In order to understand why these things happen, you need to find out how people of China think. Using Western standards for benchmarking civil rights of China is not a smart idea because not everybody agrees with these standards.
I worked with an exchange student from China a while ago. She was a nice girl, but she could never get the freedom of speech (expression/religion) thing. Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else. I could not argue with her. She was raised in a differet atmosphere and that was a big issue between the two of us. She hated many things about the United States and one of them was freedom to say whatever you wanted. Three years of schooling here did not change her one bit.
Now, I know that one person does not represent the whole country, but this experience gave me some insights on why peoeple may not like the Western way of life.
Do you speak English? I highly doubt that. See, in English a word can mean more than one thing. For example, Webster dictionary has several definitions for a word 'sell.' Here is one of them:
[to sell]
to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of
gain acceptance for; to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something
If you can comprehand that, here is an example of the word being used in a sentence. "I am sold on the idea of Open Source alternatives." Get it? When I say "sell OS to the public" I mean "get the public to like OS." In other words, I want people to like OS because of its benefits (monetary and not-so-monetary).
Wheels, planes, engines, cars, etc. spread around the world because people found them useful. You can use these things for work or pleasure. Relate that to Open Source.
You know, this is quite entertaning. I never knew that there are so many people who cannot read. Can you comprehand one thing: address customers' needs. That is exactly what Firefox did. See one of my replies later on in the subject.
Mozilla foundataion did a great job at delivering a product to the world. So did the Apache (different customer base though). When I say 'sold' I mean customers willing to get it and use a particular product, not its competitor.
Yeah, thank you for taking a quote out of content, asshole. My point is that we need to satisfy people's needs and address their issues before bragging what is inside. In your language, give customers a book that is right for them.
Bravo. I have a smiliar post here. Although I went a step ahead: let people realize that they need Linux. Let businesses see its potential in terms of profit and success.
Sir, I respect your opinion, but you have to cut down on sharing, caring and other feelings of hippie era. This is all nice and cuddly, but if you want to spread Linux around the world, you need to learn how to market it and address customers' needs and desires as somebody pointed out.
I am an Open Source fan, believe it or not, and I do care about where the movement is going. Unfortunately, it is going nowhere because of poor marketing and appeal to Joe average. Firefox can probably be the only exception of a project that is successfully by companies, like SpeakEasy. What about the rest of the products? Most of the people who talk about Linux tend to bee engineers and geeks that are more likely to scare Joe Average with scientific and tech terms that nobody without a technical degree can understand. Is this how you market things? Attacking Microsoft or any other vendor does not work as well...
If you want to succeed, you need to put Open Source in a business plan and let people know how you can solve their problems and Linux better then your competitors that do not use Open Source. Let's take Firefox for example.
Firefox is a browser that can stop annoying pop-ups. That alone worked on most of my friends because EI could not do it. Firefox has a feature that allows you to open many sites in one window (normal people do not understand "tabbing"). Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer and it will prevent spyware from getting onto your computer. That's how it should work for the rest of OS products. Otherwise, all that cute work will remain just an alternative (and not a solution).
FYI, I work with Open Source products for living:) I need tools like Python, Perl and gcc in order to make a living. Most of my servers run Linux as well as other systems that have ties to OS community. I use products that can meet my needs. I create products that can meet customers' needs and that is why I am able to stay employed and profitable. This is the purpose of being in business.
Yep, it's all in the way you say it. The Republican Party has demonstrated recently that even if your content is nonsensical, unworkable, and downright absurd, if you say it with lots of positive emphasis, people will eat it up like M&Ms.
Your opinion is just as valuable as an opition expressed by a Republican. If you think that the message sent by Republicans sucks, it does not meant that that is bad message. It means that YOU think that way of the message. I am not a Republican myself, but whenever I hear parties bitching about each other it turns me inside out. Grow up.
You can have a top-notch techonlogy and the best minds in the world working on R&D and you can still fail if you do not satisfy customer requirements or needs or both.
Engineers do not get one thing: no invention can be spread around the world until it can be sold. In this world marketing and sales are just as important (if not more) as R&D and staying on bleeding edge. If you have a Linux box that cannot meet my needs, why the fuck would I buy it? Because somebody with a Ph.D worked on some programs in that box? Give me a fucking break.
Everybody is screaming about Linux and how great it is. I do not see it. Dell sells cheap Wintel boxes because that is what customers want: something cheap and easy. IBM invested money in new technology along with research; it sold its PC division to Lenovo. HP and Compaq had R&D... Now their joint venture is swimming down the toilet. The point is that it does not matter how cool YOU think Linux and Open Source are. They're not going to spread around the world unless people find them useful. No advocacy will help. You can write to tech magazines and give lectures to college students and that is fine; however, you won't be able to succeed until people start saying, "Wow, this Linux thing is really want I need." The keyword is "need." Not "want" or "cool" or "wow." Need for a cheap, effective tech solution is what can and will drive Open Source. This is pure business.
