The USPTO is a bit clueless. They have been granting patents for very obvious ideas (e.g., shopping carts, 3rd party advertising serving, one-click shopping, etc.) and for the on-line implementation of non-patentable real-world business practices.
Companies both big and small know this. They exacerbate the problem by flooding the USPTO with more patents on the trivial and obvious. The game is to build a portfolio you can leverage.
Is it possible that fewer women are interested in *geek* endeavors because women tend to be more social and relationship oriented, which does not harmonize well with the long hours of solitary concentration typically required to be *geek*?
How much is nurture vs. nature? Ah... the age old controversy.
Political correctness will never allow a real answer.
Except that DVDs are not a "regulated, metered for pay content".
I believe the point is that you pay for content by purchasing the DVD. You are licensed to view the content indefinitely for non-commercial use solely on a reader licensed to decode the DVD format.
If DVDs were merely a recording media, then I doubt the movie industry would be releasing their precious software on DVD.
DoubleClick tracks people using a unique identifier in a cookie. DoubleClick has no way of matching that cookie with any peronally identifiable information unless *you* provide them with the information, either directly or indirectly. "Indirectly" means you register with a site and it passes your name,etc., to DCLK using redirection.
If you don't want DCLK to match your name to your cookie, don't give them your name. Check the privacy policies of any website before giving out your name. Sue the websites who violate their privacy policies.
Better yet, opt out of tracking.
If you are paranoid about having your behavior tracked, then never buy anything using a credit card. And never fill out product registration cards or enter contests which require your name. All of that information finds its way into databases such as those maintained by Abacus and Experian.
What does it say about Slashdot readers and/or Bill Gates that the inclusion of Bill Gates on this list has gotten more heated response than the inclusion of Adolf Hitler?
Those quiet types have to be able to communicate. Software engineering in the real world is as much a social process as it is the dedicated hard work of a single individual. Try putting together a reliable, multi-tiered, high-throughput, scalable system in a start-up environment with changing requirements. A group of people who can't communicate, but know how to code, won't cut it.
Going to a different school for BS and MS tells me little about your ability to adapt. Getting a BS or an MS tells me something about your ability to stick with a program. If you got your degree from a good school, then I know something about the standards to which you were held. If you got your degree from a school I never heard of, then I know little about your background and it will be harder for you to pass the resume screen.
There is some merit in what you say, but you don't tell the whole story.
The average 4-year school is just that... average. The instructors are not necessarily up to date on the latest in their field. In other words, you don't learn the same theory.
I went to a State school for undergrad. I did this because it was cheaper and I because I was stupid enough to believe "a four year school is a four year school".
I had profs who didn't quite get the "it" of computer science. Most were EE and Math PhDs retreaded to teach CS. Many were less than motivated teachers and it came through in their classes. Many of the students treated the "university" as if it were little more than a trade school. The quality of the students was low and they showed little academic inclination. This all culminated in lower standards overall.
The environment that school created was horrible. All motivation had to come from within. There was little challenge in the classes. There were few other students with whom to share either wide-eyed enthusiasm for the field or intellectual discourse.
My graduate education was at a top-ten university. The environment was night and day difference. The classes were challenging, including the undergrad remedial classes taught by TAs. My classmates were engaged and motivated. I learned as much from them as I did studying on my own. The material was current and the standards were set high. All of this culminated in a very hard course of study that was like nirvana.
Don't kid yourself. The environment you choose will affect you more than the textbooks you use. You learn more than just facts during your education. You learn how to think -- so you need an environment in which your thoughts are always challenged. You set your standards -- so you need an environment which does not abide complacency and underachievement. You learn a sense of aesthetics -- so you need an environment in which aesthetics are possible.
One of the big nightmares of grad school can be the power your advisor has.
If everyone with a tale or seven to tell about their advisor responded to this, it would be a good stress test for slashdot.
Choosing the right advisor is an important factor to successful completion of a Ph.D.
Consider the following attributes of a prospective advisor, listed in my perceived order of importance:
Does not have a reputation for abusing students -- don't laugh, this is important. The university I attended had one professor who had a reputation for hitting on both male and female students. I shared an office with a female student of his. Her situation was not pretty after rejecting his advances.
Works in the field in which you are interested.
Has a personality compatible with yours. You will work long hours with this person. They will judge your work and guide you. If you don't generally get along well, your life will be miserable.
Has a style/method of guiding student research that appeals to you. Some advisors will interact more with students than others. Some will give free reign on choosing a subject, others will guide you more carefully, others may dictate the subject. Some will insist on staying within a narrow range of methodologies, other won't (e.g. my advisor was an algebraist, so all of his students approached their work from an algebraic standpoint. woe unto the student who ventured off into logic.:-).
Has a good reputation in his/her field. Your advisor will provide you with opportunities to interact with other scholars your the field. The better your advisor's reputation, the better the quality of the people he will work with. You can learn a lot about research and your field from your advisors circle of professional contacts.
Teaches in a manner which appeals to you. You will take most of the classes your advisor teaches.
Has graduated at least one Ph.D. I put this last because it isn't the most important thing, but... The first Ph.D. an advisor produces can get caught in the trap of "your dissertation must be better than mine." I saw this happen to a person at the university I attended. My advisor, on the other hand, had been producing Ph.D.s for a couple of decades and thus had the benefit of time-conferred wisdom with respect to judging dissertations.
I got my Ph.D. in CS (in theory, no less) 8 years ago. I did it for truth and beauty without regard to what I might do after graduation. I've been gainfully employed in software development since graduating. I've never found the Ph.D. to be a drawback to getting a job. So, I don't understand these comments about avoiding a Ph.D. for the sake of getting a job.
