I remember the first time I saw Unix, in 1976. The first step in installing it was to compile the C compiler (supplied IIRC in PDP-11 assembler) and then compile the kernal, and then the shell and all the utilities. You had an option as to whether you wanted to put the man pages online since they took up a significant (in those days) amount of disk space. Make was not yet released by AT&T so this was all done either by typing at the command line or (once the shell was running) from shell scripts.
Interesting that in the 70's a "computer" exhibit it was an analogue computer. Sounds like it was an evolution of the AT&T "VODER" system at the 1939 World's fair. A simulation of the human voice track it had four controls that were run by trained operators (all cute young girls, given the sensitivities of the time) who used their hands and feet to "speak" to visitors. In the 50s and early 60s computations by analog computers were cheaper although less accurate in general. Keep in mind that computation then meant solving differential equations, something that amplifiers, capacitors and inductors do naturally. Also round off error was poorly understood and bits were expensive. By the early 70's the price of digital circuitry was coming down fast and digital was clearly the computer of the future. Analogue components have to be consistent over their whole range in order to be used in mass produced hardware, digital just needs to switch consistently.
Yes, back in the mid to late 70's those simulations were real popular. They were based on a system of partial diffferential equations that would relate the rate of use for one variable to the supply of all the others. For instance to produce more food you would need to use more energy and more water. Problem was that the 'constants' relating the different equations aren't constant - they are the average actions of the mass of humanity. This let to interesting problems, like what do you get when you take an integral over a random process? What about only the positive half of the process? Neat math but it invalidates models that used simple numerical constants to relate the ties between resources. The simpler the model the more likely it is to be 'right' and the less likely it is to be useful in policy decisions. It's like the math statement that proves unique prime factors for any number exist but tells you nothing about how to calculate them. Hubbert's simple analysis in the 1950's told 'truth' but it got a number of details wrong (for instance he thought oil production in the US would be over by now). Similarly the differential models of the late 70's assure us things will run out eventually but give us little guidance about what will run out first or how fast.
Seriously, is there any reason why the clueless folks shouldn't just use apple? Isn't it still more user friendly? Isn't it reliable, with a good warantee?
My daughter just tried to install X.3 on her iMac (3 year old machine). One of the steps is to reprogram the PROMs. It fried her motherboard and CD drive. The certified apple repair center I took it to said that Apple won't pay for the repair in general although this is apparently a known problem (but is buried deep in the website). The repair estimate is similar to the resale price of a working iMac of similar age.
Not the most user-friendly way to sell new computers, but quit effective.
Zoom levels are provided by the map compilation company rather than map service. The levels are chosen based on auto needs rather than the needs of the human trying to understand an area. I agree with you that just when you think you are about at the right level they drop all the minor level roads and produce a map that looks totally different. The reason is to prevent the server from having to go through several 100 K of data to find the 10K of vectors needed for your particular view. Today's servers should be able to do better but only Map24 seems to be stepping up to the plate.
The mapping companies use state (and in large states, county) boundaries to divide up the attention of their work force. Minor roads on boundaries get missed sometimes - its a bug, send in a bug report and it may get corrected.
The push pin is on the wrong side of the street because the address range for the block is incorrect. Again, it is a bug, send them a bug report.
As far as I know all digital mapping companies, all over the world, start with goverment base data if it is available. For the United States this is a combination of US Geological Survey topographic maps and the US Census Bureau digitized version, the TIGER files. For the UK you start with the Ordance Survey maps, etc. USGS maps are quite (dimensionally) accurate but old and don't show all the roads and also show roads that no longer exist. Topo maps also don't show things you would need for navigation , like address ranges for blocks. Neither have much in the way of current business information so asking a question like "Where is the nearest dry cleaners?" is pointless. The three major digital map companies in the US (DeLorme, Navigation Technologies, and TeleAtlas) charge for integrating all this information together and supplementing it with additional information. Navigation Technologies owns the high end because it additionally adds things like where left turns are illegal and has more minor streets in its data. It gets these into its database by paying people to drive around and collect data full time.