In this world everything is sold, not bought. Sell an Open Source solution to the public and you shall succeed. Nobody gives (or should give) a flying fuck about the technology and what it is inside. If you really want to push Open Source, show cost savings, productivity increase, and fewer losses contributed to the fact that Open Source is not Windows. Then people will talk to you:)
It is funny how your brought up organic chemistry in the 9th grade. I studied that as well in the 9th grade. Not in the U.S., but abroad. Guess what, out of 30 kids in my class there were only 2 who could dig it. The rest of us got Bs just because we were nice to the teacher or because somebody knew somebody who signed paychecks. Ask me how much I remember from that fucking class... Nothing, nothing at all.
In the United States you can go wherever you want if you have skills. We had a freshman in our school, a real genius, he did not take any science classes in high school once he was done with his freshman year. He ended up taking everything in college and graduate in two and a half years. What stopped you from doing the same?
What kids are you talking about? There are plenty of schools that do fairly well when it comes to education. My high school has a high graduation and AP rates along with college acceptance... Many of my friends took college math by the time they were seniors. FYI, this was a public school.
Do you really believe that other countries have better education systems? I got a bulk of my education in Europe and I am willing to bet that a normal American school (read a school that is not located in the middle of a ghetto) can be compared to a normal school in European countries. Private schools are on a fairly equal level as well. In the United States I had a choice between progessing beyond the seventh grade level of math or doing something else; I chose the former. Overseas, I had no choice, but I was able to hack through because I had brains. Kids who could not keep up simply cheated -- sometimes with teacher's assistance -- in order to look good among the others. I do not know what is better.
Are you talking about schools in rural areas or underfunded establishments in innder cities? If you dare, travel around the world and see how underfunded schools there compared to poor schools here. You will be surprised. I believe that you have to clarify your comments; otherwise, you sound like a jerk.
I believe that MPAA released this tool in order to take the very first step towards data censorship. Give it a couple of years and we'll have to run this tools on a weekly basis and report our findings to MPAA or Windows could do it for us automatically.
Everybody wants to cover themselves. Parents are afraid of getting sued for their kids downloads. Teachers are terrified of teaching or not teaching religion in school because somebody may or may not like it. We can't even show a boob or a bare back on TV without generating a lot of fuzz from folks lke this. Americans have become so paranoid that even Super Bowl is taking a hit as described in this article. It takes only one person to turn this world upside down.
That is why I am not surprised that MPAA is doing what it does. FCC fined radio broadcasting corporations for indecency; some stations dropped Howard Stern because they did not want to be fined in the future. Now that there are lawsuits against people who download movies, MPAA released a product that will help you to avoid the fines. I bet you $20 many people will fall for it. When you're a single mother of two, the last thing you want to see is a law suit against you. For some people it is a no-brainer. Once you start the ball rolling, it will never stop unless something major happens. People will "clean" their computers and bend over as far as MPAA wants them to because people do not want to lose their money.
Imagine a slogan that says, "If you run product X and we still find illegal movies on your computer, you will not be fined! Otherwise, we'll charge you because you did not put any effort in protecting our copyright!"
Security depends on the company. I called my ISP, confirmed that all my mail was with SSL. Then I called the credit card company and ask how they sent stuff to me. They used SSL as well as other methods of security. For example, your card info is not disclosed on the statement. You need to go to the web site if you want to check the statement. The e-mail that you get has xxxxxxxxxx for the account number on it. Just your name and balance.
1. Take out every credit card and call every agency. Tell them that you do not want your information to be shared with anybody. That will reduce the risk of id theft due to less junk mail.
2. Get a good shredder. Shred every piece of useless mail with your address on it.
3. Sing up for paperless delivery of credit card statements and loans. Most companies use secure servers and if your ISP uses SSL then you can safely get mail in your inbox. The inbox can be archived and encrypted in the future.
4. Sign up for electronic bill pay through your credit card. Your bills will be paid on time and you will get less mail. Remeber, somebody can get your address w/o taking your mail.
5. Inspect your credit reports from three major agencies at least 2 times a year.
6. Call credit report agencies and tell them not to share your info with any other institutions. CC agencies love to do that, especially if you have loans.
7. If you get junk mail, see if you can opt-out. If you can, do that; otherwise, the companies who send you this shit can be in trouble.
I am not perfect. I have nothing against people with accents when they are able to communicate with me, especially if I pay for their service. I work with tons of foreign people, moreover, I am an immigrant myself:)
There is a difference between having an accent or comletely not having a clue what the other person is talking about. My freinds have accents, my co-workers have accents (I have an accent too!), and yet I am able to understand them. If it sounds like English, it is all good to me. However, when I ask a basic question in plain English and the person on the other side of the phone does not understand what I want, it pisses me off. Especially if it happens all the time. Whever I called AT&T support line, I ended up waiting on the phone for at least ten minutes. Then I had to talk to "Paul" or "John" from India. He was not an immigrant familiar with American English, he was an Indian person who could not communicate well enough to be a customer rep. Adding "sir" to every sentence does not help if you have problems with basic language skills.
