Tiny satellites at 100lb can easily tag along with bigger launches on these vehicles. Costs may be even cheaper for such secondary payloads or may even free in some cases. If SpaceX succeeds in first stage reuse, or ISRO per chance succeeds in RLV-TD plans, costs may come further down.
So ALASA sounds like a costly option for small satellites today and in future. But the technology as such may have potential if handled by a better managed private company that works on it as a commercial venture.
I know what "inner city" means in the U.S. and, I guess, maybe London and Paris, but what does it mean in India?
Inner city doesn't actually mean much in India. Unlike US, mass exodus of middle class families to suburbs hasn't happened yet here. It is probably in the process happening though, and the situation might look different in another couple of decades.
Anyway, I am sure OP was talking about US or Canada, who primarily use K-12 terminology.
I also had the same reaction upon reading it. Why would middle school children need to learn marketable skills?
But I think the keyword here is "inner city". Typical inner city children in US come from economically weaker sections of the society, and they may tend to drop before or during high school. It may be benefit them to have a skill that can earn their bread. If it helps them to earn some part-time income and can keep them in school until graduation, then nothing like it.
To answer OP's question, web design & development might be an ideal choice. It would just take some HTML/CSS skills with a bit of Javascript thown in, that can be picked up by early teens easily. Artistic kids can learn graphic design tools like Gimp/Inkscape/Photoshop/Illustrator which are very useful in web design. They can practice with their personal website, activities related sites for school and events. Plenty of online resources for learning. They may be able to get freelance work around their neighborhood. As they improve their skills and gain experience, they can either join an existing web development company or even band together and start their own with minimal investment.
...and on the content your are writing, and the sort of influence you want to have. I know of several Tamil writers online who have dedicated following. If you want to influence online Tamil community, then I don't see the point of writing in English or Spanish.
There is probably some purpose for this study, but it is definitely lost in the blurb written above. While it is obvious that most of the internet talks in English, the ability to weild influence online is not just dependent on the language you are writing in. With instant page translations, good amount of the written content is accessible to larger section of audience, regardless of the language it is written in.
For you profile, ITIL certification may be worth looking at. It gives knowledge essential for managing large IS departments, implementations, and data centres. It may not be as glamorous as PMP, but is essential part of managing IT for large companies. It is still a rare certification so it may actually be worth it. Being an IS manager you may appreciate many sections of the standard and contrast it with the way of doing things in your previous jobs.
The purpose of recovering it is to cut costs. Even if the stage becomes reusable, how much it is actually going to save is still an open question. In such case, landing it offshore, and transporting is not going to help with the costs.
SpaceX is audacious, but I am sure they will take all precautions and won't attempt to land it in the pad, unless they are highly confident that it will work.
...and tell the client he is an expert on "that", but you want a expert on "this". If you search hard enough, you can surely find some related topic, that the expert is actually little bit knowledgeable. But that is the easy way out.
On the other hand, if the client actually considers the person an expert, it is possible there is another problem. The person may actually know things, but may not be interested in telling you that. S/he might be misguiding you on purpose. Or if s/he is not really an expert on the topic in hand, you may even get that expert to tell the client that s/he may not be the right expert for the job, and someone else might know better.
So you actually need to analyse your specific situation in depth before figuring out exact action needed.
I consider myself as one as far as technical competence is concerned, though not as much by attitude. I would typically rate at 10 in most of the teams I have worked.
But having managed a few high profile developers later in my career, I would definitely say they are detrimental to the health of teams. In most teams, you just need average or above average developers who can churn out pages of code, once specifications are given. This is very much true in business computing, though it may not be valid in product development and system software.
Rockstars have their uses though. When the time is short, or during critical situations when quick thinking and a fast hack is required, they come in handy. So most teams tolerate having one of them around. So long as there is a decent manager who can keep such developers controlled and balance team dynamics, they won't cause too much trouble.
The quality of chinese brands have improved significantly over the past year. Some of them are better built and much better looking than Samsung models. Especially the new ones with quadcore Mediatek MT6589 chipset and its variants have taken over the market by storm this year. The market here in India too is flooded with models having crazy specs (1.5GHz FHD 13Mpx/5Mpx 2GB/32GB for less than $300).
One problem with these sets is that, you can't flash CyanogenMod or other ROMs. The Mediatek chipsets is not supported by CM and that company isn't sharing info.
