I was reading in a book about Heroic Failures there was a case that many local historians got interested in; a stone in a graveyard marked "HWP". Rubbings were taken and dispatched to the British Museum for analysis and opinion. Local historians dug deep in their archives, but it still remained a mystery. The brevity of the inscription was pondered by some (an unknown man who came to die in the villiage) others wondered about its positioning at the edge of the graveyard (perhaps the grave of someone 'unworthy'?) To confuse matters more, the rough masonry work dated the stone somewhat earlier than the surrounding graves.
That was until someone got in touch with a former vicar, who informed them the mysterious "HWP" was in fact...Hot Water Pipe.
Why does someone write a textbook?
Well its certainly not for the money. The typical textbook brings in negligable sums at best. Typically about 2000 GBP as far as I can tell. The general reason is because you require a book for your students that doesn't exist. And if you have the course notes you've written to hand then its more or less there as a by-product. A bit of polishing and you are away.
Sorry, I know this sounds a little disappointing, its done for reasons of dull expediency and neither fame nor fortune.
For graduate level texts/"professional" publications the story is of course rather different, and the reasons for doing it are pretty much the same as writing journal papers; (i) "publish or perish"; (ii) mindshare within your field; (iii) again, the damn book you wish was written for your students (this time grads) doesn't yet exist. Writing a whole book is a little inefficient insofar as its only one line on the CV and indeed, if we look back before the days of "publish or perish" you will note that practically everyone had written a book at some point in their careers. However, this seems to be a declining trend, at least within the sciences where time is perhaps better spent on publishing normal papers or writing grant applications.
Apple Corps was started in 1968 as a spin-off company for the Beatles musical and non-musical ventures. Apple Corps is today run by Neil Aspinall and owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and (presumably) the estate of George Harrison.
Its not really a record label, rather its the umbrella organisation for both the Beatles non-musical business interests and today it controls their image, name, trademarks etc (if not their songs, which were held by Northern Songs (L&Mc) and Harrisongs (GH)).
I've very much McCartney and Starr would sell control of their image to Apple, nor would Yoko Ono or the estate of George Harrison be willing to part with rights to their portrayl either.
Just because the masses want something doesnt mean the BBC has to listen, it doesnt work like that, thats what a commercial station is for.
Actually I was kind of over-egging the football thing. But you have just illustrated why the BBC is entering into the last decade of its life. Which is very sad.
as someone who wants to watch football and is forced to pay over a hundred pounds a year just to own the hardware that allows me to *then* go and pay for football on Sky. Furthermore, Sky aside, the BBC have even yielded up Match of the Day's highlights coverage to ITV. I think that was very wrong and not serving the needs of the majority of viewers.
Yes, I don't have to watch football. I could devote my weekends to travelling to more games. But it is our national sport, so its not like I could be considered unusual in this.
sorry, I was ranting and slipped. Ah OK, I'm joking really, but one problem with the BBC is that they claim that rejecting what the market wants is part of their charter as a public broadcaster. The football thing is illustrative of their oversight in this regard. In truth most people want better programs from the BBC, not an internet feed or whatever. I know many readers are biased towards tech (well all readers here) but proprotionally this is a small fraction of the people the BBC should be serving. There are many things they should be fixing first before rolling out new services.
all the British men (and boys for that matter) reading this story today. Sounds like an interesting idea.
*But* stop wasting the license fee on silly shit like this and get us Premiership Football back on our screens. When I can settle down to Liverpool vs. Middlesborough without having the dread hand of Robert Murdoch in my wallet, then we can talk innovation and about a shiny bright little future.
The BBC have no sense of what the priorities of 30 million of their customers are.
I agree with you. But many people find BASIC easiest to start with. Now before you jump up and down and stress the superiority of Python (I agree anyway), I'd like you to bear something in mind. The most widely encountered programming language is not C. Its certainly not Python. Its VBA. Easily forgotten, because the average Slashdot reading professional/CS Major/SysAdmin does not tend to waste their time going on MS Excel courses. But a hell of a lot of people do.