You must know the language, the culture and the slang of a region if you want to provide good service to people from that area. When I arrived to the States in my early teens, I was not able to understand people because most Americans used American slang for common things. For example, whenever somebody said "it's cool," I thought that people complained about being cold. It took me a couple of months to figure things out and only because I was a kid and I lived in the United States. Culture cannot be learned through books, my friend. Many older immigrants still have problems and this is nothing to be ashamed of. Certain fields, like customer service, require good language and communication skills. It is that simple.
I love speakeasy. Since I switched to their service from AT&T, I have almost no unexplained downtime and no problems with customer support. Their support reps actually speak fluent English without annoying Indian accents and so far all my issues were resolved within a day and no support reps ever mislead me or gave me wrong info (happened with Verizon and AT&T quite often).
Based on the packages that they offer and on cool things like wi-fi resell and open-server policies, it looks like the ISP is definitely for geeks. Also, I believe that if more ISPs provide users with free software that actually works, IE share will be reduced. 99% of non-techie users that I know use software provided by their ISPs. Anything from browsers to anti-virus programs. If things continue going this way, we'll see more open source products distributed to customers.
I hope Speakeasy continues to do what it is doing and keep its level of customer support along with other innovative ideas that many companies seem to forget as soon as they become profitable.
I have friends who got MIS and laughed at C.S./Math/Engineering/Science majors. The problem arose when they started looking for jobs. Without real management skills they could not get into management. Without strong development/theory skills they could not get into development / administration. Many senior people who I know smile when they see MIS degree on a resume of a fresh grad because management and all is great... However, you must have experience and know what you're doing first. Nobody's going to hire you to manage people if you are just out of school and know nothing about what is going on.
C.S. degrees are not about programming. If you want to do that, get a book on " in 21 days" or get a degree in Software Engineering (there are some schools that offer that). C.S. is a very broad degree and can be used anywhere in IT. In fact, none of my friends work as developers. I almost switched to MIS before I realized that I had to give up cool courses, like Physics for Engineers, calc., and advanced comp. sci., in favor of some lame shit like database management.
I found that the best combination was a degree in engineering/science/math combined with a minor in business. That way you have a strong background in whatever you want along with some business experience. Plus, people like hiring people who come from strong majors. I know many developers who came from Math/Physics/EE and sciences. The analytical knowledge that you get from science and math is priceless:)
I ended up taking my gf's Subaru; however, there is no fucking way I am going to get a "soccer mom" station wagon myself. It did do the job though. Audis are nice, but the one that I like, S4, is out of my price range for now:( I was joking about the SUV just to make a point that sometimes we need to survive. And to be honest with you, I see nothing wrong with SUVs for people who actually use them in extreme conditions (not that I'd need one in Boston for everyday usage).
There are two things that puzzle me about the United States of America: fear of human sexuality and fear of progress.
Blowing things up on TV and showing violence on the news is okay. People start complaining only if a part of a naked female body appears on the tube or if those *damn* scientists try yet another method that could potentially save us from suffering and premature death. Whoever thinks that U.S. is a country of freedom has never tried to get an abortion in Mississippi or teach evolution in Georgia's public schools. I do not even want to start talking about stem cells...
Although federal funding is cut, I suspect that it will not stop research in the long run. I hope that my state decides to follow California and raise its own money for embryonic stem cell research. And if I ever become a millionaire, I know where I am going to spend my money. Moreover, you do not have to be rich in order to achieve something. Although I do not have education in biotechnology and other related fields, I think that there are some kids at MIT and Harvard that can achive something that I can't. If we provide enough financial support through small donations, we can fund public labs that rely on money, not religious influence of our government. If this country was able to raise millions of dollars for the victims of the recent tsunami, I believe we can rase enough money for small scientific projects. Once these projects start returnig results, companies will jump on the bandwagon and the industry will be able to support itself without Mr. Bible's say.
I don't know about you guys, but I am freezing my ass off in Boston. We got almost two feet of snow and my gas-sipping Honda will not go anywhere even with snow tires. It does not have enough weight or power to plow through the snow. With that in mind, I am going to get an SUV next year. I don't care about spending more money on gas or pissing off some hippies. We live for today and not for tomorrow.
We must be reponsible; however, we should not forget that soon all of us will die and next generations will have to take care of this planet. You never know what they 'll end up doing, right? We always assume that we are bad and that we need to make the world a better place to live. Unfortunately, in life things are alot like in the stock market: past history does not indicate future performance. We can switch to cars that have 50HP and have 70mpg, use nuclear power instead of coal and eat hummus wraps. But we can't expect the future generations to do the same or even appreciate what we have done for them. For all I know, we can try our best and our kids and grandkids will still do whatever they want. We can elect "green" leaders and yet it will not stop some nut from nuking its neighbor. Do you really think that people in fifty years will say, "Oh, we can't do this to our planet because our grandparents took care of it!"? No, they will not.