I have felt for some time that this is an area ripe for an open source model. The mapping companies are focused at the automobile companies and auto based applications (e.g. Microsoft Streets & Trips) because that is where the money comes from. Try planning a bicycle trip and you are lost. If enough people could be inspired to buy GPS units and collect data from across the world, a world map of great value could be produced. Unfortunately, while I know of many open source programs I don't know of any open source database collection efforts.
The Romans didn't "decide" to stop growing culturally. They got to a point where the government stiffled any initiative in the population. Only the rich were allowed to get rich. In the era of the Republic and the early Ceasars there were many stories of self made men who ascended to wealth and then political power. Under the later emporers confuscation of profits, inability to initiate new businesses, a corrupt court system, etc. became the rule. Then the barbarian migrations began and trade was essentially impossible. With no trade there was no reason to develop anything except new weapon systems (castles and armor).
Part one has severe free speech implications. There has already been a case in Massachusetts (can someone supply the Slashdot link? A year and a half ago in the fall I think) where someone trying to catch cops violating his civil rights was arrested for videotaping without the required notice and was himself arrested and his evidence against the cops suppressed.
I read once that in a fighter cockpit the pilot in the middle of a dogfight is overwhelmed by alarms and buzzers. In an effort to cut through for important information a research project was initiated that pre-recorded family members warning about things that needed immediate attention. Didn't work so well since who do you have the most experience tuning out? Family members.
Voice of 5 year old: Daddy, you've got a fire on your wing.
Daddy, You've got a fire on your wing!
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, There's a fire, its on your wing!
Daddy, why don't you ever listen to me?
Nice projected use, identifying you as you enter a store, but this, like all biometric methods (even iris and fingerprint scans) are more useful for verifying an assertion of identity than for distinguishing you from the general population. If the number of people being checked is small, like in a restricted government facility or a workplace then merely using the equiptment is an assertion that you are in the database and that assertion can be checked. When a fingerprint is scanned a dozen or so points are identified and these are used as hashes into the fingerprint data file. In order to get a match a human compares the print found to those in the file that hash to the same bucket. Beware of anyone who tries to convince you that fingerprint identification is 100% accurate - telling apart fingerprints with the same features present is interpretation and subject to human failings. Where this face scan could get used for automatic ticketing is where the license plate on the car is the assertion of identity (i.e. the question is "Is the owner or someone in their household driving?") and an automatic camera system could sent the ticket to the appropriate individual. Don't loan your car to your identical twin brother if he runs red lights!
To me this is part of the attempt by M$ to bash
Linux and other GPL software. They like the BSD
license, otherwise they couldn't have produced
the Winsock API. So if they do any porting I am
sure it will be to BSD so they can control the
whole bundle - OS plus.NET server.
If you're teaching C++ so your students can get hired - stop. They're just going to get stuck away doing maintenance on 5 year old systems. Everything interesting being done at most of the companies that I have worked at / interviewed with in the last few years is being architected for Java delivery. The real problem in programming instruction that I see is learning how to think about a solution. As you have indicated a single language is not sufficient. But if you are going to teach a single language, then Java makes it easier to think about programming problems and get results than any other that I am aware of. Scheme has had some introductory CS work but most schools are moving away from it. And they are moving to Java. Because students can put it on their resume. I personally think that hardware and implementation can be left for later courses. Once you get the right thought processes further information will just fall into the right places.
The future of tracking is already implemented, just not cost effective enough for schools yet. There is no need to take attendance if every student's ID is being tracked continuously as they move through the campus. Arrival time, exit time, even bathroom time can be added up and presented for review. This has been a labor negotiation issue for hospital workers. Hospital administrators like to see how fast a patient alarm was attended to but nursing personell objected to the second guessing that such absolutest, although seemingly objective, standards implied. High school students don't have the negotiating power that employees do and it is unlikely that their parents would prevent such a system from being installed. What protects students today is the cost of such a system.
