1. ideally, a programmer involved in program development should be breaking new ground, because once a problem has been solved it shouldn't have to be solved again. It should be a matter of picking from the available solutions.
2. and you made an important distinction between research and production. IMO, the usefulness of the whole idea applies more to production programming.
This article couldn't have been more coincidental to my current project: I've been re-reading James Martin's books, "Application Development without Programmers" and "System Design from Provably Correct Constructs", with the goal of selecting a method to program mechanical devices.
Martin's thesis, and remember this was back in the 70's and early 80's, was that the program should be generated from a specification of WHAT the program was to do, rather than trying to translate faulty specifications into code telling the computer HOW to do it. (Trust me, that poor sentence does not come close to describing the clarity of purpose in Martin's books.) Martin proposes that a specification language can be rigid enough to generate provably correct programs by combining a few provably correct structures into provably correct libraries from which to derive provably correct systems.
The definition of the time, HOS (for Higher-Order Software) was actually used by a company called HOS, Inc.(!), and apparently worked pretty well. Many of the constructive ideas were included in OOP and UML, but ideally, if I understand the concept properly, it would be equivalent to generating software mostly from Use-Case analysis. There are similar approaches in MDD and MDA methodologies. I wonder what ever became of the HOS,Inc. and the HOS methods? It looks like they had a handle on round-trip software engineering in the 80's.
OK, why would this be a good thing? Well, for one thing, computational/programmable devices are prolifierating at a tremendous rate, and while we can engineer a new device in 3 to 6 months, the programs for the device take 18 months to 3 years (if they are finished at all). Hardware development has greatly outpaced software development, by some estimations a 100x diference in capacity...yet they are built on the same fundamental logic!
The best argument, IMO, is that since larger systems are logarithmically more complex, and since it is impossible to completely test even intermediately complex systems, it will require provably correct modules or objects to produce dependable systems. If the code is generated from provably correct components, then the system only has to be tested for correct outputs.
Furthermore, code generated from provably correct components can allow machinery and devices to adapt in a provably correct way by rigorously specifying the outputs and changes to the outputs.
Praxis is on a roll. The methodology employed is probably more important than the genius of the programmers. It should get better,though. The most mediocre Engineer today can produce better devices than the brilliant Engineers of 30 years ago using tested off-the-shelf components. IMO, this the direction programming should be taking.
I noticed the phrase, "safe, naturally-occurring" and "patented" in the artical. This, to me, represents the failure of our IP system. Nobody has explained to me how it right to patent something that is "naturally-occurring". To me, the discovery process, discovery tools, extraction, storage and methods of use or distribution should all be patentable, but NOT the virus itself. Anyone care to forward an argument otherwise?
Marquette is a so-called "Jesuit" university. The Jesuits are noted for good thinking and solid logic (among other things), and the Jesuit universities are supposed to produce graduates with high-quality thinking skills and strong values. (Hey, I went to a Jesuit University in Chicago for a while!) In the early 70's, academic quality took a back seat to economic factors, academic standards were reduced to meet the requirement for government subsidies and to match more clearly with the reduced expectations of the public school HS graduates of lower ability. The egalitarian attitude did not extend to the student/teacher relationship. University staff and instructors still think of the student as an annoyance necessary to get their paycheck. Colleges have a number of seats, and after the first seats are filled with the students who can pay full boat or bring in outside dollars, empty seats are sold at a discount to fill capacity and get the marginal dollars. (They call this discount a "scholarship". Sometimes they recover the full sales price of the seat by convincing someone else to pay the difference.) The public perception of the University has a direct impact on the financial success of the institution.
Interestingly enough, the "good thinkers" in this University have damaged the public perception 'way beyond what the blogger did. Now all they can save is their egos. The Dean, despite his incompetence as a thinker, decision maker and risk manager, is probably immune to termination or other consequences during the period of his contract. Under certain circumstances he may have tenure and actually be almost completely immune to termination.
Too bad.
These will be called "prisons"
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Chinese Eco-Cities
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· Score: 1, Troll
What a great social experiment! Put all your troublesome individuals and families in one "city" and if something starts getting out of hand you can threaten to close off the city unless the rest of the populace keeps everyone else in line.
Hmmmm. In Japanese feudal society, the Daimiyo's serfs were clustered in families of five. If a member of one family offended the Daimiyo, all five families were executed, so each family member watched everyone else very carefully. The Japanese still have a culture of popular co-operation and responsibility to the population, and this is thought to be one of the originating cultural artifacts.
One of the best descriptions I've seen of business management objectives came from the book, "It's not Luck" by Eli Goldratt. The goal of a business is to make money now and in the future, while meeting two necessary conditions: 1. Provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees, now and in the future. 2. Provide satisfaction to the market, now and in the future. In the book, the protagonist explains why he doesn't believe in layoffs. (Essentially, they are a sign of an ineffectively-run company, but I can't quote the whole book in this post.)
Yes and no. There are only three things that MIS does: MIS shows the compliance of the sales cycle, shows the schedule of the sales cycle, and (if used properly) can build "What if" models to develop improvements in the sales cycle. Any activities outside these are probably within the scope of "production" and contribute to completing the sales cycle.
I have seen many good IT guys get great raises by distinguishing the different functions of their IT departments. Using the approach, "Here's what it would be like (and how much it could cost) without the services I support." might show greater value for the IT employee (if he/she is actually doing the job). Keep in mind that many company execs don't have a full gestalten understanding of what their company does to earn it's keep in society.
Every good company should be a money machine. It should take resources and turn them into profit. Many small companies are not keeping a sufficient quantity of resources in the machine. I've seen numerous small IT firms (and other companies) where the working capital is 'way below ratio, and these companies grow into a culture of "cheapness". (Like the guy who's always broke, and grows into the guy who never fully pays his own way when he gets prosperous.)
If you have no idea what your efforts are contributing to the bottom line, then you have no basis for asking for a raise.
I halfway agree with you. There are a lot of ideas floating around that never get past the dreaming stage. The Xanadu project, on the other hand, is clearly (OK, maybe not so clearly.) engaged in developing a prototype approximating the vision. I couldn't work for this project simply because I require simple, clear goals. On the other hand, I really think the project has merit.
Aside from the web browser limitation, some other projects I'd like to see integrated would be Croquet and some of the semantic web stuff that Ted seems to disdain. Of course, I'd like to see the whole ontology automatically mapped using some sort of AI, but that's next generation computer resource allocation. Yup, ideas are pretty common, action is pretty rare.
Better to evaluate the ideas than dismiss them with an ad hominem argument. (Oh, wait! They don't teach Rhetoric in college anymore! Only a few young whipersnappers may know what "ad hominem" is! The rest are playing "Doom" or watching TV.)
