I suspect that HTML and Java will suffice as a thin and sorta thick (respectively) client-side interface for simple projects, such as data entry, inventory control, and other sorts of jobs which would have been done a dozen years ago with a bank of VT-100 terminals. And I suspect that XML will be comming around the corner in a couple of years to fill in the blanks that HTML currently cannot cut.
OTOH, I suspect there will always be software projects where a thin client-side interface just ain't going to cut it. But for MIS departments where all you need is to support your customer support crew with latest technical specs and access to the customer database, HTML on the client side is a fairly good answer overall.
Of course this requires a lot of metal on the server side, as well as a fresh copy of Apache and PHP (which IMHO rocks!), but that's the other side of the wire...
Apparently you're an absolute, unrelenting moron, and I'm wasting my time. But, you're a moron that challenged me, so I'm going to have a bit of fun here...
Then don't waste your time. Besides, I've already admitted that I'm an idiot here, so repeating it is simply a waste of bandwidth.
No self-respecting historian wastes time trying to predict alternate futures.
If that's what you think I'm writing here, then I'm sorry you missed the point. But it is possible for us to observe things like "Had Kennedy not driven his car over that bridge, perhaps Chapaquittick wouldn't stick in the craw of the Kennedy family quite so much." Just as it is possible for us to observe the problem the Church was having around the time of Galileo was the rising presence of printed information that was outside of Church control. That is, the Church was upset that another avenue of communications was opening up outside of their control, and they weren't very happy with it. (There. That's my attempt to keep this within the scope of something at least one other person may be interested in reading about on/.)
At the same time, this can be said: The church at this time was squelching all opposing viewpoints (note: "The Church was... [attempting to control] any potentially questionable views held by its followers."). Maybe you need a lesson in the English language. Strong operators such as "any" or "all" mean just that. They do not mean "most."
Yes, I know what "all" means. And this statement is flat out incorrect. For example, Galileo was not prevented from discussing the Copernican theory by the Church--he was only warned by Cardinal Bellarmino on the Pope's behalf to proceed cautiously when discussing the Copernican theory. That is, he was advised to keep his discussion "hypothetical", rather than side-running the Church and contradicting the existing dogma of the time.
Yeah, there are too many factors at play to honestly play "what if" stuff. But it isn't exactly a stretch of the imagination to say that had Galileo not published his beliefs as "Truth", but instead followed the request of the Inquisition, that he probably wouldn't have had the problems he did have. Keep in mind that Galileo wasn't the only one to discuss the Copernican theory of a sun-centered solar system--hell, that theory had been floating around for almost a century before the Church picked on Galileo.
It is very clear from the Church's proceedings aginst Galileo that they weren't interested in squelching investigations in the Copernican theory, only in preventing someone outside the Church hierarchy essentially saying that the Pope is wrong, and therefore fallable.
He played the system. It didn't work.
You remember the famous line Galileo reportedly said after being forced to renounce his beliefs? The one that goes something like "But it still moves"?
The reason why he said that was in response for being asked to renounce his beliefs. That is, he was ordered that he was not to "hold or defend" (using the Church's words) the Copernican sun-centered theory. And he was being asked not to "hold or defend" theory because he had presented it as "Truth", rather than "treading lightly" as he had been asked to do.
Had Galileo played ball as you suggest, he would have presented his observations and the Copernican theory as "hypothetical observations." Do you think the Church would ask him to renounce, and to stop holding and defending a theory he never actually held or defended, but simply discussed?
Are you really so ignorant that you don't know the difference from a religious point of view between holding a theory and simply discussing a theory? Probably--as the difference is subtle, and often missed by people so self-arrogant that they think they know the truth and fail to see the world is not quite so black and white.
"despite" has an e, not an i.
Ah. Picking on spelling. The last resort of the terminally dense. If you don't like the quality of my spelling, complain to the management and ask for a built-in spell checker.
That wasn't my best effort. spokesman, n. One who speaks as the representative of another or others. Note: status as a "spokesman" does not require membership.
No, it just requires me to be a representative. And to represent a group, generally you need to be a member of that group.
Actually, I only bring up the last couple of points because of something I've observed about many people involved in the computer industry in general. At the risk of insulting the three people who will actually read down to this point, I must say that one of the things that irritates me about some of those in this industry is their literal-mindedness combined with a passive-agressive tendency towards painting slurs.
For example, to any reasonable person, in your prior post you suggested that I'm a "fundie", by suggesting that I'm a spokesperson for "Christians." (Let me note at this point that I have been prepending "fundamentalist" because I don't wish to insult the 90% of the Christians out there who don't fit the narrow characterizations being used here.) But when I call you to that, you crawl back to the dictionary and pull out a "literal" interpretation. It's just weasel words, but I see it a lot within our community--a passive-agressive attack, followed up by a "you are obviously too stupid to know that what I really ment was definition 2(c) of the word "be" as defined in Websters."
Makes me wonder why this should be.
First off, the above phrase qualifies you as a spokesman for fundamentalist Christians.
No it doesn't, no more than your post qualifies you as a spokesman for Galileo Galilei. I mean, does discussing clock chipping of a Celeron make me a spokesman for Intel? Or how to install MacOS 9 make me a spokesman for Apple?
I read and listen and talk and interpret, and share my opinions and my understanding about what I perceive. That's all. This doesn't make me a "spokesman", even in the narrow dictionary definition you offered.
Second, the answers many Christians have been offering (the CDA, etc) often have more to do with restricting access than providing moral guidance.
Of course it does--that's because it's rather hard to legislate putting a priest in every house. But what backs "fundamentalist" Christian's desires to past such legislation (and remember, I use "fundamentalist" here to draw a distinction that you apparently do not wish to draw) is their view of morality.
But what would you have us do? Bar "Christians" from the legislative process so they don't propose things like the CDA?
A computer is not a device designed to cause massive bodily harm. A gun is. As a matter of fact, a gun as little other practical use than physical force of the threat thereof. A computer, on the other hand, is quite awkward to wield in combat.
Let me make a few observations here. First, had you been paying attention to those aformentioned newspapers and television news articles, you would know that why people are up in arms about the Internet is because they believe what we read here is/. and elsewhere is more dangerous than a gun. After all if I pull a trigger I only kill one person. But (according to those who would pass the CDA) if I post one article, I could potentially cause *thousands* to get a gun and pull the trigger.
I oppose the CDA. But I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and call those who would pass the CDA a bunch of bloody idiots. Better instead to understand their point and counter them than to simply write them off as a bunch of dolts.
Second a gun can be used for recreational and sporting purposes. My grandfather used a gun to hunt for food when he was young. I agree that guns need to be restricted, and perhaps those who would hunt for food would be better served at the local supermarket. But simply dismissing guns as having only one legal purpose won't win you points when it comes to debating gun control.
