Who was the idiot who said, "Science vs. Religion, to the death!"
I've read the bible, and it doesn't say there is anyone up in the sky saying anything. Perhaps throughout history much of what it has said has been obscured by interpretation, but in light of this recent survey, please tell me what hasn't been obscured by interpretation (pseudoscience is roughly the same thing as science, by the majority of those surveyed).
Sun-worshiper, that is really cute.
How you denounce people's beliefs while not understanding what the are is beyond my tolerance, and so I flame you.
The first sentence in Genesis clearly states what God is: "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (the beginning and the end). Where you take that to be a man in the sky is misinterpretation of one of the oldest living histories of mankind. God is everything and all things, all knowing and all seeing, that is not His resume, that, my friend is the definition of the word "God". It doesn't matter what you call it, everything taken together has been given a moniker, and that is "God". Some people assume the bible as the word of God, and some assume it as the words of man, to me, the bible is a history of mankind, scribed by Moses, and raped by everyone who thinks they know everything.
Before the written word, there was the spoken tradition. Examples abound of oral traditions spanning many generations explaining complex philosophical problems, and providing life lessons on what is best for all. When I first read the Bible, I asked myself, what is this grocery list of names provided in Genesis, and ages of unreasonable length? Imagine, if you will, that this is part of a history, and that these ages represent clans, or philosophies, or who knows what now that time has forgotten their true origin? To me, the Old Testament seems to parallel the parables of oral traditions the world over, and to invalidate it with your pith is obsene and offensive to those who believe something moral exists in the universe, that randomness does not dictate the world we live in, and that actions carry consequences. To the end, that there is a difference between Good and Evil.
Now, I am not a spokesperson of any church. I don't care what your name for God is, if you have any belief at all above "The Universe Is Entirely Random", than you are in my camp. Perhaps your jokes aren't meant to discount a higher being, and I can accept that too, as I see hypocrisy in formal churches myself, but to say that such beliefs in a higher power are not valid is spoken without careful thought. Why the pain, why the torture, you ask? There are no answers that can be given to this question that will satisfy the pain you feel. Life is full of pain, and the fact that this design does not please you and I is irrelevant. If you don't believe God is good, than that may be your argument, but that argument does not provide evidence that God does not exist (and admittedly, my tricky definition belies this assertion, as provided by the Bible)
I've studied philosophy too, my friend, and I know that I cannot prove to you that we are not all heads in a jar being controlled by evil demons (ala Matrix, classic philosophy thought of that idea first), but despite the fact that the argument by design has holes, the pragmatic agrument has holes, and all other purely logical arguments for the existence of God have holes, I cannot, nor will I ever accept that all of these things around you, as unlikely or likely that you believe they are, have come from pure randomness (because if there is no control, nor are there any rules to the universe, than my God cannot have power, and can therefore not exist).
Perhaps, my understanding of pure randomness is naive. But from all I have gathered, I cannot percieve how something with no patterns can give rise to something that exhibits clear patterns. If randomness should govern this universe, that how can science prove anything? Science is proved on logical conclusions from a set of observations, yet if randomness governs all around us, than how can cause and effect be reality?
Wait a second, you say, I didn't say everything was random. If there is anything that is not random, than that thing by definition has rules. If a thing has rules, than that thing has a design. If there is a design, than there is "God" by my broad and all encompassing definition of the word. But wait, isn't that cheating? No. Because I never claimed to have a definition of God you could hold in your mind; I know God to be all things. So, why does God allow this, and why does God do this? These are arguments against God in the lexical sense of the concept of God, but to me, they mean nothing. To me, God owes you no explanation, because God is everything, and the sum of all parts acts with a conciousness all its own (see my rants on nationalism, etc.). That which is all things encompasses all of your questions, and posing questions to the universe as a whole is your right, but there are no rules that say you deserve an answer. In fact, if an answer was given to you, than what would you do? The final answer will never come, and that is why scientists will always have more questions to ask.
What you see and what you can imagine are on different planes. I can see that you have decided not to accept the beliefs of millions, and the fact that those millions might not know what 2+2 means doesn't mean they don't know anything at all. Aside, another observation I have made is that science and religion do not ask the same questions, but for some reason, people seem comfortable comparing the two disciplines. Science asks of a situation, "How is this reality?", and looks to explain the mechanism behind an observed phenomena. Religion asks of a situation, "Why is this reality?", and draws from our inner feelings the answers we must rely upon without support of cause and effect.
Spirituality and Knowledge do not always go hand in hand. If you feel something is not right, than you have observed that you have not been taught the entire truth; in fact, none of us have.
It seems the art of flaming a post is wasted on you.
"a percent of a percent" was meant to mean, "less than one percent", not "one percent of one percent", but you're right, my semantics weren't up to the level of a quality post like yours. I can't help but wonder if you thought your observation was cute...
Thank you, but I do math quite competently, flamemaster. Do us all a favor and quiet yourself.
I didn't just leave on account of the raise, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
I have a long and dangerous commute, benefits are being cut, WebSense is trying to keep me off SlashDot (needless to say it hasn't), I have lost confidence in management for other things they have done, blah blah blah...
My review was outstanding, and the whole company (save management, I'm sure), recieved this "real dollar pay cut". Actually, email sent to every employee originally slated everyone for 2-4% raises, inline with inflation, and added incentive for performers. A subsequent email then said it would be 0-2% raises. Had my boss not told me I was doing an outstanding job, I would've expected 0%, but all indications were that I'd get 2%, and I wouldn't have been inspired to find a better company in that case. As it stands, I did get 5%, plus a 5-minute commute, and a company that operates in the black.
"It's called 'Jump To Conclusions', you see there are a bunch of conclusions, and you jump to them" [Office Space]
A fifty percent pay cut doesn't say, "Stick together group, and we'll all make it through these hard times." Nope.
A fifty percent pay cut says, "We know many of you will quit because of this horrendous abuse we are imposing on our employees, and to us, this is good, because if we just fired you, we'd have to pay unemployment benefits"
Yearly raises recently came around at the company I work for, and my raise was 0.5%, a percent of a percent. So, I did what any self-respecting working stiff would do, I found a new job for a company that makes enough money to pay its employees.
I get the feeling that a number of corporations are leaning on the current state of the economy to cover up their own stupidity and lack of management skills. I always watch the want ads in the Sunday paper (even now that I am starting a new job on Monday), why? I think it is a good exercise to get a feel for where the job market is going. Should I consider pushing for training in one area vs. another, and that kind of thing. What I have seen has been an upswing in people looking for talented and experienced help. I get the feeling that successful companies realize it is better to get somebody who has some real world experience than to go cheap and hire straight from school (of course, larger operations still recruit newbies, but they have the staff to train them proper, and the need for people who'll put up with a large amount of grunt work).
