"As a canukian, I have a few comments on this terrible disaster..."
What terrible disaster? Let's just fix the current mix-up for the incoming data, keep track of which data was tainted, and keep the data input going.
In the meantime, the DBAs will figure out ways in which they can reconstruct the lost data. They may not be able to reconstruct all of it, but with some creative thinking and some careful supervision -- they should be able to reconstruct 99% of it. Just to give one example, they should have access to last year's social insurance numbers, and with some work -- they may be able to correlate last year's tax payers with this year's tax payers. That's just one example of course, and perhaps the description of their problem is inaccurate -- or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what their problem is -- this is actually not technical advice -- I'm just a slash-doter who actually doesn't know what he's talking about -- and I can not be held liable if Canada choses to follow my advice -- even if thus said advice ends up corrupting the rest of their data.. blah... blah... loss in a revenue... blah... blah... complete national embarrassment... blah... blah...
They do not pay taxes, or if they do pay taxes, their income is underreported and they're using someone else's SSN (in fact one used mine one year, but they reported only a few dollars of income so it didn't actually harm me.)
No according the IRS, fourteen million undocumented aliens did pay income taxes last year. They've been paying taxes since the 90s.
The IRS is/was pragmatic enough to accept, campaign for, and scare undocumented aliens into paying income taxes. Granted, probably many undocumented aliens still don't pay taxes, or under-report their income so that they pay less taxes, but that's more a factor of the nature of their work. I know many people who will pay under the table in the construction/farm industry (or at home) if they can get away with it (whatever the legal status or the citizenship of their employees).
"Not so much dare to be stupid, but rather the Socratic, don't be afraid of exposing your own ignorance - don't lose your opportunity to learn by merely being embarrassed of people thinking you dumb while you take your first few steps in a new landscape. "
I agree completely.
The same goes for those of us who may hold some kind of expertise in one area already. Every time we explore a new area, we must allow ourselves to start from scratch over and over again.
In this thought, I'm often reminded by what George Leonard said in his book "Mastery". In Martial arts, the true Master is the black belt who's willing to forgo his previous honors and wear a white belt everytime he's learning a new art.
That book was published over a year ago, lots can and has changed in that time.
Actually, its content was produced seven or eight years ago.
Its publishing date was "December 2005". But publishers will lie about the publication date of a book if it allows them to sell more books. And in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if the book came out hot off the presses in December 2004 with a postdate of "December 2005"
Furthermore, this book was based on the scientific proceedings of a conference which occurred six years before the book was finally edited (or finally published). I'm actually not sure of the year of the scientific conference itself, because the information supplied to sell the book doesn't give the actual year.
"...I'd argue that it's worthwhile to avoid breeding discontent by giving all teachers that same raise. "
Discontent is going to happen whatever you do. In an unionized system, some are going to be discontent that senior teachers get paid more, and can't get fired. In a school where everyone gets paid the same, the teachers that teach the sciences or the upper classes are going to be discontent that the art teachers or the kiddy teachers make the same as they do. It doesn't matter what way you cut it, someone is not going to be happy about the results.
Plus, I realize you feel like we have an unlimited pot of money at our disposal, but we really don't. What would you do if it was your own money you were spending on teachers? Would you really pay that much more above-market rate -- to make up the difference between market forces, or would you make sure you got the maximum out of your money's worth -- so your kids would get the best possible education you can afford?
It's different when you're spending your own money -- instead of spending the hypothetical money of others. Isn't it?
"...otherwise you get kids that are stressed out, mis-adjusted and nerdy."
This "nerdy" image is an American invention. I was partly educated in France, and at the time -- the best students were also the most popular kids and the most athletic. In France, it's the dumb kids that get held back a grade and bullied in school -- and in the US -- it's the quite the opposite.
I'm not saying that one system is better than another. I'm just trying to point out this apparent contradiction. And to tell you the truth, I have a feeling the French educational system is slowly changing to become more like the American one. After much protest from the student population, the French system is dumbing down its exam requirements. And with the advent of dubbed American television shows, the stereotype of the "nerd" has since entered the collective consciousness of French people.
"[Open source] was introduced as a way to foster cooperation and support between those programmers who didn't seek to profit from their code, but did want to share it with other like-minded people."
