When my former employer disappeared, I started working full-time as an independant contractor (paid by the hour for software dev, mostly supporting the ex-customers of my old employer), plus I'm working on a few independant projects that I hope to start getting some money out of a few months down the road.
I work entirely out of my house or on-site, and my accountant is already writing off portions of my house and vehicle use for my taxes.
For tax purposes, I'm "self-employed", so I can basically write off everything I pay for (including home utilities, hardware, etc) that are for my work.
Zoning is no problem because I don't have any employees, and customers don't come to my home (see messages above).
If you are going to have employees working for you right away, you should consider letting them work out of their own homes officially, and just hold meetings at your house (meetings which could last all day, if need be).
One thing that sucks, though -- I'm not on salary anymore, so taxes don't get withheld... I guess it's the same thing, but somehow it's more painful to put all that nice money in my account, then have to take it out again and hand it off to Uncle Sam.
I agree with your point, BUT you are also illustrating the main danger of studies that investigate trends like this: people like to keep things simple, so they say things like "Woman are worse at spatial orientation."
That is not only untrue, but it can be dangerous, because we are all individuals, dealing with other individuals. If I worked in HR and was hiring a new architect for my firm, and WOMAN and MAN walked in to apply with similar work histories, I could safely rule out WOMAN because, as we know, her spatial skills are weak.
Alas, it was not WOMAN who walked in, but Susan Doe, who happens to have spatial capabilities that would smoke those of 99.99999% of the male population. And by turning her down, I have made a huge mistake.
This is a simplified example, but do you see how this works? The research should be done (I always lean towards more info being better...), but we have to realize that releasing info like this must be accompanied with explanations of what this actually means, *in simple terms*.
My vision isn't great (I'm certainly not blind, but I need larger fonts than many sites seem to think looks "cool"). When CSS starting becoming popular for font sizing, I had to switch from MSIE to other browsers. I'm sure a lot of other people like me followed suit (but not enough that MS cared, apparently).
Frankly, it wouldn't be a problem if IE weren't so pervasive. Current versions of Opera, Mozilla, and Netscape ALL support changing the font sizes declared in CSS. Generally (sometimes minor config required) you just hold ctrl and roll the mouse wheel.
I find this MUCH more useful than overriding the stylesheet, for instance, because I still get to see what the "real" site looks like, then I can decide to crank up the font size by a notch or two so I can read comfortably.
By the way, the designs in this contest all handle font scaling well.
I wouldn't say she was evil, and there could be worse choices... but still, the point remains that she did a very good job helping DoubleClick stay *just barely* on this side of illegal. She spoke with privacy groups because she needed to know which abuses would result in costly and public lawsuits, and which wouldn't. DoubleClick's business *still* depends on getting as much personal info as possible, so it's clear that she would not be able to push them farther than they needed to go.
Look, it's possible that she'd be a good privacy advocate, but she's never done that before... she's moving from helping one massive organization avoid privacy abuse lawsuits to helping another one.
If she's been the one prosecuting the lawsuits, just once, I'd be happier.
I read the exact same paragraph and it *confirmed* my concerns.
Look at this in perspective: DoubleClick is a huge organization that is having serious problems with lawsuits because it's trampling all over people's privacy. They bring in O'Connor Kelly, who does a good job settling *most* of the lawsuits (note: settling != defeating) and starts a new division to help keep DoubleClick safe from future lawsuits. DoubleClick continues to do as much data-mining and collection as it possibly can (because that's STILL the core of its business) but now it avoids most of the unpleasant and costly public lawsuits.
Now substitute "the US Govt" for "DoubleClick". Fits pretty well, doesn't it? It doesn't sound *too* bad... until you consider that they're still planning on doing as much privacy invasion as they can possibly get away with... she'll just help them walk that wavy line.
Think about the difference if the new privacy advisor were, say, one of the "12 state attorneys general" who were prosecuting DoubleClick, or someone involved in the "several class-action lawsuits" from the other side. Or ANYONE who had privacy advocacy experience from the victims' side.
Perhaps you didn't notice (or misinterpreted), but this story is "from the so-much-for-researhc dept."...meaning we do NOT check for earlier posts (or misspellings either, apparently).
