And *everyone*, not just those being gouged for piece of paper Union Card Law Degree Certificates, would have access to information, access to education. This is just general commentary on the fact that most educational qualification boils down to paying the six figure medieval guild initiation fee for admittance into a monopoly protected line of work, such as Law.
The information is out there, and many people are self educated; people will always pay large amounts of money to get their paper certificate to "prove" their knowledge.
This is why eliminating copyright completely will lead to a golden age Renaissance of artistic and technological advancement, along with enhanced work profession mobility as training costs come crashing down by eliminating artificial scarcity knowledge.
Knowledge is already not scarce; what copyright has done is give incentive to compile that knowledge in more approachable ways. There's nothing in a textbook you can't get anywhere else, the value is how that informtion is distilled and presented. Getting rid of copyright means there is less incentive to make knowledge more accessible.
Sites like slashdot that have moderating systems for posts is just the very wee beginning of genuine peer review and promotion for all sorts of information topics.
Peer review by the masses isn't always the best thing - look at the problems with Wikipedia, or even this site where politics can have a greater impact on the review process than actual expertise and insight.
If surfing the internet is more interesting than listening to the professor blabber, then that is feedback on the quality of the professor. It's obvious if there's a "problem" with a lot of students ignoring the professors, their lecture acts aren't even as fresh as a Foghat concert. And if I could go back in time and post student feedback on my Economics and the Law class at the University of Chicago, I would say just that.:P
There are classes where I was bored, and others where I was captivated. It had more to do with the material than the professor. The question is why even go to class if you aren't going to pay attention; it's better to just not go than sit there and distract others with mouse and keyboard clicks.
It fails every rational test. It's about ego, pure and simple. Lecturers are having hissy fits because their customers aren't a captive audience any more, and they want the old days back, when they could pretend that sleeping students were just listening really attentively. They may as well order the tide not to come in.
Your argument fails because it presupposes that every student in the room exists in a vacuum and their actions don't impact others around them. If the lecturer or other students are distracted by one person's actions then it impacts the product. People don't get the boot for using their cellphones in movie theaters because the owner's ego gets bruised, it's because most of the customers are negatively impacted by the actions of one.
At the very least the lecture should be compelling enough to hold one's attention, even if the actual information in it would be more efficiently conveyed in text form; that way, there's at least a chance of a boost in retention from the lecture format. Low-content, poorly-presented lectures seem to be the norm, however. Too bad.
Not everybody learns the same way. I retain a lot more information by listening and taking notes (I think the writing part helps me organize and remember the information better) than by reading the exact same material. If you don't find the lecture interesting, don't attend.
Ancient history, philosophy, art and literature are not. Those are liberal arts.
Art can influence many aspects of technology - industrial design, fonts, icons, UIs Philosophy - important when discussing issues such as morality and legality Language - Programming language design & theory History/culture - understanding how people behave, for example a specific interface may work for one culture and not for others.
These may not be core to a technical education, but can provide important insight and perspective into what you are doing. Again, it gets back to productivity vs. creativity - taking the blinders off and incorporating seemingly unrelated ideas are where true genius and breakthroughs come from
I was to a lesser extent the same way, but I look back at that period and cringe at what a bunch of ignorant pricks we were, thinking we were better than everyone else when it was us who were the ones with the problem.
I was the same way, I was so smart I knew everything about the world, and anything that wasn't science/engineering was a waste. Now I look back and realize I wish I had taken more courses in business, writing, and philosophy. Yes there are a bunch of really stupid people in those majors (I realized this when I took Astronomy for non-science majors just for laughs), but there are also very intelligent people in those fields. The smart non-engineering types are the people who I've learned the most from. They provide a different view of the world, and challenge me to think differently. Sit down with a philosophy professor and discuss science, it can be intriguing and educational.
Exactly. I attended a college fair on campus with a friend of mine, handing out my resume to every company that was recruiting and getting the 5 second talk about how they'd review and contact me. When we got to the IBM booth he handed them his resume (ChemE 3.8GPA) and got the usual talk, I handed them my resume (Mat Sci 3.2 GPA) and got a 5 min discussion on the neat SOI stuff IBM was working on and that they'd contact me to fly out to NY for an interview. The difference was, even though my friend had a better GPA, I spent 6 months as a Co-op for IBM.
Helping on some laser research for a few months trumped the 4 years of hard work and studying in school.
The point of university is to totally immerse yourself in your chosen subject. See European universities for examples of how this really works. You spend three or four years doing nothing but what you signed up for. Far better use of time.
