Blackle's energy saving claims are bullshit - based on the idea that CRT monitors (who's using those any more?) use less power when showing black than white - something that was found in a study in the Dark Ages of monitors - 2002 or so.
Blackle thus exploits ignorance to get traffic and Google ad hits (ie. revenue).
Quite likely Blackle is also selling their supposed carbon saving as carbon offsets. Their "We've saved xxxx Watt hours" can be exchanged for money.
SCO's lawyers include Darl's brother, Kevin. Turning SCO's assets into legal fees gets the money out of the company and into the family. At present SCO is dead in the water like a floating wreck. It still has some value on board. This strategy converts some of that into cash which can be trans-shipped into the family as legal fees.
In my last job I, and about 5 others, spent a lot of our time selecting new grads. Of the six of us, only one looked at grades much. We all realised that universities and grades are very contrived and are not good indicators of how people will perform in the real world.
Get involved in some open source project, not just as a peripheral person but **really** get engaged and make a very useful contribution. Show that you can word with others, solve problems (the fun technical stuff), help finish off documentation (shows you can also do the boring stuff that is important) and get some references from the project leads.
What most employers really look for is the "bushy tail factor": people who are flexible, practical and can learn new stuff fast.
I too agree that it is sad to see the passing of a Great One. He certainly contributed greatly and built a mighty pedestal. Unfortunately he also chose to dilute his high quality work with quite a lot of trite, enough to earn his own derogatory tag.
While it is important to speak when you have something useful to say, it is as important to Shut The Fuck Up when you haven't.
The individual states are really countries in their own right since they can make their own laws, taxes etc. USA is very much equivalent to Europe in that both are federations. US federal law can override state laws and destroy the sovereignty of states so it is very hard to say that we don't already have a picture as to how things might pan out.
As for Globalization, well USA is the current global top-dog expecting many other parts of the world to behave as it sees fit. We're probably a long way down this track already.
You are correct, what I was talking of is journalism as is practiced. I expect that most journalists come out of college with a sparkly eyed passion for the truth and are soon brought down to ground with a major thump when they find that the industry, as a whole, does not want this. Real journalists are few and far between and are seldom linked to the main media outlets.
The blogosphere does mean that anyone can become a reporter which makes for a far more democratic medium where you are not censored by an editor. Unfortunately doing away with editing also allows a bunch on complete idiots to post their ramblings as fact.
What makes it different is that Welch did this as an ongoing practice so it was part of the company culture. If you were a productive employee and say a non-productive employee you'd think:"Oh well Joe won't be here much longer and won't cause much more damage."
It is very different when the firings are a once-off. In a once-off firing, the company gets to accumulate a lot of badness before the person is let go. The better employee thinks: "Well Joe's been screwing up for 5 years now. If he gets fired I'll be left with his shit to sort out! Screw that, I'm, outta here!"
Journalism is not about reporting the truth, it is about contributing to and competing in an advertising and entertainment industry. In depth is not important, quickly generating good TV and print images to attract eyeballs and thus newspaper/advertising sales is everything. Getting access to the information and sources is an absolute must.
The journalists groom their resources and need to keep in their sources good books to keep up access. Play ball and you get indented with a patrol so you can send back gripping combat footage. Piss off the brass and you get indented with the guys washing trucks at the transport park.
It is no wonder that editors and TV execs are quick to fire and distance themselves from any journalists that forget this and start snooping too deeply. Just look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett
The idea has failed to launch many times before, but that's not necessarily because the idea is broken. X windows was a pretty crappy idea when it was first launched because desktops just did not have enough grunt to run it. Multiply the CPU by a hundred or more and the X server's CPU load is insignificant.
The idea has to match what the technology can provide. The cloud needs cheap, high speed, networking. As that becomes available it starts to make a lot of sense for some companies.
There are too many jobs. It's almost as bad as 1999/2000 when anyone that could spell computa could get a job in the industry. As a result quality suffered.
What we need is fewer jobs to make more competition and get rid of the useless.
Firstly, power grids are controlled by lots of itty bitty electronics.
Secondly, the induced voltage is proportional to the area times the number of turns times the change in flux density. Since power grids cover huge areas, changes in magnetic flux duensity can cause huge disturbances in network voltages, tripping protection relays and causing other mayhem.
The airheads are fine for recreational purposes, but they're hardly the sort that you marry and couple with on a genetic basis. There are the party and fucking kind and the settle down and marrying kind. These are independent properties.
It is very hard to walk downhill and keep your balance etc. It is far easier to walk uphill. With reduced cerebral function it is far more likely for someone to loose there balance and take a bad fall going down than up.
You get the bends when reducing pressure causes bubbling due to your tissue having more disolved gases than it can hold. Just like a soft drink fizzes when you reduce pressure, the dissolved gases come out of the liquid.
Apart from the regular Lego language there are a whole host of other third party ports including LeJos (Java) and many others.
