I remember the first time I "surfed the web," it took a long time to get comfortable with not logging out of a web site. In BBS land, only assholes dropped carrier -- you always logged out so that the BBS could recoup properly. The same gnawing feeling you get when you finish a semester of university and think you should still be doing homework.
Then there were the days where you could download special software (Excalibur BBS?) and get VGA GRAPHICS from sites! Or how about combing through my modem guide looking for cool shit to stick in my init string (at&Z1=5551212 anyone?) Of course, no feeling of exhilaration quite matched the Telix connect bell after 2 hours of redialing an awesome board
I also spent quite a bit of time as a sysop. I remember configuring every damn ANSI screen in the config directory, customizing every prompt in the options menu -- it was labour, but watching people enjoy your OWN BBS was a great feeling.
Chatting was cool, too. Installing the JModem protocol so that you could chat and download, or download and upload. Then again, listening to your PC speaker play Guns n' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" as a page tune was often better than talking to ass kissers trying to get Co-Sys:)
This is the first time I've seen an article on/., as opposed to comments on one written somewhere else.
It's against Slashdot's norm -- a news site -- but I think it makes for a great idea. It lets me read a single source for both tech news and a little bleeding-edge knowledge. Although I dislike the karma whore article posting phenomenon, I love reading those articles inline.
Truth be told, this also helps flesh out a university education. Although I learned a lot in my specialist degree, I became a well-rounded and knowledgable geek only through outside interests: clicking on Slashdot links, messing with Linux, etc. Until now, I didn't think about "XML Namespaces and how they affect XPath and XSLT," but now I can discuss it with a clue.
Keep it up guys -- this improves the value of Slashdot immensely. At the very least, give this concept a section of its own (articles.slashdot.org?) with links from the main page.
While all three box manufacturers are stuck at $199 USD (while Japan, the EU, and Canada sell them for less)
I heard about that "better" price drop in Canada, but was dismayed by my visits to FutureShop Canada and Walmart (in person.) All systems cost $299 Canadian, only $10 (Canadian) cheaper.
I was in a position similar to yours. I have a family, responsibility, and a desire for a software development position.
However, I didn't even have the job. I was unemployed. All I had was my highschool diploma.
I decided to bite the bullet, and apply for University. My wife stayed at home with my daughter, and I worked part-time at a local coffee store to pay most of my bills. Student aid also helped.
I took an internship between 3rd and 4th year at a respectable company, and that got me "real world" experience. I also dropped my coffee job in favour of some independent contracting (web / documentation / programming.)
I finished my last exam this week, and I have a job waiting for me in an amazing and prestigious company (well, hrrrm... this is Slashdot. Perhaps that sentiment wouldn't hold here.)
The one thing that separates my story from yours is that I went right from high school to university. My point is, though, that the only difference between you and I is that you've worked for a few years. It doesn't matter -- I've seen tons of "mature students" in my lectures. In fact, you'll have the advantage of a practical underpinning that most nerds have no clue of. In the big scheme of things, you'll take a 4 year "pause" from your career. That's nothing. It seems daunting to go back to school after all your practical experience, but your future is in your hands.
Is this really new? I don't know where I first heard it, but I know that a "big crunch" has certainly been theorized. I've always thought that it seems likely that a big crunch might cause a big bang to follow. I don't know, maybe I was assuming something.
You're right, the "big crunch" is not new. However, this way of explaining its cause is. From the article I posted earlier,
The idea of a cyclic universe has been around ever since the Big Bang was first proposed in the 1930s. But no one could find a way to make the "big crunch" that ends one cycle of the universe "bounce" to become the big bang of the next.
I guffawed at first, too, until I read this better writeup.
If you look at the complexity of human beings, it's just crazy how many things have to go right to get intelligence. I mean, it took 2-3 BILLION years just to get us, and no other animal form is even close to us.