There is just one Indian college in that list at position 60. Indian universities are equiped to mass manufacture programmers for IT industry, not for creating star programmers.
Quick and dirty solutions have no place in real world? Tell that to the customer losing a million an hour due to broken system. He will take whatever quick and dirty fix you can give him in a matter of minutes. I am not sure which real world you are living in. But thinking and coming up with fixes at very short notice is a real skill needed in software industry. I have saved or recovered from several disastrous situations with quick and dirty fixes.
If the number of hours you are being *called* is minimal and you are worried about what to do with your time, then it is doubtful you will have that job for longer.
I am not talking about the philosophical aspect of science above. Neither am I questioning the validity of scientific method. This is about psychology. This is what the original article is asserting. There are of course some fundamental scientific truths or apparent truths. But at the same time, every "scientific" article or assertion coming out of our research centers can't and shouldn't be believed as it is. For scientists and scientifically oriented people this is not a problem. However it is problematic for journalists and general public. People tend to believe a good amount of what they read in newspapers and wikipedia - just like they believe the preachers and gurus. So from a psychological perspective science is gradually replacing religion.
Now I have a question about psychology... is it really a pure science?
We are just gradually exchanging one belief system to another. Most of what we have as science is belief and trust. Instead of trusting any religious holy book, now we trust text books. Instead of gods and priests, it is scientists and theorems. There are good number of fallacies, misdirections, and bogus research in science as in religion.
In the past it was religion because human mind had been conditioned from childhood in believing in a supernatural power which can solve all our problems. But in today's world more and more children are conditioned into believing *science* can solve all their problems.
Bottomline is, humans have to believe in something. Lack of belief will do *bad* things to human mind. This is especially true in highly stressful situations, where we feel we don't have full control ourselves. Our mind tries to find assurance in other things which can have a influence. Those with weak reliegious beliefs as in the above study, in other words, those who already have a stronger belief in science will show a higher tendency to believe in science during stressful situations.
Now my question is, why should a belief in science better than belief in religion? If believing in something is essential for human mind, religion is anyday a stronger one than science, since it emphasises on absolute belief. So believing in religion might be better than believing in science as far as mental health is concerned... at least until the scientific belief system grows as strong as religion.
You are forgetting the main intention and benefit of Earth Hour. It is supposed to make us *feel good*. The sacrifice of switching off our redundant lights gives us enough karma to not feel guilty the rest of the year when we splurge on fossil fuel. No other energy saving event would feel as good.
So I am all for Earth Hour, even if it wastes more energy in the process.
Most of the legal music stores online here sell hardcopy music:-(. Flipkart is the only downloadable music store that I know of. No DRM. It has somewhat decent collection. Note that majority of Indian popular music is film songs, other popular categories being devotional and classical.
Mod parent up! OSDD seem to be more in tune with FOSS philosophy (no patents, generic, free to copy drugs) than TLS. I don't think TLS is going to release their drugs unpatented. At best we can call TLS a crowdsourcing scheme.
Main problem with crowd sourcing or any other form of sourcing is, we can't (don't want to) look far enough into the future to understand implications of what we are doing now.
So if they add a mandatory re-validation of constitution periodically (say 20 years, ala TJ) into the constitution itself, then it just might work.
If you have good relationship with your managers you may not feel like bargaining. £7k doesn't sound much assuming this is on annual salary. But those 1.5 hrs of commute you are saving can be much more beneficial. You are recovering about 8% of your waking life which could be spent in better way.
In the long run you know this new job is more beneficial for you. So start talking to your managers, not for bargaining but to explain your scenario. Tell them you do need to quit, but give them time to plan your departure so that there is no feeling of betrayal. If given some time, they can recruit someone capable enough to take it over from you. If the other company really wants you they will relax their joining date.
But before you talk, you should make up your mind on what you want. All the best.
The way EVMs reduce rigging is not by any superior technology. It is based on simple accessible technology and elaborate procedures to ensure that poll rigging is minimized to the maximum extent possible. Check this very detailed FAQ by Election Commission of India, specifically Q24 and Q28.
Slashdot Mirror
Better launch countdown where you can see in your local time (click on the globe). Looks like the launch moved to Tuesday night (EST) now.
http://spacexstats.com/mission...
Setting alarm for 4:30 AM India time...
This doesn't make a dent in cost effectiveness of Falcon 9 or PSLV.
