In our insanely progressive system, about 45% of Americans don't pay a penny in taxes, meanwhile the top 1% pay about 40% of all taxes. This doesn't strike me as fair.
We can change the taxation system if you like. That's a separate issue though.
Our public schools consistently lag behind those of other nations and our private schools
See my comment above - the issue is not how good privately offered services are. Obviously, they are often better than what the state can offer. I am not suggestion that private companies be abolished - merely saying that sometimes the state can offer something too.
The question is, how good is the system to the population as a whole? How good do you think the private education will be to someone who can't afford it in the first place?
The US isn't a valid example, because the US does have state schools. How would the US look do you think if education was entirely private? Sure, the people who can already afford a private education would get a high standard - but then, they already get that now! Meanwhile, those that can't would have to buy into a cheaper school which might not be any better than the state system, and in some cases would be worse. Some might do without education altogether. So you'd have more uneducated people.
It's not that I'm saying "We should abolish perfectly good private schools". But you're the one saying "We should abolish state schools that currently provide for those who can't afford private education".
Is this the same military that spent several hundred thousand dollars on a toilet seat? Wasn't it the NSA that was purchasing iPods for their employees claiming they were for "data storage"?
Is that a Yes, or No? You haven't answered my question.
If I could think of a safe way to privatize the military I would want it done, but the last thing I want is for the Patriotic Enron Army to turn on us so thus we have a publicly funded military.
And this is exactly the point - even though the state may be more inefficient, in some parts of the market, it may still be better overall to have a state system, for other reasons.
Since I am not claiming that private organisations are less efficient, that argument is not relevant to my point.
So if something benefits the public, it should be nationalized??? Great, we just need to put everything into two buckets: If it's beneficial, nationalize it. If it's not, outlaw it. Enjoy your worker's paradise.
I never said that.
Yet these greedy, rich, corporate, evil, insurance companies will deny you fire insurance if your house has a pre-existing condition of being ablaze at the time you're applying for coverage. You'll get no such bigotry from the government!
If we had a system where fires didn't get put out after they had already started, that'd be a rubbish system too.
Not all discrimination is necessarily something that must be avoided - but I think it is something that is better to avoid when it's people's lives.
That's why our higher education system is the envy of the rest of the world, and our secondary education system is the joke of the rest of the world.
That is not sufficient to prove any correlation. The UK's Oxford and Cambridge were doing quite well with Government grants and lack of tuition fees. And people do not envy the system, they only envy the private product that is being sold. No one is disputing that - of course private companies can sell perfectly good products. But that doesn't mean that people support the system - indeed, the US is more likely to be criticised for the huge costs in tuition fees.
And can you point me to a country than has entirely privatised schooling, with much better results?
What about defence, firefighting, police, roads etc - should they all be privatised?
the opposite is true for an army to provide a common defense of a country
Why? Why should I have to have my money "stolen" just because some other people want an army? I didn't start these wars, it's a stupid "gimme gimme gimme" attitude. Why should I have to pay for police and firefighting and roads too? It's ridiculous!</whine>
I know you're more intelligent than that. Here's how "free" government, socialized healthcare works:
- I smoke. I destroy my lungs. - Thanks to the miracle of technology, I can get new lungs from a deceased donor. - This procedure costs ~$100,000 per lung. - Who pays the bill? - Not me!
Yes, you do - you pay taxes. Surely you're intelligent enough to realise this? Even if you happen to be an unemployed person not paying income tax, you still pay taxes, because in the UK, cigarettes are heavily taxed.
Whilst it's not clear to me whether the amount of taxation from cigarettes covers the cost to the health service, it's not clear that it doesn't either. And it works both ways too - if someone else has an accident through being careless, the smoker "has to pay for it". It's not clear that any one group is capable of gaining an overall huge advantage by stealing from another group who are at a disadvantage.
And they pay that bill via taxation. In essence, I have *stolen* money
Ah, taxation is theft, right? So do you oppose all taxation? There's a lot of other things that countries spend your "stolen" money on, including the US.
Yes we should
And what about defence, police, firefighting, roads? If you really want 100% privatisation with no public spending, at least you are consistent - but there's a lot more you need to change than just health.
I agree, although this comes at the same time as this story...
Also this law is not about monitoring the contents of emails AFAIK, but recording when/who everybody emails, which I don't think encryption will help with - nor will this help with tracking which websites you visit or who you phone/text on your mobile.
Well I have cable, Internet access, cell phone, and two computers bought in the last two years. And I can get public healthcare whenever I want.
