C'mon up to Canada for your education. The tuition is about half (or less) of what it is in the states, if you're gay you can get married, and we're about to decriminalize marijuana.
Better yet, you don't have to pay to see our rankings:
The longer I've been the workforce, the more I realize that these rankings are irrelevant except for bragging rights and being able to charge higher tuition for "prestige."
The longer you are in the workforce, the less your formal education is relevant, anyway. Besides, it's better to think of it in terms of the intrinsic benefits rather than the extrinsic benefits. I have attended both small, unknown and big, prestigious universities, and the quality and quantity of teaching is certainly better at the bigger schools. Having said that, the difference between 1 and 2 is pretty much irrelevant compared to the difference between 1 and 500.
The only benefit I can see to the higher ranked schools is the networking with the elite of America who will get cushy jobs due to nepotism and that networking may pay off for you later.
Well, that's certainly relevant! I'm about to finish a graduate degree, and the job I'm about to start is basically thanks to my supervisor's networking skills. It certainly helps that my supervisor is world-renowned in his field, so an introduction from him carries a lot of weight, which you probably wouldn't find at a low-ranked university.
true, any admin that doesn't know about packet filter firewalls should be fired...
Sometimes that's not enough. At my university, the departmental firewall did just fine in blocking the virus, until somebody got their Windows laptop infected at home and brought it to work, behind the firewall. Once again proving that great network security can be easily defeated by poor physical security.
Uhh, I think PA's views on software piracy are a bit different than this current discussion on a previously free video codec.
Uhh, why? If you click on the "News" link, the cartoon was inspired not by piracy, but by complaints that GameSpot is now a subscription site. That's pretty much right on topic here.
Maybe not three hundred. But what if the number were a millon? An immortal being (i.e., one for whom there was no such thing as a natural cause of death) would probably be very risk-averse. Some have claimed that this is the answer to the Fermi paradox, which wonders why evidence of extra-terrestrial life is not everywhere. If alien civilizations discovered immortality first, then why would they risk life and limb in something as reckless as space travel?
I get a laugh out of these confidentiality addendums. The note is garbage, and is clearly only intended to scare. If by your incompetence, I suddenly find myself with incriminating information about you, what legal obligation do I have to keep that information confidential? I signed no agreement with you, and you have no other legal recourse.
At worst, the sender could claim copyright over the message text, so arguably I wouldn't be able to post the exact message to my web site. However, I could just as easily post a summary to my web site, or show it to a journalist / the police / my stock broker / my coworkers / whoever, and be perfectly within my rights.
Then again, IANAL. Can any L's out there contradict me?
Make sure you approach the camera from behind. If it's in a corner you're kinda screwed.
On second thought, if you're not smart enough to do well on a test without cheating, maybe the camera amounts to a little test all by itself. (Watch the hilarity as little Johnyy is called to the principal's office to see a blown-up, enhanced photo of his face, taken by the webcam just before he put tape over the lens.)
I know! How about all users of KaZaA vote for a KaZaA candidate in the next election. It'll be just like that day when all the Napster users were supposed to buy an album to prove that they actually pay for music. Oh, wait, that's right -- nobody did it.
That may be, but I have yet to hear a single person say, "Their conclusions are not what I believe to be true yet the study was flawless." There is enough wiggle room in correct methodology for anyone to attack any study.
This is a tried and true method in the scientific community: if you disagree with the conclusions of a study, you can always call the methodology "flawed". That way, you never have to pay attention to results that are different from what you believe.
you could similarly get it for free from the library
I have read this argument as a justification, and I don't like it. Quite apart from the technical difference (the library only has one copy of each book, and you can only use it for a limited time), if you download rather than going to the library, you will push the library's use rates down. Politicians will take that as evidence that nobody uses the library, and cut the library's funding.
Now, the ideal solution would be an all-digital library, but publishers will not agree to that anytime soon. Besides, with libraries, everybody wins -- people who don't own computers can read the book, and authors get paid (I remember an interview in which an author said that if every library in the US bought his book, it would be a best-seller).