Let us calculate per pound LEO costs for these vehicles:
ALASA: $1M / 100 lb = $10,000 / lb
Falcon 9: $61.2M / 28,991 lb = $2,111 / lb
PSLV: $20M / 7170 lb = $2,789 / lb
Tiny satellites at 100lb can easily tag along with bigger launches on these vehicles. Costs may be even cheaper for such secondary payloads or may even free in some cases. If SpaceX succeeds in first stage reuse, or ISRO per chance succeeds in RLV-TD plans, costs may come further down.
So ALASA sounds like a costly option for small satellites today and in future. But the technology as such may have potential if handled by a better managed private company that works on it as a commercial venture.
I know what "inner city" means in the U.S. and, I guess, maybe London and Paris, but what does it mean in India?
Inner city doesn't actually mean much in India. Unlike US, mass exodus of middle class families to suburbs hasn't happened yet here. It is probably in the process happening though, and the situation might look different in another couple of decades.
Anyway, I am sure OP was talking about US or Canada, who primarily use K-12 terminology.
I also had the same reaction upon reading it. Why would middle school children need to learn marketable skills?
But I think the keyword here is "inner city". Typical inner city children in US come from economically weaker sections of the society, and they may tend to drop before or during high school. It may be benefit them to have a skill that can earn their bread. If it helps them to earn some part-time income and can keep them in school until graduation, then nothing like it.
To answer OP's question, web design & development might be an ideal choice. It would just take some HTML/CSS skills with a bit of Javascript thown in, that can be picked up by early teens easily. Artistic kids can learn graphic design tools like Gimp/Inkscape/Photoshop/Illustrator which are very useful in web design. They can practice with their personal website, activities related sites for school and events. Plenty of online resources for learning. They may be able to get freelance work around their neighborhood. As they improve their skills and gain experience, they can either join an existing web development company or even band together and start their own with minimal investment.
...and on the content your are writing, and the sort of influence you want to have. I know of several Tamil writers online who have dedicated following. If you want to influence online Tamil community, then I don't see the point of writing in English or Spanish.
There is probably some purpose for this study, but it is definitely lost in the blurb written above. While it is obvious that most of the internet talks in English, the ability to weild influence online is not just dependent on the language you are writing in. With instant page translations, good amount of the written content is accessible to larger section of audience, regardless of the language it is written in.
For you profile, ITIL certification may be worth looking at. It gives knowledge essential for managing large IS departments, implementations, and data centres. It may not be as glamorous as PMP, but is essential part of managing IT for large companies. It is still a rare certification so it may actually be worth it. Being an IS manager you may appreciate many sections of the standard and contrast it with the way of doing things in your previous jobs.
Most of that hype is fan created rather than directly from Musk or his companies.
The purpose of recovering it is to cut costs. Even if the stage becomes reusable, how much it is actually going to save is still an open question. In such case, landing it offshore, and transporting is not going to help with the costs.
SpaceX is audacious, but I am sure they will take all precautions and won't attempt to land it in the pad, unless they are highly confident that it will work.
...and tell the client he is an expert on "that", but you want a expert on "this". If you search hard enough, you can surely find some related topic, that the expert is actually little bit knowledgeable. But that is the easy way out.
On the other hand, if the client actually considers the person an expert, it is possible there is another problem. The person may actually know things, but may not be interested in telling you that. S/he might be misguiding you on purpose. Or if s/he is not really an expert on the topic in hand, you may even get that expert to tell the client that s/he may not be the right expert for the job, and someone else might know better.
So you actually need to analyse your specific situation in depth before figuring out exact action needed.
I consider myself as one as far as technical competence is concerned, though not as much by attitude. I would typically rate at 10 in most of the teams I have worked.
But having managed a few high profile developers later in my career, I would definitely say they are detrimental to the health of teams. In most teams, you just need average or above average developers who can churn out pages of code, once specifications are given. This is very much true in business computing, though it may not be valid in product development and system software.
Rockstars have their uses though. When the time is short, or during critical situations when quick thinking and a fast hack is required, they come in handy. So most teams tolerate having one of them around. So long as there is a decent manager who can keep such developers controlled and balance team dynamics, they won't cause too much trouble.
The quality of chinese brands have improved significantly over the past year. Some of them are better built and much better looking than Samsung models. Especially the new ones with quadcore Mediatek MT6589 chipset and its variants have taken over the market by storm this year. The market here in India too is flooded with models having crazy specs (1.5GHz FHD 13Mpx/5Mpx 2GB/32GB for less than $300).