You could afford it too if you had SAVED your money, instead of demanding your neighbors' pay the bill for you (tax their paychecks & give the money to you).
What country do you live in where you get to have tax paid for you by your neighbour? I pay taxes too.
There are arguments for public healthcare that are nothing to do with whether we should have welfare for the poor:
* Everyone benefits from a healthy society, such as stopping contagious diseases, and having a healthy workforce.
* Private companies tend to discriminate, making it unfair to anyone with any pre-existing conditions for example. I'm happy to pay for costs myself (whether towards a policy, or taxation), but I'd rather not gamble my health with the private insurance companies, thanks.
The US has state schools does it not? Surely we should privatise schools instead of having this "socialist" schooling system? And what about the military, what's this nonsense about Government funded defence? Anyone who suggests otherwise has a "gimme gimme gimme" attitude, and they want to "raid their neighbors' wallets", right?
You see, even if the US, there are lots of things where things are funded by the Government, and it is sensible to do so. My views lean towards right-wing pro-capitalist, but this doesn't mean that we have to have an entirely 100% laissez-faire capitalist society. I find this attitude that any kind of regulation amounts to "socialism" rather odd, especially since the US clearly isn't anywhere near a 100% laissez-faire capitalist society, anyway.
(I'm also curious how you manage to save 1/2 a million in just five years just by not having cable etc?)
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in.
I suspect that there are many who prefer Windows or use it as their main OS. I'm not sure if there have been more recent polls, but in 2002, Windows usage was 47%, beating all other platforms. Whilst that may or may not have fallen, I'd be willing to bet it's still no. 1, and I find it highly unlikely it's been relegated to a niche interest.
Earlier this year, only 32% (36% if we include the "other" option) say they don't use Windows.
Like it or not, Windows PCs are a mainstream interest just as much as stories for any other platform.
As the other comment stated, "number of comments" is not a poor metric - especially as my post is counting towards that! And how do we know how many comments other articles will get, if they don't get posted?
I also note that the only article currently beating this article in terms of number of comments on the front page at the moment is "Windows 7 To Be Called... Windows 7". It's tagged "!newsworthy" and "whocares", but according to you, at over 100 more comments than this story, it ought to be the most newsworthy story of the day, right?
Agreed. And not just everytime there's a new model, but also everytime there's a rumour about something new, as has been the case with recent stories. We should be glad that for once, at least there's a story based on fact here;) But yes, it's a slashvertisement.
I don't think you get it. People don't want Windows anymore.... I see more and more people buying Apples then running Windows
Am I missing something?
If apple would come out with a Mac Mini that only cost $499 and was expandable
If, if, if. As with your OP, it's easy if we can make up specs of a fictional machine. E.g., I could write the specs of a Quad core Amiga for $499 with the latest graphics card, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to build such a machine.
The game market for the Mac would massively increase as would video card options.
Not with the Mini's low end integrated graphics. And even with expansion, developers are relectant to target a machine that requires an upgrade before it can run the game.
People only buy Windows machines for two reasons. They are cheap or they have to run some program under windows.
Rubbish. And this isn't true for anyone I know (including my computer-newbie parents).
By that reasoning, why not just let all submissions through to the front page, instead of keeping them in the firehose and then rejecting them? After all, if you don't like the loads of slashvertisements that appear, you can disable all the categories for every company.
(And some of us might like to hear about Apple news occasionally. When it's actual notable news, not repeated rumourware advertising.)
Indeed - and three out of the latest five Apple stories are now rumourware. I thought two in a row was bad.
It was bad enough when we got a story everytime something happened to do with the Iphone - even though other phones hardly ever get a mention, even when there's actual news like a new product being released.
Given the high competition for stories on Slashdot, with many stories about actual news getting turned away, I wonder why the need to flood with rumourware?
Although I note that there is, I think, a difference, as with houses, most people are buying somewhere that they need to live, whilst stocks are an investment.
So stocks suddenly going down makes you look at what else you could have invested money in during that period - perhaps a bog standard bank account might have performed better, with none of the stress. But with a house, the choice isn't house vs. bank account, because you need to live somewhere. The alternative choice is renting - and with renting, your money doesn't go towards an investment at all. Even if house prices fall in a given period of time, it's only sometimes that the drop is greater than the cost of renting somewhere for a year.
Also with investments, you might need to cash them in at some point - which you can do at anytime with savings, but with stocks, you lose out if you have to sell when they are low. But with house prices, you still need to live somewhere, so there's no benefit to house prices rising, and no loss by house prices falling. The key point is that most people look to upgrade houses during their lifetime, so lower house prices are beneficial to home owners, as it will mean upgrading to a better house is cheaper (if your house falls in value to $1, who cares when it means you can buy a mansion for $10?)
