I think a better question is "what does she want to accomplish?"
I write software for a living, but I never know what direction to go in until I have a well-defined set of goals. Learning is kind of the same beast.
A good example might be a recipe program (to go on the typical "mom"). You could start out with some simple GUI stuff, putting windows on the screen, maybe a couple simple menus and clickies. The first recipies can be hardcoded, then back it with a simple database.
I suggest installing Gentoo Linux. THAT'LL break you of the "reformat every month" bug... Hell, it took me over a month just to get the base system installed on my laptop! And I still can't get the latest kernel version to work!
you just turned drinking beer into a non-hetero activity
Let me try to understand this.
Drinking beer is a heterosexual activity because you're stupid about it?
I prefer to measure my sexuality in other terms.
beer is just beer. its not wine
Wine is just grapes and yeast. Beer is passion. Grains, malts, roast, hops, yeast, water chemistry... Nothing to be compared to some old grape juice!
I'm not going to even comment on the football or date stuff. You've made enough of a fool of yourself already.
My definitions are pretty much the same, just backward. I've always used the following general guidelines:
Geek: Smaht.
Dork: Socially inept.
Nerd: A + B.
I think the author uses a crappy definition of geek.
The definition of geek that I employ is more "technological elite" than "nose stuck in a fantasy book". In fact, with very few exceptions, I can't stand science-fiction/fantasy. I even go so far as to define the sci-fi/fantasy kids as "nerds" (shock and awe!).
Actually, my definition of geek is essentially "someone who knows a lot about a subject." For example, I fall into the following categories:
Computer Geek
Beer Geek
Football Geek
Semi-Car Geek
We're pretty sure we all know what a computer geek is, but what is, say, a beer geek? Well, if you know someone who hides his heads in his hands when someone asks "what beer do you drink?", there's a good chance he's a beer geek. If you know someone who says, "it's not a bad beer, but Burton Ales are a little too salty for me": BEER GEEK!
Your average beer drinker will say things like "Sam Adams is the best beeah evah" or possibly define the multitude of beer styles as "regular, lite, dark, and Guinness". On the other hand, a beer geek needs to determine what he's having for dinner before he makes his beer selection (and will actually send a waiter away until such a determination is made).
That is a geek.
He should inherit the earth.
Not someone who thinks "Lite" is a style of beer,
The obvious retort is the Kevin Bacon game. Sure, it's just a silly game, but it demonstrates how well-connected we really are.If I recall correctly, seven really is the average number of people between any 2 people on the planet. So-and-so knows so-and-so, who knows so-and-so.
For example, I have 4 degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon, purely by luck. I used to work with a guy whose daughter was in a movie with Charlize Theron, who was in Trapped with Kevin Bacon. I'm not some Hollywood bigshot to get the link, I just took a software job.
My point? You're more connected without the Internet than you think you are. When you get that bootleg copy of Appetite for Destruction, who knows where it's been. If it originated from outside your immediate friends and their immediate friends, the original may have ben purchased by none other than, you guessed it, Kevin Bacon!
The paradox of the whole "Evil Music Sharing" phenomenon is that you only need one person to buy one copy of an album. Singlehandedly, this could sink the music industry. But that's not what happens. Maybe just because people are too disorganized, but it doesn't happen. Millions and millions of people go out and buy the album, and rip the album, and place it within public grasp, and in turn get music from other people, who are also amongst millions who purchased said album.
And despite the fact that we can download music off the Internet bing-bang-boom-style, if you asked around, you could probably find someone who has the album, whose kid has the album, or who could borrow the album from Kevin Bacon. It's a little slower and more mechanical, but it's a sneakernet search...
It's kind of a naive question, perhaps, but is the cost of creating strong copy protection worth the savings in pirated items?
Before MP3s were Satan, I had a stereo system (hi-fi for us old folks) that could easily "rip" CDs, records, or tapes to cheap portable media (blank tapes). It didn't seem to be an issue then...
I would actually be very interested in an all-you-can-eat music subscription, provided it gave me files in the MP3 format. I have an MP3 player in my house, office, car, and person, but I don't have a Janus player anywhere!
Stop spending all your money trying to stop me from sharing stuff, just sell me stuff I want.