According to that logic, it took me 4 years to finish the final assignment of my final course in univeristy. What if there was a lot of time where things were happening, but not towards our development as human beings? I'm not saying that you're incorrect, but for the purposes of your final conclusion, I don't think it's valid.
When you combine that with the fact that it only takes 2-3 million years to fill a galaxy once you have intelligent life even at sub-light speeds, that means it's probably never happened before in this galaxy.
Well, our galaxy is about 150,000 light years across. It also has about 400 billion stars. Even if we had the capability to transport lots of people at the speed of light, we could only send 1 person to every ~40 stars! So it's likely that we wouldn't make physical contact with a civilization, but perhaps radio contact. Depending on how long intelligent, radio-capable civilizations last (self annihalation? extinction?) our intelligent, radio-capable years may never overlap with those of other civilizations. Perhaps many intelligent species have evolved and died in this expansion?
So given that intelligence almost never happens, and it took about 1/7th - 1/4th the age of universe for it to happen here, I think that gives evidence that we needed a hell of a lot of universe cycles to get it to happen.
Well, scientists still have no idea if (and definately no idea when) the universe will coalesce. If the cycle takes 1000 billion years, our civilization took only 1% of its lifetime to evolve to this point.
Anyways, it's a lot easier to pick apart a theory than it is to make one:) Your idea is interesting, but I just think that some of the facts aren't sound.
Sky and Telescope also covered this story, but didn't obscure it with piss-poor scientific writing like this other source did.
As an aside, the other source over simplifies things, and leaves you with the feeling that you learned nothing but marketing hype. It's target is obviously non-astronomers (or we would have read the original paper in an original journal.) Because of that, they should have explained "branes" (and other terms) with more than sound-bytes from involved physicists. Think diagrams, break-out boxes, etc.
Wow, sounds like your the second person (aside from me, of course) on Slashdot with an open mind. Most people come here to read the stories, then force their opinion down the throad of others. Even when they need to bend facts, or use logically vapid (slippery slope / straw man / ad hominem / etc) arguments. Perhaps especially so:)
Hrrm... Hate to bite on an AC, but according to the Seti@Home literature,
"An average, current model home home computer should take between 10 and 50 hours to complete one work-unit. This assumes that the computer ONLY works on SETI@home." [About Seti@Home]
Granted, this was written in a past incarnation of the client, but few people dedicate enough CPU time to the client to return stats as quickly as you. Don't forget the average is CPU time, not real time.
And the fact that most real computers (ie: not supercomputers) take ~1 week (part time) to process a unit, this reward is largely for those already involved.
I'm really upset about all these "your rights online" issues -- not because it's bad reporting (despite what you trolls like to say,) but because I'm getting desensitized to it.
In the net's infancy, the community attacked ANY company who breached our trust or good will. A lot of dot-bombs can attest to that. As we watch the internet grow, however, these violations have become so mainstream that only the truly offensive ones catch our attention. Even at that, the definition of "offensive" changes every day.
A few years ago, Yahoo! couldn't have dreamed of pulling a stunt like they just did. The backlash would have crippled, and possibly bankrupted them. Today, though, it's little more than an annoyance to us and a non-issue to newbies.
Kazaa got removed from download.com, but will still probably make millions from their scam. Companies like Gator will continue to abuse their market share. As the internet matures -- and we get even more desensitized -- companies will do worse, and we'll accept it.
Well, this isn't Access, but Db Visualizer is the best cross-platform (Java) SQL tool I've ever seen. It's still not a tool for morons (it's aimed at SQL developers,) but it lets you visually edit rows in your DB and other niceties.
Third year? Heh. I thought that was bad until my sleepless 4th year. Don't kid yourself. Interesting course titles don't mean that the course is any less difficult!
It's a little more interesting, perhaps, but shit it's a lot of work.
Re:I've just got this to say... Good read?
on
Chase the Rabbits
·
· Score: 1
32 comments by the time I post this one...I'd be willing to bet 25 of them didn't read the article... And now I know I've *gotta* get a SportBrain.:D
The second one was insightful too...PPS With SportBrain gone, I picked up a new client last week...
