What?! But how can that be?! The WHO published data and mortality figures that unequivocally showed the swine flu would be more deadly than even the Spanish Flu, killing millions of people all around the globe!
Are you saying that we can't trust government organizations designed to prevent the common citizen from having to actually read statistical reports on mortality?
Er, I feel obliged to make a minor correction: the World Health Organization (WHO) is an arm of the United Nations. I myself am disinclined to call the U.N. a "government". YMMV.
Lol. I never could understand why people bought into the swine flu hysteria nonsense. If you looked at the numbers for how many people actually got sick and how many died from it, IT'S JUST THE FREAKING FLU! Jeesh. I wonder what the next fear-fad will be? I'm rooting for alien invasions.
There's flu, and then there's flu. You ever had a bad case of flu? I got it in '69. It lasted weeks. I was incapacitated to the point that I couldn't take care of myself in basic ways. I probably could have died of dehydration, as there was nobody to take care of me (my gf had it just as bad). I spent a lot of time in delirium, too crazy to get up and get myself some water. I get my flu shots regularly.
That being said, I didn't buy into the "H1N1 is DOOM", either. When it turned out that there was no vaccine around, I shrugged and figured I'd just have to take my chances. People aren't wusses for getting vaccines—just for hyperventilating every time there's a crisis on the horizon. Did you think you were going to live forever?
Vaccinations are worthwhile. It could've been much worse without the scaremongering.
It's just like any other technical work. When you screw up, everyone hears about it. When you do everything right, everyone asks "What the fuck are we paying you for if we never have any problems?" Nothing bad happened because we reacted strongly and quickly.
I don't quite follow you. The "scaremongering" was a good thing? And "nothing happened" because...why? Hyperventilation prevents influenza? Or are you saying that enough vaccine was in fact administered to provide "herd immunity" that prevented a devastating outbreak of H1N1? If so, that's the first I've heard of this news. I can't wait for the data that proves it.
well I dare to disagree that this 'pandemic' should not have been treated as such by authorities - they have to react on the advise of bodies like WHO...I suppose we not only pay to the fat cats in big pharma now but we as a society will pay the price in blood next time around when nobody will believe another this time possibly real danger - I'd say alikes of Sir Roy M. Anderson should be hanged together with his friends from GSK if this bad scenario occurs.
You know, very little of this comment makes any sense. Do you mean you disagree with the WHO's declaration of a "pandemic"? Or you support their decision despite the fact that their declaration appears to have been wrong (or, at least, unhelpful)?
I think it's downright nuts to blame the "fat cats in big pharma" because they accepted government orders for vaccines that weren't needed. What were they supposed to do, refuse the orders? What do you suppose the reaction to that would have been? Or do you think they should work for free? Do you work for free?
If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that our resources are limited, and that we really ought to cogitate before we place orders for medical services or supplies that are not essential. I suppose asking for rational decision-making in today's political/social climate is unrealistic. This will be the first culture to be killed by hypochondria.
It's time to ask whence the many predictions and fears of Doom, and why they are met with such widespread credulity. In other words, why is there so much Doom around? I don't have a definitive answer, but offer some hypotheses:
We sense that our world is in decline, but don't know exactly what's wrong. That makes us uncomfortable, so we look for objective events that are visible harbingers of the Doom we secretly expect. Better to be scythed down by a plague than some vague cultural malaise.
Doom sells media time (or clicks, or whatever). So all media have a vested interested in reporting as much Doom as often as possible.
People have somehow gotten the idea that there is a natural right to perfect safety—especially from Doom—and hold "the government" responsible whenever doomishness occurs. Government officials have no alternative but to treat every slight hint of possible difficulty as an impending Doom, and react accordingly. It's the only safe course for them, because then they can't be held responsible should some quantum of Doom (or maybe even three or four micro-Dooms) actually manifest.
The above has resulted in what might be termed a Cycle of Quasidoom during the last forty or fifty years. During this cycle, government officials, corporate CEOs, heads of charitable NGOs, ex-vice presidents and Bono have noticed that denouncing Doom enhances the power, wealth, and reputation of those who oppose it. Doom doesn't have many friends. They consequently strive to identify as many potential Dooms as possible so that they can speak vehemently against them in the strongest terms.
I'm sure this is not an exhaustive list of the causes of the Quasidoom Cycle...but you get the idea.
Several observations must be made in this context. First,
it is possible—and I hereby take credit for announcing it—that the Quasidoom Cycle will result in an actual Doom, wherein we exhaust all our resources (not to mention sanity and patience) in meeting entirely hypothetical events of low probability. Second, it is possible that someone, at some time in the future, will notice the approach of an actual wolf...I mean Doom, but be ignored amid the clamor of competing announcements.