Ted may be flakey in the same way R. Buckminster Fuller was flakey.
You are right, of course. I chose the wrong words to make my point and should have said "Art degree instead". One of the top mathematicians at the Universtiy of Minnesota (Pedoe), teaching a class in Non-Euclidian Geometry, used to tell his class,"Come on! You are taking this class through Liberal Arts! You are supposed to be the thinkers!"
I used to tutor Juniors, Seniors and Grad students in Physics and Math (and I was a High-School dropout!). Over 90% of the time they had problems because they didn't do the work. I'm not denigrating Art as a field, but it's tragic that someone with a desire for technological accomplishment has to settle for a basket-weaving degree because they'd rather party than study. It's even MORE tragic that so many students with pretty good brainpower have to limit their choices to less technical degrees simply because their earlier schooling was inadequate preparation for Science and Technology.
You bring up some good points. My responses are: I don't use the term "yellow peril" because it is racist, and lacks useful information needed to balance the situation.
The "gangbanger cliche" is interesting. I don't have enough hard data to form an opinion on it's usefulness. For something to be a trend, it must have political, social and economic consequenses. Obviously there is some of that here, but the system produces it's own resistance.
True, China is behind the US in development and manufacturing at this time, but they are improving many times more rapidly than the US. Japan suffers from some of the same problems as any government based on "planned economy" but that doesn't mean they won't adapt. They have made great strides in the last few years. And you are correct in that over all, Japan has less original thought (innovation) than other countries. That is changing also. What they have learned from continuous improvement is being applied to research and innovation.
And yes, the US is currently the World's largest polluter. However, manufacturing plants built in developing countries are less environmental friendly than new plants built in the US, but it seems that if you measured pollutants by square foot of manufacturing capacity and factored in tons of output, the US pollutres less. True, some of these plants are built by American corporations, sometimes for the purpose of by-passing US environmental regulations. However, this is NOT the case in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea or Singapore. These areas are heading toward major environmental disaster on their own.
One of my new heros, William McDonnough, says,"Regulation is a by-product of poor design" and "true enviromentally friendly design makes good economic sense." I hope more people adopt his values.
Interesting point about the Fifth-generation computer, but the results are not all in yet. The same research that Fujitsu and others did for the 5GL computer systems are now showing up in automated systems everywhere. They were shared freely and widely among the other members of the keiretsu, and these memebers built on that research. Furthermore, the improvements made in that research are being uploaded to the remnants of the 5GL project and being redistributed. Any American technology patents have been plundered for their useful elements and the USE of potential processes has already been patented in Japan, so American business will not have any market there.
The government subsidizes "useless" and "unprofitable" research on behalf of the keiretsu. (We do a little of that here in the US, too, but not to the same extent.) The government also subsidizes start up costs for high-cost industries. If the 5GL project needs to make new chips, the Japanes government will subsidize a fully modern chip-making facility. I suppose it is only incidental that in the absence of any chips needed for the 5GL project, the facility is being used to make cheap chips for Hitachi and Fujitsu.
Dismissing a potentially bad situation by tagging it with a cute name like "yellow peril" doesn't dismiss the reality. You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans work under a different set of moral and ethical rules from the US. If Chirstopher Warren had read the book, "The Asian Mind Game" he would have been less likely to give the game away. (This is not the only book to read on the subject, but it is highly accessible information.)
As for the US being capable of building an SST: It requires knowledge, know-how and motivation. If one of the criteria is an economic boundary, and if we don't have the ability to do it within that economic boundary, then we are simply not capable of doing it. However, many of our products were not economical to start with and only became that way after years of improvement. The Japanese started off after WWII with NOTHING (pictures show them bombed to rubble), and they used equipment that was not economical by US standards to get the know-how and technology to develop economical means of producing the products. They used worn-out manufacturing equipment from Europe and the US, applied lots of manpower and took over small things like lightbulb fixtures and lamps and simple electric appliances like irons, then moved into higher tech stuff like radios and black and white TV's. By ceding these industries to the Japanese we lost much valuable research and know-how, and now we can't compete. The Japanese and Chinese are continually engaged in what we in the US call "illegal industrial espionage" and it is simply a strategy of war as applied to business for them.
Our top students don't rank among the top 10 in the world, and I've interviewed high-school grads and college students whose math was so bad they couldn't operate a cash register. See John Taylor Gatto, "The Underground History of American Education" for some interesting insights on that situation.
The Japanese won't care if their SST damages the ozone layer anymore than they care that their logging is destroying Indonesia and Brazil. The only advantage to them for environmental concern is that it gives them an economic advantage over the US. The Chinese are even worse.
Actually, I expect a lot of nations to be mining the moon, particularly when the orbital manufacturing plants need raw materials. It will mostly be mined by Japanese and Chinese robots because the US will not have the technology.
US students and workers seldom work as hard or as purposefully as Orientals in our country. I know dozens of Chinese and Koreans who make what I would call unreasonable compromises in order to conserver their capital. A Vietnamese immigrant to Houston and his wife earned pitiful pay and lived in the back of their cousin's pastry shop for 3 years to earn the down payment to buy it. Then they lived there for another year to finish paying it off. (They are millionaires now.) One of the most successful computer chains in town is owned by a Korean couple who started off building computers in their apartment kitchen, and up 'til a couple of years ago they were housing 12 family menmbers in a 3-room house. During the winter they would all live in the living room and kitchen to keep expenses down. (Millionaires again.) My ex-girlfriend's family came from Hong Kong where credit was mostly non-existent. They buy stuff with cash (including their home), only buy the minimum and save every cent they can for capital investment. After the girfriend got out of the US Army, she took 22 hours per semester and graduated in 2 years and 8 months, plus she worked 22 hours per week at HEB as a grocery cashier. Her first job as a programmer paid her only 30K per year, and she saved over half of it. At 26 years old she had $75,000 in cash and investments. This is not exceptional; I met dozens of Hong Kong immigrants and they all had the same behavior. The best thing that's happening for the US is that we are exporting our laziness and spending habits to Japan, China and Korea. If we are successful they will become Americanized before they have a chance to completely dominate us economically.
Well, after years of educating the world, giving away our technology to the Orient and producing lawyers (50% of the world's lawyers!) instead of scientists and engineers, we are no longer capable of leading the world in tech innovations. Get used to it: Japan and China will own the major technological innovations and discoveries 25 years from now. All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation. Whine if you want, but we are at war with Japan and China (economically) and most USA Citizens can't even understand the issues. It took us 10 years to get to the moon in the 60's, we are estimating 12-14 years to do it today, and I bet it takes longer than that. Japan will be mining the moon for essential minerals before we ever get there again. We don't have anyone in the US capable of develping an SST.
