I'm suddenly reminded of a movie that I saw in a middle school history class. The plot: a teacher, wanting to demonstrate how Adolf Hitler was able to turn Germany into an anti-sematic state so easily, forms a club on his campus and invites all students to join. Slowly the club turns into a neo-nazi type organization with hatred channeled at anyone who doesn't join the club and play by their rules. Members were encouraged to report friends who didn't join or adhere to the club's rules. The club was called The Wave (which I believe was the name of the movie too, but I can't be certain). Scary stuff. Maybe the developers at Pinkerton should watch this movie before rolling out their program to see the kind of horror they could be starting with this program.
I've heard rumors that Arizona is also considering banning students from taking classes. There have been allegations that some students have been encouraged to think both in and out of class. Several faculty members stand to lose their positions if they continue to encourage such anti-conformist behavior in the student population. It is rumored that one cafeteria worker has already been fired for asking a student to decided between regular and low-fat gruel.
I've heard rumors that God is considering a lawsuit against the creators of this technology. The basis of his case is that the encryption method used in DNA was reverse engineered and anyone using this is illegally encoding and decoding smells. Also, the potential application to copy smells and distribute them without licensing a biological nose from God could seriously cut into His profits. I wouldn't be too worried though, from what I here no good lawyers have ever come remotely close to Heaven, so he has more or less horrid legal council.
I don't really think that one genre can be singled out as worse that the other, though there are several games that I believe just don't belong on a 10 year old's desktop. But that's the parents' decision, not mine, yours, or any silly ratings.
Personally I prefer combat sims because I think they require more thought and strategy; like chess with tanks. Shooters are more for stress relief to me. I'm a college kid, so whenever I've just finished a large project I fire up Quake 2 and kill my roommate a few times. Better that we do it in the game than in real life, and taking out our stresses in game makes for a smoother friendship in real life.
Slate has its own thread of comments on the article that can be seen here. There are several good comments and A LOT of flames. Maybe they should impliment a moderation system over there.
Actually, I would consider competing standards to be a good thing in a developing area. The competition will force the creation of a better standard. It may take a while, and many peoples' wallets will get burnt on the way, but eventually a great standard will evolve and we'll all be better off for it.
I think Sony's approach to being in every market is very different from the MS approach. If you bought a MS OS you got a MS web browser too. If you buy a Sony PC all you get is a Sony PC. Buy a Play Station, get a Play Station. They're not forcing multiple technologies onto people who just want to buy into one of their technologies. Notice that the Memory Stick slots aren't the only means of inputing and outputing data on the Sony PCs; they have the hardware to support a Rio or any other portable MP3 device. When Sony makes it so that you have to use thier MP3 device with their PCs then we've got a problem, but I for one don't forsee that happening. ~Caliban
You have to wonder if Sony would have been willing to do this before Judge Jackson's finding of fact was released. Now that Microsoft will probably start to loose its grip on the market I think we can expect to see more team ups between MS licensees and MS competitors with superior products. As the software giant falls we will probably see a lot more innovative ideas coming about thanks to companies that could not previously team up due to MS pressure.
Now when will I be able to get an add on to play FF8 on my pilot?
Hopefully this is just the first step in governments realizing that there are no national boundaries on the internet and that attempting to enforce them is a waste of resources.
I don't think that it is so much that the Geek culture is diverging as it is that people are looking at geek culture for the first time and noticing that we're not just a bunch of pocket-protector-wearing freaks. Society is looking at the/.ers of the world and saying "Hey, they're the ones that make all of these cool things happen." and in the process we're getting more exposure and so people are noticing that there are different viewpoints in the geek culture just as there are in any culture. Not all geeks are privacy fanatics, not all are hardcore linux users, and not all are paranoid weirdos who live in their parents' basement watching reruns of Star Trek and playing D&D. Geek Culture isn't diverging; people are just starting to pay us enough attention to notice the divisions that have always been there.