What I want to say is, by all means encourage "better" languages. But be damn careful you don't discourage the use of Basic if someone is happy with it. Exposure through macro programming could be the shakey foundation of confidence being built on. You could be killing the whole deal. That would be my definition of doing someone "no favours". Python is perhaps more desirable, but as I say, BASIC is better than nothing.
Yes, BASIC fosters bad programming habits. However, this isn't really the point. Let me explain why.
1. When I and many other people started out with computers, BASIC was the only game in town. Yes, there was assembler and other languages, but its easy to forget these days that information was hard to come by pre-web and indeed, for children who don't have the disposable income for specialist magazine subscriptions. Libraries typically had a couple of computer books, but these would be non-specific description books (that no longer exist as genre really) explaining that a computer had ROM, RAM and you could hook it up to a printer and a VDU! etc. etc. They had hand-drawn "screenshots" of space invaders and pac-man. BASIC was easy enough that we could get started without being put off. On Slashdot its easy to be intellectually macho, but theres a lot to be said for a low learning curve that encouraged you ever onward.
2. BASIC today. Well, its probably not for serious programmers. However, what is often forgotten here is that not everyone who programs is a professional programmer. Or wants to be. For very simple programs, GOTO is no sin. At least when the alternative is no program at all and, say, organising data in a text file by hand or "manually" in Excel or something. Bad habits are not a problem here, because one is never going to go on to have to write mission critical software in C or whatever. I know there are modern scripting languages that are perhaps just as easy to use, but you might be surprised how many people you might have thought have difficulty programming a VCR will break out QBASIC or VB when they need 20 line quicky knocking together and the programmers are "busy until further notice". Its easy to belittle this from a position of knowledge and authority, but relatively speaking these people are your friends in a landscape of PHBs that think programs just happen.
So in conclusion, BASIC is often better than nothing. That might sound like feint praise, but like I say, for the non-specialist that can be quite a valuable thing. Computer programming for the masses. Mock it at your peril.
I hope I'm not being too cynical in the suspicion that Valenti (who rechecks how many Linux users there are) was shocked that he was missing 2 million customers, not that 2 million people apparently have to do something controversial to (or do without watching) DVDs.
Had the same thought myself actally. Let us know if you ever track it down. I did hear tell of something that had been written for Tunnels & Trolls (!) but I couldn't track it down in the end.
The real question with ID cards is not the information stored on them. Its the penalty for not being able to produce one when asked. Creating the tech is one thing, creating the laws is quite another one. Even as it stands we don't have to carry our driving licenses, just need to be able to produce them at a Police Station within 24 hours.
Which is why these trials will only be of the technology alone rather than the techology in its proper social context. As such there is the risk the concerntrating on tech issues may obfuscate the consideration of the core privacy issues at stake.
Sorry, I realised that didnt make a lot sense; the problem is that his characters turn up at each and every major historical event. This is a device that works fine for humour of the Blackadder/Flash (George MacDonald Fraser) type which attempts to put an amusingly subversive spin on famous events. But in Quicksilver it just becomes annoying. Most other historical novelists are aware of this and use the big events sparingly (often these things happen at a distance from the main protagonists e.g., someone's brother will die in a famous battle and then they receive the news etc. etc.).
It feels contrived for me and at times it looks like hes just showing off the research.
...if you are a European reader. It seems the author came over and got drunk on the depth of research he could do. And then insisted on putting all of it in. Its rather tiresome you've had the standard education in the history of these things, you're constantly waiting to be hit in the face with the next great historical event.
Way to go chaps. Pay to download comes in after a few years of Napsterism. RIAA are throwing around lawsuits, but we swallow hard and think well I still like some of their artists, perhaps we should try legit downloads. Its convienient (at least if you live in the US) and one can have the glow of having gone legit. And now this...
One of the stupidest things I've heard in years. Why are they going out of their way to alienate their customers and shoot themselves in the feet?
March 2004 (on working for Rupert Murdoch) in Empire Magazine:
"He's got people trying to out-Rupert him all the way down the line and their public disrespect for talent is pretty palpable. I mean, there was a Fox execuitve - name available on request - who said to The New Yorker 'We can get people off any high school campus in the country to do these voices'".