Here's the other thing: If we did develop an SST before Japan, they would not let us land it in Japan. They would hold us up through safety inspections and paperwork, and finally, the only SST allowed to make trips to Tokyo would be the Japanese-sponsered version. If you think the US Patent process is obstructive to innovation and economic progress, you should compare it to Japan's patent system, which is ruinous to all but Japanese businesses.
I would suggest reading, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-Ning Chu, but it would be more productive for folks to read a few science and engineering texts and get to work!
Any flexible, extendable application will have some errors because of the multiple interfaces and the complexity of the system itself. Some of those errors will affect security. My argument for Mozilla/Firefox is that it is more secure at this time. My argument against M/F is that in most cases, the problems are being patched rather than designed out more quickly. Sooner or later the maintenance on the holes is going to be so massive a task that it will nearly be impossible to fix. I've been watching the boards, but it looks like a redesign is 'way overdue.
Someone should be classifying ALL the vulnerabilitites found in FF over the last 18 months, and a team should start examining the code that was stable at that time. Then, they should ask: "If we knew these vulnerabilities were going to crop up what major design changes would we have made to clean them up upstream?" Most of the vulnerabilities will fall into a few common, recurring patterns, and those can be designed against. I know this is not a popular OSS practice, but something like this will help the app evolve more securely.
I've been thinking about this for years, in a minor way off and on, and I'm still waiting for someone to invent a good feedback system for hearing level. If the music can be heard clearly at 80-85db, thenit is probably safe, right? However, all the studies I've seen measure db in the environment, not the energy approaching the ear. And if you're wearing earphones, how do you prevent hearing loss when you don't know what you are delivering to your ear?
Reactive noise-cancelling earphones would seem to be a good idea, especially if they can reduce the ambient noise to 50 or 60db and alow music to be heard at less than 85db. In fact, without music, I would be relieved sometimes to have noise-cancelling headphones to simply provide some near-silence. It would be a worthy project for competent technicians to come up with an inexpensive (less than $20) noise-cancelling headphone with signal contrast (outside noise less than 50db to inside noise less than 85db), easy equalization, and galvanic skin response sensors to indicate when the music was causing discomfort. (GSR might not be sufficient. Many recent studies showed that the type of music listened to can produce a variety of emotional and chemical responses ranging from peaceful, healthy, joyful to irritated, angry and unhealthy. Here's a a different question: If you knew loud rap and metallic rock were as bad for your system over the long run as cigarettes, would you quit listening to it?) An article written in layman's terms with good references can be found here: http://www.headwize.com/articles/hearing_art.htm.
Although the general consensus is that much hearing loss is irrepairable, I have heard rumors of people recovering some hearing ability by listening to specific music. (I think I first saw this in a book called "Superlearning 2000", and have heard subjective reports since then, but I haven't noticed any scientific papers.) Also, if high-frequency loss is a problem to you, I've heard good things about Echophone.
Right you are! Which is why I used the WAMP installer. Then I had to upgrade Apache from 2.0.53 to 2.0.54, and (like you said) the installer made it VERY easy to install to the different directory. Now I need to upgrade to the latest release of php to fix the problems I've encountered with Windows not handling dates prior to 1970, and I'm not feeling so optimistic...
It's can be a real problem to set up Apache on Windows. The configuration is time-consuming and error-prone, and gets worse if you want to support MySQL and php. There are a couple of WAMP aggregations out there (Apache2Triad is the one I used last.) and I would suggest using those. Keep in mind that updating your WAMP installation can still be a problem.
OK, we've finally agreed on something: We both know how chlorine reacts to other chemicals. Now we are where the debate goes on with other knowledgeable scientists. I have no stake in being right on this, so I'm just going to wait until I see some proof that satisfies me. There may be a couple thousand people in the world who are the "experts" in this area, and I'm not one of them. I am, however one of the 5-7% who have a background and ability sufficient to follow the reasoning behind the claims for the "cause" of the "hole in the ozone". The cause must be both necessary and sufficient for the effect, but it must also be empirically proved before I will accept it. What I've seen so far fails both criteria, so I'll just wait before I form a conclusion. After all, it's not necessary for me to have a conclusion on everything. In order to bring a conclusion to this interesting discussion, I will agree to have my subject line ammended to "Incomplete Science, insufficient thinking".
I have read Buber, but not for years. (Required reading at one of the Universities I went to in the early 70's.) I've read Korzibsky twice (and some of his other writings besides) because I think it has practical applications. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to compose my statements in E-prime, but it wasn't all that important to me. You sond like you have an opion based on more than headlines and summaries (which wasn't the case in your first reply), and I'll just let you have your conclusions. After all, they MAY be right...
Sorry, but I don't agree with you. Science is never complete, and scientific conclusions are sometimes wrong. While the Nobel Prize is is one of the most credible awards in Science, it is not, itself, Science, and other Nobel Prize winners have seen their conclusions superceded or refuted by subsequent research. (Some of them have been pilloried even when they were right: Witness B. F. Skinner.) When I say debate, I mean scientific debate, not political debate. Politics is sometimes defined as the vying for scarce resources, while science is defined as the discovery of knowledge. The debate is more on what's right than who's right. The discussion and research over the "hole in the ozone" is far from over, and may, in fact, have just started. (Certainly there will be many papers written to "piggyback" on the most popular politically correct conclusions, whether the thinking is right or not. Witness all the dissension in the field of nutrition. Grants and academic position are "scarce resources" and subject to political influences.) The questions are not all answered simply because someone wins a prize.
If you are trying to tell me that a chlorine atom is different simply because it broke off from a naturally occuring molecule rather than a man-made molecule, I will have to strongly disagree. At this time there is not a sufficient amount of empirical evidence to support the claim that the majority of the chlorine in the troposphere is composed of chlorine from man-made sources.
If you want to try thinking on your own instead of accepting everything handed to you, try reading, "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski, or, if that's too much for you, "Taming your Mind", by Ken Keyes. The scientific arguments for man-made sources of chlorine as the major "cause" of the ozone hole lack sufficiency in both Aristotelian and Non-Aristotelian metas. Read the research, not the summaries.
BTW, the instability of naturally occurring chlorine compunds in the upper atmosphere is an argument FOR the possibility of naturally occurring chlorine being the most significant chlorine source.
