There is nothing interesting here. No reasearch. No unique ideas.
The trick in appreciating works such as this in understanding what subject they claim to be in. This lady, who, incidentally, seems to have done sterling work on herself in reducing the difference between men and women, at least in terms of her intro pic[1], is actually working on a PhD dissertation on feminist metaphysics.
Now, do you what that means? I don't. A google search returned some might find interesting, but for mere mortal CS majors like me, even the intro paragraphs, which generally are the easiest, will take some time in parsing.
In particular, the first sentence itself is a stumbling block.
The very term "metaphysics" is repudiated by many feminist philosophers, especially those engaged primarily with twentieth century French and German philosophy, because it connotes a pretension to ahistorical universalism, as if philosophical accounts of the real could transcend the whole cloth of our cultural, historical, and embodied rootedness.
Note that, the ignorant reader, such as me again, will again have to google for terms such as "ahistorical universalism", on twentieth century French and German philosophy and on how "the modernist conception of the self has been "made strange" by a number of feminist philosophers". In particular, I will probably have to read up on on a collection of essays on post-modernism.
So, is (the going-to-be) Dr. Yasmin doing some ground-breaking research? For sure, post-modernism is, after all, the cutting-edge of liberal arts. Does it make any sense to me? Of course not. Is this why I shifted from liberal arts to comp sc? Yup. Am I procrastinating from doing my comp sc project? Definitely. Should I care? Yes, but only about the project being procrastinated against. Should you care about any of this shit, post-modernism, feminist metaphysics, ahistorical universalim or even my project? Nope, not really.
Seriously, the guys in India, Russia, et. al. are working their asses off for far less money than IT professionals make here. Do you think they are spending their time wondering how to goof off?
Trust me.:-)
(Hint:- 9:10AM at workplace. I'm Indian. I'm browsing Slashdot.)
My favourite implementation of dates in Java (among other languages, of course; first preference is LISP) is the Calendrica package. Note that the code has not been released under (L)GPL though.
Surely there are adacemic researchers out there probing the frontier of human-computer interaction that could use Linux as the basis for their work? Could it be that X is slowing us down somehow? I mean, think of how much fuss there was over minor and superficial enhancements antialiased fonts and transparent windows. Where are the big ideas?
First of all, I didn't watch the trailer, so I won't comment on this movie, but if the plot from Bug's Life would seem familiar to world audiences for a reason.
You see, this ragtag-band-of-good-guys-fight-with-baddies-who-te rrorize-a-village-every-year-for-cash plot has been used in, among other movies, Bug's Life, Lagaan, Chinagate (both from India) and The Magnificient Seven, after it first came out on celluloid in The Seven Samurai, one of the gems made by the Japanese master, Akira Kurosawa .
In India, we aspiring graduate students spent marathon sessions memorizing vocabulary words that we never used again after taking the test. It was quite a joke, really. It favors those with the wherewithal to engage in this mindless brain-stuffing, and disadvantages those who do have the skills to read critically and find meaning, but don't memorize all those esoteric (= a good example itself!) words.
The next time you speak about Indians, do a favour, don't generalise, okay?
I'm an Indian, and five years back, I did give the SAT's, that's SAT I and SAT II. My preparation for SAT II- Writing (which, IMHO, is the toughest it can get for verbal tests at pre-UG levels, although, admittedly, it doesn't test verbal reasoning, but writing skills) was as follows:- a) Read up on a test prep book, b) Practise with a couple of old papers, c)That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Actually, no, that's a lie. I did something else.
Heck, it's been five years now, the world was much younger then; yes, I spent two hours doing something else that evening before the test. You see, I couldnt bear the excitement and, when no one was around, decided to check out this new-fangled 'internet' thing that my dad and I somehow installed on our family PC.
It was a fascinating experience; there were many new things to learn. I learnt that, for instance, a certain low-profile website, offered email for virtually nothing! That, you could get all the news you want, based on your preferences, delivered to your very own inbox, again, free of cost!. I even learnt that a certain lady could adorn my wallpaper and that, it might start getting itchy in your pants if you stare at her picture for a while....
Let's just say that I think I did well for my 770 in SAT II Writing.
Aww c'mon. All that BBC article is saying is that they'll give computer 'training' to those jailbirds. Now 'computer training' in India could be anything from being a two-year 'intensive' course for CCNA/MCSE certifications, to, you won't believe it, a three week course in ENCARTA (this one from a Microsoft employee on vacation in India who suddenly decided he needed some petty cash). At best, the folks in jail will probably 'taught' about the Wonders of the Magical Start Button or something.