Lastly, it cannot be ignored that the universe is inherently perverse, and that this perversity causes things to never work out like we expect them to. Ergo, expecting a bad thing to happen virtually guarantees that it will not happen. That would mean all the false predictions of the past actually have had preventive power (we could call this phenomenon preventive neurosis). The downside, should this last observation be true, is that the number of possible Dooms is probably close to infinite. Therefore, it is nearly certain that we will be doomed by something nobody expects.
I guess after 15 some odd years of trying they finally got a mac-os clone.
How so? My copy of Windows 7 looks just like Windows 2K. I didn't care for all that transparent frippery, so I just set it back to look the way I'm used to having my GUI look. Except for the Start menu—it's close, but I can't get it to go back to quite the way it was in W2K. Or did you think the GUI is the OS?
...Math intersects programming in two ways: both programs and proofs benefit from a certain logical approach that can be learned in classes like abstract algebra and advanced calculus; numerical methods for solving integrals, differential equations, and linear algebra.
The first helps with logically setting out a program. Minds are lazy; we all tend to believe "hand waving" rather than work out all the nitty gritty details. Learning mathematical proofs will help you recognize when you are hand waving and when you have really nailed things down.
I think what you're saying is that disciplined thinking is important to programming, and that successfully studying mathematics will help to discipline your thinking. I agree, and would add only that the study of mathematics is not the only path to mental discipline, nor to acquiring the kind of basic "intellectual toolkit" that is needed for this type of job. As I mentioned in another posting, I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. (I don't usually go around telling people this, but I think it's germane to the point.) One of the reasons that moved me to get this degree was the realization that I was, indeed, lazy when it came to thinking. I realized the need to train myself in rigor, and in learning how to work at thinking. (That, and I just wanted to see if I could do it.)
I think that the disrepute into which "non-scientific" academic disciplines such as Philosophy have fallen is not a good thing. Yes, we need lots of smart people who have been trained in maths...but we need logicians too. I'm not speaking here only or even primarily of the formal symbolic logics that are sometimes mistakenly taken to be the entirety of "Logic", but in general of disciplined thought, manifested in arguments, of manipulating words to analyze problems or propose insightful solutions. Correct training in analytical philosophy can be an excellent preparation for many fields—including programming. Moreover, I think that this kind of study produces a different kind of thinker than mathematical training, and that diversity is, at least in this case, a good thing.
So perhaps the original interlocutor ought to have cast his net more widely than to ask only which kind of mathematics he should study.
I got a Ph.D. in Philosophy back in '78 (am I going to have to specify that in four digits soon?), and one day when I was moaning around because I couldn't find a job with reasonable pay and even minimal dignity, a friend said to me, "go into computers, Vomact". I said something like, "huh? But I'm terrible at math!". He told me not to worry, "there's no math required, it's all logic". Overall, I've found that to be true. Basically, you need a mental tool-box to solve programming problems, and those problems have been mostly logic problems for me, so my tools worked just fine. I think that maybe studying mathematics gives you similar tools, but I've always suspected there's some kind of mathist prejudice at work in CS departments that require calculus as a prerequisite. I think they just put it on the list to act as a filter to keep people who should get an M.B.A. or something else trivial from wasting their time. But it's a filter I couldn't have passed. Luckily, there were very few formally trained programmers back in the early eighties, and someone like me could talk his way into a software job.
It's obvious, of course, that if you intend to write programs that actually use mathematics, then you'd better study math—if you're going to be a scientific programmer, for example, just as you'd better understand statistics if you want to write actuarial programs for insurance companies. In fact, depending on what kinds of software you design or write, there are a lot of things you might be called to know...and you can't know the list in advance, when you're still in school. Just be prepared to keep learning when you leave school—in fact, that's when the learning really starts.
No, I am not saying that studying maths is a bad idea or a waste of time. On more than one occasion, I've gotten essential insights into difficult programming problems that involved mathematical and geometrical understanding from mathematicians, so I'm quite prepared to respect their training. I just don't think it's a prerequisite for the job.
As others have pointed out, the article summary invites confusion by conflating computer science with programming. I dont' see why you need calculus for either, though.
I notice that the terrorists have now shifted their goal back to simply blowing up airplanes, instead of taking them over and using them as weapons. That's because this was a trick that could only work once: passengers wouldn't tolerate it today—they know they're going to die anyway, so they'll take their chances and rush the hijackers. But terrorists have been merely blowing up planes for decades (it started back in the 70s, IIRC), and public hysteria was not nearly so profound. The worst imposition I remember is being asked whether I had packed my own baggage (a dumb reflex to some terrorist who slipped a bomb into his girflriend's luggage). An exploding plane is bad, but not nearly as bad as killing thousands by running it into a skyscraper.
