve.
These tools are not crutches. They make possible the large, complex software that is written today. You're right, we put men on the moon with a pencil and slide rule. How many lines of code were required to accomplish this feat? Probably not more than could be hand checked by a talented person or two. Now look at modern OSs, RDBMs, etc... Code bases that are so large and complex, these tools are not crutches, but necessary parts of the development process.
Now, if you want to argue that software doesn't need to be as complex as it has become I think you might have a point. A look at the recent directions of languages like Python or Ruby shows that simplification is the new thing.
When Apple does an update, the MBs and MBPs are usually pretty competitive pricewise. The problem is that most people don't need all that a Pro has to offer and can get by with a $400 laptop. I'm on a SR MBP now, and when pricing dells or Lenovos with the same features they were always within $100-$200 of the mac.
The problem is that Apple doesn't lower the prices of their machines over time, so if the machine hasn't been updated in awhile then the value does indeed suck.
I'm not in control of the site linked to. Just someone who lives in the community and sees the corruption that goes on all the time. Of course it's not always to this magnitude, but when it is we have to try and do something.
They've edited the story since I posted to say the internet will only be required for a 1-time activation, but if they required the internet every time you play I think it would start to force non-geeks to find a solution. That's the point of my post. That by making the protection schemes more and more draconian, they are pushing 'normal' users into the land of geeks and cracks.
It will just make the people who would normally not look for cracks go and find them. These people will then see that they didn't have to buy the game in the first place and EA will turn their paying customers into non-paying ones. Great job!
What exactly does it imply? I listen to everything from rap to classical. The only thing my large library implies is the easily availability of music (look at Amazon or iTMS) and my openness to listen to something new. If you're a lyric fan, there are good lyrics in almost any genre, same goes for if you're a melody fan.
I guess I could just stick with the music I listened to while I was in HS and college (like most people), but where is the fun that?:)
I use my 32 GB ipod as a semi-permanent music storage device in my car. My library has now grown beyond 32GB (even when I take out album art) so now I no longer have access to all my music while I'm in the car. It's something I can deal with fine now, but I won't buy another ipod unless it's >32GB in size.
I agree. I'm not talking about classes with only you in them. Just classes with less people, and where the teacher cares about teaching. Plus, a lot of my upper courses (in undergrad, but more so graduate) the teachers give problems that even they don't know the answer. But, because the classes are small they can do that and then spend time in class working through the challenging problems as a group.
That point was directed specifically at CS, not some general knowledge. It works for that, too, but the conclusion would be different. I was assuming he was studying CS because he wanted to learn it.
I'm not even sure that's true for CS anymore. The big tech schools seem to have so many people that the professors don't have much time to spend on students. And even if they do, they don't seem to care. So, you end up learning it all on your own anyways. If you go to a smaller school with a smaller (while still ACM accredited) CS program, you can end up with a lot of 1 one 1 teacher time. Smaller classes also means the teacher can easily tailor the class for the students, which can lead to more advanced topics.
You learn a lot just by being around other people who know more than you do.
You're assuming that people at a liberal arts school don't know more than he does. It could be argued that by going to a LA school he is more likely will run into people who know things that he's not even aware he doesn't know.
If the cop isn't there just say you didn't run the light. Someone else, using his notes isn't enough to prove you did. Unless there is video it's your word against his, and if the person who supposedly saw it happen isn't there then it's your word against...well no one.
You're right that it's not clear. But I think you're only looking at the current mess and not how we got here.
The problem is that the market hasn't been laissez fair for a long time. We have quasi gov/private entities like Fannie May and Freddie Mac making loans to people who probably shouldn't be able to get them in the first place and having the gov. back them. Then you have the fed injecting billions into the market either through rate cuts or the discount anytime the stock market goes down a little bit. You may be right about it being too late to remove the safety nets now, but I wonder if risk might have been thought of differently if all those safety nets were known not to exist ahead of time.
Anyways, I'm also not anti-regulation. I just think that if you want to regulate, then you need to do it when the good times are rolling as much as when thing tumble down. Instead of letting Joe buy a house using a no-doc loan way above he could afford and now trying to regulate to keep him from getting kicked out, regulations should have never let him buy in the first place.
