I don't understand the current thinking that only a full-sized electric car will help us.
Small three-wheeler electric vehicles for commuters, that are *affordable*, would help immensely. The only ones I've seen cost more than a civic hybrid (e.g. http://www.flytheroad.com/)
Think how easy it will be to prosecute criminals though! Or remember people after they die (Robin Williams can make your life video, a la Final Cut). Then again, I don't think anyone alive has never broken a law....
That's not true. "WebCT Vista" was out *years* before Microsoft decided on the name Vista for their next generation of Windows. Not only that, but WebCT was a completely separate company, Blackboard's direct competitor at the time, and it was swallowed up by Blackboard just over a year ago.
OK, so the *technology* was developed by someone other than Tata, and the *car* is from Tata. That's hardly a major gaffe, and it's not like I issued a patent to Tata for developing it. I simply stumbled across a story that I thought would be of interest to Slashdot readers and submitted it with a quick summary.
In the future, you can avoid this apparent trauma by not reading the summary and going straight to the RTFA yourself for full details.
I believe that my provider in Canada locks down their phones so that they can charge extra for features that a phone normally would provide. For instance, I have a camera phone, but since the phone's transfer-image-by-wire capability is locked out, the only way to get the photos is to send them via the phone company's photo-emailing-service, for which they charge me for each instance.
So the software locks are not just to stop you taking your phone to another provider, they're also for securing additional revenue by disabling a lot of the phone's features and requiring you to pay extra $$ to use them.
Phone companies are perfectly capable of providing DSL without regular phone service - they just don't want to, in most cases. Years ago when I had DSL and landline, I had my phone disconnected before a move but the DSL kept working for a couple of days. I phoned the telco and finally they admitted that they *could* provide them separately, but they didn't want to. Their loss - I now have only a cell and went with a cable modem.
The man says he's teaching Intro to Java and Intro to Python. He does not say that he's teaching "Programming 101". These are courses mainly on basic language syntax, and how to write simple programs in each language - why not use an IDE to help out?
The type of person taking an intro course with a title like that is not trying to learn to program in general terms, they're trying to learn the basics of a language, and an IDE can help with that.
First, teach them to be concise. Engineers who cannot write well often try to make their writing sound as stuffy and pretentious as possible. They should learn to use smaller and simpler terms as often as possible instead of trying to sound like they *think* well-educated people should sound. Another poster mentioned active vs passive voice, which is a good start.
Second, make sure they all understand the common mistakes techies make. When should apostrophes be used, and when should they not be used. The difference between "loose" and "lose", "it's" and "its", etc. These are very common mistakes, and losing a half mark for such mistakes never seems to drill their importance into people.
I was addicted to MUDs for a couple years and I know how it feels. What finally cured me was the admins saying one day "Er.... we've realized there's been some cheating... so we're wiping the server".
Reality of many hundreds (thousands?) of wasted hours with nothing to show for it hit me like a brick. Never looked back.
Slashdot could do a longitudal study of your education and career path choices
Check out CareerShare - That's the kind of thing they're trying to do. Still in beta, and needs work, but a neat idea. If you have suggestions to improve the site, let them know.
Being a Canadian and knowing the telcos here, it won't be remotely affordable access to the average Joe. Many already pay:
$45/month Cable Internet (Or $30/month ADSL)
$30/month telephone
$40/month Cell phone (With some ridiculous per-minute charge for 1X(3G) Net access)
$30/month cable/satellite TV
And now they figure we'll shell out some money for wireless? What for, when we've got hardwired internet and cell phones with 3G? Guaranteed they'll charge a small fortune for access to their wireless net. When house prices in Vancouver have doubled in the last 5 years, and gasoline approaching $1.20/litre (that's about $4USD/gallon for you americans), just who do they think will be buying this?
Not only that, but your white space can be spaces OR tabs - either one will work, but if you use both the code breaks.
I'm a Java guy who tried jython for a couple of months. Don't know what all the fuss is about, I couldn't stand using jython.
No, it's not inconvenient for the company at all. They hire an external company to handle their rebates. I have yet to see a rebate being handled by the company that built the product.
this guy would *love* the free chess app that comes with OS X.
I've often wondered about that kind of sentiment. What makes this chess app free? Macs are so expensive that we should not be fooled into believing the marketing-speak. You *pay* for this "free" chess app.
MacOSX is FREE! All you have to do is buy the overpriced hardware!!?
--
I agree - If you say "first on there wins, everybody else gets nothing", why would anyone try? If you're going to pay for something to get done, why not let people bid on the project and make it open source? Then nobody wastes their time doing the same thing as a bunch of other people!
These bounties are really odd. Can you imagine if structures were built that way? First one to build me a new arena, to spec, gets $1 Million! We'd either have no buildings at all or a bunch of partially-built shells.
"Aboot" is how they pronounce it on the East coast, I believe. Canada's got a massive land mass - like the southern vs northern states, people will speak with different accents all over the country. A shame that Americans tend to generalize.
I love the principle behind OOo and wish them all the luck, but until they fix some of the major bugs, like the three-year-old autofilter bug in calc that allows you to modify/delete data that you can't see (Bug 2977), OOo will remain the tool of secretaries and non-power-users. One cannot use calc for serious scientific work (yet). *sigh*
So they're thinking of putting it in jump boots - once it stiffens up, does it then just become liquid again immediately afterward? Even when hit with a bullet?
