Absolutely a "C" should be the average, and do "grade on the (gaussian) curve". But please don't use one class as your sample size. If you've been teaching a few years, you should be aware enough of the degree of difficulty of problems so that you can safely say that this year's test is the same as last years ("just the names have been changed to protect the innocent"). You should also have a decent sample size. If the test is fair, and the average is 70%, and this class averages 58%, then by all means add there scores to the others and recalculate the average. It might drop to 68.9%. Thats grading on a real curve.
"Personally, I would rather have seen the intrinsic logic and beauty first, and the "real-world" applications later."->math is always presented as primarily being a useful tool for other areas of discipline is simply because that's exactly what it is. Math, at its lowest level, is merely a language to describe things.
My BS was in Physics, and I'm currently working on my MS in applied Mathematics. I'm still working my way through the paradim shift, but I can empatically state that your comment would raise issues with my professors. Math is most definitely neither about describing things, nor about being useful. To anyone doing abstract work, the suggestion that they are "applied" is considered an insult. They are better than that. They have generalized beyound the mere physical descriptions and are involved in the essence of mathematical logic. Now one can use math to model, yes. But then much work is done to remove from the proofs any hint of that real world model. The "scaffolding must be removed from the cathedral before its presented to the public". The concept that math works "Exactly the same way that a programming language describes the actions that a program performs" sounds alot like the Computational world view. While I lean towards applied and computational maths myself, this is *not* the world view of the majority of math people. There work is more than "purely recreational", they would say, but it isn't "useful" either.
I am a professor of finance at Troy State University in Troy, Ala. I am intrigued by your articles on Sun's half-hearted and potentially deceptive acceptance of the open source model. Here is a fable you might find amusing. It is cited by the U. S. Tax Court in a case I have long since forgotten, but which had to do with the intent to form a partnership. The fable was originally reported in a Roman civil case, over 1,000 years ago.
The lion approached the wolf and the fox, and suggested that they form a partnership for the purpose of hunting game. The lion explained that each had particular talents that would lend themselves to such a partnership. The fox was wily and could trick the quarry into the open; and the wolf was swift of foot, so that he could direct the quarry to where the lion lay in wait to complete the kill. After some discussion, the wolf and the fox agreed to enter into a partnership with the lion. All went as planned and a deer was killed, but when the wolf and the fox tried to share in the kill, the lion challenged them. They stood by, helplessly, and watched the lion devour the entire carcass. Afterward, they asked the lion why he had only left them a few scraps. The lion replied, "All I took was the lion's share."
"Free means FREE GODDAMMIT! (the GPL is
EVIL)" Mr. Joy eloquently presented his opinion on the Free
Software licensing debate which has raged through engineering circles
ever since East Coast programmer and Free Software advocate Richard
Stallman hired several copyright attorneys to develop his so-called
"CopyLeft" General Public License.
Here is an excerpt:
Free means
FREE GODDAMMIT! (the GPL is EVIL)
I sit here at my terminal
coding a storm in my vi,
a malloc() for some array,
while strncpy() bounds a check,
but inside I seethe -- inside I rumble,
at all the lines locked up,
and the derived headers claimed with glee,
for I know the caged free()
consumed by the GPL!
Free means FREE GODDAMMIT,
it means I take and offer as I please,
it doesn't mean to taint my work,
just because I swiped some header,
or one little readline,
it's the state of being FREE,
as opposed to the state of being NOT FREE!
Don't you understand RMS,
the GPL is EVIL!,
it's a blight of a free license,
and a virus to behold,
consuming all code afterwards,
in an atomic chain reaction,
like red tide spread across our ocean,
all our oysters now inedible!
Free coders far and wide,
listen to my swan-song by the sea,
for while Solaris kicks BSD's ass,
and my SCSL is a sight to see,
at least BSD and MIT leave code FREE,
unlike that UNAMERICAN red GPL crap,
with it RMS will suck you dry,
Because Free means FREE GODDAMMIT!
and The GPL is EVIL!
When asked for comment Richard Stallman had only this to say,"Wow,
Bill is a terrible poet!"
So make sure you only buy locally. Don't even support terroism, support your local (farmer's) economy. Every dollar spent locally is worth $3 (due to the velocity of money).
"If I put up a web page with links to tens of thousands of dollars of pirated software, I should expect either my ISP to yank my connection, or to get a visit from the FBI. And I would expect many/. readers would think I got what I deserved."
Respectfully disagree. If you are linking to a source of information I wouldn't want to stop you, and I'd fight others who tried to stop you. If I published a deadtree editorial re: redlight districts, even with maps, I'd expect to be protected. Providing a link is *not* the same thing as hosting illegal (though perhaps moral) material. It shouldn't be illegal to report facts. Especially it shouldn't be illegal to report facts in the United States of America.
