In terms of timeframes techonological evolution is biological evolution on steroids.
Hardly. Human knowledge passed through culture seems to be accumulating faster than genetic change in organisms. But keep in mind that organic evolution can be looked at as a massively parallel computation - each organism a process.
That's not even accounting for computer-simulated evolution (ie, genetic algorithms and/or programming) which, while somewhat limited at the moment, is several orders of magnitude faster still.
Current state of genetic algorithms is rather primitive, when compared with the chemical evolutionary processes. We've got a looooong way to go.
Lots of monkeys, given enough time (and typewriters), would create complete works of Shakespeare. They HAVE. The (evolved) monkey named Shakespeare is the living..er dead proof.
Cute! But, it took millions of years - assuming you start counting when the direct ancestors of monkeys and humans split.
There is no reason to think that the next step will take less time.
Technically the subway co. of NY city are right. It *is* copyright infringement and the map *was* distributed without their permission.
Hold on a second. How are the subways funded? Doesn't large part of the MTA's budget come from city taxes? There is a reason the map is available at no cost - we have already paid for it.
I write. I'm also in IT. Upon first hearing about Google Library, I hated the idea. I didn't like the thought of possibly losing control of my work, and thus the revenue said work could bring in.
If you want complete control do not publish your work. Then you have complete control.
It's not really clear that tightly controlled distribution leads to more revenue. For many books that become bestsellers it's the word of mouth of the readers can increase the sales of the book. You, the author, have no control of that.
You should read the Long Tail article, to see how things line Google Print can help the authors.
Why can't they? The same technology that allows outsourcing to work, also allows telecommuting to work.
Maybe, but the political/economical situation is quite different. In the USA a company has to comply with local labor laws, minimum wage and perhaps pay for health insurance. They do not have pay for all these things in India.
Not to mention the fact that PHBs want to see US workers in the office, even if they could be order of magnititude more productive telecommuting.
And even if that "tied down" worker can't work for a company? They can start their own company.
I use a single account for buying books and stuff from Amazon for my whole family.
My daughther likes "Harry Potter", but hates "Narnia". She also likes Nintendo games.
My wife is has an atheist's interest in theology and history of Christianity, plus she was a literature major, so she gets some serious lit books (like anonotated "Ulyses").
My son got bunch of D&D books, plus some programming books on Flash. He also likes political humor (eg. John Stewart or Bill Mahr).
I get some computer books, lots of guitar books and some non-fiction science books (eg. Richard Dawkins). I also by jazz CDs.
I've also spent time building teams in India, and its been pretty much hit and miss. Some teams do great work and are very successful, other teams spend their time trying to negotiate to do less work and have longer times to complete projects, to the point where we've just dropped Indian teams and finished the work ourselves.
I think that the percentage of smart people per given population is pretty much constant everywhere. So, I'm not suprized that many developers in India a mediocre - same as everywhere else.
Outsourcing costs more than its worth, better off hiring some students and getting two or three good developers vs. 20 bad ones in a different time zone.
The trick is to put together a team of smart developers. But finding those has always been hard.
But as the Constitution is the basis of U.S. government, it only serves U.S. citizens. It wouldn't make sense that citizens of another country would be protected by the Constitution.
The Constitution is meant to protect all people from the US goverment. Not only US citizens...
You may not agree with copyright, but it is not your place to break the law. It is not like you are losing some civil liberty. It is not like you are being oppressed or stopped from pursuing life libert, etc et al.
But we are loosing our free culture. The current copyright owners are plundering the public domain for profit, without contributing any further works into it.
Exactly. That's the first step toward getting our airwaves back. Get rid of the government interference, and treat it like any other real property. Auction it off, let people use it for whatever they want (hint, it probably won't be free any more), and collect a property tax once a year based on the value of the portion of the spectrum.
Actually treating the airwaves as property is a big mistake. The current division of the spectrum is an artifact of nearly 100 year old technology.
With UWB transmissions, the airwaves could be used like a huge Ethernet network that everyone can utilize at the same time.
My wife is an English teacher. When she works as a sub she can find out how good or bad various teachers are by simply talking to the kids.