So, for pragmatic reasons (not to mention the idea of actually going outside!! and meeting real humans!!), support your local library -- don't use it as an excuse to download books.
Compare the web sites of PETA and GNU. It's pretty obvious that PETA is about what you should do, while GNU is about what you should think. With that, combine the "true believer" items such as GNU's list of words you can and cannot say, and a strange focus on morality, and you have something that is practically indistinguishable from a cult, even if it is only a cult of personality.
I read that. Is it possible for an organization to be more full of itself than the FSF?
A quotation:
"... we must remember that only part of Mac OS X is being released under the APSL. Even though the fatal flaws of the APSL were fixed, and even if the practical problems were addressed, that does no good for the other parts of Mac OS X whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do."
The FSF reminds me more and more of a religion than of a software organization. I can't think of any other organization that, on the one hand, makes a big deal about freedom and liberty, and on the other hand is so moralistic about orthodoxy and monolithic thinking.
And it's not such a joke, really. There is a surge of autism diagnoses among children of computer professionals in Silicon Valley. The argument is that geekiness and autism have the same genetic root.
he can learn the things his clients dont bother to read about.
You can make that argument about any specialist.
e.g., That lawyer, he's not so good at law, he just read law books so that his clients don't have to.
It seems he knows how to talk to people, not engineer things. [...] I dont think this person describes most of the people who regularly read slashdot, the scientists, engineers and people who like to solve problems and learn technical things.
So... you're saying that everyone on slashdot is a techie nerd with no social skills?
Their compliance, of course, would mean that they can't enforce this $699 thing.
I suspect you may have meant this anyway, but just to be clear: the GPL does not preclude you from charging for a distribution. However, you must release your distribution and its source code under the GPL, so someone else is perfectly well within their rights to release it for free.
Typically, distributors burn GPL programs on CD collections and charge a fee to recover media and distribution costs, for those who either don't have a T1 line at home or can't be bothered to download code. This activity is perfectly proper under the GPL.
I have never had a problem with an HP calculator, in spite of heaps of abuse.
My dad, who by coincidence is also an electrical engineer, owns an HP-21 that is roughly as old as I am. Just for laughs, I dig that thing out of his closet every once in a while and fool around with it; it still works fine.
Haven't read the article (typically of slashdot), but I do remember that the Apollo 11 computer nearly caused the first lunar landing to fail because it kept rebooting in-flight. Due to a configuration error that occurred shortly before flight, the computer repeatedly ran out of memory, but the software was designed so that the computer could reboot without catastrophe.
If we make these limbs much, much better - are we to expect anything different?
Yes! That's basically the whole point. Currently, even the best artificial limbs are a poor substitute for the genuine article. People get artificial limbs because they have lost their natural limbs, and have no other choice -- we do not hate or shun these people any more than we hate or shun people with any other disability. However, if artificial limbs become far superior to natural limbs, people will be able to choose whether they want their (perfectly healthy) natural limbs removed in favor of mechanical ones. At that point you will certainly have fear and loathing between the people who undergo the procedure (the superior beings) and the people who don't (the all-natural people).
As for your further point, it's not the role of bioethics departments to sell stem cell research. It's their role to think about the consequences for society of any new innovatio, and sometimes they might not agree with the techies.
No, it's because people don't give a rat's ass about problems in the abstract. Yes, computer voting systems have problems, but so were butterfly ballots, and nobody had even heard of those until 2000.
Only in the 2024 elections, when Wil Wheaton defeats Britney Spears amidst questionable computer voting, will you get anyone to care.
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon up to Canada for your education. The tuition is about half (or less) of what it is in the states, if you're gay you can get married, and we're about to decriminalize marijuana.
Better yet, you don't have to pay to see our rankings:
1 Toronto
2 Queen's
*3 McGill
*3 Western
5 UBC
6 Montreal
7 Alberta
8 Sherbrooke
9 Ottawa
10 McMaster
11 Dalhousie
12 Saskatchewan
13 Laval
14 Calgary
15 Manitoba
The longer I've been the workforce, the more I realize that these rankings are irrelevant except for bragging rights and being able to charge higher tuition for "prestige."