Third, I hear that the Pentegon is working on making computers easier to wield in a combat arena. I suspect there would be a lot of money to be made creating wearable computers and selling them to the DoD.
You're still wrong, and even though I supported that statement the first time, you are incapable of understanding other people's writing.
Where? Aside from citing authorities but not the essence of what they wrote, you did not actually get around to saying very much more than the fact that I'm an idiot, which I have already conceeded.
Third, attacking Jon Katz (or anyone else) in a roundabout attempt to state a point that you never actually get to is a bad idea.
*shrug* I thought I originally made a very good post. Ah, well. Sorry to have wasted your time.
Might I point out that this method only applies to books written so that they include a "Christ figure"? And that these books do not comprise the majority of literature?
And where did I say "all works"? I didn't. I said "many". "Many" is a subset of "all," and not a superset.
You're missing the point entirely. Katz is not complaining about religious attempts to enter secular culture, rather, the article is about the hypocrisy of a group that condemned games of this violent nature, while exploiting it as a valuable tool with which to reach young gamers, thereby utilizing a medium that they themselves attack.
I caught that part. But thought others were covering it quite well, thank you, by pointing out the fact that Christians are not a homogeneous group of zombies stomping across our cultural wasteland. No point in repeating what others have argued more passionately in this forum than I.
As far as what stories are in the Torah... well, I believe you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy available? Read 'em. The Old Testament is a Jewish text. Surprised? Let's try Jesus' wardrobe... What's that thing on his head? Or his shoulders? They're a yarmulkh and a tallis. Looks like those Jews have infiltrated your culture, eh? Look out, Big Brother Shlomo is watching you.
Very good! You do such a great job painting me as an anti-semite, you should be rewarded a cookie!
But the fact of the matter is, aside from a handful of symbols, Christian culture has very little to do with Jewish culture. They don't look a lot alike at all. Further, some Christians go out of their way to wipe out what little Jewish culture was carried over by ancient Christians because they believe it was the Jews who betrayed Christ to the Romans. And besides, there is quite a bit of evidence that many of the symbols used by Christians derive from ancient Egyptian symbology (via the Roman Catholic Church, who borrowed heavily from Roman emperial rituals, which borrowed from the Egyptians), and what few symbols are borrowed from the Jews had their source in Babylonian ritual practices. So in reality, we're being infiltrated by ancient Babylonian and Egyptian influences.
Nah, if there is any place in our culture where Jews have made a significant impression, it's in entertainment, not through the backdoor of Christianity. Or are you telling me you've never seen a Mel Brooks movie?
(Jeeeewwwwwsssss IIiiiiinnnnn Spaaaaaaaacce! I hadn't laughed so hard at a Mel Brooks film!)
If I'm wrong, then *how* am I wrong? The points you gave are not contradictory. I was well aware of the fact that Galileo's paper on his observations were in fact approved by the Inquision--a point you find "interesting."
You also have to remember that the scholars or leaders of that time were not used to the notion of a separation of Church and State, or the separation of Church from the secular affairs of man, or even a separation of Church from the secular research interests of Science. So of course the historians of that time were upset with Galileo, and drew up the history as a great battle between Truth and the Church--it was the first time in history that anyone had even thought to go outside the Church's hierarchy in order to publish results. Like a teenager who is getting his first taste of freedom, there was quite a bit of hurt feelings, screamings, and the occassional house arrest.
It was inevitable that the Church was to be extracted forceably from the secular affairs of mankind. Galileo happened to be in the cross-hairs. I'm in no way suggesting Galileo *should* have played ball with the Church, only the fact that had he did, his fate would have been a far different one.
Frankly, I don't understand why you need a law prohibiting other people from taking part in an activity because you choose not to. It is not your right to legislate your beliefs upon others. Is it okay for me to regulate when you may go to church?
I see you miss the point again. The point I was making is that it's alright for legislation like that to be proposed. It's part of that silly little thing called "Freedom of Speech" that most of us forget when the other person starts asking for things we think are stupid. On the other hand, had you bothered to actually read what I wrote, you would have never noticed that I said that passing such legislation was a good idea. Why? Because it's not a good idea.
Israel is a secular state, no matter how many Orthodox Jews wish to say otherwise. To pass legislation that favors one religious group over another is not all that great an idea. But to shut that group up because they are a religious group ("I don't even want to see them proposed jack sh-t") is stiffling their freedom to speak.
Oops. He didn't say "fundamentalist Christians," did he? The author made an observation, a rather valid one, and because it did not agree with your view as a spokesman for "fundamentalist Christians," you rejected his observation as wrong.
A valid one? Then why don't you *support* it, rather than wasting bandwidth and server space to simply call me an idiot? I already know I'm an idiot, so such things are simply redundant and a waste of my time and the time of the other three people who will bother to read your post.
FYI, I'm not a "fundamentalist spokesman", dispite your best efforts. Hell, I'm not even christian. (Native american, Salinan tribe, registered California Indian.)
Besides, it doesn't do a damned thing to my point, which is this: even the most rabid fundamentalist Christians I've known aren't anti-technology. They only complain that Good and Holy people don't control that technology. They worry that evil and rotten people will use that technology to bad ends. And they worry that some technology may have only bad and evil implications, such as genetic engineering. But they are not inherently anti-technology.
Now are you going to waste bandwidth and server space to simply repeat what we already know, that I'm an idiot, or are you going to bully up to the bar and actually discuss the points I raised?
Technology, from film to TV to the Web, is often blamed for triggering spiritual failings and degradations.
No, Mr. Katz, it's not technology that's being blaimed by fundamentalist Christians. It's technology, unchecked by moral guidance, which is being blaimed. This is no different from gun control advocates who are concerned that criminals and idiots may get ahold of a gun and misuse it.
Religion and freedom have never really gotten along, from the persecution of Galileo to the demands by Orthodox Jews that Jerusalem shut down its cinemas on Friday night to Islamic attacks on writers and reporters in some Middle Eastern countries.
And of course you just don't get it. Had you paid any attention in history class instead of playing hookie to frag your friends in Duke Nukem, you'd learned that Galileo was persecuted by the Church not because of his anti-religions, pro-technology beliefs, but because he upset the status quo of a church which was attempting to preserve it's eroding power base. Specifically, the Church never actually denied that Galileo's observations of the heavens were false; they only bitched because he presented his findings outside the context of the Church Hierarchy. Had Galileo "played politics" with the Church, his findings may have first been stamped with the approval of the Church hierarchy, and presented as compatable with Roman Catholic Theology. Instead, Galileo ignored the Church, went around their backs, and that pissed the Cardinals off.