Yes, that's right; the entire episode is one of those feel-good political moves for the government, matched by some equally positive publicity for NIIT. If those folks start programming after that course, and, Tihar Jail will have international orders for its code, I might as well head to Delhi, commit some crime, get lodged in jail and get on with my plan for world domination.
No, I wasn't referring to the IBM. My point was that the American economy, among other world economies, moved from a manufacturing base to a service-oriented one in the 1930's itself, without the, shall we say, intervention of, computers or their forebearers. That is to say, it's quite disingenious to link increase in, or change in modes of, work, to increase in computational power.
Which brings us to a very interesting point. You see, most of these business-types during the dot-com days used to quote Moore's Law as if it was some strange new law of Nature that will change life as we know it. Heck, I was even read an article that suggested that the increase in the so-called "knowledge work" is a direct result of the increase in microprocessing power. A hideous argument if I may say so, particularly when you realise that the increase in the amount of knowledge work, at least in the US, actually started in the 1930's or so.
You referred to property get/sets, but that isn't what the author was talking about. He was talking about external configuration files, environment configuration files, an serialization.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Torque project do this? Same for Maverick, if I may point out.
ISPs sometimes defend such language as necessary boilerplate necessary to clarify their necessary right to "present content" by doing things like serving web pages.
Is it necessary to repeat necessary to say that someone necessary thinks something is necessary, while in reality, it is unnecessary?
Nothing questionable about it, the audience is moving in story-space with Neo, so it's quite natural that most of his dialogue would be in the form of questions.
I share your revulsion to this ratings steeplechase, and certainly, don't think you were being a flamebait, but you got the types wrong here.
The guy who wrote the Slate article is being a lib-arts-major type; genres and cults, as you can imagine, have very special meanings in the critics universe. Consider this:- one of the crappiest storylines/dialogue/screenplay etc I've ever seen is for one of my all-time-favourites, the Good, Bad and Ugly. Reason why I like it:- seen in the light of an existing film genre, Westerns, it's a damn good movie. Great action scenes, guns, Ennio Morricone music. But if you critique it as a romance, or a drama or something, it's utter crap.
So basically what the guy was saying was that The Matrix, unlike say, The Good, Bad and Ugly, will appeal to followers of two genres. Essentially, to use your turn of words, that it's damned good, unique and creative for that reason.
This is not about 10 lines of code, it's about 20 years of extremely valuable intellectual property we're trying to protect...Am I supposed to lie down and not say anything about it?" McBride asked. "There's a certain point here where you stand up for what's right and let the chips fall where they will."
Slashdot Mirror
The trick in appreciating works such as this in understanding what subject they claim to be in. This lady, who, incidentally, seems to have done sterling work on herself in reducing the difference between men and women, at least in terms of her intro pic[1], is actually working on a PhD dissertation on feminist metaphysics.
Now, do you what that means? I don't. A google search returned some might find interesting, but for mere mortal CS majors like me, even the intro paragraphs, which generally are the easiest, will take some time in parsing.
In particular, the first sentence itself is a stumbling block.
Note that, the ignorant reader, such as me again, will again have to google for terms such as "ahistorical universalism", on twentieth century French and German philosophy and on how "the modernist conception of the self has been "made strange" by a number of feminist philosophers". In particular, I will probably have to read up on on a collection of essays on post-modernism.
So, is (the going-to-be) Dr. Yasmin doing some ground-breaking research? For sure, post-modernism is, after all, the cutting-edge of liberal arts. Does it make any sense to me? Of course not. Is this why I shifted from liberal arts to comp sc? Yup. Am I procrastinating from doing my comp sc project? Definitely. Should I care? Yes, but only about the project being procrastinated against. Should you care about any of this shit, post-modernism, feminist metaphysics, ahistorical universalim or even my project? Nope, not really.
Just wait for the K5 Reenact dude to come over to /. :-D
Trust me. :-)
(Hint:- 9:10AM at workplace. I'm Indian. I'm browsing Slashdot.)
My favourite implementation of dates in Java (among other languages, of course; first preference is LISP) is the Calendrica package. Note that the code has not been released under (L)GPL though.
Oh, Microsoft already has one. Where do you want to go today? :-)
Metlin? Are you listening? :-D
At work now, so a quick comment, but yes, that's to be expected. Such a result can easily be predicted by the Axelrod model of social networks. :-)
Trust me, you don't. Being scared of entering your surname online isn't pleasurable at all. :-)
My surname used to be a Googlewhack, until my ex-prof put up my research project on his website. :-|
First of all, I didn't watch the trailer, so I won't comment on this movie, but if the plot from Bug's Life would seem familiar to world audiences for a reason.