Mindstorms is far from being a dead end toy and is used in many university programs too.
Robotics is an excellent way to learn about programming. You see real stuff happen, not just pixels on screens. You see the algorithm actually working. A bug is impressive... crashing debricking robots make you really think. My kids (and I) have two Lego NXT sets and one RCX set. We build our own sensors too.
Give them a good understanding as to what is going on under the hood. It really helps them to connect the dots and really helps in the understanding of compiler/OS design, and basic concepts like "what's a stack?".
Choose a simple 8-bit micro such as an AVR first, or an ARM. Something with a RISC architecture is nice and clean.
Introduction to programming isn't what it used to be. Twenty or thirty years back that was often the first exposure a student had to programming. These days you'd be seriously concerned if a student showed up to a programming course and hadn't dabbled a bit at home.
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Blackle thus exploits ignorance to get traffic and Google ad hits (ie. revenue).
Quite likely Blackle is also selling their supposed carbon saving as carbon offsets. Their "We've saved xxxx Watt hours" can be exchanged for money.
SCO's lawyers include Darl's brother, Kevin. Turning SCO's assets into legal fees gets the money out of the company and into the family. At present SCO is dead in the water like a floating wreck. It still has some value on board. This strategy converts some of that into cash which can be trans-shipped into the family as legal fees.
Get involved in some open source project, not just as a peripheral person but **really** get engaged and make a very useful contribution. Show that you can word with others, solve problems (the fun technical stuff), help finish off documentation (shows you can also do the boring stuff that is important) and get some references from the project leads.
What most employers really look for is the "bushy tail factor": people who are flexible, practical and can learn new stuff fast.
While it is important to speak when you have something useful to say, it is as important to Shut The Fuck Up when you haven't.
As for Globalization, well USA is the current global top-dog expecting many other parts of the world to behave as it sees fit. We're probably a long way down this track already.
Make everyone happy.
The blogosphere does mean that anyone can become a reporter which makes for a far more democratic medium where you are not censored by an editor. Unfortunately doing away with editing also allows a bunch on complete idiots to post their ramblings as fact.
It is very different when the firings are a once-off. In a once-off firing, the company gets to accumulate a lot of badness before the person is let go. The better employee thinks: "Well Joe's been screwing up for 5 years now. If he gets fired I'll be left with his shit to sort out! Screw that, I'm, outta here!"
Sounds like he was always a black hat but just didn't cause enough problems while he still had his training wheels on.
The journalists groom their resources and need to keep in their sources good books to keep up access. Play ball and you get indented with a patrol so you can send back gripping combat footage. Piss off the brass and you get indented with the guys washing trucks at the transport park.
It is no wonder that editors and TV execs are quick to fire and distance themselves from any journalists that forget this and start snooping too deeply. Just look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett
The idea has to match what the technology can provide. The cloud needs cheap, high speed, networking. As that becomes available it starts to make a lot of sense for some companies.
What we need is fewer jobs to make more competition and get rid of the useless.
Secondly, the induced voltage is proportional to the area times the number of turns times the change in flux density. Since power grids cover huge areas, changes in magnetic flux duensity can cause huge disturbances in network voltages, tripping protection relays and causing other mayhem.
I cal kill 20-25% more trees with one toner cartridge!
Sorry folks: if you want grunty corporate grade equipment with high performance then don't expect to buy it at a retail shop.
Build your own or spend up on professional grade equipment.
All the legislation in the world won't fix teenage pregnancies, the War On Drugs, etc etc.
Since there is really no technical mechanism to kill spam, the legislation itself is ineffective.
They aren't really a country and western band you know.
Microsoft seems to be less about programmers and more about wordsmiths. Technology instead of application, innovation instead of stealing an idea...
About the only thing that is truely american is the arrogance.
The airheads are fine for recreational purposes, but they're hardly the sort that you marry and couple with on a genetic basis. There are the party and fucking kind and the settle down and marrying kind. These are independent properties.
It is very hard to walk downhill and keep your balance etc. It is far easier to walk uphill. With reduced cerebral function it is far more likely for someone to loose there balance and take a bad fall going down than up.
Thus, you can only get the bends going up.
Mindstorms is far from being a dead end toy and is used in many university programs too.
Robotics is an excellent way to learn about programming. You see real stuff happen, not just pixels on screens. You see the algorithm actually working. A bug is impressive ... crashing debricking robots make you really think. My kids (and I) have two Lego NXT sets and one RCX set. We build our own sensors too.
It should definitely be in a CS curriculum, bit perhaps not in a first programming course.
Choose a simple 8-bit micro such as an AVR first, or an ARM. Something with a RISC architecture is nice and clean.
Introduction to programming isn't what it used to be. Twenty or thirty years back that was often the first exposure a student had to programming. These days you'd be seriously concerned if a student showed up to a programming course and hadn't dabbled a bit at home.