Anyone worth their salt should be able to code in either scripting languages or compiled languages. If they can only handle a few scripting languages like Perl or Visual Basic then of course they should be discriminated against. They're 'real' programmers, sure, they're also bad programmers.
He goes on to say that some companies will assign Java and C++ programmers tasks that take them weeks but could be done by Perl or Python programmers in a few hours.
No see, what the hell is this? Why couldn't a Java or C++ coder write the same Perl or Python script? If Python is a better solution, you should bring it up with your boss. If they don't go for it spend the extra time and collect the extra cash (assuming your hourly)
And secondly, I seriously doubt that a Python program could be written in hours that would take weeks in java, unless the coders are completely incompetent. Java has a rich API and is pretty easy to use.
I don't know how anyone can watch that. I guess the argument is that there's more passing then in, say, F1 racing.
But come on. Those vehicles are boring technically, I mean we're talking 1970s automotive technology. A riced up Honda civic could probably go faster then these anachronisms.
And as far as pure visceral excitement... come on! They're just driving around in a damn circle!
Look. 50,000 x $5 is $250,000 thousand dolars a month. They are making a quarter million dolars a month. If you can't run a print or online mag with that much money, something is wrong.
They could also save a lot of money on layout by using a CMS, soemthing a print mag can't do (AFIAK).
Salon is cool, but hugly wasefull.
Way to wastefull to support
on
Salon Asks for Help
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· Score: 2, Interesting
These guys are raking it in. And they don't even really need to pay rent on their offices, just their servers.
They are making tens of thousands of dollars a month in subscription fees. More then enough to pay for servers and content. Don't bother donating to their swank offices and David Talbot's $400k salary.
What's with the separate construction sites in four countries? I realize that the program is somewhat of a welfare thing, to help Europeans get jobs and such, and keep Europe competitive with the US and Boeing.
But wouldn't it have saved them a lot of money to simply build a huge, single factory rather then hauling this stuff all over the continent and Britain?
It would make sense to me to build the whole thing in france and offload some of the other construction jobs to other nations.
A lot of times an invention just sort of 'pops' into your head. Having an ultra-intelligent isn't going to stop people from coming up with ideas. It may well be that the use the ultra-intelligent system to help them distil there ideas into usable things, but human inspiration will persist.
I think the major difference between Asimov's work and localroger's is that in Asimov's world the 3 laws were created by committee (in order to assuage people's fears that robot's would take over) and people were given lots of time to work things out on smarter and smarter robots.
But the fact that they worked out in Asimov's world doesn't mean that they would work out in the real world. Unlike the people in Asimov's books, the scientist in TMPI had simply read Asimov's books and thought they were cool. The intellects he was creating were never intended to do anything other then appear on a TV and speak with people. It gained god-like powers accidentally. The three laws were never intended to deal with.
One way to look at the story is as a sort of warning about taking sci-fi to literally. The three laws worked out in Asimov's books, but those books are not proof that they would work out in the end, as Dr. Lawrence eventualy discovered.
I hope you're not saying that not including the Zeroth law would make the book bad, as it was introduced much later. I, Robot for example does not even get into it.
In any event, I, Robot is certanly more simplistic then this work
An 'observation of the intellectual prowess of the majority of the "popular" social group' made by people who felt like outcasts from them is hardly worth the keystrokes used to communicate it.
1) Just because they used their mental capabilities to explore things that were different from you does not make them stupider. The fact that they don't know anything about physics or computing doesn't mean they didn't think about other things.
2) How the hell would you know how smart someone was unless you spent a lot of time talking to them openly? Why would someone on the football team talk about how much he enjoyed calculus with someone he couldn't even stand to look at?
How so? All Covad or speakeasy or whoever has to do is start to offer basic voice service. It doesn't matter if anyone cares about their voice service, just that they offer it.
It could be looked at as an attempt to remove an 'unfair' advantage of a company that only does DSL without needing to worry about the (less profitable) voice.
The net result here will be more competition in the voice arena, and less in the DSL arena.
If you ask me, the best solution would be to have the actual infrastructure controlled by the government (like the city or county government, not fed), who would then treat all service providers equally under the law, rather then having one company control all the lines.
M$ tried to kill Adobe once, they failed. There are a lot of companies that competed with windows and 'won'.
Besides, a lot of people use VMware on Linux. unless M$ comes out with a Linux version of, um, windows, then VMware will still have most of it's market.
Which is that "smartness" and "being picked on" aren't even correlated. The people who were picked on were the misfits, regardless of how smart they were. Calling all the popular kids stupid is idiotic and simply an escapist fantasy.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone worth their salt should be able to code in either scripting languages or compiled languages. If they can only handle a few scripting languages like Perl or Visual Basic then of course they should be discriminated against. They're 'real' programmers, sure, they're also bad programmers.
He goes on to say that some companies will assign Java and C++ programmers tasks that take them weeks but could be done by Perl or Python programmers in a few hours.
No see, what the hell is this? Why couldn't a Java or C++ coder write the same Perl or Python script? If Python is a better solution, you should bring it up with your boss. If they don't go for it spend the extra time and collect the extra cash (assuming your hourly)
And secondly, I seriously doubt that a Python program could be written in hours that would take weeks in java, unless the coders are completely incompetent. Java has a rich API and is pretty easy to use.
