At the bottom of the article trashing powerpoint (at least when I'm reading it) is an ad for: "Microsoft 2003 Powerpoint. New Powerpoint 2003 Helps you create and present presentations. www Office Microsoft com"
"Electropolitical Engineering". I can put together a ppt for management at work and pursuade them of most any point I want to. I always feel dishonest doing this, but it's the culture (Like the CAIB report describes). The presentations I am most ashamed of are those where I was forced to do this, because some PHB had sold upper PHBs on a completely idiotic scheme.
The problem is, as has been pointed out, it's not PowerPoint it's PHBs. I have wondered if the two terms overlap in more than mnemonic ways....
I certainly agree that the number one "feature", or that is, requirement, of a database is Protect the data at all costs! On that score alone, I'll concede that your point has a higher priority than mine. But to me, a parallel requirement of a development environment is Protect the code at all costs. If a developer writes the SQL by tap-tap-tapping it out on his own, the tool should leave it the way the developer wrote it.
I don't accept as valid that the tool can go into MY code that I wrote with my own keyboard, days or weeks AFTER I test and deploy to production, and change that code in any way shape or form. Just like with data corruption, if the tool isn't protecting what I've put into it, then I can't KNOW that my system will continue to perform in the manner which I designed and tested it.
One thing is an absolute necessity: Redundancy. Make sure you have two (or more) completely separate units. Each unit should run at NO MORE than 50% of its total cooling capacity. Each has a completely separate power source, all the back to the utility hook up. Run ALL AC units, all the time. Don't plug one in and leave it turned off until you need to use it as a backup. AC units will break down. You know this. When it happens, you will discover you have far less time to react than you think. And if you don't have redundant cooling, you're gonna fry a lotta expensive hardware.
1. Query builder. No one can learn advanced database topics from the Access Query builder. I started trying to learn database after having been a professional programmer for about 10 years (Fortran, C, Asm). When I did, I started with Access. I used the query builder to build SQL, and then tried to learn how the SQL worked. It was a mess. Nothing made sense, syntactically. It seemed that no matter how I tweaked it, the rules for what is legal and what isn't never became apparent. What's worse, even if the syntax was acceptable, sometimes I would get the wrong data back and not know why.
Access wasn't failing or misbehaving in this - I just couldn't figure out how to make it work using Access's Query builder and just "tweaking" the SQL. I learned Unix, C shell, Bourne shell, C, and Assembler all by grabbing the documentation and a keyboard, and digging in. I know how to figure out a new tool.
But my difficulty in learning SQL from Access made the REAL knowledge I needed even harder to get to: How to normalize data, how to analyze a process and figure out what's really going on, etc. Building the SQL is the last step in the process, and the easiest. That's what SQL is for - so that the tool doesn't get in the way of purely processing truly abstract data. Real SQL does this beautifully.
I took an Oracle class and learned more in one week than I had with Access in one year. Microsoft's query builder and Access documentation hadn't really helped me.
UML straightened me out - by teaching first the concepts, then the structure of the SQL language, then the syntax. By that time, the syntax was easy and even made sense. Access really held me back.
2. Errors in Access's handling of SQL. Here's an example for you. You can set up test tables and prove this to yourself. Create two tables, each with about four fields. (This occurs in both Access 95 and 2000)
Join them on TWO fields, like this:
Select * From Alpha INNER JOIN Beta
ON ((( (ALPHA.KEYONE=BETA.KEYWUN)
AND (ALPHA.KEYTWO=BETA.KEYTOO)
)))
WHERE (ALPHA.ATTRIBANY="WHATIWANT");
Be sure to add the extra parans on the join clause - I'll explain why.
Access will accept this statement. It will actually work - set up some test data and try it.
But save and close the query.
Reopen the query.