It's a scary thought, but mtDNA only accounts for a small percentage of genetic diseases. To eliminate most genetic diseases would require changing the DNA of the cell's nucleus; with this, the clone is no longer identical thus increasing the chances that the clone would reject the transplant.
I don't think that this should come as a huge surprise. The egg used to create the clone had its DNA removed and replaced with the ewe's DNA; however it did not have its mitochondria replaced, thus the mtDNA of the egg would continue to be replicated and become Dolly's mtDNS
What if the moderation controls were a Slashbox? Then if you wanted to see them when you log in you can, or you could ignore them. Anyone who was logged in could submit moderation pionts, but they would only be counted if the user had moderater points (which the user wouldn't know if they did or not).
Have you considered limiting the number of anonymous posts a registered/logged in user can have in one month? This way you're not eliminating anonymous posting, but people will probably be more conservative with anonymous posting if they know that they can only do it say twice a month. Just my 2 cents.
An instructive 5th grade grammar class is one thing, but once a student reaches the high school level I think we should expect more from them than reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. Most high school level CS courses are offered as an elective, and if a student can handle the ideas then let them go for it. Some of the best programmers I've known have been Juniors or Seniors in high school.
Personally, I started my programming experience with C during high school (unless you count programming TI calculaors), and I found it to be an excellent language for a beginner. I think a structured programming language is best to start out with, and OOP should probably saved for the end of the students' high school career or the beginning of their college education. C is a great structured language for beginners because it isn't hard to grasp, allows for low-level programming, and makes the move to OOP in C++ fairly simple.
Also, Several people have mentioned that the quality of CS educations has gone down, producing students that can't grasp 'real world' concepts. At my school (Winthrop Univeristy) The courses tend to address real world problems as well as theoretical ones, and we have several one hour credit courses that specialize in everything from Ada to COBOL (which isn't THAT bad of a language once you get into it).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm suddenly reminded of a movie that I saw in a middle school history class. The plot: a teacher, wanting to demonstrate how Adolf Hitler was able to turn Germany into an anti-sematic state so easily, forms a club on his campus and invites all students to join. Slowly the club turns into a neo-nazi type organization with hatred channeled at anyone who doesn't join the club and play by their rules. Members were encouraged to report friends who didn't join or adhere to the club's rules. The club was called The Wave (which I believe was the name of the movie too, but I can't be certain). Scary stuff. Maybe the developers at Pinkerton should watch this movie before rolling out their program to see the kind of horror they could be starting with this program.
~Caliban
I've heard rumors that Arizona is also considering banning students from taking classes. There have been allegations that some students have been encouraged to think both in and out of class. Several faculty members stand to lose their positions if they continue to encourage such anti-conformist behavior in the student population. It is rumored that one cafeteria worker has already been fired for asking a student to decided between regular and low-fat gruel.
~Caliban
I've heard rumors that God is considering a lawsuit against the creators of this technology. The basis of his case is that the encryption method used in DNA was reverse engineered and anyone using this is illegally encoding and decoding smells. Also, the potential application to copy smells and distribute them without licensing a biological nose from God could seriously cut into His profits. I wouldn't be too worried though, from what I here no good lawyers have ever come remotely close to Heaven, so he has more or less horrid legal council.
~CalibanDNS
Now if I could just get one of these to tie onto my car....
~CalibanDNS
I don't really think that one genre can be singled out as worse that the other, though there are several games that I believe just don't belong on a 10 year old's desktop. But that's the parents' decision, not mine, yours, or any silly ratings.
Personally I prefer combat sims because I think they require more thought and strategy; like chess with tanks. Shooters are more for stress relief to me. I'm a college kid, so whenever I've just finished a large project I fire up Quake 2 and kill my roommate a few times. Better that we do it in the game than in real life, and taking out our stresses in game makes for a smoother friendship in real life.
~Caliban
Slate has its own thread of comments on the article that can be seen here. There are several good comments and A LOT of flames. Maybe they should impliment a moderation system over there.