Focused learning lets you be productive, well rounded education lets you be creative. The former is easy to outsource and find anywhere, the latter is where true value of education lies. Creating is about figuring out how different ideas relate and fit together to have something new.
Some narrow technical skill is EXACTLY what will get you the big money in software, and what will get you hired over and over.
Specific skills will get you hired, a broad range of skills will help you succeed. Most of the stuff you do in any job is outside of the narrow focus you've studied. Managing people, money, time, etc. are all non-technical skills that you need to learn to have a successful career.
But studying arts/humanities alongside? Waste of time. You had high school for that.
Economics, sociology, business, and communication can provide important tools to help a person accomplish their technical goals. At the very least basic understanding of those subjects is important because to effectively communicate with marketing/sales/management folks. It also provides new learning opportunities and other points of view that may help in relation to the human factors in programming.
Even with a PhD you probably wouldn't be able to tell, because there are so many different parts. Bad capacitors, poor soldering, cheap PCBs, there's too many things for any single person to identify what and where corners are cut. Which is why it's safer to go with a retail company that has a bunch of engineers dealing with the supplier from every step of the process. A good middle--man doesn't just pass stuff through, they conduct their own testing, and are dealing with the manufacturer on many more levels than an individual consumer can.
Ahhh, If only the central bankers were concerned about the system falling apart from printing funny money...
Actually they are - which is why they are pseudo-governement entities. For the finanical market keeping big government in check is just as important as anybody else, and traditionaly governments had the power to print money at will.
So, if I can save 80% of my money buying a "counterfeit" motherboard, is my little indiscretion going to break the global economy?
Same as printing your own money... alone you won't break the world economy, but if too many people do it the system falls apart.
And if they come from the same assembly line, what differentiates a real one from a fake one? Isn't "proper distribution channels" an artificial construct to bilk customers?
Assembly lines create rejects... most often the "knockoffs" taken from factories are those that don't meet assembly/reliability standards and are "liberated" from the reject bin. Proper distribution channels is not just to bilk customers, it's also to control the quality of goods shipped to customers. For example leaking capacitors and exploding batteries are the risks of poor control in the non-proper channels.
Even with an American audience at the temperatures discussed Fahrenheit has no real meaning. The usefulness of Fahrenheit is how the range of 0 - 100 reflects weather temperatures people have experienced. Temperatures beyond common experience are better expressed in Celsius.
So Apple will assume debt, adopt a new less agile business profile (can't switch back and forth between ATI & nVidia video cards), alienate the customers for the company it acquires (think Dell will still use AMD?), and handcuff itself inferior technology. Sounds like a lose-lose
Prices might rise, but the fast pace would continue since Intel's biggest competitor would be Intel. Unless they create something compelling to upgrade to, the market will shrink. People will buy to replace when their computer breaks which is a whole lot slower than the current rate. Just look at Microsoft's problems with Vista, where the biggest competitor they have is XP.
So personal responsibility takes a back seat to sticking it to the man, and i'm forced to pay because somebody else decided to borrow thousands of dollars to spend on drugs and hookers. Of course if banks decide to tighten their standards they get blamed for being in the hands of the rich aristocracy and not allowing the little guy to start small businesses, buy their own home, or keep their farm going.
1. You reduce people who make your products better
Depends who you layoff. If you layoff the sales people in high risk low return markets, workers in idle factories, R&D projects that have low chance of financial success, and targeted management - you're reducing the workforce intelligently.
2. When/if you do start growing you need new people back, and then there is the turn over cost to take account of.
That's why you look at long term outlook. It's not like AMD was cutting 10% of it's workforce every Q1 because of seasonal revenue drops.
3. You in the short term raise your profits but don't fix the problem of the declining profits. The people on Top are Fat and Happy because they see the big numbers. But by not fixing the underlining problems The next quarter or fisical year the problem will reoccure again.
Again it depends how you do it. If you have high inventories, and factories aren't filled to a profitable capacity, and you have dozens of R&D projects which are outside your business strategy you're bleeding money off that could be used more effectively. Sometimes it's better to consolidate and refocus.
4. Layoffs effect the moral of those who are hired. Causeing them to spend more time and effort in either A. Politicking themselfs to not get laied off. B. Spenind time to find a new job. Niether of these means they are working harder at their actually jobs.
The alternative is to keep paying some people to not be productive just to keep the ones actually doing a job helping the bottom line happy - and you still hurt the employee morale because the business continues to wither - and employees know eventually they will need to make job cuts.
5. Ex Employees go work for the competition with their own Intelectual Property with them.
Again depends on who you layoff; and any IP they have doesn't always mesh with other company's goals and agenda.
