Let's see, there's Herbert Hoover, an engineer credited with being a tough administrator during food shortages caused by World War I and then, some would say, bringing about the Great Depression thereafter.
And we have Jimmy Carter, now seen as a great humanitarian, but often criticized as an ineffective politician.
Yasser Arafat was also trained as an engineer, and I venture to guess that there are probably extremely diverging opinions as to his effectiveness as the 'best representative of other citizens, making detailed, objective analysis of the issues, arriving at rational conclusions and actions'.
Add to your review Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Brezhnev, who were both engineers before rising to prominence in Russian politics.
I guess you could use these examples, and many more, to make arguments either way. But aren't we trained to work with the real world around us? Why not do a little field survey and consider the next five specimens that you encounter in their natural habitat?
Do you think that sullen character in the next cube would be a good representative of the people?
How about the Sales Engineer from that company that is trying to get you to buy their expensive, but miracle, cureall application?
Crusher to Picard: Stop calling me when I'm working.
Man, this would really increase my geek factor
on
Memory Activity LEDs
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· Score: 1
Oh, I guess I misunderstood what kind of memory they meant. So they are talking about computer memory here?
I clicked on the Read more link 'cuz I thought they were talking about LED's that would show when my memory was being accessed. Jeez, I could be a real babe magnet with a couple rows of lights blinking frantically across my forehead.
Why doesn't someone invent some of those, eh? It would really bring in the chicks, I'm sure. Like, maybe, buttloads.
I generally advise my clients to get rid of as much information as possible. In other words, use the Trash folder - frequently and with extreme prejudice.
The vast majority of the notes and files that you save will never be viewed again. Not only that, but if you do go searching for files or messages, you also run the risk of getting the wrong version of the file or finding the penultimate message rather than the final answer.
Since my clients are government agencies, they also are subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other disclosures arising from lawsuits. By reducing the amount of dreck in their files and archives, they have less to sort through and to produce when one of these requests comes in.
This was a revelation to one client who complained about how much time they spent answering FOIA requests. I recommended that they purge their falls of all but the key documents. It took a lot of effort to overcome the compulsion to save every letter and each draft of every document, but when they got aggressive about it, they could see real benefits. Suddenly they had loads of space in their filing cabinets and they actually enjoyed answering FOIA requests with "Sorry, we do not have any documents that match your request."
Just don't ask me how many messages I have in *my* Inbox.
Well, I noted that in his speech given the day after this event, George W. Bush started ranting on the subject of "reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy." I can only assume that this was a thinly-veiled reference to Canada's contributions to our power grid.
Do you suppose he will invoke his "pre-emptive defense" doctrine and declare war on Canada now?
Look out, you folks north of our border, the U.S. is on a roll and we are going to kick some butt in defense of our right to, . . um,. . . er, whatever!
Well, actually I do respond to those Windows Update notices that nag at me from time to time.
I accept the proposed updates and hit the button to begin the download. Most recently, I had been attempting this for three weeks, but could not to complete the download because it was more than 78 Megabytes in size and growing with each day's aborted download attempt. (Mind you, I was selective about which patches I agreed to accept and so I did not even queue the full payload of proposed updates.) Eventually I just had to leave the modem on and walk away from the machine for a full day.
This is simply not practical for a home user with only dial-up net access. What kind of ?secure? system requires updates and patches of such size and frequency that more of my system time is spent acquiring and applying the patches than in actual, productive use?
At this point it seems like I am giving up BOTH my freedom AND my security.
Re:Red Queen is a much earlier book than Genome
on
The Red Queen
·
· Score: 1
For another book which may challenge your assumptions about our evolutionary process, physiological features and sex, I would strongly recommend The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan. For me this has probably had the greatest impact of any book that I have ever read.
The author makes you reconsider the prevailing idea that the apes came down from the trees and turned into Tarzan. Read this and you may conclude that your bare skin evolved as the result of much different environmental factors. The author writes extraordinarily well and deftly takes apart common assumptions in a most entertaining read.
Actually it is the book which really increases the production costs. Throwing in a CD only costs a few cents. Why do you think that software no longer comes with a printed user manual?
Why not skip the production bottleneck and eliminate the book altogether? Just put the whole book on the web and we can all expect that it will be regularly updated/revised/corrected. Right?
