But at the risk of being labeled an ignorant and naive kid, I know its less-than-practical to just add features, cut back on time, and not test.
That's true. The question is how you express these concerns to your manager.
Its called "shoot from the hip" programming. You won't find any books on that methodology because there is yet to be an expert in the field that ships a working product to the outside world that an end-user would call "good".
A few things here. First, communication's a good idea here. Learn how to actually talk to your manager and express the fact that you don't feel you'll be able to get it done and why. Tell them honestly that if they don't reduce the expectations that your work will be compromised. Most managers appreciate this. If there's a problem with *your* expectations, an actual discussion like that will allow your manager to explain where you might be going wrong. And it never seems to have occurred to you that he's under more pressure than you.
Second, the fact that even now you keep falling back on theory and books is troubling. If you cite things like that to a manager, he's going to think 1) you have no real world practical knowledge, and 2) you're condescending. Either way, he doesn't take you seriously, and you don't get your point across. Remember, he's the one with actual real-world experience - not you. You may think you've learned a lot about engineering in school, but really all you learned was the platforms you develop for. It doesn't teach you well how to interact with people, it doesn't teach you anything about customers, etc.
Have you ever heard of Microsoft? Here's a little tidbit there: Every developer gets an office.
Not having heard of them, this make me question your knowledge of...everything.
I'm calling bullshit. Every person in Microsoft with a BS in CS gets their own office? I'm not believing that for a second. In any event, your original point of "any company who uses cubes is doing poorly" has been amply disproven by example, as I can name a number of companies that are doing quite well where over 75% of the staff have cubes. And that snide attitude isn't going to cut it either (Not having heard of them, this make me question your knowledge of...everything.). Your main qualification is a BS and one year of work experience that ended in firing. I think you need some humble pie.
Attendance to the seminars were mandatory. 90% of the time, it was related to our major (Robotics club, Engineering Student Council, IEEE.) The time an alumni did speak, it was so boring the professors left early.
So what? The profs aren't the ones who need jobs, you are. It's not there for entertainment. Anyone who doesn't have the sense to sit through information that may be boring but has a significant chance on their future deserves their fate.
Sorry, B.S. in Computer Engineering, and I interned every summer, and before that I completed a minor in CS at a small private college.
That's great - but understand, there are a ton of people who share that background. Did you think that some internships and the word engineering in your degree would have the company kowtowing to you? And once you're at the job, no one cares about anything you did in school and you're low man on the totem pole. That background isn't going to get the special treatment. You have to prove yourself, and having an attitude where you expect them to recognize your brilliance is going to go nowhere fast.
As to my thoughts on my management, it comes to down to this: There are managers out there that are competant with no technical experienance. Because they focus on managing their team, not telling them how to program. Its a different skillset then coding.
That's true. There will be many times where you have skills your manager doesn't - that's why they hired you. The question is how you go about sharing your knowledge with the boss. Assuming that they're wrong because they're less knowledgable than you anytime you disagree with them isn't a particularly constructive attitude. I don't think you can comment well on what makes a good manager very well until you've had a bit more experience. I'm still learning how to best deal with my managers, and I've a good bit more experience than you.
As to the reason for my lay off -- you very well might be right. I'm not so arrogant that I would flat out deny that this is my side of the story.
Well, that's good. And hey, I'm not trying to rub your nose in it, and since none of us were there, it's impossible to say with certainty where all the fault lies. But there were some things there I've heard waaaaay too many times from new BS grads (and I'm no old management guy myself) - elevated expectations, communication problems, something between distaste and contempt for management, etc.
Look at it this way - the only way it's a total loss is if you don't learn something from it. That includes the right way to find a job, warning signs for a bad job, and maybe how to understand management better. Good luck.
Good luck with your pursuit of a stress-free life working the 9-5 for someone else.
I have one.
And my income is the rents I receive from my RE assets. Although I still work for "the man", I know in less than a year I will be free from this ball-n-chain hellhole.
Yeah, that or bankrupt because you don't know what the hell you're doing. I've seen tons of idiots try that crap, something like 10% actually succeed. Have fun when the housing speculation bubble kills your RE "assets."