Similarly, an OnStar equipped car has the equipment onboard to allow it to be tracked continuously but to do so would require a cell phone connection to be maintained whenever the vehicle was in motion. Much too expensive for the benefit. In the future however cell phone antennae based tracking will allow all vehicles with a powered on cell phone inside the vehicle to be tracked even if the user is not talking. It will be possible to track no only how fast a vehicle was driven, but where it went and how long it stayed at each stopping point.
I could see this school web site as being useful to students as well as parents if it forced teachers to unambiguously state what work was expected of students and when the work was due. My biggest problems were with teachers who vaguely mentioned an assignment and then graded you on how well you caught their drift when you handed work in. Unfortunately I doubt it does anything to ease the burden on students to figure out what was expected of them.
To imagine how integrating a system of lesser technology with one of greater technology, look no further than the last couple centuries expansion of European (and now American) technology into the less technically sophisticated societies of the world.
The aliens, at least some of them, will be jingoistic and look down upon the less technically endowed, some to the point of considering us useless. Others may be kindly and willing to trade. The world leaders will trade for advanced weapons that they will use to subjigate anyone that doesn't also get the advanced weapons (cf. Mongel Empire in India, unification of the Hawaiian islands after arrival of the British). Other trade goods will arrive. These will first be used to enhance the productivity of current economic pursuits, but then will disrupt and destroy those pursuits. For example water well drilling first makes the daily trip for water easier and then plumbing destroys the need. Eventually the society becomes dependant upon technology that the members of the society cannot understand. Even if they did understand the technology, they would not have the economic and technological structure to produce it.
The only way we will be able to survive with our societies intact is to be the cheapest supplier of some valued raw material. Maybe being the sole source of soylent green will save us!
I think the general attitudes about personal freedom there give people a reason to think twice. Every Utah-located company that has ever wanted to interview me wanted a urine test and none from California have asked for one. I would have no trouble passing but if I am considering a company to work for I want one that will consider my history of accomplishments and not what I do on my own time. And to the whiners who say the don't want to work with someone who is chemically impaired I reply that aggression impairment is a much bigger problem - and no one, Utah or elsewhere, is checking for elevated levels of stress hormones.
What is the world's deadliest animal?, or put a little more explicitly what non-microscopic creature kills the most humans as it goes about its business? The mosquito! So what could you use a swarm of these for (absent ethical considerations)? Precision delivery of chemical warfare agents. Have a chemical sensor that reacts only to the dye used in uniforms of the enemy. When the chemical is detected it moves in and injects the wearer with a microscopic quantity of nerve agent. Drop a million over the capital of the enemy and take out all the generals.
Of course the ones with cameras can be sent into dressing rooms in bikini shops:->
I also want so way to know the status of my bill. Assuming you are speaking of a US health care site since only here do we have support for such a multitude of models of what an MD's office is. But one of the problems is the variety of financial models for paying for health care. My monthly bill never tells me where in the chain the fee is. Did the bill get submitted to the insurance company? Did it go to the right insurance company? Am I covered for this visit under the 80/20 copay or the 60/40 one? Did anything get disallowed? (I'm assuming they would have told you about this, maybe not.) Has the insurance company given you a final status or just a tenative one? And how do these questions apply to the mysterious "previous balance". I find myself waiting for months to pay medical bills because I can't figure out what I owe for and what will eventually get covered by the insurance company. And this doesn't even begin to cover the times I have to start sending letters to the insurance company to get them to explain why they disallowed something that I thought they should have payed for.
So, let's have good security, but I do want to have access to my financial records - and in sufficient detail that it will back me up when dealing with the real blood sucking ticks of the US medical business, the insurance companies.