As to the Orthodox Jews demanding that cinemas be closed in Israel on Friday, that is no worse than any temperance law in the United States which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Here in California, the prohibition is against sale of alcohol between 2am and 6am, but in other parts of the union, alcohol cannot be sold on Sunday as well. It's also no different than England's prohibition against stores being open on Sunday. Friday night is a holy time to Jews, so asking the state pass a law which helps in their religious observances is not really a big deal.
Remember: freedom also means the freedom of one sect of folks to ask for laws from their nation, no matter how odd we may think those laws are. Or are you next going to complain that in some States, it is illegal for an employer to demand without signific notice that an employee work on Sunday?
And as to those "Islamic attacks", well--didn't you just complain about people judging geeks by the actions of two gun-welding goths mowing down a bunch of fellow students? And here you are, doing the same damned thing! Not all of Islam is made up of angry fundamentalist American-hating screaming fascists who want to murder everone and everything that goes agains the word of Allah. Just as not all geeks are black-wearing Goths who would think nothing about mixing up the Real World with the Virtual World of Doom and frag a few dozen students because they are disgruntled and stressed out on Jolt cola.
But of course your grasp of the issues surrounding Religion is so shallow, intolerant, and down-right ignorant that it doesn't supprise me that you Just Miss The Point.
That's okay; next time you cry "victim" and ask for "tolerance" of geeks and Other People Just Like You, don't look to me or a lot of other folks here on/. for sympathy. After all, your remarkable intolerance for religious people is as bad as the "crimes" you claim high school bullies have visited on goths and geeks after Columbine.
First, had Mr. Katz spent more time paying attention in an A.P. English class and less time hanging out in the campus computer room, he would realize that most of the popular thematic elements used in stories today are derived directly from the Bible. Many stories are best analyzed by asking ourselves (for example) "who is the Christ figure?" That is, who is the character who is walking the same evolutionary path that Christ is shown to walk in the New Testiment. Some stories are rather obvious (G'Kar of Babylon 5), others are more subtle.
Using Biblical themes to tell a story is as old as the Bible itself. So why is it that as soon as the aliases are stripped off and the stories are presented "in the buff", so to speak, that legions of folks should suddenly become concerned that our popular culture is being overrun by "mind-controlling Christians?" Jesus Christ, (to borrow a phrase) they're already here, and have been for so long that we think nothing about refering to someone as a Judas, or asking for our 40 pieces of gold, or entering the promised land, or a whole host of other biblically related stuff.
It's like the concern and the debate over the movie "The Omega Code"--it's rather silly. First, it's rather silly that some fundamentalist Christians should either (a) complain about the sorry state of story telling in a Hollywood who can't even come up with a plot without borrowing heavily from either the Bible or Shakespere, or (b) finally rejoice over the fact that they finally have their own movie, given the critical and box office success of a number of other, much better fair, such as "The Prince Of Egypt."
Second, it's rather silly that the non-fundamentalist Christians should worry about the infiltration of the Bible--given the fact that Biblical stories and references are so deeply ingrained into our culture.
Then, we have Mr. Katz so up in arms over the violence in "The War In Heaven." I mean, come on! Hasn't he even cracked his bible and read the last chapter? Violence is so permiated through the stories in the Old and New Testiments that it's not even funny. People hack each other up, do all sorts of unholy things, and to top it off, God Himself tends to do all sorts of awful things to random folks who aren't on His Good Side. (Rent "The Prince of Egypt" and fast forward to the part where God unleashes his Holy Wrath against the hapless Egyptians and their disappearing first born if you want to get a feel for this.)
There are a number of fundamentalist Christians who see violence in the name of Holy Good as only Rightous--there is nothing hypocritical about this. Just as there is nothing hypocritical about a police officer using his gun in a shootout in order to apprehend a bad guy whose crime was using his gun. And keep in mind that Christians are not one large undifferentiated homogeneous mass, any more than geeks or gays or high school students are. Some Christians are extremely uncomfortable with the use of violence in any circumstance--even if it were in the name of Holy Goodness and Light. Like with all things, YMMV.
And as to the bozos who have suggested that we wouldn't create a Jewish or Muslim video game--the only reason why this may be true is not because there isn't a market of "gullible" Jews or Muslims or whatever. After all, even though Babylon 5 leans very heavily on Biblical references through a number of subplots, it's not targeted to "gullible Christians." And it's not that we won't see a Jewish or Muslim video game because those traditions lack a rich and textured cultural reference and story base that could be tapped for story telling purposes. No; the only reason why we won't see such a game anytime soon is because the people in the United States and throughout most of Europe are completely clueless about what sorts of stories are in the Torah or the Koran.
After all, more people here know about some guy walking on water than about anything Mohamed may have done in his life...
(* Footnote: yes, I know most Christian and Muslem stories are also Jewish stories. But Jewish culture contains a lot more stories than the ones preserved by the Christians or by Muslems.)
The truth is that as we age, there are marked decreases in our ability to solve problems requiring fluid intelligence, quick responses to new situations, and incorporation of new information into a problem space.
But why? There are two possible explanations. Either it's because (a) our brains are simply incapable of keeping up as they age, or (b) the user of that brain gives up as he/she gets older.
The evidence seems to weigh in strongly on (b). That is, the older someone gets, the less they expect of themselves, and so the less they do. And because they do less, their brains decay, and like a flabby muscle becomes completely unusable.
Like muscles in your body, I believe your brain can either be as sharp as a tack well into your 90's, or can become dull and flabby before your 40th birthday. It's just a matter of exercising your brain. Most people just choose not to exercise their brain, just as they choose not to exercise their body--and the whole thing becomes a flabby mess.
I knew a man who was totally out of shape who enrolled in a flow Yoga class in his mid 60's--and 10 years later does better Yoga than people a third his age. You *can* reverse the effects of aging, either physically or mentally, by getting off your ass and doing something about it.
Too bad most people just allow themselves to decay.
Look: some of us may be well socialized. (I think I do pretty damn good in the social department myself.) But most of the computer geeks I know (along with the physics geeks and math geeks from my alma mater) aren't the best socialized group of geeks around.
Honestly, the most common question I've heard from my geek friends is not "how do I configure a NIC to work with my Compaq under RedHat" or "what do I watch out for when writing portable software using C" but "how do I get a girlfriend."
I don't need advise on how to cool my CPU after clock-chipping, but I don't begrudge the news article on/. which covered that topic.
My personal advise: try curtain number three. That is, try dating, but without the goal of landing multiple sex partners or a future wife. Just go out and get to know a few of the girls at your college.
The best strategy to finding a life partner, statistically speaking, is to date about a half-dozen to a dozen girls over the course of college (with a 'date' being as little as "hey, do you want to go out for a cup of coffee with me"), and when you find "the one", you have a good statistical likelihood that she is the optimal solution.