Dude! Trivial, sophomoric and incomplete articles all over the place! If I wanted to read "science" articles aimed at grade school students, I'd read something more like this: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/ozone.htm
Now this article, from the Universtiy of Michigan, no less, admits that naturally occurring chlorine is a threat to the the ozone layer. However it claims that naturally occurring chlorine only accounts for about 15% of the damage, yet doesn't say WHY that would be true. The diagram clearly shows that chlorine is the single element that "ping-pong's" (so to speak) between individual atoms and compound binding with ozone. The associated atoms such as flourine are only necessary (I'm using that word sarcastically) to provide a molecule for chlorine to get knocked out of so it can be free to associate with the ozone. If chlorine is the culprit element, and there are many millions of times as much naturally occurring chlorine than ever used to produce HFC's/CFC's, why is it more likely that the rare, heavy chemical is supposed to be the more likely cause? Most of the public literature is as loose and deficient as this one.
I do read the literature. I'm not a chemical researcher nor an atmospheric physicist, but I've been following both sides of the debate for a number of years now. I actually subscribe to a couple of lists that are devoted to sharing info and argument on this "ozone" problem. Molina and Sherwood are exemplary scientists, but I think we are possibly seeing a political bias on the part of so-called independent science. While I think there MAY be a connection between ozone depletion and HFC's/CFC's, I reserve the right to doubt the conclusion until my criteria are met: Explanations for "How does it get up there in quantities able to cause massive damage?"(with empirical proof that it does), "What are the actual proportions of CFC-produced chlorine to naturally occurring chlorine?" and (perhaps answered by explanation number two) "Why doesn't multi-million-fold greater quantities of naturally occurring chlorine produce a greater effect than HFC's/CFC's?"
BTW, are you in high-school or junior high maybe? Who else would think that Google is a sufficient resource on scientific research?
There is no doubt that the so-called "ozone hole" (a thinning of the ozone layer above the South Pole)changes in size and density. What is at issue is the cause.
Because experiments show that chlorine destroys ozone, and HFC's (Halogenated Fleurocarbons) contain chlorine, we have banned HFC's. However, no one has directly linked the chlorine in HFC's to the destruction of the ozone layer. Chlorine is available from many sources. For instance, the evaporation of seawater from the oceans EACH YEAR emit chlorine in quantities millions of times greater than the total amount of chlorine ever used to produce HFC's. The same is true of volcanic activity. The same is true of biomass decomposition.
I don't believe anyone has even tried to distinguish the sources of chlorine in the Troposphere. How do you tell one molecule of chlorine from another?
Nor has anyone clearly illustrated why HFC's are even the most likely culprit: HFC's are much heavier than air, and unless aerosolized and agitated, they tend to sink rather than float. (You can pour Freon into a glass and it will sit there for years. I knew a guy who did that.) We need to SHOW how HFC's get to the Troposphere before we can identify them a part of the cause. Many theories ahve been put forth as to how they get up there, but most of them are speculation and very incomplete. Oh, yeah, HFC's do NOT easily decompose. Why do we think they would decompose before sinking back to earth if they ever did get up there?
Furthermore, one book (slightly biased) called, The Holes in the Ozone Scare" by Robert Maduro, et al., have some cool graphs showing that the conclusion of a trend of growing ozone thinning was based on statistics taken from only a dozen years, and if you took other 12-year samples you could conclude that the hole was becoming smaller or even making no significant change. The length of time we have been keeping statistics is not long enough to determine whether this is a natural variation or influenced by man.
The hypotheses lacks credible correlation and proof. I think politicians went along with the theory just to mollify the French.
Now Global Warming is under the same political pressures as the Ozone Hole hypotheses. There is no doubt that mankind affects weather and climate, the question is: how much can does man really contribute and how, and what can be logically ascribed to Mother Nature's own variations.
This is really pretty good news. I noticed that there was distinct difference in some episodes I liked, and realized that they were written to emphsize the "people" problems and psychological adjustments of the characters rather than just the technology or new worlds/experiences aspects. Then I noticed that these episodes were almost always written by Dorothy (D. C.) Fontana. She also contributed some of the absolute best episodes of "Police Woman" with Angie Dickenson. If Walter and D.C. are enthused about this project, I look forward to seeing it.
Some friends and I were complaining about some of the same things I hear in this thread, about poor audiences, high prices, etc., and we thought we'd buy a theater and start a "Theater Club". Imagine my surprise when I found out that a 6-theater complex had a $75 - $80,0000/mo. air conditioning bill. (Houston, Texas yearly average). Basically, when we figured it all out, it would take about $300,000/mo. just to operate the thing, if we could even find a ditributer for films. (Highest expense: Movies distributed cost based on the number of seats in the theater.) I'm not surprised that theater prices are high, and I'm not surprised that theater managers will take money from anyone coming in the door.
Given that these problems will not go away by themselves, what are the solutions? (I agree with William McDonough (http://www.mcdonough.com/) that regulation is a result of poor design.) There is a huge fortune to be made by the designer who resolves these problems and makes theater-going a pleasant experience again. (I usually see 3 or 4 movies a week, but I usually go in the afternoon early when there aren't any kids or crowds. Summer is a bummer for movie goers like me.) I know there are places in Japan that have counter-frequency generators that kill cell and pager transmission. That would be a good start. perhaps if each seat was provided with individual noise-cancelling headphones, that would also help (and, yes, I know that brings up other problems of hygiene, etc, but that's where solving those problems brings in the fortune. Legitimately patentable solutions.)
Of course, maybe we could change society? I have a friend who is a cameraman for Fox Sports, and he described a goodwill game between the Astros and a Japanese team a few years ago. All the players were applauded when they came on the field. All the players were applauded for good plays. Players bowed to the crowd to acknowledge the applause. When the game was over, all the spectators stood up and applauded the teams. Then they sat back down, and rose one row at a time to file out of the stadium in an orderly fashion. And they took their trash with them!
I agree with the idea that programming is a problem-solving tool and a way of thinking. Students need to be taught to organize their system of problem solving to achieve objectives through scientific thinking.
I strongly suggest teaching 4 languages at once: Teach assembly to teach how the system works using structured problems, allow them to figure out how to solve the same problem sets in C (because it's closely associated with asssembly), then allow them to solve the same problem set in a structured language like Pascal or Modula 4, then let them solve the same problem set in a real Object-Oriented language like Smalltalk or Ruby.
The problem set should consist of common everyday tasks first. Like basic arithmetic, drawing shapes moving shapes across the screen, mazes, text, string, and file mainipulation (including sorting),building an interface, building accessories to the interface (like buttons and static controls) then building dynamic interfaces like forms, drop-down boxes, and whatever.
Concentrate on the multiple ways of organizing the task for a solution (like decision tables and flowcharts for assembly, pseudocode and entity diagrams for structured programming, Use Case and UML for OOP) and you will keep them challenged for a good two semester's work.
Any idiot can learn the syntax to a language in about 2 -3 weeks (the University of Oregon at eugene used to have students learn a different language every week!), but that won't make them good programmers.