Here's some of the detail from the Mars Society page about this -- apparently the radiation level on the surface would be only slightly risky:
The Associated Press yesterday issued a wire article claiming that "the radiation on the surface of Mars is so intense that it could endanger astronauts sent to explore the Red Planet." The AP claimed that these were the findings of the MARIE instrument currently operating on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, and ascribed the view that such radiation doses were too high to allow human explorers to Dr. Cary Zeitlin of the National Space Biomedical Institute in Houston. Dr. Zeitlin is the Principal Investigator for the MARIE radiation detection instrument.
In fact, however, the MARIE data, which is publicly available at the MARIE website at marie.jsc.nasa.gov/Results.html, show exactly the opposite. Currently posted data for January 2003 show radiation levels in low Mars orbit of 25 millirads/day, or 9 rads/year. While this level is slightly less than twice the regulatory dose for persons employed in the nuclear industry, it represents no significant threat. According the conservative "linear hypothesis" for dealing with low doses accepted in the radiation health physics community, a dose of 13 rads delivered over a 1.5 year Mars mission surface stay would represent a statistical increase in likelihood of cancer (at some point later in life) of about one quarter of one percent. In contrast, the average American smoker receives a 20 percent increase in cancer risk. The Mars radiation risk is thus only about 1/100th as dangerous as smoking.
Given the risks that the astronauts will be taking en route, landing, re-entry, etc. this is negligable. Of course, we still need to weigh benefits against risks/costs here...
I think it would be very difficult to live in tight quarters with 5 other people for almost a year and a half, floating through space on a mission that would bring back all kinds of info that will be useful for humankind. "Just another few months with these freaks", you could think, "and we'll have accomplished something great. When we get home I'll be famous, and I'll have a pickup line that no one else in the bar can hope to match!" Besides, once you've launched, you can't really change your mind, so you just focus on managing the stress.
Now imagine you're just one of the guinea pigs in the 500-day test. You're not going to be famous. You aren't exploring new frontiers. You're like a kid camping out in his backyard... except you promised your parent (Dr. and Mrs. Skinner?) that you wouldn't come inside for FIVE HUNDRED DAYS, even though you know that some days it's sunny outside the tent and you can hear the other kids playing in the park across the street. Sometimes a dog wanders by and urinates on the corner of the tent (days 3, 5, 16, 21, 23-twice, 28, 29...). Twice a day a scientist peers in through a porthole to see if you've cracked up yet. Can you imagine it? Wouldn't you just feel like you were pissing away a chunk of your life?
And just think -- to be realistic, their connection to the internet would start broadband, then go gradually down to dial-up and worse....:)
So many people think you either have to be vegetarian or not. Everything's on a scale, though. Yes, you can be a strict vegan and still be strong and healthy (ever heard of Carl Lewis?), but this takes some knowledge of nutrition to make sure you get all the protein you need.
So many people stop there, but it does make a difference if you just try to minimize the amount meat you eat, and avoid things like veal that require particularly unpleasant lives for the animals. If you have a choice between two things that look good on the menu and one is vegetarian, go with that one. Personally, I'm *almost* vegetarian; I still eat poultry occasionally, and pepperoni pizza.:)
Raise your kids this way too, and maybe your daughters won't hit puberty at 9 like the bulk of her McDonalds-fed classmates.
If you don't know any of the various negatives to eating meat, do some research... hormones, antibiotics, colon cancer risks, often unnecessarily cruel conditions for the animals, environmental damage, etc. etc.. Just be aware and choose some reasonable compromise from there.
the ancients who imagined themselves flying like birds using some aparatus
I read that as "flying like birds using some *asparagus*".
Maybe Icarus didn't make it because he got *hungry* (not because the wax holding his feathered wings melted)....
And I agree, this certainly doesn't take away from the Wright brothers. Whoever first had the concept of the atom bomb isn't the one who's famous, either.
And people who have ideas that are almost purely conceptual (like the post-it note) won't add them to this list, obviously.
"All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows" on these machines, said Mark Tolliver, executive vice president of marketing and strategy at Sun. "The physics of the whole Intel market has begun to shift."
Obviously the article author modified what Tolliver actually said (and may be the source of the butchered idiom), but the second sentence makes me squirm, too. I *guess* it's okay to treat "physics" as a singular noun, but why in hell did he choose that word to begin with? The physics of the market? Is that like the phantom of the opera? Or the law of the land? The gravity of the situation?
And he says "all of the [sic] sudden" as if no one had a clue what suddenly changed (assuming we aren't questioning yet that it really has changed).
That's certainly interesting, and if I were writing a SF novel about a future in which the world had converted to hex, I might use it. Except by that time we'd probably have a more efficient means of communicating numbers to each other than speech....