Actually, even though I found a job right away, I still have to budget next month to stay afloat. The new job has a two week delay on pay, and my current job doesn't, so I miss a check. To boot, last month I had to pay Uncle Sam, and buy things for spring, like a lawn mower, etc.. Well, it was an expensive month overall. Luckily for me, I have some reserves for the tough times, and with some frugal behavior, I should be ok.
If you don't have money squirreled away, you might have to get creative. One thing you could consider doing is selling some stock for a loss. You'll get cash right away, and capital losses are a tax deduction. Also, if you have something that you could sell, you might think about that. I have the luxury of being able to sell my old car, as it isn't completely worthless yet, but most people can't afford to do that (however, if you drive a nice new car, you could sell it, swallow your pride, and downgrade - a car is for getting there, not being mr. cool).
Bottom line, I'd recommend updating your resume and sending it out. Why stay at a company that treats its employees like s#!t? A good company with solid management recognizes that people are the greatest asset a company can have, because people learn and improve their skills with time, while capital investments quickly becomes out-of-date.
STL is a wonderful library to use for many reasons. For one, it's implemented on just about every platform I can imagine. For two, it takes full advantage of C++ templating and is a shining example of multiple inheritance done right. Having given it my praise, and suggesting that everybody use it (I do), I'll point out some things I've noticed about STL using the Visual C++ compiler, given its popularity.
1. Older versions of the Visual C++ compiler do not properly support C++ templates. An inspection into the MFC CArray implementation quickly reveals it is a fake template dependant on function overloads for all supported types (at least it was).
2. Up until Windows XP.NET, that Microsoft implementation of std::string is not thread-safe. Take special caution using std::string* and dynamically-allocated strings, you will likely find memory-management hell if you do
3. The Visual C++ compiler complains if you include the STL headers, generating bothersome warnings about the length of the class identifiers exceeding 255 chars To stop this pest, use this "#pragma warning(disable:4786)"
4. You'll find yourself constantly trying to describe the advantages of STL over other libraries (like MFC), and use of other platform-specific technologies (like COM vs. a well-designed socket-based std::stream system), and people will start thinking of you as a hippie or something.
Aside, sometimes STL code can be a little harder to read given its semantics and use of iterators and such, which can be messy.
Strange, at first I thought I was in for a flaming, but then you agreed with what I said.
Perhaps my opinion came of a bit brutish, but I feel personally on the matter having friends in a similar situation as you describe your own. That is why I am convinced that people of great talent are everywhere, and that recording companies haven't already scooped them all up in contracts (so, to disagree with me, you'd be saying *ALL* talented and charismatic artists are already signed by major labels, and I know at least one counter-example, so this statment must be false, and as such I cannot accept arguments against it:) ). My arrogance is to prevent superfans from telling me, "nobody could ever be as big as [_insert_ favorite_band_here_] because they just have that unattainable greatness" [that comes from being famous].
Marketing is precisely what I meant to indicate (albeit may have failed to indicate) as being the recording industry's stronghold, and you're certainly right, even the mogols can't just shove any joe schmoe in our faces and get us to embrace them. Bands are packaged like pro wrestlers, and you make a true point. In terms of marketing, Gateway has dollars, and dollars can buy marketing gurus, but recording companies display monopolistic influence over television and radio, the most accessible media for marketing musicians as you describe. Gateway is banking that the web will be a sufficient media to market new talent. I agree with this belief only to an extent. I don't think the web will generate enough of a revolution to undermine the clout of the recording industry trusts, and while it is true that word of mouth can drive a successful band, I don't think it will be enough to make this type of model mainstream. If someone should say, "what about the revolution already taking place?", I'd have to respond that this revolution is based on people getting their music *for free*, and pay-for-play web services really haven't been making bank.
If you disagree with me on this point, feel free to tell me your opinion and I will gladly learn from you, because on this issue, I do admit I am not omniscient.
The big players in the music industry don't have a monopoly on talent. Just look at the crap-slingers on the Billboard Top 40, and tell me nobody else has this type of "star power", and I won't listen to you anymore, because it would waste my precious time.
Now Gateway comes along, trying to salvage getting its butt whooped by Dell in the home pc market, thinking it can capitalize on this fact.
Here's the problem, if you want to make stars (like the music industry most certainly does), than you need to get them exposure. The web isn't bad for distribution, but promotion is tough. The simple reason is there is just too much out there for people to focus in on a group or two and make superstars out of them. In the music business, people are spoon-fed the next big thing; they make a selection from a limited pool of applicants.
Now, if the music industry tells the radio conglomerates not to air artist so-and-so, you can bet your arse you won't be hearing them. If Bobby and Sally Teen USA don't see your awesome band on MTV, then they could only ever be "a great underground band". To Gateway's dismay, great underground bands don't usually make top dollar like the industry puppets do [save your counter-examples, I speak in the general sense].
So, the music industry can easily prevent Gateway from impinging on their turf by leveraging their might concerning radio and television against Gateway. Without these conduits of distribution, Gateway's plan is more hype than hope, I'm afraid.
Extreme Programming has been discussed at/. before, and the links provided at the beginning of this review were useful, but the review itself falls short of mentioning how the authors integrate these tools with the extreme programming philosophy.
Check me if I'm wrong, but from my initial readings, XP relies heavily on customer feedback, and short-term iterations serving to adjust the project plan "on-the-run" so to speak, which minimizes time loss incurred by the difficulty of making accurate long-term estimates in programming, and compensation made for fickle end users. While testing is a large part of XP, is only a part of XP. What does this book say about implementing XP on the whole? Anything? Is this just a book about tools you may use to test your software? Can I test my software if I don't use XP?
The most valuable aspect of Java Tools for eXt[r]eme Programming is that it's alone in its market niche.
Excuse me for being picky, but what is useful about that? Are you saying that this is good if you want generic text that has XP written on the cover, or what?
The links describing XP give it a nice once-over on how you can think about the process of getting release versions out the door [which users and managers like]. I haven't seen anything that deals with the aspects of applications design that span beyond iterative releases, namely, systems that are proven to assist in the overall application architecture, and systems that are proven effective for creating flexible and useable GUIs. If you have a crack team of programmers, XP will cushion the unavoidables [ software is hard to estimate, and users change their minds frequently ]. Of course, you still need competent minds at work on the overall architecture of your code, and that planning seems to be an afterthought in XP ( features first, architecture second, perhaps this is why managers like it;P ).
