They carry it at the local Hastings (in Norman, Oklahoma, US). However, they are usually a release behind.
*PLUG* I would suggest getting a subscription from Walnut Creek CD-ROM. You get the official 4-cd set, and you get each new release of it way before non-subscription people or stores. $25 is charged to your credit card as soon as each release ships. You can cancel it at any time. I have one and I like it. */PLUG*
Seems like you've bought into management's little imaginary world a little; isn't "methodology" just a hype-inducing (and incorrectly used) version of "method", used by PHBs to subliminally make people more receptive to their "methods"?
Remember, there is also a difference of _Linux_ being secure and that someone could configure Linux to be secure. No matter how much more secure Linux or NT is than the other, both operating systems must be set up correctly. That includes applying updates. I personally highly doubt that any Linux distros could receive C2 right out of the box.
Note: the following refers only to public schools in the United States and is merely one person's opinion.
System Incompetence My parents are both high school teachers in the same, horrible public school system where I was miseducated. Accordingly, I have been very close to the politics and issues inside the faculty and administration there. My parents have a funny saying about the whole thing that really sums it up: "First you become a teacher. If you're too dumb to be a teacher, you become a coach. If you're too dumb to be a coach, you become an administrator." Honestly, IMHO, the greatest problem with our schools is the lack in quality in school employees:
The Faculty There are a lot of good teachers out there. At my old school, my dad is a *great* math teacher and the chemistry teacher is also primo. But I argue that those shining stars are exceptions to the rule. A friend of mine once got this written on her report card: "Congratulatians on a perfect score on all your spelling tests." I've experienced many teachers giving out outdated and even false information, and I'm sure that many readers have also.
While teacher submediocrity occurs in all subjects, I believe that the worst area is computer science. How many high schools' computer rooms are still filled with Mac Classics and TRS-80s? How many schools teach their students that that the 'CPU' is the case? How many schools teach with GWBASIC? How many schools have yet to discover the Internet? Far too many, I'm afraid.
The Administration Too many of our schools are run by stupid people. At my own school, the administrators:
won't enforce discipline when a parent comes in screaming "my Johnny couldn't possible have done that!"
funnel too much importance into looking good to the parents; things are done that make the school look good but have no impact on the students' educations.
act according to a publicly stated philosophy that school should not be fun.
avoid personal discipline in favor of broad, anti-X rules. At my school's boys' bathrooms, THERE IS NO RUNNING WATER, SOAP, PAPER TOWELS, OR EVEN TOILET PAPER because these were abused by a minority of students. You have to go to the office and check out a roll of toilet paper in order to take a crap.
Student Society No matter how good the system gets, students have got to *want* to learn, or at least not be destructive to those who do. As nerd, geek, etc. will tell you, that is _not_ how it is. There is an enourmous pressure to conform and be cool or be cast out. (Subdivisions!) But how can the current student culture be changed? How can a desire to learn be injected into todays non-nerd majority? Hopefully, the Internet revolution is already helping to change that. Once by nerds and for nerds (er, and national defense), it is now mainstream, and we need only wait for natural selection to take its toll. The geek shall inherit the earth.
Funding This should be a no-brainer. It takes dough to do stuff. Generally, the less dough, the less stuff you can do. Give the schools dough.
IMHO, they are now virtually synonymous. Perhaps one of the skills separating true geeks and nerds from the lesser-blessed members of society is the ability to use the right synonym at the right time.
I, for one, am extremely thankful that I live in a time when I can be proud of who I am. The geeks have certainly inherited the Earth.
IMHO, VR won't be virtually a reality until the technology exists to implement a direct neural interface, like in The Thirteenth Floor. I suspect that this technology will first be developed by the military in Robotech-like "thinking caps" that allow pilots to have better control over their equipment. Then, as we gain more understanding about the human brain, combat simulators will become an application. Finally, the tech will trickle down into the public.
The problem with simulating our world via mechanical methods is that the only available simulator that can recreate every experience is...the world itself. And the world is an enormously crappy simulator; my teledildonics programs never seem to work right...
