May be you didn't read my post or maybe I didn't make my point clear. Let me spell it out again. You are welcome to respond (as long as it is not a flame)
Religious beliefs should be taught in religious places. Scientists should not try and dictate what should be preached in churches.
Scientific beliefs (defined as the beliefs agreed upon by most of the scientific community) should taught in schools. People should not object to this based on their religious beliefs. Science grows and improves on questions and disagreements - hence the emphasis on most. This is unlike religion which is faith-based.
BTW, there are half-man, half-ape fossils.
Also, three centuries ago, everyone knew that obviously the sun goes around the earth! There is plenty of proof for evolution. You won't see a fish change into a horse before your eyes. Yet, this is the kind of proof that many demand. In fact, if such a thing happened, it would disprove evolution.
So, if my religion taught me that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth, I can demand that schools not teach my kids otherwise? No, I am not making an arbitrary point here - both these were hotly debated issues not so long ago (remember Galileo?). Teaching a recognized scientific fact is not anti-religion.
My point is - it is irrelevant what my beliefs are - a science teacher in school should teach whatever is accepted as a fact by the scientific community at large. As I said before, scientists should not try and protest about "anti-scientific" preachings in the church and vice versa.
What evidence do you have that this is true? Do you know for a fact there are fewer creationists among Muslims, Jews, and Hindus than among Christians? It might be true, or it might just be a stereotype. I don't know.
I do. I can confirm that in India (a very religious country, mind you!), evolution is taught as a fact in schools. The reason is simple - evolution is a scientific fact. Religion trying to dictate what should (or should not) be taught in schools is like scientists deciding what should be said in a church sermon.
If you are from America, you might believe that this issue is hotly debated all over the world. That is far from true. Most people recognize that faith and scientific facts belong in different places. Neither is an argument against the other.
You are quite right. I had also pointed out that ALL religions believe in creationism.
But I do know for a fact that in India and even many other Muslim countries, evolution is taught as a fact in schools without any controversy.
Creationism stays in mosques and temples - where it belongs; a faith-based religious belief. Evolution is taught in schools, because in schools is where scientific facts belong.
I was merely pointing that out - NOT trying to offend any religion. Thanks.
I have been reading these arguments about evolution for quite some time on/. and other such fora. It is interesting to note that these discussions often descend into Evolution as a science versus Christianity as a religion.
That is kinda strange as all religions believe in creationism. However, people of most other religions seem to realize the distinction between faith-based religious beliefs and scientific facts like evolution. Also, this debate seems to be the hottest in America alone. Why is that?
I don't want to hurt anyone's sensibilities, but history is filled with instances of the Christian church condemning the scientific world and trying to regulate what the scientists say.
I am interested in knowing the views of all you calm people out there as to why evolution is so vigorously attacked by America's religious Christians alone and not so much by other religions/countries?
The one billion Indians should sue all electronics and computer companies - after all, ancient Indians invented the zero and the place value number system. That is the basis for binary, hexadecimal, octal and decimal number system!!!
After the fact, it might seem obvious why BT lost its case, but there are many other such stupid patents and lawsuits all over the world today. Too many companies today have given up on the old business model of making money by manufacturing good quality products and keeping the paying customers happy. May be it is an old economy school of thought!
It is far to simpler to hold the world hostage under the guise of protecting IP and charge a ransom from everyone who uses it.
Remember, the Amazon 1-click patent is still valid! It is not worried about the absence of a business plan that drives them towards profitability, but wants to prevent other websites from using cookies to enable faster checkouts.
Ultimately, I think that is the problem with all these patents and copyrights. If companies truly believed in their products and the value that they provide to their customers, they wouldn't have to resort such stupid mechanisms to make money.
1 . Create an array of size 10.
2 . Scan through the list of numbers and stick them in their respective slot.
3 . Scan through the array and return the element index that is empty (or invalid value, as the case may be)
This is simple, straight-forward, easy to debug and only O(n). Why complicate things beyond necessity? With n unsorted elements, you are going to anyway arrive at an O(n) algorithm (atleast).