Well, it was a good idea, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree that rule 110 would make a better logo for the reasons just cited by LesPaul75. . .
and because it resembles a B-2 bomber, which everyone knows just looks kewlh.
Let's see, there's Herbert Hoover, an engineer credited with being a tough administrator during food shortages caused by World War I and then, some would say, bringing about the Great Depression thereafter.
And we have Jimmy Carter, now seen as a great humanitarian, but often criticized as an ineffective politician.
Yasser Arafat was also trained as an engineer, and I venture to guess that there are probably extremely diverging opinions as to his effectiveness as the 'best representative of other citizens, making detailed, objective analysis of the issues, arriving at rational conclusions and actions'.
Add to your review Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Brezhnev, who were both engineers before rising to prominence in Russian politics.
I guess you could use these examples, and many more, to make arguments either way. But aren't we trained to work with the real world around us? Why not do a little field survey and consider the next five specimens that you encounter in their natural habitat?
Do you think that sullen character in the next cube would be a good representative of the people?
How about the Sales Engineer from that company that is trying to get you to buy their expensive, but miracle, cureall application?
. . . Star Trek communicators!
Crusher to Picard: Stop calling me when I'm working.
Oh, I guess I misunderstood what kind of memory they meant. So they are talking about computer memory here?
I clicked on the Read more link 'cuz I thought they were talking about LED's that would show when my memory was being accessed. Jeez, I could be a real babe magnet with a couple rows of lights blinking frantically across my forehead.
Why doesn't someone invent some of those, eh? It would really bring in the chicks, I'm sure. Like, maybe, buttloads.
. . . this guy shows up on websites that:
I generally advise my clients to get rid of as much information as possible. In other words, use the Trash folder - frequently and with extreme prejudice.
The vast majority of the notes and files that you save will never be viewed again. Not only that, but if you do go searching for files or messages, you also run the risk of getting the wrong version of the file or finding the penultimate message rather than the final answer.
Since my clients are government agencies, they also are subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other disclosures arising from lawsuits. By reducing the amount of dreck in their files and archives, they have less to sort through and to produce when one of these requests comes in.
This was a revelation to one client who complained about how much time they spent answering FOIA requests. I recommended that they purge their falls of all but the key documents. It took a lot of effort to overcome the compulsion to save every letter and each draft of every document, but when they got aggressive about it, they could see real benefits. Suddenly they had loads of space in their filing cabinets and they actually enjoyed answering FOIA requests with "Sorry, we do not have any documents that match your request."
Just don't ask me how many messages I have in *my* Inbox.
Well, I noted that in his speech given the day after this event, George W. Bush started ranting on the subject of "reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy." I can only assume that this was a thinly-veiled reference to Canada's contributions to our power grid.
Do you suppose he will invoke his "pre-emptive defense" doctrine and declare war on Canada now?
Look out, you folks north of our border, the U.S. is on a roll and we are going to kick some butt in defense of our right to, . . um,. . . er, whatever!
Well, actually I do respond to those Windows Update notices that nag at me from time to time.
I accept the proposed updates and hit the button to begin the download. Most recently, I had been attempting this for three weeks, but could not to complete the download because it was more than 78 Megabytes in size and growing with each day's aborted download attempt. (Mind you, I was selective about which patches I agreed to accept and so I did not even queue the full payload of proposed updates.) Eventually I just had to leave the modem on and walk away from the machine for a full day.
This is simply not practical for a home user with only dial-up net access. What kind of ?secure? system requires updates and patches of such size and frequency that more of my system time is spent acquiring and applying the patches than in actual, productive use?
At this point it seems like I am giving up BOTH my freedom AND my security.
For another book which may challenge your assumptions about our evolutionary process, physiological features and sex, I would strongly recommend The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan. For me this has probably had the greatest impact of any book that I have ever read.
The author makes you reconsider the prevailing idea that the apes came down from the trees and turned into Tarzan. Read this and you may conclude that your bare skin evolved as the result of much different environmental factors. The author writes extraordinarily well and deftly takes apart common assumptions in a most entertaining read.
Actually it is the book which really increases the production costs. Throwing in a CD only costs a few cents. Why do you think that software no longer comes with a printed user manual? Why not skip the production bottleneck and eliminate the book altogether? Just put the whole book on the web and we can all expect that it will be regularly updated/revised/corrected. Right? Well, it was a good idea, anyway.