You're absolutely on the mark with this kid. Great mix of arrogance and ignorance.
There's also the bit where he didn't listen to alumni who came back to talk because they were all "very, very dry." Yeah, it's not like alums are the ONLY method of networking that the typical undergrad has, or anything, right?
I'm going to nitpick a bit at the article's first point: as much as we may dislike cubicles, a blanket statement like "working in cubicles is the sure sign that you're not working for a successful company" is... well, a sure sign that the article's author hasn't worked at many companies.
You're absolutely right. I don't know of a single large company that *doesn't* use cubes. It makes me question the writer's knowledge of...anything. He admits he didn't do anything to look for a job, didn't even bother to listen to alumni dispensing career advice because it was "all very, very dry." He grabbed the first one that made an offer, and got disillusioned when they canned him. Well, duh. Put a little effort into that job search, you'll have less chance of that happening.
There are other signs that make me think I'd like to hear management's side of the story. For one, he sounds like a prima donna. His sole qualification is a Bachelors in CS from a middle tier school, and he acts like he should be given the golden boy treatment in his first job. An office for a kid who knows.NET? Company car?!?!? Sorry, Charlie, the 90's are gone and that crap's over.
Also, he sounds a bit arrogant - implying that anyone over 40 doesn't know what they're doing, mentions that management didn't take his advice, etc. That could be true, or it could be that he's an arrogant little man who can't constructively work as part of a team.
I also wonder how good he was at his job - he says that management told him he wasn't picking up the work fast enough, and that he was just "barely middle of the pack." He says that was them "setting the employees up for failure." Yeah, that's one option. That or they don't think he's getting the job done.
Finally, this wasn't a mass firing. The impression I got was that he was selected to be let go among the team. He claims they blamed it on finances, but legally they would anyway, in all likelihood.
We only have one side of this story - it could well be another case of a kid coming out of college with a ton of arrogance, no respect for people who have a ton more experience than he, skills that didn't translate to his job, and a problem working with others. Perhaps there's a reason he was canned?
Oh, my bad - when they said iTunes, I assumed they meant iTMS (since they were comparing music stores). I agree, this is one of those instances where Apple plays "Apple knows best" and maybe they don't. Their player does have a great interface with iTunes, and I think they don't want to loosen the integration there for a relatively small number of Linux users (unfortunately).
The Treaty of Paris (1783) (look it up on Wikipedia) recognized the 13 colonies as independent states. The understanding at the time was that each state had the right to unilaterally leave. The writings of the framers establish that. In fact, the first secessionists were northern states, in the War of 1812.
So to sum up, the nation called the "United States" has not "owned" the South any time in the last 225 years, and has had absolutely no control that was granted by the people of the South except by coerced Reconstruction arrangements.
OK, I'll play. The Articles of Confederation, which were being drafted at the same time, contain this little tidbit:
"No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue."
That would seem to outlaw the confederacy without the consent of Congress which was obviously not granted. Also, in that treaty between the US and Britain I see nothing which delineates the rights governing relationships between the states.
That said, I do believe in self determination in general, and feel that pursuing the south as an incorrect move.
All of your examples are correct. However, in this more enlightened age, we frown on doing such things and believe instead in self-governance and self-determination. If there still existed any population of oppressed Celts in Britain, they would have the right to reclaim their territories. Unfortunately, they have mixed with the occupiers to the point that there is little to no genetic distinction, and as this happened 1500 years ago, there aren't any victims left.
However, Tibet is still around, as are Tibetans. China has no legitimate claim to the land, and your argument of "might makes right" doesn't fly. If it does, then the US could easily own all of the western hemisphere within 5 years, and by your argument would be well within its powers to do so.
Howz music the loss leader - you say they're making big bucks on the iPods?
For Apple, yes and yes. They make tons of cash from the iPod, and only recently did the iTMS become even moderately lucrative. They intended it to hopefully break even.
That's kind of a dumb model - you want it the other way around. You want the thing they buy once to be a loss leader, but the thing they keep paying for to make you money...