I wouldn't teach a kid that this was how to pronounce hex, anyway (see orig question); after all, conversation is about shared meaning, and if he's the only one in the room who knows what he's saying, he's not communicating. That's even worse than raising your kid speaking Klingon (where at least there are a *few* people out there who'll be able to figure out what he's saying).
If you *really* need to be able to pronounce hex (instead of just typing or writing it!) just say "hex", pronounce each numeral, and use alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot ("niner" instead of nine, if you want).
Very simple, uses standards everyone understands (or can figure out in 5 seconds), is clear to the ear and easily transcribed (unlike saying "four hundred seventeen, in hex" and forcing the person to convert). Plus this works with ANY base!
-- Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein
The Java license includes restrictions like this: --------- Licensee acknowledges that Licensed Software is not designed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility. ----------
It used to contain a restriction against using it in air traffic control, as well, though that seems to have disappeared as Java matured.
In other words, Sun doesn't want to be held accountable for anything really disastrous happening because of bugs in their code. If engineering is (as the article suggests) mostly about forced responsibility for quality, this would seem to address that.
Note: I AM primarily a Java developer (I'll skip the "engineer" appelation for now), but I DO NOT to write software for managing nuclear facilities.
I wonder what it *is* written in (no, not PHP *or* Perl!).
So, is XP really engineering? But it's so... well, freewheeling! If not XP, how about RUP?
Stir in some CMM level 5. How about now?
I think an important point to make is that just because something is *really* hard to do right, that does NOT make it engineering. So what does?
Interestingly, I'm not really sure how to answer this question. I got my degree in music, but I've moved from "Associate Software Engineer" to "Software Engineer" to "Senior Software Engineer" since then. Does knowing UML make me an engineer?
"Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Hermann Goering, before being sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials.
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
Adolph Hitler, My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933
I'm not saying Bush = Hitler. But you should be damned sure you put some thought into it before you blindly follow your govt into support for such a questionable war.
I wonder how well that "you punch me, I punch you!" morality would work to resolve the Israeli-Palistinian problem... oh, wait, that's what they've been doing already for decades. I guess it'll work eventually, right?
No one's saying Saddam's a nice fellow, or that we should send Bin Laden a fruit basket this Christmas and ask if we can't just let bygones be bygones. But we cannot just blindly follow Bush (who got a C- in his Intro to International Relations class at Yale!) into an action that causes such rage in the rest of the world... I don't know the right answers, but at least I'm trying.
Co-ops asking questions can affect a programmer's productivity, but it can be worth that cost -- a new programmer progresses *much* faster with a mentor, so you get a huge benefit, and if they're lucky, when you graduate the company gets to hire a programmer who's already integrated into the culture!
That said, there ARE a few things you can do that will help (we're seeking a balance here...).
* If you can have more than one assignment at a time, that's good -- when you're stuck on one, you can write down your problem (actually, sometimes writing it down will help you figure out the answer!), then work on the other one.
* Try to have a few scheduled 10-minute meetings with your mentors every day, preferably around lunch or some other natural break time (or when your mentors are taking breaks). Show them your problems, questions you've written down, and what you've been working on ("is this the best way to do this?").
* This is more general advice for a beginning program with access to mentors, but make sure you point out the parts of your work that look like they will be time-consuming or especially tedious to implement....There's usually a better way!
-- "...All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-Hermann Goering, before being sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials
There are all kinds of problems that preclude surgical correction of myopia. Personally, I have to pay quite a lot to get glasses that are reasonably thin (and I was psyched when those thick black frames came into fashion), because of various long-term eye problems.
I'm very curious to see what kinds of medical uses these lenses will have in the coming years -- not just glasses, but possibly also replacement lenses inserted after cataract surgery. What else? Eyeglasses to help people with aphakia (no lens at all in the eye at all, after surgery or as a birth defect: they need *very* thick eyeglass lenses to achieve even relatively poor vision).
Then there are microscopes, lasers (in theory, new kinds of lenses could affect the lasers used in the LASIK surgeries!), etc. etc.
Slashdot Mirror
When my former employer disappeared, I started working full-time as an independant contractor (paid by the hour for software dev, mostly supporting the ex-customers of my old employer), plus I'm working on a few independant projects that I hope to start getting some money out of a few months down the road.
I work entirely out of my house or on-site, and my accountant is already writing off portions of my house and vehicle use for my taxes.