I'm sure open source was introduced for many different reasons, sometimes even conflicting reasons, but for me open source means that I can profit from my labor, my reputation, my tacit understanding of the code, etc. That is what I get when I invest my time and my money into open source.
And to me at least, the actual code is only an artifact, it may be valuable, but it is not the only valuable part of my work, nor is it necessarily the *most* valuable part of my work. So open source (for me) is/was a pricing decision -- it is/was a pricing decision that holds/held the most promise in terms of profit (considering my situation and the type of market I was in at the time). Also, open source was the easiest way for me to profit from my work since I didn't have the resources, nor the knowledge, to seriously productize my code any other way.
Yes, a socialist health-care system will ration itself, but your post seems to imply that the capitalist system doesn't do this. That is not the case. In a capitalist system (even if it's not a pure capitalist system), patients ration themselves, insurance companies ration patients, hospitals ration specific populations through geography, and last but not least -- nurses and doctors ration us (also this last one rarely gets talked about, just ask anyone who has ever worked for an hospital -- private or public -- it doesn't matter -- the standard of care you receive and the suggested treatment will largely depend on your ability to pay for treatment).
Now, don't get me wrong. This doesn't mean that I am necessarily on the side of socialized medicine. I'm just bringing up this point, because health-care rationing, whether it's done explicitly, or implicitly, has a bearing on this discussion. Ultimately, rationing can not be gotten rid of. In some cases, maintaining or extending the life of an elderly adult (or a premature baby) -- can easily top one million dollars just for one individual. Ultimately, rationing has to occur somewhere. We're not all millionaires, and yet a great number of us are going to need that million dollar (or more) at some point or another.
Stephan.. there will always be idiots around and there is nothing that can be done about it.
I just hope you are not one of them and are simply playing devil's advocate.
Think of me as an idiot then. I'm a libertarian, so my views don't mesh with Chavez's policies in the least -- but I still think the interest of the people in Venezuela are far better served by him than by a foreign power such as the United States. Ironically, one of the reasons the United States is so against him is because Chavez won't increase the supply of oil to keep the prices low during times of shortage (see the online archive of Forbes magazine for examples). In my book, this makes him profoundly pro-Venezuelan and pro-capitalist. Right now, there is a pattern of leaders in South America selling out their countries to the United States for pennies on the dollars, and then retiring to the United States once they bled their country dry: that's not capitalism -- that's not democracy -- that has got to stop. Finally in Venezuela, that has stopped, thanks in large part to Hugo Chavez.
I like the way Chavez is going. At least, he's more of a democratic leader than the unelected man George Bush was trying to replace him with. Furthermore, the only violent person here is our US Ambassador to Venezuela. It's a documented fact that our current Ambassador was a low ranking death squad leader during the Iran Contra scandal. That man shouldn't even be allowed to walk the streets freely, let alone be given an ambassadorship anywhere.
By your reasoning, nickv111, everybody would get everything cheaper if patent terms were shorter, or eliminated. And copyrights - they're a lot like patents. We should eliminate them, too. Then everybody could get everything for free! Just like Soviet Russia.
You bring up an interesting point. Soviet Russia used invasive government coercion to benefit the public good. Now patent law uses invasive government coercion to benefit the public good.
In the end, the countries that let their people produce without punishing them, are the ones that will be prosperous.
The only way to make Islamic terrorists not want to harm us is for us all to covert to Islam. America is not willing to do that, so fighting for our freedom is the only alternative.
Can you even hear yourself? "The only way..." "...the only alternative." It's absolute language like this that makes it difficult for us to have a coherent discussion with each other. And I don't completely fault your side for saying things like this, I realize many people on *both* sides of the issue are doing the same.
While it's great they want to promote CFLs, I think this is excessive.
I completely agree. Plus, let's not discount the effect of light on mood and depression. In Canada and Norway, there has been compelling studies showing that the lack of natural sun light caused higher rates of depression during the winter months. To correct those problems, the researchers used halogen lamps (those are even worse than incandescent lights in terms of power consumption) as a successful treatment (and sometimes cures) for those winter-caused depressions.
