Just look at the bottom shelves, all the way to the right. (The most expensive stuff is at eye-height, on the left) The very cheapest, white, unscented generic brand stuff. Im sure its there...I can get six bars of soap for under 1 euro over here. Lasts me months...
There is nothing more stupid than continuously introducing small quantities of antibiotics in the environment. It only breeds resistance. Kind of like the overkill on pesticide use. Only gets you multi-resistant weeds...
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the pointers. Im definitely going to read up on the papers you suggested in greater detail. After a quick scan, they are really interesting
My research is in complex adaptive systems in a socio-technical setting, e.g. industrial network evolution etc. These things are about as far removed from equilibria and reversibility as they can be. They are all path dependent, and intractable ( as are all evolutionary processes). Think dissipative structures ala Prigogine etc. So it is truly fascinating to think of a computation that can be fully reversible / adiabatic. Is there no work being performed ? If you reverse the computation, are you still "allowed" to know the answer ?
Goes to show how truly different information is, compared to matter and energy.
What I still do not understand it whether this can be practically built, and if so, why do not we have it already ? Global warming and all of that ?
Would it require radically different software? I would think so...
Anyway, your comment was one of the most enlightening ones I have ever seen on slashdot. Chapeau !
That sounds very interesting. Would you mind providing a link to the literature that discusses that ? I have some trouble figuring out the thermodynamics of this. Perpetum mobile and such, you know....
(I assume you dont want to go through the academic hazing pricess (msc-> phd->postdoc...))
Im in applied Complex Adaptve Systems, and Agent Based Modelling in a well known Dutch university. So it is all very computationally intensive. I would have loved to have somebody around who would sysadmin our simulation machines, teach us how to write propper OO code, beat us over the head on version control, design the simulation code structure, tie together wicked visualization libraries to the models output, etc. It would of course mean that such a person would have to be very open minded/out of the box, be creative in solving the problems, etc...
However, every time I mention such things to my prof, the response is "great!, Id love one. Now, where do I get the cash for it ?"
It is cheaper to hire a geeky phd and let them figure it out...
On the other hand, if I would try something like this, the best way would be to network with the academics in your area, maybe advise/help them on a project or two. Sometimes giving them a call, letting them talk about their research, heearing about their problems is a good start. Bioinformatics is probably a good start, as others have mentioned. Do not forget the social sciences, that are often geek-less, but need them anyway...
Most universities are very cash short, and free labour is VERY welcome. make sure you can offer a predictable commitment, so they can plan. Then, once "in", you get to hear when the grants are being written. Hopefuly, by then, they are impressed by you and your work, so they sneak into the proposal a budget for programming/system development support.
Academia (at least over here) tends to be very dependent on personal contacts. Most positions never hit the public announcements before the question "do we know somebody?" is asked. Especialy not for such out of place positions. So to summarize. Make your own position, dont expect it to exist allready...
Ok, so this "advice" is not exactly a quick fix, but persistance pays, I guess...
Although "information deception" -- deliberately spreading false or misleading information -- is a part of information warfare policy and doctrine, the Pentagon has no specific plans to undertake deceptive operations using the international news media, the official said.
Actually, I have searching from the location bar setup as default, and only thing I get is firefox opening a google search with a bunch of dashes in it. (this is on linux)
If you have a unixy laptop, installing a local wiki might be a solution. There are many different wiki sistems, from very simple, to very very extensive. Im sure yu can find soemthing you like. Take your pick here http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines
Many will have plugins to draw simple diagrams, can attach files etc. The one I use extensively is TWiki : http://twiki.org/ Both for note taking and group collaboration in my university department.
We ue TWiki, http://twiki.org/ as a center of a international scientific collaboration. We have currently about 70 users, not all equally active.
It has fairly extensive plugin structure, a very nice pdf export functions and extensive access controls. Sometime IM chats logs are just copy-pasted straight in. If you use your wiki words consistently, it all tightly integrates conceptually. The RSS feeds are also very useful. Kind of a delayed chat...
This is especially great since we have people on four continents collaborating, and timezones are widely spread.
We use it mainly to build knowledge and internally peer-review it and co-author scientific papers. You can even use it as a presentation tool, with a browser on full screen.
Dont know if this is what you need but it works like a charm for us. And it is all GPL, and written in perl.
Go talk to the local nature preservation society. There is usually a swarm of very good amateur photographers ( some migt not be so amateur actually) that shoot for their publications. They are often great & relaxed people. More often than not you might find that next to photographing wildlife and plants, they are more than happy to make a wedding shoot too. And they will be a lot cheaper, since they only tend to use the proceedings to buy even fancier cameras!
Ours didnt even blink when he said that of course we get all our negatives, after all, it is our wedding !
