Thanks, I probably shouldn't have picked on that, as a chemist who also did 12 years of Latin. It's the 'only the Greats' and 'only PPE' that's the worry. We should be broad. Funnily enough, when I entered IT, there were no degrees and a lot of the better programmers were classics scholars, Latin and Greek seemed to help them with COBOL and PL/1, go figure.
Although I'm old enough to have seen Churchill's funeral, I wasn't really aware of this. There's a good clue in his quote 'give them what they want' for Bletchley Park. Anyway, a good read about science and intelligence [apart from Collosus etc.] in WW2 is: http://www.hive.co.uk/book/mos...
We're coming up to an election in UK and we don't seem to have anyone much that appreciates science amongst our politicians. It's a real problem since the actual world is now full of pure science and technology. Still, we have lawyers and people that understand ancient Greek, they are always -really- useful.
Yes, I think we have had slightly better though not recently. I'm thinking on the lines of 'more humane'. I had a bit of hope for him as being young, with a disabled child etc. that he might understand a bit about other people's problems. But he's an ex-SPAD [that's a 'special advisor', for those in the US] and ex-Carlton marketing person, so I shouldn't have got my hopes up. He's a prick, Milliband is feeble but also priviledged, Farage isn't a man of the people and runs a party of fruitcakes, so that leaves the Greens [of which I am, pretty much] and, of course, the Pirate Party and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. I used to regularly vote for the Loonies in the local elections.
Yes, I agree. My formalised version of this is 'apprenticeships' for anyone that wants to be an elected official or senior paid official, is that they have to 'train' for a a year or two in a project [US], estate [UK] of scheme [Scotland] and live on the basic umemployment amount. Most people at this level are doing their best and are often incredibly brave and motivated, two jobs, long shifts etc.
Also this would mean that people prepared to do this, probably did have serious motivation to improve society rather than just enrich themselves and do nothing. However, I'm sure, after a couple of years they'd probably find a way to pay someone to do this for them.
My 'other' plan is a hole in the school floor that opens when any pupil expresses a desire for/interest in politics. It's probably the most humane way, although a little difficult for the parents. Trouble is. that might dispose of the the Mandelas and Ghandis too.
I use DuckDuckGo for the most part now. It's imperfect but, like many UK people, I dislike the tax-avoidance [edging on tax evasion], the hyper-intrusion and the unhealthy dominance of Google [and Amazon]. Before anyone from the US jumps on me, I would do the same for a UK [or French etc. etc.] owned organisation that displayed the same 'symptoms'.
However, when I do use Google, usually via DuckDuckGo with !g, I notice that the results seem to be less relevant each month. I know they play around constantly with the algorithms and personal profiles [hence as an anonymous Googler, I get something less than optimal] but it's just 'not very good' now. As programmer I often go straight to Stack Exchange anyway, short-circuiting the search engine bit entirely.
Yes, I immediately thought of Galactus too. But the research could prove or disprove whether Galactus is a small brother or cousin of the star eater? Perhaps the star eater evolved from Galactus-like life forms because someone [a fool] irradiated it?
We would need to engineer Silver Surfer++ AKA Platinum Surfer or Very Rare Earth Surfer etc. etc.
Obviously, all that would be incredibly useful, it gets MY research money vote.
I presume this is a shill? There's so many things wrong with this, '100% better', 'more secure' than I don't know where to start. Actually, since Amazon has decided that paying taxes is optional in the UK, I don't buy buy from them anyway.
Oh exactly. I don't use Facebook, mind you I'm a geek, an only child, quite old and I can do without a lot of superficial non-communication. I talk to my friends and have dinner with them, once or twice a week in meatspace. There's probably a camera in my curry, isn't there? Just a joke.
They've 'managed' [in all the senses] to avoid paying taxes in the UK, so there's no reason to buy their weak, frothy, expensive, faux-hip coffee from them. Go away.
Oh yes, the documents as you say, will be fine. The apps and infrastructure around them and any interactive content will not, for example. There's a certain amount of lock-in with anything that's cloud, except something open-source from top to bottom.
As for 'no lock-in' generally, try moving away from gmail.
I've been to a couple of meetings in UK schools where Chromebooks are being marketed agressively and potentially given away or sold at cost. If that's happening in the US, it's bumping up the numbers.
All the class material and class management are in the 'cloud' [that is at Google central] so 'you don't have to worry about anything' and the total cost of ownership is near-zero.
What's wrong with this picture? Plenty, vendor lock-in, third party and [in the UK] foreign control of a vital resource and not understanding whatever long game Google is playing, just to start with. They're maximising shareholder value or about to, they are not a charity. And as for 'don't be evil' my a***.
Above all, we can make [or repurpose] Linux books, quite easily.
A trapped rainbow, how sad. Next thing they'll be freezing the nice pink unicorns. This is bad science and something must be done, just think of the children.
I'm 64 and still working freelance, nearly every day I get emails that are orthogonal to my skill set. For example, I've never been a tester and it's not on [and never has been] my cv, but I get emails for testing jobs.