Then again, reading the two articles might have been nearly as grueling (but enjoyable) as the training itself:)
If you want to talk about "real world value" in a certification, those "in the know" will tell you the only real linux certification is a blindfolded install of Debian!
After that, the MS certifications (The following are valid responses to a blue screen of death...) are pretty shallow.
Along your point, there's actually a technique that uses the self similarity of images to help you compress themselves. For example, you might have seen the "Sierpinsky Triangle." You can generate this image with a few very simple recursive move/resize/draw operations.
Fractal compression uses this technique on abstract images. It aims to find a set of operations (sometimes very large) to generate any given input picture. It's very cool, and you can get more information (including example pictures) at this page.
The "state of the art" of fractal compression beats JPEG compression at some compression ratios, but looses at others. It's also interesting that a fractally-compressed image has no implicit size (ie: 640x460), so it enlarges MUCH better than simple image enlargement.
I sure hope that "the message" is written a hell of a lot better than the embarassing english prose in their description of it.
As an aside, they describe the dots beside the naked man and woman as: "The dotted line on the left side, give (sic) a representation of Up (sic) and Down (sic). It is ballistic trajectory, showing clearly where the gravity goes (sic)." They should have just drawn the woman a little older, so the aliens could just look at her wrinkled breasts to see where the gravity goes!
If this project becomes a centralized point of distribution or access (ie: SourceForge,) this could really help the open-knowledge community.
For example, many people run out to buy expensive assembler books when the best resource is available online. Or, they run out to buy expensive Linux device driver manuals when the best resource is available online.
Open-source software mainly helps people write new software that uses key techniques / algorithms from open software. Open-source documentation, on the other hand, helps impart the foundations on which the open-source programs get created.
Ideally, this openscience approach would spread -- and students wouldn't need to spend $500 per semester on textbooks. And unfortunately, the Project Gutenberg idea to import books as their copyright expires (50 years after the author dies) would never fly for technology-based books.
I agree that a Linux console is a beautiful thing, but what do you reccomend to host a desktop other than X? What about all the user-friendliness that Gnome / KDE offer?
I like using Linux, and I enjoy the freedom it gives. However, every time I watch the whole screen flicker and flash when I switch windows, I have to simply take it as the "cost of running Linux." When I watch a Konqueror window take 5s (or more) until the text stops moving around new images, I have to simply take it as the "cost of runnning Linux."
In big business, productivity is a very big thing. Although not scientifically sound, Linux starts to look a lot more expensive when you multiply 5 s lost here and there by the cost of many developers' salary. It gets even worse when you watch guys run around the office on a sneaker net because they can't figure out how to resolve \\server1\shared_dir
Let's see what other inconsistencies we can find..
on
Message from Kabul
·
· Score: 1
Well, I think there's a few more inconsistencies we might not have realized in this story:
Slashdot was founded in 1997. The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996. I know that Slashdot is cool, but do you think that it spread by word of mouth to Afghanistan?
Linux was ported to Commodore in 1998. Was this guy infatuated in Linux without ever installing or seeing it?
The state of Texas initated the Microsoft antitrust debacle in 1997. Even if that (and details of it) spread by word of mouth, do you think this guy would have had time to form a rational opinion? ("I thought they were going to get Microsoft.")
As a side note, I feel sorry for anyone using any of the search engines that they remember from 1996.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, AMD stock rose $1.50 on the news that they would provide cheap, onboard processors for visual implants.
Patients' complaints about the heat will be drowned out by the scream of cooling fans.
I remember the first time I "surfed the web," it took a long time to get comfortable with not logging out of a web site. In BBS land, only assholes dropped carrier -- you always logged out so that the BBS could recoup properly. The same gnawing feeling you get when you finish a semester of university and think you should still be doing homework.