Are you kidding? You can't even do that 100% of the time on different Linux distros. That's why when you want to install an existing binary, you often have to download the one for *your* particular distro.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it if it's possible, but the OSS community should be careful of what it promises.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand the current thinking that only a full-sized electric car will help us. Small three-wheeler electric vehicles for commuters, that are *affordable*, would help immensely. The only ones I've seen cost more than a civic hybrid (e.g. http://www.flytheroad.com/)
Think how easy it will be to prosecute criminals though! Or remember people after they die (Robin Williams can make your life video, a la Final Cut). Then again, I don't think anyone alive has never broken a law....
That's not true. "WebCT Vista" was out *years* before Microsoft decided on the name Vista for their next generation of Windows. Not only that, but WebCT was a completely separate company, Blackboard's direct competitor at the time, and it was swallowed up by Blackboard just over a year ago.
OK, so the *technology* was developed by someone other than Tata, and the *car* is from Tata. That's hardly a major gaffe, and it's not like I issued a patent to Tata for developing it. I simply stumbled across a story that I thought would be of interest to Slashdot readers and submitted it with a quick summary.
In the future, you can avoid this apparent trauma by not reading the summary and going straight to the RTFA yourself for full details.
I believe that my provider in Canada locks down their phones so that they can charge extra for features that a phone normally would provide. For instance, I have a camera phone, but since the phone's transfer-image-by-wire capability is locked out, the only way to get the photos is to send them via the phone company's photo-emailing-service, for which they charge me for each instance.
So the software locks are not just to stop you taking your phone to another provider, they're also for securing additional revenue by disabling a lot of the phone's features and requiring you to pay extra $$ to use them.
Phone companies are perfectly capable of providing DSL without regular phone service - they just don't want to, in most cases. Years ago when I had DSL and landline, I had my phone disconnected before a move but the DSL kept working for a couple of days. I phoned the telco and finally they admitted that they *could* provide them separately, but they didn't want to. Their loss - I now have only a cell and went with a cable modem.
The man says he's teaching Intro to Java and Intro to Python. He does not say that he's teaching "Programming 101". These are courses mainly on basic language syntax, and how to write simple programs in each language - why not use an IDE to help out?
The type of person taking an intro course with a title like that is not trying to learn to program in general terms, they're trying to learn the basics of a language, and an IDE can help with that.
First, teach them to be concise. Engineers who cannot write well often try to make their writing sound as stuffy and pretentious as possible. They should learn to use smaller and simpler terms as often as possible instead of trying to sound like they *think* well-educated people should sound. Another poster mentioned active vs passive voice, which is a good start. Second, make sure they all understand the common mistakes techies make. When should apostrophes be used, and when should they not be used. The difference between "loose" and "lose", "it's" and "its", etc. These are very common mistakes, and losing a half mark for such mistakes never seems to drill their importance into people.
I was addicted to MUDs for a couple years and I know how it feels. What finally cured me was the admins saying one day "Er.... we've realized there's been some cheating... so we're wiping the server".
Reality of many hundreds (thousands?) of wasted hours with nothing to show for it hit me like a brick. Never looked back.
At this rate, I'm suprised there will be no MS Office Professional Double Plus Plus Good....
Check out CareerShare - That's the kind of thing they're trying to do. Still in beta, and needs work, but a neat idea. If you have suggestions to improve the site, let them know.
Many already pay:
And now they figure we'll shell out some money for wireless? What for, when we've got hardwired internet and cell phones with 3G? Guaranteed they'll charge a small fortune for access to their wireless net.
When house prices in Vancouver have doubled in the last 5 years, and gasoline approaching $1.20/litre (that's about $4USD/gallon for you americans), just who do they think will be buying this?
Not only that, but your white space can be spaces OR tabs - either one will work, but if you use both the code breaks. I'm a Java guy who tried jython for a couple of months. Don't know what all the fuss is about, I couldn't stand using jython.
No, it's not inconvenient for the company at all. They hire an external company to handle their rebates. I have yet to see a rebate being handled by the company that built the product.
Wouldn't it be more efficient to buy a few patents from these drug companies and lower the cost of the drugs? How much would that cost - anybody know?
That's a really interesting post - thanks for pointing it out!
If only we could get this guy to study neurology or something like it to such detail - maybe he could tell us what makes him so smart?
http://www.java.com
Everything you wished for.
to be remodulated. As we know from watching the show, there's almost nothing wrong that can't be fixed with a little remodulation.
I've often wondered about that kind of sentiment. What makes this chess app free? Macs are so expensive that we should not be fooled into believing the marketing-speak. You *pay* for this "free" chess app.
MacOSX is FREE! All you have to do is buy the overpriced hardware!!?--
I agree - If you say "first on there wins, everybody else gets nothing", why would anyone try? If you're going to pay for something to get done, why not let people bid on the project and make it open source? Then nobody wastes their time doing the same thing as a bunch of other people!
These bounties are really odd. Can you imagine if structures were built that way? First one to build me a new arena, to spec, gets $1 Million! We'd either have no buildings at all or a bunch of partially-built shells.
"Aboot" is how they pronounce it on the East coast, I believe. Canada's got a massive land mass - like the southern vs northern states, people will speak with different accents all over the country. A shame that Americans tend to generalize.
I love the principle behind OOo and wish them all the luck, but until they fix some of the major bugs, like the three-year-old autofilter bug in calc that allows you to modify/delete data that you can't see (Bug 2977), OOo will remain the tool of secretaries and non-power-users. One cannot use calc for serious scientific work (yet). *sigh*
So they're thinking of putting it in jump boots - once it stiffens up, does it then just become liquid again immediately afterward? Even when hit with a bullet?
Are you kidding? You can't even do that 100% of the time on different Linux distros. That's why when you want to install an existing binary, you often have to download the one for *your* particular distro.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it if it's possible, but the OSS community should be careful of what it promises.