The problem comes if people have to downgrade - or in particular, they can't keep up mortgage repayments due to loss of job, meaning they have to sell (especially a problem if they're in negative equity).
To be fair though, there's a difference between "house prices will always go up" (obviously not true - though even with the recent downturn, house prices have still been a very good investment for anyone who didn't buy in the last year, and it's unclear that this claim is untrue as a general trend, rather than looking only at short term changes) and "house prices will go up in the next year". And although you were right in this instance, note that the agent's advice would have been spot on for many years before that (for years, there's been the general understanding that house prices will have to come down because, as you say, they can't be sustained - but predicting that moment is another matter altogether, because for years they still kept going up).
Of course, but there exist programming jobs that involve solving problems too. Indeed, it was the OP who didn't seem to understand this difference, assuming that programming was only of the style he was used to.
OP says they don't use it, therefore it's of no use.
Someone counters that by saying that they do use it.
You replying saying that you don't use it... well that's beside the point, since the reply above is sufficient to rebut the claim that it's of no use in the real world.
I think you're diverting to a different point. My comment is directed to your original post where you said:
I've yet to encounter a calculus teacher who actually explains what good it is in the real world. (Considering I'm almost 30, I program computers for a good living, and I've never used it, I'm thinking: it ain't.)"
Whether a CS course should teach calculus or not, I have no idea. I'm just referring to calculus teachers (not CS teachers), and pointing out that it does have a use in the real world (including for programmers).
What you are talking about now is a completely different issue, and sounds like a problem with the course that you chose. I agree that is problematic - although there's nothing special to CS and calculus here. My maths course required me to do some programming. Some programming courses require you to pass science papers. That's got nothing to do with whether such things are used in the real world.
because their program was designed by someone with zero practical experience.
No, you mean it wasn't designed for what you were interested in. Why did you take it?
But it shouldn't be required for computer science programs any more than learning tax code should.
Is calculus required for all CS courses? If so, it might be a fair point. But otherwise, you're just complaining that one particular course had a requirement that you didn't like. Can I complain that programming shouldn't be required for maths, and therefore the people who designed the Cambridge mathematics degree have "zero practical experience"? (!)
To be fair, it wasn't simply that he didn't use calculus, but he concluded that it could never have any use in real world programming. You might not use calculus yourself, but you might hopefully be aware of the diverse areas that programming is used in, and that sometimes in order to write programs, it requires solving tricky problems to know what you want to do.
I don't know if it was fair for him to conclude that the OP was a web programmer based on that claim - but he was right.
Oops, by "OP" in my last post, I mean "you". I should check who I'm replying to...
But yes. Calculus, and maths in general, has lots of uses in the real world, including software (I imagine another example for calculus would be programming jobs in the financial sector, but I know less about that area). Whether the number of jobs that use it is outweighed by web programmers and other programming jobs that don't need it, I don't know, but that doesn't change the point.
I can almost guarantee that the guy who wrote the text messaging code for the phone didn't use any calculus.
The phones themselves can be designed with CAD software:) And as I say, calculus is used immensely in that - I assure you it's not abstracted away from me.
Same with the FPS game; the vast majority of games developers don't even see or use calculus.
I was thinking of maths more generally there - and even if you're using 3D engines, a knowledge of 3D maths is still handy.
And frankly, I could be the most successful, highest-paid web application developer on Earth and never touch the stuff.
Of course you could, but web application development is not the be all and end all of programmng. You could be an historian, farmer, astronaut and not use the stuff. But the OP suggested that it had no use in the real world. I'm pointing out that it does. That obviously doesn't imply every job uses it!
I don't know if it's really true that the number of programming jobs that don't require calculus, or maths in general, outweigh those that don't. I'm not sure that's a useful statistic - and that's not relevant when the claim was about whether calculus has a use (and whether maths teachers explain it), and not about how many jobs use it. I think you're discussing a separate issue to what my post was about. But whatever the percentage is, my experience is that there are many jobs around that use various high level maths - not everything is abstracted away in a library (and to be honest, I find the type of programming where everything is already done for me in a toolkit, and I'm just plugging bits together, rather boring...)