You'll notice that join statement loses the outermost set of parans every time you do this. If you compact the database, and Access has to move this query, it will lose another pair. Eventually, it will become this:
Select * From Alpha INNER JOIN Beta
ON (ALPHA.KEYONE=BETA.KEYWUN)
AND (ALPHA.KEYTWO=BETA.KEYTOO)
WHERE (ALPHA.ATTRIBANY="WHATIWANT");
Once the "AND" in the join clause is "exposed" without enclosing parans, Access will reject the query, saying "Unsupported join syntax". This will occur to perfectly functional queries that have long been in use, because ACCESS EDITS YOUR SQL WITHOUT YOU KNOWING IT!!!! Once the SQL becomes "invalid", Access won't let you open the query anymore, even in design mode, so you can fix it. There's nothing you can do with it but delete it at that point.
3. Many more reasons.... But I'm coming in late to this article. If you want to hear them, reply to this post with another post. I don't get modded as a troll, when I'm actually showing facts. I also don't want to spend huge amounts of time if I'm too late and it's not going to be read by anyone.
The Constitution definitely does have something to do with copyright.
Section 8 of the US constitution contains this:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experi en ce/constitution_transcript.html
Especially in advertising. You know how a company will compare their product to their competitors? One example comes to mind: Medicine. Tylenol, for years, compared the effectiveness of extra-strength Tylenol to regular-strength aspirin. Do your comparisons honestly. Itemized features? The kind that have a column for yours, and a column for theirs? Shock your potential customers by putting in a few of the features they have but you don't, and put a "NO" in your column and a "YES" in theirs. This kind of advertising would make me move the despisometer from zero to "surprising respect". I've gotten to where I automatically reject as dishonest EVERY ad I see on TV or read anywhere. Honest advertising that was obviously honest would be such a huge change from the norm that you would definitely stand out in a positive way. (Think "Miracle on 34th Street")
Oh, I forgot to say: Its poetry was just as good, made just as much sense, as the Kurtzwiel poetry on the website. My first intro came late one night while I was running the system console:
Dead Girls Abruptly Quiver While in the snow Green Monkeys Shiver
Flames Die Loudly Worms Call Proudly Fortune Falls Under The Blue Thunder
I remember the exact words because it was so startling. This text became my "sample text" I used when learning new editors, word processors, etc. I sent a message to the user saying "Dead Girls Abruptly Quiver?" He said "Must've had a bad option". My reply: "You must've had some bad stash.":)
My first professional job involving computers began in 1979. There was a really stupid security rule that said if the user didn't type something in, or the computer didn't print something out, within a 4 minute timespan, the user would get logged off. The idea was, if you weren't actually tap-tap-tapping or reading and paging down, then you weren't actually using the computer. Well, about a month after the rule went into effect I encountered a user running a program called "Poetry". Poetry had a table of sentence structures like this: N V N, N V A N, and so on. (Noun Verb Noun, Noun Verb Adjective Noun, etc) It also had a list of words like this: N Monkey V jump A green N girl A dead, etc. It would randomly choose a sentence, randomly choose words of the correct type, and match them up roughly according to the number of syllables. The poetry it produced scanned quite well, actually. And you could customize to any "personality" you wanted by altering the sentence structure and words that it used. And it output one line of poetry every 3 minutes and 55 seconds, thus defeating the stupid security setup on the computer. Within weeks, everyone was using it. Audits of processes executing showed it was using more CPU time than any other program except for realtime. Then people began hiding the binary unde different names, etc, to confuse the audits. And thus, productivity resumed. I went looking for the source code for it about ten years ago, but it's long gone. But people still run the program - the executable is now in the system's bin directory. No one cares about the audits anymore. Yeah, the 4-minute rule is still there, too.
Is that it doesn't do anything. The govvies weren't trying to help "we the people". They wrote and enacted a law that shelters spammers from "we the people". How can you tell if a law is unjust? If it makes **ANY** provision at all preventing people from suing those who break the law. We have been denied access to the third branch of government in order to protect the business interests of spammers.
OK, so you wouldn't want to work with Einstein or Isaac Newton. Their personalities exactly match your description "they can't communicate effectively or deal with other people". The article talks about how these traits are common to those with Asperger's Syndrome, which you said earlier doesn't exist.
I think you have now revealed yourself to be a lurking PHB, spying on those who have a clue. You'd exclude from your company the most brilliant minds, and keep only the most conformist.