For tax purposes, I'm "self-employed", so I can basically write off everything I pay for (including home utilities, hardware, etc) that are for my work.
Zoning is no problem because I don't have any employees, and customers don't come to my home (see messages above).
If you are going to have employees working for you right away, you should consider letting them work out of their own homes officially, and just hold meetings at your house (meetings which could last all day, if need be).
One thing that sucks, though -- I'm not on salary anymore, so taxes don't get withheld... I guess it's the same thing, but somehow it's more painful to put all that nice money in my account, then have to take it out again and hand it off to Uncle Sam.
So, does that mean that if I look at pr0n, my heart will beat faster and cause a buffer overflow?
Hm. No, sir... the software's running fine; you must have overflowed a buffer in one of your "physical" systems.
I'll buzz the nurse and she can bring you a new hospital gown.
... but that was just because I wasn't putting the little (tm) after "Java" on my website.
Ooh, I meant to say, Java(tm).
I mean, software for the Java(tm) platform.
Ah, whatever. It was actually a fairly friendly letter. I'll keep working until I really "arrive" and it's Microsoft or Adobe breaking down my door.
Or (more likely) Charlie Northrup's company of lawyers....
I agree with your point, BUT you are also illustrating the main danger of studies that investigate trends like this: people like to keep things simple, so they say things like "Woman are worse at spatial orientation."
That is not only untrue, but it can be dangerous, because we are all individuals, dealing with other individuals. If I worked in HR and was hiring a new architect for my firm, and WOMAN and MAN walked in to apply with similar work histories, I could safely rule out WOMAN because, as we know, her spatial skills are weak.
Alas, it was not WOMAN who walked in, but Susan Doe, who happens to have spatial capabilities that would smoke those of 99.99999% of the male population. And by turning her down, I have made a huge mistake.
This is a simplified example, but do you see how this works? The research should be done (I always lean towards more info being better...), but we have to realize that releasing info like this must be accompanied with explanations of what this actually means, *in simple terms*.
My vision isn't great (I'm certainly not blind, but I need larger fonts than many sites seem to think looks "cool"). When CSS starting becoming popular for font sizing, I had to switch from MSIE to other browsers. I'm sure a lot of other people like me followed suit (but not enough that MS cared, apparently).
Frankly, it wouldn't be a problem if IE weren't so pervasive. Current versions of Opera, Mozilla, and Netscape ALL support changing the font sizes declared in CSS. Generally (sometimes minor config required) you just hold ctrl and roll the mouse wheel.
I find this MUCH more useful than overriding the stylesheet, for instance, because I still get to see what the "real" site looks like, then I can decide to crank up the font size by a notch or two so I can read comfortably.
By the way, the designs in this contest all handle font scaling well.
I wouldn't say she was evil, and there could be worse choices... but still, the point remains that she did a very good job helping DoubleClick stay *just barely* on this side of illegal. She spoke with privacy groups because she needed to know which abuses would result in costly and public lawsuits, and which wouldn't. DoubleClick's business *still* depends on getting as much personal info as possible, so it's clear that she would not be able to push them farther than they needed to go.
Look, it's possible that she'd be a good privacy advocate, but she's never done that before... she's moving from helping one massive organization avoid privacy abuse lawsuits to helping another one.
If she's been the one prosecuting the lawsuits, just once, I'd be happier.
I read the exact same paragraph and it *confirmed* my concerns.
Look at this in perspective: DoubleClick is a huge organization that is having serious problems with lawsuits because it's trampling all over people's privacy. They bring in O'Connor Kelly, who does a good job settling *most* of the lawsuits (note: settling != defeating) and starts a new division to help keep DoubleClick safe from future lawsuits. DoubleClick continues to do as much data-mining and collection as it possibly can (because that's STILL the core of its business) but now it avoids most of the unpleasant and costly public lawsuits.
Now substitute "the US Govt" for "DoubleClick". Fits pretty well, doesn't it? It doesn't sound *too* bad... until you consider that they're still planning on doing as much privacy invasion as they can possibly get away with... she'll just help them walk that wavy line.
Think about the difference if the new privacy advisor were, say, one of the "12 state attorneys general" who were prosecuting DoubleClick, or someone involved in the "several class-action lawsuits" from the other side. Or ANYONE who had privacy advocacy experience from the victims' side.
Perhaps you didn't notice (or misinterpreted), but this story is "from the so-much-for-researhc dept." ...meaning we do NOT check for earlier posts (or misspellings either, apparently).
