Having actually read several books about the Dresden bombing, I have to agree- we are talking about an event that can be argued was atrocious and possibly a war crime. It was not unknown that the city was swollen with civilian refugees. The actual death toll is not even know because so many people in the city were refugees and not residents. The city itself was not a military target. The targets of military interest were outside the city proper. The British, who played a key roll in the whole bombing, had a major ax to grind with Germany. Dresden was in many ways payback for the horrible and likewise atrocious bombing campaigns Germany carried out against London and other cities. Anyone who thinks the Dresden bombing was a "normal" act of war against a military target has simply not looked at the relevant historical sources. Sure one can argue that there aren't "normal" acts of war, but there are certainly some generally accepted principles on the matter. The extensive bombing campaigns we waged against the Japanese are also not talked about much- the atomic bombs get all the attention. While the atomic bombs were unquestionable devastating, it is arguable that the combined effect of our other bombing campaigns were even more so. Before the first atomic bomb dropped, we'd already destroyed 30% - 70% of most of the major Japanese cities. There is great commentary regarding this in a documentary called "The Fog of War". In the documentary, Robert McNamara relates conversations he had with General Curtis Lemay who was in charge of the air force resources that carried out the Japanese bombings. Lemay expressed to McNamara that it was his believe we better win the war or they'd be considered war criminals for what they were doing. So in the end, yeah, war is pretty terrible stuff and people do terrible things to one another. This doesn't mean that afterward, we can't reflect on what constitutes an act of war versus an atrocity, and whether there is a distinction between the two. Personally, I tend to believe that it is possible to draw distinctions between acts of war and atrocities that rise to the level of war crimes.
Following standard operating procedure I didn't initially RTFA and just dived into comments. Every single comment was about how horrible this story is and how this may be the beginning of the end for Slashdot. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. I broke down. I clicked the link. I watched the video. I know, I know- this is crazy. But, now I've seen for myself. I've given up 4 minutes of my own life. I figured I owed Slashdot that much after all these years.
All I can say is:
What absolute trash. That video is the most vapid thing I've seen online anywhere lately. I never expected to see this here of all places. Sad, sad, sad. . .
Well said. I line up libertarian in many ways, but why is it so hard for people to understand that the "free market" isn't a naturally occurring state that we've somehow screwed up and if we just let well enough alone it will emerge in all it's shining glory. That whole perspective on things is nothing more than a free market religion. It is so simple and obvious that the "free" in the free market is something we create through civil society by establishing rules and giving entities like "the government" the power to enforce those rules. We can all argue over how much government is enough versus too much, and we can talk about different flavors of government, but at the end of the day, we'll find we need it. I'm tired of these free market evangelicals who are no different than any other flavor of religious zealot.
There is nothing inherently inappropriate or creepy about students friending a teacher. Students use facebook. Students friend people they know on facebook. It is natural and expected that students will send friend requests to teachers. I know several teachers that accept friend requests from students. These teachers understand what they are doing and that their facebook audience includes students. They setup and manage their facebook presence accordingly.
Is it inappropriate for a teacher to provide an email address to students so that they can communicate questions, ideas or concerns to the teacher? Can students follow a teacher on Twitter? Facebook is just another communication medium in the modern world. Do we shutdown all communication between students and teachers other than verbal or written communication in the actual classroom? Alternatively, does each school system have to invest in their own online resources for email, chat, blogging, social networking, etc, rather than rely on free services already out there? Do we attempt to not include any of these mediums in modern education at all? I'd say people just need to get over it all and deal with specific instances of inappropriate or "creep" behavior as they come up.
"People who are into "literature" as opposed to "reading books" tend to be elitist snobs."
Totally untrue. I have a double major in English and Philosophy. I have many friends who studied the same subjects. Many of us are into "literature" and "reading books". Our tastes in terms of genre are varied. I, for one, love good sci-fi and fantasy. I have plenty of English major friends love it as well. We read it for pleasure and we sometimes read it for coursework.