We have to do what we need in order to survive and unfortunately sometimes it is not what we would like to do in the ideal world. The world is not pefect and neither are we.
I am okay with women who express their sexuality, just like men have been doing for years and years, homesexual invididuals, and nude scenes on TV. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, if my son does not become interested in sex by the time he hits 15, I'd be quite upset.
What I am not okay with is the fact that we can show lots of violence on TV and nobody gives a fuck about it until somebody screams "vagina" or "poop" or "look at those tits!" Now, that my friend gets sensored. Never mind stupid robots blowing shit up or kids who are spy agents. Do me a favor: help yourself to a remote and watch Disney or Nick for about several hours after 2 pm. You will see what our kids are exposed to. PowerRangers turbo that kick so much ass that they put Italian mobsters of the 1980s to shame. Then there are kids who are fighting against some evil in some sort of magic land. Is that okay with you? Would you rather have a kid who grows up to be a trigger happy violent individual or somebody who knows a thing or two about sex. Last time I checked, knowing what breasts were did not hurt me at all.
Sexual and profane? I find it ironic that in most developed countries of the world sex and some profanity is not a big deal. In Europe people have been enjoying topless beaches and sexy commercials for a long time. What is wrong with that?
In the United States you can't see a boob on TV. Apparently, it will traumatize our children. However, if kids want to watch something really stupid like "Simple Life," or MTV, people are okay with it. Wake up, America! It is funny how Americans react to nudity and sexual themes on TV. Anytime there is a show / movie that inolves that, there is a lot of mastrubation going on. Christian convservaties are bashing everything from Sponge Bob Square Pants to Desparate Housewifes because of refrences to homosexuals (I have no idea why they think that Sponge is gay) or some horny women with bad attitudes. I am sure there are no women like that in real life:)
We have become so uptight and afraid of human sexuality and desires that our president aims to curb women's rights and replace sexual ed with teachings on abstinence. What a pure nonsense! Perhaps we need to learn that life is not pure and simple. There sex, drugs and rock-'n'-roll among many othr things. Women can be horny, there are breasts and nudity does take place in real life. People of all ages can love, cheat, have sex and enjoy their lives the way the want. There is nothing wrong with that. The world is not perfect and we need to learn how to deal with it. Instead of focusing on profanity and nudity, how about we focus on public education, poverty and ecology?
I am not a sexist; however, I see that women lag behind men in many factors of life. I am not sure if its because of biology, genes, etc. Maybe it is due to the fact that women are treated differently from the very beginning. Let's face it: this world love dumb women. And women see nothing wrong with it.
Majority of my guy friends are subscribed to magazines such as Fortune, Money, Popular Science, etc. and every single girl that I know receives either Lucky, Real Simple, People, etc. or other magazines that targer looks, fashion or home design. Do me a favor, next time you're at a party, listen to what people are talking about. Usually, I find that men talk about business, sports and politics and chicks while women discuss latest celebrity stunts and who looks good in what. Does this ring a bell? While men talk about money and investments women blab about Oprah's weightloss...
I am not saying that men are better than women. Yet, everywhere I go, I see that women are being treated in a different way. It looks like our society is trying to make women weaker and keep them stupid. Just check publications that are popular with females and you will see what I am talking about. Eventually, you end up with grow-up women who do not know jack shit about life. They are used to their dads and husbands who solved provlems for them in the past. Once on their own, they do not know what to do. I kid you not, I know some women in their twenties who do not know basic principles of personal finance (we are talking about very basics, like what is 401K and why you should save some money), and yet if you ask them who plays the main role on show X, they will tell you all about it. So what's more important: knowing who is an actor or being able to manage your money?
I wish I were wrong, but I am not. Men still make more money than women -- although women spend more than men -- and women are not promoted as fast as men. What bugs me even more is the fact that women are okay with it. Whenever I try to explain some stuff to my female friends, they do not want to listen. However, when they're fucked on taxes, they want a simple answer. The same thing goes for almost everything. When I say something about it, they tell me that I suck at sales.... Whooptie-fucking-do:)
What exactly do you want to do? If you do not like software engineering, you must like something else in IT in order to make your MS useful in the future. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with the same boring, but advanced, stuff on a daily basis. Is this what you want?
IMO, graduate schools are for those who figured out what they want to do in life after getting an undergraudate degree and working for a while. If you are not sure what you want to do, why bother? Why would you want to spend several years in school doing something that will lead you nowhere? I got a BS in CS in '03. I wanted to go to grad school right away; thankfully, I did not. After working in the field, I realized that I want to do a totally different thing in life. I am going to wait several more years just to make sure that what I think I want is what I want... and then get a degree in Economics.