Programmers don't write code to fix problems frozen in time. The requirements keep changing and the code must be easily readable and maintainable! These are more desirable features in programmers.
In real life, in 3 months, the problem statement could be changed as - "atleast 2 elements may be missing and you have to return the highest, unless the lower missing number is 3, in which case you need to return 7".
Will the complex algorithms proposed handle this change gracefully?
Let us get some fundamentals clear - you interview people because your organization needs to fill some positions. This means that you should know exactly what you are looking for. After that, the interview process should be very straight-forward - just a few questions to determine if the candidates match those requirements. That's it.
It hardly ever happens this way in real life. Many interviewers have no clue what they are looking for. Most questions are egoistic - just to prove that they know something that the candidate doesn't. Last year, a business software company asked me questions about Turing machines and the Halting problem. I answered him and further added that I had never thought about those since school and did not expect to use them at his company. So why did he ask me that? He said he just wanted to test me!
An interview is not a quiz. If you are looking for a software developer to write Servlets, don't ask him higher math and complex algorithmic questions. Try to find out his views on software engineering itself (good practices that we all know about) and technologies related to his job (HTTP protocol, for example).
Also, don't ask a programmer about any specific api or libraries (unless knowing that is specifically his job!).
Don't ask him about tools ("how comfortable are you with Visual Cafe?" is a stupid question").
And so on. Bottomline: Know what you need from him and see if he has that!
This is the stupidest comment I have heard in a long time. Emacs not a fixed line editor - it is anything you want it to be.
I use emacs for Java development. I also build and run and debug the java application using emacs. My co-worker also used emacs for browsing the web and email! MS Word is a word processor and ONLY a word processor. Don't even compare the two.
If you don't know much about emacs, there is an option for you - don't say anything about it!
Consider 196:
196+691 = 887 (which is not a palindrome)
Apply the same for 887, 887+788 = 1675 (not a palindrome)
Apparently, you can go on forever like this without ever reaching a palindrome!
152, on the other hand, which I picked randomly, quickly reaches 707 which is a palindrome.
Personally, I don't find this interesting at all. I posted a story a week ago about the prime number problem being solved for the first time with a deterministic algorithm and it was rejected by/. OOPS! Did I just go offtopic? Sorry, mods!!!
A bonehead consumer buys (or gets hold of) a product and does something unintended with it. Then, he gets hold of a bunch of lawyers and sues the company for a lot of money for not "informing" the consumer about what should not be done with their product. I mean, doesn't everyone know that plastic bags are not toys and can cause suffocation if they held tightly over the head?
Manufacturing companies, realizing that any product can be used in ways that can be harmful, fill their packing with warning labels and such, prepared with the help of a bunch of lawyers. People tend to ignore all these warnings because there are too many of them.
When common sense goes out the window, what else is left but uncommon nonsense?
In both scenarios, the only people who benefit are the lawyers.
Something should be done to restore common sense in our daily lives. When you get a book, what you can do with the book should follow common sense and not be governed by some stupid license agreement. The recepient should not be able to sue the publisher if he tries to flush the book down and floods his own house. On the hand, the sender should not try and dictate what the consumer does with the book. "Do what you want, but remember that you are responsible for doing it."
India has a 300 million+ strong middle class, larger than the entire US population. I would like know how exactly this ignorant sentence was deemed insightful. I guess some people like stereotypes so much that they don't want to be bothered by facts!!!
Don Norman is an excellent computer scientist who concentrates on the usability aspect of software which many ignore. His book - "Design of Everyday Things" is a very interesting book and a must read for all techies.
There is more to computer science than mastering the latest buzz words.
There is an instrument used in Indian music called the "Jaltarang" which uses many similar porcelein cups filled with different levels of lukewarm water. The musical effect is really good.