Heh. I remember I once gave a file a bad filename (I want to say it was., but that would overwrite.) and I had to put it in quotes... Guess the same doesn't apply to files starting in -...
Non-piracy and non-backup uses were COMPLETE ignored in this article!
Yeah, sure you can fit all the backup nerds into a Caddy, but how many busses can you fill with people who mod their Xbox for purposes OTHER than pirating or backing up games?
Personally, I have no interest in purchasing or ripping off Xbox games, but with the recent pricecut to $150, it looks like it would make a great platform for a little media center box... Easy to hook into an ethernet or wireless LAN, optional component output, digital audio output, yummy!
So how am I hurting the game industry? I'm burning Microsoft for using questionable business practices. You see, Microsoft sells them Xbox units at a loss, hoping to make up that loss in market share. So when I buy an Xbox and mod it to do something else, they've lost money on the sale of the thing without gaining the long-term value of market share or future game sales. Poor microsoft.
Having run many distributions personally, I've always found that the source-built gentoo and slackware systems seemed the most "together". Compiled distros always seemed to have the occasional thing that didn't work or didn't seem quite right. Maybe it's just that source distros are typically stick-built, so you don't have a bunch of crap floating around the system.
On the other hand, my source-oriented gentoo systems at home are kind of haphazard. The software versions are variable, packages are variable, etc. On servers, you probably want everything to be the same. That's probably easier to do using a set of Red Hat CDs. Unless you're just anal, always a possibility.
When I have a complicated problem that requires some design (which is, unfortunately, not very often), I use a very complex system which involves sketching some boxes on a whiteboard, often connecting them with vague lines. I occasionally jot some method names down next to or inside the boxes
Personally, I'm wary of any formalized system of object design (UML being the prevailing method at the moment). UML is a beast designed to design the hell out of anything that got in its path. Learning UML is roughly as complicated as learning Hebrew, with the drawback that more people actually understand Hebrew.
Most of my experience with UML and other formal object languages involve one individual scrawling archaic symbols (which may well be astrology charts) on a whiteboard whilst everyone else in the room constantly ask "what does that symbol mean?" The designer invariably explains the symbol, in as condescending a tone as possible.
I don't believe I've actually met anyone who uses formal modelling languages because it makes design easier; most seem to learn them solely for demeaning those who don't know them.
Given that the goal of these languages is to communicate design, they must be failures. Rather than simplify the communication of a design, they complicate it. Really, it makes no more sense than me using Latin for all my design notes, just to insult my barbarus coworkers. Well, that does no good.
I've found that using simple symbols such as "abstract" to denote an abstract class works just fine. Works fine for me, saves explaining what a lambda symbol means, and clearly explains its intent as an abstract class...
Spending a lot of money on a project does not make it an intellectual challenge. The winningest designs are simple plate steel wedges. The hardest part is cutting and forming the metal (and I don't consider metalworking to be one of your higher-thinking pursuits).
From my experience in robotics, the frame is the easy part. Getting it to do stuff like identify a target or not fall down the stairs, that's the hard part.
In this age of BattleBots and WarriorBots and MyBotCanKillYourBots, it's good to see robots that are actually more than a remote-control car encased in plate steel.
It's also a good lesson for all those budding nerds out there that there's more to robotics than attaching a carbide blade to Bigfoot.
Don't make a big deal about it, just keep bringing your mobile phone to work. Don't make a big deal about bringing it or not bringing it, just keep on keeping on.
Price gouging and devalued technology are two very different beasts. A few years ago, a video tape had to sell for $100 to turn a reasonable profit (in a combination of manufacturing cost and consumer interest). Nowadays, you can get them for a nickel.
HOWEVER, if all the video tape manufacturers got together and decided to continue selling tapes at $100 a pop, that would constitute price gouging. The market value of that product would be said to be artificially inflated.
The RIAA is a prime example of an organization which has been sued successfully for fixing prices artificially high. Microsoft, also, is coming under heat for taking advantage of their monopoly.
AMOS and Blitz basic on the Amiga formed a huge range of great games, but getting people learning C++ from an early age would lead to great things for the future, I'm sure.
I am not at all suggesting that the copyright holder NOT receive just compensation for use of the copyright. I believe in the copyright system. I believe that George Lucas should receive a reasonable amount of money for his work.