Can these two projects be combined? There were quite a few encyclopedias published in the first part of the 20th century that are now in the public domain, and many of their articles are still good and useful. Actually, for many figures of the 19th century the biographies are better than what is published in modern reference works. Descriptions of, among other things, basic algebra, geometry, ancient and medieval philosophies are still valid. Of course entries like "Germany" and "Argentina" would need updating. Would the weeding and editing be more work than the final value of having a comprehensive set of listings?
Well, I too am no military expert, but I do know that the sort of thing you want to do if you are going to do simulations is finite element analysis. This comes down to lots of matrix math. 3D viewing also comes down to lots of matrix math. I suppose it would help a lot if you had an array of PS2 chips do run your simulation on to check whether the Lithium deuteride was receiving the proper dose of gamma rays and starting into fusion mode before the shock wave from the atomic explosion blows the thing to atoms.
For a scary (but can it be trusted) tale of electonic voting gone bad, (in Miami-Dade no less) check out the information at http://www.votescam.com
They tell a compelling tale of computer programmers on the take, pulling their friends out of the coals and no one is interested in looking into the technology!
Re:As a rock-jock turned tech-head
on
Volcano Cowboys
·
· Score: 1
For some reason a lot of geologists end up in CS.
I was modeling plate tectonics and metamorphism before I figured out that a job was much easier to come by if I called my self a programmer (I knew more about programming than most of the BS CS people I knew).
Of course I was studying metamorphic rocks, the kind that are best exposed in areas that were recently glaciated (too cold) or in the centers of old continents like Africa and South America (too inaccessible). The volcanologists were just too far into the finer points of chemistry. Where I missed my chance was carbonate petrology. They go on field trips to the Bahamas or Barbados and then get a job with major oil that (at least used to) pays better than programming.
Well, the Greenland icecap and much of Antartica ARE above sealevel. And they are
currently melting at a rate not seen (i.e. not evident in looking at the glaciers)
in hundreds of years. The glaciers in Glacier National Part (US & Canada) and in
the Alps (Europe) have pulled back to unprecedented levels. 50 years ago glaciers
regularly advanced down valleys that have only streams in them now. Your right that
the north pole icecap melting won't increase sea level - but the melting of Greenland,
Antartica and the mountain glaciers will. And climate zones can't move over a hundred
years - that it too fast for most of the plants. An ecosystem based on treew that are
used to cool moist weather and that grow for 500 hundred years (i.e. Pacific Coast
forests) cannot move north in less than a few thousands of years without
losing much of the diversity that the ecosystem supports. Major ecosystems have been
destroyed naturally in the past and we can learn from how the recovered. The four
glaciations that the northern hemisphere experienced in the last quarter million
years removed all forests from North America. Nightcrawlers still have not made the
trip back even though the glaciers pulled back 12,000 years ago. Humans however
have carried nightcrawlers north to fish with and now in "untouched" areas like
the Boundary Waters National Park between the US and Canada nightcrawlers are removing
the forest floor leaf litter - but only near fishing spots.
Modern man evolved when the first pulse of glaciation in the north caused Africa to
start to dry out. The evergreen jungle pulled back and remained in the river bottoms
and grasslands spread over the plateaus. The ancestors of Chimpanzees learned to
adapt to life in the forests. Protohumans adapted to life in the plains where it
took the ability to stand taller than the grass and think smarter than the predators.
Homo sapiens has yet to exist here for a half million years - an insignificant period
in the half billion years of multi-cellular life here. The environment is perfect
for our species now, that's why there are 5 billion of us. Let's work to keep it
from unnecessarily changing.
Feeding people in soup kitchens uses skills developed in restaurants. I have never done this. Building housing requires plumbing, carpentry, or brick laying skills that I am poor in, having not done much of this work. But I can write a great perl script, design and implement a database system, or configure SAMBA to talk to PCs. Wouldn't it make more sense to offer to do things that I can do well than offer to do things that I do poorly? There are people in this world who have food, clothing and shelter but would like more or better. If I am going to volunteer my time I think it should help the most people, even if my skills do not allow me to help the most needy.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember the first time I saw Unix, in 1976. The first step in installing it was to compile the C compiler (supplied IIRC in PDP-11 assembler) and then compile the kernal, and then the shell and all the utilities. You had an option as to whether you wanted to put the man pages online since they took up a significant (in those days) amount of disk space. Make was not yet released by AT&T so this was all done either by typing at the command line or (once the shell was running) from shell scripts.
fascinating. Moderators- mod this post up. It's knowledgeable, true balanced, multi-viewpoint science. Something we don't see a lot of here.