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In order to understand why these things happen, you need to find out how people of China think. Using Western standards for benchmarking civil rights of China is not a smart idea because not everybody agrees with these standards.
I worked with an exchange student from China a while ago. She was a nice girl, but she could never get the freedom of speech (expression/religion) thing. Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else. I could not argue with her. She was raised in a differet atmosphere and that was a big issue between the two of us. She hated many things about the United States and one of them was freedom to say whatever you wanted. Three years of schooling here did not change her one bit.
Now, I know that one person does not represent the whole country, but this experience gave me some insights on why peoeple may not like the Western way of life.
Do you speak English? I highly doubt that. See, in English a word can mean more than one thing. For example, Webster dictionary has several definitions for a word 'sell.' Here is one of them:
[to sell] to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of gain acceptance for; to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something
If you can comprehand that, here is an example of the word being used in a sentence. "I am sold on the idea of Open Source alternatives." Get it? When I say "sell OS to the public" I mean "get the public to like OS." In other words, I want people to like OS because of its benefits (monetary and not-so-monetary).
Wheels, planes, engines, cars, etc. spread around the world because people found them useful. You can use these things for work or pleasure. Relate that to Open Source.
You know, this is quite entertaning. I never knew that there are so many people who cannot read. Can you comprehand one thing: address customers' needs. That is exactly what Firefox did. See one of my replies later on in the subject.
Mozilla foundataion did a great job at delivering a product to the world. So did the Apache (different customer base though). When I say 'sold' I mean customers willing to get it and use a particular product, not its competitor.
Yeah, thank you for taking a quote out of content, asshole. My point is that we need to satisfy people's needs and address their issues before bragging what is inside. In your language, give customers a book that is right for them.
Bravo. I have a smiliar post here. Although I went a step ahead: let people realize that they need Linux. Let businesses see its potential in terms of profit and success.
Sir, I respect your opinion, but you have to cut down on sharing, caring and other feelings of hippie era. This is all nice and cuddly, but if you want to spread Linux around the world, you need to learn how to market it and address customers' needs and desires as somebody pointed out.
I am an Open Source fan, believe it or not, and I do care about where the movement is going. Unfortunately, it is going nowhere because of poor marketing and appeal to Joe average. Firefox can probably be the only exception of a project that is successfully by companies, like SpeakEasy. What about the rest of the products? Most of the people who talk about Linux tend to bee engineers and geeks that are more likely to scare Joe Average with scientific and tech terms that nobody without a technical degree can understand. Is this how you market things? Attacking Microsoft or any other vendor does not work as well...
If you want to succeed, you need to put Open Source in a business plan and let people know how you can solve their problems and Linux better then your competitors that do not use Open Source. Let's take Firefox for example.
Firefox is a browser that can stop annoying pop-ups. That alone worked on most of my friends because EI could not do it. Firefox has a feature that allows you to open many sites in one window (normal people do not understand "tabbing"). Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer and it will prevent spyware from getting onto your computer. That's how it should work for the rest of OS products. Otherwise, all that cute work will remain just an alternative (and not a solution).
FYI, I work with Open Source products for living :) I need tools like Python, Perl and gcc in order to make a living. Most of my servers run Linux as well as other systems that have ties to OS community. I use products that can meet my needs. I create products that can meet customers' needs and that is why I am able to stay employed and profitable. This is the purpose of being in business.
Okay, then "desire" is what drives customers to businesses. Make people desire linux and not because it is free (as in speech).
Your opinion is just as valuable as an opition expressed by a Republican. If you think that the message sent by Republicans sucks, it does not meant that that is bad message. It means that YOU think that way of the message. I am not a Republican myself, but whenever I hear parties bitching about each other it turns me inside out. Grow up.
You can have a top-notch techonlogy and the best minds in the world working on R&D and you can still fail if you do not satisfy customer requirements or needs or both.
Engineers do not get one thing: no invention can be spread around the world until it can be sold. In this world marketing and sales are just as important (if not more) as R&D and staying on bleeding edge. If you have a Linux box that cannot meet my needs, why the fuck would I buy it? Because somebody with a Ph.D worked on some programs in that box? Give me a fucking break.
Everybody is screaming about Linux and how great it is. I do not see it. Dell sells cheap Wintel boxes because that is what customers want: something cheap and easy. IBM invested money in new technology along with research; it sold its PC division to Lenovo. HP and Compaq had R&D... Now their joint venture is swimming down the toilet. The point is that it does not matter how cool YOU think Linux and Open Source are. They're not going to spread around the world unless people find them useful. No advocacy will help. You can write to tech magazines and give lectures to college students and that is fine; however, you won't be able to succeed until people start saying, "Wow, this Linux thing is really want I need." The keyword is "need." Not "want" or "cool" or "wow." Need for a cheap, effective tech solution is what can and will drive Open Source. This is pure business.
