I Completely agree with you, especially about the chicken & egg thing. I would only add that a BIG part of the reason why we are where we are is because of the steady stream of marketing Microsoft has directed at developers since the 90's.
To the previous reply, I would still argue that your customers are who you market to, and Microsoft doesn't pimp to anyone like they do to developers.
Again, remember the monkeyboy.
Peace.
Microsoft's customers are and always have been, developers. Why? No business goes out and puts in a Windows network because they think it's great - they do it because they need to run XYZ application that runs their business, and *IT* requires a Windows network.
I had a very frustrating time canceling my Consumer Reports (online) account last fall. Not only did it take a large number of clicks (including one site change), but the first time I canceled they didn't. I received an email confirmation (IIRC), but two months later I noticed they were still billing my credit card. The second time I canceled, they stopped, but man was I ticked off about it.
Maybe you should check you credit card statement next month to be sure, eh?
* 3 Semesters of Calculus * Linear Algebra * Discrete Math * Numerical Analysis * Statistics * Logic (philosophy dept, usually)
That should pretty be the core set of classes. If you want to take operator theory, topology, real/complex analysis or group theory, by all means it will only help, but the courses I outline above include material (such as rounding error, parameterization and combinatorical counting) that is of more direct practical use to programmers.
I've been tossing around this idea for a while. Corps with massive Vista installations are now tethered to MS. What if someone DOSs WGA or figures out how to make the volume licensing corporate WGA middle-servers unable to auth back to MS? Every desktop in your company goes completely down
I thought MS was finally starting to get it, but it looks like I'm staying as far away from Vista as I can.
I don't understand you guys sometimes with all your griping about weather predicitions and TV news and all.
The factors that affect weather predicitions on a small time scale are different from those that affect weather on long time scales. In fact, 0-48 hours is relatively easy to forecast based on extrapolating local conditions and observations. Long-term trends (on the order of magnitude of years) are also relatively easy to forecast (see The Farmer's Almanac, El Nino and Typhoon cycles etc. for evidence...) The big problem is the middle of those two, between 48 hours and 1 year, where the nonlinear aspects of weather have the most sensitivity to initial conditions.
P.S. IANAM, but I read a few articles about Chaos and nonlinear dynamics in college. Since I have a degree in physics, that qualifies me to comment on almost anything.;) (wink, nudge....)
So there is some money to be made in "learning" search engines that tailor themselves to the user or perhaps the results could be displayed intuitively in domains of knowledge (a la Clusty [clusty.com]).
Perhaps it sounds paradoxical, but typically I am searching for things OUTSIDE my areas of expertise so how much of this sort of learning is really practical?
The good:
------------------
1) If the real-life version works as well as the virtual PC demo I participated in, it will do exactly what the marketing materials say it does.
2) It not only synchs email, but todo, contacts, appointments, etc. Everything but public folders, I think.
3) On the server side, all of the software required to do push sync is free with Exchange Server 2003.
The bad:
------------------
1) Phone requires Windows Mobile 5.0, plus a sync driver/module thingy that (groan) HAS TO BE INSTALLED ON THE PHONE BY THE MOBILE VENDOR.
2) Support for this configuration is, well, going to suck because the mobile vendors will push you through their help desk (pretty much guaranteed to NOT understand this), and Microsoft can't support the mobile piece of the puzzle directly, even though it's technically their software.
3) The range of services over which mobile vendors will be able to exert their control has been expanded to include private corporate messaging, appointments and task lists! Yay!!!!
On the other hand, the reason moviemakers moved west and turned a piece of desert into Hollywood was because they didn't want to pay the patent fees on Edison's motion picture camera technology, so there is precedent for this sort of greedy silliness.
Yeah, yeah, I know, but what I find so offensive is that the illererati use such hamfistedly awkward and nonsensical language to describe relationships for which simple language already exists, and THEY CHOSE NOT TO LEARN.
Here, watch me say it correctly:
(Ahem)
"The new RFID tag is one-tenth the thickness of a sheet of paper."
There, now wasn't that simple? Ya know, way back in school when we told you(*) fractions and algebra were important things for you to understand, we weren't kidding.
[(*) Generalized, figurative "you", not "you" the commentor to whom I am replying.]
Does Microsoft have any regrets regarding its historical strategy of designing software that mixes code in with data (E.g., ActiveX, IE, VB Office, etc.) to make life easier for developers, despite the security implications and risks of such a strategy?
Why is it so hard to understand that one of the reasons Windows is so popular is that it handles all of this automatically. I know I can connect my bluetooth camera to it and it will just work.