The reason halogen lamps are closer to sun light in terms of mood is that they utilize a wider range of the spectrum than incandescents (and incandescents utilize a wider range of the spectrum than fluorescent lights). And this benefit of wider spectrum, for example an halogen lamp will produce infra-reds and a fluorescent will not, this benefit is the exact reason why those halogen lamps will dissipate more energy and will not last as long as fluorescents.
And while it's hard to generalize such a consequence of lack of sun light for Californians, after all -- I'm sure that we have more sun light than our Canadian counterparts during the winter months. Some of us do work indoors quite extensively. And some of us do live in Cities such as Seattle or San Francisco -- where the fog/clouds tend to block out lots of sun light the rest of California getting.
Some say specialization killed the Webmaster. I say common knowledge killed him. It just isn't cool to be a Webmaster anymore, pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job.
And while I agree that some people have chosen to specialize even more, I've seen people go in the other direction as well. There are still Jacks-of-All-Trades, except those new Jacks may know a scripting language or two, a bit of database, a bit of graphic design, a bit of apache, etc. And those new Jacks-of-all-Trades just couldn't market themselves under the old label Webmaster, since that label doesn't really describe what they do now, nor does that old label describe something that's very special anymore.
That's the reason I moved to the US from France. I wanted to be surrounded by intelligent individuals. Give me intelligent individuals over intelligent planning and intelligent leaders any day.
This is an inference -- not a prediction
on
New Ice Age Theory
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"The cycles predicted by Ehlrich's model line up with the observations."
Shouldn't this be? The cycles predicted by Ehlrich's model were inferred from observations. Implying that a prediction is lining up with observations is not the same as a prediction that's inferred from observations. And besides, the article is claiming it's an inference based on past observations, not a prediction which has been verified with observations.
The article itself makes no such wild encompassing claim.
"...Here we are, with Microsoft having rejected other manufacturers' hardware as deficient,"
Why are you assuming the reason was hardware deficiency? Partnerships are more than just about meeting technical requirements. Partnerships are also about cost sharing, risk sharing, and revenue sharing agreements (among many other things). And if two prospective partners can not agree on any of those points, then it won't really matter what the specs are going to be -- such a partnership is just not going to happen.
No need to think up of new analogies. There are real examples similar enough in our not so distant past. Content publishers were against photocopy machines when they first came out. They were against video tapes that the consumer could record on. They were against search engines that could index their content. They were against mp3 players. This will come to pass as well. Just as now, it would be silly to be in a world without photocopy machines and without VCR-like devices, soon enough it will be just as silly to be in a world without several quick ways to share large files anonymously.
If this was to happen in the US, would the FDIC cover these types of things?
And don't forget to ask this other question
If this happened in the US and if the FDIC didn't step up, would the bank be worried enough about losing its online customers and reputation to take the hit themselves?
I suspect a bank might do that if worse came to worse. Online banking holds a lot of promise for a lot of banks. It may be expensive to get going at its core, but online banking holds the promise of scalability and reduced workforce savings. And spending one million dollars to keep one's reputation intact (or enhanced) is easily justified when one might be spending so much more on television/print advertisements in the first place.
To apply the exact same point you made, but with the correct assumptions, what makes the paid political blogger so special that he doesn't have to abide by the same rules as print media?
Bloggers are special, because we seek them out among millions of other bloggers on the internet. Traditional print media is less special, because it can hold a geographical monopoly over common knowledge. Bloggers are special, because most allow immediate public feedback. Traditional print media is less special, because it doesn't (it doesn't really).
In any case, those rules you speak of, imposed on the traditional media, don't seem to make a difference in the real World. As far as I'm aware, traditional news outlets do not disclose who creates some of their news segments, we have to find that out from blogs. And traditional news outlets do not disclose the cross-ownership ties and the financial interests they have in promoting specific political agendas, again we have to find this out from blogs. And this is true for defense contracts, indirect advertising made by corporations, family relationships, think tank funding, and a host of other things that the rules you speak of -- don't seem to take into account.
How does this "simulation" show causality? How were the participants selected in the first place? Aren't bilingual people self-selected individuals anyway? How was the bias of the research staff eliminated from their data-gathering process?
I have many more such questions.
The fact that you see a pattern in your results could be no accident. It could just as well be that your brain is fooling you into believing a preconceived conclusion.