Without getting all worked up, if we look at the issue we'll find that there are reasons for other countries to feel that US is controlling the internet. Given that the Net originated in DARPA, it is only natural. There was no malicious aforethought about it, I'm sure.
For years, when there was little control over the Internet, US websites did anything they wanted. For example, many of the pr0n sites actually violate the laws of many other countries. Is there any mechanism to ensure that these sites are not visible in those countries? When some of them did try to block such sites we were quick to dismiss them as "censors" and people without freedom.
However, when there is a foreign website that violates US laws, our government and companies do the utmost to shut those sites down. How would we judge a person in USA who visits a child pr0n site hosted elsewhere? Didn't we ensure that film88.com was shutdown for violating US copyrights even though it was hosted in Iran?
Most of the governing bodies of the Internet are based in USA. ICANN is US based. NS, which was the monopoly in domain registration, is based in USA. And so on.
It is true that the Internet is a global phenomenon. But, any rules that do exist on it are dictated by USA. As an American it can be easy at times to assume that US law is the world law. Unfortunately, that is far from true.
a juvenile idea/dream I had when I was a small kid to use the electron's spin (+half or -half) to store the same binary information. A single atom could store a lot more bits this way.
He was one of the greatest computer scientists and programming language theorists ever. I sincerely mourn his passing.
In today's computer world, dominated more by marketing folks more than the technicians, I wonder how many people have heard of this man. It is sad that in the last decade of so, CEOs like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have gained so much public recognition while people Dijkstra languish in relative anonymity.
A few weeks ago, there was a post in/. about Knuth. I was surprised to see many ask who he was!
You're right. I should have been clarified further. I avoid all packed and boxed items that don't need to be further processed. I do recommend fresh fruits. I prefer cooking vegetables, though. May be because of my tropical origins, but even though I know that cooking can reduce the nutrition in vegetables, I think it is a lot safer to cook them before eating.
Your suggestion is much simpler. Thanks. Come to think of it, in my grocery store, fruit juice is probably the only thing I buy from the center.
As far as possible, cook at home. Seems like simple advice, but very few people do it. Saves you money and you can have just as much as you want. It is a lot healthier that way.
This will also make "eating out" a special thing to look forward to, rather than something routine. Also, you can include other stuff like exercise and lighter eating on days when you eat out.
When you go to a grocery store, don't buy anything that you don't have to further process before eating. This will quickly eliminate junk food, the major cause of obesity in my opinion.
I agree with your points, but I would like to point out that the original post tends to confuse "sales" and "revenue" a bit.
IMHO, Linux has a sale everytime someone installs Linux on their PC. Whether they pay to get a distribution CDROM or just download it, is irrelevant. Revenue, on the other hand, is completely different and I agree that Linux generates less revenue than MicroSoft Windows. In some ways, that is the whole idea.
The original post and many of its follow-ups seem to have a problem distinguishing between Linux, the "free" OS and Linux distributors, the "for-profit" companies that sell conveniently packaged Linux CDs.
Making a sweeping comment like "Linux Sales are down" is absurd. "Linux distribution companies have seen their revenues decline" is what the story is about and that is a whole different thing.
When someone compares MS Windows and Linux, it should be a comparison of how many PCs have windows as OS and how many have Linux as the OS.
It doesn't make any sense to compare the "revenues" of a priced product and a free product.
What next? A startling revelation that people all over America are paying for HBO and Cinemax, but many are getting local networks like NBC, ABC and Fox for FREE?
Slashdot Mirror
May be you didn't read my post or maybe I didn't make my point clear. Let me spell it out again. You are welcome to respond (as long as it is not a flame)
BTW, there are half-man, half-ape fossils.
Also, three centuries ago, everyone knew that obviously the sun goes around the earth! There is plenty of proof for evolution. You won't see a fish change into a horse before your eyes. Yet, this is the kind of proof that many demand. In fact, if such a thing happened, it would disprove evolution.