In this world everything is sold, not bought. Sell an Open Source solution to the public and you shall succeed. Nobody gives (or should give) a flying fuck about the technology and what it is inside. If you really want to push Open Source, show cost savings, productivity increase, and fewer losses contributed to the fact that Open Source is not Windows. Then people will talk to you :)
It is funny how your brought up organic chemistry in the 9th grade. I studied that as well in the 9th grade. Not in the U.S., but abroad. Guess what, out of 30 kids in my class there were only 2 who could dig it. The rest of us got Bs just because we were nice to the teacher or because somebody knew somebody who signed paychecks. Ask me how much I remember from that fucking class... Nothing, nothing at all.
In the United States you can go wherever you want if you have skills. We had a freshman in our school, a real genius, he did not take any science classes in high school once he was done with his freshman year. He ended up taking everything in college and graduate in two and a half years. What stopped you from doing the same?
What kids are you talking about? There are plenty of schools that do fairly well when it comes to education. My high school has a high graduation and AP rates along with college acceptance... Many of my friends took college math by the time they were seniors. FYI, this was a public school.
Do you really believe that other countries have better education systems? I got a bulk of my education in Europe and I am willing to bet that a normal American school (read a school that is not located in the middle of a ghetto) can be compared to a normal school in European countries. Private schools are on a fairly equal level as well. In the United States I had a choice between progessing beyond the seventh grade level of math or doing something else; I chose the former. Overseas, I had no choice, but I was able to hack through because I had brains. Kids who could not keep up simply cheated -- sometimes with teacher's assistance -- in order to look good among the others. I do not know what is better.
Are you talking about schools in rural areas or underfunded establishments in innder cities? If you dare, travel around the world and see how underfunded schools there compared to poor schools here. You will be surprised. I believe that you have to clarify your comments; otherwise, you sound like a jerk.
I believe that MPAA released this tool in order to take the very first step towards data censorship. Give it a couple of years and we'll have to run this tools on a weekly basis and report our findings to MPAA or Windows could do it for us automatically.
Everybody wants to cover themselves. Parents are afraid of getting sued for their kids downloads. Teachers are terrified of teaching or not teaching religion in school because somebody may or may not like it. We can't even show a boob or a bare back on TV without generating a lot of fuzz from folks lke this. Americans have become so paranoid that even Super Bowl is taking a hit as described in this article. It takes only one person to turn this world upside down.
That is why I am not surprised that MPAA is doing what it does. FCC fined radio broadcasting corporations for indecency; some stations dropped Howard Stern because they did not want to be fined in the future. Now that there are lawsuits against people who download movies, MPAA released a product that will help you to avoid the fines. I bet you $20 many people will fall for it. When you're a single mother of two, the last thing you want to see is a law suit against you. For some people it is a no-brainer. Once you start the ball rolling, it will never stop unless something major happens. People will "clean" their computers and bend over as far as MPAA wants them to because people do not want to lose their money.
Imagine a slogan that says, "If you run product X and we still find illegal movies on your computer, you will not be fined! Otherwise, we'll charge you because you did not put any effort in protecting our copyright!"
Security depends on the company. I called my ISP, confirmed that all my mail was with SSL. Then I called the credit card company and ask how they sent stuff to me. They used SSL as well as other methods of security. For example, your card info is not disclosed on the statement. You need to go to the web site if you want to check the statement. The e-mail that you get has xxxxxxxxxx for the account number on it. Just your name and balance.
My other vendors are the same way.
1. Take out every credit card and call every agency. Tell them that you do not want your information to be shared with anybody. That will reduce the risk of id theft due to less junk mail.
2. Get a good shredder. Shred every piece of useless mail with your address on it.
3. Sing up for paperless delivery of credit card statements and loans. Most companies use secure servers and if your ISP uses SSL then you can safely get mail in your inbox. The inbox can be archived and encrypted in the future.
4. Sign up for electronic bill pay through your credit card. Your bills will be paid on time and you will get less mail. Remeber, somebody can get your address w/o taking your mail.
5. Inspect your credit reports from three major agencies at least 2 times a year.
6. Call credit report agencies and tell them not to share your info with any other institutions. CC agencies love to do that, especially if you have loans.
7. If you get junk mail, see if you can opt-out. If you can, do that; otherwise, the companies who send you this shit can be in trouble.
I am not perfect. I have nothing against people with accents when they are able to communicate with me, especially if I pay for their service. I work with tons of foreign people, moreover, I am an immigrant myself :)
There is a difference between having an accent or comletely not having a clue what the other person is talking about. My freinds have accents, my co-workers have accents (I have an accent too!), and yet I am able to understand them. If it sounds like English, it is all good to me. However, when I ask a basic question in plain English and the person on the other side of the phone does not understand what I want, it pisses me off. Especially if it happens all the time. Whever I called AT&T support line, I ended up waiting on the phone for at least ten minutes. Then I had to talk to "Paul" or "John" from India. He was not an immigrant familiar with American English, he was an Indian person who could not communicate well enough to be a customer rep. Adding "sir" to every sentence does not help if you have problems with basic language skills.
