The biggest cause of tuition increase is simply the availability of larger and larger loans through government programs. This acts as a dis-incentive for schools to keep costs down. When a school decides it wants a new building, or wants to hire some additional staff, it bumps up the tuition a little to cover the costs. People grumble about it, but the loans are there to cover the costs, so they suck it up and pay because they want the diploma. Rinse, lather, repeat.
It's kind of like the recent housing bubble. Demand was there, loans were available, and so despite the grumbling in some quarters people went ahead and bought. And just like any bubble, this won't end well.
What you're responsible for is what they produce, not the people. If your team is composed of professionals, they will be self-motivated already. So focus on helping them produce. This means looking for what's hampering them and working to minimize/eliminate it, and looking for what could make them more productive and working to provide that. If you don't know -- ask. Talk to them, as a group or one-on-one, and find out what their "pain points" are or what they want to see done.
Never forget they are people, not "human resources", and treating them with respect and consideration will earn you major props.
It's cheaper the first time 'round. But settling is just a way of telling everyone you'll roll over. Any company that does this is begging for another fifty class action lawsuits. Once the attorneys have been brought into play by the other team, you have to play the legal game.
A better idea is mediation first, then if that fails bring out the attorneys. But in our legal system there is essentially no risk/cost associated with bringing a lawsuit, so that's what people do.
Okay, here's how it works. Nerds play D&D to max out their characters, knowing every rule and table in the book, and have all the source material memorized starting with the first printed edition of D&D through 4.0.
Dorks play D&D to get treasure, kill the dragon, and... yeah, that's about it.
Geeks play D&D to develop and roleplay their characters, tweak the rules for better balance, and have fun with friends.
That's the gist of it anyway, and it's all I have time to write this morning. Gotta roll up a new character, so I can go kill dragons and get rich!
Mormonism offers three degrees of Heaven after we die, and their biblical basis comes from 1 Cor 15:40 and 2 Cor 12:2. If you look at these verses in isolation that interpretation is understandable.
When you look at these verses in conjunction with other verses that mention "heaven" or "the heavens", it becomes clear that the first tier of heaven is the sky; the second tier is space with the planets and stars; and the third tier is the God's Kingdom. Only this third Kingdom is relevant in terms of the afterlife.
Furthermore, there are many verses that make it clear there are only two destinations after we die: the Kingdom of Heaven and the outer darkness (both of which have several names). There are (to my knowledge) no verses that indicate or imply that there is more than one Heaven as a destination in the afterlife.
This reflects my current understanding, which is based on my own research into what the Bible says. Do your own legwork.
I'm not a game programmer, but I do a lot of multi-threaded development. In multi-threading you when you need to guarantee that things happen in a particular order, you use a specific multi-threading technique such as a semaphore. Without these techniques, thread-1 can get more CPU time than thread-2. So multi-threading adds logic complexity and overhead.
In some multi-threaded systems, each thread can act independently of all other threads. It doesn't matter whether thread-1 gets ahead of thread-2. In a game, there are dependencies because everything is time-synchronized. Each thread, though scheduled independently by the OS, must be in synchronization with the "game clock".
Further, there may be data dependencies between threads. To use the parent's example, the AI thread has to decide where the orc is going to be before the render thread can draw it. And both threads need to be synchronized to the game clock so that the orc doesn't suddenly look like it's taken a potion of haste (or slow).
My supposition is that at the present time it is easier to single-thread games based on performance as well as logic simplicity. As multi-core processors become prevalent, it will become advantageous from a performance perspective to use multiple threads to utilize these CPUs. That point is where the "cost" of increased logic complexity and thread synchronization is outweighed by the increased gameplay value.
Hi alhaz, this is Ron. Thanks for the complimentary words. As it happens I do have a position open at the moment... send me an email at enforcer@riaa.com and we can talk. Look forward to hearing from you!
According to those who pay attention to such things, the lack of socialization in childhood due to excessive time with TV, videogames and computers is causing a lot of problems in school. Many kids literally don't know how to get along with each other (and adults) because they aren't getting these basic social skills. They either sit passively watching TV or interact with the game -- not each other. (At least not directly in the real world.)
What happens when these kids with serious socialization/interpersonal difficulties become adults? Depression, anxiety disorders, and anger problems are the norm. Difficulties establishing and maintaining relationships. Difficulties at work.
As wonderful as technology is, and as much fun as videogames are, they don't replace human interaction. People who don't interact in real life (by choice or inability) are missing out on a lot, whether or not they realize it (and sadly, many don't).
*Wipes tear away* Ahh, how fondly I remember the days of 4- and 16-color graphics, and PC speaker music.