That's the usual way, but here not so much. The main reason (I think) is that iPods aren't a one-time purchase, actually. They keep getting bigger and better, and are upgraded fairly often by their owners. I think they run iTunes so people definitely have access to legal music to put on said iPod, and so they have complete control over what goes on the iPod.
But ultimately, yes, the money is made on the iPods.
And there was never a war in Tibet, we went there to reinstate our rightful authority there given the fact that Tibet was a province of China under the Empire, and since the PRC is a successor state i.e. is in a chain of replacement governemnts of the Empire, the PRC is legally in control of Tibet.
You had me until that one. Simply because your "empire" once held that territory does not entitle you to do so indefinitely, particularly considering that both then and now, said occupation is completely against the wishes of the people who actually live there.
Using your logic, we can build about 5 cases for who should legally own Palestine, and we see where that logic gets us.
Your history is also largely incorrect. Tibet was independent between 600 and the start of the Mongol empire, and again from the time the Mongols lost control until the Qing dynasty tried to take over in hostile fashion. They gained some control over Tibet though not central rule, until the British started protecting Tibet. By 1900 the British sold Tibet out to China - again, against the wishes of Tibet - and China took over.
So to sum up, China has not "owned" Tibet any time in the last 1500 years except for the last 50, and has had absolutely no control that was granted by the people of Tibet. That makes China an occupying, illegitimate, oppressive power in Tibet.
In PROC the view is that historically Taiwan was part of the PROC
And ya know, that isn't rigorously true. Taiwan was filled with indigenous polynesians until the 1600s, was a Dutch colony for a while after that, was fairly uncontrolled between 1700 and 1800, was a Japanese colony from about 1800-1900, and was independent between 1900 and the start of WWII. Japan occupied it again during the war, and the Allies agreed China would occupy it *temporarily* after the war. Afterwards, of course, the Chinese civil war proceeded, the Kuomintang fled there, and the rest is history.
On each case, I'd question just how strongly they actually feel for the causes at hand. O'Gara is just a hack, in particular, I don't think she's an SCO shill.
Certainly de Raadt is a fantastic example, and I think ESR fits too - he does rabidly promote Linux (and OSS generally) as the second best thing to himself. And Apple - one particular voice doesn't jump out simply because of the din of Apple fanbois.
I definitely think there are idiotic, vocal proponents of pretty much any platform you want to pick.
Personally, I just pretend that Card died in a car crash mere seconds after finishing the final draft of Ender's Game and he never wrote anything else.
Orson Scott Card was found dead today in a pile of flaming wreckage on the 405. Even if people don't agree with his political message regarding procreation policies, his impact upon the science fiction genre is undeniable. Truly an American icon.
Yes, I did. I don't see what advantage it gives me over having the application
installed on my laptop/PC/tablet - be it OpenOffice or MSOffice.
1) Not everyone has a tablet, or even a laptop. 2) Not everyone carries such items everywhere they go, nor wants to. 3) Some people work in a group environment where such integration would be prized. 4) Backups would also be automatic. This would have the greatest value in a corporate environment.
You mean like StarOffice or Star Office?
In the sense that they're based on Java, yes. However, that's like saying that any two executables based on C are the same...
I can already do that - by putting it up on a FTP site or something.
Except you have to know what documents you'll need on the FTP site? Also, most people don't have a shell account where that's a luxury. And most people don't know how to use FTP (believe it), and of those that do, most would rather not have to go through the hassle of the extra step.
Why would you need a merge or an integration if you are the only one who owns/edits/uses that
document?
You're right, if you live in a hole in the ground you'd have no need of such services. However, when one actually interacts with other human beings for a living...
If there are other people using it you need some sort of collabration software like Groove.
Did google say that they are including a such a thing?
1) If you build it in natively, you don't need 3rd party software. 2) I have no idea what google's doing. I'm saying what I'd do if I were google, which since I'm not, makes it somewhat a different thing.