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Excellent point! I agree with you on two counts:
1. ideally, a programmer involved in program development should be breaking new ground, because once a problem has been solved it shouldn't have to be solved again. It should be a matter of picking from the available solutions.
2. and you made an important distinction between research and production. IMO, the usefulness of the whole idea applies more to production programming.
This article couldn't have been more coincidental to my current project: I've been re-reading James Martin's books, "Application Development without Programmers" and "System Design from Provably Correct Constructs", with the goal of selecting a method to program mechanical devices.
Martin's thesis, and remember this was back in the 70's and early 80's, was that the program should be generated from a specification of WHAT the program was to do, rather than trying to translate faulty specifications into code telling the computer HOW to do it. (Trust me, that poor sentence does not come close to describing the clarity of purpose in Martin's books.) Martin proposes that a specification language can be rigid enough to generate provably correct programs by combining a few provably correct structures into provably correct libraries from which to derive provably correct systems.
The definition of the time, HOS (for Higher-Order Software) was actually used by a company called HOS, Inc.(!), and apparently worked pretty well. Many of the constructive ideas were included in OOP and UML, but ideally, if I understand the concept properly, it would be equivalent to generating software mostly from Use-Case analysis. There are similar approaches in MDD and MDA methodologies. I wonder what ever became of the HOS,Inc. and the HOS methods? It looks like they had a handle on round-trip software engineering in the 80's.
OK, why would this be a good thing? Well, for one thing, computational/programmable devices are prolifierating at a tremendous rate, and while we can engineer a new device in 3 to 6 months, the programs for the device take 18 months to 3 years (if they are finished at all). Hardware development has greatly outpaced software development, by some estimations a 100x diference in capacity...yet they are built on the same fundamental logic!
The best argument, IMO, is that since larger systems are logarithmically more complex, and since it is impossible to completely test even intermediately complex systems, it will require provably correct modules or objects to produce dependable systems. If the code is generated from provably correct components, then the system only has to be tested for correct outputs.
Furthermore, code generated from provably correct components can allow machinery and devices to adapt in a provably correct way by rigorously specifying the outputs and changes to the outputs.
Praxis is on a roll. The methodology employed is probably more important than the genius of the programmers. It should get better,though. The most mediocre Engineer today can produce better devices than the brilliant Engineers of 30 years ago using tested off-the-shelf components. IMO, this the direction programming should be taking.
I noticed the phrase, "safe, naturally-occurring" and "patented" in the artical. This, to me, represents the failure of our IP system. Nobody has explained to me how it right to patent something that is "naturally-occurring". To me, the discovery process, discovery tools, extraction, storage and methods of use or distribution should all be patentable, but NOT the virus itself. Anyone care to forward an argument otherwise?
Marquette is a so-called "Jesuit" university. The Jesuits are noted for good thinking and solid logic (among other things), and the Jesuit universities are supposed to produce graduates with high-quality thinking skills and strong values. (Hey, I went to a Jesuit University in Chicago for a while!) In the early 70's, academic quality took a back seat to economic factors, academic standards were reduced to meet the requirement for government subsidies and to match more clearly with the reduced expectations of the public school HS graduates of lower ability. The egalitarian attitude did not extend to the student/teacher relationship. University staff and instructors still think of the student as an annoyance necessary to get their paycheck. Colleges have a number of seats, and after the first seats are filled with the students who can pay full boat or bring in outside dollars, empty seats are sold at a discount to fill capacity and get the marginal dollars. (They call this discount a "scholarship". Sometimes they recover the full sales price of the seat by convincing someone else to pay the difference.) The public perception of the University has a direct impact on the financial success of the institution.
Interestingly enough, the "good thinkers" in this University have damaged the public perception 'way beyond what the blogger did. Now all they can save is their egos. The Dean, despite his incompetence as a thinker, decision maker and risk manager, is probably immune to termination or other consequences during the period of his contract. Under certain circumstances he may have tenure and actually be almost completely immune to termination.
Too bad.
What a great social experiment! Put all your troublesome individuals and families in one "city" and if something starts getting out of hand you can threaten to close off the city unless the rest of the populace keeps everyone else in line.
Hmmmm. In Japanese feudal society, the Daimiyo's serfs were clustered in families of five. If a member of one family offended the Daimiyo, all five families were executed, so each family member watched everyone else very carefully. The Japanese still have a culture of popular co-operation and responsibility to the population, and this is thought to be one of the originating cultural artifacts.
One of the best descriptions I've seen of business management objectives came from the book, "It's not Luck" by Eli Goldratt. The goal of a business is to make money now and in the future, while meeting two necessary conditions: 1. Provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees, now and in the future. 2. Provide satisfaction to the market, now and in the future. In the book, the protagonist explains why he doesn't believe in layoffs. (Essentially, they are a sign of an ineffectively-run company, but I can't quote the whole book in this post.)
See: http://www.goldratt.com/
Mike
Yes and no. There are only three things that MIS does: MIS shows the compliance of the sales cycle, shows the schedule of the sales cycle, and (if used properly) can build "What if" models to develop improvements in the sales cycle. Any activities outside these are probably within the scope of "production" and contribute to completing the sales cycle.
I have seen many good IT guys get great raises by distinguishing the different functions of their IT departments. Using the approach, "Here's what it would be like (and how much it could cost) without the services I support." might show greater value for the IT employee (if he/she is actually doing the job). Keep in mind that many company execs don't have a full gestalten understanding of what their company does to earn it's keep in society.
Every good company should be a money machine. It should take resources and turn them into profit. Many small companies are not keeping a sufficient quantity of resources in the machine. I've seen numerous small IT firms (and other companies) where the working capital is 'way below ratio, and these companies grow into a culture of "cheapness". (Like the guy who's always broke, and grows into the guy who never fully pays his own way when he gets prosperous.)
If you have no idea what your efforts are contributing to the bottom line, then you have no basis for asking for a raise.
Mike
I halfway agree with you. There are a lot of ideas floating around that never get past the dreaming stage. The Xanadu project, on the other hand, is clearly (OK, maybe not so clearly.) engaged in developing a prototype approximating the vision. I couldn't work for this project simply because I require simple, clear goals. On the other hand, I really think the project has merit.
Aside from the web browser limitation, some other projects I'd like to see integrated would be Croquet and some of the semantic web stuff that Ted seems to disdain. Of course, I'd like to see the whole ontology automatically mapped using some sort of AI, but that's next generation computer resource allocation. Yup, ideas are pretty common, action is pretty rare.
Mike
Better to evaluate the ideas than dismiss them with an ad hominem argument. (Oh, wait! They don't teach Rhetoric in college anymore! Only a few young whipersnappers may know what "ad hominem" is! The rest are playing "Doom" or watching TV.)