So where's the relief and optimism here? Surely this is progress? Shouldn't we be de-escalating the hysteria rather than screwing it up higher and higher?
So how does this technology tell the difference between a think pancake of PETN and, say, a pocket handkerchief, or any other thinnish object tucked into a pocket?
They try to root it in the scientifically plausible, yet unlikely, ideas.
Watch how fast I can make is plausable.
What if the biosphere of Pandora was deliberately manipulated at some point in the past? What if the planetary network is a designed thing, as is the ability of Pandorian life to interface with it?
Designed? Yes! By God! See how fast I unfixed that for you?
Lucas wanted to make a swashbuckling movie, he just put it in space....
Don't get me wrong: I *love* Star Wars. But this complaint that Avatar is not original ignores that noting is original.
Most really good stories are made from staple ingredients. Those ingredients are the big things: love, betrayal, the conflict between principles and selfishness, growing up, growing old, and dying. Those things are big because they are what matters to people. The art lies in how those ingredients are combined; the highest art lies in combining familiar elements in a new and surprising way. That is the only kind of originality that is possible. That's what the first Star Wars did, and it was original.
But the visuals, WOW, amazing. It was like seeing a movie for the first time again. This was the first 3d movie I've seen in a theater (well, in at least 20 years) and I'm glad it was, because the effect is amazing and this movie does it very well.
And how often do you want to repeat that experience? Do you want every movie that comes out to be 3D?
Personally, I thought the 3D was very good also. I kept shifting in my seat to get out of the way of people who seemed to be walking out of the movie screen at me. I have to agree it was a novelty. But I wouldn't want to have to wear special glasses to every movie I go to, and I think that the 3D would have been a distraction even in Avatar, had this been a better movie. I think ducking when stuff flies around in the movie is a distraction that actually reduces your immersion in the pretend-world of the movie. To the extent that the illusion draws attention to itself ("see what a great illusion I am? Take that!"), it counteracts itself.
Of course, when the movie has a terrible story-line, distractions help, and novelty is a box-office draw.
I haven't heard anyone else say this, so maybe it's just me, but this movie had an uncanny retro quality about it that reminded me of the 1970s, when all the "hippie" crap spilled over into mainstream culture. You have peace-loving noble free-living primitives who are "one with nature", worship trees that are mystically connected to the rest of the Cosmos, and engage in ceremonies that involve hand-holding in big circles around said trees. You have mechanistic Western civilization, represented by the usual cynical Evil Corporation that is shafting the natives because their Sacred Tree is somehow located above a huge deposit of Unobtainium (yes, they actually called it that in the movie). And with inexorable Hollywood logic, the good natives win, aided by the few humans who see the spiritual superiority of the blue people.
I don't know what kind of reaction the director was trying to elicit from his audience. I kept having to repress the urge to get up and shout "group hug!" (In my most insincere manner, of course.) I found the story to be hackneyed, predictable, and embarrassingly naive. I don't see how adults could have put together such a mass of treacle. Somebody called Avatar "Dances with Smurfs"—but that's being unkind to the Kevin Costner movie, which I actually liked when I first saw it (despite disagreeing with its politics).
But wait, Avatar was about the technology, wasn't it? I remember hearing that the blue people were all computer generated. And there were indeed lots of well-done special effects (unless the producers located a venue where mountains and boulders actually float). The 3D was very good—I kept trying to move over to get out of the way of people who were walking out of the screen toward me. So yes, if you want to pay to see a good display of digital cinema technology, by all means go see the movie in 3D. Just don't go with the idea that you're going to see a good movie.
I have to add something here about the way the technology was used in Avatar. I think I've probably made clear that I didn't think much of the story; however, I also thought that the movie failed in a surprising way, considering the tech-hype: it was singularly lacking in visual appeal. Let me be plain: it was ugly. Consider the "blues": I have never seen a plainer-looking collection of individuals in a movie. The blue people of both sexes were not only completely lacking in attractiveness (and in the case of female blue persons, sex appeal), they looked positively unhealthy. Perhaps it's impossible to make white teeth look good when they are set in cyanotic gums...but they all looked like they were in sore need of orthodontistry. I understand what a lot of trouble it was to record all those actors going through the motions, then substitute CG animations for the actors...but I kept thinking, Why did they bother?—why not just use real actors with some blue makeup?. OK, it would have been hard to make real actors look like they are jumping onto the backs of CGA lizards. And I suppose it would have been even harder to find a bunch of female actors so sparsely endowed that their nipples are always covered by artfully draped hair, or holy tree fibers or whatever. Heck, maybe they don't have nipples...maybe they aren't mammals. Ah, I knew I could bring this review down to issues that are of central importance to my audience...