Thanks. It was exactly this kind of discussion that I was hoping for. I am sorry that some others merely glanced at my post and started attacking me.
My point is - it is irrelevant what my beliefs are - a science teacher in school should teach whatever is accepted as a fact by the scientific community at large. As I said before, scientists should not try and protest about "anti-scientific" preachings in the church and vice versa.
I do. I can confirm that in India (a very religious country, mind you!), evolution is taught as a fact in schools. The reason is simple - evolution is a scientific fact. Religion trying to dictate what should (or should not) be taught in schools is like scientists deciding what should be said in a church sermon.
If you are from America, you might believe that this issue is hotly debated all over the world. That is far from true. Most people recognize that faith and scientific facts belong in different places. Neither is an argument against the other.
But I do know for a fact that in India and even many other Muslim countries, evolution is taught as a fact in schools without any controversy.
Creationism stays in mosques and temples - where it belongs; a faith-based religious belief. Evolution is taught in schools, because in schools is where scientific facts belong.
I was merely pointing that out - NOT trying to offend any religion. Thanks.
That is kinda strange as all religions believe in creationism. However, people of most other religions seem to realize the distinction between faith-based religious beliefs and scientific facts like evolution. Also, this debate seems to be the hottest in America alone. Why is that?
I don't want to hurt anyone's sensibilities, but history is filled with instances of the Christian church condemning the scientific world and trying to regulate what the scientists say.
I am interested in knowing the views of all you calm people out there as to why evolution is so vigorously attacked by America's religious Christians alone and not so much by other religions/countries?
The one billion Indians should sue all electronics and computer companies - after all, ancient Indians invented the zero and the place value number system. That is the basis for binary, hexadecimal, octal and decimal number system!!!
It is far to simpler to hold the world hostage under the guise of protecting IP and charge a ransom from everyone who uses it.
Remember, the Amazon 1-click patent is still valid! It is not worried about the absence of a business plan that drives them towards profitability, but wants to prevent other websites from using cookies to enable faster checkouts.
Ultimately, I think that is the problem with all these patents and copyrights. If companies truly believed in their products and the value that they provide to their customers, they wouldn't have to resort such stupid mechanisms to make money.
2 . Scan through the list of numbers and stick them in their respective slot.
3 . Scan through the array and return the element index that is empty (or invalid value, as the case may be)
This is simple, straight-forward, easy to debug and only O(n). Why complicate things beyond necessity? With n unsorted elements, you are going to anyway arrive at an O(n) algorithm (atleast).
Programmers don't write code to fix problems frozen in time. The requirements keep changing and the code must be easily readable and maintainable! These are more desirable features in programmers.
In real life, in 3 months, the problem statement could be changed as - "atleast 2 elements may be missing and you have to return the highest, unless the lower missing number is 3, in which case you need to return 7".
Will the complex algorithms proposed handle this change gracefully?
It hardly ever happens this way in real life. Many interviewers have no clue what they are looking for. Most questions are egoistic - just to prove that they know something that the candidate doesn't. Last year, a business software company asked me questions about Turing machines and the Halting problem. I answered him and further added that I had never thought about those since school and did not expect to use them at his company. So why did he ask me that? He said he just wanted to test me!
An interview is not a quiz. If you are looking for a software developer to write Servlets, don't ask him higher math and complex algorithmic questions. Try to find out his views on software engineering itself (good practices that we all know about) and technologies related to his job (HTTP protocol, for example).
Also, don't ask a programmer about any specific api or libraries (unless knowing that is specifically his job!).
Don't ask him about tools ("how comfortable are you with Visual Cafe?" is a stupid question").
And so on. Bottomline: Know what you need from him and see if he has that!
I use emacs for Java development. I also build and run and debug the java application using emacs. My co-worker also used emacs for browsing the web and email! MS Word is a word processor and ONLY a word processor. Don't even compare the two.
If you don't know much about emacs, there is an option for you - don't say anything about it!