Then there were the days where you could download special software (Excalibur BBS?) and get VGA GRAPHICS from sites! Or how about combing through my modem guide looking for cool shit to stick in my init string (at&Z1=5551212 anyone?) Of course, no feeling of exhilaration quite matched the Telix connect bell after 2 hours of redialing an awesome board
I also spent quite a bit of time as a sysop. I remember configuring every damn ANSI screen in the config directory, customizing every prompt in the options menu -- it was labour, but watching people enjoy your OWN BBS was a great feeling.
Chatting was cool, too. Installing the JModem protocol so that you could chat and download, or download and upload. Then again, listening to your PC speaker play Guns n' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" as a page tune was often better than talking to ass kissers trying to get Co-Sys :)
This is the first time I've seen an article on /., as opposed to comments on one written somewhere else.
It's against Slashdot's norm -- a news site -- but I think it makes for a great idea. It lets me read a single source for both tech news and a little bleeding-edge knowledge. Although I dislike the karma whore article posting phenomenon, I love reading those articles inline.
Truth be told, this also helps flesh out a university education. Although I learned a lot in my specialist degree, I became a well-rounded and knowledgable geek only through outside interests: clicking on Slashdot links, messing with Linux, etc. Until now, I didn't think about "XML Namespaces and how they affect XPath and XSLT," but now I can discuss it with a clue.
Keep it up guys -- this improves the value of Slashdot immensely. At the very least, give this concept a section of its own (articles.slashdot.org?) with links from the main page.
P.S: Why not post some articles on argument fallacies and how to answer lame questions yourself.
Because Tivo runs a modified version of Windows CE. The very large reserved space was previously called the 'security patch holding area.'
While all three box manufacturers are stuck at $199 USD (while Japan, the EU, and Canada sell them for less)
I heard about that "better" price drop in Canada, but was dismayed by my visits to FutureShop Canada and Walmart (in person.) All systems cost $299 Canadian, only $10 (Canadian) cheaper.
I was in a position similar to yours. I have a family, responsibility, and a desire for a software development position.
However, I didn't even have the job. I was unemployed. All I had was my highschool diploma.
I decided to bite the bullet, and apply for University. My wife stayed at home with my daughter, and I worked part-time at a local coffee store to pay most of my bills. Student aid also helped.
I took an internship between 3rd and 4th year at a respectable company, and that got me "real world" experience. I also dropped my coffee job in favour of some independent contracting (web / documentation / programming.)
I finished my last exam this week, and I have a job waiting for me in an amazing and prestigious company (well, hrrrm... this is Slashdot. Perhaps that sentiment wouldn't hold here.)
The one thing that separates my story from yours is that I went right from high school to university. My point is, though, that the only difference between you and I is that you've worked for a few years. It doesn't matter -- I've seen tons of "mature students" in my lectures. In fact, you'll have the advantage of a practical underpinning that most nerds have no clue of. In the big scheme of things, you'll take a 4 year "pause" from your career. That's nothing. It seems daunting to go back to school after all your practical experience, but your future is in your hands.
Is this really new? I don't know where I first heard it, but I know that a "big crunch" has certainly been theorized. I've always thought that it seems likely that a big crunch might cause a big bang to follow. I don't know, maybe I was assuming something.
You're right, the "big crunch" is not new. However, this way of explaining its cause is. From the article I posted earlier, The idea of a cyclic universe has been around ever since the Big Bang was first proposed in the 1930s. But no one could find a way to make the "big crunch" that ends one cycle of the universe "bounce" to become the big bang of the next.
I guffawed at first, too, until I read this better writeup.
If you look at the complexity of human beings, it's just crazy how many things have to go right to get intelligence. I mean, it took 2-3 BILLION years just to get us, and no other animal form is even close to us.
According to that logic, it took me 4 years to finish the final assignment of my final course in univeristy. What if there was a lot of time where things were happening, but not towards our development as human beings? I'm not saying that you're incorrect, but for the purposes of your final conclusion, I don't think it's valid.