That's apart from the over-specified buzzword bingo related to web CMSs and frameworks. For example, someone that's pretty good with Drupal [not me] can probably deal with Joomla after a week or two.
My main niche is Perl but I did an MSc project in Java, so I can read it and do elementary maintenance programming. But sometimes I see Java/Perl/Ruby/C#/bash specified in the same ad, makes you -really- wonder about the architectural choices going on in that shop, doesn't it?
To be honest, with honourable exceptions [you know who you are] most of the ones I've met seemed to have started their lives as estate agents [that's real estate brokers in the US] or car salespeople.
Never said that I did? As for your bad language and attitude that speaks for itself, doesn't it? So I wouldn't want to speak for anyone with that size of chip on their shoulder. It's nothing to do with 'fashionable' and nothing to do with 'excuse', it's e-th-ic-al. One side of my family are lowlands, but you make me ashamed. Enough said.
I notice you're an AC. Yes, a fair amount of the radical London East End left do it + the London chattering classes {N16, N1]. Since you probably work for ASDA or Walmart, you're not doing it, of course.
Of course, the 'not many people doing it' so it's useless is a common way to try and instill powerlessness. Got to start somewhere, ASDA, Coca-cola, KFC etc. etc.
Who said anything about 'product'? Maybe people want a) to learn stuff b) have an enjoyable hobby c) not interact with some vast evil American corporation d) do something different.
But please carry on with Google Play, iTunes etc. etc. we're not stopping you.
As a baby-boomer, still waiting for my toga and flying car [and unlimited leisure with good pay], I love this.
However I think a clear sub-text is that the 'powers that be' have finally realised that we're fucking this planet over and we're going to need a few other places. No apologies for the language, it's an accurate description of what we're doing.
Yes, exactly. I am planning to start the 'tautology party' with policies like 'higher taxes mean that taxes are higher'. The party will make about as much sense as the current political parties.
Incidentally [and unrelatedly] I'm 63, a programmer and grumpy. I hate every 'latest' javascript framework, stupid hipster hats and THOSE KIDS ON MY LAWN.
This comes up nearly every year on slashdot. And very year I post this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Like all Vonnegut, this is a great read BTW.
Perhaps next year a robot can post this for me? Or maybe just a plain bot would be simpler without the 'ro'?
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, I probably shouldn't have picked on that, as a chemist who also did 12 years of Latin. It's the 'only the Greats' and 'only PPE' that's the worry. We should be broad. Funnily enough, when I entered IT, there were no degrees and a lot of the better programmers were classics scholars, Latin and Greek seemed to help them with COBOL and PL/1, go figure.
Although I'm old enough to have seen Churchill's funeral, I wasn't really aware of this. There's a good clue in his quote 'give them what they want' for Bletchley Park. Anyway, a good read about science and intelligence [apart from Collosus etc.] in WW2 is: http://www.hive.co.uk/book/mos...
We're coming up to an election in UK and we don't seem to have anyone much that appreciates science amongst our politicians. It's a real problem since the actual world is now full of pure science and technology. Still, we have lawyers and people that understand ancient Greek, they are always -really- useful.
Cheers! Sorry about potential confusion...
Yes, I think we have had slightly better though not recently. I'm thinking on the lines of 'more humane'. I had a bit of hope for him as being young, with a disabled child etc. that he might understand a bit about other people's problems. But he's an ex-SPAD [that's a 'special advisor', for those in the US] and ex-Carlton marketing person, so I shouldn't have got my hopes up. He's a prick, Milliband is feeble but also priviledged, Farage isn't a man of the people and runs a party of fruitcakes, so that leaves the Greens [of which I am, pretty much] and, of course, the Pirate Party and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. I used to regularly vote for the Loonies in the local elections.
Agree. Actually he can fuck off anyway, an awful prime-minister surrounded by greedy, idiotic cronies...
Yes, I agree. My formalised version of this is 'apprenticeships' for anyone that wants to be an elected official or senior paid official, is that they have to 'train' for a a year or two in a project [US], estate [UK] of scheme [Scotland] and live on the basic umemployment amount. Most people at this level are doing their best and are often incredibly brave and motivated, two jobs, long shifts etc.
Also this would mean that people prepared to do this, probably did have serious motivation to improve society rather than just enrich themselves and do nothing. However, I'm sure, after a couple of years they'd probably find a way to pay someone to do this for them.
My 'other' plan is a hole in the school floor that opens when any pupil expresses a desire for/interest in politics. It's probably the most humane way, although a little difficult for the parents. Trouble is. that might dispose of the the Mandelas and Ghandis too.
I use DuckDuckGo for the most part now. It's imperfect but, like many UK people, I dislike the tax-avoidance [edging on tax evasion], the hyper-intrusion and the unhealthy dominance of Google [and Amazon]. Before anyone from the US jumps on me, I would do the same for a UK [or French etc. etc.] owned organisation that displayed the same 'symptoms'.
However, when I do use Google, usually via DuckDuckGo with !g, I notice that the results seem to be less relevant each month. I know they play around constantly with the algorithms and personal profiles [hence as an anonymous Googler, I get something less than optimal] but it's just 'not very good' now. As programmer I often go straight to Stack Exchange anyway, short-circuiting the search engine bit entirely.