You see, this ragtag-band-of-good-guys-fight-with-baddies-who-te rrorize-a-village-every-year-for-cash plot has been used in, among other movies, Bug's Life, Lagaan, Chinagate (both from India) and The Magnificient Seven, after it first came out on celluloid in The Seven Samurai, one of the gems made by the Japanese master, Akira Kurosawa .
Clearly, they were running in for the Ig Nobel awards. I wonder what field though.
The next time you speak about Indians, do a favour, don't generalise, okay?
I'm an Indian, and five years back, I did give the SAT's, that's SAT I and SAT II. My preparation for SAT II- Writing (which, IMHO, is the toughest it can get for verbal tests at pre-UG levels, although, admittedly, it doesn't test verbal reasoning, but writing skills) was as follows:-
a) Read up on a test prep book,
b) Practise with a couple of old papers,
c)That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Actually, no, that's a lie. I did something else.
Heck, it's been five years now, the world was much younger then; yes, I spent two hours doing something else that evening before the test. You see, I couldnt bear the excitement and, when no one was around, decided to check out this new-fangled 'internet' thing that my dad and I somehow installed on our family PC.
It was a fascinating experience; there were many new things to learn. I learnt that, for instance, a certain low-profile website, offered email for virtually nothing! That, you could get all the news you want, based on your preferences, delivered to your very own inbox, again, free of cost!. I even learnt that a certain lady could adorn my wallpaper and that, it might start getting itchy in your pants if you stare at her picture for a while....
Let's just say that I think I did well for my 770 in SAT II Writing.
Yes, but if you can get into grad school. :-)
Aww c'mon. All that BBC article is saying is that they'll give computer 'training' to those jailbirds. Now 'computer training' in India could be anything from being a two-year 'intensive' course for CCNA/MCSE certifications, to, you won't believe it, a three week course in ENCARTA (this one from a Microsoft employee on vacation in India who suddenly decided he needed some petty cash). At best, the folks in jail will probably 'taught' about the Wonders of the Magical Start Button or something.
Yes, that's right; the entire episode is one of those feel-good political moves for the government, matched by some equally positive publicity for NIIT. If those folks start programming after that course, and, Tihar Jail will have international orders for its code, I might as well head to Delhi, commit some crime, get lodged in jail and get on with my plan for world domination.
No, I wasn't referring to the IBM. My point was that the American economy, among other world economies, moved from a manufacturing base to a service-oriented one in the 1930's itself, without the, shall we say, intervention of, computers or their forebearers. That is to say, it's quite disingenious to link increase in, or change in modes of, work, to increase in computational power.
But that's only one example of a re-write failure. Opera, if I remember correctly, has completely rewritten its code base for its latest version.
Which brings us to a very interesting point. You see, most of these business-types during the dot-com days used to quote Moore's Law as if it was some strange new law of Nature that will change life as we know it. Heck, I was even read an article that suggested that the increase in the so-called "knowledge work" is a direct result of the increase in microprocessing power. A hideous argument if I may say so, particularly when you realise that the increase in the amount of knowledge work, at least in the US, actually started in the 1930's or so.
That's okay. There is, after all, no spoon.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Torque project do this? Same for Maverick, if I may point out.
Is it necessary to repeat necessary to say that someone necessary thinks something is necessary, while in reality, it is unnecessary?
You know what the scary bit is? I've just finished a module on mass media and, *gulp*, that Tarantino article makes sense to me.
Nothing questionable about it, the audience is moving in story-space with Neo, so it's quite natural that most of his dialogue would be in the form of questions.
I share your revulsion to this ratings steeplechase, and certainly, don't think you were being a flamebait, but you got the types wrong here.
The guy who wrote the Slate article is being a lib-arts-major type; genres and cults, as you can imagine, have very special meanings in the critics universe. Consider this:- one of the crappiest storylines/dialogue/screenplay etc I've ever seen is for one of my all-time-favourites, the Good, Bad and Ugly. Reason why I like it:- seen in the light of an existing film genre, Westerns, it's a damn good movie. Great action scenes, guns, Ennio Morricone music. But if you critique it as a romance, or a drama or something, it's utter crap.
So basically what the guy was saying was that The Matrix, unlike say, The Good, Bad and Ugly, will appeal to followers of two genres. Essentially, to use your turn of words, that it's damned good, unique and creative for that reason.
Yes, but as long as it doesn't have a kitchen sink, I'm not buying it. :-|
Geesh.