Put it the other way round - I can be a programmer without knowing all sorts of things, such as web development or how the Internet works. I could claim that programmers don't need to know about networking, "because it's abstracted away from me in a library". But it would be rather absurd of me to suggest that therefore those things were of no use at all in the real world! Clearly someone has to write things somewhere, unless you're just plugging pre-made stuff together. But for some reason, there seems to be this stigma with maths of being "of no use", and I'm just surprised to see it even here on Slashdot.
Would you rather a teacher who told how maths was used in the real world, as I suggest? Or one who says that, because not every job needs it, it's no use worth mentioning at all? (And by that reasoning, all academic subjects are pointless...)
My first university, though, wouldn't give a CS degree out until you knew it-- why? Imagine how many otherwise-excellent programmers are dropping out of CS programs because they can't hack the obscure math, it's criminal.
On the one hand, I agree that it's perhaps unfair the way that CS courses often require other subjects (I did maths myself, but at my Uni, CS students had to do maths and sciences too in the first year). OTOH, if the course doesn't have what you want, then don't take it. I'm sure there are lots of other things taught in CS courses that not every programmer means, but it's rather silly to blame the course for not catering solely to what job you plan on doing.
And what happened to learning something for the value of learning, rather than whether you planned on taking a job in it? Part of my maths course included theoretical physics, which I don't use, but it was still interesting to learn.
Why buy a TV, and a Blu-Ray player, and a load of discs when you can buy AppleTV and rent/buy your content without levering your fat ass off the couch?
But... that's how most people already watch things using just a TV.
I'm also almost 30, and I use it all the time in programming - we produce 3D CAD software which is used in manufacuring for all sorts of products - phones, cars and so on.
But yes, you have a point that maths teachers never really show how it's used in the real world. Or when they do give an example, it's something trivial that's already been done ("You can calculate the volume of a sphere"), and it's unclear why they'd need someone to program that now. It wasn't until I started looking for jobs that I started to see how many programming jobs there were out there that required a lot of maths.
I guess that's true of all subjects, but it's particularly depressing with maths, when you consider it's the subject pupils often ridicule as the least useful, when it today's world, it's one of the most used I would say ("But how is this of any use", whines the kid who then goes and texts someone on his phone, or goes and plays an FPS).
Not if there are already toasters on the market that you decide to ignore, that already do it simply in 20 seconds. That's what the situation actually is.
What is this - arguing by coming up with an analogy that has no relevance? What that's easy - I'll just claim that Windows is better than Mac OS, because Mac OS is a car that blows up all the time, whilst Windows drives perfectly. It has no grounding in reality, but who cares if we can just make up analogies?
To pretend that pre-existing mp3 players, phones and networked TVs (not to mention GUIs, computers-with-CD-ROM-drives, 64-bit PCs, computers-with-built-in-monitors, computers-without-floppy-drives, computers-without-fans, and all the other things I've seen people claim Apple did first) are in any way comparable to your poorly made toaster is just an arbitrary fiction created to repeat your assertion. It doesn't support your assertion however - if it's better, you have to tell us why it's better.
Not inventing something for the first time, never stopped Apple from dominating the market with their own version.
Well yes, they could become market leader. But then any company could. Any such claims are pure speculation, and there is no reason to consider Apple alone over all other companies.
The fact that they dominated one market before (mp3 players) is no judge of future markets - by that logic, we should be betting on a Microsoft TV to be the winner.
When Apple puts iTunes in a TV, you have a complete product your entire family can sit back and use out-of-the-box.
Pure vaporware. Call me back when they have a product - otherwise I might as well claim that the MS X-TV-BOX will do it better right out of the box.
But you could replace "Apple" with any number of companies in there! Gasp - Apple make products - big deal!
The point is that Apple fans do try to make some special claim - that they were first to do it, or when challenged, this is then modified with some special qualifier, or some odd reason is made as to way the actual first doesn't count.
Lots of companies make mp3 players, phones, desktop computers (and non-grey ones too, but I'm not sure why the colour matters - that's what I mean by the special qualifiers), laptops. The only market of those that Apple are a leader in is mp3 players.
making it something the average person will not only pay for but pay a premium for.
No doubt, an Apple LCD will cost more than other LCDs. But it will probably do more as well.
There are also lots of other companies that market products in the high end of these markets.
A few places (privately own places such as shopping centres, but nonetheless places open to the public can controlling access between large amounts of other land) have been wearing hats, hoodies or anything that might make it harder to be identified on CCTV. I'm curious as to whether there's ever been a court case regarding burqas, by someone claiming they have a religious right to wear it... anyone know?
Slashdot Mirror
In our insanely progressive system, about 45% of Americans don't pay a penny in taxes, meanwhile the top 1% pay about 40% of all taxes. This doesn't strike me as fair.