This said, for the record, most fiction does not qualify as high literature. This in itself means nothing. A great story can be great without being high literature. What is high literature? These are the works of enduring value that provide deep insight into the human condition in ways that are subtle, innovative, and beautiful- works that transcend genre and era. Some science fiction and fantasy works meet these criteria.
Classic examples of high literature include works like Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There are plenty more examples both classical and contemporary. In high literature, there is a story, but the book is much more than just story.The difference between high literature and an armchair page turner is the difference between a Bently and a Honda. Both function, both can be fun, but the former is carefully crafted in every detail to create something that is more than the sum of its parts.
There are certainly science fiction authors that I consider top notch and whose works I think cross over into high literature. Neal Stephenson is a candidate. So is Margarat Atwood. There is other sci-fi and fantasy that I love and hold dear that isn't even close:
Tolkein- Great story teller, mundane prose, flat characters.
Asimov- Great with plot, terribly flat characters and uninspiring prose.
And these are both great books and great fiction- just not high literature.
In sum, let it be known that great fiction can be great for vastly different reasons and not all great fiction is high literature. And this is how it should be.
Feynman is great and that is a great quote. What other readers might take time to observe is that in this analogy the "birds" are the scientists and "orithology" stands in for the "philosophy of science". Feynman is not dismissive of ornithology. One might assume quiet the opposite- that Feynman recognizes ornithology as an important and worthy field of study. Yet, everything time anything remotely related to philosophy hits slashdot, queue all the comments about how much better and more clever are scientists as opposed to those silly philosophers who just vomit words on paper and have no sense of rigor. I guess it isn't important that many of the important philosophers in the canon were also mathematicians (many of documented ability, influence, and renown). It probably also isn't important that before "science" came into existence all the "scientists" were philosophers. Personally, I find both modern science _and_ philosophy fascinating. And to all those negative voices- if you haven't learned useful, applicable, and rigorous lessons from philosophy then you simply know nothing about that subject.
Thanks to the parent for posting a great quote that I hadn't heard before.
I also agree with many other posts that point out that Rand is not really talked about much in philosophy. If you find her books or writing interesting or entertaining, more power to you. Just don't think that in reading Rand that you are getting much in terms of rigorous philosophic discourse.
I'm working on a PhD directly related to climate modeling. I've got access to four climate models, from four competing organizations, ranging from middle-school simple to research grade. And they all give about the same results. In my office, I have a poster from a paper presentation where my research group compared seven different climate models, and looked at how well they agreed. There were differences, for sure. But they all were similar. Why are they all similar?
If I remember, the financial guys had a bunch of very complicated models that agreed as well. And where are we now? It turns out those models didn't quite match up with reality. Sure, they looked pretty good for awhile, but didn't hold up too well over time.
Parent makes an excellent point. The value of almost every idea lies in the execution. I'm sure there are a couple of novel ideas that pop up every century or so, but in general terms, ideas are cheap. Think you have a novel idea? Just type it into the google search box and you'll find plenty of other people out there thinking about the same exact thing. Value lies in executing great ideas in sound and efficient ways.
The article states:
The One Laptop Per Child project is struggling to convince developing countries providing computers for children is as important as giving them basic facilities like water or electricity.
A laptop is _as_ important as clean water? Interesting take on Maslow's hierarchy.
"Anti-elitism is something to be embraced: it means not blindly following someone because they have the right credentials as an authority."
I certainly agree that all knowledge should be looked at critically. Yet, the notion that the best approximation of truth will some how rise from conversation among non-experts is very flawed. If this were the case, why do we bother to employ teachers or professors. Why not just put all of the students in a big room together and let them come up with their own version of history or the calculus.
I have a nice gig in Jacksonville that I'm very happy with. We haven't been hiring many people for development or IT, but this is because we don't need a lot of people. In general, the local area doesn't reflect the level of demand 5 years ago during the tech bubble, but there are jobs out there. If you are willing to settle for working for a contracting company and are even minimally competent, you can score a job in pretty short order. Finding something permanent that is also attractive takes a little more time, but nothing really crazy. I have a friend who got let go at his company a few weeks back and he had another good deal lined up in no time. He is very good, however. Personally, I've had a couple of job offers over the last couple of months without even looking. My opininion is that, in the area I live, there are good jobs out there for those how have real skills and know how to find the opportunities. I can't really speak to the situation in other places. I also find that the people who have the most success finding good jobs here are those with broad skillsets.
