That isn't true. The brain is not digital by any means. Signaling does occur even when the threshold potential is not reached and an action potential is not fired. Further, the state of the surrounding chemical environment and the internal state of the neuron itself make sure that not all action potentials are created equal.
What they tell you in Intro to Biopsychology is simplified to the point of not really being true (just like math classes).
I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this, but I'm not sure I have it. If you meant the hub metaphor the whole way, then no that isn't how it works. If all messages went to all destinations, you can imagine how difficult it would be to make any sense of them. Further, when an area receives input, it is not a stateless message. It is received in a state of "sensitivity" (for lack of a more detailed explanation) and the fact that it is received in its state also alters the local state for future messages. The easiest example is sensory desensitization... like when you no longer smell that horrible smell once you've been in the sysadmin's office for a few minutes. The same destinations are getting the same inputs, but the local state has changed due to previous inputs and therefore there is a different result.
So you can see that if all destinations got all inputs the brain would basically "white out" and be useless. The fact is that there is a very specific network structure. Each local network has projections into other local networks, which is why emotions and different sensory modalities have impacts on each other and on other "unrelated" areas of the brain.
Solar is wasteful. It takes an acre of panels to generate 1 MW and the land is used up. It takes 0.08 acres for a wind turbine, generating between 1.5 MW and 2.5 MW, and the land can still be used for grazing, etc.
I haven't been following this as closely as I should have, but I do know that Yahoo was resisting the MSFT deal in opposition to many shareholders, and sought out GOOG at least partially to avoid lawsuits. So, either the deal goes through and there's a strong force vs. MSFT or the deal doesn't go through and... IANAL, but I would assume... they have enough to avoid shareholder lawsuits (ie, we tried with GOOG and the gov't said no; why would we assume any different with MSFT?).
> Next you'll decide to rant about them meddling in pharmaceuticals by > funding cancer research.
What does subsidizing a positive externality have to do with legislating a negative externality. They are not only completely different things, but the exact opposite approach (market vs. legislative) to government.
Where is meta-moderating when you need it...
> The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly > understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business
What are you talking about? My consulting firm alone has done numerous "Green IT" projects with data centers being the bulk of it. Why would they pay our tier-1 rates if they considered energy use to be a "negligible cost of the business". Seriously, what are you basing this assertion on?!
Well, you'd have to ask them. And even if you got an answer, I guess that's not really the point you're trying to make, because I actually do come from a strong programming background, and I do regularly suggest improvements to their approach and contribute to their educational growth.
However, I have colleagues who do not have a programming background. In private, I don't know what their developers say about their non-programmer leads. But at least at work there doesn't seem to be any tension between them.
And, as I alluded to in a previous post, the proof is in the pudding, as it were. If there was a problem with this "blind" leading, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to execute successfully on the deeply technical and complex projects we take on. Not to be a cheerleader for my employer, but there have been numerous occasions where a client has come to us -- after having the Cibers and Accentures and even IBMs of the world say to them that a particular system is "not possible". My team just went live with such a "not possible" system in January.
I've been in your shoes. Like I said, I was a developer, and I saw no value in the "business analysts" I was working with who had no real idea what I did to implement the crazy ideas they'd spit out. But all "business analysts" are not created equal, and that has more do to with problem comprehension and creativity in solution finding than anything related to programming.
That is a very narrow view of IT. I have been out of school for 2 years and I haven't programmed except in my spare time. I'm in consultancy, and honestly if the client found out I was billing hours programming at my systems analyst billing rate, I'd have some 'splaing to do.
Erm... I have a CS degree and I don't program... ever (anymore). I design system architecture and manage the implementation. Additionally, I know a number of people in my industry who couldn't program to save their life, but who are still extremely technical and do a hell of a job with the design process and problem solving. Maybe you don't want someone like this "blindly" leading a group of programmers, but it sure does seem to work for us here in the top-tier consulting firms...
By the way, one thing my firm doesn't hire would be... programmers. We can farm that out to a lower tier consulting firm for much cheaper.
That makes no sense. Healthy people "linger" in the "system" and drive up costs? Would that be while they are contributing to the economy (and paying taxes and for insurance) while the unhealthy people are on disability and draining insurance funds?
I really just can't see how your claim could be true.
> Surely with so many (especially young) people being 'web first' with not > just their buying habits, but now in terms of what they do in their spare > time, we'd expect more of them to want to get a career in it?