We can change the taxation system if you like. That's a separate issue though.
Our public schools consistently lag behind those of other nations and our private schools
See my comment above - the issue is not how good privately offered services are. Obviously, they are often better than what the state can offer. I am not suggestion that private companies be abolished - merely saying that sometimes the state can offer something too.
The question is, how good is the system to the population as a whole? How good do you think the private education will be to someone who can't afford it in the first place?
The US isn't a valid example, because the US does have state schools. How would the US look do you think if education was entirely private? Sure, the people who can already afford a private education would get a high standard - but then, they already get that now! Meanwhile, those that can't would have to buy into a cheaper school which might not be any better than the state system, and in some cases would be worse. Some might do without education altogether. So you'd have more uneducated people.
It's not that I'm saying "We should abolish perfectly good private schools". But you're the one saying "We should abolish state schools that currently provide for those who can't afford private education".
Is this the same military that spent several hundred thousand dollars on a toilet seat? Wasn't it the NSA that was purchasing iPods for their employees claiming they were for "data storage"?
Is that a Yes, or No? You haven't answered my question.
If I could think of a safe way to privatize the military I would want it done, but the last thing I want is for the Patriotic Enron Army to turn on us so thus we have a publicly funded military.
And this is exactly the point - even though the state may be more inefficient, in some parts of the market, it may still be better overall to have a state system, for other reasons.
Since I am not claiming that private organisations are less efficient, that argument is not relevant to my point.
So if something benefits the public, it should be nationalized??? Great, we just need to put everything into two buckets: If it's beneficial, nationalize it. If it's not, outlaw it. Enjoy your worker's paradise.
I never said that.
Yet these greedy, rich, corporate, evil, insurance companies will deny you fire insurance if your house has a pre-existing condition of being ablaze at the time you're applying for coverage. You'll get no such bigotry from the government!
If we had a system where fires didn't get put out after they had already started, that'd be a rubbish system too.
Not all discrimination is necessarily something that must be avoided - but I think it is something that is better to avoid when it's people's lives.
That's why our higher education system is the envy of the rest of the world, and our secondary education system is the joke of the rest of the world.
That is not sufficient to prove any correlation. The UK's Oxford and Cambridge were doing quite well with Government grants and lack of tuition fees. And people do not envy the system, they only envy the private product that is being sold. No one is disputing that - of course private companies can sell perfectly good products. But that doesn't mean that people support the system - indeed, the US is more likely to be criticised for the huge costs in tuition fees.
And can you point me to a country than has entirely privatised schooling, with much better results?
What about defence, firefighting, police, roads etc - should they all be privatised?
the opposite is true for an army to provide a common defense of a country
Why? Why should I have to have my money "stolen" just because some other people want an army? I didn't start these wars, it's a stupid "gimme gimme gimme" attitude. Why should I have to pay for police and firefighting and roads too? It's ridiculous!</whine>
I know you're more intelligent than that. Here's how "free" government, socialized healthcare works:
- I smoke. I destroy my lungs.
- Thanks to the miracle of technology, I can get new lungs from a deceased donor.
- This procedure costs ~$100,000 per lung.
- Who pays the bill?
- Not me!
Yes, you do - you pay taxes. Surely you're intelligent enough to realise this? Even if you happen to be an unemployed person not paying income tax, you still pay taxes, because in the UK, cigarettes are heavily taxed.
Whilst it's not clear to me whether the amount of taxation from cigarettes covers the cost to the health service, it's not clear that it doesn't either. And it works both ways too - if someone else has an accident through being careless, the smoker "has to pay for it". It's not clear that any one group is capable of gaining an overall huge advantage by stealing from another group who are at a disadvantage.
And they pay that bill via taxation. In essence, I have *stolen* money
Ah, taxation is theft, right? So do you oppose all taxation? There's a lot of other things that countries spend your "stolen" money on, including the US.
Yes we should
And what about defence, police, firefighting, roads? If you really want 100% privatisation with no public spending, at least you are consistent - but there's a lot more you need to change than just health.
I agree, although this comes at the same time as this story...
Also this law is not about monitoring the contents of emails AFAIK, but recording when/who everybody emails, which I don't think encryption will help with - nor will this help with tracking which websites you visit or who you phone/text on your mobile.
Well I have cable, Internet access, cell phone, and two computers bought in the last two years. And I can get public healthcare whenever I want.
You could afford it too if you had SAVED your money, instead of demanding your neighbors' pay the bill for you (tax their paychecks & give the money to you).