Copyright does not give an artist carte blanche to do whatever he wants with a work. If Lucas were to release the Star Wars trilogy with too high a price point, he would face a price gouging suit. Despite the fact that he alone holds the copyright, he still must abide by fair pricing laws.
In this light, it is not so far outside of the current scope of copyright to limit the artist's ability to disallow transliteration of a work.
Has there been any challenge to a copyright holder's ability to deny publication in a given format?
A print example is an author's refusal to allow translation of a book to a given language.
A more digital example is Lucas' refusal to release the original Star Wars movies on DVD.
It seems to me that the copyright system is designed to allow the copyright holder to receive compensation for his art, but that this system is being abused by not allowing publication in a given format.
This has obvious implications, also, in the world of digital music.
Slashdot Mirror
I write software for a living, but I never know what direction to go in until I have a well-defined set of goals. Learning is kind of the same beast.
A good example might be a recipe program (to go on the typical "mom"). You could start out with some simple GUI stuff, putting windows on the screen, maybe a couple simple menus and clickies. The first recipies can be hardcoded, then back it with a simple database.
Sure as hell beats writing Hello World programs.
I believe it's on a state-by-state basis.
Patiently awaiting Curt Schilling's comment... ;)
How does this differ in functionality from Word 2003?
This sounds like the same "definitely within the next 20 years" that STILL has me waiting for the flying car I was promised back in the 1950s.
I suggest installing Gentoo Linux. THAT'LL break you of the "reformat every month" bug... Hell, it took me over a month just to get the base system installed on my laptop! And I still can't get the latest kernel version to work!
My watch says it's April 19th, not 1st.
Drinking beer is a heterosexual activity because you're stupid about it?
I prefer to measure my sexuality in other terms. Wine is just grapes and yeast. Beer is passion. Grains, malts, roast, hops, yeast, water chemistry... Nothing to be compared to some old grape juice!
I'm not going to even comment on the football or date stuff. You've made enough of a fool of yourself already.
My definitions are pretty much the same, just backward. I've always used the following general guidelines:
Geek: Smaht.
Dork: Socially inept.
Nerd: A + B.
The definition of geek that I employ is more "technological elite" than "nose stuck in a fantasy book". In fact, with very few exceptions, I can't stand science-fiction/fantasy. I even go so far as to define the sci-fi/fantasy kids as "nerds" (shock and awe!).
Actually, my definition of geek is essentially "someone who knows a lot about a subject." For example, I fall into the following categories:
We're pretty sure we all know what a computer geek is, but what is, say, a beer geek? Well, if you know someone who hides his heads in his hands when someone asks "what beer do you drink?", there's a good chance he's a beer geek. If you know someone who says, "it's not a bad beer, but Burton Ales are a little too salty for me": BEER GEEK!
Your average beer drinker will say things like "Sam Adams is the best beeah evah" or possibly define the multitude of beer styles as "regular, lite, dark, and Guinness". On the other hand, a beer geek needs to determine what he's having for dinner before he makes his beer selection (and will actually send a waiter away until such a determination is made).
That is a geek.
He should inherit the earth.
Not someone who thinks "Lite" is a style of beer,
For example, I have 4 degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon, purely by luck. I used to work with a guy whose daughter was in a movie with Charlize Theron, who was in Trapped with Kevin Bacon. I'm not some Hollywood bigshot to get the link, I just took a software job.
My point? You're more connected without the Internet than you think you are. When you get that bootleg copy of Appetite for Destruction, who knows where it's been. If it originated from outside your immediate friends and their immediate friends, the original may have ben purchased by none other than, you guessed it, Kevin Bacon!
The paradox of the whole "Evil Music Sharing" phenomenon is that you only need one person to buy one copy of an album. Singlehandedly, this could sink the music industry. But that's not what happens. Maybe just because people are too disorganized, but it doesn't happen. Millions and millions of people go out and buy the album, and rip the album, and place it within public grasp, and in turn get music from other people, who are also amongst millions who purchased said album.
And despite the fact that we can download music off the Internet bing-bang-boom-style, if you asked around, you could probably find someone who has the album, whose kid has the album, or who could borrow the album from Kevin Bacon. It's a little slower and more mechanical, but it's a sneakernet search...
You don't need wires to be just as connected.