There will also be a statistical likelihood that there will be "the one who got away"--the one who was as good as the one who you marry, but who got away.
Yeah, there will be some room here to get yourself physically "satisfied". But just keep in mind that statistically speaking, married guys get more sex than single guys...
Apple has always been run by accountant with myopic vision and by marketing dweeb^H^H^H^H evangelists who didn't have clue one about the markets they were selling into.
Now if Apple had Microsoft's marketing muscle, we'd probably have near saturation of Macintosh systems throughout the world, with Steve Jobs talking about using the Apple's user interface expertese to design car dashboards. (You see, that icon on the left is the fuel level...)
Ah well, it's a miracle that Apple has any market presence, given the crappy state of affairs in Apple's non-technical middle management. If it weren't for the Macintosh faithful, I suspect we'd be saying "Apple who? Didn't they make some home brew kit in the 70's?"
You don't see anything improper about Microsoft, a target of an anti-trust action by the government, manipulating the government process in order to "send a message to the DOJ?"
At the very least this is about the most arrogant thing I've ever seen in my life.
His argument, concerning straight tracks, are this kind of error. He's looking for the integral of a probabalistic wave (as he's looking over a period of time), but he's getting the raw, collapsed wave instead. If you look in the wrong places, you are bound to not find what you expect.
When you receive a radio wave, you don't collapse that wave into a photonic particle (which is what the radio wave is, if it could be collapsed). For a QM probabalistic wave to collapse into a particle, you must do more than measure it's existance--you must measure it in such a way as to force a measurement of it as a particle.
And that's just it: if you simply look at the release of an alpha particle by itself, it should produce a uniform ionizing radiation "sphere" around the decaying atom. A cloud chamber does not inherently differentiate between a unform sphere of radiation (a wave) and a decay particle, so simply observing with a cloud chamber should not force the probability function to collapse.
What the article suggests is that it is the interaction between the alpha particle and the cloud chamber, rather than simply the observation done in the cloud chamber, which forces the probability function to collapse.
Overall, I have no problems with time, at least at a quantuum mechanical level, not existing except as a consequence of the configuration of the probability cloud. Just as I have no problems with the atoms of my body being nothing more than a consequence of the spacial collapse of a very large probability cloud. It all seems real, and it's the perception of reality around me that's important to my day to day life.
There has never been an "IT worker shortage". There is a "shortage of IT workers at the salary we offer".
Reminds me of the joke about a company looking for a Java programmer who had 10 years of Java programming experience. They were willing to pay $40K/year.
Of course the sad part about this was that I first saw this joke a year back in the Los Angeles Times help wanted ads...
Actually, I see three things comming down the pike which could significantly reduce the number of manhours needed in order to get an application off the ground.
The first thing is the use of web browsers as the software's UI. In several IT departments and several companies I've done work for, they're increasingly using CGI and PHP3 (or other sever-side HTML processing) in order to present user input options and present information for things like inventory tracking software and the like. It takes a lot less work to do inventory tracking using PHP3 and MySQL than it does rolling your own UI.
The second thing I see is the increasing use of reusable objects, encapsulated in their own executable files. Things like COM objects in Microsoft Windows is significantly increasing the acceptance of reusable objects in the Windows world, to the point where many programmers I've met in the Windows world do little more than glue COM objects with VB for a living. I also see this happening with JavaBeans.
The third I've seen is the attempts for companies like Microsoft and Sun to provide prepackaged solutions for embedded software development. Now that it only costs a couple of bucks to get a fairly impressive amount of computing power on an embedded chip, it's worth it to a company to spend an extra two dollars for a processor which can run a prepackaged embedded OS, rather than pay the engineering costs (and take the risk) of rolling their own. Other companies (notably those who were formerly competing with Microsoft in the OS market in the 80's) are already migrating into that market.
All of these are causing companies to use "off the shelf" code rather than rely on a software developer to roll new code. The solution may seem inelegant to a skilled programmer, but it does make sense: it reduces corporate reliance on programmers, and it reduces the risk to companies failing to implement a solution.
It's happening now. And as a freelancer who comes into a company and fixes someone else's mess, I guess the answer to your rhetorical question is me.
The only thing that is going to prevent the collapse of the market for software developers is the fact that just about every little trinket has a microprocessor in it now. Unfortunately, though, I think what is going to speed this collapse along is those very same "idiot" programmers you allude to--I've seen more than one company who, when faced with a project that needed some custom programming, decide to scrap the entire project rather than face some 22 year old with a diploma fresh from a diploma mill.
I do know on the Macintosh, you can set a 48-bit resource in the System file with a new MAC address--if the resource is present, that address, and not the one stored on the EPROM on the motherboard of the Mac, will be used as the card's MAC address.
(Forgot which resource that is--don't have the docs in front of me...)
So, can I run Linux on my milk carton? And can I connect my milk carton to the Internet?
I'm thinking it would be nice to network a bunch of milk cartons together, perhaps with a cereal box for additional storage, in order to build a web server for my business. But the whole thing won't work unless someone has a Carton Linux distro...
And manu rock music amplifiers are marked from 0 to 11, rather than 0 to 10. That extra "1" at the end is for that extra "umph."
(Yeah, this is an old joke from the movie "Spinal Tap." But what makes it really really funny is the fact that in **REAL** rock music stores, there are **REAL** music amplifiers which are **REALLY** marked up to 11. In fact, my brother owns one, a power rock guitar amp, which is marked up to 11.
Never ever underestimate the power of human stupidity.)
Or to the state of California. I've been spending the last two weeks sorting through their "Title 24" energy compliance stuff, and I can tell you for a fact that they use Inch/Pound measurements exclusively.
Nothing like spending an afternoon converting stuff from kJ/m^2 to British Thermal Units and square feet...
Not all of NASA uses english units. In fact, as far as I know, none of NASA (aside from projects which got their funding start in the 60's) uses english units. And JPL (which is academically administered by my alma mater) uses metric units nearly exclusively, as does the rest of Caltech.
(I say "nearly" because sometimes you have to update some old data to MKS.)
I used to work for the Computer Graphics Lab at JPL; we were responsible for obtaining navigation data and turning it into cool computer animations. And I know for a fact that the navigation team for JPL's space probes exclusively uses MKS.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that HTML and Java will suffice as a thin and sorta thick (respectively) client-side interface for simple projects, such as data entry, inventory control, and other sorts of jobs which would have been done a dozen years ago with a bank of VT-100 terminals. And I suspect that XML will be comming around the corner in a couple of years to fill in the blanks that HTML currently cannot cut.
OTOH, I suspect there will always be software projects where a thin client-side interface just ain't going to cut it. But for MIS departments where all you need is to support your customer support crew with latest technical specs and access to the customer database, HTML on the client side is a fairly good answer overall.