Also, for any large project, you are going to have developers who display special skill in certain areas, and some who display ineptitude in certain areas. Before you start saying, "well, just fire the inept", remember that firing and finding replacement talent isn't all its cracked up to be, and "failure to exhibit genius" isn't cause to send somebody packing (nor is it always wise). XP takes the stance that everybody should do everything, but oftentimes you'll find that some on your team just don't have it like the top dogs do. In many cases, you want an expert to code a critical segment and, while it'd be nice if they could teach the whole team their skills, in reality, that is not always possible. I believe in peer learning, but everybody do everything, well... excuse the pun but that sounds a little "extreme"
XP has good guidelines, but I have many questions about how to interpret those guidelines, and a text that puts XP on the cover should say something about them, IMHO. So you say this book is about tools for XP, not XP itself. Ok, then what tools does it discuss other than those used to test code? Are there any other tools? Are these tools only for use with XP?
I guess what I can take home with me is that if the buzzwords "Java" and "XP" are on your cover, than somebody will publish your book.
Though the fact that Ventner relied heavily on his own genetic material certainly increases the chances for mistaken conclusions (given its being very limited input), but the results of Celera's "decoding of the genome" represent limited output by design.
While Celera's accomplishment may have gained *Press Acclaim*, and while it in some ways has validated the so-called "shotgun" sequencing technique (which has been around since before the days of Celera), Ventner and Co. didn't claim to have resolved the full sequences (and their variations between individuals) of the human genome as many are mislead to believe. Rather, Celera claimed to map the loci of human genes to the chromosomes (loci ~= regions that code genes). Further, it claimed to discover regions that are possible or even likely to be loci for genes not yet characterized, based on sequence patterns that are generally considered to be "flags" for gene loci. Given that loci characterize a set of alleles (allele ~= version of a gene, for example, you may have an allele that codes for connected earlobes, or disconnected earlobes, or both [ humans are diploid, meaning they recieve one allele form your father and one from your mother, barring crossing-over events, in which case you can recieve 2 alleles from either your father or mother exclusively]), and given that sequence patterns and homologies between species were mostly used to identify the loci, the fact that Ventner used Ventner's DNA seems an acceptable way to get a rough map of the gene loci, and Celera freely admits that further characterization is necessary to identify alleles, and to refine the definitions of the loci.
If you aim to sketch a rough outline of the gene locations, it really doesn't matter whose DNA you use to start it, because you anticipate that it will be refined with the DNA of others.
All of this has been thoroughly reviewed by genetisists the world over, and none of them to my knowledge are up in arms about this.
A popular misconception is that Celera accomplished in a short time what other bodies have failed to accomplish. Celera used a different approach to get a full rough outline of gene loci completed, whereas other researches have taken a step-wise approach to gain information about regions in greater depth. The rough outline in itself is a useful accomplishment, because it allows researchers to focus on areas of the genome that appear to affect specific genetic phenomena of interest, but it's not the key to the kingdom, and there is much work to be done even to characterize regions that *look* like they code for proteins, much less characterize genetic diversity amongst humans.
The Human Genome Project, which makes up the bulk of Celera's "competitors", uses a more elegant, and painstaking approach to sequencing DNA (relying heavily on a technique known as "primer-walking"). Their approach generally begins with the "shotgun" approach applied to moderately-sized regions to gain an outline, and then uses "primer-walking" down the assemblies to verify that they are correct, and to gain information about gaps in the assembly. In many cases, primer-walking validates shotgun sequence assemblies, but sometimes, it indicates errors. The process of validating sequence using this approach is more expensive, more time consuming, and absolutely necessary to refine the genetic map, and to obtain sequence information for certain "hard to sequence" regions of the chromosome.
If share holders want to worry about their investment in Celera, they should be think about the fact that genetic sequences have been declared "unpatentable" in the U.S., which makes Celera's real goal (making money) much more difficult.
If a Communist state prefers tight control of information, and hackers seek to disseminate information, then how can the two justify their coexistance?
The article talks of military assault, and likens Chinese military capabilities to Chinese student hackers, though in ideology the two groups seem diametrically opposed.
I don't doubt that nationalism runs in the veins of anybody, but who among you sacrifice your ideology for the sake of your nation? Whose nation says your reprehensible actions are acceptable if aimed at the enemy?
Well, I suppose they all do. Be wary though, for when the enemy is gone, it is you who will be the enemy.
One cannot deny the insanity of the masses; one can only hope our leaders are not taken by its charms.
Ok, ok, maybe its troll, but I can't resist. Whose gonna' be the first one to attempt a slide tackle on a robot? If a half-ton robot falls on you, your in for some pain.
"When I was back in school, I had to lug six 3000 page textbooks up seven flights of stairs (or wait an hour for the elevator)..." will be a story I can tell my grandkids [and this story is actually true].
If you can invent a device that allows me to eliminate waiting in line for two hours buying textbooks at the campus book store, I'll get it.
If you have a device that will make my backpack 50 lbs. lighter, I'll get it.
E-books are the perfect solution for high-school, college, graduate, and medical/law/professional students who are encumbered by weighty dead-tree textbooks. Forget how nice it would be to look up any word in the book in an instant, or leave marks that you can later remove, the simple fact that one small ebook can hold all of your texts (and notes) is a seller, IMHO.
Further, there are ways that electronic texts could win over paper, mostly by leveraging their electronic advantages. Textbook authors could add some interaction to their example problems/illustrations, perhaps allowing users to step through solving them, which would be one advantage over paper texts. Second, self-tests at the back of the chapter could really be improved [over flipping to the back of the book and back for the answers]. Third, there exists the potential to display 3-dimensional models that would allow users to view complicated structures by rotating them in 3-space, which would be great for chemistry/biology/physics/medicine texts (among others, I'm sure). Add in animations, and well, I think I've made my point. Anyway, I don't think dead-tree books will go away, but ebooks could find their niche with some innovative thinking.
Why this product fails to provide COLOR is beyond my thinking. It seems they think they have a replacement for paperbacks, and I really don't think they do. So, I agree with you wholly that this product is not targetted at the right audience, but I disagree that there isn't a market for them, and that they can't compete with paper.
Completely unrelated: if I mention that the sales estimate is silly, do I get modded up too?
If you are selling software to be used in a professional business environment (or moreso in an educational or government institution), then piracy is less of a concern to your company. I've worked at a number of private businesses and none of them have condoned employees pirating software. The motivation for this is that in the event that they get caught, a business stands to lose a great deal more than if they'd just ponied up the dough for licenses.
Here's an example. Recently, I downloaded an evaluation copy of Rhino's object rendering software. I have yet to install this copy, because it comes with a limited trial period and I haven't had the time yet to give it a true trial by fire. Anyway, since downloading, I have recieved numerous emails asking me how I like it. Well, if I buy it, then they'll know, else please leave me alone. I had to go through a long reg process, but the pics on the website looked good, so I figured I'd go through the garbage. Now, if you've used Rhino, then you know that this is pretty heavy-handed software we're talking about; its not Microsoft Paint. A serious user would have to take time to learn how to use it, or even take a course on the software.