You must know the language, the culture and the slang of a region if you want to provide good service to people from that area. When I arrived to the States in my early teens, I was not able to understand people because most Americans used American slang for common things. For example, whenever somebody said "it's cool," I thought that people complained about being cold. It took me a couple of months to figure things out and only because I was a kid and I lived in the United States. Culture cannot be learned through books, my friend. Many older immigrants still have problems and this is nothing to be ashamed of. Certain fields, like customer service, require good language and communication skills. It is that simple.
I love speakeasy. Since I switched to their service from AT&T, I have almost no unexplained downtime and no problems with customer support. Their support reps actually speak fluent English without annoying Indian accents and so far all my issues were resolved within a day and no support reps ever mislead me or gave me wrong info (happened with Verizon and AT&T quite often).
Based on the packages that they offer and on cool things like wi-fi resell and open-server policies, it looks like the ISP is definitely for geeks. Also, I believe that if more ISPs provide users with free software that actually works, IE share will be reduced. 99% of non-techie users that I know use software provided by their ISPs. Anything from browsers to anti-virus programs. If things continue going this way, we'll see more open source products distributed to customers.
I hope Speakeasy continues to do what it is doing and keep its level of customer support along with other innovative ideas that many companies seem to forget as soon as they become profitable.
I have friends who got MIS and laughed at C.S./Math/Engineering/Science majors. The problem arose when they started looking for jobs. Without real management skills they could not get into management. Without strong development/theory skills they could not get into development / administration. Many senior people who I know smile when they see MIS degree on a resume of a fresh grad because management and all is great... However, you must have experience and know what you're doing first. Nobody's going to hire you to manage people if you are just out of school and know nothing about what is going on.
C.S. degrees are not about programming. If you want to do that, get a book on " in 21 days" or get a degree in Software Engineering (there are some schools that offer that). C.S. is a very broad degree and can be used anywhere in IT. In fact, none of my friends work as developers. I almost switched to MIS before I realized that I had to give up cool courses, like Physics for Engineers, calc., and advanced comp. sci., in favor of some lame shit like database management.
I found that the best combination was a degree in engineering/science/math combined with a minor in business. That way you have a strong background in whatever you want along with some business experience. Plus, people like hiring people who come from strong majors. I know many developers who came from Math/Physics/EE and sciences. The analytical knowledge that you get from science and math is priceless :)
I ended up taking my gf's Subaru; however, there is no fucking way I am going to get a "soccer mom" station wagon myself. It did do the job though. Audis are nice, but the one that I like, S4, is out of my price range for now :( I was joking about the SUV just to make a point that sometimes we need to survive. And to be honest with you, I see nothing wrong with SUVs for people who actually use them in extreme conditions (not that I'd need one in Boston for everyday usage).
There are two things that puzzle me about the United States of America: fear of human sexuality and fear of progress.
Blowing things up on TV and showing violence on the news is okay. People start complaining only if a part of a naked female body appears on the tube or if those *damn* scientists try yet another method that could potentially save us from suffering and premature death. Whoever thinks that U.S. is a country of freedom has never tried to get an abortion in Mississippi or teach evolution in Georgia's public schools. I do not even want to start talking about stem cells...
Although federal funding is cut, I suspect that it will not stop research in the long run. I hope that my state decides to follow California and raise its own money for embryonic stem cell research. And if I ever become a millionaire, I know where I am going to spend my money. Moreover, you do not have to be rich in order to achieve something. Although I do not have education in biotechnology and other related fields, I think that there are some kids at MIT and Harvard that can achive something that I can't. If we provide enough financial support through small donations, we can fund public labs that rely on money, not religious influence of our government. If this country was able to raise millions of dollars for the victims of the recent tsunami, I believe we can rase enough money for small scientific projects. Once these projects start returnig results, companies will jump on the bandwagon and the industry will be able to support itself without Mr. Bible's say.
I don't know about you guys, but I am freezing my ass off in Boston. We got almost two feet of snow and my gas-sipping Honda will not go anywhere even with snow tires. It does not have enough weight or power to plow through the snow. With that in mind, I am going to get an SUV next year. I don't care about spending more money on gas or pissing off some hippies. We live for today and not for tomorrow.
We must be reponsible; however, we should not forget that soon all of us will die and next generations will have to take care of this planet. You never know what they 'll end up doing, right? We always assume that we are bad and that we need to make the world a better place to live. Unfortunately, in life things are alot like in the stock market: past history does not indicate future performance. We can switch to cars that have 50HP and have 70mpg, use nuclear power instead of coal and eat hummus wraps. But we can't expect the future generations to do the same or even appreciate what we have done for them. For all I know, we can try our best and our kids and grandkids will still do whatever they want. We can elect "green" leaders and yet it will not stop some nut from nuking its neighbor. Do you really think that people in fifty years will say, "Oh, we can't do this to our planet because our grandparents took care of it!"? No, they will not.