Ted may be flakey in the same way R. Buckminster Fuller was flakey.
Mike Burke
You are right, of course. I chose the wrong words to make my point and should have said "Art degree instead". One of the top mathematicians at the Universtiy of Minnesota (Pedoe), teaching a class in Non-Euclidian Geometry, used to tell his class,"Come on! You are taking this class through Liberal Arts! You are supposed to be the thinkers!"
I used to tutor Juniors, Seniors and Grad students in Physics and Math (and I was a High-School dropout!). Over 90% of the time they had problems because they didn't do the work. I'm not denigrating Art as a field, but it's tragic that someone with a desire for technological accomplishment has to settle for a basket-weaving degree because they'd rather party than study. It's even MORE tragic that so many students with pretty good brainpower have to limit their choices to less technical degrees simply because their earlier schooling was inadequate preparation for Science and Technology.
You bring up some good points. My responses are: I don't use the term "yellow peril" because it is racist, and lacks useful information needed to balance the situation.
The "gangbanger cliche" is interesting. I don't have enough hard data to form an opinion on it's usefulness. For something to be a trend, it must have political, social and economic consequenses. Obviously there is some of that here, but the system produces it's own resistance.
True, China is behind the US in development and manufacturing at this time, but they are improving many times more rapidly than the US. Japan suffers from some of the same problems as any government based on "planned economy" but that doesn't mean they won't adapt. They have made great strides in the last few years. And you are correct in that over all, Japan has less original thought (innovation) than other countries. That is changing also. What they have learned from continuous improvement is being applied to research and innovation.
And yes, the US is currently the World's largest polluter. However, manufacturing plants built in developing countries are less environmental friendly than new plants built in the US, but it seems that if you measured pollutants by square foot of manufacturing capacity and factored in tons of output, the US pollutres less. True, some of these plants are built by American corporations, sometimes for the purpose of by-passing US environmental regulations. However, this is NOT the case in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea or Singapore. These areas are heading toward major environmental disaster on their own.
One of my new heros, William McDonnough, says,"Regulation is a by-product of poor design" and "true enviromentally friendly design makes good economic sense." I hope more people adopt his values.
Interesting point about the Fifth-generation computer, but the results are not all in yet. The same research that Fujitsu and others did for the 5GL computer systems are now showing up in automated systems everywhere. They were shared freely and widely among the other members of the keiretsu, and these memebers built on that research. Furthermore, the improvements made in that research are being uploaded to the remnants of the 5GL project and being redistributed. Any American technology patents have been plundered for their useful elements and the USE of potential processes has already been patented in Japan, so American business will not have any market there.
The government subsidizes "useless" and "unprofitable" research on behalf of the keiretsu. (We do a little of that here in the US, too, but not to the same extent.) The government also subsidizes start up costs for high-cost industries. If the 5GL project needs to make new chips, the Japanes government will subsidize a fully modern chip-making facility. I suppose it is only incidental that in the absence of any chips needed for the 5GL project, the facility is being used to make cheap chips for Hitachi and Fujitsu.
Dismissing a potentially bad situation by tagging it with a cute name like "yellow peril" doesn't dismiss the reality. You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans work under a different set of moral and ethical rules from the US. If Chirstopher Warren had read the book, "The Asian Mind Game" he would have been less likely to give the game away. (This is not the only book to read on the subject, but it is highly accessible information.)
As for the US being capable of building an SST: It requires knowledge, know-how and motivation. If one of the criteria is an economic boundary, and if we don't have the ability to do it within that economic boundary, then we are simply not capable of doing it. However, many of our products were not economical to start with and only became that way after years of improvement. The Japanese started off after WWII with NOTHING (pictures show them bombed to rubble), and they used equipment that was not economical by US standards to get the know-how and technology to develop economical means of producing the products. They used worn-out manufacturing equipment from Europe and the US, applied lots of manpower and took over small things like lightbulb fixtures and lamps and simple electric appliances like irons, then moved into higher tech stuff like radios and black and white TV's. By ceding these industries to the Japanese we lost much valuable research and know-how, and now we can't compete. The Japanese and Chinese are continually engaged in what we in the US call "illegal industrial espionage" and it is simply a strategy of war as applied to business for them.
Our top students don't rank among the top 10 in the world, and I've interviewed high-school grads and college students whose math was so bad they couldn't operate a cash register. See John Taylor Gatto, "The Underground History of American Education" for some interesting insights on that situation.
The Japanese won't care if their SST damages the ozone layer anymore than they care that their logging is destroying Indonesia and Brazil. The only advantage to them for environmental concern is that it gives them an economic advantage over the US. The Chinese are even worse.
Actually, I expect a lot of nations to be mining the moon, particularly when the orbital manufacturing plants need raw materials. It will mostly be mined by Japanese and Chinese robots because the US will not have the technology.
US students and workers seldom work as hard or as purposefully as Orientals in our country. I know dozens of Chinese and Koreans who make what I would call unreasonable compromises in order to conserver their capital. A Vietnamese immigrant to Houston and his wife earned pitiful pay and lived in the back of their cousin's pastry shop for 3 years to earn the down payment to buy it. Then they lived there for another year to finish paying it off. (They are millionaires now.) One of the most successful computer chains in town is owned by a Korean couple who started off building computers in their apartment kitchen, and up 'til a couple of years ago they were housing 12 family menmbers in a 3-room house. During the winter they would all live in the living room and kitchen to keep expenses down. (Millionaires again.) My ex-girlfriend's family came from Hong Kong where credit was mostly non-existent. They buy stuff with cash (including their home), only buy the minimum and save every cent they can for capital investment. After the girfriend got out of the US Army, she took 22 hours per semester and graduated in 2 years and 8 months, plus she worked 22 hours per week at HEB as a grocery cashier. Her first job as a programmer paid her only 30K per year, and she saved over half of it. At 26 years old she had $75,000 in cash and investments. This is not exceptional; I met dozens of Hong Kong immigrants and they all had the same behavior. The best thing that's happening for the US is that we are exporting our laziness and spending habits to Japan, China and Korea. If we are successful they will become Americanized before they have a chance to completely dominate us economically.
Well, after years of educating the world, giving away our technology to the Orient and producing lawyers (50% of the world's lawyers!) instead of scientists and engineers, we are no longer capable of leading the world in tech innovations. Get used to it: Japan and China will own the major technological innovations and discoveries 25 years from now. All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation. Whine if you want, but we are at war with Japan and China (economically) and most USA Citizens can't even understand the issues. It took us 10 years to get to the moon in the 60's, we are estimating 12-14 years to do it today, and I bet it takes longer than that. Japan will be mining the moon for essential minerals before we ever get there again. We don't have anyone in the US capable of develping an SST.