Of course this requires a lot of metal on the server side, as well as a fresh copy of Apache and PHP (which IMHO rocks!), but that's the other side of the wire...
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
Bloody typos!
But simply dismissing guns as having only one legal purpose won't win you points when it comes to debating gun control.
should read
But simply dismissing guns as having only one purpose won't win you points when it comes to debating gun control.
The 'legal' part shouldn't have been there. *sigh*
Apparently you're an absolute, unrelenting moron, and I'm wasting my time. But, you're a moron that challenged me, so I'm going to have a bit of fun here...
/.)
/. and elsewhere is more dangerous than a gun. After all if I pull a trigger I only kill one person. But (according to those who would pass the CDA) if I post one article, I could potentially cause *thousands* to get a gun and pull the trigger.
Then don't waste your time. Besides, I've already admitted that I'm an idiot here, so repeating it is simply a waste of bandwidth.
No self-respecting historian wastes time trying to predict alternate futures.
If that's what you think I'm writing here, then I'm sorry you missed the point. But it is possible for us to observe things like "Had Kennedy not driven his car over that bridge, perhaps Chapaquittick wouldn't stick in the craw of the Kennedy family quite so much." Just as it is possible for us to observe the problem the Church was having around the time of Galileo was the rising presence of printed information that was outside of Church control. That is, the Church was upset that another avenue of communications was opening up outside of their control, and they weren't very happy with it. (There. That's my attempt to keep this within the scope of something at least one other person may be interested in reading about on
At the same time, this can be said: The church at this time was squelching all opposing viewpoints (note: "The Church was... [attempting to control] any potentially questionable views held by its followers."). Maybe you need a lesson in the English language. Strong operators such as "any" or "all" mean just that. They do not mean "most."
Yes, I know what "all" means. And this statement is flat out incorrect. For example, Galileo was not prevented from discussing the Copernican theory by the Church--he was only warned by Cardinal Bellarmino on the Pope's behalf to proceed cautiously when discussing the Copernican theory. That is, he was advised to keep his discussion "hypothetical", rather than side-running the Church and contradicting the existing dogma of the time.
Yeah, there are too many factors at play to honestly play "what if" stuff. But it isn't exactly a stretch of the imagination to say that had Galileo not published his beliefs as "Truth", but instead followed the request of the Inquisition, that he probably wouldn't have had the problems he did have. Keep in mind that Galileo wasn't the only one to discuss the Copernican theory of a sun-centered solar system--hell, that theory had been floating around for almost a century before the Church picked on Galileo.
It is very clear from the Church's proceedings aginst Galileo that they weren't interested in squelching investigations in the Copernican theory, only in preventing someone outside the Church hierarchy essentially saying that the Pope is wrong, and therefore fallable.
He played the system. It didn't work.
You remember the famous line Galileo reportedly said after being forced to renounce his beliefs? The one that goes something like "But it still moves"?
The reason why he said that was in response for being asked to renounce his beliefs. That is, he was ordered that he was not to "hold or defend" (using the Church's words) the Copernican sun-centered theory. And he was being asked not to "hold or defend" theory because he had presented it as "Truth", rather than "treading lightly" as he had been asked to do.
Had Galileo played ball as you suggest, he would have presented his observations and the Copernican theory as "hypothetical observations." Do you think the Church would ask him to renounce, and to stop holding and defending a theory he never actually held or defended, but simply discussed?
Are you really so ignorant that you don't know the difference from a religious point of view between holding a theory and simply discussing a theory? Probably--as the difference is subtle, and often missed by people so self-arrogant that they think they know the truth and fail to see the world is not quite so black and white.
"despite" has an e, not an i.
Ah. Picking on spelling. The last resort of the terminally dense. If you don't like the quality of my spelling, complain to the management and ask for a built-in spell checker.
That wasn't my best effort. spokesman, n. One who speaks as the representative of another or others. Note: status as a "spokesman" does not require membership.
No, it just requires me to be a representative. And to represent a group, generally you need to be a member of that group.
Actually, I only bring up the last couple of points because of something I've observed about many people involved in the computer industry in general. At the risk of insulting the three people who will actually read down to this point, I must say that one of the things that irritates me about some of those in this industry is their literal-mindedness combined with a passive-agressive tendency towards painting slurs.
For example, to any reasonable person, in your prior post you suggested that I'm a "fundie", by suggesting that I'm a spokesperson for "Christians." (Let me note at this point that I have been prepending "fundamentalist" because I don't wish to insult the 90% of the Christians out there who don't fit the narrow characterizations being used here.) But when I call you to that, you crawl back to the dictionary and pull out a "literal" interpretation. It's just weasel words, but I see it a lot within our community--a passive-agressive attack, followed up by a "you are obviously too stupid to know that what I really ment was definition 2(c) of the word "be" as defined in Websters."
Makes me wonder why this should be.
First off, the above phrase qualifies you as a spokesman for fundamentalist Christians.
No it doesn't, no more than your post qualifies you as a spokesman for Galileo Galilei. I mean, does discussing clock chipping of a Celeron make me a spokesman for Intel? Or how to install MacOS 9 make me a spokesman for Apple?
I read and listen and talk and interpret, and share my opinions and my understanding about what I perceive. That's all. This doesn't make me a "spokesman", even in the narrow dictionary definition you offered.
Second, the answers many Christians have been offering (the CDA, etc) often have more to do with restricting access than providing moral guidance.
Of course it does--that's because it's rather hard to legislate putting a priest in every house. But what backs "fundamentalist" Christian's desires to past such legislation (and remember, I use "fundamentalist" here to draw a distinction that you apparently do not wish to draw) is their view of morality.
But what would you have us do? Bar "Christians" from the legislative process so they don't propose things like the CDA?
A computer is not a device designed to cause massive bodily harm. A gun is. As a matter of fact, a gun as little other practical use than physical force of the threat thereof. A computer, on the other hand, is quite awkward to wield in combat.
Let me make a few observations here. First, had you been paying attention to those aformentioned newspapers and television news articles, you would know that why people are up in arms about the Internet is because they believe what we read here is
I oppose the CDA. But I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and call those who would pass the CDA a bunch of bloody idiots. Better instead to understand their point and counter them than to simply write them off as a bunch of dolts.
Second a gun can be used for recreational and sporting purposes. My grandfather used a gun to hunt for food when he was young. I agree that guns need to be restricted, and perhaps those who would hunt for food would be better served at the local supermarket. But simply dismissing guns as having only one legal purpose won't win you points when it comes to debating gun control.
Third, I hear that the Pentegon is working on making computers easier to wield in a combat arena. I suspect there would be a lot of money to be made creating wearable computers and selling them to the DoD.