I know my mind works like this when I write a unit test after I've already designed and coded a program (instead of writing the unit test beforehand). And I know that my mind works like this when I make a life-like drawing and start making preconceived notions about its shapes (instead of thinking about its negative space which is one of the tricks used to clear your mind to draw properly).
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the conclusions of this study. In my opinion, its conclusions follow common wisdom and I do happen to agree with that common wisdom. It's just that with the methodology they employed, and the small sample size, it could only be construed as a study that's very preliminary, and worth further investigation, that's it.
The question this women is asking is more like, "Given that there are no inherent disparities in aptitude between men and women, why aren't as many women appearing in engineering positions?"
That's the big assertion that "there are no inherent disparities in aptitude between men and women". The problem with this statement is that there are a number of counter-examples.
Color blindness affects one in ten men, but only one in one hundred women. Color blindness is a particularly good example since it can not be cured, it can not be reversed in any way, and I don't think anyone will argue with me as to its inherent nature or as to its diagnosis criteria. Another good example is stuttering, stuttering affects more boys (I forget the actual stats, but it's significant). Also the rate of recovery for stuttering into adulthood is profoundly skewed in favor of women (again, I don't have the stats, but it is significant and it only compounds the gender-bias even more).
This is not my field of expertise, but I believe there is an additional body of evidence that shows different disabilities whether naturally induced or induced by specific measurable brain injury/trauma which show completely different aptitudes and completely different rates of recovery based on the actual genders of the subjects.
It's too bad that there can not be an honest intellectual debate about this. I understand the fears that some people have, but we're covering up potentially valuable knowledge and potentially losing a countless number of countermeasures and pedagogical workarounds that could come out of such research. It also saddens me that the Harvard President started his speech as carefully as I did, or even more so, and yet still got hanged for it.
I think the original poster confuses the term "self-taught" with "industry-taught". Personally, I became a "self-taught" programmer long before I became an "industry-taught" programmer.
Each on its own doesn't mean much, but it's only when you combine both kinds of experience that you might get something worthwhile. A "self-taught" hobby programmer is like an artist in title -- but not in income. There is no glamor in it, no respect in it, there is just inner drive and inner satisfaction (at least at the beginning). I can't speak for my entire gender, but for me at least, I think I went into that direction because that's the only thing I could excel at.
I used to stutter for a good part of my youth and my writing skills weren't that great (and even my math skills weren't as good as my female peers). And for me at least, in a female dominated school, dominated by female teachers (and dominated by emasculated male teachers), and out-shined by excellent female students, I had to go outside of school to find a learning outlet I could be good at.
I became "self-taught", but there was no design in it -- no plan. And really, I'm not sure how you could replicate such an experience with an "industry-taught" approach. One approach is driven by inner desire and the other is driven by external forces. One approach is unplanned and unstructured, the other is planned and organized. And one is based on hobby, interest, and inspiration, and the other is based on the hobby, interest, and inspiration of five years ago. And really, that's the crux of the matter, whether it's school or industry, both types of environments lag behind the passions of early adopters and early tinkerers.
And don't get me wrong, an "industry-taught" program can be a very valuable experience, but this kind of experience is especially valuable for those who are already "self-taught". Those are the ones who need it the most and those are the ones society will benefit the most from going into such programs.
This original poster scares me. He wants arguments against VB, but doesn't explain the scope of his project, nor does he say what language he wishes to replace VB with. Most likely, he doesn't have much experience in the working world and would just prefer to use a language he's already used to from school.
The crucial ingredient in any project is the people you end up working with, not the language. I'm not a fan of VB, but if this kid doesn't have the experience of successfully completing a project in the real world, he should consider following the owner's experience -- and only worry about changing the underlying language once he has a couple of releases under his belt.
This is a good example you brought up (never mind that most bookstores don't have photocopy machines within them). Photocopy machines were seriously fought by the publishing industry. Photocopy machines were the symbol of the publishing industry's demise. After all, the pro-copyright organizations can't just fight all copyright infringement, that would mean that they would have to stand over your shoulder every time a buddy of yours loans you a book for you to photocopy -- they can only fight the tools and the toolmakers that make copyright-infringement easier.
