The USA is run by lawyers, MBAs and marketing people. The fix we're in is exactly what you would expect, given who is in charge. From now on, I'm only voting for scientists and engineers. Liberal ones only, of course.
I thank God (substitute your favorite supreme being) every day that Apple has had trouble with IT departments. I've worked in pharmaceutical discovery for many years and the IT departments that I've worked with are some of the most backward, paranoid, Luddite, control freaks I've ever encountered. Most of the scientists (and the IT contractors) are light years ahead in terms of technical awareness. Maybe the problem stems from the odd notion that you apply the same computer rules for discovery, clinical, manufacturing and accounting across the whole organization. Maybe it's because they're beholden to the guys who take them out to nice restaurants the most. Maybe it's because they like the technology (?) that needs a lot of people to keep it running. Maybe it's because the people who are smart with computers, work in some other industry. Maybe it's because of the inverse relationship between technical rank and technical competence, at least in this industry. Maybe it's because IT management is a political position (coders need not apply). I don't know what the problem is and I don't know how widespread the problem is, but I think Apple has done good by ignoring those clowns in the IT department.
For 25 years I've watched as the same thing has happened to the pharmaceutical industry. It's just a few years behind the automobile industry. We've largely blamed the MBA's but maybe it's just the natural order of things.
1) Start an industry
2) Grow an industry
3) Get rich (profit)
4) Get greedy
5) Collapse
I found it somewhat surprising that the Town name was used to identify the University. Would you say Ann Arbor or Ithaca or New Haven? You might say Berkeley or Princeton. So, I guess you might say Chapel Hill. OK, never mind.
I don't have an OS or even the original Mac anymore, but I hung on to the two original cassette tapes that shipped with my 128K Mac. They're audio cassettes with some New Age music playing in the background describing all the neat stuff this new computer will do. I haven't listened to them for a while.
I read the title differently from its intended meaning. I thought it meant that if there is a project that you want to die for sure, then open source it and everyone will sit around waiting for someone else to work on it. I suspect there are some examples of that happening also.
As a working chemists, I'm pretty much ready to change over. But, although I use the metric system day after day and am completely comfortable with it, I still can't figure out what to wear by looking at the outdoor temperature in centigrade (or is it Celsius?). I also like my pressure in psi if it's high and mm Hg if it's low and in atm if it's near one.
I think we could get used to the metric system pretty fast, so that theory, cited above, about caving into the French is probably the real reason we haven't changed.
It was my understanding that Watson didn't actually get the answers from reading or from listening to Alex, but was, instead, fed the answers via text file. So, although this is a great conversation to have, it shouldn't have started from Watson on Jeopardy.
OK, so Watson was kind of impressive, but this was really a buzzer buzzing contest and the other players didn't stand a chance. You could tell they probably knew as many answers as Watson did but couldn't ring in fast enough to answer. It just wasn't humanly possible. Given that Watson was fed the answers electronically as a text file instead of parsing Alex's reading or doing character recognition of the board, both of which are technically feasible, I think this was an unfair contest. I'd still go to Ken first if I had a question.
The reason that we're falling behind in science is that we, as a nation, don't value scientists anymore. It's hard to learn science and be good at it. I'm in my mid-50's, worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years but have been out of work for 3 of the last 6 years. I'd doing a post-doc now. That means about a 1/3 salary. It would sound like whining but I have tons of friends in the same situation. Ivy League PhD's, out of work or "consulting". Good careers for a while, then all the jobs go off to China. The STEM crap is just a ruse to get more people to go to school for 9 years post high school and work for 80K if they're lucky. And then be out of it permanently at 45.
You can make a lot more money doing something else. You should only do it if you love it. Science is the new Art History.
I agree that everyone who remembers Steve Case is being a little hard on the guy. He started a little company that got a lot of people on the web for the first time. And when the world decided that his company was worth gazillions more than he thought it was, he quickly turned that balloon money into ownership in a real company, Time-Warner. So he made sure that his supporters (ie. stock holders) got a piece of the action before the bubble burst and turned their investments into dust. It's unfortunate that the TW shareholders had to foot that bill.
