Correct! And fact checking extends even to published journal articles. Beware picking up an article in a technical or scientific journal and accepting its verity, even if it happens to be an ACM or IEEE journal - it may be outdated, incomplete or simply wrong. However, these errors are frequently in the detail and the central ideas can be trusted. I believe the same is true for wikipedia. Like all encyclopaedias, it is better in breadth than in depth and has its areas of strengths and weaknesses. I find the physics and engineering articles pretty good, but thats just me!
The fact is, if you want information accurate in all its details, you have to do some research. Research is a discipline which requires training, discipline and patience. There is no one source which gives you all the facts and pretty much all sources will give you some errors. There is no reason why wikipedia would be different
One of the lousiest decisions that they took was to sacrifice their MIPS line for the famed Itanium. They bought the Itanium story even worse than HP. The MIPS 4K and similar were one of the coolest processors on the market at that time and they ditched it for a processor which never delivered.
Amazing how this stuff happened even with experts like John Mashey running the technical side.
Amen. This one issue, conversion of equations from oo to msword and vice versa is killing all my evangelization of oo in the office. Anybody has any idea how to do this right. Currently we are saving equations in image format and inserting them into the document. Please tell me there is an easier way.
Okay, a related topic. Many of you guys here would have a similar experience - people who bring their laptops to meetings, even customer meetings and tap-tap away on those while presentations that take place. More prevalent in the US than anywhere else, but there are always a few cases in every meeting I attend. These are typically technical presentations (design reviews, test result reviews, etc.) Some people take notes, but many simply use it to check email. Yeah, I know, it is corporate email and no doubt very important - still bugs me no end. I personally never take laptops to meetings; rather I jot things down in a notebook.
The great V.S.Naipaul (with whom I disagree on numerous other issues) correctly points out that the Muslim world is submerged by Arabic culture. This denies the rich heritage of very many other cultures, who happen to share the Islamic faith but are not Arabs. For example, the Muslims in India, in Africa, in southeast asia. All of these cultures should have, by now, created their own versions of Islam, based on their own heritage; somewhat like the way Carribeans and Haitians have subsumed Christianity into their own native beliefs. If this had happened, Islam would have achieved a tremendous multi-polarity which would have promoted tolerance, open discussion and thought, instead of being converted into a kind of pan Arabism.
I fixed ADD by signing up for a course in advanced mathematics, which involved 1.5 hour long lectures. When I started out, I couldn't focus on one thing for more than 20 minutes - had to check my email. Now I can study uninterruptedly for 5-6 hours sitting in a cubicle.
Ummmm, flying any plane anywhere near these buildings is strictly forbidden (in fact, I believe it is forbidden over the whole area of central Delhi within a certain height ceiling) and there are three air force bases within 15km (one of them with Mig 29s) to shoot down any flights near the president's office or the parliament complex. I remember a case last year where a private plane strayed near the parliament complex and was forced down. Photography is also forbidden over Indian territory from a plane and the security people take violations VERY seriously.
There is no problem with replacing a $65K wage with a $30K wage, if the $30K wage gets you the same stuff, because the things you used to buy previously at inflated prices are available at half the price now. And guess why they are there at half the price now? That's right, you imported them. You also exported energy costs, pollution, and a host of other problems, the cleanup costs of which are being borne by another country.
Of course, this is not true for those things which HAVE to be procured locally, such as land. But then, from a foreigner's perspective land is value-less in the USA. Lots are in acres; where I come from, a 500 square yard lot is my retirement dream.
So here's an idea. Start reducing those service charges. Do things at home, such as haircuts, plumbing, other manual stuff. Take some time to spend with your kid's homework. Walking to the neighbourhood supermarket won't kill you, you won't need the SUV after a while. And guess what, the gas prices I pay are three times what you pay. And maybe the quality of life will improve for you guys, even at a $30K wage.