Slashdot Mirror
"As a canukian, I have a few comments on this terrible disaster..."
What terrible disaster? Let's just fix the current mix-up for the incoming data, keep track of which data was tainted, and keep the data input going.
In the meantime, the DBAs will figure out ways in which they can reconstruct the lost data. They may not be able to reconstruct all of it, but with some creative thinking and some careful supervision -- they should be able to reconstruct 99% of it. Just to give one example, they should have access to last year's social insurance numbers, and with some work -- they may be able to correlate last year's tax payers with this year's tax payers. That's just one example of course, and perhaps the description of their problem is inaccurate -- or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what their problem is -- this is actually not technical advice -- I'm just a slash-doter who actually doesn't know what he's talking about -- and I can not be held liable if Canada choses to follow my advice -- even if thus said advice ends up corrupting the rest of their data.. blah... blah... loss in a revenue... blah... blah... complete national embarrassment... blah... blah...
They do not pay taxes, or if they do pay taxes, their income is underreported and they're using someone else's SSN (in fact one used mine one year, but they reported only a few dollars of income so it didn't actually harm me.)
No according the IRS, fourteen million undocumented aliens did pay income taxes last year. They've been paying taxes since the 90s.
The IRS is/was pragmatic enough to accept, campaign for, and scare undocumented aliens into paying income taxes. Granted, probably many undocumented aliens still don't pay taxes, or under-report their income so that they pay less taxes, but that's more a factor of the nature of their work. I know many people who will pay under the table in the construction/farm industry (or at home) if they can get away with it (whatever the legal status or the citizenship of their employees).
"Not so much dare to be stupid, but rather the Socratic, don't be afraid of exposing your own ignorance - don't lose your opportunity to learn by merely being embarrassed of people thinking you dumb while you take your first few steps in a new landscape. "
I agree completely.
The same goes for those of us who may hold some kind of expertise in one area already. Every time we explore a new area, we must allow ourselves to start from scratch over and over again. In this thought, I'm often reminded by what George Leonard said in his book "Mastery". In Martial arts, the true Master is the black belt who's willing to forgo his previous honors and wear a white belt everytime he's learning a new art.
That book was published over a year ago, lots can and has changed in that time.
Actually, its content was produced seven or eight years ago.
Its publishing date was "December 2005". But publishers will lie about the publication date of a book if it allows them to sell more books. And in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if the book came out hot off the presses in December 2004 with a postdate of "December 2005"
Furthermore, this book was based on the scientific proceedings of a conference which occurred six years before the book was finally edited (or finally published). I'm actually not sure of the year of the scientific conference itself, because the information supplied to sell the book doesn't give the actual year.
"...I'd argue that it's worthwhile to avoid breeding discontent by giving all teachers that same raise. "
Discontent is going to happen whatever you do. In an unionized system, some are going to be discontent that senior teachers get paid more, and can't get fired. In a school where everyone gets paid the same, the teachers that teach the sciences or the upper classes are going to be discontent that the art teachers or the kiddy teachers make the same as they do. It doesn't matter what way you cut it, someone is not going to be happy about the results.
Plus, I realize you feel like we have an unlimited pot of money at our disposal, but we really don't. What would you do if it was your own money you were spending on teachers? Would you really pay that much more above-market rate -- to make up the difference between market forces, or would you make sure you got the maximum out of your money's worth -- so your kids would get the best possible education you can afford?
It's different when you're spending your own money -- instead of spending the hypothetical money of others. Isn't it?
"...otherwise you get kids that are stressed out, mis-adjusted and nerdy."
This "nerdy" image is an American invention. I was partly educated in France, and at the time -- the best students were also the most popular kids and the most athletic. In France, it's the dumb kids that get held back a grade and bullied in school -- and in the US -- it's the quite the opposite.
I'm not saying that one system is better than another. I'm just trying to point out this apparent contradiction. And to tell you the truth, I have a feeling the French educational system is slowly changing to become more like the American one. After much protest from the student population, the French system is dumbing down its exam requirements. And with the advent of dubbed American television shows, the stereotype of the "nerd" has since entered the collective consciousness of French people.
"[Open source] was introduced as a way to foster cooperation and support between those programmers who didn't seek to profit from their code, but did want to share it with other like-minded people."