The point is, why should I have to be bothered by emails and long reg processes? This software is for pros. Pro shops are going to buy it legitimately, because piracy is not worth the risk in the legitimate business world (and in the illegitimate business world, they'll crack your eval copy if it is in any way possible). If home users download this software, and they decide to pirate it, then what does Rhino lose? The home pirates aren't going to buy the software anyway, because it is quite expensive, and pirates don't buy software, they steal it. The crackers who grab this software will welcome the challenge of cracking it, and they may be successful at doing so. So, what happens if somebody cracks or pirates this software for their own home use? Well, they'll play around with the software, and some of them may be interested enough to actually learn how to use the software. The end result is, Rhino didn't acutally lose any revenue, but they did gain people who could use a legitimate copy of their software in a business setting. They gained a user, and when it comes to specialized pro-grade software, it is important for a company to have people trained in its use.
In my admittedly limited experience with internet telephony, I have found that latency has been more of a problem than bandwidth. Presumably, your cyber cafes or universities are going to have enough bandwidth to support people using the internet for telephone use. After all, file sharing consumes more bandwidth than streaming voice does, and practically every geek on campus has been exploiting that technology. Compression of telephone-range frequency is good, because the frequency range required is not broad in the general sense of the term. I'm not pretending to be an expert here, but this is the impression I have gathered from my readings (so flame it up, if you have to)
However, IMHO, I have found it annoying to speak with people over the internet for the reason that the tempo of a conversation is often broken by having to wait for the person on the other side of the line to hear what you just said. I've taken this to be a latency-related issue, but hey I could be mistaken. At any rate, I'll stick with the telephone for now.
The article seems to want to make the distinction between spyware and adware, stating that adware has legitimate purposes, and that it informs users of its intent in a clear manner.
As one example, they describe in brief the software Gator uses to obtain marketing demographic information about you:
Does an uninvited guest keep knocking on your door saying, 'Hi! I'm here!'?" he asked rhetorically, describing Gator's multiple disclosures and the icon of alligator eyes that appears whenever the program is running. "No. We are invited guests on the desktop and even pop up a fourth modal screen saying, 'Your Gator software is here.' And since our e-wallet software helps users every day fill out forms, we constantly come back and have an ongoing relationship with our customers."
Well, the other week I ran RegMon on my XP box (wait, RegMon uses system-level hooks, doesn't it? That might be against the XP EULA) Anyway, I monitored my registry access, and aside from seeing expected system activity, I noticed a number of references to www.gator.com, checking for the presense of various applications of my computer. I have never knowingly agreed to have gator software installed on my machine (though I may have clicked Agree in some agreement where it was buried in legal speak). It does not appear in the "Remove Software" control in XP. Further, despite what the above quote suggests, gator eyes do not appear in my taskbar, and I have not seen a single modal dialog telling me gator is looking through my registry.
My guess is that gator was either bundled with my machine (Sony Vaio), or entered my machine piggy-backed onto another app that I did agree to install.
The app that believe sold my info to gator is AudioGalaxy satellite, a file sharing app ala Kazaa.
As an aside, I also noticed some registry activity from bundled virus software on my machine that I supposedly disabled; has hijacking my machine become an industry standard?
The question is not if you're being watched; the question is who is watching you!
I'm with you fmaxwell, governments should invest in broadband as they do other types of infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams), because that's what broadband amounts to these days.
All politics aside, government contracts to build infrastructure aided public optimism that the Great Depression would end in the 1930's. Perhaps this country could use some extra jobs, paid for by Uncle Sam, right now. The people who get the jobs benefit, and the people who get the access benefit. To me, that's worth a few tax dollars.
To equate it, it would be the difference between getting just any old pentium 4 1.5 Ghz system, and getting an athalon 1.2 Ghz and tweaking it by using better hardware, a cleaner OS install, faster standards, and some code tweaking to get the performance level up above that of the P-4.
An interesting analogy, given the technology of the P4 is more advanced and elegant than that of the Athlon. (there was a slashdot article on that subject somewhere, but I'm too alzy to find it, much less correct my own typos)
Not to be a jerk, but your analogy is more along the lines of applying science to brute-force, not science to science, if you will.
Everyone has their tastes, of course, but in the world of street car racing, brute force is tough to beat, IMHO. If your going to race, and your car has the smaller engine, than you'd best choose your battles wisely, because losing is not fun (especially with female passengers).;P
Thank goodness somebody had the same thought I did. Why would I want some ISP to load my machine with their junk? If I need it, I'll get it, thank you very much. Windows put enough garbage on my machine, and at least I'm confident that they employ programmers and not hacks.
Much of what you do each and every day occurs in spite of the ability I just asked of you. Your brain is not responsible for thinking about how to walk (at least not after you learn how). You peripheral nervous system handles such actions.
When humans create a robot in the fashion of Rod Brook, they are training a system analogous to our own peripheral nervous system. Why force the machine to learn to walk when we can tell it how to walk from our own experience (knowledge of physics, etc).
The exact implementation Brook uses may not scale, but analogous programming options exist that could scale, and IMHO, approaches addressing immediate actions/reactions should be built into robots as described.
From the interview it seems Brook admits the need for serious processing power to reach the "next level", but shrewdly points to the fact that spending all of your time thinking and not doing is not a good way to get anything done.
If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time...
For those wanting a cheaper solution for their tiny computer needs, search google for PC104. The options are numerous, and one could construct such a device as this post indicates for less coin. Of course, such a project wouldn't be as easy, but hey, this is slashdot, not MSN. Besides, you'd learn volumes about embedded systems.
Please, do we need such a post? I am surprised nobody posted that assembly would be a good choice; your limitations will be minimized.
Slashdot readers as a whole write in just about any language out there, and everybody has a reason their favorite is the best.
As many have pointed out, without a problem spec, the choice has little to go on. In general, pick a language that either has a base of programmers who are familiar with it, or that is easy to learn. That way, you can find employees. Judging from the fact that your boss's requirements are not satisfied entirely by any language, you should hope his requirements for employees are not so.
Programmer Requirements: Doesn't write bugs Doesn't complain about vague specs Is vigilant about maintaining perfect documentation Doesn't blame hardware Shows up on time at 7:00am Displays elegant mastery of multiple-inheritence, however is incapable of preventing leaks without the help of a garbage collector. Doesn't waste company time reading SlashDot
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Duh, people, manuals are so 1980s. Everybody knows that the creation of Clippy made all documentation obsolete!
Who was the idiot who said, "Science vs. Religion, to the death!"