[rant mode] You young'uns nowadays don't know how hard we had it back then. Pretending a PC speaker is a symphonic orchestra playing Beethoven or Tchaikovsky; trying to figure out if the 16-pixel blob facing your hero is attacking you with a mace or a wand; not even having a "save game" capability most of the time. Yeah, you kids have it easy now, with your 3d surround sound speakers, 32-bit alpha channel 128K textured real-time shaded fully lighted 1600x1200 graphics, your 32-player networked game mode. Bah. A pox on you all, I'm perfectly happy with BEEP BOO-BEEEEEP BZZZT when my character dies and you should be too! [/rant mode]
The best way to get hired is through the network, having someone you know help bring you on board. Or even your weird Uncle Fester, though the work he wants you to do might not be too appealing....;-)
If you don't have that, or if like me you don't have a degree, you can jump-start your career through a temp agency. I did my first IT/computer related work through Manpower and Kelly. I had offers to go fulltime from two of the four companies I temp'd for. Most of the people who work for temp agencies are people who aren't able to hold down a fulltime job. If you get on an assignment that lasts for more than a few weeks and allows you to show some potential, you will almost certainly eventually get an offer.
Plus, it's a great way to see what different companies and industries are like. I only worked for four companies, but they were all in very different fields. The one I was at longest sells equipment for chemical analysis -- gas chromatography and suchlike. Fascinating and pretty amazing what they can do and how it's done, and I got to learn a little about it while I was there.
It looks like Intel is coming out with some compelling technology that addresses the major weaknesses and limitations of current motherboard and peripheral technologies. AMD has grabbed (and will retain for some time) a lead in pure processor performance, but overall system performance (as perceived by the user) and the overall user experience is built on more than just how fast the CPU is.
So, my question to those who follow this industry closer than I do is how will AMD position itself for success? Will motherboard manufacturers come out with AMD-compatible boards that sport PCI-Express and the other (non-CPU) new features that are talked about in this article? Or does AMD have another plan?
Java has had a lot of effort put into it over the past four years. It's now a mature platform, with everything that label implies. I'm looking forward to the 1.5 release, and it seems the Java community is more excited by this release than anything since 1.2..NET, on the other hand, still feels very much like a work-in-progress below the flashy GUI stuff that Microsoft is so good at (and which is perhaps the remaining major weakness in Java[1]). There are some things it gets "right" that Java doesn't, but it's clear that it's a 1.x release. Of course, Microsoft isn't standing still either. The resulting competition is good for both developers and end-users.
[1] The problem is largely due to widespread ignorance concerning best practices for creating a user interface in Swing. In addition, GUI design tools are notoriously poor at generating good-quality code that does use good practices (though this is improving); and books provide simple, small examples suitable only for the toy applications they showcase. Most Swing developers learn the tricks of the trade through experience and code borrowing.
Agree, mostly, and well stated. At the corporate/enterprise level, and especially for core business functions, what people want most is a competent vendor behind whatever they deploy. (Or perhaps more accurately, a vendor that is _perceived_ as competent.) They want to know that there's a go-to guy, that he is going to be able to fix whatever problems come up (technical, business, or legal), and that he's going to be around for a while.
That said, Linux is used quite a lot for smaller projects which are less critical. Linux (and Open Source in general) tends to be used for deployments where a problem has limited impact, or in some cases, when the Open Source solution is generally recognized as an accepted standard. Or as you said, in places where the guys have "free reign of the place".
Pressure from parents and peers on students to score high marks in the exams is immense and each year dozens across the country kill themselves when they find they have failed.
Okay, folks. An education is valuable, and high grades help get a better education which can help you get a higher-paying or more-prestigious job.
But, let's take the reality pill here. First off, your life is not over if you do poorly on an exam, if you flunk a class, or if you don't graduate. You can go on to be very successful. Second, the really important things in life are intangibles that have little to do with material rewards, career successes, and how much money or power you have.
Parents and other people who place so much value and importance on a kid's academic success have forgotten (or never really knew) about these intangibles. Unfortunately, the kids suffer for it because they are too young to know any better. When mom and dad act like that science grade is The Most Important Thing in life and that success in life requires a high grade, and then the kid fails that class (or gets a 'B'), of course they are going to think their life is a failure.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest cause of tuition increase is simply the availability of larger and larger loans through government programs. This acts as a dis-incentive for schools to keep costs down. When a school decides it wants a new building, or wants to hire some additional staff, it bumps up the tuition a little to cover the costs. People grumble about it, but the loans are there to cover the costs, so they suck it up and pay because they want the diploma. Rinse, lather, repeat.
It's kind of like the recent housing bubble. Demand was there, loans were available, and so despite the grumbling in some quarters people went ahead and bought. And just like any bubble, this won't end well.