Nice to see /. posting that story, even if mine was rejected. Thanks for pointing me to the story.
196+691 = 887 (which is not a palindrome)
Apply the same for 887, 887+788 = 1675 (not a palindrome)
Apparently, you can go on forever like this without ever reaching a palindrome!
152, on the other hand, which I picked randomly, quickly reaches 707 which is a palindrome.
Personally, I don't find this interesting at all. I posted a story a week ago about the prime number problem being solved for the first time with a deterministic algorithm and it was rejected by /. OOPS! Did I just go offtopic? Sorry, mods!!!
When common sense goes out the window, what else is left but uncommon nonsense?
In both scenarios, the only people who benefit are the lawyers.
Something should be done to restore common sense in our daily lives. When you get a book, what you can do with the book should follow common sense and not be governed by some stupid license agreement. The recepient should not be able to sue the publisher if he tries to flush the book down and floods his own house. On the hand, the sender should not try and dictate what the consumer does with the book. "Do what you want, but remember that you are responsible for doing it."
India has a 300 million+ strong middle class, larger than the entire US population. I would like know how exactly this ignorant sentence was deemed insightful. I guess some people like stereotypes so much that they don't want to be bothered by facts!!!
There is more to computer science than mastering the latest buzz words.
There is an instrument used in Indian music called the "Jaltarang" which uses many similar porcelein cups filled with different levels of lukewarm water. The musical effect is really good.
For years, when there was little control over the Internet, US websites did anything they wanted. For example, many of the pr0n sites actually violate the laws of many other countries. Is there any mechanism to ensure that these sites are not visible in those countries? When some of them did try to block such sites we were quick to dismiss them as "censors" and people without freedom.
However, when there is a foreign website that violates US laws, our government and companies do the utmost to shut those sites down. How would we judge a person in USA who visits a child pr0n site hosted elsewhere? Didn't we ensure that film88.com was shutdown for violating US copyrights even though it was hosted in Iran?
Most of the governing bodies of the Internet are based in USA. ICANN is US based. NS, which was the monopoly in domain registration, is based in USA. And so on.
It is true that the Internet is a global phenomenon. But, any rules that do exist on it are dictated by USA. As an American it can be easy at times to assume that US law is the world law. Unfortunately, that is far from true.
Now, if I could only do it!!!
In today's computer world, dominated more by marketing folks more than the technicians, I wonder how many people have heard of this man. It is sad that in the last decade of so, CEOs like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have gained so much public recognition while people Dijkstra languish in relative anonymity.
A few weeks ago, there was a post in /. about Knuth. I was surprised to see many ask who he was!
Since he is a good soul, according to Hindu mythology, he might actually escape this infinite loop.
Your suggestion is much simpler. Thanks. Come to think of it, in my grocery store, fruit juice is probably the only thing I buy from the center.
This will also make "eating out" a special thing to look forward to, rather than something routine. Also, you can include other stuff like exercise and lighter eating on days when you eat out.
When you go to a grocery store, don't buy anything that you don't have to further process before eating. This will quickly eliminate junk food, the major cause of obesity in my opinion.
Just my $0.02, take it or leave it.
IMHO, Linux has a sale everytime someone installs Linux on their PC. Whether they pay to get a distribution CDROM or just download it, is irrelevant. Revenue, on the other hand, is completely different and I agree that Linux generates less revenue than MicroSoft Windows. In some ways, that is the whole idea.
The original post and many of its follow-ups seem to have a problem distinguishing between Linux, the "free" OS and Linux distributors, the "for-profit" companies that sell conveniently packaged Linux CDs.
Making a sweeping comment like "Linux Sales are down" is absurd. "Linux distribution companies have seen their revenues decline" is what the story is about and that is a whole different thing.
It doesn't make any sense to compare the "revenues" of a priced product and a free product.
What next? A startling revelation that people all over America are paying for HBO and Cinemax, but many are getting local networks like NBC, ABC and Fox for FREE?