Re:Isn't it just replacing television!?
on
LonelyNet
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· Score: 2
I stopped at the local deli last night to get sandwiches for my wife and I (to consume while we talked at home) and saw a young couple sitting at a table and watching TV while they ate. Were they socializing? They were out in public but not interacting with anyone, including each other.
Isn't any interaction, including email in private, better than absorption to an outside entertainment in public?
Back when I was learning the trade, and computers ran on vacuum tubes, students from the University of Michigan had to buy their own punch cards and students have always been poor. This lead to the idea that you got as much code on each line of your Fortan as possible to make your supply of cards last. This lead to some really strange code I kid you not.
Give us a 10 or 20 generations and there will little evidence of racial differences. I always wonder when I see a Star Wars or Star Trek and you see obviously African, Asian, or Causcasion.
It's not just the power to run it, it's also the waste heat problem. Early computers running on vacuum tubes (or valves) not only filled rooms but required tonnes of air condtionion to keep them cool. Also the useful life of vacuum tubes isn't all that great compaired to transistors. How many hours do you think you could keep a pre-transistor computer running before one of the hunderds (thousands) of the tubes burned out. Even if you've got a full time IBM customer engineer on site to change the tubes.
Public elections on state constitutional changes or public poles on issues can also be slanted on exactly how the proposition is worded. ie, are you in favor of the state killing people? are you in favor of punishing child killers?
Re:Errgggh!! I'm so tired...
on
Happy Odd Day!
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· Score: 1
If the first millenium stated in 1 AD then the first century stated in 1 AD. The first century was from 1 through 100 and the second century began on january 1, 101.
Bottom line: If 2000 isn't the beginning of a millenium then it isn't the beginning of a century either.
A comment on test bias. Old story about a grade school level test with two pictures, one of a man digging a hole with a spade and another of a man sitting in a chair reading a book. The task is to match the pictures with the words "Work" and "Play". The lawyer's child chose the book reader for "Work" and the digger for "Play" because the lawyer relaxed on weekends working in the garden.
I'm contracting into a development process where the developers are literally all over the world. The idea of a regular staff meeting is great and we try to use tele-conferancing and vidio-conferancing but there still seems to be a real lack of communication. The is no written over all spec and often a sense of "Not invented here." The people in XXX location promise to provide the functionality the people in YYY location must have but it always seems to be low priority and YYY keeps waiting for the new API. YYY and ZZZ share TWO independent version control systems and the people in XXX have a version control system but don't lett YYY and ZZZ in.
Management wonders why the development is slow and the final product buggy. At least they pay me by the hour.
Prices go down for a while until there is only one BIG company left and they charge pretty much what that want to. The the government steps in and regulates the utility and it all becomes pretty political.
I am an U.S.A. citizen and you would not believe the red tape necessary to me when my U.S. international company wanted me to spend six months in London on a project. (Granted this was several years ago and procedures might not be the same.) Work permit problems are not limited to the U.S. Basically everyone wants to give their citizens the advantage.
I stated programing in the vacuum tube era when a BIG IBM had 2000 words in the primary memory which was a drum (sort of a cylinder shiped disk) Worked 30 years for a big corporation and was downsized out the door when "we don't write software, we buy it."
I work under contract now and have the advantage that techincally I retired from the big corporation and have retiree health insurance and a fairly large retirement account for my eminent future.
No one wants to hire an old man in a traditional salaried job, but I guess they expect me to live long enough to finish a 6 month project.
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I stopped at the local deli last night to get sandwiches for my wife and I (to consume while we talked at home) and saw a young couple sitting at a table and watching TV while they ate. Were they socializing? They were out in public but not interacting with anyone, including each other.
Isn't any interaction, including email in private, better than absorption to an outside entertainment in public?
Back when I was learning the trade, and computers ran on vacuum tubes, students from the University of Michigan had to buy their own punch cards and students have always been poor. This lead to the idea that you got as much code on each line of your Fortan as possible to make your supply of cards last. This lead to some really strange code I kid you not.
Give us a 10 or 20 generations and there will little evidence of racial differences. I always wonder when I see a Star Wars or Star Trek and you see obviously African, Asian, or Causcasion.
It's not just the power to run it, it's also the waste heat problem. Early computers running on vacuum tubes (or valves) not only filled rooms but required tonnes of air condtionion to keep them cool. Also the useful life of vacuum tubes isn't all that great compaired to transistors. How many hours do you think you could keep a pre-transistor computer running before one of the hunderds (thousands) of the tubes burned out. Even if you've got a full time IBM customer engineer on site to change the tubes.
Public elections on state constitutional changes or public poles on issues can also be slanted on exactly how the proposition is worded. ie, are you in favor of the state killing people? are you in favor of punishing child killers?
If the first millenium stated in 1 AD then the first century stated in 1 AD. The first century was from 1 through 100 and the second century began on january 1, 101.
Bottom line: If 2000 isn't the beginning of a millenium then it isn't the beginning of a century either.
I thought that one was infra-red.
A comment on test bias. Old story about a grade school level test with two pictures, one of a man digging a hole with a spade and another of a man sitting in a chair reading a book. The task is to match the pictures with the words "Work" and "Play". The lawyer's child chose the book reader for "Work" and the digger for "Play" because the lawyer relaxed on weekends working in the garden.
I'm contracting into a development process where the developers are literally all over the world. The idea of a regular staff meeting is great and we try to use tele-conferancing and vidio-conferancing but there still seems to be a real lack of communication. The is no written over all spec and often a sense of "Not invented here." The people in XXX location promise to provide the functionality the people in YYY location must have but it always seems to be low priority and YYY keeps waiting for the new API. YYY and ZZZ share TWO independent version control systems and the people in XXX have a version control system but don't lett YYY and ZZZ in.
Management wonders why the development is slow and the final product buggy. At least they pay me by the hour.
Sorry if I am just blowing off steam.
Prices go down for a while until there is only one BIG company left and they charge pretty much what that want to. The the government steps in and regulates the utility and it all becomes pretty political.
I am an U.S.A. citizen and you would not believe the red tape necessary to me when my U.S. international company wanted me to spend six months in London on a project. (Granted this was several years ago and procedures might not be the same.) Work permit problems are not limited to the U.S. Basically everyone wants to give their citizens the advantage.
I stated programing in the vacuum tube era when a BIG IBM had 2000 words in the primary memory which was a drum (sort of a cylinder shiped disk) Worked 30 years for a big corporation and was downsized out the door when "we don't write software, we buy it."
I work under contract now and have the advantage that techincally I retired from the big corporation and have retiree health insurance and a fairly large retirement account for my eminent future.
No one wants to hire an old man in a traditional salaried job, but I guess they expect me to live long enough to finish a 6 month project.