So few companies care. For example, my company was recently bought by larger company. First thing they do is start changing everything pissing off the customers they bought us for. When I brought up this fact the no one cared. They figured the customers will just deal with it.
I don't remember the number of the road, but if you're driving to Tampa from the N down I95 it's the road that you take to cross through the middle of the state. Just went and looked it up...it's Highway 301...
Maybe it's just where I live, but police do that too. I think it depends on the city/town.
For example, anytime I drive to Tampa, FL there is a crazy stretch of road where the speed limits go from 55->25->45->25 etc... where the police really do make money from the speed trap revenues. It's pretty amusing since people have put billboards up complaining about the ticketing on this stretch of road.
LOL, thanks for the history lesson. I missed LPs in my original post, but I think for the majority of the people out there, rebuying music b/c of a format change has been a normal thing. While I agree with you, I think it's safe to say that you are not the 'typical' music customer:)
Slashdot Mirror
If by rural America you mean farmers, they are doing fantastic right now. They can either get paid to not grow stuff, grow wheat and sell it for food at record high prices, or grow corn and sell it at record high prices and get the ethanol subsidy from the gov.
:)
I agree that the economy is pretty poor right now, but it's not the farmers who are currently suffering
When gas was 99c/gallon, people weren't all that interested in new fuel technology. Now with oil going up and up, I expect we'll finally start seeing some real break throughs in alternative energy research.
OSS should also benefit from a slower economy. Why pay MS 100k for MSSQL licensing when I can get postgres?
Innovation won't stop and will continue to happen. It just might be in different areas.
There was a poll done on black americans and the large majority said they didn't know anything that Obama stood for, except that he was black. I don't see how this is any different than the white bigot who votes against him only because he is black.
Now what would have been interesting is if someone like a Powell or Rice had run. Would black Americans have blindly voted for a black republican?
They might not understand the specifics of tech policy, but a democrat is likely to choose someone who is pro civil-liberties
I'm pretty sure pro civil-liberties and Obama went opposite directions when he started talking about mandating what temperature I keep my house, how much food I can eat, or how much gas I can buy.
And this how is this different than another group of Americans who will walk up and say "ok, who was the black guy again? oh yeah" and vote for the latest idiot from the democrats?
I'll add the MBP line is also very comparable right after an update.
Apples problem is that they don't lower the prices of machines over time like the other computer makers do. So, if you buy a Mac right after a refresh the prices are usually very competitive.
What level of detail is enough for someone to you know? You seem to imply C, while the programmers around when C came onto the scene would say you need to know ASM. Wait, does someone then need to know the details of how a transistor works or how electricity works on the molecular level in order to write good software? You can easily enter a never ending spiral of decomposition where you never end up solving the actual problem you set out to solve.
These tools are not crutches. They make possible the large, complex software that is written today. You're right, we put men on the moon with a pencil and slide rule. How many lines of code were required to accomplish this feat? Probably not more than could be hand checked by a talented person or two. Now look at modern OSs, RDBMs, etc... Code bases that are so large and complex, these tools are not crutches, but necessary parts of the development process.
Now, if you want to argue that software doesn't need to be as complex as it has become I think you might have a point. A look at the recent directions of languages like Python or Ruby shows that simplification is the new thing.
When Apple does an update, the MBs and MBPs are usually pretty competitive pricewise. The problem is that most people don't need all that a Pro has to offer and can get by with a $400 laptop. I'm on a SR MBP now, and when pricing dells or Lenovos with the same features they were always within $100-$200 of the mac.
The problem is that Apple doesn't lower the prices of their machines over time, so if the machine hasn't been updated in awhile then the value does indeed suck.
I'm not in control of the site linked to. Just someone who lives in the community and sees the corruption that goes on all the time. Of course it's not always to this magnitude, but when it is we have to try and do something.
They've edited the story since I posted to say the internet will only be required for a 1-time activation, but if they required the internet every time you play I think it would start to force non-geeks to find a solution. That's the point of my post. That by making the protection schemes more and more draconian, they are pushing 'normal' users into the land of geeks and cracks.