You're still wrong, and even though I supported that statement the first time, you are incapable of understanding other people's writing.
Where? Aside from citing authorities but not the essence of what they wrote, you did not actually get around to saying very much more than the fact that I'm an idiot, which I have already conceeded.
Third, attacking Jon Katz (or anyone else) in a roundabout attempt to state a point that you never actually get to is a bad idea.
*shrug* I thought I originally made a very good post. Ah, well. Sorry to have wasted your time.
I love you.
Send flowers next time.
Might I point out that this method only applies to books written so that they include a "Christ figure"? And that these books do not comprise the majority of literature?
And where did I say "all works"? I didn't. I said "many". "Many" is a subset of "all," and not a superset.
You're missing the point entirely. Katz is not complaining about religious attempts to enter secular culture, rather, the article is about the hypocrisy of a group that condemned games of this violent nature, while exploiting it as a valuable tool with which to reach young gamers, thereby utilizing a medium that they themselves attack.
I caught that part. But thought others were covering it quite well, thank you, by pointing out the fact that Christians are not a homogeneous group of zombies stomping across our cultural wasteland. No point in repeating what others have argued more passionately in this forum than I.
As far as what stories are in the Torah... well, I believe you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy available? Read 'em. The Old Testament is a Jewish text. Surprised? Let's try Jesus' wardrobe... What's that thing on his head? Or his shoulders? They're a yarmulkh and a tallis. Looks like those Jews have infiltrated your culture, eh? Look out, Big Brother Shlomo is watching you.
Very good! You do such a great job painting me as an anti-semite, you should be rewarded a cookie!
But the fact of the matter is, aside from a handful of symbols, Christian culture has very little to do with Jewish culture. They don't look a lot alike at all. Further, some Christians go out of their way to wipe out what little Jewish culture was carried over by ancient Christians because they believe it was the Jews who betrayed Christ to the Romans. And besides, there is quite a bit of evidence that many of the symbols used by Christians derive from ancient Egyptian symbology (via the Roman Catholic Church, who borrowed heavily from Roman emperial rituals, which borrowed from the Egyptians), and what few symbols are borrowed from the Jews had their source in Babylonian ritual practices. So in reality, we're being infiltrated by ancient Babylonian and Egyptian influences.
Nah, if there is any place in our culture where Jews have made a significant impression, it's in entertainment, not through the backdoor of Christianity. Or are you telling me you've never seen a Mel Brooks movie?
(Jeeeewwwwwsssss IIiiiiinnnnn Spaaaaaaaacce! I hadn't laughed so hard at a Mel Brooks film!)
So of course the historians of that time were upset with Galileo
Ooops. Typo slipped through. Should read "So of course the historians of that time were upset with the treatment of Galileo...".
You are wrong. ...
If I'm wrong, then *how* am I wrong? The points you gave are not contradictory. I was well aware of the fact that Galileo's paper on his observations were in fact approved by the Inquision--a point you find "interesting."
You also have to remember that the scholars or leaders of that time were not used to the notion of a separation of Church and State, or the separation of Church from the secular affairs of man, or even a separation of Church from the secular research interests of Science. So of course the historians of that time were upset with Galileo, and drew up the history as a great battle between Truth and the Church--it was the first time in history that anyone had even thought to go outside the Church's hierarchy in order to publish results. Like a teenager who is getting his first taste of freedom, there was quite a bit of hurt feelings, screamings, and the occassional house arrest.
It was inevitable that the Church was to be extracted forceably from the secular affairs of mankind. Galileo happened to be in the cross-hairs. I'm in no way suggesting Galileo *should* have played ball with the Church, only the fact that had he did, his fate would have been a far different one.
Frankly, I don't understand why you need a law prohibiting other people from taking part in an activity because you choose not to. It is not your right to legislate your beliefs upon others. Is it okay for me to regulate when you may go to church?
I see you miss the point again. The point I was making is that it's alright for legislation like that to be proposed. It's part of that silly little thing called "Freedom of Speech" that most of us forget when the other person starts asking for things we think are stupid. On the other hand, had you bothered to actually read what I wrote, you would have never noticed that I said that passing such legislation was a good idea. Why? Because it's not a good idea.
Israel is a secular state, no matter how many Orthodox Jews wish to say otherwise. To pass legislation that favors one religious group over another is not all that great an idea. But to shut that group up because they are a religious group ("I don't even want to see them proposed jack sh-t") is stiffling their freedom to speak.
Oops. He didn't say "fundamentalist Christians," did he? The author made an observation, a rather valid one, and because it did not agree with your view as a spokesman for "fundamentalist Christians," you rejected his observation as wrong.
A valid one? Then why don't you *support* it, rather than wasting bandwidth and server space to simply call me an idiot? I already know I'm an idiot, so such things are simply redundant and a waste of my time and the time of the other three people who will bother to read your post.
FYI, I'm not a "fundamentalist spokesman", dispite your best efforts. Hell, I'm not even christian. (Native american, Salinan tribe, registered California Indian.)
Besides, it doesn't do a damned thing to my point, which is this: even the most rabid fundamentalist Christians I've known aren't anti-technology. They only complain that Good and Holy people don't control that technology. They worry that evil and rotten people will use that technology to bad ends. And they worry that some technology may have only bad and evil implications, such as genetic engineering. But they are not inherently anti-technology.
Now are you going to waste bandwidth and server space to simply repeat what we already know, that I'm an idiot, or are you going to bully up to the bar and actually discuss the points I raised?
Technology, from film to TV to the Web, is often blamed for triggering spiritual failings and degradations.
/. for sympathy. After all, your remarkable intolerance for religious people is as bad as the "crimes" you claim high school bullies have visited on goths and geeks after Columbine.
No, Mr. Katz, it's not technology that's being blaimed by fundamentalist Christians. It's technology, unchecked by moral guidance, which is being blaimed. This is no different from gun control advocates who are concerned that criminals and idiots may get ahold of a gun and misuse it.
Religion and freedom have never really gotten along, from the persecution of Galileo to the demands by Orthodox Jews that Jerusalem shut down its cinemas on Friday night to Islamic attacks on writers and reporters in some Middle Eastern countries.
And of course you just don't get it. Had you paid any attention in history class instead of playing hookie to frag your friends in Duke Nukem, you'd learned that Galileo was persecuted by the Church not because of his anti-religions, pro-technology beliefs, but because he upset the status quo of a church which was attempting to preserve it's eroding power base. Specifically, the Church never actually denied that Galileo's observations of the heavens were false; they only bitched because he presented his findings outside the context of the Church Hierarchy. Had Galileo "played politics" with the Church, his findings may have first been stamped with the approval of the Church hierarchy, and presented as compatable with Roman Catholic Theology. Instead, Galileo ignored the Church, went around their backs, and that pissed the Cardinals off.