"Just look at the US after the 11/9 attacks. The trick is to ensure that you have a leader who can listen to scientific advice and make the right decision based on that"
Err... WTF are you smoking?...
If going by the 9/11 reaction is how you measure the response by Earth's leaders, then I expect the US to respond to a potential asteroid hit on Earth by contracting some politically tied corporation to manufacture umbrellas.
Nah, I think we'll just attack Iraq again.
Seriously, I have to agree: I sincerely hope that the 9/11 reaction is not the best we can do. I also hope that getting something done will not be left to the United Nations. One would hope that a consortium of the space-capable nations would be able to get together and do something fairly fast. If China, the U.S., Russia, and the most powerful European nations act in concert to build an Orion, nobody will be able to stop it.
No, it's not obviously "out of whack". There's always odd weather about. A key part of the problem is an unfounded certainty in the existence and urgency of global warming.
I have to agree with that. I realized a long time ago that the weather is always abnormal. The proof for this is simple: first, compile a list of weather-related statements made by people. It doesn't matter what people—it could be reporters, co-workers, friends, enemies, or random strangers on the elevator—the results are remarkably invariant. Then see how many of these utterances express a complaint that it is:
Abnormally hot.
Abnormally cold.
Abnormally humid.
Abnormally dry.
Then compare this result against the number of comments made to the effect that the "weather sure is normal today". QED.
I'm an engineer, and a pilot. I *thoroughly* understand the forces involved. I could take a Cessna aircraft apart and identify the majority of the parts by name. I've worked on them repeatedly with an A & P. (aircraft mechanic) I can name all the forces working on a plane (thrust, drag, lift, gravity) and can explain the forces that hold a plane aloft. (Venturi effect)
You'd better get it right, because every time I get on a plane, I am seized by the irrational conviction that if there aren't enough people aboard who believe in the Bernoulli principle, then the plane won't fly. Even worse, we might lose a quorum at high altitudes...
Yes, it's "revolutionary". But those operational savings are bought by using "carbon composites" instead of the usual aluminum and steel construction. I'm wondering what happens when such a plane is struck by lightning. A traditional airframe forms a Faraday cage around the plane's occupants (and all those sensitive electronics and fuel); that's not going to happen if you have a non-conductive airframe. Or are the carbon composites conductive enough to do the job? —I'm asking because I really don't know, and would welcome informative answers.
I work in IT as do many here...I'm not saying that no one should be held responsible, I'm just saying that you need to know the whole story before saying who should be fired, if anyone.
I totally agree. Let's have a thorough investigation—and then fire the entire TSA.
But it's so much easier to accuse the evil hackers who created a threat to national security by exposing all this stuff than to fire cousin Billy. Plus, it's a good reason to demand more and stricter laws; and when has a government not liked that?
...but if you're Israel and one nuke would wipe your whole country out, are you really willing to bet your live and the fate of your nation that the rulers of Iran aren't that crazy? Hitler told everybody pretty much what he was going to do; nobody believed that he was really that crazy, and look what happened.
Er...you do realize that Israel has a considerable nuclear arsenal, right? And that includes submarines capable of launching nuclear-armed missiles after a strike at Israel itself. If Iran is truly threatening to "nuke" Israel, then they will stop doing so the moment they actually acquire their own nuclear capabilities—in other words, the moment when the Israelis could perceive it as a real threat. Right now, the Iranians are vulnerable to attack from either the United States or Israel, so they use aggressive rhetoric as a way to cover up their vulnerability.
Nukes are a no-edged sword; you can't use them, you can't even threaten to use them. The only thing nukes buy you is immunity from getting invaded. And since we gave the Iranians such a nice object lesson in what happens to countries that don't have nukes—I speak of Iraq—they'd be crazy not to be working on getting a nuclear capability as fast as they can.
The Iranians aren't crazy, except in the sense that everyone who opposes U.S. foreign policy is ipso facto deemed to be "crazy", I suppose. They don't want to be wiped out any more than Israel does, so they won't risk a nuclear exchange by attacking another nuclear power: nuclear weapons are a stabilizing force in geopolitics. Israel has nothing to worry about. They're still stronger than any possible combination of their enemies, and have the capability to take any invader down with them.
There is no chip array that can do all the (currently not completely specified) simulating of a cat brain at 1 kW.
You're right when you say it's not specified. In fact, it's completely mysterious to me what constitutes "simulating a brain"—whether it be that of a cat or a human. If it means that you create a "network" that somehow behaves electrically like the electrochemical brain of some biological organism, then that's completely trivial. What does this behavior mean? What makes you think that you have identified anything important about brains?
