All the professors I had in college used PowerPoint correctly. I was a CS major so perhaps my professors PowerPoint literacy rate was better than average.
My professors would make their own short slides and use each slide as a launching point for that part of the lecture. I would print the slides in note taking format prior to class and supplement the lecture with handwritten notes. I always thought it was a great way to learn.
A more heavily muscled person doesn't burn any more calories at rest.
As a Certified Personal Trainer I can tell you that an increase in your lean body mass (LBM) does increase your metabolism. Just look at the formulas for calculating Basal Metabolic Rate.
Why is it alright for someone to dedicate their life to trying to run faster, but not alright to use actual innovation to do so?
There is a parallel to this in weight lifting. Some competitors started wearing multi-ply weight lifting suits and benching shirts before they started getting banned.
It's just a shirt right? Wrong. It was a shirt that was made of a material that was springy and became loaded with energy at the bottom of your movement so you can spring back to the top much easier. Wearing one of the suits can allow a competitor to lift up to 25% more.
The issue is, it isn't all you; and some competitions are not about who can afford the best performance enhancing toys, but who is actually the best.
Ron Paul believes government is not functional, and therefore is unlikely to be able to run a functional government.
How long does it take to get simple legislation passed? It seems to only speed up when it may make the lawmakers look bad (and by speed up I mean slightly faster than a retarded turtle).
Ron Paul wants to gut social programs people have worked hard over the last 50 years to get.
Good. We don't need social programs. Too many people abuse them. Let people that are truly in need get help from local non-government social service organizations. They are much more efficient with the money.
Ron Paul would want to abolish our dept of education(student loans), the IRS, dept of homeland security, FEMA, participation in the UN, participation in NATO, and contributions to unicef.
As for government departments, this is true; but he is not proposing to eliminate their duties (mostly). He is simply stating that sovereign states should provide their own services as they see fit. This should not be a function of a hugely inefficient federal government.
As for the UN... don't get me started. If you like big socialist global governments, feel free to donate!
Ron Paul is no savior for this country, he is just another republican looking to weaken the government.
Weaken is not the right word. He wants a small, stable, efficient, federal government which empowers the states and protects our country. What is wrong with that?
This is the thing people don't understand: empower the states. If a state wants to tax 50%, provide socialized medicine and tons of programs, they can. This should not be the decision of the federal government.
1) Iran has said they want a nuclear weapon 2) They are building a breeder reactor
The country that stated that they want to build a bomb all the sudden also wants to have peaceful nuclear power. Their choice of power plant designs just happens to create tons of weapons grade plutonium used to build nuclear weapons.
So that is the problem. There are many different kinds of reactor designs. They just happened to pick the one design which makes the most weapons grade plutonium. This coupled with their previously stated intentions makes their goal pretty transparent.
If they really wanted nuclear energy they should be OK with a different reactor design which just produces spent uranium and other radioactive junk suitable for a dirty bomb at best.
I don't think someone should consider themselves to be an expert in a field when they only understand a very specific area and are complete ignorant of the rest. Typically, someone starts studying broad fundamentals and narrows their focus as their education progresses. At the PhD level, you specialize. Someone who is a mathematician their entire academic career and switches to CS for a PhD misses out on the broad range of topics which make you an expert.
I have a Masters in Computer Science; so I think I know what it is.
The person with the PhD didn't have a clue about topics such as Computer Architecture, Programming Languages, Operating Systems, or Distributed Systems because they never took a class about it or bothered to learn on their own. How can you be an expert in Computer Science and think that only one client can communicate with a web server at a time!?!
This person was only an expert at mathematics and using AI techniques to solve math problems.
You could hold a Ph.D in computer sciences while liberally abusing Goto statements.
Especially since you don't have to know anything about computers to get a PhD in Computer Science. I one worked with a person who had a PhD in CS from a Big 10 school and was absolutely clueless. After a while I got tired of him using his advanced degree as a club and decided to do a little investigation. I discovered that their undergrad and graduate degrees was in Mathematics and their PhD specialized in a very mathematical area of AI.
In other words, this Computer Scientist had never taken a CS class! He was just good at algorithms.
Did you read the article you linked to? The first 500,000 users who register on the PlayStation Network will receive a copy. Every time they did this in the past, they shipped the disc directly to the registered user and not to retail.