Re:I do not pay much attention to Joel Spolsky
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Joel On Software
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I really don't understand the response. I work for a medium sized company that is growing fast. A lot of our initial infrastructure (hardware & software) came to the company via 2 key acquisistions. We use OS software and solutions where we can and were they make sense. Nevertheless, we have to be able to support a range of non-OS solutions. If we hire a programmer help maintain a legacy VB application it is great if he/she has OS experience, but certainly experience in MS environments is absolutely critical. Unless you are lucky enough to work in an OS bubble the questions you pose are just plain silly. What I personally value in coworkers is smarts, work ethic, and an ability to learn things quickly. The specifics are secondary because they change.
The public may want a good yarn, but that is neither here nor there. If the 'public' were always correct we wouldn't need a bill of rights.
My understanding of Neal's distinction between literary and popular writers was very different. I think the underlying point was that the distinction is largely external and false in many ways. Some few writers are skilled/lucky enough to enjoy a level of popular response that allows them to live off of the commercial returns from their trade. Others are not and have to find other outlets for their work.
I completely reject the parent post's contention that there is some mythic 'public' that dictates what is good or bad literature. A good deal of the great literary works that the poster eschews in favor of vapid popcorn novels were the commercial and poplular works of their day. Think Shakespear, Dickens, Tolstoy, etc. The reason the works of these writers are considered great has nothing to do with the fact that they started out as popular works. They are considered great because they were found to have enduring value and appeal.
There are certainly science fiction and fantasy works that have the potential for this sort of long term appeal. Tolkein is a great example. Give it more time. On the other hand, sci-fi stories that lack any true style or backbone will rightfully fade from memory.
Certainly it will not be this public that decides alone! Lets wait and see who is watching reruns of 'Survivor' in 100 years. The droll, vapid popular garbage of the day will be forgotten despite the fact that the 'public' likes it at the moment.
Personally, I find I am equally capable of enjoying a popcorn novel, a great work of literature, or even an occassion an episode of surviver. I do not, however, attempt to justify my ignorance of great or classical literature on the bases of a cracked theory that attempts to glorify ignorance by cloaking it the garb of the democratic voice of 'the public'.
The masses are, after all, not always that clever. The masses supported slavery in the USA.
Absolutely. The problem with windows is not in all cases windows itself. I have certainly seen solid solutions on many different platforms over the years. As Linux becomes more ubiquitous, you will inevitably see more and more underqualified programmers and administrators working in that environment.
My point was not so much that we can't improve either situation, but rather that the original post offered a useless generalization. Moreover, the post was also slanted in a way that I consider to be in poor taste. Here is the original post:
Great, but first we need to fix our judicial system so that we can actually punish criminals.
The post could have said something like:
Great, but first we should improve our justice system to overcome issues a, b, etc. such that we can fairly dispense punishment to those who deserve it while protecting those who are innocent.
In the form presented, the poster's only goal is to tell you that in his opinion we don't effectively punish criminals without bothering to offer any basis for this opinion. It implies that poster knows who the "criminals" are and what their punishment should be since, after all, the poster must necessarily be part of the "we" for whom he/she speaks. It is the type of statment that I see repeatedly in all manner of public debate and discourse. It also reeks of the sort of "common sense" wisdom espoused in contemporary political discourse i.e. "All we have to do to reduce crime is start punishing criminals". This is an empty and dangerous thing to say because the statment relies on serveral unstated but not at all well determined premises- that we actually know who the criminals are and meeting out their just punishment is a simple matter.
In all events, I think solving the problem of world hunger is much more easily accomplished as opposed to creating a fair and practical system of justice. In my opinion, justice can never be upheld with anywhere near absolute perfection. In particular, there will always be the delima of balancing swift justice with the accused right to a fair trial (which will often require a lot of time and energy). Swift justice is a great idea, but only if we can swiftly and accurately determine a person is guilty. And then there is the problem of circustance which dictates that the same crime does not always deserve the same punishment.
