Teaching is usally more cushy and stable in comparison. And, cops don't need a college degree. Tech is a grind with Dilbertian bosses with limited upward mobility.
I can't speak for cops, but the teachers I've known over the last 20 years have it soooo easy:
They always have at least one PHB (or PhD) directing them to do their job a different way every year.
There are endless mandatory meetings that serve no purpose, but they still have to drive 20 miles to the county seat every day after work to attend
All those PHBs telling them how to do their job know how to teach far better than the teachers do (just ask them!)
Time at the job is valued more than skill or dedication
They can't move up to another position until somebody with tenure dies or retires
Nope, they couldn't identify with Dilbert or us poor techies at all. Not in the slightest.
"It works don't touch it" might be fine for your little project that doesn't really matter, but in the real world you always need to be planning for the future.
While you might hope that big organizations would "plan for the future," I haven't seen it happen very often. Often it takes a lot of money to develop those big "real world" projects, and a lot of project managers aren't willing to pay to upgrade to a new platform solely because it might be harder to upgrade in the future. Sometimes it's just more cost-effective to load MS-DOS 6.2 on that shiny new 3GHz dual Xeon instead of paying somebody to update some application to run on WinXP.
From TFA: Atlas works as a giant power multiplier, using electrical energy that is accumulated slowly and stored in the machine's capacitors for sudden release into the cylindrical liner.
Gaming routers allow users to use their full bandwidth for downloads and other high bandwidth apps, and low latency applications at the same time. By keeping packet queues on the router side, rather than the modem side. Users are able to achive great pings in online games, while fully using their download bandwidth. This is a great alternitive to expensive gaming routers on the market today.
Paying no mind to grammar and spelling of the original post (go/. editors!), and the ever-present-death and cheezy TCP/IP stack of BSD, the article was interesting. I wasn't even aware that "expensive gaming routers" - or a need for them - existed, but I expect this sort of thing would be handy at work, since we've only got a fractional T1.
Ok, so maybe it's only interesting because I'm sitting up on a Sunday night reading/., but at least it might give me the opportunity to put that old P233 in the corner to some use when my next router dies.
Thanks; mod parent up, please. I should have taken more care when I was reading their page. Using vague language ("may") in the predictions makes it easier to do hand-waving after the fact, but to be fair about it, I expect people from NASA that made predictions used similar language (no, I didn't go look for any to quote:).
Regarding one of the predictions from the linked page: " The impact/electrical discharge will be into rock, not loosely consolidated ice and dust. The impact crater will be smaller than expected." This, perhaps combined with something I read elsewhere on their site, led me to believe that they were suggesting there wouldn't be a lot of "stuff" ejected upon impact. The images I saw *looked* like a lot of stuff was thrown out, but maybe I'm just interpreting the images incorrectly.
At any rate, they did make predictions about water content, copious X-rays, and temperature at the impact site. I expect we'll get information about all that in the near future, and I'll still be interested to see how those that made incorrect predictions react.
Seems the electrical universe people haven't had time to update their website about their prediction about the results. IIRC, they were saying that the results would be much less spectacular than predicted, and yet a few hours ago I heard some of the NASA people expressing surprise because the impact released a lot more material than most of them expected. The electric universe proponents also seemed to think that the impactor electrical systems would fail before it reached the comet (because of "megalightning" and all that), while they seem to have have lasted right up until the impact.
So....will they do the right thing and modify their theory to fit the observations, or will we be treated to a lot of hand-wringing about how the theory actually predicted this result (but us non-electrodynamical people just don't understand the theory and its implications)?
And will/. post a follow-up article about the electric universe proponents' reaction to the results, or is that not news for nerds?
Seriously though, I wonder what Hawking's position would be on receiving implants that offered a direct interface between the brain and a computer. I think if I became confined to a wheelchair, and such technology was available (and reasonably safe/reliable), I'd probably want it.
If I could make our customers stop using MS Windows & Office, then I'd *love* to use one of those obvious alternatives. As long as they're paying the bills, I don't have a choice about the format of the documents they send and expect to receive.
Maybe you always keep things open a long time and work on them, but some of us don't. I frequently have sessions during some work days where I have to open and review and/or tweak on a couple dozen documents, or when I have to quickly open a document to get an answer for somebody on the phone. In those situations, waiting on Word (or any other app, for that matter) to leisurely haul itself and every document into memory is a pain.
Will Sony create/ship drivers to make linux run PS3-friendly?