As I don't have any, please accept these theoretical, private mod points. I was beginning to think I was the only person whose stomach was being turned by the knee jerk racism that seems to pervade these discussions.
I genuinely don't mean to troll (be ACing if I meant to) but what benefit do these outsourcing stories have for Slashdot? As far as I can see they inspire some rather ugly rhetoric, the same tired arguments about capitalism and a dreadful level of casual racism I hope is genuinely unrepresentative of the Slashdot community. It seems some people just don't have any control over their emotions. I ask the editors to seriously consider whether they need to publish "more of the same" on future occasions.
Is is coming out so quickly? The obvious answer is because they aren't working on another film simultaneous to producing the EE.
But it does occur to me that when there is a lag between a cinematic release and the issuing of the DVD quite a few people feel justified in downloading in the mean time as they fully intend to buy the DVD when it comes out.
If this is the case then it will reduce the number of pirate copies DL'd, but not really impact on the rate of what we might call "real" piracy (copying something with no intention to ever buy it).
Slashdot Mirror
That was until someone got in touch with a former vicar, who informed them the mysterious "HWP" was in fact...Hot Water Pipe.
Well its certainly not for the money. The typical textbook brings in negligable sums at best. Typically about 2000 GBP as far as I can tell. The general reason is because you require a book for your students that doesn't exist. And if you have the course notes you've written to hand then its more or less there as a by-product. A bit of polishing and you are away.
Sorry, I know this sounds a little disappointing, its done for reasons of dull expediency and neither fame nor fortune.
For graduate level texts/"professional" publications the story is of course rather different, and the reasons for doing it are pretty much the same as writing journal papers; (i) "publish or perish"; (ii) mindshare within your field; (iii) again, the damn book you wish was written for your students (this time grads) doesn't yet exist. Writing a whole book is a little inefficient insofar as its only one line on the CV and indeed, if we look back before the days of "publish or perish" you will note that practically everyone had written a book at some point in their careers. However, this seems to be a declining trend, at least within the sciences where time is perhaps better spent on publishing normal papers or writing grant applications.
Its not really a record label, rather its the umbrella organisation for both the Beatles non-musical business interests and today it controls their image, name, trademarks etc (if not their songs, which were held by Northern Songs (L&Mc) and Harrisongs (GH)).
I've very much McCartney and Starr would sell control of their image to Apple, nor would Yoko Ono or the estate of George Harrison be willing to part with rights to their portrayl either.
Actually I was kind of over-egging the football thing. But you have just illustrated why the BBC is entering into the last decade of its life. Which is very sad.
Yes, I don't have to watch football. I could devote my weekends to travelling to more games. But it is our national sport, so its not like I could be considered unusual in this.
sorry, I was ranting and slipped. Ah OK, I'm joking really, but one problem with the BBC is that they claim that rejecting what the market wants is part of their charter as a public broadcaster. The football thing is illustrative of their oversight in this regard. In truth most people want better programs from the BBC, not an internet feed or whatever. I know many readers are biased towards tech (well all readers here) but proprotionally this is a small fraction of the people the BBC should be serving. There are many things they should be fixing first before rolling out new services.
*But* stop wasting the license fee on silly shit like this and get us Premiership Football back on our screens. When I can settle down to Liverpool vs. Middlesborough without having the dread hand of Robert Murdoch in my wallet, then we can talk innovation and about a shiny bright little future.
The BBC have no sense of what the priorities of 30 million of their customers are.
Now we can only produce our own Naughty Nurse spanking simulators! (no, really).
When no-one is looking, knock them off the table and onto the floor. They are certain to smash.
What I want to say is, by all means encourage "better" languages. But be damn careful you don't discourage the use of Basic if someone is happy with it. Exposure through macro programming could be the shakey foundation of confidence being built on. You could be killing the whole deal. That would be my definition of doing someone "no favours". Python is perhaps more desirable, but as I say, BASIC is better than nothing.
"I didn't see that one coming". Hehe.