With justice, you are always required to draw a pragmatic line in the sand. We will settle for this level of accuracy- xx% of innocent people will be punished or even killed so that the system can work at a given level of efficiency AND yy% of guilty people will not be punished because of safeguards built into the sytem to protect the innocent.
Since no one likes to spend tax dollars on more public defenders, prosecutors, or judges, punishing more criminals often simply amounts to just shifting the xx% number up via procedural changes.
A vapid statement. Shall we also end world hunger while we are at it? Platitudes and histronics get you no where. Or perhaps you have invented a machine that will accurately identify criminals and access a just punishment for each offender?
Deceiving perhaps. Deceiving in the way that any propoganda piece is. But subversive? In what way? Part of freedom of speech includes the freedome to present political propoganda. The film is no more nor less subversive than the adds being aired by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns. Subversive is a dangerous word to use.
Your analogy is horrible. According to your logic, if I write a novel my only recourse to making money is to go on a lecturing tour or something. I certainly can't make money through publication since, in the absence of copyright, anyone can copy and distribute my work without having to pay me anything for it. I agree that neither people nor corporations should be able to own an idea. Copyright does not equal ownership of an idea, however. Copyright gives the creator certain rights with respect to a specific expression of an idea. A software program is most certainly an expression of an idea. If I go to the trouble to create a particularly elegant expression of a given idea I feel entitled to some limited term copyright on said expression. If you want to implement the idea yourself, fine go ahead, but why should you have the right to my work unless I choose to give it. If I choose to give it that is fine too, but I don't feel that there is some natural rule that dictates that I must. You confound the distinctions between things, ideas, and expressions and do injustice to all three.
I feel so enlightened. Thanks for such astute analysis. It is wonderful to see such articulate and thoughtful comments offered on behalf of all Slashdot users.
Perhaps it never occurred to this poster that many of us have real jobs in the real world. I for one, deal with a variety of platforms. More importantly, I don't always get to choose the platform an application is developed in. I welcome intelligent, useful books on any subject.
Then again, I take it all back. Let all dot net books be burned. Let all those who choose to disagree be burned. I can hear murmurs of approval from Joseph McCarthy, the judges of the Salem witch trials, the inquisition.
Good luck developing a massively concurrent and highly dynamic application in any enviroment for 20k. Regardless of whether you go open source or the ms route you are only going to afford couple of nice boxes, a decent raid. If you scale off of these machines you better have a fat pipe and a load balancing scheme as well. All this costs dollars.
Please justify the complaints about ms sql server. Granted there are the functional limitations listed, but name a cheaper database solution that is more robust that ms sql 2k. We run some pretty large database where I work- couple of oracle deployments on quad risk 450 machines. Sure oracle is better, but you pay big time for the improvements that oracle offers.
My experience so far is that.NET is not dramatically more or less scalable than the open source alternatives. I'll agree there a lot of good reasons to go open source, but lets all be honest and admit that complex highly dynamic j2ee based applications are challenging tune as well.
I'd suggest a thorough code review and some quality time tuning the application. Or just throw more hardware and more dollars at the problem.
Thank you for a well stated response to a rather silly post. I graduated with a double major in philosophy and literature. I program because the money is good and it is easy. Many of my friends who graduated with similar degrees work in technical fields as well. Gosh, if I could have dollar for every CS major I've worked with who comes up with clever solutions to problems that have nothing to do with the project at hand. . . As long as we are talking stereotypes, how about the geek who can't see the forrest for the trees and is competent in only a narrow field. I'm more than confident in my ability to think in abstract logical terms and rationally solve problems.
Re:How closely are the casino's being watched?