Basically, you point out that people working alone, who never collaborate, who are extremely tech-savvy, and who always carry their laptops with them have no need of an integrated, centralized, automatically backed-up, collaboration-friendly, platform-agnostic application. I think the other 99.999% of the world would enjoy such a thing.
Your hypothetical scenario would benefit in only one case.
If I don't carry a laptop but want to edit the doc from a cyber cafe or something.
Other scenarios:
1) Companies who don't trust backups to their employees. 2) Being able to get to your documents anywhere you have an internet connection. 3) Being able to work on your documents on any machine, regardless of what it has installed. 4) People without a shell account. 5) People who do a lot of client demos, don't know when they'll need to do a demo, and can't predict the client's software. 6) People who like to do things the easy way. 7) Easy collaboration.
Microsoft will do what it normally does: give it away for virtually free until the competition is destroyed or forgotten.
They'll lose here. Google gives it's products away for actually free and is tons better at running an ad-based business than MS is. MS can't use their typical predatory pricing schemes to kill google, unless they start paying people to use their software.
Of course, they can always leverage their windows monopoly to try to do kill google. Still, if everything is web-based and platform agnostic, that will be harder than it used to be. The insidious bit is that google inherently runs on their software (IE), and there's nothing they can do to stop people from going to google's site. It's not like with Netscape, and they could pay OEMs to keep Netscape off the desktop.
Imagine a web-based office application that could be used from anywhere, and also allowed you to download a platform-agnostic (likely Java) offline editor. You could access your documents anywhere, take them with you, and edit them anywhere. Key to success would be a method of integrating the offline document when you bring it back online - integrated (but transparent and seamless) version control would be critical there.
Now HERE is where the real kicker is. Google could sell this system to companies so they could run it on their own network. Think MS Exchange for documents, only functional. This would inherently integrate backups, and it would allow tons of collaboration benefits that can only be dreamed of now. This is such a no-brainer I'm legitimately surprised MS hasn't done something like it.
I think this is doable. If they pull it off, it could seriously threaten MS.
It's rather hard to know what new discoveries will stand the test of time unless you wait a while. Waiting is the whole goal for the committee - wait until the idea is proven correct, and evaluate the discovery in the context of how it ended up changing things. Both goals require significant time.
There's also the problem of the committee unofficially rotating the prize among subdisciplines in a given field, and sometimes a glut of important work. To me, this is somewhat weak for a Nobel prize (which naturally still makes it an incredible discovery), so it isn't surprising this one waited for a while.
Try to find two discoveries of a similar magnitude before 1900 (within a forty year period) where Newton wasn't responsible for both of them.
You want, I could go on all day. Hooke, Boyle, Leibnitz, Huygens, etc were all contemporaries of Newton and made amazing contributions to science. Chemistry went from alchemy to the science we know today largely during the 1700s. Science as we know it was invented in basically a 100 year period roughly 1600-1700, I think that trumps all.
Things have changed. The discoveries come faster than before, the dissemination is wider and faster than ever before,
No they don't, it's just that we forget the ones that don't stand the test of time. It's like saying that all the music on the radio on today is better than that of 40 years ago because it's on more. Many of the inventions we consider critical now won't be considered so later. Like all of your examples. We consider those important simply because that's what we're doing now. Is that more important than discovering vaccines? Cells? Understanding how the body works in effectively any way, of which there was basically no knowledge before 1400? I don't think so. It's really arrogance (or ignorance) to think otherwise.
the discoveries increasingly relate directly to the source code of the systems under study, and the discoveries increasingly leverage the platform of discovery itself.
You could make the case that functionalism and the discovery of the scientific method was much more important than that since it separated actual science from myth and conjecture. All science feeds back on itself to "leverage" further discovery (nice buzzword bingo, by the way). Today doesn't even compare to the Renaissance or Enlightement, in terms of how much knowledge changed. One could make a case for ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia as well. Hard to argue against a case of inventing civilization itself.
I mean, honestly, don't you find it a bit narcissitic to think that our generation is somehow special? The hippies all thought the same thing, and they were wrong too.
I read aldaily all the time. I don't buy the relativism of relativism. Things have changed. Use your brain.