Besides, they sold 200,000 PS3s the first two weeks in the UK and the Casino Royal numbers two weeks after the UK launch launch were only 100,000. I think that the majority of new PS3 users would register for their free disc; therefore the free offer numbers are obviously not represented in those sales numbers.
The only thing in computer programming that is NOT a trainable skill is the ability to sit in front of a screen solving problems instead of having constant human contact.
Only if your definition of Programmer is a Coder. Microsoft is hiring Engineers.
As a hiring manager/Software Engineer, I can find plenty of coders. I can even get them cheap (less than $15/hour in India and less then $20/hour in Argentina). However I can't find a good Engineer. I typically have to work the social networks to find someone who knows someone good to steal from another company.
I've met plenty of folks that can code an algorithm when given one, but couldn't for the life of them come up with the algorithm on their own. Abstract things like design and problem decomposition require people that can think abstractly. That is a talent. Even if you got the talent, you have to want to use it.
I'm confused. I thought that for the first year or so after launch, consoles generally out-performed $2000 gaming rigs
At least you admit to being confused;). The XBOX360 wasn't out-performing PCs when it was released either.
Now for my response to the parent (Xugumad):
Console sold for 50% more than nearest competitor, and claimed to be twice as powerful, shows graphical improvement over competitor in one game
Compare the XBOX360 launch titles to the current XBOX360 games (i.e. GRAW vs. GRAW2). It's night and day. What if the PS3 came out with GRAW as a launch title. It would blow the old 360 version out of the water.
The real question is, if they are about equal now and the graphics on both systems mature at the same rate, which system is going to max out first? I say it's going to be the XBOX360. Check back with the PS3 a year after the XBOX games can't be optimized any further.
I own both the 360 and the PS3. Right now I play the 360 more. I would be surprised if I can say the same thing in a year.
...is that Red Octane sent cease and desist letters to DDR:UK for providing Stepmania file downloads for ITG songs; when ITG only exists because of piracy of DDR songs and stepfiles.
Suing TAC for copying their controller is par for the course. I guess from Red Octane's point of view it's OK for them to copy other people's products, but it's not OK for people to copy theirs.
Although less than 3% of the inmates studied over 24 months were reported for very serious misconduct, we are able to correctly forecast such behavior about half the time
I have a similar system that I have dubbed the "coin flip".
What's unique is not the instance, but the design.
Would Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" or Van Gogh's "Starry Night" be anything special if it could be duplicated? Would those artists even bothered creating those masterpieces if they can easily be duplicated? Part of art is to create something that has never existed before, which means it is the instance and the design.
Am I upset because they're getting the hat for free... or am I happy because I've started a fashion trend?
It depends on how much value you put into starting fashion trends.
If you paid $1M for your hat and everyone else got it for free, you may feel like you have been taken advantage of. It's like you buying a $100 gift certificate for your friend's birthday and everyone else at the party that didn't pitch in for the gift putting their name on it. You may be a little upset that you are the one that footed the cost for everyone else's benefit or you may be happy that everyone else that didn't buy a gift is now covered. If it is the latter, how happy would you be if you were the one that is always picking up the check?
I, for one, won't mourn the loss of certain people's ability to "show off" the fact that they have something no one else can have.
You assume it is all about showing off. Maybe it is about supporting local business or creating something unique and special. I'm sure you just rolled your eyes, but if you can play idealist, so can I:)
Unofficial Rule of Social Work: If a business/private enterprise accepts any government funding, it is not private.
That would have to be an unofficial rule. If I took $25 from the government to install a braille sign in my place of business, I don't think that automatically makes me public; it just makes me more accessible to the public.
I apologize for the confusion. I should clarify. By tax dollars going to the disabled directly, I meant the cost of care and benefits to the disabled, not just the monthly benefit checks. This includes health care, VA hospitals, mobility programs, vocational rehabilitation, etc.
States custody/foster care is a hellhole w/administrative costs/waste that are unbelieveable.
I agree.
It depends on the corporation and which ones it qualifies for, both at the State and Federal level
Given my first correction, I'm sure you would agree with my statement now. The money a corporation is given for ADA compliance is nowhere near the cost of care and benefits to the disabled. If you are going to reduce taxpayer costs, focusing on corporate tax breaks for ADA compliance is not the place to start. As you pointed out, there is much more waste in the benefits programs themselves.
That is a nice well thought out reply you have; but I don't think your experience is typical.