I've read the bible, and it doesn't say there is anyone up in the sky saying anything. Perhaps throughout history much of what it has said has been obscured by interpretation, but in light of this recent survey, please tell me what hasn't been obscured by interpretation (pseudoscience is roughly the same thing as science, by the majority of those surveyed).
Sun-worshiper, that is really cute.
How you denounce people's beliefs while not understanding what the are is beyond my tolerance, and so I flame you.
The first sentence in Genesis clearly states what God is: "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (the beginning and the end). Where you take that to be a man in the sky is misinterpretation of one of the oldest living histories of mankind. God is everything and all things, all knowing and all seeing, that is not His resume, that, my friend is the definition of the word "God". It doesn't matter what you call it, everything taken together has been given a moniker, and that is "God". Some people assume the bible as the word of God, and some assume it as the words of man, to me, the bible is a history of mankind, scribed by Moses, and raped by everyone who thinks they know everything.
Before the written word, there was the spoken tradition. Examples abound of oral traditions spanning many generations explaining complex philosophical problems, and providing life lessons on what is best for all. When I first read the Bible, I asked myself, what is this grocery list of names provided in Genesis, and ages of unreasonable length? Imagine, if you will, that this is part of a history, and that these ages represent clans, or philosophies, or who knows what now that time has forgotten their true origin? To me, the Old Testament seems to parallel the parables of oral traditions the world over, and to invalidate it with your pith is obsene and offensive to those who believe something moral exists in the universe, that randomness does not dictate the world we live in, and that actions carry consequences. To the end, that there is a difference between Good and Evil.
Now, I am not a spokesperson of any church. I don't care what your name for God is, if you have any belief at all above "The Universe Is Entirely Random", than you are in my camp. Perhaps your jokes aren't meant to discount a higher being, and I can accept that too, as I see hypocrisy in formal churches myself, but to say that such beliefs in a higher power are not valid is spoken without careful thought. Why the pain, why the torture, you ask? There are no answers that can be given to this question that will satisfy the pain you feel. Life is full of pain, and the fact that this design does not please you and I is irrelevant. If you don't believe God is good, than that may be your argument, but that argument does not provide evidence that God does not exist (and admittedly, my tricky definition belies this assertion, as provided by the Bible)
I've studied philosophy too, my friend, and I know that I cannot prove to you that we are not all heads in a jar being controlled by evil demons (ala Matrix, classic philosophy thought of that idea first), but despite the fact that the argument by design has holes, the pragmatic agrument has holes, and all other purely logical arguments for the existence of God have holes, I cannot, nor will I ever accept that all of these things around you, as unlikely or likely that you believe they are, have come from pure randomness (because if there is no control, nor are there any rules to the universe, than my God cannot have power, and can therefore not exist).
Perhaps, my understanding of pure randomness is naive. But from all I have gathered, I cannot percieve how something with no patterns can give rise to something that exhibits clear patterns. If randomness should govern this universe, that how can science prove anything? Science is proved on logical conclusions from a set of observations, yet if randomness governs all around us, than how can cause and effect be reality?
Wait a second, you say, I didn't say everything was random. If there is anything that is not random, than that thing by definition has rules. If a thing has rules, than that thing has a design. If there is a design, than there is "God" by my broad and all encompassing definition of the word. But wait, isn't that cheating? No. Because I never claimed to have a definition of God you could hold in your mind; I know God to be all things. So, why does God allow this, and why does God do this? These are arguments against God in the lexical sense of the concept of God, but to me, they mean nothing. To me, God owes you no explanation, because God is everything, and the sum of all parts acts with a conciousness all its own (see my rants on nationalism, etc.). That which is all things encompasses all of your questions, and posing questions to the universe as a whole is your right, but there are no rules that say you deserve an answer. In fact, if an answer was given to you, than what would you do? The final answer will never come, and that is why scientists will always have more questions to ask.
What you see and what you can imagine are on different planes. I can see that you have decided not to accept the beliefs of millions, and the fact that those millions might not know what 2+2 means doesn't mean they don't know anything at all. Aside, another observation I have made is that science and religion do not ask the same questions, but for some reason, people seem comfortable comparing the two disciplines. Science asks of a situation, "How is this reality?", and looks to explain the mechanism behind an observed phenomena. Religion asks of a situation, "Why is this reality?", and draws from our inner feelings the answers we must rely upon without support of cause and effect.
Spirituality and Knowledge do not always go hand in hand. If you feel something is not right, than you have observed that you have not been taught the entire truth; in fact, none of us have.
It seems the art of flaming a post is wasted on you.
"a percent of a percent" was meant to mean, "less than one percent", not "one percent of one percent", but you're right, my semantics weren't up to the level of a quality post like yours. I can't help but wonder if you thought your observation was cute...
Thank you, but I do math quite competently, flamemaster. Do us all a favor and quiet yourself.
I didn't just leave on account of the raise, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
I have a long and dangerous commute, benefits are being cut, WebSense is trying to keep me off SlashDot (needless to say it hasn't), I have lost confidence in management for other things they have done, blah blah blah...
My review was outstanding, and the whole company (save management, I'm sure), recieved this "real dollar pay cut". Actually, email sent to every employee originally slated everyone for 2-4% raises, inline with inflation, and added incentive for performers. A subsequent email then said it would be 0-2% raises. Had my boss not told me I was doing an outstanding job, I would've expected 0%, but all indications were that I'd get 2%, and I wouldn't have been inspired to find a better company in that case. As it stands, I did get 5%, plus a 5-minute commute, and a company that operates in the black.
"It's called 'Jump To Conclusions', you see there are a bunch of conclusions, and you jump to them" [Office Space]
A fifty percent pay cut doesn't say, "Stick together group, and we'll all make it through these hard times." Nope.
A fifty percent pay cut says, "We know many of you will quit because of this horrendous abuse we are imposing on our employees, and to us, this is good, because if we just fired you, we'd have to pay unemployment benefits"
Yearly raises recently came around at the company I work for, and my raise was 0.5%, a percent of a percent. So, I did what any self-respecting working stiff would do, I found a new job for a company that makes enough money to pay its employees.
I get the feeling that a number of corporations are leaning on the current state of the economy to cover up their own stupidity and lack of management skills. I always watch the want ads in the Sunday paper (even now that I am starting a new job on Monday), why? I think it is a good exercise to get a feel for where the job market is going. Should I consider pushing for training in one area vs. another, and that kind of thing. What I have seen has been an upswing in people looking for talented and experienced help. I get the feeling that successful companies realize it is better to get somebody who has some real world experience than to go cheap and hire straight from school (of course, larger operations still recruit newbies, but they have the staff to train them proper, and the need for people who'll put up with a large amount of grunt work).