One problem with these sets is that, you can't flash CyanogenMod or other ROMs. The Mediatek chipsets is not supported by CM and that company isn't sharing info.
There is just one Indian college in that list at position 60. Indian universities are equiped to mass manufacture programmers for IT industry, not for creating star programmers.
Quick and dirty solutions have no place in real world? Tell that to the customer losing a million an hour due to broken system. He will take whatever quick and dirty fix you can give him in a matter of minutes.
I am not sure which real world you are living in. But thinking and coming up with fixes at very short notice is a real skill needed in software industry. I have saved or recovered from several disastrous situations with quick and dirty fixes.
If the number of hours you are being *called* is minimal and you are worried about what to do with your time, then it is doubtful you will have that job for longer.
I am not talking about the philosophical aspect of science above. Neither am I questioning the validity of scientific method. This is about psychology. This is what the original article is asserting. There are of course some fundamental scientific truths or apparent truths. But at the same time, every "scientific" article or assertion coming out of our research centers can't and shouldn't be believed as it is. For scientists and scientifically oriented people this is not a problem. However it is problematic for journalists and general public. People tend to believe a good amount of what they read in newspapers and wikipedia - just like they believe the preachers and gurus. So from a psychological perspective science is gradually replacing religion.
Now I have a question about psychology... is it really a pure science?
We are just gradually exchanging one belief system to another. Most of what we have as science is belief and trust. Instead of trusting any religious holy book, now we trust text books. Instead of gods and priests, it is scientists and theorems. There are good number of fallacies, misdirections, and bogus research in science as in religion.
In the past it was religion because human mind had been conditioned from childhood in believing in a supernatural power which can solve all our problems. But in today's world more and more children are conditioned into believing *science* can solve all their problems.
Bottomline is, humans have to believe in something. Lack of belief will do *bad* things to human mind. This is especially true in highly stressful situations, where we feel we don't have full control ourselves. Our mind tries to find assurance in other things which can have a influence. Those with weak reliegious beliefs as in the above study, in other words, those who already have a stronger belief in science will show a higher tendency to believe in science during stressful situations.
Now my question is, why should a belief in science better than belief in religion? If believing in something is essential for human mind, religion is anyday a stronger one than science, since it emphasises on absolute belief. So believing in religion might be better than believing in science as far as mental health is concerned... at least until the scientific belief system grows as strong as religion.
You are forgetting the main intention and benefit of Earth Hour. It is supposed to make us *feel good*. The sacrifice of switching off our redundant lights gives us enough karma to not feel guilty the rest of the year when we splurge on fossil fuel. No other energy saving event would feel as good.
So I am all for Earth Hour, even if it wastes more energy in the process.
...why does he/she go on a tangent and link everything under the sun to his/her theory?
Now, that should be worth an Ig Nobel, no?
Most of the legal music stores online here sell hardcopy music :-(. Flipkart is the only downloadable music store that I know of. No DRM. It has somewhat decent collection. Note that majority of Indian popular music is film songs, other popular categories being devotional and classical.
Mod parent up!
OSDD seem to be more in tune with FOSS philosophy (no patents, generic, free to copy drugs) than TLS. I don't think TLS is going to release their drugs unpatented. At best we can call TLS a crowdsourcing scheme.
Main problem with crowd sourcing or any other form of sourcing is, we can't (don't want to) look far enough into the future to understand implications of what we are doing now.
So if they add a mandatory re-validation of constitution periodically (say 20 years, ala TJ) into the constitution itself, then it just might work.
If you have good relationship with your managers you may not feel like bargaining. £7k doesn't sound much assuming this is on annual salary. But those 1.5 hrs of commute you are saving can be much more beneficial. You are recovering about 8% of your waking life which could be spent in better way.
In the long run you know this new job is more beneficial for you. So start talking to your managers, not for bargaining but to explain your scenario. Tell them you do need to quit, but give them time to plan your departure so that there is no feeling of betrayal. If given some time, they can recruit someone capable enough to take it over from you. If the other company really wants you they will relax their joining date.
But before you talk, you should make up your mind on what you want. All the best.
The way EVMs reduce rigging is not by any superior technology. It is based on simple accessible technology and elaborate procedures to ensure that poll rigging is minimized to the maximum extent possible. Check this very detailed FAQ by Election Commission of India, specifically Q24 and Q28.
http://www.indian-elections.com/electionfaqs/electronic-voting-machines.html