I have personally done one S.508 design and overseen two. I would not call myself a web developer, but I have read the standards, several books on the standards as they apply to web development specifically, and all the articles I can find on the web. I do have very competent web developers on my staff which should not be working at McDonalds, despite what you think. The two sites I was in charge of were part of a massive S.508 conversion effort by my employer which has about two dozen customer facing sites. My experience was very typical when talking to other leads doing the conversions. The nature of complex data and the crappiness of screen readers (have you used JAWS?) really make the accessibility work difficult. We spoke to several contracting firms which specialize on accessibility. They wanted to charge up to $1000/page to do a S.508 conversion and I can see why. It is very time consuming to evaluate the subjective criteria of S.508 and test in screen readers.
Most people that think accessibility is easy either have skills that are far above average, have the viewpoint that sites should be minimalist, and/or develop sites that are not fully S.508 compliant. It is hard to find developers which are that skilled, not all sites can be simple (especially now-a-days with rich content like Flash and AJAX driven UI's), and not everyone has the luxury of partial S.508 compliance.
Finally, you are completely off base by thinking accessibility does not add cost. You have to buy validation software and screen readers to test with, you have to have developers specifically use these tools to develop and test the website, you have to retest the site using these tools when adding new features, and if you really want to know if it works, you have to enlist the services of an accessibility testing specialist (such as your friend). If software costs money and the additional manhours/specialized staff cost money, then there is a cost (and it isn't cheap).
Which meams they'll probably work properly in Opera too, unlike most butt ugly DHTML Web 2.0 monstrosities.
Well one, the most recent version of Opera seem to render everything fine from what I can tell, so I don't know what you are talking about. Two, you probably don't like AJAX, but that is the future of distributed web applications.
Incidentally, I tried my website with Lynx, and the only change I needed to make was a link from the NOFRAMES section to the index, and a few alt tags.
I would expect that for a website which is mostly textual, like most personal home pages. Do you have forms prompting people for input? Do you have large quantity of data which would normally be displayed as a graph? Do you have a shopping cart? These are the things which are hard to provide "Equivalent Facilitation" for. These are the things businesses have to deal with.
And just FYI, no one cares if your website is slick, you will get exactly 0 extra sales because of that.
Wow! What a broad brush you paint with! When was the last time you did a focus group on this? The last time my company did one with our customers, the customers overwhelmingly wanted the DHTML site over the non-DHTML site. I would estimate that the website style preferences of a businesses customers are determined by the demographics of that customer.
And the browsers on most cellphones will completely choke on a DHTML website.
Which is why companies which want to allow mobile access to their websites (i.e. movie theaters) typically have a stripped down mobile version of their site which is optimized for smaller screens. Creating a mobile version of a website is much easier than making it S.508 compliant because typically you are only exposing a subset of the content to the user and interface is much more restrictive.
Slashdot Mirror
All the professors I had in college used PowerPoint correctly. I was a CS major so perhaps my professors PowerPoint literacy rate was better than average.
My professors would make their own short slides and use each slide as a launching point for that part of the lecture. I would print the slides in note taking format prior to class and supplement the lecture with handwritten notes. I always thought it was a great way to learn.
A more heavily muscled person doesn't burn any more calories at rest.
As a Certified Personal Trainer I can tell you that an increase in your lean body mass (LBM) does increase your metabolism. Just look at the formulas for calculating Basal Metabolic Rate.
Nine Inch Nails gave out their new album (The Slip) for free and used the geographic data from the torrent downloads to plan their tour schedule.
There is a parallel to this in weight lifting. Some competitors started wearing multi-ply weight lifting suits and benching shirts before they started getting banned.
It's just a shirt right? Wrong. It was a shirt that was made of a material that was springy and became loaded with energy at the bottom of your movement so you can spring back to the top much easier. Wearing one of the suits can allow a competitor to lift up to 25% more.
The issue is, it isn't all you; and some competitions are not about who can afford the best performance enhancing toys, but who is actually the best.
How long does it take to get simple legislation passed? It seems to only speed up when it may make the lawmakers look bad (and by speed up I mean slightly faster than a retarded turtle).
Good. We don't need social programs. Too many people abuse them. Let people that are truly in need get help from local non-government social service organizations. They are much more efficient with the money.
As for government departments, this is true; but he is not proposing to eliminate their duties (mostly). He is simply stating that sovereign states should provide their own services as they see fit. This should not be a function of a hugely inefficient federal government.