"I think the rush to download everything in sight will be proportional to the rush to NOT be one of the major nodes."
Its also time to start considering alternative modes of communication. Consider college LAN parties. Consider the bandwidth of a VW bus full of MP3 CDs. Latency *sucks* but oh the throughput once it arrives! This might also put Freenet on the map.
Re:"Reduced" Instruction Set Computer???
on
PowerPC Goes 64 bit
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
RISC
PowerPC architecture is an example of a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set
Computing) architecture. As a result:
All PowerPCs (including 64-bit implementations) use fixed-length
32-bit instructions.
The PowerPC processing model is to retrieve data from memory, manipulate
it in registers, then store it back to memory. There are very few instructions
(other than loads and stores) that manipulate memory directly.
Technically, a developer can use any GPR for anything. For example, there is no "stack pointer register"; a programmer could use any register for that purpose. In practice, it is useful to define a set of conventions so that binary objects can interoperate with different compilers and pre-written assembly code.
"What I find is interesting is the fact that IBM can talk about it. If there was committed Mac design, you know (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs would have his hands around IBM's neck not to talk about this chip," said Kevin Krewell, a senior analyst at In-Stat/MDR. "The fact that IBM is talking about it indicates to me that it's not a mainstream Apple product at this time."
"Moreover, the new PowerPC will have a vector-processing unit with more than 160 specialized vector instructions, the Microprocessor Forum site said. This processing unit, which is
similar to Motorola's AltiVec technology, will allow the chip to break up large amounts of data and process them in parallel form. It will be used when the chip is handling graphics or processing signals."
The US constitution grants rights, yes, but they protect you from our government, not your corporation. Workers ballance loss of freedom vs. gain of paycheck every day they work. It only becomes insulting when the ballance of power is such that the scales are tipped overwhelmingly one way and there exists no alternative.
"AGNULA's main task will be the development of
two reference distributions for the GNU/Linux operating system completely based on Free Software (i.e. under a FSF approved Free Software license) and completely devoted to professional and consumer audio applications and multimedia development. One distribution will be Debian-based (DeMuDi) and the other will be Red Hat-based (ReHMuDi). Both will be available on the network for download and on CD."
JavaSWF2 is a set of Java packages that enable the parsing, manipulation and generation of the Macromedia Flash(TM) file format known as SWF ("swiff").
ming is a c library for generating SWF ("Flash") format movies, plus a set of wrappers for using the library from c++ and popular scripting languages like PHP, Python, and Ruby.
"RealNetworks will begin offering Helix's client source code within 90 days and then release the server source code in "subsequent months," the company said. Details will be further outlined on a special Web site for Helix developers."
For copyright purposes: if the security mechanism is there to protect against reverse engineering, then it might me harder to reverse engineer, but thats all. *If* the purpose is legal (DMCA) then reverse engnineering is just legal, yes? If not DRMed, then reverse engineering is also just plain legal. The only problem is patents.
* Most RPM based distributions have been able to download a package and all their dependencies a while now using a variety of different mechanisms. There's a few good uniques features of dpkg (just as there are rpm feaures) but its easier to implement these features on rpm than to convert most Linux systems to using another packaging format.
Yeah but is that going to destroy the dependencies of another program? Its not just the dependencies of one package that you want to install, its the interdependent dependencies of the entire system. This is especially true if one starts mixing levels (old program1, newest program2, etc...). Methinks RPM needs another level on top of it to become apt-get.
What makes Debian technically special (as opposed to morally special;-) is the serious testing that takes place. Debian packages rock just because they are solid like a rock.
"We think Debian is the most righteous distribution," says IBM's Linux program manager, Dan Frye. "It takes high-quality code from the rest of the community and then forces it through an incredibly rigorous process to make sure that it's even more stable. So in many ways, it's the core of the Linux community."
And thats exactly the dispute. The URL should be universally accessable, and available to be used by each and everyone. Thats what makes the free flow of information happen. Thats the purpose of the internet. Anything that impedes that purpose needs to be considered carefully for its appropriateness on the web. Allow deep linking, and get rid of the sites that complain about it. (Or perhaps just but them on a probationary status?)
They aren't complaining about the eyeballs. They are upset they can't control the eyeballs path. The freeflow nature of the internet upsets media control on many many levels.
But a cinema is a private place one has to pay for the priviledge of being. The WWW is a public place. If I wanted to setup a oneman show in NYC's Central Park, would you agree that I could then charge admission to the park? How about I charge admission to just the trail that I am perfoming on?