Given the risks that the astronauts will be taking en route, landing, re-entry, etc. this is negligable. Of course, we still need to weigh benefits against risks/costs here...
I think it would be very difficult to live in tight quarters with 5 other people for almost a year and a half, floating through space on a mission that would bring back all kinds of info that will be useful for humankind. "Just another few months with these freaks", you could think, "and we'll have accomplished something great. When we get home I'll be famous, and I'll have a pickup line that no one else in the bar can hope to match!" Besides, once you've launched, you can't really change your mind, so you just focus on managing the stress.
:)
Now imagine you're just one of the guinea pigs in the 500-day test. You're not going to be famous. You aren't exploring new frontiers. You're like a kid camping out in his backyard... except you promised your parent (Dr. and Mrs. Skinner?) that you wouldn't come inside for FIVE HUNDRED DAYS, even though you know that some days it's sunny outside the tent and you can hear the other kids playing in the park across the street. Sometimes a dog wanders by and urinates on the corner of the tent (days 3, 5, 16, 21, 23-twice, 28, 29...). Twice a day a scientist peers in through a porthole to see if you've cracked up yet. Can you imagine it? Wouldn't you just feel like you were pissing away a chunk of your life?
And just think -- to be realistic, their connection to the internet would start broadband, then go gradually down to dial-up and worse....
So many people think you either have to be vegetarian or not. Everything's on a scale, though. Yes, you can be a strict vegan and still be strong and healthy (ever heard of Carl Lewis?), but this takes some knowledge of nutrition to make sure you get all the protein you need.
:)
So many people stop there, but it does make a difference if you just try to minimize the amount meat you eat, and avoid things like veal that require particularly unpleasant lives for the animals. If you have a choice between two things that look good on the menu and one is vegetarian, go with that one. Personally, I'm *almost* vegetarian; I still eat poultry occasionally, and pepperoni pizza.
Raise your kids this way too, and maybe your daughters won't hit puberty at 9 like the bulk of her McDonalds-fed classmates.
If you don't know any of the various negatives to eating meat, do some research... hormones, antibiotics, colon cancer risks, often unnecessarily cruel conditions for the animals, environmental damage, etc. etc.. Just be aware and choose some reasonable compromise from there.
Young man (trying to sound literate): "So, do you like Kipling?"
Young woman (suddenly coy): "Goodness, I don't know; I've never kippled before..."
Well, I thought it was funny.
the ancients who imagined themselves flying like birds using some aparatus
I read that as "flying like birds using some *asparagus*".
Maybe Icarus didn't make it because he got *hungry* (not because the wax holding his feathered wings melted)....
And I agree, this certainly doesn't take away from the Wright brothers. Whoever first had the concept of the atom bomb isn't the one who's famous, either.
And people who have ideas that are almost purely conceptual (like the post-it note) won't add them to this list, obviously.
Right-o, though I guess the poster *did* further mutilate the sentence by posting only a fragment of it. Ah, what a useless discussion this is.
:)
It's a viscious "RTFA" circle, so I'll just step out now.
I think my only question is: do you mean "viscous" or "vicious"? In this case, both would probably be accurate, and worth stepping out of.
Here's the whole quotation from the article:
"All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows" on these machines, said Mark Tolliver, executive vice president of marketing and strategy at Sun. "The physics of the whole Intel market has begun to shift."
Obviously the article author modified what Tolliver actually said (and may be the source of the butchered idiom), but the second sentence makes me squirm, too. I *guess* it's okay to treat "physics" as a singular noun, but why in hell did he choose that word to begin with? The physics of the market? Is that like the phantom of the opera? Or the law of the land? The gravity of the situation?
And he says "all of the [sic] sudden" as if no one had a clue what suddenly changed (assuming we aren't questioning yet that it really has changed).
That's certainly interesting, and if I were writing a SF novel about a future in which the world had converted to hex, I might use it. Except by that time we'd probably have a more efficient means of communicating numbers to each other than speech....
I wouldn't teach a kid that this was how to pronounce hex, anyway (see orig question); after all, conversation is about shared meaning, and if he's the only one in the room who knows what he's saying, he's not communicating. That's even worse than raising your kid speaking Klingon (where at least there are a *few* people out there who'll be able to figure out what he's saying).
If you *really* need to be able to pronounce hex (instead of just typing or writing it!) just say "hex", pronounce each numeral, and use alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot ("niner" instead of nine, if you want).