I'm sure open source was introduced for many different reasons, sometimes even conflicting reasons, but for me open source means that I can profit from my labor, my reputation, my tacit understanding of the code, etc. That is what I get when I invest my time and my money into open source.
And to me at least, the actual code is only an artifact, it may be valuable, but it is not the only valuable part of my work, nor is it necessarily the *most* valuable part of my work. So open source (for me) is/was a pricing decision -- it is/was a pricing decision that holds/held the most promise in terms of profit (considering my situation and the type of market I was in at the time). Also, open source was the easiest way for me to profit from my work since I didn't have the resources, nor the knowledge, to seriously productize my code any other way.
Just thought I'd add my 0.2
Yes, a socialist health-care system will ration itself, but your post seems to imply that the capitalist system doesn't do this. That is not the case. In a capitalist system (even if it's not a pure capitalist system), patients ration themselves, insurance companies ration patients, hospitals ration specific populations through geography, and last but not least -- nurses and doctors ration us (also this last one rarely gets talked about, just ask anyone who has ever worked for an hospital -- private or public -- it doesn't matter -- the standard of care you receive and the suggested treatment will largely depend on your ability to pay for treatment).
Now, don't get me wrong. This doesn't mean that I am necessarily on the side of socialized medicine. I'm just bringing up this point, because health-care rationing, whether it's done explicitly, or implicitly, has a bearing on this discussion. Ultimately, rationing can not be gotten rid of. In some cases, maintaining or extending the life of an elderly adult (or a premature baby) -- can easily top one million dollars just for one individual. Ultimately, rationing has to occur somewhere. We're not all millionaires, and yet a great number of us are going to need that million dollar (or more) at some point or another.
Stephan .. there will always be idiots around and there is nothing that can be done about it.
I just hope you are not one of them and are simply playing devil's advocate.
Think of me as an idiot then. I'm a libertarian, so my views don't mesh with Chavez's policies in the least -- but I still think the interest of the people in Venezuela are far better served by him than by a foreign power such as the United States. Ironically, one of the reasons the United States is so against him is because Chavez won't increase the supply of oil to keep the prices low during times of shortage (see the online archive of Forbes magazine for examples). In my book, this makes him profoundly pro-Venezuelan and pro-capitalist. Right now, there is a pattern of leaders in South America selling out their countries to the United States for pennies on the dollars, and then retiring to the United States once they bled their country dry: that's not capitalism -- that's not democracy -- that has got to stop. Finally in Venezuela, that has stopped, thanks in large part to Hugo Chavez.
I like the way Chavez is going. At least, he's more of a democratic leader than the unelected man George Bush was trying to replace him with. Furthermore, the only violent person here is our US Ambassador to Venezuela. It's a documented fact that our current Ambassador was a low ranking death squad leader during the Iran Contra scandal. That man shouldn't even be allowed to walk the streets freely, let alone be given an ambassadorship anywhere.
By your reasoning, nickv111, everybody would get everything cheaper if patent terms were shorter, or eliminated. And copyrights - they're a lot like patents. We should eliminate them, too. Then everybody could get everything for free! Just like Soviet Russia.
You bring up an interesting point. Soviet Russia used invasive government coercion to benefit the public good. Now patent law uses invasive government coercion to benefit the public good.
In the end, the countries that let their people produce without punishing them, are the ones that will be prosperous.
The only way to make Islamic terrorists not want to harm us is for us all to covert to Islam. America is not willing to do that, so fighting for our freedom is the only alternative.
Can you even hear yourself? "The only way..." "...the only alternative." It's absolute language like this that makes it difficult for us to have a coherent discussion with each other. And I don't completely fault your side for saying things like this, I realize many people on *both* sides of the issue are doing the same.
While it's great they want to promote CFLs, I think this is excessive.
I completely agree. Plus, let's not discount the effect of light on mood and depression. In Canada and Norway, there has been compelling studies showing that the lack of natural sun light caused higher rates of depression during the winter months. To correct those problems, the researchers used halogen lamps (those are even worse than incandescent lights in terms of power consumption) as a successful treatment (and sometimes cures) for those winter-caused depressions.