So even if that guy succeeded in making something that acts like a cat brain according to some reductionist analysis of what a cat brain "does" (do brains do anything?), he hasn't done anything significant.
Yeah, but now we have full metal jacket rounds that tumble on impact, causing a large amount of damage—just as an expanding round would. (For example, the 5.56 NATO round is designed to do that.)
Slashdot Mirror
What?! But how can that be?! The WHO published data and mortality figures that unequivocally showed the swine flu would be more deadly than even the Spanish Flu, killing millions of people all around the globe!
Are you saying that we can't trust government organizations designed to prevent the common citizen from having to actually read statistical reports on mortality?
Er, I feel obliged to make a minor correction: the World Health Organization (WHO) is an arm of the United Nations. I myself am disinclined to call the U.N. a "government". YMMV.
Lol. I never could understand why people bought into the swine flu hysteria nonsense. If you looked at the numbers for how many people actually got sick and how many died from it, IT'S JUST THE FREAKING FLU! Jeesh. I wonder what the next fear-fad will be? I'm rooting for alien invasions.
There's flu, and then there's flu. You ever had a bad case of flu? I got it in '69. It lasted weeks. I was incapacitated to the point that I couldn't take care of myself in basic ways. I probably could have died of dehydration, as there was nobody to take care of me (my gf had it just as bad). I spent a lot of time in delirium, too crazy to get up and get myself some water. I get my flu shots regularly.
That being said, I didn't buy into the "H1N1 is DOOM", either. When it turned out that there was no vaccine around, I shrugged and figured I'd just have to take my chances. People aren't wusses for getting vaccines—just for hyperventilating every time there's a crisis on the horizon. Did you think you were going to live forever?
Vaccinations are worthwhile. It could've been much worse without the scaremongering.
It's just like any other technical work. When you screw up, everyone hears about it. When you do everything right, everyone asks "What the fuck are we paying you for if we never have any problems?" Nothing bad happened because we reacted strongly and quickly.
I don't quite follow you. The "scaremongering" was a good thing? And "nothing happened" because...why? Hyperventilation prevents influenza? Or are you saying that enough vaccine was in fact administered to provide "herd immunity" that prevented a devastating outbreak of H1N1? If so, that's the first I've heard of this news. I can't wait for the data that proves it.
well I dare to disagree that this 'pandemic' should not have been treated as such by authorities - they have to react on the advise of bodies like WHO...I suppose we not only pay to the fat cats in big pharma now but we as a society will pay the price in blood next time around when nobody will believe another this time possibly real danger - I'd say alikes of Sir Roy M. Anderson should be hanged together with his friends from GSK if this bad scenario occurs.
You know, very little of this comment makes any sense. Do you mean you disagree with the WHO's declaration of a "pandemic"? Or you support their decision despite the fact that their declaration appears to have been wrong (or, at least, unhelpful)?
I think it's downright nuts to blame the "fat cats in big pharma" because they accepted government orders for vaccines that weren't needed. What were they supposed to do, refuse the orders? What do you suppose the reaction to that would have been? Or do you think they should work for free? Do you work for free?
If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that our resources are limited, and that we really ought to cogitate before we place orders for medical services or supplies that are not essential. I suppose asking for rational decision-making in today's political/social climate is unrealistic. This will be the first culture to be killed by hypochondria.
It's time to ask whence the many predictions and fears of Doom, and why they are met with such widespread credulity. In other words, why is there so much Doom around? I don't have a definitive answer, but offer some hypotheses:
I'm sure this is not an exhaustive list of the causes of the Quasidoom Cycle...but you get the idea.
Several observations must be made in this context. First, it is possible—and I hereby take credit for announcing it—that the Quasidoom Cycle will result in an actual Doom, wherein we exhaust all our resources (not to mention sanity and patience) in meeting entirely hypothetical events of low probability. Second, it is possible that someone, at some time in the future, will notice the approach of an actual wolf...I mean Doom, but be ignored amid the clamor of competing announcements.
Lastly, it cannot be ignored that the universe is inherently perverse, and that this perversity causes things to never work out like we expect them to. Ergo, expecting a bad thing to happen virtually guarantees that it will not happen. That would mean all the false predictions of the past actually have had preventive power (we could call this phenomenon preventive neurosis). The downside, should this last observation be true, is that the number of possible Dooms is probably close to infinite. Therefore, it is nearly certain that we will be doomed by something nobody expects.
I guess after 15 some odd years of trying they finally got a mac-os clone.