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Net Vegas
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· Score: 1
Large casinos have no need to 'ripp off' their customers. Casinos tune their operations to collect exactly the winnings they want. If they want an extra fraction of a penny, they just adjust their odds a bit. Remember, that they will always pay out what they think is the right amount of money to keep the customers placing bets. This is why the big casinos typically pay out more than is mandated by law. Winning customers are good business and drive volume, which drives profit. Stealing fractions of a cent from people just doesn't have a purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
Having actually read several books about the Dresden bombing, I have to agree- we are talking about an event that can be argued was atrocious and possibly a war crime. It was not unknown that the city was swollen with civilian refugees. The actual death toll is not even know because so many people in the city were refugees and not residents. The city itself was not a military target. The targets of military interest were outside the city proper. The British, who played a key roll in the whole bombing, had a major ax to grind with Germany. Dresden was in many ways payback for the horrible and likewise atrocious bombing campaigns Germany carried out against London and other cities. Anyone who thinks the Dresden bombing was a "normal" act of war against a military target has simply not looked at the relevant historical sources. Sure one can argue that there aren't "normal" acts of war, but there are certainly some generally accepted principles on the matter. The extensive bombing campaigns we waged against the Japanese are also not talked about much- the atomic bombs get all the attention. While the atomic bombs were unquestionable devastating, it is arguable that the combined effect of our other bombing campaigns were even more so. Before the first atomic bomb dropped, we'd already destroyed 30% - 70% of most of the major Japanese cities. There is great commentary regarding this in a documentary called "The Fog of War". In the documentary, Robert McNamara relates conversations he had with General Curtis Lemay who was in charge of the air force resources that carried out the Japanese bombings. Lemay expressed to McNamara that it was his believe we better win the war or they'd be considered war criminals for what they were doing. So in the end, yeah, war is pretty terrible stuff and people do terrible things to one another. This doesn't mean that afterward, we can't reflect on what constitutes an act of war versus an atrocity, and whether there is a distinction between the two. Personally, I tend to believe that it is possible to draw distinctions between acts of war and atrocities that rise to the level of war crimes.
Following standard operating procedure I didn't initially RTFA and just dived into comments. Every single comment was about how horrible this story is and how this may be the beginning of the end for Slashdot. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. I broke down. I clicked the link. I watched the video. I know, I know- this is crazy. But, now I've seen for myself. I've given up 4 minutes of my own life. I figured I owed Slashdot that much after all these years.
All I can say is:
What absolute trash. That video is the most vapid thing I've seen online anywhere lately. I never expected to see this here of all places. Sad, sad, sad. . .
Well said. I line up libertarian in many ways, but why is it so hard for people to understand that the "free market" isn't a naturally occurring state that we've somehow screwed up and if we just let well enough alone it will emerge in all it's shining glory. That whole perspective on things is nothing more than a free market religion. It is so simple and obvious that the "free" in the free market is something we create through civil society by establishing rules and giving entities like "the government" the power to enforce those rules. We can all argue over how much government is enough versus too much, and we can talk about different flavors of government, but at the end of the day, we'll find we need it. I'm tired of these free market evangelicals who are no different than any other flavor of religious zealot.
There is nothing inherently inappropriate or creepy about students friending a teacher. Students use facebook. Students friend people they know on facebook. It is natural and expected that students will send friend requests to teachers. I know several teachers that accept friend requests from students. These teachers understand what they are doing and that their facebook audience includes students. They setup and manage their facebook presence accordingly. Is it inappropriate for a teacher to provide an email address to students so that they can communicate questions, ideas or concerns to the teacher? Can students follow a teacher on Twitter? Facebook is just another communication medium in the modern world. Do we shutdown all communication between students and teachers other than verbal or written communication in the actual classroom? Alternatively, does each school system have to invest in their own online resources for email, chat, blogging, social networking, etc, rather than rely on free services already out there? Do we attempt to not include any of these mediums in modern education at all? I'd say people just need to get over it all and deal with specific instances of inappropriate or "creep" behavior as they come up.
"People who are into "literature" as opposed to "reading books" tend to be elitist snobs."
Totally untrue. I have a double major in English and Philosophy. I have many friends who studied the same subjects. Many of us are into "literature" and "reading books". Our tastes in terms of genre are varied. I, for one, love good sci-fi and fantasy. I have plenty of English major friends love it as well. We read it for pleasure and we sometimes read it for coursework.