Interesting that in the 70's a "computer" exhibit it was an analogue computer. Sounds like it was an evolution of the AT&T "VODER" system at the 1939 World's fair. A simulation of the human voice track it had four controls that were run by trained operators (all cute young girls, given the sensitivities of the time) who used their hands and feet to "speak" to visitors. In the 50s and early 60s computations by analog computers were cheaper although less accurate in general. Keep in mind that computation then meant solving differential equations, something that amplifiers, capacitors and inductors do naturally. Also round off error was poorly understood and bits were expensive. By the early 70's the price of digital circuitry was coming down fast and digital was clearly the computer of the future. Analogue components have to be consistent over their whole range in order to be used in mass produced hardware, digital just needs to switch consistently.
This was a different winged dinosaur than the one on the PBS Show.
Yes, back in the mid to late 70's those simulations were real popular. They were based on a system of partial diffferential equations that would relate the rate of use for one variable to the supply of all the others. For instance to produce more food you would need to use more energy and more water. Problem was that the 'constants' relating the different equations aren't constant - they are the average actions of the mass of humanity. This let to interesting problems, like what do you get when you take an integral over a random process? What about only the positive half of the process? Neat math but it invalidates models that used simple numerical constants to relate the ties between resources. The simpler the model the more likely it is to be 'right' and the less likely it is to be useful in policy decisions. It's like the math statement that proves unique prime factors for any number exist but tells you nothing about how to calculate them. Hubbert's simple analysis in the 1950's told 'truth' but it got a number of details wrong (for instance he thought oil production in the US would be over by now). Similarly the differential models of the late 70's assure us things will run out eventually but give us little guidance about what will run out first or how fast.
Seriously, is there any reason why the clueless folks shouldn't just use apple? Isn't it still more user friendly? Isn't it reliable, with a good warantee?
My daughter just tried to install X.3 on her iMac (3 year old machine). One of the steps is to reprogram the PROMs. It fried her motherboard and CD drive. The certified apple repair center I took it to said that Apple won't pay for the repair in general although this is apparently a known problem (but is buried deep in the website). The repair estimate is similar to the resale price of a working iMac of similar age.
Not the most user-friendly way to sell new computers, but quit effective.
Zoom levels are provided by the map compilation company rather than map service. The levels are chosen based on auto needs rather than the needs of the human trying to understand an area. I agree with you that just when you think you are about at the right level they drop all the minor level roads and produce a map that looks totally different. The reason is to prevent the server from having to go through several 100 K of data to find the 10K of vectors needed for your particular view. Today's servers should be able to do better but only Map24 seems to be stepping up to the plate.
The mapping companies use state (and in large states, county) boundaries to divide up the attention of their work force. Minor roads on boundaries get missed sometimes - its a bug, send in a bug report and it may get corrected.
The push pin is on the wrong side of the street because the address range for the block is incorrect. Again, it is a bug, send them a bug report.
As far as I know all digital mapping companies, all over the world, start with goverment base data if it is available. For the United States this is a combination of US Geological Survey topographic maps and the US Census Bureau digitized version, the TIGER files. For the UK you start with the Ordance Survey maps, etc. USGS maps are quite (dimensionally) accurate but old and don't show all the roads and also show roads that no longer exist. Topo maps also don't show things you would need for navigation , like address ranges for blocks. Neither have much in the way of current business information so asking a question like "Where is the nearest dry cleaners?" is pointless. The three major digital map companies in the US (DeLorme, Navigation Technologies, and TeleAtlas) charge for integrating all this information together and supplementing it with additional information. Navigation Technologies owns the high end because it additionally adds things like where left turns are illegal and has more minor streets in its data. It gets these into its database by paying people to drive around and collect data full time.