How so? My copy of Windows 7 looks just like Windows 2K. I didn't care for all that transparent frippery, so I just set it back to look the way I'm used to having my GUI look. Except for the Start menu—it's close, but I can't get it to go back to quite the way it was in W2K. Or did you think the GUI is the OS?
...Techies know that SP2 is the new SP1. ...
Actually, I thought Windows 7 was the new SP1—for Vista.
...Math intersects programming in two ways: both programs and proofs benefit from a certain logical approach that can be learned in classes like abstract algebra and advanced calculus; numerical methods for solving integrals, differential equations, and linear algebra. The first helps with logically setting out a program. Minds are lazy; we all tend to believe "hand waving" rather than work out all the nitty gritty details. Learning mathematical proofs will help you recognize when you are hand waving and when you have really nailed things down.
I think what you're saying is that disciplined thinking is important to programming, and that successfully studying mathematics will help to discipline your thinking. I agree, and would add only that the study of mathematics is not the only path to mental discipline, nor to acquiring the kind of basic "intellectual toolkit" that is needed for this type of job. As I mentioned in another posting, I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. (I don't usually go around telling people this, but I think it's germane to the point.) One of the reasons that moved me to get this degree was the realization that I was, indeed, lazy when it came to thinking. I realized the need to train myself in rigor, and in learning how to work at thinking. (That, and I just wanted to see if I could do it.)
I think that the disrepute into which "non-scientific" academic disciplines such as Philosophy have fallen is not a good thing. Yes, we need lots of smart people who have been trained in maths...but we need logicians too. I'm not speaking here only or even primarily of the formal symbolic logics that are sometimes mistakenly taken to be the entirety of "Logic", but in general of disciplined thought, manifested in arguments, of manipulating words to analyze problems or propose insightful solutions. Correct training in analytical philosophy can be an excellent preparation for many fields—including programming. Moreover, I think that this kind of study produces a different kind of thinker than mathematical training, and that diversity is, at least in this case, a good thing.
So perhaps the original interlocutor ought to have cast his net more widely than to ask only which kind of mathematics he should study.
I got a Ph.D. in Philosophy back in '78 (am I going to have to specify that in four digits soon?), and one day when I was moaning around because I couldn't find a job with reasonable pay and even minimal dignity, a friend said to me, "go into computers, Vomact". I said something like, "huh? But I'm terrible at math!". He told me not to worry, "there's no math required, it's all logic". Overall, I've found that to be true. Basically, you need a mental tool-box to solve programming problems, and those problems have been mostly logic problems for me, so my tools worked just fine. I think that maybe studying mathematics gives you similar tools, but I've always suspected there's some kind of mathist prejudice at work in CS departments that require calculus as a prerequisite. I think they just put it on the list to act as a filter to keep people who should get an M.B.A. or something else trivial from wasting their time. But it's a filter I couldn't have passed. Luckily, there were very few formally trained programmers back in the early eighties, and someone like me could talk his way into a software job.
It's obvious, of course, that if you intend to write programs that actually use mathematics, then you'd better study math—if you're going to be a scientific programmer, for example, just as you'd better understand statistics if you want to write actuarial programs for insurance companies. In fact, depending on what kinds of software you design or write, there are a lot of things you might be called to know...and you can't know the list in advance, when you're still in school. Just be prepared to keep learning when you leave school—in fact, that's when the learning really starts.
No, I am not saying that studying maths is a bad idea or a waste of time. On more than one occasion, I've gotten essential insights into difficult programming problems that involved mathematical and geometrical understanding from mathematicians, so I'm quite prepared to respect their training. I just don't think it's a prerequisite for the job.
As others have pointed out, the article summary invites confusion by conflating computer science with programming. I dont' see why you need calculus for either, though.
I notice that the terrorists have now shifted their goal back to simply blowing up airplanes, instead of taking them over and using them as weapons. That's because this was a trick that could only work once: passengers wouldn't tolerate it today—they know they're going to die anyway, so they'll take their chances and rush the hijackers. But terrorists have been merely blowing up planes for decades (it started back in the 70s, IIRC), and public hysteria was not nearly so profound. The worst imposition I remember is being asked whether I had packed my own baggage (a dumb reflex to some terrorist who slipped a bomb into his girflriend's luggage). An exploding plane is bad, but not nearly as bad as killing thousands by running it into a skyscraper.
So where's the relief and optimism here? Surely this is progress? Shouldn't we be de-escalating the hysteria rather than screwing it up higher and higher?
So how does this technology tell the difference between a think pancake of PETN and, say, a pocket handkerchief, or any other thinnish object tucked into a pocket?
Yeah, American Airlines claims to know "why you fly"...in my case, it's because I can't walk on water. If I can drive to it, I'll drive.
They try to root it in the scientifically plausible, yet unlikely, ideas.
