"Why can't it be a something bought as a commodity?"
If a business model, and supporting computational models, become a commodity, then that business had better move on, evolve or die. So just as business must evolve, so must its supporting applications.
"Seriously, does a HR program have to be more flexible than a spreadsheet? Should an ERP program require more expertise to setup than a wordprocessor?"
You clearly have never worked in a sufficiently complex business environment where spreadsheets and word processors generate more manual work and human errors than they prevent. It's all about exploding complexity with growth. Once an organization and its processes grow beyond a certain point, it becomes increasingly necessary for those processes and the business rules within to be codified into the supporting applications to help people do their jobs faster, with less manual intervention, less repetition and less errors.
Yeah, CastrTroy is spot on. Sam's was an icon to previous vinyl/cassette buying generations but they failed to evolve. It's sad that this Toronto landmark on the busiest retail strip along Yonge will soon dissappear, but unfortunately that's what it has become--a garish nostalgic symbol of yesteryear. I feel bad for the dedicated employees, but they should be pissed at their bosses for not running the business better.
Uhhhh nice try. There are two stories for the name of Greenland I've heard.
One is that it's an erroneous transcription of the name Gruntland, meaning Groundland in Scandinavian.
The other is story is that it was a fib to sucker people into settling there. (Note that *Ice*land is to the *south* of Greenland...) And it worked because there were some small lush areas in the south.
I don't understand the hardware manufacturing market much (I'm obviously a code monkey). But all things being equal (whatever that means), I'd figure that every hardware job creates some larger number of software jobs. O(n)? or O(n^c)? or O(2^n?), any guesses?
A naive analogy: Hardware is like manufacturing paper, and software is like writing books. So one paper manufacturer will support countless writers.
Thoughts?
To clarify your claim: Computer scientists *in isolation* rarely make good bioinformaticians. As with most application domains, writing code for the sake of writing code without consulting a real-life problem usually produces unusable software.
I work in bioinformatics as well, having background in both CS and Bio. I work in a group where there is a development team of ~15 + a team of roughly 30 biologists (MSc + PhDs) that also serve as prototype users. This collaboration is invaluable, yet we still struggle with exchanging ideas.
Yes, I have observed biologists-turned-bioinformaticians using a little perl and hard work. Unfortunately, in most cases, the resulting software tends to be fine for specific task at hand, but simplistic or even hideous in terms of software architecture. Therefore, scalability and maintainability are out the door. And the limitations imposed by a naive understanding of computer science results in a limited range that said bioinformatician can explore in searching for solutions to real problems. Sooo, computer scientists working in bioinformatics are essential. But they must remember that *they provide the service to biology*, not the other way around.
Come on now, you lost your job didn't you? Got your ass fired? You can tell us?
----------
For the record, finished my undergrad 2 years ago, and ever since I've been working a good paying job which I love and which gives me the freedom (in fact it encourages me) to pick up a text book, learn new things and apply it to my work. It's called R&D. I am considering grad school, but we'll see where this goes first.
Canadian schools are great and more affordable than US in terms of tuition rates. However American schools just have freakin' money dropping out their asses. A couple of my buddies from highschool did their undergrads at some Jesus-Is-King University in Butt Fuck, Michigan, got their 4.0's with relative ease and got into places like UMichigan and Vanderbilt, full scholarship. One doing an MD, and the other an MD/PhD. While they dropped mad coin in the beginning of undergrad (~$16000 USD), the easier marks and the general plethora of wealth made full scholarships relatively quick and easy to acquire. It's like *they're looking for you*.
While I wouldn't trade in my experience since I'm very happy with my situation, I was extremely lucky. For better odds, I would say: Fuck public health care, shitty weather and general Canadian sanctimony, and Go South, Young Man.
Rod
I've been told by friends that are coming from places like Indonesia, China and India and studying here in Toronto and Vancouver that the problem with the good schools in said places is the competition for spots is ridiculous. Take India with a population over a billion, you can just imagine what it would be like applying for any respectable spot... So back in US/UK/Canada, where the bulk of the population is too busy stuffing themselves with food and innane entertainment, the chances of landing a spot in a decent school are better.