This said, for the record, most fiction does not qualify as high literature. This in itself means nothing. A great story can be great without being high literature. What is high literature? These are the works of enduring value that provide deep insight into the human condition in ways that are subtle, innovative, and beautiful- works that transcend genre and era. Some science fiction and fantasy works meet these criteria.
Classic examples of high literature include works like Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There are plenty more examples both classical and contemporary. In high literature, there is a story, but the book is much more than just story.The difference between high literature and an armchair page turner is the difference between a Bently and a Honda. Both function, both can be fun, but the former is carefully crafted in every detail to create something that is more than the sum of its parts.
There are certainly science fiction authors that I consider top notch and whose works I think cross over into high literature. Neal Stephenson is a candidate. So is Margarat Atwood. There is other sci-fi and fantasy that I love and hold dear that isn't even close:
Tolkein- Great story teller, mundane prose, flat characters. Asimov- Great with plot, terribly flat characters and uninspiring prose.
And these are both great books and great fiction- just not high literature.
In sum, let it be known that great fiction can be great for vastly different reasons and not all great fiction is high literature. And this is how it should be.
Feynman is great and that is a great quote. What other readers might take time to observe is that in this analogy the "birds" are the scientists and "orithology" stands in for the "philosophy of science". Feynman is not dismissive of ornithology. One might assume quiet the opposite- that Feynman recognizes ornithology as an important and worthy field of study. Yet, everything time anything remotely related to philosophy hits slashdot, queue all the comments about how much better and more clever are scientists as opposed to those silly philosophers who just vomit words on paper and have no sense of rigor. I guess it isn't important that many of the important philosophers in the canon were also mathematicians (many of documented ability, influence, and renown). It probably also isn't important that before "science" came into existence all the "scientists" were philosophers. Personally, I find both modern science _and_ philosophy fascinating. And to all those negative voices- if you haven't learned useful, applicable, and rigorous lessons from philosophy then you simply know nothing about that subject. Thanks to the parent for posting a great quote that I hadn't heard before. I also agree with many other posts that point out that Rand is not really talked about much in philosophy. If you find her books or writing interesting or entertaining, more power to you. Just don't think that in reading Rand that you are getting much in terms of rigorous philosophic discourse.
I'm working on a PhD directly related to climate modeling. I've got access to four climate models, from four competing organizations, ranging from middle-school simple to research grade. And they all give about the same results. In my office, I have a poster from a paper presentation where my research group compared seven different climate models, and looked at how well they agreed. There were differences, for sure. But they all were similar. Why are they all similar?
If I remember, the financial guys had a bunch of very complicated models that agreed as well. And where are we now? It turns out those models didn't quite match up with reality. Sure, they looked pretty good for awhile, but didn't hold up too well over time.
Parent makes an excellent point. The value of almost every idea lies in the execution. I'm sure there are a couple of novel ideas that pop up every century or so, but in general terms, ideas are cheap. Think you have a novel idea? Just type it into the google search box and you'll find plenty of other people out there thinking about the same exact thing. Value lies in executing great ideas in sound and efficient ways.
24 hours? Are you kidding? $1000 in Vegas will last about as long as it takes one of those shiny new Vista boxes to boot.
The article states: The One Laptop Per Child project is struggling to convince developing countries providing computers for children is as important as giving them basic facilities like water or electricity. A laptop is _as_ important as clean water? Interesting take on Maslow's hierarchy.
"Anti-elitism is something to be embraced: it means not blindly following someone because they have the right credentials as an authority." I certainly agree that all knowledge should be looked at critically. Yet, the notion that the best approximation of truth will some how rise from conversation among non-experts is very flawed. If this were the case, why do we bother to employ teachers or professors. Why not just put all of the students in a big room together and let them come up with their own version of history or the calculus.
I have a nice gig in Jacksonville that I'm very happy with. We haven't been hiring many people for development or IT, but this is because we don't need a lot of people. In general, the local area doesn't reflect the level of demand 5 years ago during the tech bubble, but there are jobs out there. If you are willing to settle for working for a contracting company and are even minimally competent, you can score a job in pretty short order. Finding something permanent that is also attractive takes a little more time, but nothing really crazy. I have a friend who got let go at his company a few weeks back and he had another good deal lined up in no time. He is very good, however. Personally, I've had a couple of job offers over the last couple of months without even looking. My opininion is that, in the area I live, there are good jobs out there for those how have real skills and know how to find the opportunities. I can't really speak to the situation in other places. I also find that the people who have the most success finding good jobs here are those with broad skillsets.