I don't know what aldaily is. Should the fact that you read it impress me? And my, we're condescending. "Use your brain?" Not very tolerant of dissent. Very distasteful. Smacks of insecurity.
Charlatan is a an easy brush to apply to anyone making extraordinary claims as Kurzweil does. He's the interesting charlatan you can't ignore, because nothing he says is entirely wrong.
No he's not. He's a charlatan because everything he says is unprovable. He's essentially our Nostradamus. I've no idea why some people find him interesting.
I wouldn't hold his lack of historical context against him, unless the human genome was decoded in year 1700. Or even just functional MRI. Or any technology that allowed us to peer "inside the box" on our own construction. This is roughly the difference between playing with hidden menus on your set-top box, or decompiling the firmware.
That's interesting to us because it's what's happening now. It's nothing compared to the development of X-rays, or the discovery that blood circulates, that we breathe oxygen, or the Krebs cycle, etc - all of which allowed us to peer "inside the box" and were discovered more than 100 years ago. That just re-supports my notion of tunnel vision.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true. The question is how you express these concerns to your manager.
Its called "shoot from the hip" programming. You won't find any books on that methodology because there is yet to be an expert in the field that ships a working product to the outside world that an end-user would call "good".
A few things here. First, communication's a good idea here. Learn how to actually talk to your manager and express the fact that you don't feel you'll be able to get it done and why. Tell them honestly that if they don't reduce the expectations that your work will be compromised. Most managers appreciate this. If there's a problem with *your* expectations, an actual discussion like that will allow your manager to explain where you might be going wrong. And it never seems to have occurred to you that he's under more pressure than you.
Second, the fact that even now you keep falling back on theory and books is troubling. If you cite things like that to a manager, he's going to think 1) you have no real world practical knowledge, and 2) you're condescending. Either way, he doesn't take you seriously, and you don't get your point across. Remember, he's the one with actual real-world experience - not you. You may think you've learned a lot about engineering in school, but really all you learned was the platforms you develop for. It doesn't teach you well how to interact with people, it doesn't teach you anything about customers, etc.
I'm calling bullshit. Every person in Microsoft with a BS in CS gets their own office? I'm not believing that for a second. In any event, your original point of "any company who uses cubes is doing poorly" has been amply disproven by example, as I can name a number of companies that are doing quite well where over 75% of the staff have cubes. And that snide attitude isn't going to cut it either (Not having heard of them, this make me question your knowledge of...everything.). Your main qualification is a BS and one year of work experience that ended in firing. I think you need some humble pie.
Attendance to the seminars were mandatory. 90% of the time, it was related to our major (Robotics club, Engineering Student Council, IEEE.) The time an alumni did speak, it was so boring the professors left early.
So what? The profs aren't the ones who need jobs, you are. It's not there for entertainment. Anyone who doesn't have the sense to sit through information that may be boring but has a significant chance on their future deserves their fate.
Sorry, B.S. in Computer Engineering, and I interned every summer, and before that I completed a minor in CS at a small private college.
That's great - but understand, there are a ton of people who share that background. Did you think that some internships and the word engineering in your degree would have the company kowtowing to you? And once you're at the job, no one cares about anything you did in school and you're low man on the totem pole. That background isn't going to get the special treatment. You have to prove yourself, and having an attitude where you expect them to recognize your brilliance is going to go nowhere fast.
As to my thoughts on my management, it comes to down to this: There are managers out there that are competant with no technical experienance. Because they focus on managing their team, not telling them how to program. Its a different skillset then coding.
That's true. There will be many times where you have skills your manager doesn't - that's why they hired you. The question is how you go about sharing your knowledge with the boss. Assuming that they're wrong because they're less knowledgable than you anytime you disagree with them isn't a particularly constructive attitude. I don't think you can comment well on what makes a good manager very well until you've had a bit more experience. I'm still learning how to best deal with my managers, and I've a good bit more experience than you.
As to the reason for my lay off -- you very well might be right. I'm not so arrogant that I would flat out deny that this is my side of the story.