In short: Excessive action sequences, shitty dialogue ("Some things never change..."), mediocre acting-- but rich with truly amazing and compelling ideas!
I don't know if this has been covered, but the Matrix is definitely an allegory for the tension between determinism and free will that has been raging since Newton began uncovering the laws of classical physics. (Are we merely automatons in a chaotic but nevertheless deterministic machine, living the illusion of free will? Or is free will genuine?) You have the Matrix, a giant deterministic machine with a singular purpose. And, you have the "free willing" inhabitants of Zion which you initially believe to be anti-thesis: Organic, less tidy and structured in appearance. But you realize that at some level, they are one and the same. Living systems, at the cellular, multicellular and all the way up to the population level, may very well be deterministic machines as well. They are just more slippery and wet, and too complex to predict in a reasonable amount of time. (Recall that giant Zion party that we all wish we could crash: Organic, teeming with life and sexual energy--but nevertheless a kind of machine. A social beast if you like. And remember that french guy's little speech about human machines being driven by one thing..., and how he enjoyed controlling it for his own amusement...;-)
In the end, after Neo was given the horrible truth, we learned that the Matrix had figured out how to ultimately subjugate the human machine for its own purposes. It had learned to control the aspects of the human spirit that we like to think makes us truly distinct and, *ahem* non-deterministic, unlike lesser beasts: Hope.
Truly creepy and bloody brilliant!
Yes, there are elements of religion, philosophy (pop and high brow), politics, as everybody seems to be churning out. I think that those are all just parts synthesized by the Wachowski's into the greater question: What's running the whole show that we're living in? Are we running it? Or are we being run?
Rod
p.s. I that the real "magic" behind Neo is simply that he is the only character that has transcendent and genuine free will, which is why he can "will" himself to contravene the laws of physics that govern the universe simulated inside the Matrix.
It is true that most, if not all, abstractions are leaky. But it is still essential to be able to work in "black box" mode to contain complexity when necessary. It is just as important to be able to flip back and forth between levels of "nested black boxes" when necessary. Of course no single person can learn everything, which is why there are specialized developers, and management software engineers.
Meaning at higher or lower levels of abstraction can be preserved (ie. abstraction leak prevention) when working from a particular level: To ensure that everything is sound and complete in other levels, you usually have superior ranking software engineers looking over the shoulders of the code monkeys. So, if software fails because of naivete on the part of a particular developer, it's most likely an engineering management and/or software architecture problem. You can't blame a single developer for not knowing everything. You might (and probably should) blame his/her managing engineering for not ensuring that everything fits together at higher levels. Or you might the software analysts/architects for not designing everything to fit together properly.
If you ranting against the general usage of abstraction in CS, you are naive. Everything humans know is an abstraction. Computer engineering is an abstraction. Electrical engineering is an abstraction. Biology, chemistry, physics and everything in between are abstractions. Mathematics is perhaps the ultimate abstraction of all. Unless you are suggesting that we all should attain some sort of zen like state where all the semantic levels converge into a giant mass, you cannot escape the "black box mentality". (Trying to suggest that programmers need to code in only machine? Or maybe raw electrical impulses?)
Rod
Quoting from --someone/somewhere-- "who wants to code on a machine that can only use one language?"
You don't have to use only one language, since you can write any language you like by building a --compiler-- in the 'Single OS/PL language' proposed. This compiler takes code from your invented language(s) and translates it into the 'native' language of the machine. Hey wait a darn minute, that's exactly what we're already doing!
And of course, by definition computers (read: Turing Machines) can simulate a Turing machine which can simulate a Turing machine, which can... which is really just a rewording of the above paragraph. So yes, the distinction made between PLs and OSs is artificial, a cultural artifact, when speaking in the strictest sense.