Thank you for a reasoned response about ADHD.
This is not a troll. Some/.ers obviously have little or no direct experience with ADHD. I want to tell you what it's like to have UNmedicated ADHD, and what proper medication does for it. I'm not attempting to excuse misdiagnosis, or people who just want bouncy kids to shut up and be quiet. That's a different problem from the ADHD itself.
Without meds:
I can't think on my feet, such as in a design discussion with other developers. I know my part of the project, and if what's being said doesn't mesh, I can't put it into words fast enough to be a part of the conversation. This kind of thing leads to a continual low level of frustration. When working by myself, I have to alternate between the computer, the whiteboard (I have a large one), my desk (I use a large deskpad for laying out flow diagrams, code concepts, notes on related things to look into, etc). I pace. I do other "nervous" activities without realizing I do it. I'm always irritable. Two or three times each morning and afternoon, I must take about a ten minute walk to clear my head. (Less than my co-workers spend smoking, which is considered acceptable). Overall, I'm still a very good programmer, just very frustrated while doing it. I go home totally exhausted.
With the meds:
It's like I'm waking up, without actually changing anything. I'm more aware of my surroundings with less effort. Things bother me much less. The closest I can compare it to, is if you got 3 hours sleep last night, then your morning coffee actually restored the sleep you missed. I feel like I feel after a good workout at the gym. When I take the meds, I can actually stay on an exercise schedule, as well.
I work for one-two hours at a time on each part of my projects. I stop when I want to, not when my agitation forces me to. In meetings, I am calm, articulate, and can substantially contribute to make meetings productive. I don't pace. I don't have to switch between task methods. I am able to focus on/. articles like this enough to make coherent statements. Overall, I'm at peace, without feeling like someone's constantly jostling my elbow.
I just finished working with my company's facilities people to arrange my cubicle so that the furniture arrangement blocks my view of the nearby walkway. This has further increased my productivity. A normal cubical environment like this, carefully arranged, is all I need to block distractions.
The mention of ADHD brought out a lot of comments about kids. This article is about a change in the workplace that affects adults with ADHD, not kids.
Some of the postings other than Styro's I have read here sound like echoes of media hype concerning misdiagnosed kids who then get overdosed on inappropriate meds. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. That has nothing to do with ADHD, though, and has a lot to do with improperly trained and/or unethical doctors.
As for one poster's comment "I don't believe in mental disorders", that is an astoundingly unthought-out concept. That concept presumes that, of all the things that can go wrong with the human body, the brain never breaks. Kidney failure? OK. Diabetes, blood sugar problems? Yeah, ok, your blood can be slightly dysfunctional. Severe eye problems that cause "legal" blindness without actually blinding a person? Yup, I can accept that. The brain? No, it always comes out just perfect. Anyone whose brain doesn't work exactly right is to blame - they did something stupid, or they're deluded into thinking their brain isn't perfect. Some mental disorders, including ADHD, show up on MRI scans, by the way... To those who think it's all made up to sell drugs, I say: Educate yourself: webmd.com
My ADD doesn't affect my ability to write software - I'm a damn good programmer. It affects my ability to filter out noisy distractions and movements in my peripheral vision. If an factory worker were required to work on a slippery floor, he could legitimately complain that the environment limited his productivity, not his own inherent disability.
And as for paraplegics, If Cambridge (or is it Oxford?) didn't supply wheelchair ramps, would it make sense to fire Stephen Hawking? In fact, how about people that can't work in the rain? Should the building have a roof just to accommodate them?
I have severe Attention Deficit Disorder, and putting me in such an environment would result in me being one of those "unproductive" employees. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) would prohibit doing this for 3-5% of the adult population of the US. That 3-5% is packed with a disproportionate number of engineers, scientists, etc, since ADHD tends to affect those with above average intelligence more than other groups.
In this situation, cubicle walls can be interpreted as "adaptive technology" which companies are required by law to provide.