The last I remember, the affiliates didn't want to broadcast in HD because there wasn't any market yet, and customers didn't want to buy HD rigs because there wasn't anything to watch. Well, even though the HDTV market was moving slowly, now there's an incentive for the affiliates to get their act together.
ABC's affiliates will all probably be broadcasting all HD by the end of the week.
Back in the early '90s, we used to buy Computer Shopper magazine *specifically* *because* of the ads. That thing was at least 2 inches thick; not like today's version.
Not sure - it's been a while for me too, but I believe the matrix representation of the math is an expression of tensors. I don't remember manifolds being directly involved, but they probably were and he just didn't tell us that. For some reason I think manifolds came afterward, historically, but I might be hallucinating. Maybe they were a latter-day addition to modernize the theory and make it more compact?
Want to see something hilarious? Two old-school/.'ers up late on a Sunday night arguing about who remembers the least from their grad school E&M class. Snicker!
Ironic. Shakespear wasn't exactly known for being "highbrow" in his day. Some have speculated that if he were alive today, he'd be writing for professional wrestling.
I might be mistaken, but I thing it's the same book -- there's a short optional/supplemental section on it in one of the later chapters, IIRC. At the end of the class, our EM prof gave us a choice between GR (which is of almost no practical use) and wave guides (which you can use to make $$) and we picked GR.
The funny part is that the math is almost all matrix mechanics, like optics, but to save space and make the equations look less encumbered you write everything out in Einstein notation. Insteaed of writting a capital sigma out front of the components to indicate sums, the sums are implied by writing the components with common indices. (E.g. matix M * vector A would be written as Mij*Aj. It's understood that you have to sum over all possible values of j to get the component i you are looking for.)
Where the heck are you finding hotels that provide a DVD player when in-room PPV movies are $10-$15 each? None of the hotels I've ever stayed in provide that; the TV's don't even have accessible A/V inputs and the cable hookups are protected with a user-proof collar.
Slashdot Mirror
I Completely agree with you, especially about the chicken & egg thing. I would only add that a BIG part of the reason why we are where we are is because of the steady stream of marketing Microsoft has directed at developers since the 90's. To the previous reply, I would still argue that your customers are who you market to, and Microsoft doesn't pimp to anyone like they do to developers. Again, remember the monkeyboy. Peace.
I disagree completely.
Microsoft's customers are and always have been, developers. Why? No business goes out and puts in a Windows network because they think it's great - they do it because they need to run XYZ application that runs their business, and *IT* requires a Windows network.
Remember the monkey boy.
I had a very frustrating time canceling my Consumer Reports (online) account last fall. Not only did it take a large number of clicks (including one site change), but the first time I canceled they didn't. I received an email confirmation (IIRC), but two months later I noticed they were still billing my credit card. The second time I canceled, they stopped, but man was I ticked off about it.
Maybe you should check you credit card statement next month to be sure, eh?
* 3 Semesters of Calculus
* Linear Algebra
* Discrete Math
* Numerical Analysis
* Statistics
* Logic (philosophy dept, usually)
That should pretty be the core set of classes. If you want to take operator theory, topology, real/complex analysis or group theory, by all means it will only help, but the courses I outline above include material (such as rounding error, parameterization and combinatorical counting) that is of more direct practical use to programmers.
I've been tossing around this idea for a while. Corps with massive Vista installations are now tethered to MS. What if someone DOSs WGA or figures out how to make the volume licensing corporate WGA middle-servers unable to auth back to MS? Every desktop in your company goes completely down
I thought MS was finally starting to get it, but it looks like I'm staying as far away from Vista as I can.
It's better to be a capacitor than a resistor.
3/14/15 9:26:53
Mmmmmm.... pi...
See, there's still stuff to look forward to!
I don't understand you guys sometimes with all your griping about weather predicitions and TV news and all.
The factors that affect weather predicitions on a small time scale are different from those that affect weather on long time scales. In fact, 0-48 hours is relatively easy to forecast based on extrapolating local conditions and observations. Long-term trends (on the order of magnitude of years) are also relatively easy to forecast (see The Farmer's Almanac, El Nino and Typhoon cycles etc. for evidence...) The big problem is the middle of those two, between 48 hours and 1 year, where the nonlinear aspects of weather have the most sensitivity to initial conditions.
P.S. IANAM, but I read a few articles about Chaos and nonlinear dynamics in college. Since I have a degree in physics, that qualifies me to comment on almost anything.