The longer you are in the workforce, the less your formal education is relevant, anyway. Besides, it's better to think of it in terms of the intrinsic benefits rather than the extrinsic benefits. I have attended both small, unknown and big, prestigious universities, and the quality and quantity of teaching is certainly better at the bigger schools. Having said that, the difference between 1 and 2 is pretty much irrelevant compared to the difference between 1 and 500.
The only benefit I can see to the higher ranked schools is the networking with the elite of America who will get cushy jobs due to nepotism and that networking may pay off for you later.
Well, that's certainly relevant! I'm about to finish a graduate degree, and the job I'm about to start is basically thanks to my supervisor's networking skills. It certainly helps that my supervisor is world-renowned in his field, so an introduction from him carries a lot of weight, which you probably wouldn't find at a low-ranked university.
true, any admin that doesn't know about packet filter firewalls should be fired...
Sometimes that's not enough. At my university, the departmental firewall did just fine in blocking the virus, until somebody got their Windows laptop infected at home and brought it to work, behind the firewall. Once again proving that great network security can be easily defeated by poor physical security.
Uhh, I think PA's views on software piracy are a bit different than this current discussion on a previously free video codec.
Uhh, why? If you click on the "News" link, the cartoon was inspired not by piracy, but by complaints that GameSpot is now a subscription site. That's pretty much right on topic here.
You think you don't need to pay for things? Good luck with that.
Good one, but at least give credit where it's due. (Any earlier examples?)
Geek nation wide will contibute to this open source project to customize there own porn star
Didn't they already do that? In 1985, even, with an 8088 or something?
Maybe not three hundred. But what if the number were a millon? An immortal being (i.e., one for whom there was no such thing as a natural cause of death) would probably be very risk-averse. Some have claimed that this is the answer to the Fermi paradox, which wonders why evidence of extra-terrestrial life is not everywhere. If alien civilizations discovered immortality first, then why would they risk life and limb in something as reckless as space travel?
I get a laugh out of these confidentiality addendums. The note is garbage, and is clearly only intended to scare. If by your incompetence, I suddenly find myself with incriminating information about you, what legal obligation do I have to keep that information confidential? I signed no agreement with you, and you have no other legal recourse.
At worst, the sender could claim copyright over the message text, so arguably I wouldn't be able to post the exact message to my web site. However, I could just as easily post a summary to my web site, or show it to a journalist / the police / my stock broker / my coworkers / whoever, and be perfectly within my rights.
Then again, IANAL. Can any L's out there contradict me?
Make sure you approach the camera from behind. If it's in a corner you're kinda screwed.
On second thought, if you're not smart enough to do well on a test without cheating, maybe the camera amounts to a little test all by itself. (Watch the hilarity as little Johnyy is called to the principal's office to see a blown-up, enhanced photo of his face, taken by the webcam just before he put tape over the lens.)
I know! How about all users of KaZaA vote for a KaZaA candidate in the next election. It'll be just like that day when all the Napster users were supposed to buy an album to prove that they actually pay for music. Oh, wait, that's right -- nobody did it.
That may be, but I have yet to hear a single person say, "Their conclusions are not what I believe to be true yet the study was flawless." There is enough wiggle room in correct methodology for anyone to attack any study.
This is a tried and true method in the scientific community: if you disagree with the conclusions of a study, you can always call the methodology "flawed". That way, you never have to pay attention to results that are different from what you believe.
"What more could you want for $20?"
Awww, $20?? I wanted a peanut.
With $20, you can buy many peanuts!
Explain how!
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
you could similarly get it for free from the library
I have read this argument as a justification, and I don't like it. Quite apart from the technical difference (the library only has one copy of each book, and you can only use it for a limited time), if you download rather than going to the library, you will push the library's use rates down. Politicians will take that as evidence that nobody uses the library, and cut the library's funding.
Now, the ideal solution would be an all-digital library, but publishers will not agree to that anytime soon. Besides, with libraries, everybody wins -- people who don't own computers can read the book, and authors get paid (I remember an interview in which an author said that if every library in the US bought his book, it would be a best-seller).