In Windows, I used to browse with only Netscape browsers and scoffed at those who used IE. But after experiencing my zillionth netscape bug, I tried IE 4. It was faster, more stable, and integrated more cleanly into the Windows environment. I've been using it ever since. In Linux, I end up either using Lynx or not surfing at all. Communicator is, I dare say, *worse* under Linux. My favorite Netscape bug: The one where Navigator starts ignoring all left mouse clicks. It's been there for a _long_, long time.
At my state-university CS department, it is like this:
The curriculum is all about theory and less about which language(s) you are proficient in. You take classes about how to build a compiler, how an operating system works, sorting algorithms, data structures, artificial intelligence, computer vision, etc. -- mostly presented in a theoretical, pseudocode context.
You also take a lot of math classes. So much, in fact, that you end up with a minor in math.
When the professors actually start working with real code, you realize that they don't really know what they are doing. One professor actually told me, "Most CS PhD's are idiots; they can debate theory all day long, but they couldn't write a nontrivial implementation of _anything_ to save their life." Their code usually sucks _hard_. In one class I took, the prof was writing his own book. We got each chapter each week or so from a local copy shop, and none of the code would even compile. One of his source files even broke g++!
The first two CS classes teach you Java, but after that, you are expected to learn languages on your own. Each programming assignment averages from 0.5 to 4 kLoc, and you are given a choice of languages to do it in.
I suspect the preceding story is repeated at many other universities like mine.
the Internet's self-regulation doesn't work anymore because it relies on the assumption of more or less equal participants. This is clearly no longer the case
Hel-_lo_; this wasn't the Turning Point Of The Internet. It was just a crack, many of which happen daily. The author is so naive.
This is great news for BSDL, which already was, IMHO, the most free license of all the major "free" licenses. I also never thought the advertisement clause was that big of deal. I don't see how GPL could be considered more free when it doesn't give you the freedom to do certain things with the code.
As for people's fears that some evil company will take BSDL code and proprietarize/commercialize it, and for their assertions that GPL prevents that, bah! If _I_ were an evil software company, I wouldn't *care* whether the code I stole was GPL'ed or QJX'ed or whatever. I would just steal it and meld it with my own code, with only a few trustworthy programmers having to know.
Slashdot Mirror
They carry it at the local Hastings (in Norman, Oklahoma, US). However, they are usually a release behind.
*PLUG*
I would suggest getting a subscription from Walnut Creek CD-ROM. You get the official 4-cd set, and you get each new release of it way before non-subscription people or stores. $25 is charged to your credit card as soon as each release ships. You can cancel it at any time. I have one and I like it.
*/PLUG*
Seems like you've bought into management's little imaginary world a little; isn't "methodology" just a hype-inducing (and incorrectly used) version of "method", used by PHBs to subliminally make people more receptive to their "methods"?
--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Remember, there is also a difference of _Linux_ being secure and that someone could configure Linux to be secure. No matter how much more secure Linux or NT is than the other, both operating systems must be set up correctly. That includes applying updates. I personally highly doubt that any Linux distros could receive C2 right out of the box.
My parents are both high school teachers in the same, horrible public school system where I was miseducated. Accordingly, I have been very close to the politics and issues inside the faculty and administration there. My parents have a funny saying about the whole thing that really sums it up: "First you become a teacher. If you're too dumb to be a teacher, you become a coach. If you're too dumb to be a coach, you become an administrator." Honestly, IMHO, the greatest problem with our schools is the lack in quality in school employees:
There are a lot of good teachers out there. At my old school, my dad is a *great* math teacher and the chemistry teacher is also primo. But I argue that those shining stars are exceptions to the rule. A friend of mine once got this written on her report card: "Congratulatians on a perfect score on all your spelling tests." I've experienced many teachers giving out outdated and even false information, and I'm sure that many readers have also.
While teacher submediocrity occurs in all subjects, I believe that the worst area is computer science. How many high schools' computer rooms are still filled with Mac Classics and TRS-80s? How many schools teach their students that that the 'CPU' is the case? How many schools teach with GWBASIC? How many schools have yet to discover the Internet? Far too many, I'm afraid.