A few days back, we were evaluating a choice of Linux platforms for a customer, for the purpose of using as web-proxy agents, using a specially tuned TCP stack. One of the things we came up against was a lack of documented research on Linux stability; other than the Linux Test Project, I couldn't find any figures on the Internet, as to the MTBF of different Linux configurations; even very standard ones like Redhat. Montavista HA Linux also doesn't seem to be publicly benchmarked. Is there some source that I missed?
Do they make success more likely? I thought they
just catch risks ahead in time (as compared to
ad hoc processes), so that you can spot failure
before it hits you.
Interesting point. For one thing, designers and
other creative people are also subject to schedules and time-pressure. Vivaldi, when he was
the music teacher in an orphanage in Vienna was
required, by contract, to produce four concertos
a month. Mozart died trying to meet his schedule
for the Requiem. This also extends to the modern
day.
My experience (I was a programmer and am a programmer/design consultant by profession) is that software people lack the means to manage themselves. Most schedules that I have seen are a meaningless list of things to be completed. We are typically bad at planning for experimentation and self-training; which typically occurs on-the-job on most software processes. We rarely track what we need to learn (to complete the work) as opposed to what we need to do. James Joyce trained himself to write 'Portrait of the Artist...' over eleven years; in between he had a carefully planned program of writing short-stories, working with the Berlitz school, etc. in which he trained himself to write the kind of prose he had planned for that book. We must look at the shortage of adequate management paradigms for software development as a serious shortcoming in our own disciplines; blaming managers doesn't take us anywhere.
Well, evolution is stochastic, and there is a
probability that a species in its original condition will not need to respond to changes in the environment and can still survive. The fact that it occurs so infrequently (so few species of living fossils), helps out the theory.
It helps to admit that we don't know, only if
that leads to an open mind in looking for the
solution. Otherwise, we should just stick with
the best theory we have till someone comes up
with one that is better. And evolution does have
an answer for a lot of evolutionary riddles.
Slashdot Mirror
I hated it. One huge soulless market place ; everything is on sale. The desert is very beautiful though.
Fortress?
Wouldn't that put him in contempt of court? Would that allow the court to order his arrest?
Correct! And fact checking extends even to published journal articles. Beware picking up an article in a technical or scientific journal and accepting its verity, even if it happens to be an ACM or IEEE journal - it may be outdated, incomplete or simply wrong. However, these errors are frequently in the detail and the central ideas can be trusted. I believe the same is true for wikipedia. Like all encyclopaedias, it is better in breadth than in depth and has its areas of strengths and weaknesses. I find the physics and engineering articles pretty good, but thats just me!
The fact is, if you want information accurate in all its details, you have to do some research. Research is a discipline which requires training, discipline and patience. There is no one source which gives you all the facts and pretty much all sources will give you some errors. There is no reason why wikipedia would be different
All of the big indian vendors have at least a few staff available onsite along with the offshore setup.
It's called Faraday's cage effect.
One of the lousiest decisions that they took was to sacrifice their MIPS line for the famed Itanium. They bought the Itanium story even worse than HP. The MIPS 4K and similar were one of the coolest processors on the market at that time and they ditched it for a processor which never delivered.
Amazing how this stuff happened even with experts like John Mashey running the technical side.
Amen. This one issue, conversion of equations from oo to msword
and vice versa is killing all my evangelization of oo in the office.
Anybody has any idea how to do this right. Currently we are saving
equations in image format and inserting them into the document.
Please tell me there is an easier way.
Okay, a related topic. Many of you guys here would have a similar experience - people who bring their laptops to meetings, even customer meetings and tap-tap away on those while presentations that take place. More prevalent in the US than anywhere else, but there are always a few cases in every meeting I attend. These are typically technical presentations (design reviews, test result reviews, etc.) Some people take notes, but many simply use it to check email. Yeah, I know, it is corporate email and no doubt very important - still bugs me no end. I personally never take laptops to meetings; rather I jot things down in a notebook.