So there is some money to be made in "learning" search engines that tailor themselves to the user or perhaps the results could be displayed intuitively in domains of knowledge (a la Clusty [clusty.com]).
Perhaps it sounds paradoxical, but typically I am searching for things OUTSIDE my areas of expertise so how much of this sort of learning is really practical?
The good:
------------------
1) If the real-life version works as well as the virtual PC demo I participated in, it will do exactly what the marketing materials say it does.
2) It not only synchs email, but todo, contacts, appointments, etc. Everything but public folders, I think.
3) On the server side, all of the software required to do push sync is free with Exchange Server 2003.
The bad:
------------------
1) Phone requires Windows Mobile 5.0, plus a sync driver/module thingy that (groan) HAS TO BE INSTALLED ON THE PHONE BY THE MOBILE VENDOR.
2) Support for this configuration is, well, going to suck because the mobile vendors will push you through their help desk (pretty much guaranteed to NOT understand this), and Microsoft can't support the mobile piece of the puzzle directly, even though it's technically their software.
3) The range of services over which mobile vendors will be able to exert their control has been expanded to include private corporate messaging, appointments and task lists! Yay!!!!
On the other hand, the reason moviemakers moved west and turned a piece of desert into Hollywood was because they didn't want to pay the patent fees on Edison's motion picture camera technology, so there is precedent for this sort of greedy silliness.
Pick the right sites and you can make it one out of three or one in a million.
Yeah, yeah, I know, but what I find so offensive is that the illererati use such hamfistedly awkward and nonsensical language to describe relationships for which simple language already exists, and THEY CHOSE NOT TO LEARN.
Here, watch me say it correctly:
(Ahem)
"The new RFID tag is one-tenth the thickness of a sheet of paper."
There, now wasn't that simple? Ya know, way back in school when we told you(*) fractions and algebra were important things for you to understand, we weren't kidding.
[(*) Generalized, figurative "you", not "you" the commentor to whom I am replying.]
That's what they do with western copyright law, isn't it? (Think DVD street vendors in Hong Kong.)
Pixar, we were glad to have known you and we're sorry to see you go.
Does Microsoft have any regrets regarding its historical strategy of designing software that mixes code in with data (E.g., ActiveX, IE, VB Office, etc.) to make life easier for developers, despite the security implications and risks of such a strategy?
Java?! Why can't Sun come up with a java compiler that can target freakin' Mono?
Why is it so hard to understand that one of the reasons Windows is so popular is that it handles all of this automatically. I know I can connect my bluetooth camera to it and it will just work.
You mispelled 'Macintosh'.
Just thought you should know.
Dvorak is the new Jon Katz.
(/crickets chirping)
The last I remember, the affiliates didn't want to broadcast in HD because there wasn't any market yet, and customers didn't want to buy HD rigs because there wasn't anything to watch. Well, even though the HDTV market was moving slowly, now there's an incentive for the affiliates to get their act together.
ABC's affiliates will all probably be broadcasting all HD by the end of the week.
Back in the early '90s, we used to buy Computer Shopper magazine *specifically* *because* of the ads. That thing was at least 2 inches thick; not like today's version.
Not sure - it's been a while for me too, but I believe the matrix representation of the math is an expression of tensors. I don't remember manifolds being directly involved, but they probably were and he just didn't tell us that. For some reason I think manifolds came afterward, historically, but I might be hallucinating. Maybe they were a latter-day addition to modernize the theory and make it more compact?
Want to see something hilarious? Two old-school
Ironic. Shakespear wasn't exactly known for being "highbrow" in his day. Some have speculated that if he were alive today, he'd be writing for professional wrestling.
I might be mistaken, but I thing it's the same book -- there's a short optional/supplemental section on it in one of the later chapters, IIRC. At the end of the class, our EM prof gave us a choice between GR (which is of almost no practical use) and wave guides (which you can use to make $$) and we picked GR.
The funny part is that the math is almost all matrix mechanics, like optics, but to save space and make the equations look less encumbered you write everything out in Einstein notation. Insteaed of writting a capital sigma out front of the components to indicate sums, the sums are implied by writing the components with common indices. (E.g. matix M * vector A would be written as Mij*Aj. It's understood that you have to sum over all possible values of j to get the component i you are looking for.)
Where the heck are you finding hotels that provide a DVD player when in-room PPV movies are $10-$15 each? None of the hotels I've ever stayed in provide that; the TV's don't even have accessible A/V inputs and the cable hookups are protected with a user-proof collar.