I think Zuckerberg is busy doing the same thing with that Goldman-Sachs deal. He's way too smart not to realize the tenuous nature of his current position.
I am a little bothered by all this "Who is Steve Case?" stuff. Makes me feel old.
I got it to work and it's pretty cool and reasonably fast and I looked at all the forbidden things but it also locked up my machine at the "pull the plug from the wall level" twice.
I used Chrome beta on a 2007 Aluminum iMac running the latest Snow Leopard.
There used to be a group of people, that met annually at the site of the Wright brothers first flight, called the "Man will never fly" society. Their motto was "Birds fly, men drink". Is this the same kind of thing?
Actually, what you're saying is crap. Advanced degrees in the US, in the sciences at least, are for the most part, free. I graduated from an Ivy with a PhD in chemistry and don't know anyone in my class who graduated with any debt, except this one guy who also had a sports car and a boat and dressed fairly well for a grad student. You get TA's and RA's and your tuition is waved or covered under a grant or something. You are spreading bad information.
I thought the same thing. I first thought of the gremlin, but when I looked it up, I saw that it wasn't rounded enough. I remembered a really nice looking undergrad that worked in our lab in graduate school. She seemed very unapproachable except that she drove a Pacer. So that meant we could make fun of her and she suddenly seemed human again.
You may be right about the lack of altruism in the pharmaceutical industry, but there are a lot of naturally occurring drugs on the market and companies are making a lot of money from them. They certainly are patentable.
Slashdot Mirror
The USA is run by lawyers, MBAs and marketing people. The fix we're in is exactly what you would expect, given who is in charge. From now on, I'm only voting for scientists and engineers. Liberal ones only, of course.
I know you're trying to be funny but it's not polite to make fun of people whose first language isn't English.
I thank God (substitute your favorite supreme being) every day that Apple has had trouble with IT departments. I've worked in pharmaceutical discovery for many years and the IT departments that I've worked with are some of the most backward, paranoid, Luddite, control freaks I've ever encountered. Most of the scientists (and the IT contractors) are light years ahead in terms of technical awareness. Maybe the problem stems from the odd notion that you apply the same computer rules for discovery, clinical, manufacturing and accounting across the whole organization. Maybe it's because they're beholden to the guys who take them out to nice restaurants the most. Maybe it's because they like the technology (?) that needs a lot of people to keep it running. Maybe it's because the people who are smart with computers, work in some other industry. Maybe it's because of the inverse relationship between technical rank and technical competence, at least in this industry. Maybe it's because IT management is a political position (coders need not apply). I don't know what the problem is and I don't know how widespread the problem is, but I think Apple has done good by ignoring those clowns in the IT department.
For 25 years I've watched as the same thing has happened to the pharmaceutical industry. It's just a few years behind the automobile industry. We've largely blamed the MBA's but maybe it's just the natural order of things.
1) Start an industry
2) Grow an industry
3) Get rich (profit)
4) Get greedy
5) Collapse
Don't do it, Man!!!
You'll go mad!!!
Duke Medical uses it.
For what it's worth.
What's wrong with Arial?
I think I now use Arial because most computers come with a zillion fonts and Arial is at the top and Helvetica is lost somewhere in the middle.
I found it somewhat surprising that the Town name was used to identify the University. Would you say Ann Arbor or Ithaca or New Haven? You might say Berkeley or Princeton. So, I guess you might say Chapel Hill. OK, never mind.
OK, off topic.
I don't have an OS or even the original Mac anymore, but I hung on to the two original cassette tapes that shipped with my 128K Mac. They're audio cassettes with some New Age music playing in the background describing all the neat stuff this new computer will do. I haven't listened to them for a while.
I wonder what they're worth.