Watch how fast I can make is plausable.
What if the biosphere of Pandora was deliberately manipulated at some point in the past? What if the planetary network is a designed thing, as is the ability of Pandorian life to interface with it?
Designed? Yes! By God ! See how fast I unfixed that for you?
Funny true story. StarWars is not original.
Lucas wanted to make a swashbuckling movie, he just put it in space. ...
Don't get me wrong: I *love* Star Wars. But this complaint that Avatar is not original ignores that noting is original.
Most really good stories are made from staple ingredients. Those ingredients are the big things: love, betrayal, the conflict between principles and selfishness, growing up, growing old, and dying. Those things are big because they are what matters to people. The art lies in how those ingredients are combined; the highest art lies in combining familiar elements in a new and surprising way. That is the only kind of originality that is possible. That's what the first Star Wars did, and it was original.
But the visuals, WOW, amazing. It was like seeing a movie for the first time again. This was the first 3d movie I've seen in a theater (well, in at least 20 years) and I'm glad it was, because the effect is amazing and this movie does it very well.
And how often do you want to repeat that experience? Do you want every movie that comes out to be 3D?
Personally, I thought the 3D was very good also. I kept shifting in my seat to get out of the way of people who seemed to be walking out of the movie screen at me. I have to agree it was a novelty. But I wouldn't want to have to wear special glasses to every movie I go to, and I think that the 3D would have been a distraction even in Avatar, had this been a better movie. I think ducking when stuff flies around in the movie is a distraction that actually reduces your immersion in the pretend-world of the movie. To the extent that the illusion draws attention to itself ("see what a great illusion I am? Take that!"), it counteracts itself.
Of course, when the movie has a terrible story-line, distractions help, and novelty is a box-office draw.
I haven't heard anyone else say this, so maybe it's just me, but this movie had an uncanny retro quality about it that reminded me of the 1970s, when all the "hippie" crap spilled over into mainstream culture. You have peace-loving noble free-living primitives who are "one with nature", worship trees that are mystically connected to the rest of the Cosmos, and engage in ceremonies that involve hand-holding in big circles around said trees. You have mechanistic Western civilization, represented by the usual cynical Evil Corporation that is shafting the natives because their Sacred Tree is somehow located above a huge deposit of Unobtainium (yes, they actually called it that in the movie). And with inexorable Hollywood logic, the good natives win, aided by the few humans who see the spiritual superiority of the blue people.
I don't know what kind of reaction the director was trying to elicit from his audience. I kept having to repress the urge to get up and shout "group hug!" (In my most insincere manner, of course.) I found the story to be hackneyed, predictable, and embarrassingly naive. I don't see how adults could have put together such a mass of treacle. Somebody called Avatar "Dances with Smurfs"—but that's being unkind to the Kevin Costner movie, which I actually liked when I first saw it (despite disagreeing with its politics).
But wait, Avatar was about the technology, wasn't it? I remember hearing that the blue people were all computer generated. And there were indeed lots of well-done special effects (unless the producers located a venue where mountains and boulders actually float). The 3D was very good—I kept trying to move over to get out of the way of people who were walking out of the screen toward me. So yes, if you want to pay to see a good display of digital cinema technology, by all means go see the movie in 3D. Just don't go with the idea that you're going to see a good movie.
I have to add something here about the way the technology was used in Avatar. I think I've probably made clear that I didn't think much of the story; however, I also thought that the movie failed in a surprising way, considering the tech-hype: it was singularly lacking in visual appeal. Let me be plain: it was ugly. Consider the "blues": I have never seen a plainer-looking collection of individuals in a movie. The blue people of both sexes were not only completely lacking in attractiveness (and in the case of female blue persons, sex appeal), they looked positively unhealthy. Perhaps it's impossible to make white teeth look good when they are set in cyanotic gums...but they all looked like they were in sore need of orthodontistry. I understand what a lot of trouble it was to record all those actors going through the motions, then substitute CG animations for the actors...but I kept thinking, Why did they bother?—why not just use real actors with some blue makeup?. OK, it would have been hard to make real actors look like they are jumping onto the backs of CGA lizards. And I suppose it would have been even harder to find a bunch of female actors so sparsely endowed that their nipples are always covered by artfully draped hair, or holy tree fibers or whatever. Heck, maybe they don't have nipples...maybe they aren't mammals. Ah, I knew I could bring this review down to issues that are of central importance to my audience...
"Just look at the US after the 11/9 attacks. The trick is to ensure that you have a leader who can listen to scientific advice and make the right decision based on that"
Err... WTF are you smoking? ...