What country do you live in where you get to have tax paid for you by your neighbour? I pay taxes too.
There are arguments for public healthcare that are nothing to do with whether we should have welfare for the poor:
* Everyone benefits from a healthy society, such as stopping contagious diseases, and having a healthy workforce.
* Private companies tend to discriminate, making it unfair to anyone with any pre-existing conditions for example. I'm happy to pay for costs myself (whether towards a policy, or taxation), but I'd rather not gamble my health with the private insurance companies, thanks.
The US has state schools does it not? Surely we should privatise schools instead of having this "socialist" schooling system? And what about the military, what's this nonsense about Government funded defence? Anyone who suggests otherwise has a "gimme gimme gimme" attitude, and they want to "raid their neighbors' wallets", right?
You see, even if the US, there are lots of things where things are funded by the Government, and it is sensible to do so. My views lean towards right-wing pro-capitalist, but this doesn't mean that we have to have an entirely 100% laissez-faire capitalist society. I find this attitude that any kind of regulation amounts to "socialism" rather odd, especially since the US clearly isn't anywhere near a 100% laissez-faire capitalist society, anyway.
(I'm also curious how you manage to save 1/2 a million in just five years just by not having cable etc?)
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in.
I suspect that there are many who prefer Windows or use it as their main OS. I'm not sure if there have been more recent polls, but in 2002, Windows usage was 47%, beating all other platforms. Whilst that may or may not have fallen, I'd be willing to bet it's still no. 1, and I find it highly unlikely it's been relegated to a niche interest.
Earlier this year, only 32% (36% if we include the "other" option) say they don't use Windows.
Like it or not, Windows PCs are a mainstream interest just as much as stories for any other platform.
As the other comment stated, "number of comments" is not a poor metric - especially as my post is counting towards that! And how do we know how many comments other articles will get, if they don't get posted?
I also note that the only article currently beating this article in terms of number of comments on the front page at the moment is "Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7". It's tagged "!newsworthy" and "whocares", but according to you, at over 100 more comments than this story, it ought to be the most newsworthy story of the day, right?
Agreed. And not just everytime there's a new model, but also everytime there's a rumour about something new, as has been the case with recent stories. We should be glad that for once, at least there's a story based on fact here ;) But yes, it's a slashvertisement.
I don't think you get it. People don't want Windows anymore. ... I see more and more people buying Apples then running Windows
Am I missing something?
If apple would come out with a Mac Mini that only cost $499 and was expandable
If, if, if. As with your OP, it's easy if we can make up specs of a fictional machine. E.g., I could write the specs of a Quad core Amiga for $499 with the latest graphics card, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to build such a machine.
The game market for the Mac would massively increase as would video card options.
Not with the Mini's low end integrated graphics. And even with expansion, developers are relectant to target a machine that requires an upgrade before it can run the game.
People only buy Windows machines for two reasons. They are cheap or they have to run some program under windows.
Rubbish. And this isn't true for anyone I know (including my computer-newbie parents).
At my Uni CS department, it seemed like 8/10 were using Linux, and the rest were mostly made up of RISC OS users.
But I don't think I can claim that's going to be a trend that will be representative of users in general.
By that reasoning, why not just let all submissions through to the front page, instead of keeping them in the firehose and then rejecting them? After all, if you don't like the loads of slashvertisements that appear, you can disable all the categories for every company.
(And some of us might like to hear about Apple news occasionally. When it's actual notable news, not repeated rumourware advertising.)
If they'd done it with a locked-down Microsoft platform, there'd be outrage here on Slashdot. But because it's Apple, it's evidently okay.
Indeed - and three out of the latest five Apple stories are now rumourware. I thought two in a row was bad.
It was bad enough when we got a story everytime something happened to do with the Iphone - even though other phones hardly ever get a mention, even when there's actual news like a new product being released.
Given the high competition for stories on Slashdot, with many stories about actual news getting turned away, I wonder why the need to flood with rumourware?
Although I note that there is, I think, a difference, as with houses, most people are buying somewhere that they need to live, whilst stocks are an investment.
So stocks suddenly going down makes you look at what else you could have invested money in during that period - perhaps a bog standard bank account might have performed better, with none of the stress. But with a house, the choice isn't house vs. bank account, because you need to live somewhere. The alternative choice is renting - and with renting, your money doesn't go towards an investment at all. Even if house prices fall in a given period of time, it's only sometimes that the drop is greater than the cost of renting somewhere for a year.