The reason halogen lamps are closer to sun light in terms of mood is that they utilize a wider range of the spectrum than incandescents (and incandescents utilize a wider range of the spectrum than fluorescent lights). And this benefit of wider spectrum, for example an halogen lamp will produce infra-reds and a fluorescent will not, this benefit is the exact reason why those halogen lamps will dissipate more energy and will not last as long as fluorescents.
And while it's hard to generalize such a consequence of lack of sun light for Californians, after all -- I'm sure that we have more sun light than our Canadian counterparts during the winter months. Some of us do work indoors quite extensively. And some of us do live in Cities such as Seattle or San Francisco -- where the fog/clouds tend to block out lots of sun light the rest of California getting.
Some say specialization killed the Webmaster. I say common knowledge killed him. It just isn't cool to be a Webmaster anymore, pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job.
And while I agree that some people have chosen to specialize even more, I've seen people go in the other direction as well. There are still Jacks-of-All-Trades, except those new Jacks may know a scripting language or two, a bit of database, a bit of graphic design, a bit of apache, etc. And those new Jacks-of-all-Trades just couldn't market themselves under the old label Webmaster, since that label doesn't really describe what they do now, nor does that old label describe something that's very special anymore.
That's the reason I moved to the US from France. I wanted to be surrounded by intelligent individuals. Give me intelligent individuals over intelligent planning and intelligent leaders any day.
"The cycles predicted by Ehlrich's model line up with the observations."
Shouldn't this be? The cycles predicted by Ehlrich's model were inferred from observations. Implying that a prediction is lining up with observations is not the same as a prediction that's inferred from observations. And besides, the article is claiming it's an inference based on past observations, not a prediction which has been verified with observations.
The article itself makes no such wild encompassing claim.
"...Here we are, with Microsoft having rejected other manufacturers' hardware as deficient,"
Why are you assuming the reason was hardware deficiency? Partnerships are more than just about meeting technical requirements. Partnerships are also about cost sharing, risk sharing, and revenue sharing agreements (among many other things). And if two prospective partners can not agree on any of those points, then it won't really matter what the specs are going to be -- such a partnership is just not going to happen.
No need to think up of new analogies. There are real examples similar enough in our not so distant past. Content publishers were against photocopy machines when they first came out. They were against video tapes that the consumer could record on. They were against search engines that could index their content. They were against mp3 players. This will come to pass as well. Just as now, it would be silly to be in a world without photocopy machines and without VCR-like devices, soon enough it will be just as silly to be in a world without several quick ways to share large files anonymously.
If this was to happen in the US, would the FDIC cover these types of things?
And don't forget to ask this other question
If this happened in the US and if the FDIC didn't step up, would the bank be worried enough about losing its online customers and reputation to take the hit themselves?
I suspect a bank might do that if worse came to worse. Online banking holds a lot of promise for a lot of banks. It may be expensive to get going at its core, but online banking holds the promise of scalability and reduced workforce savings. And spending one million dollars to keep one's reputation intact (or enhanced) is easily justified when one might be spending so much more on television/print advertisements in the first place.
To apply the exact same point you made, but with the correct assumptions, what makes the paid political blogger so special that he doesn't have to abide by the same rules as print media?
Bloggers are special, because we seek them out among millions of other bloggers on the internet. Traditional print media is less special, because it can hold a geographical monopoly over common knowledge. Bloggers are special, because most allow immediate public feedback. Traditional print media is less special, because it doesn't (it doesn't really).
In any case, those rules you speak of, imposed on the traditional media, don't seem to make a difference in the real World. As far as I'm aware, traditional news outlets do not disclose who creates some of their news segments, we have to find that out from blogs. And traditional news outlets do not disclose the cross-ownership ties and the financial interests they have in promoting specific political agendas, again we have to find this out from blogs. And this is true for defense contracts, indirect advertising made by corporations, family relationships, think tank funding, and a host of other things that the rules you speak of -- don't seem to take into account.
How does this "simulation" show causality? How were the participants selected in the first place? Aren't bilingual people self-selected individuals anyway? How was the bias of the research staff eliminated from their data-gathering process?
I have many more such questions.
The fact that you see a pattern in your results could be no accident. It could just as well be that your brain is fooling you into believing a preconceived conclusion.