As for the UN... don't get me started. If you like big socialist global governments, feel free to donate!
Weaken is not the right word. He wants a small, stable, efficient, federal government which empowers the states and protects our country. What is wrong with that?
This is the thing people don't understand: empower the states. If a state wants to tax 50%, provide socialized medicine and tons of programs, they can. This should not be the decision of the federal government.
Did you know that your post today qualifies you for a FREE 3 month subscription to Sports Illustrated?
Also, you can get double karma on your posts today if you sign up for our preferred poster program. It only takes five minutes to sign up!
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=xbox+360+33+failure+rate&btnG=Google+Search
Well there are two things here:
1) Iran has said they want a nuclear weapon
2) They are building a breeder reactor
The country that stated that they want to build a bomb all the sudden also wants to have peaceful nuclear power. Their choice of power plant designs just happens to create tons of weapons grade plutonium used to build nuclear weapons.
So that is the problem. There are many different kinds of reactor designs. They just happened to pick the one design which makes the most weapons grade plutonium. This coupled with their previously stated intentions makes their goal pretty transparent.
If they really wanted nuclear energy they should be OK with a different reactor design which just produces spent uranium and other radioactive junk suitable for a dirty bomb at best.
I don't think you see my point.
I don't think someone should consider themselves to be an expert in a field when they only understand a very specific area and are complete ignorant of the rest. Typically, someone starts studying broad fundamentals and narrows their focus as their education progresses. At the PhD level, you specialize. Someone who is a mathematician their entire academic career and switches to CS for a PhD misses out on the broad range of topics which make you an expert.
I have a Masters in Computer Science; so I think I know what it is.
The person with the PhD didn't have a clue about topics such as Computer Architecture, Programming Languages, Operating Systems, or Distributed Systems because they never took a class about it or bothered to learn on their own. How can you be an expert in Computer Science and think that only one client can communicate with a web server at a time!?!
This person was only an expert at mathematics and using AI techniques to solve math problems.
Especially since you don't have to know anything about computers to get a PhD in Computer Science. I one worked with a person who had a PhD in CS from a Big 10 school and was absolutely clueless. After a while I got tired of him using his advanced degree as a club and decided to do a little investigation. I discovered that their undergrad and graduate degrees was in Mathematics and their PhD specialized in a very mathematical area of AI.
In other words, this Computer Scientist had never taken a CS class! He was just good at algorithms.
You're Right
Did you read the article you linked to? The first 500,000 users who register on the PlayStation Network will receive a copy. Every time they did this in the past, they shipped the disc directly to the registered user and not to retail.
Besides, they sold 200,000 PS3s the first two weeks in the UK and the Casino Royal numbers two weeks after the UK launch launch were only 100,000. I think that the majority of new PS3 users would register for their free disc; therefore the free offer numbers are obviously not represented in those sales numbers.
Only if your definition of Programmer is a Coder. Microsoft is hiring Engineers.
As a hiring manager/Software Engineer, I can find plenty of coders. I can even get them cheap (less than $15/hour in India and less then $20/hour in Argentina). However I can't find a good Engineer. I typically have to work the social networks to find someone who knows someone good to steal from another company.
I've met plenty of folks that can code an algorithm when given one, but couldn't for the life of them come up with the algorithm on their own. Abstract things like design and problem decomposition require people that can think abstractly. That is a talent. Even if you got the talent, you have to want to use it.
You can't teach talent or desire.
Now for my response to the parent (Xugumad):
Compare the XBOX360 launch titles to the current XBOX360 games (i.e. GRAW vs. GRAW2). It's night and day. What if the PS3 came out with GRAW as a launch title. It would blow the old 360 version out of the water.
The real question is, if they are about equal now and the graphics on both systems mature at the same rate, which system is going to max out first? I say it's going to be the XBOX360. Check back with the PS3 a year after the XBOX games can't be optimized any further.
I own both the 360 and the PS3. Right now I play the 360 more. I would be surprised if I can say the same thing in a year.
...is that Red Octane sent cease and desist letters to DDR:UK for providing Stepmania file downloads for ITG songs; when ITG only exists because of piracy of DDR songs and stepfiles.
Suing TAC for copying their controller is par for the course. I guess from Red Octane's point of view it's OK for them to copy other people's products, but it's not OK for people to copy theirs.
I have a similar system that I have dubbed the "coin flip".