Using *any* URL should be legal in all cases. If they don't want it public, they shouldn't put it up in public. Create a VPN and charge admission at the front door. Create a deadtree publication. Just don't try to say the WWW is a private place.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely a "C" should be the average, and do "grade on the (gaussian) curve". But please don't use one class as your sample size. If you've been teaching a few years, you should be aware enough of the degree of difficulty of problems so that you can safely say that this year's test is the same as last years ("just the names have been changed to protect the innocent"). You should also have a decent sample size. If the test is fair, and the average is 70%, and this class averages 58%, then by all means add there scores to the others and recalculate the average. It might drop to 68.9%. Thats grading on a real curve.
"Personally, I would rather have seen the intrinsic logic and beauty first, and the "real-world" applications later."->math is always presented as primarily being a useful tool for other areas of discipline is simply because that's exactly what it is. Math, at its lowest level, is merely a language to describe things.
My BS was in Physics, and I'm currently working on my MS in applied Mathematics. I'm still working my way through the paradim shift, but I can empatically state that your comment would raise issues with my professors. Math is most definitely neither about describing things, nor about being useful. To anyone doing abstract work, the suggestion that they are "applied" is considered an insult. They are better than that. They have generalized beyound the mere physical descriptions and are involved in the essence of mathematical logic. Now one can use math to model, yes. But then much work is done to remove from the proofs any hint of that real world model. The "scaffolding must be removed from the cathedral before its presented to the public". The concept that math works "Exactly the same way that a programming language describes the actions that a program performs" sounds alot like the Computational world view. While I lean towards applied and computational maths myself, this is *not* the world view of the majority of math people. There work is more than "purely recreational", they would say, but it isn't "useful" either.
Well, if *anyone* has been given the binaries, then *eveyone* has the right to the source.
http://monkey.org/geeks/archive/9911/msg00006.h
"Free means FREE GODDAMMIT! (the GPL is EVIL)" Mr. Joy eloquently presented his opinion on the Free Software licensing debate which has raged through engineering circles ever since East Coast programmer and Free Software advocate Richard Stallman hired several copyright attorneys to develop his so-called "CopyLeft" General Public License. Here is an excerpt: When asked for comment Richard Stallman had only this to say,"Wow, Bill is a terrible poet!"
So make sure you only buy locally. Don't even support terroism, support your local (farmer's) economy. Every dollar spent locally is worth $3 (due to the velocity of money).
RISC
PowerPC architecture is an example of a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architecture. As a result:
Technically, a developer can use any GPR for anything. For example, there is no "stack pointer register"; a programmer could use any register for that purpose. In practice, it is useful to define a set of conventions so that binary objects can interoperate with different compilers and pre-written assembly code.
The US constitution grants rights, yes, but they protect you from our government, not your corporation. Workers ballance loss of freedom vs. gain of paycheck every day they work. It only becomes insulting when the ballance of power is such that the scales are tipped overwhelmingly one way and there exists no alternative.
Why not just call it "pink tie"?
"Authoring tools"...
JavaSWF2 is a set of Java packages that enable the parsing, manipulation and generation of the Macromedia Flash(TM) file format known as SWF ("swiff").
ming
is a c library for generating SWF ("Flash") format movies, plus a set of wrappers for using the library from c++ and popular scripting languages like PHP, Python, and Ruby.
For copyright purposes: if the security mechanism is there to protect against reverse engineering, then it might me harder to reverse engineer, but thats all. *If* the purpose is legal (DMCA) then reverse engnineering is just legal, yes? If not DRMed, then reverse engineering is also just plain legal. The only problem is patents.
A physics grad student I knew once managed to jam/fit a pci card into an isa slot!
Thats because slashdotters *always* read the site before posting...
(delta stability)(delta cutting edge)=Konstant
What makes Debian technically special (as opposed to morally special
"apt-get install txt2regex" and my use of regex has changed forever! Wonderful little program!
And thats exactly the dispute. The URL should be universally accessable, and available to be used by each and everyone. Thats what makes the free flow of information happen. Thats the purpose of the internet. Anything that impedes that purpose needs to be considered carefully for its appropriateness on the web. Allow deep linking, and get rid of the sites that complain about it. (Or perhaps just but them on a probationary status?)
They aren't complaining about the eyeballs. They are upset they can't control the eyeballs path. The freeflow nature of the internet upsets media control on many many levels.
But a cinema is a private place one has to pay for the priviledge of being. The WWW is a public place. If I wanted to setup a oneman show in NYC's Central Park, would you agree that I could then charge admission to the park? How about I charge admission to just the trail that I am perfoming on?
Using *any* URL should be legal in all cases. If they don't want it public, they shouldn't put it up in public. Create a VPN and charge admission at the front door. Create a deadtree publication. Just don't try to say the WWW is a private place.