Too many of our schools are run by stupid people. At my own school, the administrators:
No matter how good the system gets, students have got to *want* to learn, or at least not be destructive to those who do. As nerd, geek, etc. will tell you, that is _not_ how it is. There is an enourmous pressure to conform and be cool or be cast out. (Subdivisions!) But how can the current student culture be changed? How can a desire to learn be injected into todays non-nerd majority? Hopefully, the Internet revolution is already helping to change that. Once by nerds and for nerds (er, and national defense), it is now mainstream, and we need only wait for natural selection to take its toll. The geek shall inherit the earth.
This should be a no-brainer. It takes dough to do stuff. Generally, the less dough, the less stuff you can do. Give the schools dough.
Sorry, this post was a mistake. Please read the correct one below.
Rob, do I feel a poll coming out of this?
IMHO, they are now virtually synonymous. Perhaps one of the skills separating true geeks and nerds from the lesser-blessed members of society is the ability to use the right synonym at the right time.
I, for one, am extremely thankful that I live in a time when I can be proud of who I am. The geeks have certainly inherited the Earth.
That sounds like a _very_ cool device. Where can we find out more information about it? Do you have a link, or can you post some more info?
IMHO, VR won't be virtually a reality until the technology exists to implement a direct neural interface, like in The Thirteenth Floor. I suspect that this technology will first be developed by the military in Robotech-like "thinking caps" that allow pilots to have better control over their equipment. Then, as we gain more understanding about the human brain, combat simulators will become an application. Finally, the tech will trickle down into the public.
The problem with simulating our world via mechanical methods is that the only available simulator that can recreate every experience is...the world itself. And the world is an enormously crappy simulator; my teledildonics programs never seem to work right...
In Windows, I used to browse with only Netscape browsers and scoffed at those who used IE. But after experiencing my zillionth netscape bug, I tried IE 4. It was faster, more stable, and integrated more cleanly into the Windows environment. I've been using it ever since. In Linux, I end up either using Lynx or not surfing at all. Communicator is, I dare say, *worse* under Linux. My favorite Netscape bug: The one where Navigator starts ignoring all left mouse clicks. It's been there for a _long_, long time.
At my state-university CS department, it is like this:
The curriculum is all about theory and less about which language(s) you are proficient in. You take classes about how to build a compiler, how an operating system works, sorting algorithms, data structures, artificial intelligence, computer vision, etc. -- mostly presented in a theoretical, pseudocode context.
You also take a lot of math classes. So much, in fact, that you end up with a minor in math.
When the professors actually start working with real code, you realize that they don't really know what they are doing. One professor actually told me, "Most CS PhD's are idiots; they can debate theory all day long, but they couldn't write a nontrivial implementation of _anything_ to save their life." Their code usually sucks _hard_. In one class I took, the prof was writing his own book. We got each chapter each week or so from a local copy shop, and none of the code would even compile. One of his source files even broke g++!
The first two CS classes teach you Java, but after that, you are expected to learn languages on your own. Each programming assignment averages from 0.5 to 4 kLoc, and you are given a choice of languages to do it in.
I suspect the preceding story is repeated at many other universities like mine.
root@quark: apt-get update
Wham, bam, thank you Debian.
the Internet's self-regulation doesn't work anymore because it relies on the assumption of more or less equal participants. This is clearly no longer the case
Hel-_lo_; this wasn't the Turning Point Of The Internet. It was just a crack, many of which happen daily. The author is so naive.
This is great news for BSDL, which already was, IMHO, the most free license of all the major "free" licenses. I also never thought the advertisement clause was that big of deal. I don't see how GPL could be considered more free when it doesn't give you the freedom to do certain things with the code.
As for people's fears that some evil company will take BSDL code and proprietarize/commercialize it, and for their assertions that GPL prevents that, bah! If _I_ were an evil software company, I wouldn't *care* whether the code I stole was GPL'ed or QJX'ed or whatever. I would just steal it and meld it with my own code, with only a few trustworthy programmers having to know.
Do you still have time to spend with your wife & family?