Thomas
What you're responsible for is what they produce, not the people. If your team is composed of professionals, they will be self-motivated already. So focus on helping them produce. This means looking for what's hampering them and working to minimize/eliminate it, and looking for what could make them more productive and working to provide that. If you don't know -- ask. Talk to them, as a group or one-on-one, and find out what their "pain points" are or what they want to see done.
Never forget they are people, not "human resources", and treating them with respect and consideration will earn you major props.
Thomas
In any event, I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't seen it.
And for those who are literate, I recommend reading the book.
It's cheaper the first time 'round. But settling is just a way of telling everyone you'll roll over. Any company that does this is begging for another fifty class action lawsuits. Once the attorneys have been brought into play by the other team, you have to play the legal game.
A better idea is mediation first, then if that fails bring out the attorneys. But in our legal system there is essentially no risk/cost associated with bringing a lawsuit, so that's what people do.
Thomas
I think you might be needing something other than coffee....
Okay, here's how it works. Nerds play D&D to max out their characters, knowing every rule and table in the book, and have all the source material memorized starting with the first printed edition of D&D through 4.0.
... yeah, that's about it.
Dorks play D&D to get treasure, kill the dragon, and
Geeks play D&D to develop and roleplay their characters, tweak the rules for better balance, and have fun with friends.
That's the gist of it anyway, and it's all I have time to write this morning. Gotta roll up a new character, so I can go kill dragons and get rich!
Mormonism offers three degrees of Heaven after we die, and their biblical basis comes from 1 Cor 15:40 and 2 Cor 12:2. If you look at these verses in isolation that interpretation is understandable.
When you look at these verses in conjunction with other verses that mention "heaven" or "the heavens", it becomes clear that the first tier of heaven is the sky; the second tier is space with the planets and stars; and the third tier is the God's Kingdom. Only this third Kingdom is relevant in terms of the afterlife.
Furthermore, there are many verses that make it clear there are only two destinations after we die: the Kingdom of Heaven and the outer darkness (both of which have several names). There are (to my knowledge) no verses that indicate or imply that there is more than one Heaven as a destination in the afterlife.
This reflects my current understanding, which is based on my own research into what the Bible says. Do your own legwork.
Thomas
Hey, it's not too late. Let's see now, what's the phone number for DHS?
Tomster
I'm not a game programmer, but I do a lot of multi-threaded development. In multi-threading you when you need to guarantee that things happen in a particular order, you use a specific multi-threading technique such as a semaphore. Without these techniques, thread-1 can get more CPU time than thread-2. So multi-threading adds logic complexity and overhead.
In some multi-threaded systems, each thread can act independently of all other threads. It doesn't matter whether thread-1 gets ahead of thread-2. In a game, there are dependencies because everything is time-synchronized. Each thread, though scheduled independently by the OS, must be in synchronization with the "game clock".
Further, there may be data dependencies between threads. To use the parent's example, the AI thread has to decide where the orc is going to be before the render thread can draw it. And both threads need to be synchronized to the game clock so that the orc doesn't suddenly look like it's taken a potion of haste (or slow).
My supposition is that at the present time it is easier to single-thread games based on performance as well as logic simplicity. As multi-core processors become prevalent, it will become advantageous from a performance perspective to use multiple threads to utilize these CPUs. That point is where the "cost" of increased logic complexity and thread synchronization is outweighed by the increased gameplay value.
1. A good start.
2. Not nearly enough.
3. What's wrong with a firing squad?
4. You mean those Pen1s En1argement Pi11s don't work???
This historically accurate movie depicts a Space Shuttle mission to repair and re-orbit a Russian "communications" satellite.
I wish Firefox had "highlight matching brace". *sigh*.
Hi alhaz, this is Ron. Thanks for the complimentary words. As it happens I do have a position open at the moment... send me an email at enforcer@riaa.com and we can talk. Look forward to hearing from you!
Best wishes,
Ron
Mod parent up to +8. I'm LMAO w/ tears in my eyes. Thanks, that was some much-appreciated midday humor.
According to those who pay attention to such things, the lack of socialization in childhood due to excessive time with TV, videogames and computers is causing a lot of problems in school. Many kids literally don't know how to get along with each other (and adults) because they aren't getting these basic social skills. They either sit passively watching TV or interact with the game -- not each other. (At least not directly in the real world.)
What happens when these kids with serious socialization/interpersonal difficulties become adults? Depression, anxiety disorders, and anger problems are the norm. Difficulties establishing and maintaining relationships. Difficulties at work.
As wonderful as technology is, and as much fun as videogames are, they don't replace human interaction. People who don't interact in real life (by choice or inability) are missing out on a lot, whether or not they realize it (and sadly, many don't).