Plus, since we had our photo shoot in a beutiful nature area, the photos turned our relaxed, not too posed and lots of fun. ( he basically treated us like some rare species in the wild, walking through the forest). And for the geek factor, the photographer works full time in a IT firm, so we had some fun geeking away during the preparations. Just ask them about their newest camera... We had a whole bunch of digital photos thrown in for free, 'cose he was testing his lates and greatest toy.
Plus, how does one get rid of the "print this" box ? I could not read big parts of the report since that damned box kept popping up. I thought we had something against popups...
Yes, indeed I do hate Acrobat, xpdf is your friend...
Sorry to ask, but I've never had to look at this particular problem and was wondering if that was what you were suggesting. It seems like a good enough idea to me. Except I'm not familiar with how setuid-root works.
Inded you are not. I wish (no, actually I do not) it was that easy. Shell scripts are a nasty security hole. To protect you, the kernel
purposely ignores setuid and setgid in scripts. Create a C or Pearl, or whatever programm to do what you need.
Using work of other people in academic work is not only possible, but greatly encouraged. Just make sure that it is very clear what comes from whom.
In many ways, science is done exactly as Open Source software. Take what you need, modify and improve it where appropriate, and make sure you give full credit where due.
As a teacher, I have given full points to a paper that has hardly any text of their own, as long as they are properly referenced, and used together to make a valid point, not made by any of the sources.
So I do not think students should bother staying below the rarad. Just reference everything,and voila, you are doing science
What are these people making ?
on
Google Suggest
·
· Score: 1
Im am wondering more and more what is Google really upto. Worlds biggest distributed operating system, a cache of each page they every visit, predictive text input, remebers everything you ever seaarched for, never throw anything away email, search your desktop, and any scientiffic thing ever published....
Soon, we will not be browsing the web, we will be browsing google....
Anybody dare to phantasize what this all means ?
~/files
my_own (all the stuff I have ever changed, and I do not want to have to retype again)
phd
presentation
papers
projects
code
education
images
literature (stuff I can get of the web if I need to)
music
general
I only backup my_own, the rest I dont really care about, I can allways download it if I need to. Furthermore there is ~/tmp for the junk that gets killed every now and then.
Since I have everything under file, I do not care about the jungle of config files and dirs. Hope this helps.
I have used this one on a similar laptop. Worked fairly fine. I did have an issue with the default X not supporting the video chip (CT??? something) However, you could choose to install an older version of X which ran fine.
In my experience, one thing that works is to make sure students care about the work they produce.
When they think that the quality and honesty of the work is is important to them, and to others they tend not to cheat.
One way is that we give them problems that we ourselves not fully understand, and we clearly tell them so. You present them with a challenge saying "Ok, here is this tough problem. We (the reseach group) dont quite get it yet. Maybe you will see the light and can help us get it further. If your solution/idea it is particullarly good, we will make you a coauthor on the paper on the toppic"
Obviously, this requires that you do have such a toppic. But inventing a tough or next to impossible problem is usually not a problem.
Anohter way we use is to introduce a element of competition into assignments. Make them make competing designs/solution and invite an industry/scientific expert to evaluate and judge the solutions during a workshop/panel discussion. Works wonders for us.
Caveat: this experience comes from teaching Environmental Science and Sustainability, not computer related stufff, but is should port finely to CS as well.
If you want more info/literature on the topic of chalenging education, just mention it.
Re:Is this really the solution ?
on
RFID Hell
·
· Score: 1
Well said.
Problem in this case however is, how far can you stretch "consent". With small kids. hmmm...
Is this really the solution ?
on
RFID Hell
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
One often sees technology being used to combat the symptoms of a problem. But fixing the symptom does not equal a cure.
Why do we have child molesters in the first place is the question that should be asked IMHO. Is it the oversexed society we live in? The furstration of men (it allways seems to be men) who can not deal with grown up relationships? Or is it our reduced tolerance towards such things?
Do not forget, not very far in the past it was quite normal to marry a teenager if the dowry/match/social status was interesting...
Im not saying that we should not care about child abuse. It is horrible crime and it must be eradicated. I just wonder whether we are dealing with it in the right way...
One way I found to keep at least a marginal amount of excercise while I sit and work is to sit on a ball instead of a chair.
Have a look for example here (i'm in no way associated with these folks....)
It helps improve your balance, strengthens your back/stomach muscles and does a great job of preventing Repetative Strain Injury. You really notice the difference after you used it for a while and than go back to a normal chair. It feels all stiff and uncomfortable...
I've enjoyed it for more than two years now. I got some weird looks in the begining, but now there are a number of people in the office using them too.
Hope it helps.
Slashdot Mirror
I can very much second this. When the binder is empty it will give you a nice pseudo-ergonomic angle too...
Great airflow too..