Here's a way to do it without giving up the secret ballot. The box has a disk drive for electronic counting, and a small grocery store receipt printer. It prints TWO copies of the ballot as voted. One copy is stored internally under the same lock as the disk drive. The other spits out and the voter takes it. There's an MD5 hash or some similar encrypted marker so the two receipts can be re-coorelated during system testing. The internal paper record can be compared to the disk's contents.
And no one gives up the right to vote secretly.
The thing to keep in mind about your laser spectroscope: It doesn't measure the amount of pollutants coming out of the exhaust pipe. It measures the amount of pollutants between the laser emitter and the sensor - this is a two way trip thru dozens or hundreds of feet of air that is also being polluted by all nearby vehicles, including the metro bus right in front of you that belched an opaque cloud as it pulled away from the stop. The same metro bus that is probably exempt from pollution controls. I don't know about So.Cal, but in Houston, city and industrial vehicles are immune to these laws - despite studies showing they emit 75% of the vehicle emissions in Houston. Despite Houston also being a "non-attainment zone" like LA, and under the same federal axe that LA is. I'm inclined to feel that this is more of the same damn snake oil as "face recognition software" being installed hither and yon. Unfortunately, no one who has to pay the poor tax is gonna have the bucks to fight this.
Don't assume that American freedom and wealth is self-sustaining. Witness what Microsoft is doing to the computer industry - dragging it down, slowing its progress in order to protect M$'s interests, not USA's. Something has to prime the pump. If we leave it to chance, the same thing will happen to the USA that happened to European powers - the role of who's got the leadership role in world affairs will pass from USA, also. To stay free and rich, less interested parties (like the govt) must push forward. For this reason, NASA does benefit all - just like govt-funded medical research, civil engineering projects like dam building and development of structural codes, etc. NASA's just one piece of that. Yes it's inefficient and bureuacratic. That's not a problem, really, just a cost.
Have you recently compared prices on the shelf tag to the price the cash register charges you? Even when both are using barcodes? It's amazing how often the shelf prices are more than the cash register prices. Lots more often than the other way around. You don't think the "computers" will make the same kind of "mistakes" and more with the new, user-confuser technology?
Actually, this is a symptom of a "good thing". It shows exactly how and where the GPL will destroy the dinosaurs. Why is SCO using GPL'd software in its products? M O N E Y. It adds value to their product line for a low cost to SCO.
And that's exactly how you take over an industry: A better product for less money. Let SCO blabber, as long as they keep using the GPL. Their actions throw fuel on the fire. As long as SCO uses GPL'd S/W, they're only aiding "the cause" of changing IP/copyright conventions. Yes, they're reprehensible. So what? Their actions say the GPL is winning.
The problem got "out of hand" when the BSA sent an automated legal threat without bothering to check ANYTHING in their claims. They lied, under penalty of perjury, by claiming: > to represent the copyright owners of OpenOffice.org; > the material was posted illegally; > it was a "good faith belief" (I don't consider ANY results from a search engine to be accurate until I check it myself); > that anything they said in the notice is accurate.
Legal threats cost real money. They have a real chilling effect on people's freedoms. They must be taken seriously, even if nonsensical. The BSA is wrong here in so many ways it's hard to count. They deserve to pay with more than just an apology.
OK, let's quickly blow some holes in THAT theory: Any surveillance done by Columbia during 107 could also have been done from the station. The station is in a highly inclined orbit (57 degrees, IIRC) and zooms over territory really fast. Since the entire mission consisted of launch, rendezvous, dock, undock, deorbit, (attempt to) land, any opportunity for surveillance would be extremely slight. Second: Columbia and ISS together are BIG. It would be one of the easiest-to-see objects in the sky, tho it might be mistaken for a UAV or U2. Columbia, like the other orbiters, has encryption technology for the same reason that Amazon.com does: To protect its own data. Up/down link of commands to various shuttle systems must obviously be protected by encryption since all of the protocols and frequencies are public info. If you search the Nasa website deep enough, you can even find out WHEN the links occur and from what ground stations - all public info. Having some socially dysfunctional 14-yr-old open the payload bay doors during deorbit would be an even greater embarassment than losing the orbiter already is. Space exploration is inherently dangerous - and not all the dangers are out there. Every national symbol that America has pride in is a target of our enemies. I consider it extremely unlikely that the masturbating goat herders of Afganistan could blow up the shuttle, but I would've (in fact did) said the same thing about them commandeering four jetliners and crashing them into American landmarks.