I believe I've read that before... let me think.
Ah yes, now it comes to me. "To each according to his need, from each according to his ability."
*Wipes tear away* Ahh, how fondly I remember the days of 4- and 16-color graphics, and PC speaker music.
[rant mode] You young'uns nowadays don't know how hard we had it back then. Pretending a PC speaker is a symphonic orchestra playing Beethoven or Tchaikovsky; trying to figure out if the 16-pixel blob facing your hero is attacking you with a mace or a wand; not even having a "save game" capability most of the time. Yeah, you kids have it easy now, with your 3d surround sound speakers, 32-bit alpha channel 128K textured real-time shaded fully lighted 1600x1200 graphics, your 32-player networked game mode. Bah. A pox on you all, I'm perfectly happy with BEEP BOO-BEEEEEP BZZZT when my character dies and you should be too! [/rant mode]
I dunno, the screenshots look about the same to me as the original DOOM.
:-)
.
.
.
Then again, I'm using Lynx as my browser....
This is otherwise known as Security through Assumption.
The best way to get hired is through the network, having someone you know help bring you on board. Or even your weird Uncle Fester, though the work he wants you to do might not be too appealing.... ;-)
If you don't have that, or if like me you don't have a degree, you can jump-start your career through a temp agency. I did my first IT/computer related work through Manpower and Kelly. I had offers to go fulltime from two of the four companies I temp'd for. Most of the people who work for temp agencies are people who aren't able to hold down a fulltime job. If you get on an assignment that lasts for more than a few weeks and allows you to show some potential, you will almost certainly eventually get an offer.
Plus, it's a great way to see what different companies and industries are like. I only worked for four companies, but they were all in very different fields. The one I was at longest sells equipment for chemical analysis -- gas chromatography and suchlike. Fascinating and pretty amazing what they can do and how it's done, and I got to learn a little about it while I was there.
-Thomas
It looks like Intel is coming out with some compelling technology that addresses the major weaknesses and limitations of current motherboard and peripheral technologies. AMD has grabbed (and will retain for some time) a lead in pure processor performance, but overall system performance (as perceived by the user) and the overall user experience is built on more than just how fast the CPU is.
So, my question to those who follow this industry closer than I do is how will AMD position itself for success? Will motherboard manufacturers come out with AMD-compatible boards that sport PCI-Express and the other (non-CPU) new features that are talked about in this article? Or does AMD have another plan?
Good for your son. My son, who is 3, can kick your 4-year-old son's ass til it's black and blue. :-)
Java has had a lot of effort put into it over the past four years. It's now a mature platform, with everything that label implies. I'm looking forward to the 1.5 release, and it seems the Java community is more excited by this release than anything since 1.2. .NET, on the other hand, still feels very much like a work-in-progress below the flashy GUI stuff that Microsoft is so good at (and which is perhaps the remaining major weakness in Java[1]). There are some things it gets "right" that Java doesn't, but it's clear that it's a 1.x release. Of course, Microsoft isn't standing still either. The resulting competition is good for both developers and end-users.
[1] The problem is largely due to widespread ignorance concerning best practices for creating a user interface in Swing. In addition, GUI design tools are notoriously poor at generating good-quality code that does use good practices (though this is improving); and books provide simple, small examples suitable only for the toy applications they showcase. Most Swing developers learn the tricks of the trade through experience and code borrowing.
-Thomas
Agree, mostly, and well stated. At the corporate/enterprise level, and especially for core business functions, what people want most is a competent vendor behind whatever they deploy. (Or perhaps more accurately, a vendor that is _perceived_ as competent.) They want to know that there's a go-to guy, that he is going to be able to fix whatever problems come up (technical, business, or legal), and that he's going to be around for a while.
That said, Linux is used quite a lot for smaller projects which are less critical. Linux (and Open Source in general) tends to be used for deployments where a problem has limited impact, or in some cases, when the Open Source solution is generally recognized as an accepted standard. Or as you said, in places where the guys have "free reign of the place".
-Thomas
Okay, folks. An education is valuable, and high grades help get a better education which can help you get a higher-paying or more-prestigious job.
But, let's take the reality pill here. First off, your life is not over if you do poorly on an exam, if you flunk a class, or if you don't graduate. You can go on to be very successful. Second, the really important things in life are intangibles that have little to do with material rewards, career successes, and how much money or power you have.
Parents and other people who place so much value and importance on a kid's academic success have forgotten (or never really knew) about these intangibles. Unfortunately, the kids suffer for it because they are too young to know any better. When mom and dad act like that science grade is The Most Important Thing in life and that success in life requires a high grade, and then the kid fails that class (or gets a 'B'), of course they are going to think their life is a failure.
-Thomas