If you like the way this game looks, try the games made by Kenta Cho, for example rrootage : http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/rr_e.html
There are linux ports of them here : http://rrootage.sourceforge.net/
They are pretty addictive, have joystick/gamepad support and pretty good music.
Enjoy.
Well, you are not supposed to flush the whole bar ;)
But seriously, I never had that problem...
Just look at the bottom shelves, all the way to the right. (The most expensive stuff is at eye-height, on the left) The very cheapest, white, unscented generic brand stuff. Im sure its there...I can get six bars of soap for under 1 euro over here. Lasts me months...
Hear, hear...
There is nothing more stupid than continuously introducing small quantities of antibiotics in the environment. It only breeds resistance. Kind of like the overkill on pesticide use. Only gets you multi-resistant weeds...
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the pointers. Im definitely going to read up on the papers you suggested in greater detail. After a quick scan, they are really interesting
My research is in complex adaptive systems in a socio-technical setting, e.g. industrial network evolution etc. These things are about as far removed from equilibria and reversibility as they can be. They are all path dependent, and intractable ( as are all evolutionary processes). Think dissipative structures ala Prigogine etc.
So it is truly fascinating to think of a computation that can be fully reversible / adiabatic. Is there no work being performed ? If you reverse the computation, are you still "allowed" to know the answer ?
Goes to show how truly different information is, compared to matter and energy.
What I still do not understand it whether this can be practically built, and if so, why do not we have it already ? Global warming and all of that ?
Would it require radically different software? I would think so...
Anyway, your comment was one of the most enlightening ones I have ever seen on slashdot. Chapeau !
That sounds very interesting. Would you mind providing a link to the literature that discusses that ? I have some trouble figuring out the thermodynamics of this. Perpetum mobile and such, you know....
my two eurocents on this...
(I assume you dont want to go through the academic hazing pricess (msc-> phd->postdoc...))
Im in applied Complex Adaptve Systems, and Agent Based Modelling in a well known Dutch university. So it is all very computationally intensive. I would have loved to have somebody around who would sysadmin our simulation machines, teach us how to write propper OO code, beat us over the head on version control, design the simulation code structure, tie together wicked visualization libraries to the models output, etc.
It would of course mean that such a person would have to be very open minded/out of the box, be creative in solving the problems, etc...
However, every time I mention such things to my prof, the response is "great!, Id love one. Now, where do I get the cash for it ?"
It is cheaper to hire a geeky phd and let them figure it out...
On the other hand, if I would try something like this, the best way would be to network with the academics in your area, maybe advise/help them on a project or two. Sometimes giving them a call, letting them talk about their research, heearing about their problems is a good start. Bioinformatics is probably a good start, as others have mentioned. Do not forget the social sciences, that are often geek-less, but need them anyway...
Most universities are very cash short, and free labour is VERY welcome. make sure you can offer a predictable commitment, so they can plan. Then, once "in", you get to hear when the grants are being written. Hopefuly, by then, they are impressed by you and your work, so they sneak into the proposal a budget for programming/system development support.
Academia (at least over here) tends to be very dependent on personal contacts. Most positions never hit the public announcements before the question "do we know somebody?" is asked. Especialy not for such out of place positions. So to summarize. Make your own position, dont expect it to exist allready...
Ok, so this "advice" is not exactly a quick fix, but persistance pays, I guess...
Good luck...
Actually, I have searching from the location bar setup as default, and only thing I get is firefox opening a google search with a bunch of dashes in it. (this is on linux)
8 &q=
So kind of pointless exploit in this case ?
So, to protect yourself
go to about:config and change keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-
and keyword.enabled to true
If you have a unixy laptop, installing a local wiki might be a solution.
There are many different wiki sistems, from very simple, to very very extensive. Im sure yu can find soemthing you like. Take your pick here http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines
Many will have plugins to draw simple diagrams, can attach files etc.
The one I use extensively is TWiki : http://twiki.org/
Both for note taking and group collaboration in my university department.
We ue TWiki, http://twiki.org/ as a center of a international scientific collaboration. We have currently about 70 users, not all equally active.
It has fairly extensive plugin structure, a very nice pdf export functions and extensive access controls. Sometime IM chats logs are just copy-pasted straight in. If you use your wiki words consistently, it all tightly integrates conceptually. The RSS feeds are also very useful. Kind of a delayed chat...
This is especially great since we have people on four continents collaborating, and timezones are widely spread.
We use it mainly to build knowledge and internally peer-review it and co-author scientific papers. You can even use it as a presentation tool, with a browser on full screen.
Dont know if this is what you need but it works like a charm for us. And it is all GPL, and written in perl.
Ok, here is what we fixed for our wedding.