I read the title differently from its intended meaning. I thought it meant that if there is a project that you want to die for sure, then open source it and everyone will sit around waiting for someone else to work on it. I suspect there are some examples of that happening also.
As a working chemists, I'm pretty much ready to change over. But, although I use the metric system day after day and am completely comfortable with it, I still can't figure out what to wear by looking at the outdoor temperature in centigrade (or is it Celsius?). I also like my pressure in psi if it's high and mm Hg if it's low and in atm if it's near one.
I think we could get used to the metric system pretty fast, so that theory, cited above, about caving into the French is probably the real reason we haven't changed.
It was my understanding that Watson didn't actually get the answers from reading or from listening to Alex, but was, instead, fed the answers via text file. So, although this is a great conversation to have, it shouldn't have started from Watson on Jeopardy.
OK, so Watson was kind of impressive, but this was really a buzzer buzzing contest and the other players didn't stand a chance. You could tell they probably knew as many answers as Watson did but couldn't ring in fast enough to answer. It just wasn't humanly possible. Given that Watson was fed the answers electronically as a text file instead of parsing Alex's reading or doing character recognition of the board, both of which are technically feasible, I think this was an unfair contest. I'd still go to Ken first if I had a question.
The reason that we're falling behind in science is that we, as a nation, don't value scientists anymore. It's hard to learn science and be good at it. I'm in my mid-50's, worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years but have been out of work for 3 of the last 6 years. I'd doing a post-doc now. That means about a 1/3 salary. It would sound like whining but I have tons of friends in the same situation. Ivy League PhD's, out of work or "consulting". Good careers for a while, then all the jobs go off to China. The STEM crap is just a ruse to get more people to go to school for 9 years post high school and work for 80K if they're lucky. And then be out of it permanently at 45.
You can make a lot more money doing something else. You should only do it if you love it. Science is the new Art History.
How come when I said the same thing yesterday (here), I didn't get modded up to 5?
I agree that everyone who remembers Steve Case is being a little hard on the guy. He started a little company that got a lot of people on the web for the first time. And when the world decided that his company was worth gazillions more than he thought it was, he quickly turned that balloon money into ownership in a real company, Time-Warner. So he made sure that his supporters (ie. stock holders) got a piece of the action before the bubble burst and turned their investments into dust. It's unfortunate that the TW shareholders had to foot that bill.
I think Zuckerberg is busy doing the same thing with that Goldman-Sachs deal. He's way too smart not to realize the tenuous nature of his current position.
I am a little bothered by all this "Who is Steve Case?" stuff. Makes me feel old.
I got it to work and it's pretty cool and reasonably fast and I looked at all the forbidden things but it also locked up my machine at the "pull the plug from the wall level" twice. I used Chrome beta on a 2007 Aluminum iMac running the latest Snow Leopard.
An off-the-cuff comment, nothing more.
There used to be a group of people, that met annually at the site of the Wright brothers first flight, called the "Man will never fly" society. Their motto was "Birds fly, men drink". Is this the same kind of thing?
Actually, what you're saying is crap. Advanced degrees in the US, in the sciences at least, are for the most part, free. I graduated from an Ivy with a PhD in chemistry and don't know anyone in my class who graduated with any debt, except this one guy who also had a sports car and a boat and dressed fairly well for a grad student. You get TA's and RA's and your tuition is waved or covered under a grant or something. You are spreading bad information.
If you were all about Open Source, you would post with some informative name like izpac47 instead of that Anonymous Coward crap.
Don't do it.
Egads! that's annoying
I thought the same thing. I first thought of the gremlin, but when I looked it up, I saw that it wasn't rounded enough. I remembered a really nice looking undergrad that worked in our lab in graduate school. She seemed very unapproachable except that she drove a Pacer. So that meant we could make fun of her and she suddenly seemed human again.
You may be right about the lack of altruism in the pharmaceutical industry, but there are a lot of naturally occurring drugs on the market and companies are making a lot of money from them. They certainly are patentable.