So, for pragmatic reasons (not to mention the idea of actually going outside!! and meeting real humans!!), support your local library -- don't use it as an excuse to download books.
Does it somehow imply open source is better? Yuk yuk MSFT is teh gay!
Yeah right. "Community support", that's where it's at. Have you been on any support channels?
s20451: I'm having trouble getting my ATI card to work under Linux. Can anyone help?
HellDog69: LOLOL u noob RTFM
31337h4x0r: u r gay
Compare the web sites of PETA and GNU. It's pretty obvious that PETA is about what you should do, while GNU is about what you should think. With that, combine the "true believer" items such as GNU's list of words you can and cannot say, and a strange focus on morality, and you have something that is practically indistinguishable from a cult, even if it is only a cult of personality.
I read that. Is it possible for an organization to be more full of itself than the FSF?
A quotation:
"... we must remember that only part of Mac OS X is being released under the APSL. Even though the fatal flaws of the APSL were fixed, and even if the practical problems were addressed, that does no good for the other parts of Mac OS X whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do."
The FSF reminds me more and more of a religion than of a software organization. I can't think of any other organization that, on the one hand, makes a big deal about freedom and liberty, and on the other hand is so moralistic about orthodoxy and monolithic thinking.
Sometimes I wonder if some of these people have autistic tendencies ;-)
Why wonder, when you can find out right now.
And it's not such a joke, really. There is a surge of autism diagnoses among children of computer professionals in Silicon Valley. The argument is that geekiness and autism have the same genetic root.
he can learn the things his clients dont bother to read about.
... you're saying that everyone on slashdot is a techie nerd with no social skills?
... never mind.
You can make that argument about any specialist.
e.g., That lawyer, he's not so good at law, he just read law books so that his clients don't have to.
It seems he knows how to talk to people, not engineer things. [...] I dont think this person describes most of the people who regularly read slashdot, the scientists, engineers and people who like to solve problems and learn technical things.
So
Wait
Their compliance, of course, would mean that they can't enforce this $699 thing.
I suspect you may have meant this anyway, but just to be clear: the GPL does not preclude you from charging for a distribution. However, you must release your distribution and its source code under the GPL, so someone else is perfectly well within their rights to release it for free.
Typically, distributors burn GPL programs on CD collections and charge a fee to recover media and distribution costs, for those who either don't have a T1 line at home or can't be bothered to download code. This activity is perfectly proper under the GPL.
I have never had a problem with an HP calculator, in spite of heaps of abuse.
My dad, who by coincidence is also an electrical engineer, owns an HP-21 that is roughly as old as I am. Just for laughs, I dig that thing out of his closet every once in a while and fool around with it; it still works fine.
Haven't read the article (typically of slashdot), but I do remember that the Apollo 11 computer nearly caused the first lunar landing to fail because it kept rebooting in-flight. Due to a configuration error that occurred shortly before flight, the computer repeatedly ran out of memory, but the software was designed so that the computer could reboot without catastrophe.
You can read more here.
If we make these limbs much, much better - are we to expect anything different?
Yes! That's basically the whole point. Currently, even the best artificial limbs are a poor substitute for the genuine article. People get artificial limbs because they have lost their natural limbs, and have no other choice -- we do not hate or shun these people any more than we hate or shun people with any other disability. However, if artificial limbs become far superior to natural limbs, people will be able to choose whether they want their (perfectly healthy) natural limbs removed in favor of mechanical ones. At that point you will certainly have fear and loathing between the people who undergo the procedure (the superior beings) and the people who don't (the all-natural people).
As for your further point, it's not the role of bioethics departments to sell stem cell research. It's their role to think about the consequences for society of any new innovatio, and sometimes they might not agree with the techies.
No, it's because people don't give a rat's ass about problems in the abstract. Yes, computer voting systems have problems, but so were butterfly ballots, and nobody had even heard of those until 2000.
Only in the 2024 elections, when Wil Wheaton defeats Britney Spears amidst questionable computer voting, will you get anyone to care.