Go talk to the local nature preservation society. There is usually a swarm of very good amateur photographers ( some migt not be so amateur actually) that shoot for their publications. They are often great & relaxed people. More often than not you might find that next to photographing wildlife and plants, they are more than happy to make a wedding shoot too. And they will be a lot cheaper, since they only tend to use the proceedings to buy even fancier cameras!
Ours didnt even blink when he said that of course we get all our negatives, after all, it is our wedding !
Plus, since we had our photo shoot in a beutiful nature area, the photos turned our relaxed, not too posed and lots of fun. ( he basically treated us like some rare species in the wild, walking through the forest). And for the geek factor, the photographer works full time in a IT firm, so we had some fun geeking away during the preparations. Just ask them about their newest camera... We had a whole bunch of digital photos thrown in for free, 'cose he was testing his lates and greatest toy.
Have fun on your wedding !
Plus, how does one get rid of the "print this" box ?
I could not read big parts of the report since that damned box kept popping up. I thought we had something against popups...
Yes, indeed I do hate Acrobat, xpdf is your friend...
Inded you are not. I wish (no, actually I do not) it was that easy. Shell scripts are a nasty security hole. To protect you, the kernel purposely ignores setuid and setgid in scripts. Create a C or Pearl, or whatever programm to do what you need.
Well, as Orwell said, we must have constant war to keep the economy and social order going....
Well, there are such things as references.
Using work of other people in academic work is not only possible, but greatly encouraged. Just make sure that it is very clear what comes from whom.
In many ways, science is done exactly as Open Source software. Take what you need, modify and improve it where appropriate, and make sure you give full credit where due.
As a teacher, I have given full points to a paper that has hardly any text of their own, as long as they are properly referenced, and used together to make a valid point, not made by any of the sources.
So I do not think students should bother staying below the rarad. Just reference everything,and voila, you are doing science
Im am wondering more and more what is Google really upto.
Worlds biggest distributed operating system, a cache of each page they every visit, predictive text input, remebers everything you ever seaarched for, never throw anything away email, search your desktop, and any scientiffic thing ever published....
Soon, we will not be browsing the web, we will be browsing google....
Anybody dare to phantasize what this all means ?
~/files
my_own (all the stuff I have ever changed, and I do not want to have to retype again)
phd
presentation
papers
projects
code
education
images
literature (stuff I can get of the web if I need to)
music
general
I only backup my_own, the rest I dont really care about, I can allways download it if I need to. Furthermore there is ~/tmp for the junk that gets killed every now and then.
Since I have everything under file, I do not care about the jungle of config files and dirs. Hope this helps.
Man, I have not laughed out so hard at /. for ages !
Thanks. made my day :)
I have used this one on a similar laptop. Worked fairly fine. I did have an issue with the default X not supporting the video chip (CT??? something) However, you could choose to install an older version of X which ran fine.
Vector linux
Hope it works for you.
In my experience, one thing that works is to make sure students care about the work they produce.
When they think that the quality and honesty of the work is is important to them, and to others they tend not to cheat.
One way is that we give them problems that we ourselves not fully understand, and we clearly tell them so. You present them with a challenge saying "Ok, here is this tough problem. We (the reseach group) dont quite get it yet. Maybe you will see the light and can help us get it further. If your solution/idea it is particullarly good, we will make you a coauthor on the paper on the toppic"
Obviously, this requires that you do have such a toppic. But inventing a tough or next to impossible problem is usually not a problem.
Anohter way we use is to introduce a element of competition into assignments. Make them make competing designs/solution and invite an industry/scientific expert to evaluate and judge the solutions during a workshop/panel discussion. Works wonders for us.
Caveat: this experience comes from teaching Environmental Science and Sustainability, not computer related stufff, but is should port finely to CS as well.
If you want more info/literature on the topic of chalenging education, just mention it.
Well said. Problem in this case however is, how far can you stretch "consent". With small kids. hmmm...
One often sees technology being used to combat the symptoms of a problem. But fixing the symptom does not equal a cure.
Why do we have child molesters in the first place is the question that should be asked IMHO. Is it the oversexed society we live in? The furstration of men (it allways seems to be men) who can not deal with grown up relationships? Or is it our reduced tolerance towards such things?
Do not forget, not very far in the past it was quite normal to marry a teenager if the dowry/match/social status was interesting...
Im not saying that we should not care about child abuse. It is horrible crime and it must be eradicated. I just wonder whether we are dealing with it in the right way...
One way I found to keep at least a marginal amount of excercise while I sit and work is to sit on a ball instead of a chair.
Have a look for example here (i'm in no way associated with these folks....)
It helps improve your balance, strengthens your back/stomach muscles and does a great job of preventing Repetative Strain Injury. You really notice the difference after you used it for a while and than go back to a normal chair. It feels all stiff and uncomfortable...
I've enjoyed it for more than two years now. I got some weird looks in the begining, but now there are a number of people in the office using them too. Hope it helps.