I know my mind works like this when I write a unit test after I've already designed and coded a program (instead of writing the unit test beforehand). And I know that my mind works like this when I make a life-like drawing and start making preconceived notions about its shapes (instead of thinking about its negative space which is one of the tricks used to clear your mind to draw properly).
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the conclusions of this study. In my opinion, its conclusions follow common wisdom and I do happen to agree with that common wisdom. It's just that with the methodology they employed, and the small sample size, it could only be construed as a study that's very preliminary, and worth further investigation, that's it.
The question this women is asking is more like, "Given that there are no inherent disparities in aptitude between men and women, why aren't as many women appearing in engineering positions?"
That's the big assertion that "there are no inherent disparities in aptitude between men and women". The problem with this statement is that there are a number of counter-examples.
Color blindness affects one in ten men, but only one in one hundred women. Color blindness is a particularly good example since it can not be cured, it can not be reversed in any way, and I don't think anyone will argue with me as to its inherent nature or as to its diagnosis criteria. Another good example is stuttering, stuttering affects more boys (I forget the actual stats, but it's significant). Also the rate of recovery for stuttering into adulthood is profoundly skewed in favor of women (again, I don't have the stats, but it is significant and it only compounds the gender-bias even more).
This is not my field of expertise, but I believe there is an additional body of evidence that shows different disabilities whether naturally induced or induced by specific measurable brain injury/trauma which show completely different aptitudes and completely different rates of recovery based on the actual genders of the subjects.
It's too bad that there can not be an honest intellectual debate about this. I understand the fears that some people have, but we're covering up potentially valuable knowledge and potentially losing a countless number of countermeasures and pedagogical workarounds that could come out of such research. It also saddens me that the Harvard President started his speech as carefully as I did, or even more so, and yet still got hanged for it.
I think the original poster confuses the term "self-taught" with "industry-taught". Personally, I became a "self-taught" programmer long before I became an "industry-taught" programmer.
Each on its own doesn't mean much, but it's only when you combine both kinds of experience that you might get something worthwhile. A "self-taught" hobby programmer is like an artist in title -- but not in income. There is no glamor in it, no respect in it, there is just inner drive and inner satisfaction (at least at the beginning). I can't speak for my entire gender, but for me at least, I think I went into that direction because that's the only thing I could excel at.
I used to stutter for a good part of my youth and my writing skills weren't that great (and even my math skills weren't as good as my female peers). And for me at least, in a female dominated school, dominated by female teachers (and dominated by emasculated male teachers), and out-shined by excellent female students, I had to go outside of school to find a learning outlet I could be good at.
I became "self-taught", but there was no design in it -- no plan. And really, I'm not sure how you could replicate such an experience with an "industry-taught" approach. One approach is driven by inner desire and the other is driven by external forces. One approach is unplanned and unstructured, the other is planned and organized. And one is based on hobby, interest, and inspiration, and the other is based on the hobby, interest, and inspiration of five years ago. And really, that's the crux of the matter, whether it's school or industry, both types of environments lag behind the passions of early adopters and early tinkerers.
And don't get me wrong, an "industry-taught" program can be a very valuable experience, but this kind of experience is especially valuable for those who are already "self-taught". Those are the ones who need it the most and those are the ones society will benefit the most from going into such programs.
This original poster scares me. He wants arguments against VB, but doesn't explain the scope of his project, nor does he say what language he wishes to replace VB with. Most likely, he doesn't have much experience in the working world and would just prefer to use a language he's already used to from school.
The crucial ingredient in any project is the people you end up working with, not the language. I'm not a fan of VB, but if this kid doesn't have the experience of successfully completing a project in the real world, he should consider following the owner's experience -- and only worry about changing the underlying language once he has a couple of releases under his belt.
This is a good example you brought up (never mind that most bookstores don't have photocopy machines within them). Photocopy machines were seriously fought by the publishing industry. Photocopy machines were the symbol of the publishing industry's demise. After all, the pro-copyright organizations can't just fight all copyright infringement, that would mean that they would have to stand over your shoulder every time a buddy of yours loans you a book for you to photocopy -- they can only fight the tools and the toolmakers that make copyright-infringement easier.