I really don't understand the response. I work for a medium sized company that is growing fast. A lot of our initial infrastructure (hardware & software) came to the company via 2 key acquisistions. We use OS software and solutions where we can and were they make sense. Nevertheless, we have to be able to support a range of non-OS solutions. If we hire a programmer help maintain a legacy VB application it is great if he/she has OS experience, but certainly experience in MS environments is absolutely critical. Unless you are lucky enough to work in an OS bubble the questions you pose are just plain silly. What I personally value in coworkers is smarts, work ethic, and an ability to learn things quickly. The specifics are secondary because they change.
The public may want a good yarn, but that is neither here nor there. If the 'public' were always correct we wouldn't need a bill of rights. My understanding of Neal's distinction between literary and popular writers was very different. I think the underlying point was that the distinction is largely external and false in many ways. Some few writers are skilled/lucky enough to enjoy a level of popular response that allows them to live off of the commercial returns from their trade. Others are not and have to find other outlets for their work. I completely reject the parent post's contention that there is some mythic 'public' that dictates what is good or bad literature. A good deal of the great literary works that the poster eschews in favor of vapid popcorn novels were the commercial and poplular works of their day. Think Shakespear, Dickens, Tolstoy, etc. The reason the works of these writers are considered great has nothing to do with the fact that they started out as popular works. They are considered great because they were found to have enduring value and appeal. There are certainly science fiction and fantasy works that have the potential for this sort of long term appeal. Tolkein is a great example. Give it more time. On the other hand, sci-fi stories that lack any true style or backbone will rightfully fade from memory. Certainly it will not be this public that decides alone! Lets wait and see who is watching reruns of 'Survivor' in 100 years. The droll, vapid popular garbage of the day will be forgotten despite the fact that the 'public' likes it at the moment. Personally, I find I am equally capable of enjoying a popcorn novel, a great work of literature, or even an occassion an episode of surviver. I do not, however, attempt to justify my ignorance of great or classical literature on the bases of a cracked theory that attempts to glorify ignorance by cloaking it the garb of the democratic voice of 'the public'. The masses are, after all, not always that clever. The masses supported slavery in the USA.
Absolutely. The problem with windows is not in all cases windows itself. I have certainly seen solid solutions on many different platforms over the years. As Linux becomes more ubiquitous, you will inevitably see more and more underqualified programmers and administrators working in that environment.
My point was not so much that we can't improve either situation, but rather that the original post offered a useless generalization. Moreover, the post was also slanted in a way that I consider to be in poor taste. Here is the original post: Great, but first we need to fix our judicial system so that we can actually punish criminals. The post could have said something like: Great, but first we should improve our justice system to overcome issues a, b, etc. such that we can fairly dispense punishment to those who deserve it while protecting those who are innocent. In the form presented, the poster's only goal is to tell you that in his opinion we don't effectively punish criminals without bothering to offer any basis for this opinion. It implies that poster knows who the "criminals" are and what their punishment should be since, after all, the poster must necessarily be part of the "we" for whom he/she speaks. It is the type of statment that I see repeatedly in all manner of public debate and discourse. It also reeks of the sort of "common sense" wisdom espoused in contemporary political discourse i.e. "All we have to do to reduce crime is start punishing criminals". This is an empty and dangerous thing to say because the statment relies on serveral unstated but not at all well determined premises- that we actually know who the criminals are and meeting out their just punishment is a simple matter. In all events, I think solving the problem of world hunger is much more easily accomplished as opposed to creating a fair and practical system of justice. In my opinion, justice can never be upheld with anywhere near absolute perfection. In particular, there will always be the delima of balancing swift justice with the accused right to a fair trial (which will often require a lot of time and energy). Swift justice is a great idea, but only if we can swiftly and accurately determine a person is guilty. And then there is the problem of circustance which dictates that the same crime does not always deserve the same punishment. With justice, you are always required to draw a pragmatic line in the sand. We will settle for this level of accuracy- xx% of innocent people will be punished or even killed so that the system can work at a given level of efficiency AND yy% of guilty people will not be punished because of safeguards built into the sytem to protect the innocent. Since no one likes to spend tax dollars on more public defenders, prosecutors, or judges, punishing more criminals often simply amounts to just shifting the xx% number up via procedural changes.