No, I would expect the exact opposite. What is exiting about something so commonplace in your lifestyle as the Web?
With the McDonaldization/"process standardization" of software development, it IS boring. Every kid has seen Office Space, and the real joke is that the movie's pretty realistic.
That's not to say that there aren't exciting jobs out there in IT, but unfortunately they are the minority.
> Don't be afraid to cry "Uncle!" and hire someone on a short-term basis.
Definitely. I learned my way around Informatica by leading a team of Informatica developers and having them show me what they're doing. It was necessary in order to manage the work effectively and report upwards and set expectations appropriately, etc. but I also now know a tool that would cost thousands in training otherwise.
Ok, I had the same objection. But it learns what you select when you type 's' and alters the ordering based on that. Try it. When the first item isnt the one you want, select it, then type the same thing and select it again, then type the same thing and select it again. Notice how the ordering of the results changes and your selection gets promoted?
After 2 days of using FF3 it seems to "know" exactly what I am looking for most of the time.
Norm: I got a plane full of people saying you threatened that stewardess. Greg Focker: I was not threatening her. I was just trying to get my bag into the overhead storage thing... Norm: You were acting like a maniac and you threatened her with a bomb. Greg Focker: No, I said I didn't have a bomb. Norm: But you said bomb. Greg Focker: I said, "It's not like I have a bomb". Norm: You said "Bomb" on an airplane. Greg Focker: What's wrong with saying 'Bomb' on an airplane? Norm: You can't say 'Bomb' on an airplane! Greg Focker: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. You gonna arrest me? Bomb bomb bomb bomb! During the war I was a BOMBadier!
Slashdot Mirror
That isn't true. The brain is not digital by any means. Signaling does occur even when the threshold potential is not reached and an action potential is not fired. Further, the state of the surrounding chemical environment and the internal state of the neuron itself make sure that not all action potentials are created equal.
What they tell you in Intro to Biopsychology is simplified to the point of not really being true (just like math classes).
FYI alcohol doesn't really kill brain cells (unless you were to pour the alcohol directly on the brain cells, perhaps).
I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this, but I'm not sure I have it. If you meant the hub metaphor the whole way, then no that isn't how it works. If all messages went to all destinations, you can imagine how difficult it would be to make any sense of them. Further, when an area receives input, it is not a stateless message. It is received in a state of "sensitivity" (for lack of a more detailed explanation) and the fact that it is received in its state also alters the local state for future messages. The easiest example is sensory desensitization... like when you no longer smell that horrible smell once you've been in the sysadmin's office for a few minutes. The same destinations are getting the same inputs, but the local state has changed due to previous inputs and therefore there is a different result.
So you can see that if all destinations got all inputs the brain would basically "white out" and be useless. The fact is that there is a very specific network structure. Each local network has projections into other local networks, which is why emotions and different sensory modalities have impacts on each other and on other "unrelated" areas of the brain.
Solar is wasteful. It takes an acre of panels to generate 1 MW and the land is used up. It takes 0.08 acres for a wind turbine, generating between 1.5 MW and 2.5 MW, and the land can still be used for grazing, etc.
I haven't been following this as closely as I should have, but I do know that Yahoo was resisting the MSFT deal in opposition to many shareholders, and sought out GOOG at least partially to avoid lawsuits. So, either the deal goes through and there's a strong force vs. MSFT or the deal doesn't go through and... IANAL, but I would assume... they have enough to avoid shareholder lawsuits (ie, we tried with GOOG and the gov't said no; why would we assume any different with MSFT?).
> Next you'll decide to rant about them meddling in pharmaceuticals by
> funding cancer research.
What does subsidizing a positive externality have to do with legislating a negative externality. They are not only completely different things, but the exact opposite approach (market vs. legislative) to government.
Where is meta-moderating when you need it...
> The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly
> understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business
What are you talking about? My consulting firm alone has done numerous "Green IT" projects with data centers being the bulk of it. Why would they pay our tier-1 rates if they considered energy use to be a "negligible cost of the business". Seriously, what are you basing this assertion on?!
Well, you'd have to ask them. And even if you got an answer, I guess that's not really the point you're trying to make, because I actually do come from a strong programming background, and I do regularly suggest improvements to their approach and contribute to their educational growth.
However, I have colleagues who do not have a programming background. In private, I don't know what their developers say about their non-programmer leads. But at least at work there doesn't seem to be any tension between them.
