I occasionally teach school and Under Grad kids math and the sciences.
It's fun, and if you charge a reasonable rate, about $15-$20 an hour, parents would much rather have you teach their kid than send them to Sylvan where it costs upwards of $40 an hour.
Just because Stallman paid a visit to the President of India and spoke to him about OS doesn't mean that he was the first person to make him aware of OS. If I remember correctly, the article of Slashdot regarding that visit mentioned clearly that the President of India was already interested in OS and was advocating its use.
Kalam was a scientist at the premier defense labs in India, which almost exclusively use Unix and variants. I'm sure he has a pretty rich experience with these Op. Systems, which would in all probability lead to his appreciation and advocating the use of Linux and Open Source models.
You obviously know nothing about the Indian caste system - it's past or it's present (ir)relevance.
You're probably just another of those Americans that automatically think "snake charmer", "elephant", "curry" and "caste system" when you hear about India.
Try and learn a little more about what you comment about before you put your ignorance on such splendid display - even if it's behind the veil of an AC.
As the ultimate test of a search engine, I entered my " (first name) (last name)" - without the brackets, of course - and the results were terrible. Google pulls up 213 results...this msn thing pulls up 5, yes FIVE.
This can be the only relevant test for me, and since the performance is so miserable, I deem it an absolute failure!
Re:Im all for a good laugh and all...
on
Spider-Man in India
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Otterpop, I appreciate your sentiment and I definitely think that railing at it because Indians have tried to change it is not a reason to criticise it.
However, as someone that grew up in India, I don't see any reason why this is necessary. It's not as if Indian kids cannot understand the cultural setting of the original Spiderman. I knew any number of kids that loved Spiderman, and Superman, Asterix, TinTin etc.
All these comics have been translated into many Indian languages, but Tintin never wore a dhoti or a sherwani or anything like that. We didn't want him to. Why would we want our fav cartoon characters to look ridiculous?
One argument for this change in character might be that only urban kids are exposed to Western culture and can appreciate it, while rural kids know nothing about it and are losing out on a fun character. This is a fallacious argument and this bastardization will only lead to a fall in standards, resulting in a drop in sales of both the original and the new versions.
I've been living in the US for the past 15 years but I grew up in India. As a child I read a lot of comics, both Indian (Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha etc) and Western (Asterix, TinTin, Superman, Spiderman etc).
I loved the Spidey comics and the cartoons on TV and enjoyed them just fine the way they were. Why the hell do people have to try and "Indian-ise" American cartoons. There is a certain context that is inherent to them which immediately becomes ridiculous in any attempt at translation.
What would be interesting is to see the development of original cartoon characters and series that are not an insult to one's intelligence. Any Indians reading this remember the horrendous Chacha Choudhary?
As an aside, Indians had some really colorful superheroes as far back as 3000BC. Read the Mahabharata and Ramayana for some mind-boggling and wonderfully entertaining action!
This is a true story (doesn't strictly classify as tech support, but hey, read on!)
I went to drop off my cable/DSL modem at the office of my previous ISP when I switched providers. Walked in, found just one portly gentleman who asked how he could help me. I told him that I came to drop their equipment off. He took a look at the stuff, put the cables and the line adaptors in a pile and gave me back the modem.
"This does not belong to us".
I checked to see if I had by chance given him my new cable modem. Nope.
"This does belong to you. I got it with the rest of the stuff".
He then gave me a polite and patronizing smile and told me "Sir, you must be mistaken. You don't need a modem for DSL. All you need to do is run a cable from the phone jack to your network card".
Epilogue: I spoke to one of their agents over the phone later and told them that I'd be more than happy to keep the modem if they didn't want it. They said he was a security guard, and doesn't know the first thing about tech.
Does anybody know of pointers to papers/research pertaining to using GPUs to perform digital signal processing for, say, real-time audio?
Replies would be much appreciated.
cos I plan to use my Gmail account to subscribe to discussion lists and not worry about saving messages I may need in the future in my "local folders".
I agree with you that philosophies that debate the existence of reality, or talk about "alternate realities" and the relative degrees of reality between them are quite frankly a waste of time.
Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has a set of very logical axioms on which the rest is constructed. You may or may not agree with EVERYTHING she says, but in my opinion her views on consciousness, reality and free-will are right on the target.
If the populations of both countries were the same, and wages, salaries etc. were the same, your arguments would hold water.
However, India has a population that is more than 3 times that of the US. Add to that, a lot of Indians are poor, much poorer than people living in poverty in the US.