I stand, or actually sit, corrected. My thought was that cleaning up/. would reduce it. I tend to think of/. as a nerd party without the beer and pretzels. A "cleaned up" website that carries newsy-type stories seems more like a sales brochure than a conversational setting. As such, it's not enriching enraging enticing or enabling.
Slashdot Mirror
At the bottom of the article trashing powerpoint (at least when I'm reading it) is an ad for:
"Microsoft 2003 Powerpoint. New Powerpoint 2003 Helps you create and present presentations. www Office Microsoft com"
"Electropolitical Engineering". I can put together a ppt for management at work and pursuade them of most any point I want to. I always feel dishonest doing this, but it's the culture (Like the CAIB report describes). The presentations I am most ashamed of are those where I was forced to do this, because some PHB had sold upper PHBs on a completely idiotic scheme. The problem is, as has been pointed out, it's not PowerPoint it's PHBs. I have wondered if the two terms overlap in more than mnemonic ways....
I certainly agree that the number one "feature", or that is, requirement, of a database is Protect the data at all costs! On that score alone, I'll concede that your point has a higher priority than mine.
But to me, a parallel requirement of a development environment is Protect the code at all costs. If a developer writes the SQL by tap-tap-tapping it out on his own, the tool should leave it the way the developer wrote it.
I don't accept as valid that the tool can go into MY code that I wrote with my own keyboard, days or weeks AFTER I test and deploy to production, and change that code in any way shape or form. Just like with data corruption, if the tool isn't protecting what I've put into it, then I can't KNOW that my system will continue to perform in the manner which I designed and tested it.
One thing is an absolute necessity: Redundancy. Make sure you have two (or more) completely separate units. Each unit should run at NO MORE than 50% of its total cooling capacity. Each has a completely separate power source, all the back to the utility hook up. Run ALL AC units, all the time. Don't plug one in and leave it turned off until you need to use it as a backup.
AC units will break down. You know this. When it happens, you will discover you have far less time to react than you think.
And if you don't have redundant cooling, you're gonna fry a lotta expensive hardware.
Access wasn't failing or misbehaving in this - I just couldn't figure out how to make it work using Access's Query builder and just "tweaking" the SQL. I learned Unix, C shell, Bourne shell, C, and Assembler all by grabbing the documentation and a keyboard, and digging in. I know how to figure out a new tool.
But my difficulty in learning SQL from Access made the REAL knowledge I needed even harder to get to: How to normalize data, how to analyze a process and figure out what's really going on, etc.
Building the SQL is the last step in the process, and the easiest. That's what SQL is for - so that the tool doesn't get in the way of purely processing truly abstract data. Real SQL does this beautifully.
I took an Oracle class and learned more in one week than I had with Access in one year. Microsoft's query builder and Access documentation hadn't really helped me.
UML straightened me out - by teaching first the concepts, then the structure of the SQL language, then the syntax. By that time, the syntax was easy and even made sense. Access really held me back.
2. Errors in Access's handling of SQL. Here's an example for you. You can set up test tables and prove this to yourself. Create two tables, each with about four fields. (This occurs in both Access 95 and 2000)
Join them on TWO fields, like this: Be sure to add the extra parans on the join clause - I'll explain why. Access will accept this statement. It will actually work - set up some test data and try it. But save and close the query.
Reopen the query.
You'll notice that join statement loses the outermost set of parans every time you do this. If you compact the database, and Access has to move this query, it will lose another pair.
Eventually, it will become this: Once the "AND" in the join clause is "exposed" without enclosing parans, Access will reject the query, saying "Unsupported join syntax". This will occur to perfectly functional queries that have long been in use, because ACCESS EDITS YOUR SQL WITHOUT YOU KNOWING IT!!!! Once the SQL becomes "invalid", Access won't let you open the query anymore, even in design mode, so you can fix it. There's nothing you can do with it but delete it at that point.