I have felt for some time that this is an area ripe for an open source model. The mapping companies are focused at the automobile companies and auto based applications (e.g. Microsoft Streets & Trips) because that is where the money comes from. Try planning a bicycle trip and you are lost. If enough people could be inspired to buy GPS units and collect data from across the world, a world map of great value could be produced. Unfortunately, while I know of many open source programs I don't know of any open source database collection efforts.
The Romans didn't "decide" to stop growing culturally. They got to a point where the government stiffled any initiative in the population. Only the rich were allowed to get rich. In the era of the Republic and the early Ceasars there were many stories of self made men who ascended to wealth and then political power. Under the later emporers confuscation of profits, inability to initiate new businesses, a corrupt court system, etc. became the rule. Then the barbarian migrations began and trade was essentially impossible. With no trade there was no reason to develop anything except new weapon systems (castles and armor).
Part one has severe free speech implications. There has already been a case in Massachusetts (can someone supply the Slashdot link? A year and a half ago in the fall I think) where someone trying to catch cops violating his civil rights was arrested for videotaping without the required notice and was himself arrested and his evidence against the cops suppressed.
I read once that in a fighter cockpit the pilot in the middle of a dogfight is overwhelmed by alarms and buzzers. In an effort to cut through for important information a research project was initiated that pre-recorded family members warning about things that needed immediate attention. Didn't work so well since who do you have the most experience tuning out? Family members.
Voice of 5 year old: Daddy, you've got a fire on your wing.
Daddy, You've got a fire on your wing!
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, There's a fire, its on your wing!
Daddy, why don't you ever listen to me?
Nice projected use, identifying you as you enter a store, but this, like all biometric methods (even iris and fingerprint scans) are more useful for verifying an assertion of identity than for distinguishing you from the general population. If the number of people being checked is small, like in a restricted government facility or a workplace then merely using the equiptment is an assertion that you are in the database and that assertion can be checked. When a fingerprint is scanned a dozen or so points are identified and these are used as hashes into the fingerprint data file. In order to get a match a human compares the print found to those in the file that hash to the same bucket. Beware of anyone who tries to convince you that fingerprint identification is 100% accurate - telling apart fingerprints with the same features present is interpretation and subject to human failings. Where this face scan could get used for automatic ticketing is where the license plate on the car is the assertion of identity (i.e. the question is "Is the owner or someone in their household driving?") and an automatic camera system could sent the ticket to the appropriate individual. Don't loan your car to your identical twin brother if he runs red lights!
To me this is part of the attempt by M$ to bash .NET server.
Linux and other GPL software. They like the BSD
license, otherwise they couldn't have produced
the Winsock API. So if they do any porting I am
sure it will be to BSD so they can control the
whole bundle - OS plus
If you're teaching C++ so your students can get hired - stop. They're just going to get stuck away doing maintenance on 5 year old systems. Everything interesting being done at most of the companies that I have worked at / interviewed with in the last few years is being architected for Java delivery. The real problem in programming instruction that I see is learning how to think about a solution. As you have indicated a single language is not sufficient. But if you are going to teach a single language, then Java makes it easier to think about programming problems and get results than any other that I am aware of. Scheme has had some introductory CS work but most schools are moving away from it. And they are moving to Java. Because students can put it on their resume. I personally think that hardware and implementation can be left for later courses. Once you get the right thought processes further information will just fall into the right places.
The future of tracking is already implemented, just not cost effective enough for schools yet. There is no need to take attendance if every student's ID is being tracked continuously as they move through the campus. Arrival time, exit time, even bathroom time can be added up and presented for review. This has been a labor negotiation issue for hospital workers. Hospital administrators like to see how fast a patient alarm was attended to but nursing personell objected to the second guessing that such absolutest, although seemingly objective, standards implied. High school students don't have the negotiating power that employees do and it is unlikely that their parents would prevent such a system from being installed. What protects students today is the cost of such a system.