We have to do what we need in order to survive and unfortunately sometimes it is not what we would like to do in the ideal world. The world is not pefect and neither are we.
I am okay with women who express their sexuality, just like men have been doing for years and years, homesexual invididuals, and nude scenes on TV. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, if my son does not become interested in sex by the time he hits 15, I'd be quite upset.
What I am not okay with is the fact that we can show lots of violence on TV and nobody gives a fuck about it until somebody screams "vagina" or "poop" or "look at those tits!" Now, that my friend gets sensored. Never mind stupid robots blowing shit up or kids who are spy agents. Do me a favor: help yourself to a remote and watch Disney or Nick for about several hours after 2 pm. You will see what our kids are exposed to. PowerRangers turbo that kick so much ass that they put Italian mobsters of the 1980s to shame. Then there are kids who are fighting against some evil in some sort of magic land. Is that okay with you? Would you rather have a kid who grows up to be a trigger happy violent individual or somebody who knows a thing or two about sex. Last time I checked, knowing what breasts were did not hurt me at all.
Sexual and profane? I find it ironic that in most developed countries of the world sex and some profanity is not a big deal. In Europe people have been enjoying topless beaches and sexy commercials for a long time. What is wrong with that?
In the United States you can't see a boob on TV. Apparently, it will traumatize our children. However, if kids want to watch something really stupid like "Simple Life," or MTV, people are okay with it. Wake up, America! It is funny how Americans react to nudity and sexual themes on TV. Anytime there is a show / movie that inolves that, there is a lot of mastrubation going on. Christian convservaties are bashing everything from Sponge Bob Square Pants to Desparate Housewifes because of refrences to homosexuals (I have no idea why they think that Sponge is gay) or some horny women with bad attitudes. I am sure there are no women like that in real life :)
We have become so uptight and afraid of human sexuality and desires that our president aims to curb women's rights and replace sexual ed with teachings on abstinence. What a pure nonsense! Perhaps we need to learn that life is not pure and simple. There sex, drugs and rock-'n'-roll among many othr things. Women can be horny, there are breasts and nudity does take place in real life. People of all ages can love, cheat, have sex and enjoy their lives the way the want. There is nothing wrong with that. The world is not perfect and we need to learn how to deal with it. Instead of focusing on profanity and nudity, how about we focus on public education, poverty and ecology?
I am not a sexist; however, I see that women lag behind men in many factors of life. I am not sure if its because of biology, genes, etc. Maybe it is due to the fact that women are treated differently from the very beginning. Let's face it: this world love dumb women. And women see nothing wrong with it.
Majority of my guy friends are subscribed to magazines such as Fortune, Money, Popular Science, etc. and every single girl that I know receives either Lucky, Real Simple, People, etc. or other magazines that targer looks, fashion or home design. Do me a favor, next time you're at a party, listen to what people are talking about. Usually, I find that men talk about business, sports and politics and chicks while women discuss latest celebrity stunts and who looks good in what. Does this ring a bell? While men talk about money and investments women blab about Oprah's weightloss...
I am not saying that men are better than women. Yet, everywhere I go, I see that women are being treated in a different way. It looks like our society is trying to make women weaker and keep them stupid. Just check publications that are popular with females and you will see what I am talking about. Eventually, you end up with grow-up women who do not know jack shit about life. They are used to their dads and husbands who solved provlems for them in the past. Once on their own, they do not know what to do. I kid you not, I know some women in their twenties who do not know basic principles of personal finance (we are talking about very basics, like what is 401K and why you should save some money), and yet if you ask them who plays the main role on show X, they will tell you all about it. So what's more important: knowing who is an actor or being able to manage your money?
I wish I were wrong, but I am not. Men still make more money than women -- although women spend more than men -- and women are not promoted as fast as men. What bugs me even more is the fact that women are okay with it. Whenever I try to explain some stuff to my female friends, they do not want to listen. However, when they're fucked on taxes, they want a simple answer. The same thing goes for almost everything. When I say something about it, they tell me that I suck at sales.... Whooptie-fucking-do :)
What exactly do you want to do? If you do not like software engineering, you must like something else in IT in order to make your MS useful in the future. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with the same boring, but advanced, stuff on a daily basis. Is this what you want?
IMO, graduate schools are for those who figured out what they want to do in life after getting an undergraudate degree and working for a while. If you are not sure what you want to do, why bother? Why would you want to spend several years in school doing something that will lead you nowhere? I got a BS in CS in '03. I wanted to go to grad school right away; thankfully, I did not. After working in the field, I realized that I want to do a totally different thing in life. I am going to wait several more years just to make sure that what I think I want is what I want... and then get a degree in Economics.