You get a Ph.D. because you enjoy research and like being out on the edge where finding the right question is more important than finding the answer. 90% of the competent workers in a field can answer any given question, but far fewer can pose the right question. Getting a Ph.D. is about learning to ask new questions and creating knowledge in a field.
If you don't have a desire to do research or contribute to knowledge, then getting a Ph.D. is not for you. Get an M.S. instead. You'll be challenged and learn a lot of interesting stuff. And, if getting a job is the main reason you are in school, an M.S. will get you on the market in 1 to 2 years instead of 4 to 7 years.
Slashdot Mirror
The USPTO is a bit clueless. They have been granting patents for very obvious ideas (e.g., shopping carts, 3rd party advertising serving, one-click shopping, etc.) and for the on-line implementation of non-patentable real-world business practices.
Companies both big and small know this. They exacerbate the problem by flooding the USPTO with more patents on the trivial and obvious. The game is to build a portfolio you can leverage.
Is it possible that fewer women are interested in *geek* endeavors because women tend to be more social and relationship oriented, which does not harmonize well with the long hours of solitary concentration typically required to be *geek*?
How much is nurture vs. nature? Ah... the age old controversy.
Political correctness will never allow a real answer.
I believe the point is that you pay for content by purchasing the DVD. You are licensed to view the content indefinitely for non-commercial use solely on a reader licensed to decode the DVD format.
If DVDs were merely a recording media, then I doubt the movie industry would be releasing their precious software on DVD.
As my father, a man of Jack Valenti's generation, used to tell this aging baby boomer as he was growing up:
"Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see."
DoubleClick tracks people using a unique identifier in a cookie. DoubleClick has no way of matching that cookie with any peronally identifiable information unless *you* provide them with the information, either directly or indirectly. "Indirectly" means you register with a site and it passes your name,etc., to DCLK using redirection.
If you don't want DCLK to match your name to your cookie, don't give them your name. Check the privacy policies of any website before giving out your name. Sue the websites who violate their privacy policies.
Better yet, opt out of tracking.
If you are paranoid about having your behavior tracked, then never buy anything using a credit card. And never fill out product registration cards or enter contests which require your name. All of that information finds its way into databases such as those maintained by Abacus and Experian.
Don't forget the DEC Basic-Plus derivative Basic implementation that gave Bill his start.
Millenium List:
Gutenberg
Newton
Lavoisier
Darwin
Mendel
Hilbert
Maxwell
Einstein
Pauling
Turing
Century List:
Einstein
Heisenberg
Feynman
Pauling
Turing
Von Neumann
Shockley
Knuth
Adelman
Sorry, no Gates or Torvalds, only the people who made it possible for Gates and Torvalds to do what they do.
What does it say about Slashdot readers and/or Bill Gates that the inclusion of Bill Gates on this list has gotten more heated response than the inclusion of Adolf Hitler?
Those quiet types have to be able to communicate. Software engineering in the real world is as much a social process as it is the dedicated hard work of a single individual. Try putting together a reliable, multi-tiered, high-throughput, scalable system in a start-up environment with changing requirements. A group of people who can't communicate, but know how to code, won't cut it.
Going to a different school for BS and MS tells me little about your ability to adapt. Getting a BS or an MS tells me something about your ability to stick with a program. If you got your degree from a good school, then I know something about the standards to which you were held. If you got your degree from a school I never heard of, then I know little about your background and it will be harder for you to pass the resume screen.
There is some merit in what you say, but you don't tell the whole story.
The average 4-year school is just that... average. The instructors are not necessarily up to date on the latest in their field. In other words, you don't learn the same theory.
I went to a State school for undergrad. I did this because it was cheaper and I because I was stupid enough to believe "a four year school is a four year school".
I had profs who didn't quite get the "it" of computer science. Most were EE and Math PhDs retreaded to teach CS. Many were less than motivated teachers and it came through in their classes. Many of the students treated the "university" as if it were little more than a trade school. The quality of the students was low and they showed little academic inclination. This all culminated in lower standards overall.
The environment that school created was horrible. All motivation had to come from within. There was little challenge in the classes. There were few other students with whom to share either wide-eyed enthusiasm for the field or intellectual discourse.
My graduate education was at a top-ten university. The environment was night and day difference. The classes were challenging, including the undergrad remedial classes taught by TAs. My classmates were engaged and motivated. I learned as much from them as I did studying on my own. The material was current and the standards were set high. All of this culminated in a very hard course of study that was like nirvana.
Don't kid yourself. The environment you choose will affect you more than the textbooks you use. You learn more than just facts during your education. You learn how to think -- so you need an environment in which your thoughts are always challenged. You set your standards -- so you need an environment which does not abide complacency and underachievement. You learn a sense of aesthetics -- so you need an environment in which aesthetics are possible.
If everyone with a tale or seven to tell about their advisor responded to this, it would be a good stress test for slashdot.
Choosing the right advisor is an important factor to successful completion of a Ph.D.
Consider the following attributes of a prospective advisor, listed in my perceived order of importance:
You get a Ph.D. because you enjoy research and like being out on the edge where finding the right question is more important than finding the answer. 90% of the competent workers in a field can answer any given question, but far fewer can pose the right question. Getting a Ph.D. is about learning to ask new questions and creating knowledge in a field.
If you don't have a desire to do research or contribute to knowledge, then getting a Ph.D. is not for you. Get an M.S. instead. You'll be challenged and learn a lot of interesting stuff. And, if getting a job is the main reason you are in school, an M.S. will get you on the market in 1 to 2 years instead of 4 to 7 years.