Well, that's good. And hey, I'm not trying to rub your nose in it, and since none of us were there, it's impossible to say with certainty where all the fault lies. But there were some things there I've heard waaaaay too many times from new BS grads (and I'm no old management guy myself) - elevated expectations, communication problems, something between distaste and contempt for management, etc.
Look at it this way - the only way it's a total loss is if you don't learn something from it. That includes the right way to find a job, warning signs for a bad job, and maybe how to understand management better. Good luck.
I have one.
And my income is the rents I receive from my RE assets. Although I still work for "the man", I know in less than a year I will be free from this ball-n-chain hellhole.
Yeah, that or bankrupt because you don't know what the hell you're doing. I've seen tons of idiots try that crap, something like 10% actually succeed. Have fun when the housing speculation bubble kills your RE "assets."
You're absolutely on the mark with this kid. Great mix of arrogance and ignorance.
There's also the bit where he didn't listen to alumni who came back to talk because they were all "very, very dry." Yeah, it's not like alums are the ONLY method of networking that the typical undergrad has, or anything, right?
Easy to say when mommy doesn't charge you rent.
You're absolutely right. I don't know of a single large company that *doesn't* use cubes. It makes me question the writer's knowledge of...anything. He admits he didn't do anything to look for a job, didn't even bother to listen to alumni dispensing career advice because it was "all very, very dry." He grabbed the first one that made an offer, and got disillusioned when they canned him. Well, duh. Put a little effort into that job search, you'll have less chance of that happening.
There are other signs that make me think I'd like to hear management's side of the story. For one, he sounds like a prima donna. His sole qualification is a Bachelors in CS from a middle tier school, and he acts like he should be given the golden boy treatment in his first job. An office for a kid who knows .NET? Company car?!?!? Sorry, Charlie, the 90's are gone and that crap's over.
Also, he sounds a bit arrogant - implying that anyone over 40 doesn't know what they're doing, mentions that management didn't take his advice, etc. That could be true, or it could be that he's an arrogant little man who can't constructively work as part of a team.
I also wonder how good he was at his job - he says that management told him he wasn't picking up the work fast enough, and that he was just "barely middle of the pack." He says that was them "setting the employees up for failure." Yeah, that's one option. That or they don't think he's getting the job done.
Finally, this wasn't a mass firing. The impression I got was that he was selected to be let go among the team. He claims they blamed it on finances, but legally they would anyway, in all likelihood.
We only have one side of this story - it could well be another case of a kid coming out of college with a ton of arrogance, no respect for people who have a ton more experience than he, skills that didn't translate to his job, and a problem working with others. Perhaps there's a reason he was canned?
Oh, my bad - when they said iTunes, I assumed they meant iTMS (since they were comparing music stores). I agree, this is one of those instances where Apple plays "Apple knows best" and maybe they don't. Their player does have a great interface with iTunes, and I think they don't want to loosen the integration there for a relatively small number of Linux users (unfortunately).
Right, because I'm such a moron that I can't figure out how to get an mp3 onto my iPod.
OK, I'll play. The Articles of Confederation, which were being drafted at the same time, contain this little tidbit:
"No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue."
That would seem to outlaw the confederacy without the consent of Congress which was obviously not granted. Also, in that treaty between the US and Britain I see nothing which delineates the rights governing relationships between the states.
That said, I do believe in self determination in general, and feel that pursuing the south as an incorrect move.
However, Tibet is still around, as are Tibetans. China has no legitimate claim to the land, and your argument of "might makes right" doesn't fly. If it does, then the US could easily own all of the western hemisphere within 5 years, and by your argument would be well within its powers to do so.
For Apple, yes and yes. They make tons of cash from the iPod, and only recently did the iTMS become even moderately lucrative. They intended it to hopefully break even.
That's kind of a dumb model - you want it the other way around. You want the thing they buy once to be a loss leader, but the thing they keep paying for to make you money...
That's the usual way, but here not so much. The main reason (I think) is that iPods aren't a one-time purchase, actually. They keep getting bigger and better, and are upgraded fairly often by their owners. I think they run iTunes so people definitely have access to legal music to put on said iPod, and so they have complete control over what goes on the iPod.