As to the Orthodox Jews demanding that cinemas be closed in Israel on Friday, that is no worse than any temperance law in the United States which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Here in California, the prohibition is against sale of alcohol between 2am and 6am, but in other parts of the union, alcohol cannot be sold on Sunday as well. It's also no different than England's prohibition against stores being open on Sunday. Friday night is a holy time to Jews, so asking the state pass a law which helps in their religious observances is not really a big deal.
Remember: freedom also means the freedom of one sect of folks to ask for laws from their nation, no matter how odd we may think those laws are. Or are you next going to complain that in some States, it is illegal for an employer to demand without signific notice that an employee work on Sunday?
And as to those "Islamic attacks", well--didn't you just complain about people judging geeks by the actions of two gun-welding goths mowing down a bunch of fellow students? And here you are, doing the same damned thing! Not all of Islam is made up of angry fundamentalist American-hating screaming fascists who want to murder everone and everything that goes agains the word of Allah. Just as not all geeks are black-wearing Goths who would think nothing about mixing up the Real World with the Virtual World of Doom and frag a few dozen students because they are disgruntled and stressed out on Jolt cola.
But of course your grasp of the issues surrounding Religion is so shallow, intolerant, and down-right ignorant that it doesn't supprise me that you Just Miss The Point.
That's okay; next time you cry "victim" and ask for "tolerance" of geeks and Other People Just Like You, don't look to me or a lot of other folks here on
I see a lot of folks here Just Don't Get It.
First, had Mr. Katz spent more time paying attention in an A.P. English class and less time hanging out in the campus computer room, he would realize that most of the popular thematic elements used in stories today are derived directly from the Bible. Many stories are best analyzed by asking ourselves (for example) "who is the Christ figure?" That is, who is the character who is walking the same evolutionary path that Christ is shown to walk in the New Testiment. Some stories are rather obvious (G'Kar of Babylon 5), others are more subtle.
Using Biblical themes to tell a story is as old as the Bible itself. So why is it that as soon as the aliases are stripped off and the stories are presented "in the buff", so to speak, that legions of folks should suddenly become concerned that our popular culture is being overrun by "mind-controlling Christians?" Jesus Christ, (to borrow a phrase) they're already here, and have been for so long that we think nothing about refering to someone as a Judas, or asking for our 40 pieces of gold, or entering the promised land, or a whole host of other biblically related stuff.
It's like the concern and the debate over the movie "The Omega Code"--it's rather silly. First, it's rather silly that some fundamentalist Christians should either (a) complain about the sorry state of story telling in a Hollywood who can't even come up with a plot without borrowing heavily from either the Bible or Shakespere, or (b) finally rejoice over the fact that they finally have their own movie, given the critical and box office success of a number of other, much better fair, such as "The Prince Of Egypt."
Second, it's rather silly that the non-fundamentalist Christians should worry about the infiltration of the Bible--given the fact that Biblical stories and references are so deeply ingrained into our culture.
Then, we have Mr. Katz so up in arms over the violence in "The War In Heaven." I mean, come on! Hasn't he even cracked his bible and read the last chapter? Violence is so permiated through the stories in the Old and New Testiments that it's not even funny. People hack each other up, do all sorts of unholy things, and to top it off, God Himself tends to do all sorts of awful things to random folks who aren't on His Good Side. (Rent "The Prince of Egypt" and fast forward to the part where God unleashes his Holy Wrath against the hapless Egyptians and their disappearing first born if you want to get a feel for this.)
There are a number of fundamentalist Christians who see violence in the name of Holy Good as only Rightous--there is nothing hypocritical about this. Just as there is nothing hypocritical about a police officer using his gun in a shootout in order to apprehend a bad guy whose crime was using his gun. And keep in mind that Christians are not one large undifferentiated homogeneous mass, any more than geeks or gays or high school students are. Some Christians are extremely uncomfortable with the use of violence in any circumstance--even if it were in the name of Holy Goodness and Light. Like with all things, YMMV.
And as to the bozos who have suggested that we wouldn't create a Jewish or Muslim video game--the only reason why this may be true is not because there isn't a market of "gullible" Jews or Muslims or whatever. After all, even though Babylon 5 leans very heavily on Biblical references through a number of subplots, it's not targeted to "gullible Christians." And it's not that we won't see a Jewish or Muslim video game because those traditions lack a rich and textured cultural reference and story base that could be tapped for story telling purposes. No; the only reason why we won't see such a game anytime soon is because the people in the United States and throughout most of Europe are completely clueless about what sorts of stories are in the Torah or the Koran.
After all, more people here know about some guy walking on water than about anything Mohamed may have done in his life...
(* Footnote: yes, I know most Christian and Muslem stories are also Jewish stories. But Jewish culture contains a lot more stories than the ones preserved by the Christians or by Muslems.)
Keep in mind when I wrote what I did, I was also refering to the act of the original poster putting his foot into his own mouth... grin
The truth is that as we age, there are marked decreases in our ability to solve problems requiring fluid intelligence, quick responses to new situations, and incorporation of new information into a problem space.
But why? There are two possible explanations. Either it's because (a) our brains are simply incapable of keeping up as they age, or (b) the user of that brain gives up as he/she gets older.
The evidence seems to weigh in strongly on (b). That is, the older someone gets, the less they expect of themselves, and so the less they do. And because they do less, their brains decay, and like a flabby muscle becomes completely unusable.
Like muscles in your body, I believe your brain can either be as sharp as a tack well into your 90's, or can become dull and flabby before your 40th birthday. It's just a matter of exercising your brain. Most people just choose not to exercise their brain, just as they choose not to exercise their body--and the whole thing becomes a flabby mess.
I knew a man who was totally out of shape who enrolled in a flow Yoga class in his mid 60's--and 10 years later does better Yoga than people a third his age. You *can* reverse the effects of aging, either physically or mentally, by getting off your ass and doing something about it.
Too bad most people just allow themselves to decay.
Look: some of us may be well socialized. (I think I do pretty damn good in the social department myself.) But most of the computer geeks I know (along with the physics geeks and math geeks from my alma mater) aren't the best socialized group of geeks around.
/. which covered that topic.
Honestly, the most common question I've heard from my geek friends is not "how do I configure a NIC to work with my Compaq under RedHat" or "what do I watch out for when writing portable software using C" but "how do I get a girlfriend."
I don't need advise on how to cool my CPU after clock-chipping, but I don't begrudge the news article on
My personal advise: try curtain number three. That is, try dating, but without the goal of landing multiple sex partners or a future wife. Just go out and get to know a few of the girls at your college.