Yes, I immediately thought of Galactus too. But the research could prove or disprove whether Galactus is a small brother or cousin of the star eater? Perhaps the star eater evolved from Galactus-like life forms because someone [a fool] irradiated it?
We would need to engineer Silver Surfer++ AKA Platinum Surfer or Very Rare Earth Surfer etc. etc.
Obviously, all that would be incredibly useful, it gets MY research money vote.
I presume this is a shill? There's so many things wrong with this, '100% better', 'more secure' than I don't know where to start. Actually, since Amazon has decided that paying taxes is optional in the UK, I don't buy buy from them anyway.
Oh exactly. I don't use Facebook, mind you I'm a geek, an only child, quite old and I can do without a lot of superficial non-communication. I talk to my friends and have dinner with them, once or twice a week in meatspace. There's probably a camera in my curry, isn't there? Just a joke.
Enough said. I nearly made the 'l' an 'r' but I must think of the children, as Dave Camoron the suppository salesman has said.
Yes, sorry, over enthusiastic about the whole concept and I should have checked! Thanks!
Autumn for Pluto and Uranus.
Sorry, even at 64 years old, I couldn't resist that.
They've 'managed' [in all the senses] to avoid paying taxes in the UK, so there's no reason to buy their weak, frothy, expensive, faux-hip coffee from them. Go away.
Oh yes, the documents as you say, will be fine. The apps and infrastructure around them and any interactive content will not, for example. There's a certain amount of lock-in with anything that's cloud, except something open-source from top to bottom.
As for 'no lock-in' generally, try moving away from gmail.
I've been to a couple of meetings in UK schools where Chromebooks are being marketed agressively and potentially given away or sold at cost. If that's happening in the US, it's bumping up the numbers.
All the class material and class management are in the 'cloud' [that is at Google central] so 'you don't have to worry about anything' and the total cost of ownership is near-zero.
What's wrong with this picture? Plenty, vendor lock-in, third party and [in the UK] foreign control of a vital resource and not understanding whatever long game Google is playing, just to start with. They're maximising shareholder value or about to, they are not a charity. And as for 'don't be evil' my a***.
Above all, we can make [or repurpose] Linux books, quite easily.
A trapped rainbow, how sad. Next thing they'll be freezing the nice pink unicorns. This is bad science and something must be done, just think of the children.
I think you've been very lucky.
I'm 64 and still working freelance, nearly every day I get emails that are orthogonal to my skill set. For example, I've never been a tester and it's not on [and never has been] my cv, but I get emails for testing jobs.
That's apart from the over-specified buzzword bingo related to web CMSs and frameworks. For example, someone that's pretty good with Drupal [not me] can probably deal with Joomla after a week or two.
My main niche is Perl but I did an MSc project in Java, so I can read it and do elementary maintenance programming. But sometimes I see Java/Perl/Ruby/C#/bash specified in the same ad, makes you -really- wonder about the architectural choices going on in that shop, doesn't it?
To be honest, with honourable exceptions [you know who you are] most of the ones I've met seemed to have started their lives as estate agents [that's real estate brokers in the US] or car salespeople.
Never said that I did? As for your bad language and attitude that speaks for itself, doesn't it? So I wouldn't want to speak for anyone with that size of chip on their shoulder. It's nothing to do with 'fashionable' and nothing to do with 'excuse', it's e-th-ic-al. One side of my family are lowlands, but you make me ashamed. Enough said.
I notice you're an AC. Yes, a fair amount of the radical London East End left do it + the London chattering classes {N16, N1]. Since you probably work for ASDA or Walmart, you're not doing it, of course.
Of course, the 'not many people doing it' so it's useless is a common way to try and instill powerlessness. Got to start somewhere, ASDA, Coca-cola, KFC etc. etc.
Many of us boycott ASDA anyway, since it's Walmart. Waitrose provides good food and pays its staff. And no, I don't work for Waitrose.
Who said anything about 'product'? Maybe people want a) to learn stuff b) have an enjoyable hobby c) not interact with some vast evil American corporation d) do something different.
But please carry on with Google Play, iTunes etc. etc. we're not stopping you.
As a baby-boomer, still waiting for my toga and flying car [and unlimited leisure with good pay], I love this.
However I think a clear sub-text is that the 'powers that be' have finally realised that we're fucking this planet over and we're going to need a few other places. No apologies for the language, it's an accurate description of what we're doing.
Yes, exactly. I am planning to start the 'tautology party' with policies like 'higher taxes mean that taxes are higher'. The party will make about as much sense as the current political parties.
Incidentally [and unrelatedly] I'm 63, a programmer and grumpy. I hate every 'latest' javascript framework, stupid hipster hats and THOSE KIDS ON MY LAWN.
This comes up nearly every year on slashdot. And very year I post this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Like all Vonnegut, this is a great read BTW.
Perhaps next year a robot can post this for me? Or maybe just a plain bot would be simpler without the 'ro'?