Here's the other thing: If we did develop an SST before Japan, they would not let us land it in Japan. They would hold us up through safety inspections and paperwork, and finally, the only SST allowed to make trips to Tokyo would be the Japanese-sponsered version. If you think the US Patent process is obstructive to innovation and economic progress, you should compare it to Japan's patent system, which is ruinous to all but Japanese businesses.
I would suggest reading, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-Ning Chu, but it would be more productive for folks to read a few science and engineering texts and get to work!
Any flexible, extendable application will have some errors because of the multiple interfaces and the complexity of the system itself. Some of those errors will affect security. My argument for Mozilla/Firefox is that it is more secure at this time. My argument against M/F is that in most cases, the problems are being patched rather than designed out more quickly. Sooner or later the maintenance on the holes is going to be so massive a task that it will nearly be impossible to fix. I've been watching the boards, but it looks like a redesign is 'way overdue.
Someone should be classifying ALL the vulnerabilitites found in FF over the last 18 months, and a team should start examining the code that was stable at that time. Then, they should ask: "If we knew these vulnerabilities were going to crop up what major design changes would we have made to clean them up upstream?" Most of the vulnerabilities will fall into a few common, recurring patterns, and those can be designed against. I know this is not a popular OSS practice, but something like this will help the app evolve more securely.
I've been thinking about this for years, in a minor way off and on, and I'm still waiting for someone to invent a good feedback system for hearing level. If the music can be heard clearly at 80-85db, thenit is probably safe, right? However, all the studies I've seen measure db in the environment, not the energy approaching the ear. And if you're wearing earphones, how do you prevent hearing loss when you don't know what you are delivering to your ear?
Reactive noise-cancelling earphones would seem to be a good idea, especially if they can reduce the ambient noise to 50 or 60db and alow music to be heard at less than 85db. In fact, without music, I would be relieved sometimes to have noise-cancelling headphones to simply provide some near-silence. It would be a worthy project for competent technicians to come up with an inexpensive (less than $20) noise-cancelling headphone with signal contrast (outside noise less than 50db to inside noise less than 85db), easy equalization, and galvanic skin response sensors to indicate when the music was causing discomfort. (GSR might not be sufficient. Many recent studies showed that the type of music listened to can produce a variety of emotional and chemical responses ranging from peaceful, healthy, joyful to irritated, angry and unhealthy. Here's a a different question: If you knew loud rap and metallic rock were as bad for your system over the long run as cigarettes, would you quit listening to it?) An article written in layman's terms with good references can be found here: http://www.headwize.com/articles/hearing_art.htm.
Although the general consensus is that much hearing loss is irrepairable, I have heard rumors of people recovering some hearing ability by listening to specific music. (I think I first saw this in a book called "Superlearning 2000", and have heard subjective reports since then, but I haven't noticed any scientific papers.) Also, if high-frequency loss is a problem to you, I've heard good things about Echophone.
Right you are! Which is why I used the WAMP installer. Then I had to upgrade Apache from 2.0.53 to 2.0.54, and (like you said) the installer made it VERY easy to install to the different directory. Now I need to upgrade to the latest release of php to fix the problems I've encountered with Windows not handling dates prior to 1970, and I'm not feeling so optimistic...
It's can be a real problem to set up Apache on Windows. The configuration is time-consuming and error-prone, and gets worse if you want to support MySQL and php. There are a couple of WAMP aggregations out there (Apache2Triad is the one I used last.) and I would suggest using those. Keep in mind that updating your WAMP installation can still be a problem.
OK, we've finally agreed on something: We both know how chlorine reacts to other chemicals. Now we are where the debate goes on with other knowledgeable scientists. I have no stake in being right on this, so I'm just going to wait until I see some proof that satisfies me. There may be a couple thousand people in the world who are the "experts" in this area, and I'm not one of them. I am, however one of the 5-7% who have a background and ability sufficient to follow the reasoning behind the claims for the "cause" of the "hole in the ozone". The cause must be both necessary and sufficient for the effect, but it must also be empirically proved before I will accept it. What I've seen so far fails both criteria, so I'll just wait before I form a conclusion. After all, it's not necessary for me to have a conclusion on everything. In order to bring a conclusion to this interesting discussion, I will agree to have my subject line ammended to "Incomplete Science, insufficient thinking".
I have read Buber, but not for years. (Required reading at one of the Universities I went to in the early 70's.) I've read Korzibsky twice (and some of his other writings besides) because I think it has practical applications. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to compose my statements in E-prime, but it wasn't all that important to me. You sond like you have an opion based on more than headlines and summaries (which wasn't the case in your first reply), and I'll just let you have your conclusions. After all, they MAY be right...
Sorry, but I don't agree with you. Science is never complete, and scientific conclusions are sometimes wrong. While the Nobel Prize is is one of the most credible awards in Science, it is not, itself, Science, and other Nobel Prize winners have seen their conclusions superceded or refuted by subsequent research. (Some of them have been pilloried even when they were right: Witness B. F. Skinner.) When I say debate, I mean scientific debate, not political debate. Politics is sometimes defined as the vying for scarce resources, while science is defined as the discovery of knowledge. The debate is more on what's right than who's right. The discussion and research over the "hole in the ozone" is far from over, and may, in fact, have just started. (Certainly there will be many papers written to "piggyback" on the most popular politically correct conclusions, whether the thinking is right or not. Witness all the dissension in the field of nutrition. Grants and academic position are "scarce resources" and subject to political influences.) The questions are not all answered simply because someone wins a prize.
If you are trying to tell me that a chlorine atom is different simply because it broke off from a naturally occuring molecule rather than a man-made molecule, I will have to strongly disagree. At this time there is not a sufficient amount of empirical evidence to support the claim that the majority of the chlorine in the troposphere is composed of chlorine from man-made sources.
If you want to try thinking on your own instead of accepting everything handed to you, try reading, "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski, or, if that's too much for you, "Taming your Mind", by Ken Keyes. The scientific arguments for man-made sources of chlorine as the major "cause" of the ozone hole lack sufficiency in both Aristotelian and Non-Aristotelian metas. Read the research, not the summaries.
BTW, the instability of naturally occurring chlorine compunds in the upper atmosphere is an argument FOR the possibility of naturally occurring chlorine being the most significant chlorine source.