Therefore, saying developers in India are doing better than here in the States, because they make 8-10 times per capita income, as opposed to 3-4 times here in the US, is over-simplistic.
In my opinion, what is really sad is that the author of the Slate article is so concerned about the names and ethnicities of the people participating. If this was a mere statistical note, one can understand, but desperately trying to fit kids into stereotypes, going by their names, is pathetic.
Whether a participant's name is Gaurav or Gary it shouldn't make an iota of difference on how a science project, or the person, is judged. The only thing that matters in a competition of this nature is MERIT.
While the author and many of her ilk are likely to be worried about whether the kids are "weirdos", what they seem to fail to understand, or want to ignore, is the fact that these kids are very good at what've they attempted to do, and have made the effort.
It's sad that most of us Americans are so quick to attach labels such as "geek" and "nerd" to talented students.
In February, I coached a fifth grader to take a series of tests pitched at the eighth grade level. These were for a course at Stanford University. The first question my friends asked me when I told them about this bright young boy was "So, is he the kind of kind everybody hates talking to?". THE FIRST QUESTION that popped into their minds was that. And I know for a fact that they are not alone in being captive to those thought processes.
The reason that Asian kids do so well in our schools is that education is placed at a premium in their homes. People encourage them to perform better at school. While it is also not true that American parents do not value education, it is definitely a fact that most of them are less likely to apply the pressure in the name of "keeping kids stress-free".
Slashdot Mirror
Come one?
A convention of funeral directors... imagine how "kvlt" that would be! (obscure black metal reference)
I occasionally teach school and Under Grad kids math and the sciences.
It's fun, and if you charge a reasonable rate, about $15-$20 an hour, parents would much rather have you teach their kid than send them to Sylvan where it costs upwards of $40 an hour.
Entertaining, but untrue. If Bill Timmins ever replied to Michael Moore's open letter, it was never made public.
Here's the proof for those that are interested.
Urban Legend:D
As you admit, your line of reasoning isn't clear.
Just because Stallman paid a visit to the President of India and spoke to him about OS doesn't mean that he was the first person to make him aware of OS. If I remember correctly, the article of Slashdot regarding that visit mentioned clearly that the President of India was already interested in OS and was advocating its use.
Kalam was a scientist at the premier defense labs in India, which almost exclusively use Unix and variants. I'm sure he has a pretty rich experience with these Op. Systems, which would in all probability lead to his appreciation and advocating the use of Linux and Open Source models.
You obviously know nothing about the Indian caste system - it's past or it's present (ir)relevance.
You're probably just another of those Americans that automatically think "snake charmer", "elephant", "curry" and "caste system" when you hear about India.
Try and learn a little more about what you comment about before you put your ignorance on such splendid display - even if it's behind the veil of an AC.
As the ultimate test of a search engine, I entered my " (first name) (last name)" - without the brackets, of course - and the results were terrible. Google pulls up 213 results...this msn thing pulls up 5, yes FIVE.
This can be the only relevant test for me, and since the performance is so miserable, I deem it an absolute failure!
Well said. Mullah Nasiruddin rocked, btw!
Otterpop, I appreciate your sentiment and I definitely think that railing at it because Indians have tried to change it is not a reason to criticise it.
However, as someone that grew up in India, I don't see any reason why this is necessary. It's not as if Indian kids cannot understand the cultural setting of the original Spiderman. I knew any number of kids that loved Spiderman, and Superman, Asterix, TinTin etc.
All these comics have been translated into many Indian languages, but Tintin never wore a dhoti or a sherwani or anything like that. We didn't want him to. Why would we want our fav cartoon characters to look ridiculous?
One argument for this change in character might be that only urban kids are exposed to Western culture and can appreciate it, while rural kids know nothing about it and are losing out on a fun character. This is a fallacious argument and this bastardization will only lead to a fall in standards, resulting in a drop in sales of both the original and the new versions.
I've been living in the US for the past 15 years but I grew up in India. As a child I read a lot of comics, both Indian (Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha etc) and Western (Asterix, TinTin, Superman, Spiderman etc).
I loved the Spidey comics and the cartoons on TV and enjoyed them just fine the way they were. Why the hell do people have to try and "Indian-ise" American cartoons. There is a certain context that is inherent to them which immediately becomes ridiculous in any attempt at translation.
What would be interesting is to see the development of original cartoon characters and series that are not an insult to one's intelligence. Any Indians reading this remember the horrendous Chacha Choudhary?