If going by the 9/11 reaction is how you measure the response by Earth's leaders, then I expect the US to respond to a potential asteroid hit on Earth by contracting some politically tied corporation to manufacture umbrellas.
Nah, I think we'll just attack Iraq again.
Seriously, I have to agree: I sincerely hope that the 9/11 reaction is not the best we can do. I also hope that getting something done will not be left to the United Nations. One would hope that a consortium of the space-capable nations would be able to get together and do something fairly fast. If China, the U.S., Russia, and the most powerful European nations act in concert to build an Orion, nobody will be able to stop it.
No, it's not obviously "out of whack". There's always odd weather about. A key part of the problem is an unfounded certainty in the existence and urgency of global warming.
I have to agree with that. I realized a long time ago that the weather is always abnormal. The proof for this is simple: first, compile a list of weather-related statements made by people. It doesn't matter what people—it could be reporters, co-workers, friends, enemies, or random strangers on the elevator—the results are remarkably invariant. Then see how many of these utterances express a complaint that it is:
Then compare this result against the number of comments made to the effect that the "weather sure is normal today". QED.
Old fashioned?
I'm an engineer, and a pilot. I *thoroughly* understand the forces involved. I could take a Cessna aircraft apart and identify the majority of the parts by name. I've worked on them repeatedly with an A & P. (aircraft mechanic) I can name all the forces working on a plane (thrust, drag, lift, gravity) and can explain the forces that hold a plane aloft. (Venturi effect)
Er...I think you mean Bernoulli principle, yes?
You'd better get it right, because every time I get on a plane, I am seized by the irrational conviction that if there aren't enough people aboard who believe in the Bernoulli principle, then the plane won't fly. Even worse, we might lose a quorum at high altitudes...
Yes, it's "revolutionary". But those operational savings are bought by using "carbon composites" instead of the usual aluminum and steel construction. I'm wondering what happens when such a plane is struck by lightning. A traditional airframe forms a Faraday cage around the plane's occupants (and all those sensitive electronics and fuel); that's not going to happen if you have a non-conductive airframe. Or are the carbon composites conductive enough to do the job? —I'm asking because I really don't know, and would welcome informative answers.
I work in IT as do many here...I'm not saying that no one should be held responsible, I'm just saying that you need to know the whole story before saying who should be fired, if anyone.
I totally agree. Let's have a thorough investigation—and then fire the entire TSA.
But it's so much easier to accuse the evil hackers who created a threat to national security by exposing all this stuff than to fire cousin Billy. Plus, it's a good reason to demand more and stricter laws; and when has a government not liked that?
...but if you're Israel and one nuke would wipe your whole country out, are you really willing to bet your live and the fate of your nation that the rulers of Iran aren't that crazy? Hitler told everybody pretty much what he was going to do; nobody believed that he was really that crazy, and look what happened.
Er...you do realize that Israel has a considerable nuclear arsenal, right? And that includes submarines capable of launching nuclear-armed missiles after a strike at Israel itself. If Iran is truly threatening to "nuke" Israel, then they will stop doing so the moment they actually acquire their own nuclear capabilities—in other words, the moment when the Israelis could perceive it as a real threat. Right now, the Iranians are vulnerable to attack from either the United States or Israel, so they use aggressive rhetoric as a way to cover up their vulnerability.
Nukes are a no-edged sword; you can't use them, you can't even threaten to use them. The only thing nukes buy you is immunity from getting invaded. And since we gave the Iranians such a nice object lesson in what happens to countries that don't have nukes—I speak of Iraq—they'd be crazy not to be working on getting a nuclear capability as fast as they can.
The Iranians aren't crazy, except in the sense that everyone who opposes U.S. foreign policy is ipso facto deemed to be "crazy", I suppose. They don't want to be wiped out any more than Israel does, so they won't risk a nuclear exchange by attacking another nuclear power: nuclear weapons are a stabilizing force in geopolitics. Israel has nothing to worry about. They're still stronger than any possible combination of their enemies, and have the capability to take any invader down with them.
There is no chip array that can do all the (currently not completely specified) simulating of a cat brain at 1 kW.
You're right when you say it's not specified. In fact, it's completely mysterious to me what constitutes "simulating a brain"—whether it be that of a cat or a human. If it means that you create a "network" that somehow behaves electrically like the electrochemical brain of some biological organism, then that's completely trivial. What does this behavior mean? What makes you think that you have identified anything important about brains?
So even if that guy succeeded in making something that acts like a cat brain according to some reductionist analysis of what a cat brain "does" (do brains do anything?), he hasn't done anything significant.
Yeah, but now we have full metal jacket rounds that tumble on impact, causing a large amount of damage—just as an expanding round would. (For example, the 5.56 NATO round is designed to do that.)