~Caliban
Actually, I would consider competing standards to be a good thing in a developing area. The competition will force the creation of a better standard. It may take a while, and many peoples' wallets will get burnt on the way, but eventually a great standard will evolve and we'll all be better off for it.
~Caliban
I think Sony's approach to being in every market is very different from the MS approach. If you bought a MS OS you got a MS web browser too. If you buy a Sony PC all you get is a Sony PC. Buy a Play Station, get a Play Station. They're not forcing multiple technologies onto people who just want to buy into one of their technologies. Notice that the Memory Stick slots aren't the only means of inputing and outputing data on the Sony PCs; they have the hardware to support a Rio or any other portable MP3 device. When Sony makes it so that you have to use thier MP3 device with their PCs then we've got a problem, but I for one don't forsee that happening.
~Caliban
You have to wonder if Sony would have been willing to do this before Judge Jackson's finding of fact was released. Now that Microsoft will probably start to loose its grip on the market I think we can expect to see more team ups between MS licensees and MS competitors with superior products. As the software giant falls we will probably see a lot more innovative ideas coming about thanks to companies that could not previously team up due to MS pressure.
Now when will I be able to get an add on to play FF8 on my pilot?
~Caliban
Hopefully this is just the first step in governments realizing that there are no national boundaries on the internet and that attempting to enforce them is a waste of resources.
~Caliban
This is great actually. Now, when I move to cyber-Helsinki I won't have to worry about cyber-STDs and what not!
~Caliban
I don't think that it is so much that the Geek culture is diverging as it is that people are looking at geek culture for the first time and noticing that we're not just a bunch of pocket-protector-wearing freaks. Society is looking at the /.ers of the world and saying "Hey, they're the ones that make all of these cool things happen." and in the process we're getting more exposure and so people are noticing that there are different viewpoints in the geek culture just as there are in any culture. Not all geeks are privacy fanatics, not all are hardcore linux users, and not all are paranoid weirdos who live in their parents' basement watching reruns of Star Trek and playing D&D. Geek Culture isn't diverging; people are just starting to pay us enough attention to notice the divisions that have always been there.
It's a scary thought, but mtDNA only accounts for a small percentage of genetic diseases. To eliminate most genetic diseases would require changing the DNA of the cell's nucleus; with this, the clone is no longer identical thus increasing the chances that the clone would reject the transplant.
~Caliban
I don't think that this should come as a huge surprise. The egg used to create the clone had its DNA removed and replaced with the ewe's DNA; however it did not have its mitochondria replaced, thus the mtDNA of the egg would continue to be replicated and become Dolly's mtDNS
~Caliban
What if the moderation controls were a Slashbox? Then if you wanted to see them when you log in you can, or you could ignore them. Anyone who was logged in could submit moderation pionts, but they would only be counted if the user had moderater points (which the user wouldn't know if they did or not).
~Caliban
Have you considered limiting the number of anonymous posts a registered/logged in user can have in one month? This way you're not eliminating anonymous posting, but people will probably be more conservative with anonymous posting if they know that they can only do it say twice a month. Just my 2 cents.
~Caliban
An instructive 5th grade grammar class is one thing, but once a student reaches the high school level I think we should expect more from them than reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. Most high school level CS courses are offered as an elective, and if a student can handle the ideas then let them go for it. Some of the best programmers I've known have been Juniors or Seniors in high school.
~Caliban
Personally, I started my programming experience with C during high school (unless you count programming TI calculaors), and I found it to be an excellent language for a beginner. I think a structured programming language is best to start out with, and OOP should probably saved for the end of the students' high school career or the beginning of their college education. C is a great structured language for beginners because it isn't hard to grasp, allows for low-level programming, and makes the move to OOP in C++ fairly simple.
Also, Several people have mentioned that the quality of CS educations has gone down, producing students that can't grasp 'real world' concepts. At my school (Winthrop Univeristy) The courses tend to address real world problems as well as theoretical ones, and we have several one hour credit courses that specialize in everything from Ada to COBOL (which isn't THAT bad of a language once you get into it).
~Caliban