I think they'd be foolish not to - if you're going to offer a gaming platform and say, "Oh, yeah, you can get it with Linux if you want," it would be a bad business move if you failed to provide Linux-friendly drivers. A few of us might want to just crunch numbers on a stack of PS3s sitting in a corner, but I would expect most Linuxheads are going to want the video support to be up to snuff when they play TuxRacer.
Not that something being a bad business move stops some companies from making them, but I'm just saying...:)
And this country isnt the only one heading this direction.. Moon base anyone?
Do you think there's any chance anybody will be moving there any time soon? Even if government or private industry goes there to stay within the next decade, it's going to be either government-funded or government-approved, if not both. If you're too "suspicious," because of library books you read and websites you visit, I'm sure you won't be getting a ticket.
Well, yes, it certainly could. We could be under attack from 500ft tall firebreathing clowns from Saturn, and we're not - and I'm glad for that and all, don't get me wrong - but that doesn't make me feel any better about the federal government continually wanting more ways to pry into my life.
See, you can't learn what I would call "the basic concepts of quantum mechanics" until you've already learned A LOT of calculus.
When I say "basic concepts" I'm just talking about general exposure to ways in which behavior at the quantum level doesn't match up with the macro world ("here's what happens in the double-slit experiment," "here's what the uncertainty principle generally means," etc.). I don't think Richard Feynman's short book on quantum electrodynamics had a lot of math in it, but it gets across some general concepts. I remember reading one of Einstein's books about relativity when I was in early high school...I didn't understand much of it, but at least it provided some limited exposure to some of the ideas, which made things click a little more readily when I saw them again later.
But there's also a difference between offering enrichment for the rare gifted student and providing an education for the average student. For me, offering self-paced study of math was a great way to make sure math remained a challenge to me. The program only failed when, after buzzing through 3 textbooks, the school didn't offer anything else for me to do for a little over a year. On the other hand, that's an educational design which obviously will NOT work for everyone.
I guess I just don't like sacrificing the best and brighest on the altar of the average student. At my rural NC high school, above average students were just kind of left to themselves; if you were ahead of the class, you were rarely challenged to do anything more. In my particular school I think it was mainly because the teachers were burdened with bureaucratic bullshit -- it's hard to find time to come up with challenges for your good students when you have to attend meetings on the latest bean-counting teaching methods, or drive 20 miles to a school board meeting 3 days a week.
IMHO, the exceptional student deserves enrichment just as much as the average or below average student deserves the effort required to help them meet the minimum requirements for a good education.
Yup. Except it's not just the left wing. BOTH parties are authoritarian.
Too true. How many bills had Bush vetoed?
I believe that would be zero (yes I know, it's rhetorical). But you can bet your ass he's gonna save us from terrorists and clones! Just you wait and see!
While there may not be many 12 year olds that could deal with density functional theory, I guarantee that there are many who could handle being introduced to some basic concepts from calculus and quantum mechanics at 12 years old.
I'm not an educator, and I don't know how to "fix the system," but there's probably a lot more we could do to help smart kids learn at something like their full capability. I suspect a lot of schools/teachers just don't have the time to support the bright kids who could start on algebra in 3rd grade or physics and calculus in 6th.
Why does it have to be a free CD? I seem to recall that most FOSS licenses allow you to sell copies of the software. The folks that make and sell the plethora of cheesy $5-$15 software packages that I see in every computer store probably aren't doing it just for the fun of it. I think that if somebody was inclined to do so they could package and sell a CD full of open source software and make a profit on it.
While such a package may not be of interest to all businesses or retail customers, it's just another option on the shelf for those people who don't feel like shelling out the big bucks for Microsoft Office, etc.
How about "making Python available as an alternative to Javascript" instead? I could go for that. You'd probably have to tweak on the interpreter so that it's restricted to interacting with stuff inside the browser environment. I've embedded Python in other applications, and it generally isn't that hard to do, as long as you aren't worried about giving people complete freedom inside the scripting environment.
I wonder how much trouble it would be to embed a restricted Python in Mozilla...I should probably stop thinking about it before I burn up the rest of my 3-day weekend finding out.:)
If anybody has already tried this it would be interesting to hear about the results.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't speak for cops, but the teachers I've known over the last 20 years have it soooo easy:
Nope, they couldn't identify with Dilbert or us poor techies at all. Not in the slightest.
Well, maybe whoever is running that site will sell you one, after they get the bill for their bandwidth usage this month. :)
From TFA: Atlas works as a giant power multiplier, using electrical energy that is accumulated slowly and stored in the machine's capacitors for sudden release into the cylindrical liner.
Ok, so maybe it's only interesting because I'm sitting up on a Sunday night reading
ACTION ITEM!