Similarly, an OnStar equipped car has the equipment onboard to allow it to be tracked continuously but to do so would require a cell phone connection to be maintained whenever the vehicle was in motion. Much too expensive for the benefit. In the future however cell phone antennae based tracking will allow all vehicles with a powered on cell phone inside the vehicle to be tracked even if the user is not talking. It will be possible to track no only how fast a vehicle was driven, but where it went and how long it stayed at each stopping point.
I could see this school web site as being useful to students as well as parents if it forced teachers to unambiguously state what work was expected of students and when the work was due. My biggest problems were with teachers who vaguely mentioned an assignment and then graded you on how well you caught their drift when you handed work in. Unfortunately I doubt it does anything to ease the burden on students to figure out what was expected of them.
To imagine how integrating a system of lesser technology with one of greater technology, look no further than the last couple centuries expansion of European (and now American) technology into the less technically sophisticated societies of the world.
The aliens, at least some of them, will be jingoistic and look down upon the less technically endowed, some to the point of considering us useless. Others may be kindly and willing to trade. The world leaders will trade for advanced weapons that they will use to subjigate anyone that doesn't also get the advanced weapons (cf. Mongel Empire in India, unification of the Hawaiian islands after arrival of the British). Other trade goods will arrive. These will first be used to enhance the productivity of current economic pursuits, but then will disrupt and destroy those pursuits. For example water well drilling first makes the daily trip for water easier and then plumbing destroys the need. Eventually the society becomes dependant upon technology that the members of the society cannot understand. Even if they did understand the technology, they would not have the economic and technological structure to produce it.
The only way we will be able to survive with our societies intact is to be the cheapest supplier of some valued raw material. Maybe being the sole source of soylent green will save us!
I think the general attitudes about personal freedom there give people a reason to think twice. Every Utah-located company that has ever wanted to interview me wanted a urine test and none from California have asked for one. I would have no trouble passing but if I am considering a company to work for I want one that will consider my history of accomplishments and not what I do on my own time. And to the whiners who say the don't want to work with someone who is chemically impaired I reply that aggression impairment is a much bigger problem - and no one, Utah or elsewhere, is checking for elevated levels of stress hormones.
What is the world's deadliest animal?, or put a little more explicitly what non-microscopic creature kills the most humans as it goes about its business? The mosquito! So what could you use a swarm of these for (absent ethical considerations)? Precision delivery of chemical warfare agents. Have a chemical sensor that reacts only to the dye used in uniforms of the enemy. When the chemical is detected it moves in and injects the wearer with a microscopic quantity of nerve agent. Drop a million over the capital of the enemy and take out all the generals. :->
Of course the ones with cameras can be sent into dressing rooms in bikini shops
I also want so way to know the status of my bill. Assuming you are speaking of a US health care site since only here do we have support for such a multitude of models of what an MD's office is. But one of the problems is the variety of financial models for paying for health care. My monthly bill never tells me where in the chain the fee is. Did the bill get submitted to the insurance company? Did it go to the right insurance company? Am I covered for this visit under the 80/20 copay or the 60/40 one? Did anything get disallowed? (I'm assuming they would have told you about this, maybe not.) Has the insurance company given you a final status or just a tenative one? And how do these questions apply to the mysterious "previous balance". I find myself waiting for months to pay medical bills because I can't figure out what I owe for and what will eventually get covered by the insurance company. And this doesn't even begin to cover the times I have to start sending letters to the insurance company to get them to explain why they disallowed something that I thought they should have payed for.
So, let's have good security, but I do want to have access to my financial records - and in sufficient detail that it will back me up when dealing with the real blood sucking ticks of the US medical business, the insurance companies.