Slashdot Mirror
"Why can't it be a something bought as a commodity?" If a business model, and supporting computational models, become a commodity, then that business had better move on, evolve or die. So just as business must evolve, so must its supporting applications. "Seriously, does a HR program have to be more flexible than a spreadsheet? Should an ERP program require more expertise to setup than a wordprocessor?" You clearly have never worked in a sufficiently complex business environment where spreadsheets and word processors generate more manual work and human errors than they prevent. It's all about exploding complexity with growth. Once an organization and its processes grow beyond a certain point, it becomes increasingly necessary for those processes and the business rules within to be codified into the supporting applications to help people do their jobs faster, with less manual intervention, less repetition and less errors.
Yeah, CastrTroy is spot on. Sam's was an icon to previous vinyl/cassette buying generations but they failed to evolve. It's sad that this Toronto landmark on the busiest retail strip along Yonge will soon dissappear, but unfortunately that's what it has become--a garish nostalgic symbol of yesteryear. I feel bad for the dedicated employees, but they should be pissed at their bosses for not running the business better.
Uhhhh nice try. There are two stories for the name of Greenland I've heard.
One is that it's an erroneous transcription of the name Gruntland, meaning Groundland in Scandinavian.
The other is story is that it was a fib to sucker people into settling there. (Note that *Ice*land is to the *south* of Greenland...) And it worked because there were some small lush areas in the south.
I don't understand the hardware manufacturing market much (I'm obviously a code monkey). But all things being equal (whatever that means), I'd figure that every hardware job creates some larger number of software jobs. O(n)? or O(n^c)? or O(2^n?), any guesses? A naive analogy: Hardware is like manufacturing paper, and software is like writing books. So one paper manufacturer will support countless writers. Thoughts?
Greeeattt, now we live under the specter of a field of work being Slashdotted. I'll see ya'll in the UI line up.
To clarify your claim: Computer scientists *in isolation* rarely make good bioinformaticians. As with most application domains, writing code for the sake of writing code without consulting a real-life problem usually produces unusable software. I work in bioinformatics as well, having background in both CS and Bio. I work in a group where there is a development team of ~15 + a team of roughly 30 biologists (MSc + PhDs) that also serve as prototype users. This collaboration is invaluable, yet we still struggle with exchanging ideas. Yes, I have observed biologists-turned-bioinformaticians using a little perl and hard work. Unfortunately, in most cases, the resulting software tends to be fine for specific task at hand, but simplistic or even hideous in terms of software architecture. Therefore, scalability and maintainability are out the door. And the limitations imposed by a naive understanding of computer science results in a limited range that said bioinformatician can explore in searching for solutions to real problems. Sooo, computer scientists working in bioinformatics are essential. But they must remember that *they provide the service to biology*, not the other way around.
Come on now, you lost your job didn't you? Got your ass fired? You can tell us? ---------- For the record, finished my undergrad 2 years ago, and ever since I've been working a good paying job which I love and which gives me the freedom (in fact it encourages me) to pick up a text book, learn new things and apply it to my work. It's called R&D. I am considering grad school, but we'll see where this goes first. Canadian schools are great and more affordable than US in terms of tuition rates. However American schools just have freakin' money dropping out their asses. A couple of my buddies from highschool did their undergrads at some Jesus-Is-King University in Butt Fuck, Michigan, got their 4.0's with relative ease and got into places like UMichigan and Vanderbilt, full scholarship. One doing an MD, and the other an MD/PhD. While they dropped mad coin in the beginning of undergrad (~$16000 USD), the easier marks and the general plethora of wealth made full scholarships relatively quick and easy to acquire. It's like *they're looking for you*. While I wouldn't trade in my experience since I'm very happy with my situation, I was extremely lucky. For better odds, I would say: Fuck public health care, shitty weather and general Canadian sanctimony, and Go South, Young Man. Rod
I've been told by friends that are coming from places like Indonesia, China and India and studying here in Toronto and Vancouver that the problem with the good schools in said places is the competition for spots is ridiculous. Take India with a population over a billion, you can just imagine what it would be like applying for any respectable spot... So back in US/UK/Canada, where the bulk of the population is too busy stuffing themselves with food and innane entertainment, the chances of landing a spot in a decent school are better.