Actually, even though I found a job right away, I still have to budget next month to stay afloat. The new job has a two week delay on pay, and my current job doesn't, so I miss a check. To boot, last month I had to pay Uncle Sam, and buy things for spring, like a lawn mower, etc.. Well, it was an expensive month overall. Luckily for me, I have some reserves for the tough times, and with some frugal behavior, I should be ok.
If you don't have money squirreled away, you might have to get creative. One thing you could consider doing is selling some stock for a loss. You'll get cash right away, and capital losses are a tax deduction. Also, if you have something that you could sell, you might think about that. I have the luxury of being able to sell my old car, as it isn't completely worthless yet, but most people can't afford to do that (however, if you drive a nice new car, you could sell it, swallow your pride, and downgrade - a car is for getting there, not being mr. cool).
Bottom line, I'd recommend updating your resume and sending it out. Why stay at a company that treats its employees like s#!t? A good company with solid management recognizes that people are the greatest asset a company can have, because people learn and improve their skills with time, while capital investments quickly becomes out-of-date.
Best of luck to you.
Mainstream Media is getting CREAMED by the Internet
In terms of people looking for *free* music. Gateway aims to make money though.
STL is a wonderful library to use for many reasons. For one, it's implemented on just about every platform I can imagine. For two, it takes full advantage of C++ templating and is a shining example of multiple inheritance done right. Having given it my praise, and suggesting that everybody use it (I do), I'll point out some things I've noticed about STL using the Visual C++ compiler, given its popularity.
.NET, that Microsoft implementation of std::string is not thread-safe. Take special caution using std::string* and dynamically-allocated strings, you will likely find memory-management hell if you do
1. Older versions of the Visual C++ compiler do not properly support C++ templates. An inspection into the MFC CArray implementation quickly reveals it is a fake template dependant on function overloads for all supported types (at least it was).
2. Up until Windows XP
3. The Visual C++ compiler complains if you include the STL headers, generating bothersome warnings about the length of the class identifiers exceeding 255 chars To stop this pest, use this "#pragma warning(disable:4786)"
4. You'll find yourself constantly trying to describe the advantages of STL over other libraries (like MFC), and use of other platform-specific technologies (like COM vs. a well-designed socket-based std::stream system), and people will start thinking of you as a hippie or something.
Aside, sometimes STL code can be a little harder to read given its semantics and use of iterators and such, which can be messy.
Strange, at first I thought I was in for a flaming, but then you agreed with what I said.
:) ). My arrogance is to prevent superfans from telling me, "nobody could ever be as big as [_insert_ favorite_band_here_] because they just have that unattainable greatness" [that comes from being famous].
Perhaps my opinion came of a bit brutish, but I feel personally on the matter having friends in a similar situation as you describe your own. That is why I am convinced that people of great talent are everywhere, and that recording companies haven't already scooped them all up in contracts (so, to disagree with me, you'd be saying *ALL* talented and charismatic artists are already signed by major labels, and I know at least one counter-example, so this statment must be false, and as such I cannot accept arguments against it
Marketing is precisely what I meant to indicate (albeit may have failed to indicate) as being the recording industry's stronghold, and you're certainly right, even the mogols can't just shove any joe schmoe in our faces and get us to embrace them. Bands are packaged like pro wrestlers, and you make a true point. In terms of marketing, Gateway has dollars, and dollars can buy marketing gurus, but recording companies display monopolistic influence over television and radio, the most accessible media for marketing musicians as you describe. Gateway is banking that the web will be a sufficient media to market new talent. I agree with this belief only to an extent. I don't think the web will generate enough of a revolution to undermine the clout of the recording industry trusts, and while it is true that word of mouth can drive a successful band, I don't think it will be enough to make this type of model mainstream. If someone should say, "what about the revolution already taking place?", I'd have to respond that this revolution is based on people getting their music *for free*, and pay-for-play web services really haven't been making bank.
If you disagree with me on this point, feel free to tell me your opinion and I will gladly learn from you, because on this issue, I do admit I am not omniscient.
The big players in the music industry don't have a monopoly on talent. Just look at the crap-slingers on the Billboard Top 40, and tell me nobody else has this type of "star power", and I won't listen to you anymore, because it would waste my precious time.
Now Gateway comes along, trying to salvage getting its butt whooped by Dell in the home pc market, thinking it can capitalize on this fact.
Here's the problem, if you want to make stars (like the music industry most certainly does), than you need to get them exposure. The web isn't bad for distribution, but promotion is tough. The simple reason is there is just too much out there for people to focus in on a group or two and make superstars out of them. In the music business, people are spoon-fed the next big thing; they make a selection from a limited pool of applicants.
Now, if the music industry tells the radio conglomerates not to air artist so-and-so, you can bet your arse you won't be hearing them. If Bobby and Sally Teen USA don't see your awesome band on MTV, then they could only ever be "a great underground band". To Gateway's dismay, great underground bands don't usually make top dollar like the industry puppets do [save your counter-examples, I speak in the general sense].
So, the music industry can easily prevent Gateway from impinging on their turf by leveraging their might concerning radio and television against Gateway. Without these conduits of distribution, Gateway's plan is more hype than hope, I'm afraid.
Extreme Programming has been discussed at /. before, and the links provided at the beginning of this review were useful, but the review itself falls short of mentioning how the authors integrate these tools with the extreme programming philosophy.
;P ).
Check me if I'm wrong, but from my initial readings, XP relies heavily on customer feedback, and short-term iterations serving to adjust the project plan "on-the-run" so to speak, which minimizes time loss incurred by the difficulty of making accurate long-term estimates in programming, and compensation made for fickle end users. While testing is a large part of XP, is only a part of XP. What does this book say about implementing XP on the whole? Anything? Is this just a book about tools you may use to test your software? Can I test my software if I don't use XP?
The most valuable aspect of Java Tools for eXt[r]eme Programming is that it's alone in its market niche.
Excuse me for being picky, but what is useful about that? Are you saying that this is good if you want generic text that has XP written on the cover, or what?
The links describing XP give it a nice once-over on how you can think about the process of getting release versions out the door [which users and managers like]. I haven't seen anything that deals with the aspects of applications design that span beyond iterative releases, namely, systems that are proven to assist in the overall application architecture, and systems that are proven effective for creating flexible and useable GUIs. If you have a crack team of programmers, XP will cushion the unavoidables [ software is hard to estimate, and users change their minds frequently ]. Of course, you still need competent minds at work on the overall architecture of your code, and that planning seems to be an afterthought in XP ( features first, architecture second, perhaps this is why managers like it
Also, for any large project, you are going to have developers who display special skill in certain areas, and some who display ineptitude in certain areas. Before you start saying, "well, just fire the inept", remember that firing and finding replacement talent isn't all its cracked up to be, and "failure to exhibit genius" isn't cause to send somebody packing (nor is it always wise). XP takes the stance that everybody should do everything, but oftentimes you'll find that some on your team just don't have it like the top dogs do. In many cases, you want an expert to code a critical segment and, while it'd be nice if they could teach the whole team their skills, in reality, that is not always possible. I believe in peer learning, but everybody do everything, well... excuse the pun but that sounds a little "extreme"
XP has good guidelines, but I have many questions about how to interpret those guidelines, and a text that puts XP on the cover should say something about them, IMHO. So you say this book is about tools for XP, not XP itself. Ok, then what tools does it discuss other than those used to test code? Are there any other tools? Are these tools only for use with XP?