When you combine that with the fact that it only takes 2-3 million years to fill a galaxy once you have intelligent life even at sub-light speeds, that means it's probably never happened before in this galaxy.
Well, our galaxy is about 150,000 light years across. It also has about 400 billion stars. Even if we had the capability to transport lots of people at the speed of light, we could only send 1 person to every ~40 stars! So it's likely that we wouldn't make physical contact with a civilization, but perhaps radio contact. Depending on how long intelligent, radio-capable civilizations last (self annihalation? extinction?) our intelligent, radio-capable years may never overlap with those of other civilizations. Perhaps many intelligent species have evolved and died in this expansion?
So given that intelligence almost never happens, and it took about 1/7th - 1/4th the age of universe for it to happen here, I think that gives evidence that we needed a hell of a lot of universe cycles to get it to happen.
Well, scientists still have no idea if (and definately no idea when) the universe will coalesce. If the cycle takes 1000 billion years, our civilization took only 1% of its lifetime to evolve to this point.
Anyways, it's a lot easier to pick apart a theory than it is to make one :) Your idea is interesting, but I just think that some of the facts aren't sound.
Sky and Telescope also covered this story, but didn't obscure it with piss-poor scientific writing like this other source did.
As an aside, the other source over simplifies things, and leaves you with the feeling that you learned nothing but marketing hype. It's target is obviously non-astronomers (or we would have read the original paper in an original journal.) Because of that, they should have explained "branes" (and other terms) with more than sound-bytes from involved physicists. Think diagrams, break-out boxes, etc.
Yes, I agree that software is free speech -- just as I agree that designing firearms is free (innovation / art / somethingorother.)
However, (releasing this software and causing damage) / (pulling the trigger and maiming somebody) is not.
Wow, sounds like your the second person (aside from me, of course) on Slashdot with an open mind. Most people come here to read the stories, then force their opinion down the throad of others. Even when they need to bend facts, or use logically vapid (slippery slope / straw man / ad hominem / etc) arguments. Perhaps especially so :)
Hrrm... Hate to bite on an AC, but according to the Seti@Home literature,
"An average, current model home home computer should take between 10 and 50 hours to complete one work-unit. This assumes that the computer ONLY works on SETI@home." [About Seti@Home]
Granted, this was written in a past incarnation of the client, but few people dedicate enough CPU time to the client to return stats as quickly as you. Don't forget the average is CPU time, not real time.
And the fact that most real computers (ie: not supercomputers) take ~1 week (part time) to process a unit, this reward is largely for those already involved.
For those interested in a not-hardcore-but-still-technical look into Seti@Home, I wrote an overview of it awhile back.
Disregard the misdated quotes that "the world's fastest computer runs at 2 teraflops," and it's still a good read :)
I'm really upset about all these "your rights online" issues -- not because it's bad reporting (despite what you trolls like to say,) but because I'm getting desensitized to it.
In the net's infancy, the community attacked ANY company who breached our trust or good will. A lot of dot-bombs can attest to that. As we watch the internet grow, however, these violations have become so mainstream that only the truly offensive ones catch our attention. Even at that, the definition of "offensive" changes every day.
A few years ago, Yahoo! couldn't have dreamed of pulling a stunt like they just did. The backlash would have crippled, and possibly bankrupted them. Today, though, it's little more than an annoyance to us and a non-issue to newbies.
Kazaa got removed from download.com, but will still probably make millions from their scam. Companies like Gator will continue to abuse their market share. As the internet matures -- and we get even more desensitized -- companies will do worse, and we'll accept it.
Well, this isn't Access, but Db Visualizer is the best cross-platform (Java) SQL tool I've ever seen. It's still not a tool for morons (it's aimed at SQL developers,) but it lets you visually edit rows in your DB and other niceties.
Sure beats INSERT INTO and UPDATE WHERE.