Dude! Trivial, sophomoric and incomplete articles all over the place! If I wanted to read "science" articles aimed at grade school students, I'd read something more like this: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/ozone.htm
Now this article, from the Universtiy of Michigan, no less, admits that naturally occurring chlorine is a threat to the the ozone layer. However it claims that naturally occurring chlorine only accounts for about 15% of the damage, yet doesn't say WHY that would be true. The diagram clearly shows that chlorine is the single element that "ping-pong's" (so to speak) between individual atoms and compound binding with ozone. The associated atoms such as flourine are only necessary (I'm using that word sarcastically) to provide a molecule for chlorine to get knocked out of so it can be free to associate with the ozone. If chlorine is the culprit element, and there are many millions of times as much naturally occurring chlorine than ever used to produce HFC's/CFC's, why is it more likely that the rare, heavy chemical is supposed to be the more likely cause? Most of the public literature is as loose and deficient as this one.
I do read the literature. I'm not a chemical researcher nor an atmospheric physicist, but I've been following both sides of the debate for a number of years now. I actually subscribe to a couple of lists that are devoted to sharing info and argument on this "ozone" problem. Molina and Sherwood are exemplary scientists, but I think we are possibly seeing a political bias on the part of so-called independent science. While I think there MAY be a connection between ozone depletion and HFC's/CFC's, I reserve the right to doubt the conclusion until my criteria are met: Explanations for "How does it get up there in quantities able to cause massive damage?"(with empirical proof that it does), "What are the actual proportions of CFC-produced chlorine to naturally occurring chlorine?" and (perhaps answered by explanation number two) "Why doesn't multi-million-fold greater quantities of naturally occurring chlorine produce a greater effect than HFC's/CFC's?"
BTW, are you in high-school or junior high maybe? Who else would think that Google is a sufficient resource on scientific research?
There is no doubt that the so-called "ozone hole" (a thinning of the ozone layer above the South Pole)changes in size and density. What is at issue is the cause.
Because experiments show that chlorine destroys ozone, and HFC's (Halogenated Fleurocarbons) contain chlorine, we have banned HFC's. However, no one has directly linked the chlorine in HFC's to the destruction of the ozone layer. Chlorine is available from many sources. For instance, the evaporation of seawater from the oceans EACH YEAR emit chlorine in quantities millions of times greater than the total amount of chlorine ever used to produce HFC's. The same is true of volcanic activity. The same is true of biomass decomposition.
I don't believe anyone has even tried to distinguish the sources of chlorine in the Troposphere. How do you tell one molecule of chlorine from another?
Nor has anyone clearly illustrated why HFC's are even the most likely culprit: HFC's are much heavier than air, and unless aerosolized and agitated, they tend to sink rather than float. (You can pour Freon into a glass and it will sit there for years. I knew a guy who did that.) We need to SHOW how HFC's get to the Troposphere before we can identify them a part of the cause. Many theories ahve been put forth as to how they get up there, but most of them are speculation and very incomplete. Oh, yeah, HFC's do NOT easily decompose. Why do we think they would decompose before sinking back to earth if they ever did get up there?
Furthermore, one book (slightly biased) called, The Holes in the Ozone Scare" by Robert Maduro, et al., have some cool graphs showing that the conclusion of a trend of growing ozone thinning was based on statistics taken from only a dozen years, and if you took other 12-year samples you could conclude that the hole was becoming smaller or even making no significant change. The length of time we have been keeping statistics is not long enough to determine whether this is a natural variation or influenced by man.
The hypotheses lacks credible correlation and proof. I think politicians went along with the theory just to mollify the French.
Now Global Warming is under the same political pressures as the Ozone Hole hypotheses. There is no doubt that mankind affects weather and climate, the question is: how much can does man really contribute and how, and what can be logically ascribed to Mother Nature's own variations.
This is really pretty good news. I noticed that there was distinct difference in some episodes I liked, and realized that they were written to emphsize the "people" problems and psychological adjustments of the characters rather than just the technology or new worlds/experiences aspects. Then I noticed that these episodes were almost always written by Dorothy (D. C.) Fontana. She also contributed some of the absolute best episodes of "Police Woman" with Angie Dickenson. If Walter and D.C. are enthused about this project, I look forward to seeing it.
Some friends and I were complaining about some of the same things I hear in this thread, about poor audiences, high prices, etc., and we thought we'd buy a theater and start a "Theater Club". Imagine my surprise when I found out that a 6-theater complex had a $75 - $80,0000/mo. air conditioning bill. (Houston, Texas yearly average). Basically, when we figured it all out, it would take about $300,000/mo. just to operate the thing, if we could even find a ditributer for films. (Highest expense: Movies distributed cost based on the number of seats in the theater.) I'm not surprised that theater prices are high, and I'm not surprised that theater managers will take money from anyone coming in the door.
Given that these problems will not go away by themselves, what are the solutions? (I agree with William McDonough (http://www.mcdonough.com/) that regulation is a result of poor design.) There is a huge fortune to be made by the designer who resolves these problems and makes theater-going a pleasant experience again. (I usually see 3 or 4 movies a week, but I usually go in the afternoon early when there aren't any kids or crowds. Summer is a bummer for movie goers like me.) I know there are places in Japan that have counter-frequency generators that kill cell and pager transmission. That would be a good start. perhaps if each seat was provided with individual noise-cancelling headphones, that would also help (and, yes, I know that brings up other problems of hygiene, etc, but that's where solving those problems brings in the fortune. Legitimately patentable solutions.)
Of course, maybe we could change society? I have a friend who is a cameraman for Fox Sports, and he described a goodwill game between the Astros and a Japanese team a few years ago. All the players were applauded when they came on the field. All the players were applauded for good plays. Players bowed to the crowd to acknowledge the applause. When the game was over, all the spectators stood up and applauded the teams. Then they sat back down, and rose one row at a time to file out of the stadium in an orderly fashion. And they took their trash with them!
I agree with the idea that programming is a problem-solving tool and a way of thinking. Students need to be taught to organize their system of problem solving to achieve objectives through scientific thinking.
I strongly suggest teaching 4 languages at once: Teach assembly to teach how the system works using structured problems, allow them to figure out how to solve the same problem sets in C (because it's closely associated with asssembly), then allow them to solve the same problem set in a structured language like Pascal or Modula 4, then let them solve the same problem set in a real Object-Oriented language like Smalltalk or Ruby.
The problem set should consist of common everyday tasks first. Like basic arithmetic, drawing shapes moving shapes across the screen, mazes, text, string, and file mainipulation (including sorting),building an interface, building accessories to the interface (like buttons and static controls) then building dynamic interfaces like forms, drop-down boxes, and whatever.
Concentrate on the multiple ways of organizing the task for a solution (like decision tables and flowcharts for assembly, pseudocode and entity diagrams for structured programming, Use Case and UML for OOP) and you will keep them challenged for a good two semester's work.
Any idiot can learn the syntax to a language in about 2 -3 weeks (the University of Oregon at eugene used to have students learn a different language every week!), but that won't make them good programmers.
Mike