3. Many more reasons.... But I'm coming in late to this article. If you want to hear them, reply to this post with another post. I don't get modded as a troll, when I'm actually showing facts. I also don't want to spend huge amounts of time if I'm too late and it's not going to be read by anyone.
The Constitution definitely does have something to do with copyright.
i en ce/constitution_transcript.html
Section 8 of the US constitution contains this:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_exper
Whatever you see SCO do, do the exact opposite.
Especially in advertising. You know how a company will compare their product to their competitors? One example comes to mind: Medicine. Tylenol, for years, compared the effectiveness of extra-strength Tylenol to regular-strength aspirin. Do your comparisons honestly.
Itemized features? The kind that have a column for yours, and a column for theirs? Shock your potential customers by putting in a few of the features they have but you don't, and put a "NO" in your column and a "YES" in theirs. This kind of advertising would make me move the despisometer from zero to "surprising respect".
I've gotten to where I automatically reject as dishonest EVERY ad I see on TV or read anywhere.
Honest advertising that was obviously honest would be such a huge change from the norm that you would definitely stand out in a positive way. (Think "Miracle on 34th Street")
I remember the exact words because it was so startling. This text became my "sample text" I used when learning new editors, word processors, etc.
I sent a message to the user saying "Dead Girls Abruptly Quiver?"
He said "Must've had a bad option".
My reply: "You must've had some bad stash."
My first professional job involving computers began in 1979. There was a really stupid security rule that said if the user didn't type something in, or the computer didn't print something out, within a 4 minute timespan, the user would get logged off. The idea was, if you weren't actually tap-tap-tapping or reading and paging down, then you weren't actually using the computer.
Well, about a month after the rule went into effect I encountered a user running a program called "Poetry". Poetry had a table of sentence structures like this: N V N, N V A N, and so on. (Noun Verb Noun, Noun Verb Adjective Noun, etc)
It also had a list of words like this: N Monkey V jump A green N girl A dead, etc.
It would randomly choose a sentence, randomly choose words of the correct type, and match them up roughly according to the number of syllables.
The poetry it produced scanned quite well, actually. And you could customize to any "personality" you wanted by altering the sentence structure and words that it used.
And it output one line of poetry every 3 minutes and 55 seconds, thus defeating the stupid security setup on the computer. Within weeks, everyone was using it. Audits of processes executing showed it was using more CPU time than any other program except for realtime. Then people began hiding the binary unde different names, etc, to confuse the audits. And thus, productivity resumed.
I went looking for the source code for it about ten years ago, but it's long gone. But people still run the program - the executable is now in the system's bin directory. No one cares about the audits anymore. Yeah, the 4-minute rule is still there, too.
Is that it doesn't do anything. The govvies weren't trying to help "we the people". They wrote and enacted a law that shelters spammers from "we the people".
How can you tell if a law is unjust? If it makes **ANY** provision at all preventing people from suing those who break the law.
We have been denied access to the third branch of government in order to protect the business interests of spammers.
OK, so you wouldn't want to work with Einstein or Isaac Newton. Their personalities exactly match your description "they can't communicate effectively or deal with other people". The article talks about how these traits are common to those with Asperger's Syndrome, which you said earlier doesn't exist.
I think you have now revealed yourself to be a lurking PHB, spying on those who have a clue. You'd exclude from your company the most brilliant minds, and keep only the most conformist.
No, those guys may have had antisocial "mental disorders" that some /.ers think don't exist.
About.com
Educate yourself: ADD is real enough to show up in MRI scans.0 8/
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/367
Thank you for a reasoned response about ADHD. This is not a troll. Some /.ers obviously have little or no direct experience with ADHD. I want to tell you what it's like to have UNmedicated ADHD, and what proper medication does for it. I'm not attempting to excuse misdiagnosis, or people who just want bouncy kids to shut up and be quiet. That's a different problem from the ADHD itself. /. articles like this enough to make coherent statements. Overall, I'm at peace, without feeling like someone's constantly jostling my elbow.