But ultimately, yes, the money is made on the iPods.
That's not it. More like, "how much more of the cut is MS demanding (compared to others in the market) that the RIAA won't do it?"
And,
"How long is MS willing to let Apple own music before they realize that the music itself is a loss-leader?"
You had me until that one. Simply because your "empire" once held that territory does not entitle you to do so indefinitely, particularly considering that both then and now, said occupation is completely against the wishes of the people who actually live there.
Using your logic, we can build about 5 cases for who should legally own Palestine, and we see where that logic gets us.
Your history is also largely incorrect. Tibet was independent between 600 and the start of the Mongol empire, and again from the time the Mongols lost control until the Qing dynasty tried to take over in hostile fashion. They gained some control over Tibet though not central rule, until the British started protecting Tibet. By 1900 the British sold Tibet out to China - again, against the wishes of Tibet - and China took over.
So to sum up, China has not "owned" Tibet any time in the last 1500 years except for the last 50, and has had absolutely no control that was granted by the people of Tibet. That makes China an occupying, illegitimate, oppressive power in Tibet.
And ya know, that isn't rigorously true. Taiwan was filled with indigenous polynesians until the 1600s, was a Dutch colony for a while after that, was fairly uncontrolled between 1700 and 1800, was a Japanese colony from about 1800-1900, and was independent between 1900 and the start of WWII. Japan occupied it again during the war, and the Allies agreed China would occupy it *temporarily* after the war. Afterwards, of course, the Chinese civil war proceeded, the Kuomintang fled there, and the rest is history.
On each case, I'd question just how strongly they actually feel for the causes at hand. O'Gara is just a hack, in particular, I don't think she's an SCO shill.
Certainly de Raadt is a fantastic example, and I think ESR fits too - he does rabidly promote Linux (and OSS generally) as the second best thing to himself. And Apple - one particular voice doesn't jump out simply because of the din of Apple fanbois.
I definitely think there are idiotic, vocal proponents of pretty much any platform you want to pick.
Orson Scott Card was found dead today in a pile of flaming wreckage on the 405. Even if people don't agree with his political message regarding procreation policies, his impact upon the science fiction genre is undeniable. Truly an American icon.
You're kidding, right? I'll introduce you to Eric Raymond sometime.
1) Not everyone has a tablet, or even a laptop. 2) Not everyone carries such items everywhere they go, nor wants to. 3) Some people work in a group environment where such integration would be prized. 4) Backups would also be automatic. This would have the greatest value in a corporate environment.
You mean like StarOffice or Star Office?
In the sense that they're based on Java, yes. However, that's like saying that any two executables based on C are the same...
I can already do that - by putting it up on a FTP site or something.
Except you have to know what documents you'll need on the FTP site? Also, most people don't have a shell account where that's a luxury. And most people don't know how to use FTP (believe it), and of those that do, most would rather not have to go through the hassle of the extra step.
Why would you need a merge or an integration if you are the only one who owns/edits/uses that document?
You're right, if you live in a hole in the ground you'd have no need of such services. However, when one actually interacts with other human beings for a living...
If there are other people using it you need some sort of collabration software like Groove. Did google say that they are including a such a thing?
1) If you build it in natively, you don't need 3rd party software. 2) I have no idea what google's doing. I'm saying what I'd do if I were google, which since I'm not, makes it somewhat a different thing.
Basically, you point out that people working alone, who never collaborate, who are extremely tech-savvy, and who always carry their laptops with them have no need of an integrated, centralized, automatically backed-up, collaboration-friendly, platform-agnostic application. I think the other 99.999% of the world would enjoy such a thing.
Your hypothetical scenario would benefit in only one case. If I don't carry a laptop but want to edit the doc from a cyber cafe or something.
Other scenarios: 1) Companies who don't trust backups to their employees. 2) Being able to get to your documents anywhere you have an internet connection. 3) Being able to work on your documents on any machine, regardless of what it has installed. 4) People without a shell account. 5) People who do a lot of client demos, don't know when they'll need to do a demo, and can't predict the client's software. 6) People who like to do things the easy way. 7) Easy collaboration.