Also with investments, you might need to cash them in at some point - which you can do at anytime with savings, but with stocks, you lose out if you have to sell when they are low. But with house prices, you still need to live somewhere, so there's no benefit to house prices rising, and no loss by house prices falling. The key point is that most people look to upgrade houses during their lifetime, so lower house prices are beneficial to home owners, as it will mean upgrading to a better house is cheaper (if your house falls in value to $1, who cares when it means you can buy a mansion for $10?)
The problem comes if people have to downgrade - or in particular, they can't keep up mortgage repayments due to loss of job, meaning they have to sell (especially a problem if they're in negative equity).
To be fair though, there's a difference between "house prices will always go up" (obviously not true - though even with the recent downturn, house prices have still been a very good investment for anyone who didn't buy in the last year, and it's unclear that this claim is untrue as a general trend, rather than looking only at short term changes) and "house prices will go up in the next year". And although you were right in this instance, note that the agent's advice would have been spot on for many years before that (for years, there's been the general understanding that house prices will have to come down because, as you say, they can't be sustained - but predicting that moment is another matter altogether, because for years they still kept going up).
Of course, but there exist programming jobs that involve solving problems too. Indeed, it was the OP who didn't seem to understand this difference, assuming that programming was only of the style he was used to.
OP says they don't use it, therefore it's of no use.
Someone counters that by saying that they do use it.
You replying saying that you don't use it ... well that's beside the point, since the reply above is sufficient to rebut the claim that it's of no use in the real world.
I think you're diverting to a different point. My comment is directed to your original post where you said:
I've yet to encounter a calculus teacher who actually explains what good it is in the real world. (Considering I'm almost 30, I program computers for a good living, and I've never used it, I'm thinking: it ain't.)"
Whether a CS course should teach calculus or not, I have no idea. I'm just referring to calculus teachers (not CS teachers), and pointing out that it does have a use in the real world (including for programmers).
What you are talking about now is a completely different issue, and sounds like a problem with the course that you chose. I agree that is problematic - although there's nothing special to CS and calculus here. My maths course required me to do some programming. Some programming courses require you to pass science papers. That's got nothing to do with whether such things are used in the real world.
because their program was designed by someone with zero practical experience.
No, you mean it wasn't designed for what you were interested in. Why did you take it?
But it shouldn't be required for computer science programs any more than learning tax code should.
Is calculus required for all CS courses? If so, it might be a fair point. But otherwise, you're just complaining that one particular course had a requirement that you didn't like. Can I complain that programming shouldn't be required for maths, and therefore the people who designed the Cambridge mathematics degree have "zero practical experience"? (!)
To be fair, it wasn't simply that he didn't use calculus, but he concluded that it could never have any use in real world programming. You might not use calculus yourself, but you might hopefully be aware of the diverse areas that programming is used in, and that sometimes in order to write programs, it requires solving tricky problems to know what you want to do.
I don't know if it was fair for him to conclude that the OP was a web programmer based on that claim - but he was right.
Oops, by "OP" in my last post, I mean "you". I should check who I'm replying to...
But yes. Calculus, and maths in general, has lots of uses in the real world, including software (I imagine another example for calculus would be programming jobs in the financial sector, but I know less about that area). Whether the number of jobs that use it is outweighed by web programmers and other programming jobs that don't need it, I don't know, but that doesn't change the point.
I can almost guarantee that the guy who wrote the text messaging code for the phone didn't use any calculus.
The phones themselves can be designed with CAD software :) And as I say, calculus is used immensely in that - I assure you it's not abstracted away from me.
Same with the FPS game; the vast majority of games developers don't even see or use calculus.
I was thinking of maths more generally there - and even if you're using 3D engines, a knowledge of 3D maths is still handy.
And frankly, I could be the most successful, highest-paid web application developer on Earth and never touch the stuff.
Of course you could, but web application development is not the be all and end all of programmng. You could be an historian, farmer, astronaut and not use the stuff. But the OP suggested that it had no use in the real world. I'm pointing out that it does. That obviously doesn't imply every job uses it!
I don't know if it's really true that the number of programming jobs that don't require calculus, or maths in general, outweigh those that don't. I'm not sure that's a useful statistic - and that's not relevant when the claim was about whether calculus has a use (and whether maths teachers explain it), and not about how many jobs use it. I think you're discussing a separate issue to what my post was about. But whatever the percentage is, my experience is that there are many jobs around that use various high level maths - not everything is abstracted away in a library (and to be honest, I find the type of programming where everything is already done for me in a toolkit, and I'm just plugging bits together, rather boring...)