Very simple, uses standards everyone understands (or can figure out in 5 seconds), is clear to the ear and easily transcribed (unlike saying "four hundred seventeen, in hex" and forcing the person to convert). Plus this works with ANY base!
--
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein
I decided to move all of my future development to this nifty whitespace language... so I figured I'd search for some code archives.
Hm. Google doesn't even TRY when you search for whitespace in quotes (you don't even get "couldn't find any matches"!).
I think I've found a downside, folks.
Everybody and everything gets duped on April Fools Day! We're all dupes!
/. seems /.'ed this morning?
Oh, that Taco is a real cut-up.
Hey, is it just me (or is it another clever joke?) that
This seemed generally relevant --
The Java license includes restrictions like this:
---------
Licensee acknowledges that Licensed Software is
not designed or intended for use in the design,
construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility.
----------
It used to contain a restriction against using it in air traffic control, as well, though that seems to have disappeared as Java matured.
In other words, Sun doesn't want to be held accountable for anything really disastrous happening because of bugs in their code. If engineering is (as the article suggests) mostly about forced responsibility for quality, this would seem to address that.
Note: I AM primarily a Java developer (I'll skip the "engineer" appelation for now), but I DO NOT to write software for managing nuclear facilities.
I wonder what it *is* written in (no, not PHP *or* Perl!).
So, is XP really engineering? But it's so... well, freewheeling! If not XP, how about RUP?
Stir in some CMM level 5. How about now?
I think an important point to make is that just because something is *really* hard to do right, that does NOT make it engineering. So what does?
Interestingly, I'm not really sure how to answer this question. I got my degree in music, but I've moved from "Associate Software Engineer" to "Software Engineer" to "Senior Software Engineer" since then. Does knowing UML make me an engineer?
"Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Hermann Goering, before being sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials.
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will
preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
Adolph Hitler, My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933
I'm not saying Bush = Hitler. But you should be damned sure you put some thought into it before you blindly follow your govt into support for such a questionable war.
I wonder how well that "you punch me, I punch you!" morality would work to resolve the Israeli-Palistinian problem... oh, wait, that's what they've been doing already for decades. I guess it'll work eventually, right?
No one's saying Saddam's a nice fellow, or that we should send Bin Laden a fruit basket this Christmas and ask if we can't just let bygones be bygones. But we cannot just blindly follow Bush (who got a C- in his Intro to International Relations class at Yale!) into an action that causes such rage in the rest of the world... I don't know the right answers, but at least I'm trying.
Co-ops asking questions can affect a programmer's productivity, but it can be worth that cost -- a new programmer progresses *much* faster with a mentor, so you get a huge benefit, and if they're lucky, when you graduate the company gets to hire a programmer who's already integrated into the culture!
...There's usually a better way!
That said, there ARE a few things you can do that will help (we're seeking a balance here...).
* If you can have more than one assignment at a time, that's good -- when you're stuck on one, you can write down your problem (actually, sometimes writing it down will help you figure out the answer!), then work on the other one.
* Try to have a few scheduled 10-minute meetings with your mentors every day, preferably around lunch or some other natural break time (or when your mentors are taking breaks). Show them your problems, questions you've written down, and what you've been working on ("is this the best way to do this?").
* This is more general advice for a beginning program with access to mentors, but make sure you point out the parts of your work that look like they will be time-consuming or especially tedious to implement.
--
"...All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-Hermann Goering, before being sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials
I tend to think the conversation ran more like this:
Reporter: "So, how big was that thing?"
Scientist (reviewing some calculations): "Well, about the size of a small car. But rounder."
Actually, I submitted this same story yesterday, and was rejected (I assume because this one was already in the works)... but it wasn't shown yet.
Correct, Lasik is NOT an option for everyone.
There are all kinds of problems that preclude surgical correction of myopia. Personally, I have to pay quite a lot to get glasses that are reasonably thin (and I was psyched when those thick black frames came into fashion), because of various long-term eye problems.
I'm very curious to see what kinds of medical uses these lenses will have in the coming years -- not just glasses, but possibly also replacement lenses inserted after cataract surgery. What else? Eyeglasses to help people with aphakia (no lens at all in the eye at all, after surgery or as a birth defect: they need *very* thick eyeglass lenses to achieve even relatively poor vision).
Then there are microscopes, lasers (in theory, new kinds of lenses could affect the lasers used in the LASIK surgeries!), etc. etc.
Obviously, wait and see, but I'm interested.