6. For big companies like AMD Layoffs effect the local economies of the areas. Which will normally cause a raise in taxes on the local companies (Including AMD) where if they were a big employeer then they may have tax breaks to incorage the company to attract people and businesses in the town.
Depends on where and how long you're building have been around, and whether or not you continue to keep the factory/office building in a specific area. I'm assuming the company took tax breaks into account when calculating how to cut jobs
7. Any slowdowns in production or product releases (due to limited labor) will cause customers to switch to cometitors.
If your product isn't selling you don't need the production. If future products aren't going to move customers it's better to cancel. Look at what Intel did with it's Pentium 4 line (eg Tejas)
8. Empty offices account to paying for unused property.
Unless you sell them off.
9. Extra workload on existing employees may lead to increase mistakes.
Only if you still try to do the same things. Often companies refocus and marginal projects get cut when the workforce is cut.
10. New Employees will be hesident in joining. Making rerecruting difficult if business does pick up.
There's plenty of unemployed engineers, salesmen who'd be happy to get a job. And if business is picking up, a company will have more flexibility to pay large starting bonuses/option grants.
The only question for Intel is whether they want AMD dead or just crippled so they don't have to deal with heavier monopoly regulation.
And the ire of shareholders. Intel's value is focused on profit margin... everytime it dips below 50% the stock tumbles. To really crush AMD they'd have to drop prices, and that means a big hit to their margins.
So what will you be using against the tanks? How about the planes and helicopter gunships?
If tanks and gunships are needed, there is already a level of political victory.
So when a division of 1000 troops comes at your town will you be holding them off with your.22 pistol?
No but if I had an assault rifle to help level the playing field, then perhaps taking out a dozen or so of those troops will lend pause to the government and those that follow.
There are plenty of reasons for gun ownership, this is not one of them.
It is the central reason. We can't always expect organizations to behave benevolently, especially with regards to personal freedom. The only way to ensure such freedom is to defend it - through words, political action, and ultimately with a gun.
The US didn't lose in Vietnam because of any losses on the battlefield, after years of conflict people realized it just wasn't worth it.
If any of that had actually been fun, though, Galaxies wouldn't have been a total failure.
it wasn't a total failure until after they got rid of all those things. It achieved a constant 200k player base... but that wasn't enough for the execs so they looked at WoW, and tried to turn the game into that. A massive overhaul is the surest way to alienate those existing players and end up with total failure.
I don't understand why you need a computer game in order to pretend to be a dancer or a politician. Indeed, dancer or politician are roles you could take on in real life; but nonetheless, if you find those roles compelling, you have the greatest tool available - your own imagination.
Same reason people play Guitar Hero, you can play guitar in real life, but it's too much of a bother to be fun. Sometimes it's nice to use tools to help suspend disbelief. The computer game also lets you interact with a helluva lot more people than meeting in person.
Slashdot Mirror
Knowledge is already not scarce; what copyright has done is give incentive to compile that knowledge in more approachable ways. There's nothing in a textbook you can't get anywhere else, the value is how that informtion is distilled and presented. Getting rid of copyright means there is less incentive to make knowledge more accessible.
Peer review by the masses isn't always the best thing - look at the problems with Wikipedia, or even this site where politics can have a greater impact on the review process than actual expertise and insight.
There are classes where I was bored, and others where I was captivated. It had more to do with the material than the professor. The question is why even go to class if you aren't going to pay attention; it's better to just not go than sit there and distract others with mouse and keyboard clicks.
People don't get the boot for using their cellphones in movie theaters because the owner's ego gets bruised, it's because most of the customers are negatively impacted by the actions of one.
If you don't find the lecture interesting, don't attend.
Philosophy - important when discussing issues such as morality and legality
Language - Programming language design & theory
History/culture - understanding how people behave, for example a specific interface may work for one culture and not for others.
These may not be core to a technical education, but can provide important insight and perspective into what you are doing. Again, it gets back to productivity vs. creativity - taking the blinders off and incorporating seemingly unrelated ideas are where true genius and breakthroughs come from
The smart non-engineering types are the people who I've learned the most from. They provide a different view of the world, and challenge me to think differently. Sit down with a philosophy professor and discuss science, it can be intriguing and educational.
When we got to the IBM booth he handed them his resume (ChemE 3.8GPA) and got the usual talk, I handed them my resume (Mat Sci 3.2 GPA) and got a 5 min discussion on the neat SOI stuff IBM was working on and that they'd contact me to fly out to NY for an interview. The difference was, even though my friend had a better GPA, I spent 6 months as a Co-op for IBM.
Helping on some laser research for a few months trumped the 4 years of hard work and studying in school.