Put it the other way round - I can be a programmer without knowing all sorts of things, such as web development or how the Internet works. I could claim that programmers don't need to know about networking, "because it's abstracted away from me in a library". But it would be rather absurd of me to suggest that therefore those things were of no use at all in the real world! Clearly someone has to write things somewhere, unless you're just plugging pre-made stuff together. But for some reason, there seems to be this stigma with maths of being "of no use", and I'm just surprised to see it even here on Slashdot.
Would you rather a teacher who told how maths was used in the real world, as I suggest? Or one who says that, because not every job needs it, it's no use worth mentioning at all? (And by that reasoning, all academic subjects are pointless...)
My first university, though, wouldn't give a CS degree out until you knew it-- why? Imagine how many otherwise-excellent programmers are dropping out of CS programs because they can't hack the obscure math, it's criminal.
On the one hand, I agree that it's perhaps unfair the way that CS courses often require other subjects (I did maths myself, but at my Uni, CS students had to do maths and sciences too in the first year). OTOH, if the course doesn't have what you want, then don't take it. I'm sure there are lots of other things taught in CS courses that not every programmer means, but it's rather silly to blame the course for not catering solely to what job you plan on doing.
And what happened to learning something for the value of learning, rather than whether you planned on taking a job in it? Part of my maths course included theoretical physics, which I don't use, but it was still interesting to learn.
Why buy a TV, and a Blu-Ray player, and a load of discs when you can buy AppleTV and rent/buy your content without levering your fat ass off the couch?
But ... that's how most people already watch things using just a TV.
I'm also almost 30, and I use it all the time in programming - we produce 3D CAD software which is used in manufacuring for all sorts of products - phones, cars and so on.
But yes, you have a point that maths teachers never really show how it's used in the real world. Or when they do give an example, it's something trivial that's already been done ("You can calculate the volume of a sphere"), and it's unclear why they'd need someone to program that now. It wasn't until I started looking for jobs that I started to see how many programming jobs there were out there that required a lot of maths.
I guess that's true of all subjects, but it's particularly depressing with maths, when you consider it's the subject pupils often ridicule as the least useful, when it today's world, it's one of the most used I would say ("But how is this of any use", whines the kid who then goes and texts someone on his phone, or goes and plays an FPS).
Not if there are already toasters on the market that you decide to ignore, that already do it simply in 20 seconds. That's what the situation actually is.
What is this - arguing by coming up with an analogy that has no relevance? What that's easy - I'll just claim that Windows is better than Mac OS, because Mac OS is a car that blows up all the time, whilst Windows drives perfectly. It has no grounding in reality, but who cares if we can just make up analogies?
To pretend that pre-existing mp3 players, phones and networked TVs (not to mention GUIs, computers-with-CD-ROM-drives, 64-bit PCs, computers-with-built-in-monitors, computers-without-floppy-drives, computers-without-fans, and all the other things I've seen people claim Apple did first) are in any way comparable to your poorly made toaster is just an arbitrary fiction created to repeat your assertion. It doesn't support your assertion however - if it's better, you have to tell us why it's better.
Not inventing something for the first time, never stopped Apple from dominating the market with their own version.
Well yes, they could become market leader. But then any company could. Any such claims are pure speculation, and there is no reason to consider Apple alone over all other companies.
The fact that they dominated one market before (mp3 players) is no judge of future markets - by that logic, we should be betting on a Microsoft TV to be the winner.
When Apple puts iTunes in a TV, you have a complete product your entire family can sit back and use out-of-the-box.
Pure vaporware. Call me back when they have a product - otherwise I might as well claim that the MS X-TV-BOX will do it better right out of the box.
But you could replace "Apple" with any number of companies in there! Gasp - Apple make products - big deal!
The point is that Apple fans do try to make some special claim - that they were first to do it, or when challenged, this is then modified with some special qualifier, or some odd reason is made as to way the actual first doesn't count.
Lots of companies make mp3 players, phones, desktop computers (and non-grey ones too, but I'm not sure why the colour matters - that's what I mean by the special qualifiers), laptops. The only market of those that Apple are a leader in is mp3 players.
making it something the average person will not only pay for but pay a premium for.
No doubt, an Apple LCD will cost more than other LCDs. But it will probably do more as well.
There are also lots of other companies that market products in the high end of these markets.
A few places (privately own places such as shopping centres, but nonetheless places open to the public can controlling access between large amounts of other land) have been wearing hats, hoodies or anything that might make it harder to be identified on CCTV. I'm curious as to whether there's ever been a court case regarding burqas, by someone claiming they have a religious right to wear it... anyone know?