In short: Excessive action sequences, shitty dialogue ("Some things never change..."), mediocre acting-- but rich with truly amazing and compelling ideas!
;-)
I don't know if this has been covered, but the Matrix is definitely an allegory for the tension between determinism and free will that has been raging since Newton began uncovering the laws of classical physics. (Are we merely automatons in a chaotic but nevertheless deterministic machine, living the illusion of free will? Or is free will genuine?) You have the Matrix, a giant deterministic machine with a singular purpose. And, you have the "free willing" inhabitants of Zion which you initially believe to be anti-thesis: Organic, less tidy and structured in appearance. But you realize that at some level, they are one and the same. Living systems, at the cellular, multicellular and all the way up to the population level, may very well be deterministic machines as well. They are just more slippery and wet, and too complex to predict in a reasonable amount of time. (Recall that giant Zion party that we all wish we could crash: Organic, teeming with life and sexual energy--but nevertheless a kind of machine. A social beast if you like. And remember that french guy's little speech about human machines being driven by one thing..., and how he enjoyed controlling it for his own amusement...
In the end, after Neo was given the horrible truth, we learned that the Matrix had figured out how to ultimately subjugate the human machine for its own purposes. It had learned to control the aspects of the human spirit that we like to think makes us truly distinct and, *ahem* non-deterministic, unlike lesser beasts: Hope.
Truly creepy and bloody brilliant!
Yes, there are elements of religion, philosophy (pop and high brow), politics, as everybody seems to be churning out. I think that those are all just parts synthesized by the Wachowski's into the greater question: What's running the whole show that we're living in? Are we running it? Or are we being run?
Rod
p.s. I that the real "magic" behind Neo is simply that he is the only character that has transcendent and genuine free will, which is why he can "will" himself to contravene the laws of physics that govern the universe simulated inside the Matrix.
It is true that most, if not all, abstractions are leaky. But it is still essential to be able to work in "black box" mode to contain complexity when necessary. It is just as important to be able to flip back and forth between levels of "nested black boxes" when necessary. Of course no single person can learn everything, which is why there are specialized developers, and management software engineers. Meaning at higher or lower levels of abstraction can be preserved (ie. abstraction leak prevention) when working from a particular level: To ensure that everything is sound and complete in other levels, you usually have superior ranking software engineers looking over the shoulders of the code monkeys. So, if software fails because of naivete on the part of a particular developer, it's most likely an engineering management and/or software architecture problem. You can't blame a single developer for not knowing everything. You might (and probably should) blame his/her managing engineering for not ensuring that everything fits together at higher levels. Or you might the software analysts/architects for not designing everything to fit together properly. If you ranting against the general usage of abstraction in CS, you are naive. Everything humans know is an abstraction. Computer engineering is an abstraction. Electrical engineering is an abstraction. Biology, chemistry, physics and everything in between are abstractions. Mathematics is perhaps the ultimate abstraction of all. Unless you are suggesting that we all should attain some sort of zen like state where all the semantic levels converge into a giant mass, you cannot escape the "black box mentality". (Trying to suggest that programmers need to code in only machine? Or maybe raw electrical impulses?) Rod
Quoting from --someone/somewhere-- "who wants to code on a machine that can only use one language?"
You don't have to use only one language, since you can write any language you like by building a --compiler-- in the 'Single OS/PL language' proposed. This compiler takes code from your invented language(s) and translates it into the 'native' language of the machine. Hey wait a darn minute, that's exactly what we're already doing!
And of course, by definition computers (read: Turing Machines) can simulate a Turing machine which can simulate a Turing machine, which can... which is really just a rewording of the above paragraph. So yes, the distinction made between PLs and OSs is artificial, a cultural artifact, when speaking in the strictest sense.