Specific skills will get you hired, a broad range of skills will help you succeed. Most of the stuff you do in any job is outside of the narrow focus you've studied. Managing people, money, time, etc. are all non-technical skills that you need to learn to have a successful career.
Economics, sociology, business, and communication can provide important tools to help a person accomplish their technical goals. At the very least basic understanding of those subjects is important because to effectively communicate with marketing/sales/management folks. It also provides new learning opportunities and other points of view that may help in relation to the human factors in programming.
Even with a PhD you probably wouldn't be able to tell, because there are so many different parts. Bad capacitors, poor soldering, cheap PCBs, there's too many things for any single person to identify what and where corners are cut. Which is why it's safer to go with a retail company that has a bunch of engineers dealing with the supplier from every step of the process. A good middle--man doesn't just pass stuff through, they conduct their own testing, and are dealing with the manufacturer on many more levels than an individual consumer can.
Assembly lines create rejects... most often the "knockoffs" taken from factories are those that don't meet assembly/reliability standards and are "liberated" from the reject bin. Proper distribution channels is not just to bilk customers, it's also to control the quality of goods shipped to customers.
For example leaking capacitors and exploding batteries are the risks of poor control in the non-proper channels.
It was yet another example of how technology makes us feel invincible, then we see it fail spectacularly
Even with an American audience at the temperatures discussed Fahrenheit has no real meaning.
The usefulness of Fahrenheit is how the range of 0 - 100 reflects weather temperatures people have experienced.
Temperatures beyond common experience are better expressed in Celsius.
Great, now I have the image of shirtless oiled up nerds fighting against an 8 foot chair wielding Ballmer stuck in my brain.
I learned plenty about health care - without medical insurance Joebob will die of dysentery
So Apple will assume debt, adopt a new less agile business profile (can't switch back and forth between ATI & nVidia video cards), alienate the customers for the company it acquires (think Dell will still use AMD?), and handcuff itself inferior technology.
Sounds like a lose-lose
Prices might rise, but the fast pace would continue since Intel's biggest competitor would be Intel. Unless they create something compelling to upgrade to, the market will shrink. People will buy to replace when their computer breaks which is a whole lot slower than the current rate.
Just look at Microsoft's problems with Vista, where the biggest competitor they have is XP.
So personal responsibility takes a back seat to sticking it to the man, and i'm forced to pay because somebody else decided to borrow thousands of dollars to spend on drugs and hookers.
Of course if banks decide to tighten their standards they get blamed for being in the hands of the rich aristocracy and not allowing the little guy to start small businesses, buy their own home, or keep their farm going.
That's why you look at long term outlook. It's not like AMD was cutting 10% of it's workforce every Q1 because of seasonal revenue drops.
Again it depends how you do it. If you have high inventories, and factories aren't filled to a profitable capacity, and you have dozens of R&D projects which are outside your business strategy you're bleeding money off that could be used more effectively. Sometimes it's better to consolidate and refocus.
The alternative is to keep paying some people to not be productive just to keep the ones actually doing a job helping the bottom line happy - and you still hurt the employee morale because the business continues to wither - and employees know eventually they will need to make job cuts.
Again depends on who you layoff; and any IP they have doesn't always mesh with other company's goals and agenda.
Depends on where and how long you're building have been around, and whether or not you continue to keep the factory/office building in a specific area. I'm assuming the company took tax breaks into account when calculating how to cut jobs
If your product isn't selling you don't need the production. If future products aren't going to move customers it's better to cancel. Look at what Intel did with it's Pentium 4 line (eg Tejas)
Unless you sell them off.
Only if you still try to do the same things. Often companies refocus and marginal projects get cut when the workforce is cut.
There's plenty of unemployed engineers, salesmen who'd be happy to get a job. And if business is picking up, a company will have more flexibility to pay large starting bonuses/option grants.
why he should receive a part of the $12B in merchandise, Ainsworth's lawyer responded, "Because he's holding a thermal detonator!"
No but if I had an assault rifle to help level the playing field, then perhaps taking out a dozen or so of those troops will lend pause to the government and those that follow.
It is the central reason. We can't always expect organizations to behave benevolently, especially with regards to personal freedom. The only way to ensure such freedom is to defend it - through words, political action, and ultimately with a gun.
The US didn't lose in Vietnam because of any losses on the battlefield, after years of conflict people realized it just wasn't worth it.
The military would also be greatly limited in operations against it's own people.
Same reason people play Guitar Hero, you can play guitar in real life, but it's too much of a bother to be fun. Sometimes it's nice to use tools to help suspend disbelief. The computer game also lets you interact with a helluva lot more people than meeting in person.