Without meds:
I can't think on my feet, such as in a design discussion with other developers. I know my part of the project, and if what's being said doesn't mesh, I can't put it into words fast enough to be a part of the conversation. This kind of thing leads to a continual low level of frustration.
When working by myself, I have to alternate between the computer, the whiteboard (I have a large one), my desk (I use a large deskpad for laying out flow diagrams, code concepts, notes on related things to look into, etc). I pace. I do other "nervous" activities without realizing I do it. I'm always irritable. Two or three times each morning and afternoon, I must take about a ten minute walk to clear my head. (Less than my co-workers spend smoking, which is considered acceptable). Overall, I'm still a very good programmer, just very frustrated while doing it. I go home totally exhausted.
With the meds:
It's like I'm waking up, without actually changing anything. I'm more aware of my surroundings with less effort. Things bother me much less. The closest I can compare it to, is if you got 3 hours sleep last night, then your morning coffee actually restored the sleep you missed. I feel like I feel after a good workout at the gym. When I take the meds, I can actually stay on an exercise schedule, as well. I work for one-two hours at a time on each part of my projects. I stop when I want to, not when my agitation forces me to. In meetings, I am calm, articulate, and can substantially contribute to make meetings productive. I don't pace. I don't have to switch between task methods.
I am able to focus on
I just finished working with my company's facilities people to arrange my cubicle so that the furniture arrangement blocks my view of the nearby walkway. This has further increased my productivity. A normal cubical environment like this, carefully arranged, is all I need to block distractions.
The mention of ADHD brought out a lot of comments about kids. This article is about a change in the workplace that affects adults with ADHD, not kids. Some of the postings other than Styro's I have read here sound like echoes of media hype concerning misdiagnosed kids who then get overdosed on inappropriate meds. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. That has nothing to do with ADHD, though, and has a lot to do with improperly trained and/or unethical doctors.
As for one poster's comment "I don't believe in mental disorders", that is an astoundingly unthought-out concept. That concept presumes that, of all the things that can go wrong with the human body, the brain never breaks. Kidney failure? OK. Diabetes, blood sugar problems? Yeah, ok, your blood can be slightly dysfunctional. Severe eye problems that cause "legal" blindness without actually blinding a person? Yup, I can accept that. The brain? No, it always comes out just perfect. Anyone whose brain doesn't work exactly right is to blame - they did something stupid, or they're deluded into thinking their brain isn't perfect. Some mental disorders, including ADHD, show up on MRI scans, by the way...
To those who think it's all made up to sell drugs, I say: Educate yourself: webmd.com
My ADD doesn't affect my ability to write software - I'm a damn good programmer. It affects my ability to filter out noisy distractions and movements in my peripheral vision.
If an factory worker were required to work on a slippery floor, he could legitimately complain that the environment limited his productivity, not his own inherent disability.
And as for paraplegics, If Cambridge (or is it Oxford?) didn't supply wheelchair ramps, would it make sense to fire Stephen Hawking? In fact, how about people that can't work in the rain? Should the building have a roof just to accommodate them?
I have severe Attention Deficit Disorder, and putting me in such an environment would result in me being one of those "unproductive" employees. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) would prohibit doing this for 3-5% of the adult population of the US. That 3-5% is packed with a disproportionate number of engineers, scientists, etc, since ADHD tends to affect those with above average intelligence more than other groups.
In this situation, cubicle walls can be interpreted as "adaptive technology" which companies are required by law to provide.
Here's a way to do it without giving up the secret ballot. The box has a disk drive for electronic counting, and a small grocery store receipt printer. It prints TWO copies of the ballot as voted. One copy is stored internally under the same lock as the disk drive. The other spits out and the voter takes it. There's an MD5 hash or some similar encrypted marker so the two receipts can be re-coorelated during system testing. The internal paper record can be compared to the disk's contents.
And no one gives up the right to vote secretly.