Just provide a system where the students can anonymously evaluate their teacher (like some colleges do, where students fill course evaluation forms). After getting a large enough sample you will know, who the good teachers are.
The paradigm is the understanding of how it all fits together to give a picture of the history of some place.
OK. Do this. Take two 10 cent coins from your pocket. Put them next to each other on you desk. Take a deep breath, and then move the two coins together to the right, by about 5 inches.
You have just experienced a "pair-of-dime" shift...
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I had written a really neat proof of this for any integer n > 0. But them my hardisk crashed and I lost it...
Hardly. Human knowledge passed through culture seems to be accumulating faster than genetic change in organisms. But keep in mind that organic evolution can be looked at as a massively parallel computation - each organism a process.
That's not even accounting for computer-simulated evolution (ie, genetic algorithms and/or programming) which, while somewhat limited at the moment, is several orders of magnitude faster still.
Current state of genetic algorithms is rather primitive, when compared with the chemical evolutionary processes. We've got a looooong way to go.
Cute! But, it took millions of years - assuming you start counting when the direct ancestors of monkeys and humans split.
There is no reason to think that the next step will take less time.
Hold on a second. How are the subways funded? Doesn't large part of the MTA's budget come from city taxes? There is a reason the map is available at no cost - we have already paid for it.
If you want complete control do not publish your work. Then you have complete control.
It's not really clear that tightly controlled distribution leads to more revenue. For many books that become bestsellers it's the word of mouth of the readers can increase the sales of the book. You, the author, have no control of that.
You should read the Long Tail article, to see how things line Google Print can help the authors.
Maybe, but the political/economical situation is quite different. In the USA a company has to comply with local labor laws, minimum wage and perhaps pay for health insurance. They do not have pay for all these things in India.
Not to mention the fact that PHBs want to see US workers in the office, even if they could be order of magnititude more productive telecommuting.
And even if that "tied down" worker can't work for a company? They can start their own company.
What is the name of your company then?
My daughther likes "Harry Potter", but hates "Narnia". She also likes Nintendo games.
My wife is has an atheist's interest in theology and history of Christianity, plus she was a literature major, so she gets some serious lit books (like anonotated "Ulyses").
My son got bunch of D&D books, plus some programming books on Flash. He also likes political humor (eg. John Stewart or Bill Mahr).
I get some computer books, lots of guitar books and some non-fiction science books (eg. Richard Dawkins). I also by jazz CDs.
You should see the recomendations I get... :-)
Time spent in the office is easy to measure, but is not necessarily a good measure of productivity. Kind of like "lines of code".
I think that the percentage of smart people per given population is pretty much constant everywhere. So, I'm not suprized that many developers in India a mediocre - same as everywhere else.
Outsourcing costs more than its worth, better off hiring some students and getting two or three good developers vs. 20 bad ones in a different time zone.
The trick is to put together a team of smart developers. But finding those has always been hard.
can we post at all?
Why not? This just like calling a paper tissue kleenex..
The Constitution is meant to protect all people from the US goverment. Not only US citizens...
Since it was written. If you read The Bill of Rights, it explictely refers to "persons" and "people", not to U.S. citizens.
Read it sometime...
But we are loosing our free culture. The current copyright owners are plundering the public domain for profit, without contributing any further works into it.
Read up some of Lawrence Lessig's articles.
Actually treating the airwaves as property is a big mistake. The current division of the spectrum is an artifact of nearly 100 year old technology.
With UWB transmissions, the airwaves could be used like a huge Ethernet network that everyone can utilize at the same time.
He said it in a keynote address at OOPSLA. I was there :)
I'm sure he does. He also must know what other shape manhole covers can be and still work the same....
Stick to the biblical periodic table: earth, water, air and fire....
Just provide a system where the students can anonymously evaluate their teacher (like some colleges do, where students fill course evaluation forms). After getting a large enough sample you will know, who the good teachers are.
Make the results public.
OK. Do this. Take two 10 cent coins from your pocket. Put them next to each other on you desk. Take a deep breath, and then move the two coins together to the right, by about 5 inches.
You have just experienced a "pair-of-dime" shift...