1. When I and many other people started out with computers, BASIC was the only game in town. Yes, there was assembler and other languages, but its easy to forget these days that information was hard to come by pre-web and indeed, for children who don't have the disposable income for specialist magazine subscriptions. Libraries typically had a couple of computer books, but these would be non-specific description books (that no longer exist as genre really) explaining that a computer had ROM, RAM and you could hook it up to a printer and a VDU! etc. etc. They had hand-drawn "screenshots" of space invaders and pac-man. BASIC was easy enough that we could get started without being put off. On Slashdot its easy to be intellectually macho, but theres a lot to be said for a low learning curve that encouraged you ever onward.
2. BASIC today. Well, its probably not for serious programmers. However, what is often forgotten here is that not everyone who programs is a professional programmer. Or wants to be. For very simple programs, GOTO is no sin. At least when the alternative is no program at all and, say, organising data in a text file by hand or "manually" in Excel or something. Bad habits are not a problem here, because one is never going to go on to have to write mission critical software in C or whatever. I know there are modern scripting languages that are perhaps just as easy to use, but you might be surprised how many people you might have thought have difficulty programming a VCR will break out QBASIC or VB when they need 20 line quicky knocking together and the programmers are "busy until further notice". Its easy to belittle this from a position of knowledge and authority, but relatively speaking these people are your friends in a landscape of PHBs that think programs just happen.
So in conclusion, BASIC is often better than nothing. That might sound like feint praise, but like I say, for the non-specialist that can be quite a valuable thing. Computer programming for the masses. Mock it at your peril.
I hope I'm not being too cynical in the suspicion that Valenti (who rechecks how many Linux users there are) was shocked that he was missing 2 million customers, not that 2 million people apparently have to do something controversial to (or do without watching) DVDs.
Had the same thought myself actally. Let us know if you ever track it down. I did hear tell of something that had been written for Tunnels & Trolls (!) but I couldn't track it down in the end.
Which is why these trials will only be of the technology alone rather than the techology in its proper social context. As such there is the risk the concerntrating on tech issues may obfuscate the consideration of the core privacy issues at stake.
It feels contrived for me and at times it looks like hes just showing off the research.
...if you are a European reader. It seems the author came over and got drunk on the depth of research he could do. And then insisted on putting all of it in. Its rather tiresome you've had the standard education in the history of these things, you're constantly waiting to be hit in the face with the next great historical event.
One of the stupidest things I've heard in years. Why are they going out of their way to alienate their customers and shoot themselves in the feet?
"He's got people trying to out-Rupert him all the way down the line and their public disrespect for talent is pretty palpable. I mean, there was a Fox execuitve - name available on request - who said to The New Yorker 'We can get people off any high school campus in the country to do these voices'".
Seems like its been on the cards for some time.
!yawyna hsac eht em dnes tuB
Start Up: A silicon valley adventure by Jerry Kaplan, published by Warner Books (ISBN: 0751517135). Warning: This is the UK edition of the book.
Apologies if this is redudant; I have to pop out now and don't have time to check if this has already been mentioned.
I genuinely don't mean to troll (be ACing if I meant to) but what benefit do these outsourcing stories have for Slashdot? As far as I can see they inspire some rather ugly rhetoric, the same tired arguments about capitalism and a dreadful level of casual racism I hope is genuinely unrepresentative of the Slashdot community. It seems some people just don't have any control over their emotions. I ask the editors to seriously consider whether they need to publish "more of the same" on future occasions.
Hmm, the only way I'm going to be able to go is if returns are *heavily* are discounted...
Is is coming out so quickly? The obvious answer is because they aren't working on another film simultaneous to producing the EE. But it does occur to me that when there is a lag between a cinematic release and the issuing of the DVD quite a few people feel justified in downloading in the mean time as they fully intend to buy the DVD when it comes out. If this is the case then it will reduce the number of pirate copies DL'd, but not really impact on the rate of what we might call "real" piracy (copying something with no intention to ever buy it).
Ian Holm was knighted in 1998. *But* yeah, I was refering to Sir Ian McKellen. Sorry if I confused anyone.