The great V.S.Naipaul (with whom I disagree on numerous other issues) correctly points out that the Muslim world is submerged by Arabic culture. This denies the rich heritage of very many other cultures, who happen to share the Islamic faith but are not Arabs. For example, the Muslims in India, in Africa, in southeast asia. All of these cultures should have, by now, created their own versions of Islam, based on their own heritage; somewhat like the way Carribeans and Haitians have subsumed Christianity into their own native beliefs. If this had happened, Islam would have achieved a tremendous multi-polarity which would have promoted tolerance, open discussion and thought, instead of being converted into a kind of pan Arabism.
I fixed ADD by signing up for a course in advanced mathematics, which involved 1.5 hour long lectures. When I started out, I couldn't focus on one thing for more than 20 minutes - had to check my email. Now I can study uninterruptedly for 5-6 hours sitting in a cubicle.
Ummmm, flying any plane anywhere near these buildings is strictly forbidden (in fact, I believe it is forbidden over the whole area of central Delhi within a certain height ceiling) and there are three air force bases within 15km (one of them with Mig 29s) to shoot down any flights near the president's office or the parliament complex. I remember a case last year where a private plane strayed near the parliament complex and was forced down. Photography is also forbidden over Indian territory from a plane and the security people take violations VERY seriously.
There is no problem with replacing a $65K wage with a $30K wage, if the $30K wage gets you the same stuff, because the things you used to buy previously at inflated prices are available at half the price now. And guess why they are there at half the price now? That's right, you imported them. You also exported energy costs, pollution, and a host of other problems, the cleanup costs of which are being borne by another country.
Of course, this is not true for those things which HAVE to be procured locally, such as land. But then, from a foreigner's perspective land is value-less in the USA. Lots are in acres; where I come from, a 500 square yard lot is my retirement dream.
So here's an idea. Start reducing those service charges. Do things at home, such as haircuts, plumbing, other manual stuff. Take some time to spend with your kid's homework. Walking to the neighbourhood supermarket won't kill you, you won't need the SUV after a while. And guess what, the gas prices I pay are three times what you pay. And maybe the quality of life will improve for you guys, even at a $30K wage.
A few days back, we were evaluating a choice of Linux platforms for a customer, for the purpose of using as web-proxy agents, using a specially tuned TCP stack. One of the things we came up against was a lack of documented research on Linux stability; other than the Linux Test Project, I couldn't find any figures on the Internet, as to the MTBF of different Linux configurations; even very standard ones like Redhat. Montavista HA Linux also doesn't seem to be publicly benchmarked. Is there some source that I missed?
Do they make success more likely? I thought they just catch risks ahead in time (as compared to ad hoc processes), so that you can spot failure before it hits you.
Interesting point. For one thing, designers and other creative people are also subject to schedules and time-pressure. Vivaldi, when he was the music teacher in an orphanage in Vienna was required, by contract, to produce four concertos a month. Mozart died trying to meet his schedule for the Requiem. This also extends to the modern day. My experience (I was a programmer and am a programmer/design consultant by profession) is that software people lack the means to manage themselves. Most schedules that I have seen are a meaningless list of things to be completed. We are typically bad at planning for experimentation and self-training; which typically occurs on-the-job on most software processes. We rarely track what we need to learn (to complete the work) as opposed to what we need to do. James Joyce trained himself to write 'Portrait of the Artist...' over eleven years; in between he had a carefully planned program of writing short-stories, working with the Berlitz school, etc. in which he trained himself to write the kind of prose he had planned for that book. We must look at the shortage of adequate management paradigms for software development as a serious shortcoming in our own disciplines; blaming managers doesn't take us anywhere.
Well, evolution is stochastic, and there is a probability that a species in its original condition will not need to respond to changes in the environment and can still survive. The fact that it occurs so infrequently (so few species of living fossils), helps out the theory. It helps to admit that we don't know, only if that leads to an open mind in looking for the solution. Otherwise, we should just stick with the best theory we have till someone comes up with one that is better. And evolution does have an answer for a lot of evolutionary riddles.
Ummmm, giving the majority unconditional control
is not democracy, it is fascism. Democracy is
nothing if minority rights are not protected.