Can these two projects be combined? There were quite a few encyclopedias published in the first part of the 20th century that are now in the public domain, and many of their articles are still good and useful. Actually, for many figures of the 19th century the biographies are better than what is published in modern reference works. Descriptions of, among other things, basic algebra, geometry, ancient and medieval philosophies are still valid. Of course entries like "Germany" and "Argentina" would need updating. Would the weeding and editing be more work than the final value of having a comprehensive set of listings?
Well, I too am no military expert, but I do know that the sort of thing you want to do if you are going to do simulations is finite element analysis. This comes down to lots of matrix math. 3D viewing also comes down to lots of matrix math. I suppose it would help a lot if you had an array of PS2 chips do run your simulation on to check whether the Lithium deuteride was receiving the proper dose of gamma rays and starting into fusion mode before the shock wave from the atomic explosion blows the thing to atoms.
For a scary (but can it be trusted) tale of electonic voting gone bad, (in Miami-Dade no less) check out the information at http://www.votescam.com
They tell a compelling tale of computer programmers on the take, pulling their friends out of the coals and no one is interested in looking into the technology!
For some reason a lot of geologists end up in CS.
I was modeling plate tectonics and metamorphism before I figured out that a job was much easier to come by if I called my self a programmer (I knew more about programming than most of the BS CS people I knew).
Of course I was studying metamorphic rocks, the kind that are best exposed in areas that were recently glaciated (too cold) or in the centers of old continents like Africa and South America (too inaccessible). The volcanologists were just too far into the finer points of chemistry. Where I missed my chance was carbonate petrology. They go on field trips to the Bahamas or Barbados and then get a job with major oil that (at least used to) pays better than programming.
Well, the Greenland icecap and much of Antartica ARE above sealevel. And they are currently melting at a rate not seen (i.e. not evident in looking at the glaciers) in hundreds of years. The glaciers in Glacier National Part (US & Canada) and in the Alps (Europe) have pulled back to unprecedented levels. 50 years ago glaciers regularly advanced down valleys that have only streams in them now. Your right that the north pole icecap melting won't increase sea level - but the melting of Greenland, Antartica and the mountain glaciers will. And climate zones can't move over a hundred years - that it too fast for most of the plants. An ecosystem based on treew that are used to cool moist weather and that grow for 500 hundred years (i.e. Pacific Coast forests) cannot move north in less than a few thousands of years without losing much of the diversity that the ecosystem supports. Major ecosystems have been destroyed naturally in the past and we can learn from how the recovered. The four glaciations that the northern hemisphere experienced in the last quarter million years removed all forests from North America. Nightcrawlers still have not made the trip back even though the glaciers pulled back 12,000 years ago. Humans however have carried nightcrawlers north to fish with and now in "untouched" areas like the Boundary Waters National Park between the US and Canada nightcrawlers are removing the forest floor leaf litter - but only near fishing spots.
Modern man evolved when the first pulse of glaciation in the north caused Africa to start to dry out. The evergreen jungle pulled back and remained in the river bottoms and grasslands spread over the plateaus. The ancestors of Chimpanzees learned to adapt to life in the forests. Protohumans adapted to life in the plains where it took the ability to stand taller than the grass and think smarter than the predators. Homo sapiens has yet to exist here for a half million years - an insignificant period in the half billion years of multi-cellular life here. The environment is perfect for our species now, that's why there are 5 billion of us. Let's work to keep it from unnecessarily changing.
Feeding people in soup kitchens uses skills developed in restaurants. I have never done this. Building housing requires plumbing, carpentry, or brick laying skills that I am poor in, having not done much of this work. But I can write a great perl script, design and implement a database system, or configure SAMBA to talk to PCs. Wouldn't it make more sense to offer to do things that I can do well than offer to do things that I do poorly? There are people in this world who have food, clothing and shelter but would like more or better. If I am going to volunteer my time I think it should help the most people, even if my skills do not allow me to help the most needy.