I guess what I can take home with me is that if the buzzwords "Java" and "XP" are on your cover, than somebody will publish your book.
Though the fact that Ventner relied heavily on his own genetic material certainly increases the chances for mistaken conclusions (given its being very limited input), but the results of Celera's "decoding of the genome" represent limited output by design.
While Celera's accomplishment may have gained *Press Acclaim*, and while it in some ways has validated the so-called "shotgun" sequencing technique (which has been around since before the days of Celera), Ventner and Co. didn't claim to have resolved the full sequences (and their variations between individuals) of the human genome as many are mislead to believe. Rather, Celera claimed to map the loci of human genes to the chromosomes (loci ~= regions that code genes). Further, it claimed to discover regions that are possible or even likely to be loci for genes not yet characterized, based on sequence patterns that are generally considered to be "flags" for gene loci. Given that loci characterize a set of alleles (allele ~= version of a gene, for example, you may have an allele that codes for connected earlobes, or disconnected earlobes, or both [ humans are diploid, meaning they recieve one allele form your father and one from your mother, barring crossing-over events, in which case you can recieve 2 alleles from either your father or mother exclusively]), and given that sequence patterns and homologies between species were mostly used to identify the loci, the fact that Ventner used Ventner's DNA seems an acceptable way to get a rough map of the gene loci, and Celera freely admits that further characterization is necessary to identify alleles, and to refine the definitions of the loci.
If you aim to sketch a rough outline of the gene locations, it really doesn't matter whose DNA you use to start it, because you anticipate that it will be refined with the DNA of others.
All of this has been thoroughly reviewed by genetisists the world over, and none of them to my knowledge are up in arms about this.
A popular misconception is that Celera accomplished in a short time what other bodies have failed to accomplish. Celera used a different approach to get a full rough outline of gene loci completed, whereas other researches have taken a step-wise approach to gain information about regions in greater depth. The rough outline in itself is a useful accomplishment, because it allows researchers to focus on areas of the genome that appear to affect specific genetic phenomena of interest, but it's not the key to the kingdom, and there is much work to be done even to characterize regions that *look* like they code for proteins, much less characterize genetic diversity amongst humans.
The Human Genome Project, which makes up the bulk of Celera's "competitors", uses a more elegant, and painstaking approach to sequencing DNA (relying heavily on a technique known as "primer-walking"). Their approach generally begins with the "shotgun" approach applied to moderately-sized regions to gain an outline, and then uses "primer-walking" down the assemblies to verify that they are correct, and to gain information about gaps in the assembly. In many cases, primer-walking validates shotgun sequence assemblies, but sometimes, it indicates errors. The process of validating sequence using this approach is more expensive, more time consuming, and absolutely necessary to refine the genetic map, and to obtain sequence information for certain "hard to sequence" regions of the chromosome.
If share holders want to worry about their investment in Celera, they should be think about the fact that genetic sequences have been declared "unpatentable" in the U.S., which makes Celera's real goal (making money) much more difficult.
If a Communist state prefers tight control of information, and hackers seek to disseminate information, then how can the two justify their coexistance?
The article talks of military assault, and likens Chinese military capabilities to Chinese student hackers, though in ideology the two groups seem diametrically opposed.
I don't doubt that nationalism runs in the veins of anybody, but who among you sacrifice your ideology for the sake of your nation? Whose nation says your reprehensible actions are acceptable if aimed at the enemy?
Well, I suppose they all do. Be wary though, for when the enemy is gone, it is you who will be the enemy.
One cannot deny the insanity of the masses; one can only hope our leaders are not taken by its charms.
As soon as G4 appears on f'd company, I'll be adding it to my deadpool.
Ok, ok, maybe its troll, but I can't resist. Whose gonna' be the first one to attempt a slide tackle on a robot? If a half-ton robot falls on you, your in for some pain.
"When I was back in school, I had to lug six 3000 page textbooks up seven flights of stairs (or wait an hour for the elevator)..." will be a story I can tell my grandkids [and this story is actually true].
If you can invent a device that allows me to eliminate waiting in line for two hours buying textbooks at the campus book store, I'll get it.
If you have a device that will make my backpack 50 lbs. lighter, I'll get it.
E-books are the perfect solution for high-school, college, graduate, and medical/law/professional students who are encumbered by weighty dead-tree textbooks. Forget how nice it would be to look up any word in the book in an instant, or leave marks that you can later remove, the simple fact that one small ebook can hold all of your texts (and notes) is a seller, IMHO.
Further, there are ways that electronic texts could win over paper, mostly by leveraging their electronic advantages. Textbook authors could add some interaction to their example problems/illustrations, perhaps allowing users to step through solving them, which would be one advantage over paper texts. Second, self-tests at the back of the chapter could really be improved [over flipping to the back of the book and back for the answers]. Third, there exists the potential to display 3-dimensional models that would allow users to view complicated structures by rotating them in 3-space, which would be great for chemistry/biology/physics/medicine texts (among others, I'm sure). Add in animations, and well, I think I've made my point. Anyway, I don't think dead-tree books will go away, but ebooks could find their niche with some innovative thinking.
Why this product fails to provide COLOR is beyond my thinking. It seems they think they have a replacement for paperbacks, and I really don't think they do. So, I agree with you wholly that this product is not targetted at the right audience, but I disagree that there isn't a market for them, and that they can't compete with paper.
Completely unrelated: if I mention that the sales estimate is silly, do I get modded up too?
If you are selling software to be used in a professional business environment (or moreso in an educational or government institution), then piracy is less of a concern to your company. I've worked at a number of private businesses and none of them have condoned employees pirating software. The motivation for this is that in the event that they get caught, a business stands to lose a great deal more than if they'd just ponied up the dough for licenses.
Here's an example. Recently, I downloaded an evaluation copy of Rhino's object rendering software. I have yet to install this copy, because it comes with a limited trial period and I haven't had the time yet to give it a true trial by fire. Anyway, since downloading, I have recieved numerous emails asking me how I like it. Well, if I buy it, then they'll know, else please leave me alone. I had to go through a long reg process, but the pics on the website looked good, so I figured I'd go through the garbage. Now, if you've used Rhino, then you know that this is pretty heavy-handed software we're talking about; its not Microsoft Paint. A serious user would have to take time to learn how to use it, or even take a course on the software.