Clippy: You look like a script to me; would you like to interpret the words in this image so you can post?
Thanks; mod parent up, please. I should have taken more care when I was reading their page. Using vague language ("may") in the predictions makes it easier to do hand-waving after the fact, but to be fair about it, I expect people from NASA that made predictions used similar language (no, I didn't go look for any to quote :).
Regarding one of the predictions from the linked page: " The impact/electrical discharge will be into rock, not loosely consolidated ice and dust. The impact crater will be smaller than expected." This, perhaps combined with something I read elsewhere on their site, led me to believe that they were suggesting there wouldn't be a lot of "stuff" ejected upon impact. The images I saw *looked* like a lot of stuff was thrown out, but maybe I'm just interpreting the images incorrectly.
At any rate, they did make predictions about water content, copious X-rays, and temperature at the impact site. I expect we'll get information about all that in the near future, and I'll still be interested to see how those that made incorrect predictions react.
Seems the electrical universe people haven't had time to update their website about their prediction about the results. IIRC, they were saying that the results would be much less spectacular than predicted, and yet a few hours ago I heard some of the NASA people expressing surprise because the impact released a lot more material than most of them expected. The electric universe proponents also seemed to think that the impactor electrical systems would fail before it reached the comet (because of "megalightning" and all that), while they seem to have have lasted right up until the impact.
So....will they do the right thing and modify their theory to fit the observations, or will we be treated to a lot of hand-wringing about how the theory actually predicted this result (but us non-electrodynamical people just don't understand the theory and its implications)?
And will /. post a follow-up article about the electric universe proponents' reaction to the results, or is that not news for nerds?
I assume that by "support/assualt subsystem" you are actually referring to Mr. Hawking's advanced cybernetic exoskeleton.
Seriously though, I wonder what Hawking's position would be on receiving implants that offered a direct interface between the brain and a computer. I think if I became confined to a wheelchair, and such technology was available (and reasonably safe/reliable), I'd probably want it.
Well? Go on...start rueing!!
That's odd...normally the torrent download completes before midnight for me.... :)
If I could make our customers stop using MS Windows & Office, then I'd *love* to use one of those obvious alternatives. As long as they're paying the bills, I don't have a choice about the format of the documents they send and expect to receive.
Maybe you always keep things open a long time and work on them, but some of us don't. I frequently have sessions during some work days where I have to open and review and/or tweak on a couple dozen documents, or when I have to quickly open a document to get an answer for somebody on the phone. In those situations, waiting on Word (or any other app, for that matter) to leisurely haul itself and every document into memory is a pain.
I think they'd be foolish not to - if you're going to offer a gaming platform and say, "Oh, yeah, you can get it with Linux if you want," it would be a bad business move if you failed to provide Linux-friendly drivers. A few of us might want to just crunch numbers on a stack of PS3s sitting in a corner, but I would expect most Linuxheads are going to want the video support to be up to snuff when they play TuxRacer.
Not that something being a bad business move stops some companies from making them, but I'm just saying... :)
IMHO, the exceptional student deserves enrichment just as much as the average or below average student deserves the effort required to help them meet the minimum requirements for a good education.
While there may not be many 12 year olds that could deal with density functional theory, I guarantee that there are many who could handle being introduced to some basic concepts from calculus and quantum mechanics at 12 years old.
I'm not an educator, and I don't know how to "fix the system," but there's probably a lot more we could do to help smart kids learn at something like their full capability. I suspect a lot of schools/teachers just don't have the time to support the bright kids who could start on algebra in 3rd grade or physics and calculus in 6th.
Why does it have to be a free CD? I seem to recall that most FOSS licenses allow you to sell copies of the software. The folks that make and sell the plethora of cheesy $5-$15 software packages that I see in every computer store probably aren't doing it just for the fun of it. I think that if somebody was inclined to do so they could package and sell a CD full of open source software and make a profit on it.
While such a package may not be of interest to all businesses or retail customers, it's just another option on the shelf for those people who don't feel like shelling out the big bucks for Microsoft Office, etc.
How about "making Python available as an alternative to Javascript" instead? I could go for that. You'd probably have to tweak on the interpreter so that it's restricted to interacting with stuff inside the browser environment. I've embedded Python in other applications, and it generally isn't that hard to do, as long as you aren't worried about giving people complete freedom inside the scripting environment.
:)
I wonder how much trouble it would be to embed a restricted Python in Mozilla...I should probably stop thinking about it before I burn up the rest of my 3-day weekend finding out.
If anybody has already tried this it would be interesting to hear about the results.
Good thing we have drugs to cure such horrible disorders nowadays, eh? ;)