As an aside, Indians had some really colorful superheroes as far back as 3000BC. Read the Mahabharata and Ramayana for some mind-boggling and wonderfully entertaining action!
This is a true story (doesn't strictly classify as tech support, but hey, read on!)
I went to drop off my cable/DSL modem at the office of my previous ISP when I switched providers. Walked in, found just one portly gentleman who asked how he could help me. I told him that I came to drop their equipment off. He took a look at the stuff, put the cables and the line adaptors in a pile and gave me back the modem.
"This does not belong to us".
I checked to see if I had by chance given him my new cable modem. Nope.
"This does belong to you. I got it with the rest of the stuff".
He then gave me a polite and patronizing smile and told me "Sir, you must be mistaken. You don't need a modem for DSL. All you need to do is run a cable from the phone jack to your network card".
Epilogue: I spoke to one of their agents over the phone later and told them that I'd be more than happy to keep the modem if they didn't want it. They said he was a security guard, and doesn't know the first thing about tech.
Duh!
Does anybody know of pointers to papers/research pertaining to using GPUs to perform digital signal processing for, say, real-time audio? Replies would be much appreciated.
I check www.ableshoppers.com and www.slickdeals.net on a daily basis. I like the non-confusing and uncluttered interfaces of both these sites
When I tried submitting this story two days ago, linking it to a report on an Indian portal, the story was rejected.
Still, I'm glad this submission was accepted. The next thing we need is a robust audio search engine.
This may sound like a silly thing to say, but "a9" just doesn't have the ring to it that "google" does.
It sounds like one of those sites you access by typing in the IP address, and those are usually shady, heh.
Apart from the lack of the features mentioned in the posts below, the visual interface is nothing to write about either.
Keep working on it, Amazon. It'll only make the folks at Google work harder, and make it better.
cos I plan to use my Gmail account to subscribe to discussion lists and not worry about saving messages I may need in the future in my "local folders".
I agree with you that philosophies that debate the existence of reality, or talk about "alternate realities" and the relative degrees of reality between them are quite frankly a waste of time. Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has a set of very logical axioms on which the rest is constructed. You may or may not agree with EVERYTHING she says, but in my opinion her views on consciousness, reality and free-will are right on the target.
http://blameindiawatch.blogspot.com/
I used to think that Slashdot was a forum for people interested in Tech, and "news for nerds. stuff that matters".
The lot of you have however proven that you're nothing but a pathetic bunch of xenophobic whiners.
I'm glad those Indians have taken your jobs. You deserve to be jobless.
If the populations of both countries were the same, and wages, salaries etc. were the same, your arguments would hold water. However, India has a population that is more than 3 times that of the US. Add to that, a lot of Indians are poor, much poorer than people living in poverty in the US. Therefore, saying developers in India are doing better than here in the States, because they make 8-10 times per capita income, as opposed to 3-4 times here in the US, is over-simplistic.
Your reply is so typical of what I wrote about in my first post.
You equate studying hard to having no social life.
It might interest you to know that some people can balance both activities and be happy.
In my opinion, what is really sad is that the author of the Slate article is so concerned about the names and ethnicities of the people participating. If this was a mere statistical note, one can understand, but desperately trying to fit kids into stereotypes, going by their names, is pathetic.
Whether a participant's name is Gaurav or Gary it shouldn't make an iota of difference on how a science project, or the person, is judged. The only thing that matters in a competition of this nature is MERIT.
While the author and many of her ilk are likely to be worried about whether the kids are "weirdos", what they seem to fail to understand, or want to ignore, is the fact that these kids are very good at what've they attempted to do, and have made the effort.
It's sad that most of us Americans are so quick to attach labels such as "geek" and "nerd" to talented students.
In February, I coached a fifth grader to take a series of tests pitched at the eighth grade level. These were for a course at Stanford University. The first question my friends asked me when I told them about this bright young boy was "So, is he the kind of kind everybody hates talking to?". THE FIRST QUESTION that popped into their minds was that. And I know for a fact that they are not alone in being captive to those thought processes.
The reason that Asian kids do so well in our schools is that education is placed at a premium in their homes. People encourage them to perform better at school. While it is also not true that American parents do not value education, it is definitely a fact that most of them are less likely to apply the pressure in the name of "keeping kids stress-free".
Sounds like a good read. What's the name of the story, and author?
It just goes to prove that continents', cultures' or people's fortunes tend to be cyclic.