Now where's my research grant?
Development IDEs, text editors, web browsers, anti-virus consoles...
You don't have to be a competitor of MS Office to pull the traditional CUA menu bar out into a ribbon.
Gently places your brain back into your skull.
I wouldn't call it perfect ;)
Would Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" or Van Gogh's "Starry Night" be anything special if it could be duplicated? Would those artists even bothered creating those masterpieces if they can easily be duplicated? Part of art is to create something that has never existed before, which means it is the instance and the design.
It depends on how much value you put into starting fashion trends.
If you paid $1M for your hat and everyone else got it for free, you may feel like you have been taken advantage of. It's like you buying a $100 gift certificate for your friend's birthday and everyone else at the party that didn't pitch in for the gift putting their name on it. You may be a little upset that you are the one that footed the cost for everyone else's benefit or you may be happy that everyone else that didn't buy a gift is now covered. If it is the latter, how happy would you be if you were the one that is always picking up the check?
You assume it is all about showing off. Maybe it is about supporting local business or creating something unique and special. I'm sure you just rolled your eyes, but if you can play idealist, so can IThat would have to be an unofficial rule. If I took $25 from the government to install a braille sign in my place of business, I don't think that automatically makes me public; it just makes me more accessible to the public.
-Dan
I apologize for the confusion. I should clarify. By tax dollars going to the disabled directly, I meant the cost of care and benefits to the disabled, not just the monthly benefit checks. This includes health care, VA hospitals, mobility programs, vocational rehabilitation, etc.
I agree.
Given my first correction, I'm sure you would agree with my statement now. The money a corporation is given for ADA compliance is nowhere near the cost of care and benefits to the disabled. If you are going to reduce taxpayer costs, focusing on corporate tax breaks for ADA compliance is not the place to start. As you pointed out, there is much more waste in the benefits programs themselves.
-Dan
That is a nice well thought out reply you have; but I don't think your experience is typical.
I have personally done one S.508 design and overseen two. I would not call myself a web developer, but I have read the standards, several books on the standards as they apply to web development specifically, and all the articles I can find on the web. I do have very competent web developers on my staff which should not be working at McDonalds, despite what you think. The two sites I was in charge of were part of a massive S.508 conversion effort by my employer which has about two dozen customer facing sites. My experience was very typical when talking to other leads doing the conversions. The nature of complex data and the crappiness of screen readers (have you used JAWS?) really make the accessibility work difficult. We spoke to several contracting firms which specialize on accessibility. They wanted to charge up to $1000/page to do a S.508 conversion and I can see why. It is very time consuming to evaluate the subjective criteria of S.508 and test in screen readers.
Most people that think accessibility is easy either have skills that are far above average, have the viewpoint that sites should be minimalist, and/or develop sites that are not fully S.508 compliant. It is hard to find developers which are that skilled, not all sites can be simple (especially now-a-days with rich content like Flash and AJAX driven UI's), and not everyone has the luxury of partial S.508 compliance.
Finally, you are completely off base by thinking accessibility does not add cost. You have to buy validation software and screen readers to test with, you have to have developers specifically use these tools to develop and test the website, you have to retest the site using these tools when adding new features, and if you really want to know if it works, you have to enlist the services of an accessibility testing specialist (such as your friend). If software costs money and the additional manhours/specialized staff cost money, then there is a cost (and it isn't cheap).
-Dan
Well one, the most recent version of Opera seem to render everything fine from what I can tell, so I don't know what you are talking about. Two, you probably don't like AJAX, but that is the future of distributed web applications.
I would expect that for a website which is mostly textual, like most personal home pages. Do you have forms prompting people for input? Do you have large quantity of data which would normally be displayed as a graph? Do you have a shopping cart? These are the things which are hard to provide "Equivalent Facilitation" for. These are the things businesses have to deal with.
Wow! What a broad brush you paint with! When was the last time you did a focus group on this? The last time my company did one with our customers, the customers overwhelmingly wanted the DHTML site over the non-DHTML site. I would estimate that the website style preferences of a businesses customers are determined by the demographics of that customer.
Which is why companies which want to allow mobile access to their websites (i.e. movie theaters) typically have a stripped down mobile version of their site which is optimized for smaller screens. Creating a mobile version of a website is much easier than making it S.508 compliant because typically you are only exposing a subset of the content to the user and interface is much more restrictive.
-Dan