The point is, why should I have to be bothered by emails and long reg processes? This software is for pros. Pro shops are going to buy it legitimately, because piracy is not worth the risk in the legitimate business world (and in the illegitimate business world, they'll crack your eval copy if it is in any way possible). If home users download this software, and they decide to pirate it, then what does Rhino lose? The home pirates aren't going to buy the software anyway, because it is quite expensive, and pirates don't buy software, they steal it. The crackers who grab this software will welcome the challenge of cracking it, and they may be successful at doing so. So, what happens if somebody cracks or pirates this software for their own home use? Well, they'll play around with the software, and some of them may be interested enough to actually learn how to use the software. The end result is, Rhino didn't acutally lose any revenue, but they did gain people who could use a legitimate copy of their software in a business setting. They gained a user, and when it comes to specialized pro-grade software, it is important for a company to have people trained in its use.
In my admittedly limited experience with internet telephony, I have found that latency has been more of a problem than bandwidth. Presumably, your cyber cafes or universities are going to have enough bandwidth to support people using the internet for telephone use. After all, file sharing consumes more bandwidth than streaming voice does, and practically every geek on campus has been exploiting that technology. Compression of telephone-range frequency is good, because the frequency range required is not broad in the general sense of the term. I'm not pretending to be an expert here, but this is the impression I have gathered from my readings (so flame it up, if you have to)
However, IMHO, I have found it annoying to speak with people over the internet for the reason that the tempo of a conversation is often broken by having to wait for the person on the other side of the line to hear what you just said. I've taken this to be a latency-related issue, but hey I could be mistaken. At any rate, I'll stick with the telephone for now.
The article seems to want to make the distinction between spyware and adware, stating that adware has legitimate purposes, and that it informs users of its intent in a clear manner.
As one example, they describe in brief the software Gator uses to obtain marketing demographic information about you:
Does an uninvited guest keep knocking on your door saying, 'Hi! I'm here!'?" he asked rhetorically, describing Gator's multiple disclosures and the icon of alligator eyes that appears whenever the program is running. "No. We are invited guests on the desktop and even pop up a fourth modal screen saying, 'Your Gator software is here.' And since our e-wallet software helps users every day fill out forms, we constantly come back and have an ongoing relationship with our customers."
Well, the other week I ran RegMon on my XP box (wait, RegMon uses system-level hooks, doesn't it? That might be against the XP EULA) Anyway, I monitored my registry access, and aside from seeing expected system activity, I noticed a number of references to www.gator.com, checking for the presense of various applications of my computer. I have never knowingly agreed to have gator software installed on my machine (though I may have clicked Agree in some agreement where it was buried in legal speak). It does not appear in the "Remove Software" control in XP. Further, despite what the above quote suggests, gator eyes do not appear in my taskbar, and I have not seen a single modal dialog telling me gator is looking through my registry.
My guess is that gator was either bundled with my machine (Sony Vaio), or entered my machine piggy-backed onto another app that I did agree to install.
The app that believe sold my info to gator is AudioGalaxy satellite, a file sharing app ala Kazaa.
As an aside, I also noticed some registry activity from bundled virus software on my machine that I supposedly disabled; has hijacking my machine become an industry standard?
The question is not if you're being watched; the question is who is watching you!
Since when does Microsoft care about standards?
Bravo.
I'm with you fmaxwell, governments should invest in broadband as they do other types of infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams), because that's what broadband amounts to these days.
All politics aside, government contracts to build infrastructure aided public optimism that the Great Depression would end in the 1930's. Perhaps this country could use some extra jobs, paid for by Uncle Sam, right now. The people who get the jobs benefit, and the people who get the access benefit. To me, that's worth a few tax dollars.
To equate it, it would be the difference between getting just any old pentium 4 1.5 Ghz system, and getting an athalon 1.2 Ghz and tweaking it by using better hardware, a cleaner OS install, faster standards, and some code tweaking to get the performance level up above that of the P-4.
;P
An interesting analogy, given the technology of the P4 is more advanced and elegant than that of the Athlon. (there was a slashdot article on that subject somewhere, but I'm too alzy to find it, much less correct my own typos)
Not to be a jerk, but your analogy is more along the lines of applying science to brute-force, not science to science, if you will.
Everyone has their tastes, of course, but in the world of street car racing, brute force is tough to beat, IMHO. If your going to race, and your car has the smaller engine, than you'd best choose your battles wisely, because losing is not fun (especially with female passengers).
Thank goodness somebody had the same thought I did. Why would I want some ISP to load my machine with their junk? If I need it, I'll get it, thank you very much. Windows put enough garbage on my machine, and at least I'm confident that they employ programmers and not hacks.
Think about it.
Much of what you do each and every day occurs in spite of the ability I just asked of you. Your brain is not responsible for thinking about how to walk (at least not after you learn how). You peripheral nervous system handles such actions.
When humans create a robot in the fashion of Rod Brook, they are training a system analogous to our own peripheral nervous system. Why force the machine to learn to walk when we can tell it how to walk from our own experience (knowledge of physics, etc).
The exact implementation Brook uses may not scale, but analogous programming options exist that could scale, and IMHO, approaches addressing immediate actions/reactions should be built into robots as described.
From the interview it seems Brook admits the need for serious processing power to reach the "next level", but shrewdly points to the fact that spending all of your time thinking and not doing is not a good way to get anything done.
If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time...
For those wanting a cheaper solution for their tiny computer needs, search google for PC104. The options are numerous, and one could construct such a device as this post indicates for less coin. Of course, such a project wouldn't be as easy, but hey, this is slashdot, not MSN. Besides, you'd learn volumes about embedded systems.
My language is bigger than your language.
Please, do we need such a post? I am surprised nobody posted that assembly would be a good choice; your limitations will be minimized.
Slashdot readers as a whole write in just about any language out there, and everybody has a reason their favorite is the best.
As many have pointed out, without a problem spec, the choice has little to go on. In general, pick a language that either has a base of programmers who are familiar with it, or that is easy to learn. That way, you can find employees. Judging from the fact that your boss's requirements are not satisfied entirely by any language, you should hope his requirements for employees are not so.
Programmer Requirements:
Doesn't write bugs
Doesn't complain about vague specs
Is vigilant about maintaining perfect documentation
Doesn't blame hardware
Shows up on time at 7:00am
Displays elegant mastery of multiple-inheritence, however is incapable of preventing leaks without the help of a garbage collector.
Doesn't waste company time reading SlashDot
Best of luck to you.