How is that a change?
Um, it's news. Unless you think these sorts of things should be swept under the rug to feed your "PR fight?"
They'll lose here. Google gives it's products away for actually free and is tons better at running an ad-based business than MS is. MS can't use their typical predatory pricing schemes to kill google, unless they start paying people to use their software.
Of course, they can always leverage their windows monopoly to try to do kill google. Still, if everything is web-based and platform agnostic, that will be harder than it used to be. The insidious bit is that google inherently runs on their software (IE), and there's nothing they can do to stop people from going to google's site. It's not like with Netscape, and they could pay OEMs to keep Netscape off the desktop.
Imagine a web-based office application that could be used from anywhere, and also allowed you to download a platform-agnostic (likely Java) offline editor. You could access your documents anywhere, take them with you, and edit them anywhere. Key to success would be a method of integrating the offline document when you bring it back online - integrated (but transparent and seamless) version control would be critical there.
Now HERE is where the real kicker is. Google could sell this system to companies so they could run it on their own network. Think MS Exchange for documents, only functional. This would inherently integrate backups, and it would allow tons of collaboration benefits that can only be dreamed of now. This is such a no-brainer I'm legitimately surprised MS hasn't done something like it.
I think this is doable. If they pull it off, it could seriously threaten MS.
There's also the problem of the committee unofficially rotating the prize among subdisciplines in a given field, and sometimes a glut of important work. To me, this is somewhat weak for a Nobel prize (which naturally still makes it an incredible discovery), so it isn't surprising this one waited for a while.
Memorize it. ;)
You want, I could go on all day. Hooke, Boyle, Leibnitz, Huygens, etc were all contemporaries of Newton and made amazing contributions to science. Chemistry went from alchemy to the science we know today largely during the 1700s. Science as we know it was invented in basically a 100 year period roughly 1600-1700, I think that trumps all.
Things have changed. The discoveries come faster than before, the dissemination is wider and faster than ever before,
No they don't, it's just that we forget the ones that don't stand the test of time. It's like saying that all the music on the radio on today is better than that of 40 years ago because it's on more. Many of the inventions we consider critical now won't be considered so later. Like all of your examples. We consider those important simply because that's what we're doing now. Is that more important than discovering vaccines? Cells? Understanding how the body works in effectively any way, of which there was basically no knowledge before 1400? I don't think so. It's really arrogance (or ignorance) to think otherwise.
the discoveries increasingly relate directly to the source code of the systems under study, and the discoveries increasingly leverage the platform of discovery itself.
You could make the case that functionalism and the discovery of the scientific method was much more important than that since it separated actual science from myth and conjecture. All science feeds back on itself to "leverage" further discovery (nice buzzword bingo, by the way). Today doesn't even compare to the Renaissance or Enlightement, in terms of how much knowledge changed. One could make a case for ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia as well. Hard to argue against a case of inventing civilization itself.
I mean, honestly, don't you find it a bit narcissitic to think that our generation is somehow special? The hippies all thought the same thing, and they were wrong too.
I read aldaily all the time. I don't buy the relativism of relativism. Things have changed. Use your brain.
I don't know what aldaily is. Should the fact that you read it impress me? And my, we're condescending. "Use your brain?" Not very tolerant of dissent. Very distasteful. Smacks of insecurity.
No he's not. He's a charlatan because everything he says is unprovable. He's essentially our Nostradamus. I've no idea why some people find him interesting.
I wouldn't hold his lack of historical context against him, unless the human genome was decoded in year 1700. Or even just functional MRI. Or any technology that allowed us to peer "inside the box" on our own construction. This is roughly the difference between playing with hidden menus on your set-top box, or decompiling the firmware.
That's interesting to us because it's what's happening now. It's nothing compared to the development of X-rays, or the discovery that blood circulates, that we breathe oxygen, or the Krebs cycle, etc - all of which allowed us to peer "inside the box" and were discovered more than 100 years ago. That just re-supports my notion of tunnel vision.