A vapid statement. Shall we also end world hunger while we are at it? Platitudes and histronics get you no where. Or perhaps you have invented a machine that will accurately identify criminals and access a just punishment for each offender?
Deceiving perhaps. Deceiving in the way that any propoganda piece is. But subversive? In what way? Part of freedom of speech includes the freedome to present political propoganda. The film is no more nor less subversive than the adds being aired by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns. Subversive is a dangerous word to use.
Your analogy is horrible. According to your logic, if I write a novel my only recourse to making money is to go on a lecturing tour or something. I certainly can't make money through publication since, in the absence of copyright, anyone can copy and distribute my work without having to pay me anything for it. I agree that neither people nor corporations should be able to own an idea. Copyright does not equal ownership of an idea, however. Copyright gives the creator certain rights with respect to a specific expression of an idea. A software program is most certainly an expression of an idea. If I go to the trouble to create a particularly elegant expression of a given idea I feel entitled to some limited term copyright on said expression. If you want to implement the idea yourself, fine go ahead, but why should you have the right to my work unless I choose to give it. If I choose to give it that is fine too, but I don't feel that there is some natural rule that dictates that I must. You confound the distinctions between things, ideas, and expressions and do injustice to all three.
I feel so enlightened. Thanks for such astute analysis. It is wonderful to see such articulate and thoughtful comments offered on behalf of all Slashdot users. Perhaps it never occurred to this poster that many of us have real jobs in the real world. I for one, deal with a variety of platforms. More importantly, I don't always get to choose the platform an application is developed in. I welcome intelligent, useful books on any subject. Then again, I take it all back. Let all dot net books be burned. Let all those who choose to disagree be burned. I can hear murmurs of approval from Joseph McCarthy, the judges of the Salem witch trials, the inquisition.
Good luck developing a massively concurrent and highly dynamic application in any enviroment for 20k. Regardless of whether you go open source or the ms route you are only going to afford couple of nice boxes, a decent raid. If you scale off of these machines you better have a fat pipe and a load balancing scheme as well. All this costs dollars. Please justify the complaints about ms sql server. Granted there are the functional limitations listed, but name a cheaper database solution that is more robust that ms sql 2k. We run some pretty large database where I work- couple of oracle deployments on quad risk 450 machines. Sure oracle is better, but you pay big time for the improvements that oracle offers. My experience so far is that .NET is not dramatically more or less scalable than the open source alternatives. I'll agree there a lot of good reasons to go open source, but lets all be honest and admit that complex highly dynamic j2ee based applications are challenging tune as well.
I'd suggest a thorough code review and some quality time tuning the application. Or just throw more hardware and more dollars at the problem.
Thank you for a well stated response to a rather silly post. I graduated with a double major in philosophy and literature. I program because the money is good and it is easy. Many of my friends who graduated with similar degrees work in technical fields as well. Gosh, if I could have dollar for every CS major I've worked with who comes up with clever solutions to problems that have nothing to do with the project at hand. . . As long as we are talking stereotypes, how about the geek who can't see the forrest for the trees and is competent in only a narrow field. I'm more than confident in my ability to think in abstract logical terms and rationally solve problems.
Large casinos have no need to 'ripp off' their customers. Casinos tune their operations to collect exactly the winnings they want. If they want an extra fraction of a penny, they just adjust their odds a bit. Remember, that they will always pay out what they think is the right amount of money to keep the customers placing bets. This is why the big casinos typically pay out more than is mandated by law. Winning customers are good business and drive volume, which drives profit. Stealing fractions of a cent from people just doesn't have a purpose.