The thing to keep in mind about your laser spectroscope: It doesn't measure the amount of pollutants coming out of the exhaust pipe. It measures the amount of pollutants between the laser emitter and the sensor - this is a two way trip thru dozens or hundreds of feet of air that is also being polluted by all nearby vehicles, including the metro bus right in front of you that belched an opaque cloud as it pulled away from the stop. The same metro bus that is probably exempt from pollution controls. I don't know about So.Cal, but in Houston, city and industrial vehicles are immune to these laws - despite studies showing they emit 75% of the vehicle emissions in Houston. Despite Houston also being a "non-attainment zone" like LA, and under the same federal axe that LA is.
I'm inclined to feel that this is more of the same damn snake oil as "face recognition software" being installed hither and yon. Unfortunately, no one who has to pay the poor tax is gonna have the bucks to fight this.
Don't assume that American freedom and wealth is self-sustaining. Witness what Microsoft is doing to the computer industry - dragging it down, slowing its progress in order to protect M$'s interests, not USA's.
Something has to prime the pump. If we leave it to chance, the same thing will happen to the USA that happened to European powers - the role of who's got the leadership role in world affairs will pass from USA, also.
To stay free and rich, less interested parties (like the govt) must push forward. For this reason, NASA does benefit all - just like govt-funded medical research, civil engineering projects like dam building and development of structural codes, etc. NASA's just one piece of that.
Yes it's inefficient and bureuacratic. That's not a problem, really, just a cost.
Have you recently compared prices on the shelf tag to the price the cash register charges you? Even when both are using barcodes? It's amazing how often the shelf prices are more than the cash register prices. Lots more often than the other way around.
You don't think the "computers" will make the same kind of "mistakes" and more with the new, user-confuser technology?
Actually, this is a symptom of a "good thing". It shows exactly how and where the GPL will destroy the dinosaurs. Why is SCO using GPL'd software in its products? M O N E Y. It adds value to their product line for a low cost to SCO.
And that's exactly how you take over an industry: A better product for less money.
Let SCO blabber, as long as they keep using the GPL. Their actions throw fuel on the fire. As long as SCO uses GPL'd S/W, they're only aiding "the cause" of changing IP/copyright conventions.
Yes, they're reprehensible. So what? Their actions say the GPL is winning.
The problem got "out of hand" when the BSA sent an automated legal threat without bothering to check ANYTHING in their claims. They lied, under penalty of perjury, by claiming:
> to represent the copyright owners of OpenOffice.org;
> the material was posted illegally;
> it was a "good faith belief" (I don't consider ANY results from a search engine to be accurate until I check it myself);
> that anything they said in the notice is accurate.
Legal threats cost real money. They have a real chilling effect on people's freedoms. They must be taken seriously, even if nonsensical.
The BSA is wrong here in so many ways it's hard to count. They deserve to pay with more than just an apology.
OK, let's quickly blow some holes in THAT theory: Any surveillance done by Columbia during 107 could also have been done from the station. The station is in a highly inclined orbit (57 degrees, IIRC) and zooms over territory really fast. Since the entire mission consisted of launch, rendezvous, dock, undock, deorbit, (attempt to) land, any opportunity for surveillance would be extremely slight.
Second: Columbia and ISS together are BIG. It would be one of the easiest-to-see objects in the sky, tho it might be mistaken for a UAV or U2.
Columbia, like the other orbiters, has encryption technology for the same reason that Amazon.com does: To protect its own data.
Up/down link of commands to various shuttle systems must obviously be protected by encryption since all of the protocols and frequencies are public info. If you search the Nasa website deep enough, you can even find out WHEN the links occur and from what ground stations - all public info. Having some socially dysfunctional 14-yr-old open the payload bay doors during deorbit would be an even greater embarassment than losing the orbiter already is.
Space exploration is inherently dangerous - and not all the dangers are out there. Every national symbol that America has pride in is a target of our enemies. I consider it extremely unlikely that the masturbating goat herders of Afganistan could blow up the shuttle, but I would've (in fact did) said the same thing about them commandeering four jetliners and crashing them into American landmarks.
I stand, or actually sit, corrected. My thought was that cleaning up /. would reduce it. I tend to think of /. as a nerd party without the beer and pretzels. A "cleaned up" website that carries newsy-type stories seems more like a sales brochure than a conversational setting. As such, it's not enriching enraging enticing or enabling.