And, as I alluded to in a previous post, the proof is in the pudding, as it were. If there was a problem with this "blind" leading, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to execute successfully on the deeply technical and complex projects we take on. Not to be a cheerleader for my employer, but there have been numerous occasions where a client has come to us -- after having the Cibers and Accentures and even IBMs of the world say to them that a particular system is "not possible". My team just went live with such a "not possible" system in January.
I've been in your shoes. Like I said, I was a developer, and I saw no value in the "business analysts" I was working with who had no real idea what I did to implement the crazy ideas they'd spit out. But all "business analysts" are not created equal, and that has more do to with problem comprehension and creativity in solution finding than anything related to programming.
That is a very narrow view of IT. I have been out of school for 2 years and I haven't programmed except in my spare time. I'm in consultancy, and honestly if the client found out I was billing hours programming at my systems analyst billing rate, I'd have some 'splaing to do.
Erm... I have a CS degree and I don't program... ever (anymore). I design system architecture and manage the implementation. Additionally, I know a number of people in my industry who couldn't program to save their life, but who are still extremely technical and do a hell of a job with the design process and problem solving. Maybe you don't want someone like this "blindly" leading a group of programmers, but it sure does seem to work for us here in the top-tier consulting firms...
By the way, one thing my firm doesn't hire would be... programmers. We can farm that out to a lower tier consulting firm for much cheaper.
> Honestly, as a married man I don't understand why anyone would think that...
>
> My first thought was of more efficient ball bearings
Thanks. I've printed this comment out and plan to show it to my friends when they bug me about why I'm not married.
The fact that you went to the effort to put in fake information tells a good bit about yourself.
> isn't available anywhere in MA except the rich white suburbs- Boston's
> completely "dark"
Ok... no white people in Boston... we get it.
Uh oh. PGP is a terrorist tool. We better outlaw it!!! Or at least investigate anyone who uses it.
Distributed content networks are a terrorist tool. We better spend money counteracting such activity!!!
Looks like someone's been paying attention.
How do we know the WH didn't read the email?
That makes no sense. Healthy people "linger" in the "system" and drive up costs? Would that be while they are contributing to the economy (and paying taxes and for insurance) while the unhealthy people are on disability and draining insurance funds?
I really just can't see how your claim could be true.
> Surely with so many (especially young) people being 'web first' with not
> just their buying habits, but now in terms of what they do in their spare
> time, we'd expect more of them to want to get a career in it?
No, I would expect the exact opposite. What is exiting about something so commonplace in your lifestyle as the Web?
With the McDonaldization/"process standardization" of software development, it IS boring. Every kid has seen Office Space, and the real joke is that the movie's pretty realistic.
That's not to say that there aren't exciting jobs out there in IT, but unfortunately they are the minority.
If he put that much effort into studying as he was "supposed to", he'd probably be wasting his time just the same.
I hope you were just trying to be funny.
> Don't be afraid to cry "Uncle!" and hire someone on a short-term basis.
Definitely. I learned my way around Informatica by leading a team of Informatica developers and having them show me what they're doing. It was necessary in order to manage the work effectively and report upwards and set expectations appropriately, etc. but I also now know a tool that would cost thousands in training otherwise.
> Playing to your own base is one thing. Playing to the enemy by showing you're up in
> their base, stealing all their votes is quite another
Must... resist... "all your base" joke...
Oh come on. It's a friendly gesture by the IE team. It's the higher ups and the marketing people who are evil.
Ok, I had the same objection. But it learns what you select when you type 's' and alters the ordering based on that. Try it. When the first item isnt the one you want, select it, then type the same thing and select it again, then type the same thing and select it again. Notice how the ordering of the results changes and your selection gets promoted?
After 2 days of using FF3 it seems to "know" exactly what I am looking for most of the time.
When did football become the national sport of the US?
Norm: I got a plane full of people saying you threatened that stewardess.
Greg Focker: I was not threatening her. I was just trying to get my bag into the overhead storage thing...
Norm: You were acting like a maniac and you threatened her with a bomb.
Greg Focker: No, I said I didn't have a bomb.
Norm: But you said bomb.
Greg Focker: I said, "It's not like I have a bomb".
Norm: You said "Bomb" on an airplane.
Greg Focker: What's wrong with saying 'Bomb' on an airplane?
Norm: You can't say 'Bomb' on an airplane!
Greg Focker: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. You gonna arrest me? Bomb bomb bomb bomb! During the war I was a BOMBadier!
Interesting point, but consider this: Windows bad, Mac good.