Of course a lot of people, including the poor, are cellphone only these days.
So ask yourself why the Space Shuttle is built all over the US and not simple constructed in one place
Because the space shuttle is a huge government subsidized jobs program, just like the Airbus?
Seriously though, the distributed construction of the space shuttle was to help the project get passed in congress.
204mph civic. That was with two seconds of googling.
I don't know how anyone can watch that. I guess the argument is that there's more passing then in, say, F1 racing.
But come on. Those vehicles are boring technically, I mean we're talking 1970s automotive technology. A riced up Honda civic could probably go faster then these anachronisms.
And as far as pure visceral excitement... come on! They're just driving around in a damn circle!
... to people who can't even remeber to set the background color of their website? I dunno.
Just look at enron.com.
Look. 50,000 x $5 is $250,000 thousand dolars a month. They are making a quarter million dolars a month. If you can't run a print or online mag with that much money, something is wrong.
They could also save a lot of money on layout by using a CMS, soemthing a print mag can't do (AFIAK).
Salon is cool, but hugly wasefull.
These guys are raking it in. And they don't even really need to pay rent on their offices, just their servers.
They are making tens of thousands of dollars a month in subscription fees. More then enough to pay for servers and content. Don't bother donating to their swank offices and David Talbot's $400k salary.
You euros might like mobile's more then us, but the cell phone is all american.
What's with the separate construction sites in four countries? I realize that the program is somewhat of a welfare thing, to help Europeans get jobs and such, and keep Europe competitive with the US and Boeing.
But wouldn't it have saved them a lot of money to simply build a huge, single factory rather then hauling this stuff all over the continent and Britain?
It would make sense to me to build the whole thing in france and offload some of the other construction jobs to other nations.
Then why the hell was it posted to slashdot? Because you thought it would be fun to see everyone pick it apart?
What a waste of time. Why not post some substantive critiques of apple? Why not post some of the really interesting stories you guys routinely delete?
I don't see why you couldn't program an IA to be curious...
0) Is the book any good?
NS 4 understands text-indent. It's CSS is pretty bad, though.
Not that it matters, a space between lines is just as comprehensible.
A lot of times an invention just sort of 'pops' into your head. Having an ultra-intelligent isn't going to stop people from coming up with ideas. It may well be that the use the ultra-intelligent system to help them distil there ideas into usable things, but human inspiration will persist.
I think the major difference between Asimov's work and localroger's is that in Asimov's world the 3 laws were created by committee (in order to assuage people's fears that robot's would take over) and people were given lots of time to work things out on smarter and smarter robots.
But the fact that they worked out in Asimov's world doesn't mean that they would work out in the real world. Unlike the people in Asimov's books, the scientist in TMPI had simply read Asimov's books and thought they were cool. The intellects he was creating were never intended to do anything other then appear on a TV and speak with people. It gained god-like powers accidentally. The three laws were never intended to deal with.
One way to look at the story is as a sort of warning about taking sci-fi to literally. The three laws worked out in Asimov's books, but those books are not proof that they would work out in the end, as Dr. Lawrence eventualy discovered.
I hope you're not saying that not including the Zeroth law would make the book bad, as it was introduced much later. I, Robot for example does not even get into it.
In any event, I, Robot is certanly more simplistic then this work
We don't go to those extremes in america either, it's just that Paul Graham is halucinating.
An 'observation of the intellectual prowess of the majority of the "popular" social group' made by people who felt like outcasts from them is hardly worth the keystrokes used to communicate it.
1) Just because they used their mental capabilities to explore things that were different from you does not make them stupider. The fact that they don't know anything about physics or computing doesn't mean they didn't think about other things.
2) How the hell would you know how smart someone was unless you spent a lot of time talking to them openly? Why would someone on the football team talk about how much he enjoyed calculus with someone he couldn't even stand to look at?
How so? All Covad or speakeasy or whoever has to do is start to offer basic voice service. It doesn't matter if anyone cares about their voice service, just that they offer it.
It could be looked at as an attempt to remove an 'unfair' advantage of a company that only does DSL without needing to worry about the (less profitable) voice.
The net result here will be more competition in the voice arena, and less in the DSL arena.
If you ask me, the best solution would be to have the actual infrastructure controlled by the government (like the city or county government, not fed), who would then treat all service providers equally under the law, rather then having one company control all the lines.
M$ tried to kill Adobe once, they failed. There are a lot of companies that competed with windows and 'won'.
Besides, a lot of people use VMware on Linux. unless M$ comes out with a Linux version of, um, windows, then VMware will still have most of it's market.
Heh, what self-respecting 'nerd' as you say would use pointer arithmetic in this day and age
/nasily voice
*snort*
Which is that "smartness" and "being picked on" aren't even correlated. The people who were picked on were the misfits, regardless of how smart they were. Calling all the popular kids stupid is idiotic and simply an escapist fantasy.
I think a lot of kids mellow out when they get older. Or maybe their vices just become more subtle.
Either way, they are less annoying.