Third year? Heh. I thought that was bad until my sleepless 4th year. Don't kid yourself. Interesting course titles don't mean that the course is any less difficult!
It's a little more interesting, perhaps, but shit it's a lot of work.
32 comments by the time I post this one...I'd be willing to bet 25 of them didn't read the article ... And now I know I've *gotta* get a SportBrain. :D
The second one was insightful too...PPS With SportBrain gone, I picked up a new client last week...
Then again, reading the two articles might have been nearly as grueling (but enjoyable) as the training itself :)
If you want to talk about "real world value" in a certification, those "in the know" will tell you the only real linux certification is a blindfolded install of Debian!
After that, the MS certifications (The following are valid responses to a blue screen of death...) are pretty shallow.
Along your point, there's actually a technique that uses the self similarity of images to help you compress themselves. For example, you might have seen the "Sierpinsky Triangle." You can generate this image with a few very simple recursive move/resize/draw operations.
Fractal compression uses this technique on abstract images. It aims to find a set of operations (sometimes very large) to generate any given input picture. It's very cool, and you can get more information (including example pictures) at this page.
The "state of the art" of fractal compression beats JPEG compression at some compression ratios, but looses at others. It's also interesting that a fractally-compressed image has no implicit size (ie: 640x460), so it enlarges MUCH better than simple image enlargement.
I sure hope that "the message" is written a hell of a lot better than the embarassing english prose in their description of it.
As an aside, they describe the dots beside the naked man and woman as: "The dotted line on the left side, give (sic) a representation of Up (sic) and Down (sic). It is ballistic trajectory, showing clearly where the gravity goes (sic)." They should have just drawn the woman a little older, so the aliens could just look at her wrinkled breasts to see where the gravity goes!
If this project becomes a centralized point of distribution or access (ie: SourceForge,) this could really help the open-knowledge community.
For example, many people run out to buy expensive assembler books when the best resource is available online. Or, they run out to buy expensive Linux device driver manuals when the best resource is available online.
Open-source software mainly helps people write new software that uses key techniques / algorithms from open software. Open-source documentation, on the other hand, helps impart the foundations on which the open-source programs get created.
Ideally, this openscience approach would spread -- and students wouldn't need to spend $500 per semester on textbooks. And unfortunately, the Project Gutenberg idea to import books as their copyright expires (50 years after the author dies) would never fly for technology-based books.
As a side note, this index of online books has a lot of good information.
I wonder how they're going to deal with the transition between the first two books (at the end of the first movie.)
I had a mild feeling of resolution at the end of the first book, but it felt a little more like a pause in the tension, not an end of it.
When it comes to a movie, however, we'll have to see if they gimmick it up to make it more bite-sized.
Like most scientific endeavors, this story is about an advance in the field, not its readiness for prime time.
Let's look at some quotes that might help you next time:
This five-centimetre-square ... brings affordable electronic paper a step closer, say its developers, Philips Research.
... should be cheap to make in bulk
...
But this display
In principle, this could be a low-cost solution
It's a shame that nobody looks at this from its scientific merit -- after all, any "holy grail" technology is the culmination of a lot of baby steps.
I agree that a Linux console is a beautiful thing, but what do you reccomend to host a desktop other than X? What about all the user-friendliness that Gnome / KDE offer?
I like using Linux, and I enjoy the freedom it gives. However, every time I watch the whole screen flicker and flash when I switch windows, I have to simply take it as the "cost of running Linux." When I watch a Konqueror window take 5s (or more) until the text stops moving around new images, I have to simply take it as the "cost of runnning Linux."
In big business, productivity is a very big thing. Although not scientifically sound, Linux starts to look a lot more expensive when you multiply 5 s lost here and there by the cost of many developers' salary. It gets even worse when you watch guys run around the office on a sneaker net because they can't figure out how to resolve \\server1\shared_dir
Well, I think there's a few more inconsistencies we might not have realized in this story:
As a side note, I feel sorry for anyone using any of the search engines that they remember from 1996.