Before MP3s were Satan, I had a stereo system (hi-fi for us old folks) that could easily "rip" CDs, records, or tapes to cheap portable media (blank tapes). It didn't seem to be an issue then...
I would actually be very interested in an all-you-can-eat music subscription, provided it gave me files in the MP3 format. I have an MP3 player in my house, office, car, and person, but I don't have a Janus player anywhere!
Stop spending all your money trying to stop me from sharing stuff, just sell me stuff I want.
Heh. I remember I once gave a file a bad filename (I want to say it was ., but that would overwrite .) and I had to put it in quotes... Guess the same doesn't apply to files starting in -...
Yeah, sure you can fit all the backup nerds into a Caddy, but how many busses can you fill with people who mod their Xbox for purposes OTHER than pirating or backing up games?
Personally, I have no interest in purchasing or ripping off Xbox games, but with the recent pricecut to $150, it looks like it would make a great platform for a little media center box... Easy to hook into an ethernet or wireless LAN, optional component output, digital audio output, yummy!
So how am I hurting the game industry? I'm burning Microsoft for using questionable business practices. You see, Microsoft sells them Xbox units at a loss, hoping to make up that loss in market share. So when I buy an Xbox and mod it to do something else, they've lost money on the sale of the thing without gaining the long-term value of market share or future game sales. Poor microsoft.
On the other hand, my source-oriented gentoo systems at home are kind of haphazard. The software versions are variable, packages are variable, etc. On servers, you probably want everything to be the same. That's probably easier to do using a set of Red Hat CDs. Unless you're just anal, always a possibility.
Personally, I'm wary of any formalized system of object design (UML being the prevailing method at the moment). UML is a beast designed to design the hell out of anything that got in its path. Learning UML is roughly as complicated as learning Hebrew, with the drawback that more people actually understand Hebrew.
Most of my experience with UML and other formal object languages involve one individual scrawling archaic symbols (which may well be astrology charts) on a whiteboard whilst everyone else in the room constantly ask "what does that symbol mean?" The designer invariably explains the symbol, in as condescending a tone as possible.
I don't believe I've actually met anyone who uses formal modelling languages because it makes design easier; most seem to learn them solely for demeaning those who don't know them.
Given that the goal of these languages is to communicate design, they must be failures. Rather than simplify the communication of a design, they complicate it. Really, it makes no more sense than me using Latin for all my design notes, just to insult my barbarus coworkers. Well, that does no good.
I've found that using simple symbols such as "abstract" to denote an abstract class works just fine. Works fine for me, saves explaining what a lambda symbol means, and clearly explains its intent as an abstract class...
From my experience in robotics, the frame is the easy part. Getting it to do stuff like identify a target or not fall down the stairs, that's the hard part.
In this age of BattleBots and WarriorBots and MyBotCanKillYourBots, it's good to see robots that are actually more than a remote-control car encased in plate steel.
It's also a good lesson for all those budding nerds out there that there's more to robotics than attaching a carbide blade to Bigfoot.
Don't make a big deal about it, just keep bringing your mobile phone to work. Don't make a big deal about bringing it or not bringing it, just keep on keeping on.
Rules don't really apply to engineers, anyway.
HOWEVER, if all the video tape manufacturers got together and decided to continue selling tapes at $100 a pop, that would constitute price gouging. The market value of that product would be said to be artificially inflated.
The RIAA is a prime example of an organization which has been sued successfully for fixing prices artificially high. Microsoft, also, is coming under heat for taking advantage of their monopoly.
I am not at all suggesting that the copyright holder NOT receive just compensation for use of the copyright. I believe in the copyright system. I believe that George Lucas should receive a reasonable amount of money for his work.
Copyright does not give an artist carte blanche to do whatever he wants with a work. If Lucas were to release the Star Wars trilogy with too high a price point, he would face a price gouging suit. Despite the fact that he alone holds the copyright, he still must abide by fair pricing laws.
In this light, it is not so far outside of the current scope of copyright to limit the artist's ability to disallow transliteration of a work.
A print example is an author's refusal to allow translation of a book to a given language.
A more digital example is Lucas' refusal to release the original Star Wars movies on DVD.
It seems to me that the copyright system is designed to allow the copyright holder to receive compensation for his art, but that this system is being abused by not allowing publication in a given format.
This has obvious implications, also, in the world of digital music.