It will just make the people who would normally not look for cracks go and find them. These people will then see that they didn't have to buy the game in the first place and EA will turn their paying customers into non-paying ones. Great job!
What exactly does it imply? I listen to everything from rap to classical. The only thing my large library implies is the easily availability of music (look at Amazon or iTMS) and my openness to listen to something new. If you're a lyric fan, there are good lyrics in almost any genre, same goes for if you're a melody fan.
:)
I guess I could just stick with the music I listened to while I was in HS and college (like most people), but where is the fun that?
If I buy songs online, I buy them from Amazon. It's downloader pulls them down and puts them right into iTunes without a hitch.
I use my 32 GB ipod as a semi-permanent music storage device in my car. My library has now grown beyond 32GB (even when I take out album art) so now I no longer have access to all my music while I'm in the car. It's something I can deal with fine now, but I won't buy another ipod unless it's >32GB in size.
I agree. I'm not talking about classes with only you in them. Just classes with less people, and where the teacher cares about teaching. Plus, a lot of my upper courses (in undergrad, but more so graduate) the teachers give problems that even they don't know the answer. But, because the classes are small they can do that and then spend time in class working through the challenging problems as a group.
I'm not even sure that's true for CS anymore. The big tech schools seem to have so many people that the professors don't have much time to spend on students. And even if they do, they don't seem to care. So, you end up learning it all on your own anyways. If you go to a smaller school with a smaller (while still ACM accredited) CS program, you can end up with a lot of 1 one 1 teacher time. Smaller classes also means the teacher can easily tailor the class for the students, which can lead to more advanced topics.
You learn a lot just by being around other people who know more than you do.
You're assuming that people at a liberal arts school don't know more than he does. It could be argued that by going to a LA school he is more likely will run into people who know things that he's not even aware he doesn't know.
"Coooold Bloooded"
If the cop isn't there just say you didn't run the light. Someone else, using his notes isn't enough to prove you did. Unless there is video it's your word against his, and if the person who supposedly saw it happen isn't there then it's your word against...well no one.
You're right that it's not clear. But I think you're only looking at the current mess and not how we got here.
The problem is that the market hasn't been laissez fair for a long time. We have quasi gov/private entities like Fannie May and Freddie Mac making loans to people who probably shouldn't be able to get them in the first place and having the gov. back them. Then you have the fed injecting billions into the market either through rate cuts or the discount anytime the stock market goes down a little bit. You may be right about it being too late to remove the safety nets now, but I wonder if risk might have been thought of differently if all those safety nets were known not to exist ahead of time.
Anyways, I'm also not anti-regulation. I just think that if you want to regulate, then you need to do it when the good times are rolling as much as when thing tumble down. Instead of letting Joe buy a house using a no-doc loan way above he could afford and now trying to regulate to keep him from getting kicked out, regulations should have never let him buy in the first place.
So few companies care. For example, my company was recently bought by larger company. First thing they do is start changing everything pissing off the customers they bought us for. When I brought up this fact the no one cared. They figured the customers will just deal with it.
I don't remember the number of the road, but if you're driving to Tampa from the N down I95 it's the road that you take to cross through the middle of the state. Just went and looked it up...it's Highway 301...
ROFL, wikipedia even mentions how it's notorious for speed traps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_301
Maybe it's just where I live, but police do that too. I think it depends on the city/town.
For example, anytime I drive to Tampa, FL there is a crazy stretch of road where the speed limits go from 55->25->45->25 etc... where the police really do make money from the speed trap revenues. It's pretty amusing since people have put billboards up complaining about the ticketing on this stretch of road.
I have a Santa Rosa 17" MBP and I didn't see any banding on that site. I guess that would mean my LCD is using the true 8 bits?
LOL, thanks for the history lesson. I missed LPs in my original post, but I think for the majority of the people out there, rebuying music b/c of a format change has been a normal thing. While I agree with you, I think it's safe to say that you are not the 'typical' music customer :)