The best strategy to finding a life partner, statistically speaking, is to date about a half-dozen to a dozen girls over the course of college (with a 'date' being as little as "hey, do you want to go out for a cup of coffee with me"), and when you find "the one", you have a good statistical likelihood that she is the optimal solution.
There will also be a statistical likelihood that there will be "the one who got away"--the one who was as good as the one who you marry, but who got away.
Yeah, there will be some room here to get yourself physically "satisfied". But just keep in mind that statistically speaking, married guys get more sex than single guys...
*sigh*
Not always. Some women dislike oral sex, as do some men.
Actually, conversation works better than sticking body parts into your mouth...
Apple has always been run by accountant with myopic vision and by marketing dweeb^H^H^H^H evangelists who didn't have clue one about the markets they were selling into.
Now if Apple had Microsoft's marketing muscle, we'd probably have near saturation of Macintosh systems throughout the world, with Steve Jobs talking about using the Apple's user interface expertese to design car dashboards. (You see, that icon on the left is the fuel level...)
Ah well, it's a miracle that Apple has any market presence, given the crappy state of affairs in Apple's non-technical middle management. If it weren't for the Macintosh faithful, I suspect we'd be saying "Apple who? Didn't they make some home brew kit in the 70's?"
You don't see anything improper about Microsoft, a target of an anti-trust action by the government, manipulating the government process in order to "send a message to the DOJ?"
At the very least this is about the most arrogant thing I've ever seen in my life.
His argument, concerning straight tracks, are this kind of error. He's looking for the integral of a probabalistic wave (as he's looking over a period of time), but he's getting the raw, collapsed wave instead. If you look in the wrong places, you are bound to not find what you expect.
When you receive a radio wave, you don't collapse that wave into a photonic particle (which is what the radio wave is, if it could be collapsed). For a QM probabalistic wave to collapse into a particle, you must do more than measure it's existance--you must measure it in such a way as to force a measurement of it as a particle.
And that's just it: if you simply look at the release of an alpha particle by itself, it should produce a uniform ionizing radiation "sphere" around the decaying atom. A cloud chamber does not inherently differentiate between a unform sphere of radiation (a wave) and a decay particle, so simply observing with a cloud chamber should not force the probability function to collapse.
What the article suggests is that it is the interaction between the alpha particle and the cloud chamber, rather than simply the observation done in the cloud chamber, which forces the probability function to collapse.
Overall, I have no problems with time, at least at a quantuum mechanical level, not existing except as a consequence of the configuration of the probability cloud. Just as I have no problems with the atoms of my body being nothing more than a consequence of the spacial collapse of a very large probability cloud. It all seems real, and it's the perception of reality around me that's important to my day to day life.
There has never been an "IT worker shortage". There is a "shortage of IT workers at the salary we offer".
Reminds me of the joke about a company looking for a Java programmer who had 10 years of Java programming experience. They were willing to pay $40K/year.
Of course the sad part about this was that I first saw this joke a year back in the Los Angeles Times help wanted ads...
Actually, I see three things comming down the pike which could significantly reduce the number of manhours needed in order to get an application off the ground.
The first thing is the use of web browsers as the software's UI. In several IT departments and several companies I've done work for, they're increasingly using CGI and PHP3 (or other sever-side HTML processing) in order to present user input options and present information for things like inventory tracking software and the like. It takes a lot less work to do inventory tracking using PHP3 and MySQL than it does rolling your own UI.
The second thing I see is the increasing use of reusable objects, encapsulated in their own executable files. Things like COM objects in Microsoft Windows is significantly increasing the acceptance of reusable objects in the Windows world, to the point where many programmers I've met in the Windows world do little more than glue COM objects with VB for a living. I also see this happening with JavaBeans.
The third I've seen is the attempts for companies like Microsoft and Sun to provide prepackaged solutions for embedded software development. Now that it only costs a couple of bucks to get a fairly impressive amount of computing power on an embedded chip, it's worth it to a company to spend an extra two dollars for a processor which can run a prepackaged embedded OS, rather than pay the engineering costs (and take the risk) of rolling their own. Other companies (notably those who were formerly competing with Microsoft in the OS market in the 80's) are already migrating into that market.
All of these are causing companies to use "off the shelf" code rather than rely on a software developer to roll new code. The solution may seem inelegant to a skilled programmer, but it does make sense: it reduces corporate reliance on programmers, and it reduces the risk to companies failing to implement a solution.
Who do you think the companies will turn to, now?
It's happening now. And as a freelancer who comes into a company and fixes someone else's mess, I guess the answer to your rhetorical question is me.
The only thing that is going to prevent the collapse of the market for software developers is the fact that just about every little trinket has a microprocessor in it now. Unfortunately, though, I think what is going to speed this collapse along is those very same "idiot" programmers you allude to--I've seen more than one company who, when faced with a project that needed some custom programming, decide to scrap the entire project rather than face some 22 year old with a diploma fresh from a diploma mill.
*sigh* It's just all screwed up...
I do know on the Macintosh, you can set a 48-bit resource in the System file with a new MAC address--if the resource is present, that address, and not the one stored on the EPROM on the motherboard of the Mac, will be used as the card's MAC address.
(Forgot which resource that is--don't have the docs in front of me...)
So, can I run Linux on my milk carton? And can I connect my milk carton to the Internet?
I'm thinking it would be nice to network a bunch of milk cartons together, perhaps with a cereal box for additional storage, in order to build a web server for my business. But the whole thing won't work unless someone has a Carton Linux distro...
A hundred dollar spacecraft? Wow, cheap!
Who notes that the actual problem with NASA was that someone made a stupid, obvious error. Kinda like the one in your post.
And manu rock music amplifiers are marked from 0 to 11, rather than 0 to 10. That extra "1" at the end is for that extra "umph."
(Yeah, this is an old joke from the movie "Spinal Tap." But what makes it really really funny is the fact that in **REAL** rock music stores, there are **REAL** music amplifiers which are **REALLY** marked up to 11. In fact, my brother owns one, a power rock guitar amp, which is marked up to 11.
Never ever underestimate the power of human stupidity.)
Or to the state of California. I've been spending the last two weeks sorting through their "Title 24" energy compliance stuff, and I can tell you for a fact that they use Inch/Pound measurements exclusively.
Nothing like spending an afternoon converting stuff from kJ/m^2 to British Thermal Units and square feet...
Not all of NASA uses english units. In fact, as far as I know, none of NASA (aside from projects which got their funding start in the 60's) uses english units. And JPL (which is academically administered by my alma mater) uses metric units nearly exclusively, as does the rest of Caltech.
(I say "nearly" because sometimes you have to update some old data to MKS.)
I used to work for the Computer Graphics Lab at JPL; we were responsible for obtaining navigation data and turning it into cool computer animations. And I know for a fact that the navigation team for JPL's space probes exclusively uses MKS.