Be of good cheer: NPR
reported yesterday that computer science college enrollments are way down. So the oversupply will correct itself (again) as those students who don't really like computers stop majoring in it.
It does not seem so low class when you call your union an association.
You mean like the Association for Computing Machinery?
The problem with this suggestion is that organizations like the AMA and ABA don't really do collective bargaining. Mostly they just try to restrict the supply of doctors and lawyer to hold down rates; this obviously won't work if the competition is in India.
The town is now gone, and the cleanup of Times Beach is complete, according to the EPA:
The town of Times Beach, Missouri, captured the attention of the nation when EPA closed it down after discovering dangerous levels of dioxin. Roads to the town were blocked off, and the site was patrolled around-the-clock by security guards. Thus began one of the most extensive cleanups in Superfund history. The contamination happened when the town regularly sprayed dioxin-contaminated waste oil on its streets and parking lots to control dust. In 1983, EPA added the site to its list of hazardous waste sites needing cleanup. After the site was listed, EPA permanently relocated more than 2,000 people and tore down all of the homes and businesses. By the end of 1997, cleanup of the site was complete, and the state, which now owns the property, took advantage of its easy highway access and riverside location to develop it as a park. In the fall of 1999, a new 500-acre state park, commemorating the famous Route 66, will replace what was one of the most highly contaminated sites in the country. When the park opens, thousands of visitors will again be able to enjoy the scenic riverside area.
What has left-wing versus right-wing got to do with scientific questions like: are we fucking up the environment?
Well, for starters, conservatives tend to think that we aren't fucking up the environment, merely using natural resources for the good of humanity.
There are honest differences of opinion as to the importance of preserving nature as-is versus just keeping those parts of it that we can use. Also, the assertion that we're "ruining" or "destroying" the planet are also inherently colored by your ideology. I'm sure Bush doesn't think we'll "ruin" the Arctic by drilling for oil; on the contrary, we're getting some value out of a desolate wasteland, thereby improving it.
Two nominees: John Walker and Steve Gibson
on
Hackers Hall of Fame
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Most of the people in their "hall of fame" are fine candidates (except maybe for the Russian con-man guy), but I'd like to nominate two more supreme code-creator types who don't get all the media attention:
John Walker, founder of Autodesk, creates and gives away a lot of great stuff, including astronomy, math, and science programs. His web site is great: fourmilab.net
Steve Gibson, author of the SpinRite utilities that date back to MS-DOS days at least, is also a prolific creator of lean, mean, free stuff. His web site,
grc.com, has a catalog of cool little Windows utilities for changing settings, detecting spyware, closing security holes, etc., for Windows. In true hacker style, he prefers to do his coding in assembly language, and his stuff is consistently high-quality and useful. For example, try out wizmo, a little program that can be used to trigger the screen saver and to change other settings, plus has a built-in graphical gravitational simulator, and all in about 37K of code!
Don't try to compete with a big company. But don't try to enter an area with no competition either. (In the former you'll probably get crushed, in the latter there's probably no market.)
Don't try to sell development tools, even though that's probably the area you know the most about. (Lots of programmers think the same thing.)
Look at vertical markets. (They're often too small for the big companies, but if you know the area you can make a decent small-company living from them.)
I owned two Chevy Vegas when I was in college, a '72 and a '74. Both of them sucked down oil like crazy; the aluminum-block engines in them would warp if overheated, so that oil would leak into the cylinders. I always carried a case of oil, a can of old sparkplugs, a sparkplug wrench and some sandpaper with me on road trips. On my typical 90-mile weekend drive to see my girlfriend (now my wife:), I would generally have to stop after about 75 files to put in another quart of oil, and sometimes to swap out or clean the sparkplug in the offending cylinder.
Another great feature of these cars was that the fenders rusted through in a few spots (this was when they were only 5-6 years old), so that road spray would come through the rust holes onto the windshield when it rained.
Boy, those were the good old days...I was lucky that I never got stranded or dumped into a ditch on the interstate by those old beasts...
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Be of good cheer: NPR reported yesterday that computer science college enrollments are way down. So the oversupply will correct itself (again) as those students who don't really like computers stop majoring in it.
You mean like the Association for Computing Machinery?
The problem with this suggestion is that organizations like the AMA and ABA don't really do collective bargaining. Mostly they just try to restrict the supply of doctors and lawyer to hold down rates; this obviously won't work if the competition is in India.
The town of Times Beach, Missouri, captured the attention of the nation when EPA closed it down after discovering dangerous levels of dioxin. Roads to the town were blocked off, and the site was patrolled around-the-clock by security guards. Thus began one of the most extensive cleanups in Superfund history. The contamination happened when the town regularly sprayed dioxin-contaminated waste oil on its streets and parking lots to control dust. In 1983, EPA added the site to its list of hazardous waste sites needing cleanup. After the site was listed, EPA permanently relocated more than 2,000 people and tore down all of the homes and businesses. By the end of 1997, cleanup of the site was complete, and the state, which now owns the property, took advantage of its easy highway access and riverside location to develop it as a park. In the fall of 1999, a new 500-acre state park, commemorating the famous Route 66, will replace what was one of the most highly contaminated sites in the country. When the park opens, thousands of visitors will again be able to enjoy the scenic riverside area.
You don't say!
Small, quick, and adaptable versus large, slow, and (currently) dominant.
Techno Trousers have arrived!
Well, for starters, conservatives tend to think that we aren't fucking up the environment, merely using natural resources for the good of humanity.
There are honest differences of opinion as to the importance of preserving nature as-is versus just keeping those parts of it that we can use. Also, the assertion that we're "ruining" or "destroying" the planet are also inherently colored by your ideology. I'm sure Bush doesn't think we'll "ruin" the Arctic by drilling for oil; on the contrary, we're getting some value out of a desolate wasteland, thereby improving it.
John Walker, founder of Autodesk, creates and gives away a lot of great stuff, including astronomy, math, and science programs. His web site is great: fourmilab.net
Steve Gibson, author of the SpinRite utilities that date back to MS-DOS days at least, is also a prolific creator of lean, mean, free stuff. His web site, grc.com, has a catalog of cool little Windows utilities for changing settings, detecting spyware, closing security holes, etc., for Windows. In true hacker style, he prefers to do his coding in assembly language, and his stuff is consistently high-quality and useful. For example, try out wizmo, a little program that can be used to trigger the screen saver and to change other settings, plus has a built-in graphical gravitational simulator, and all in about 37K of code!
Someone uses a portable large (10-20GB) USB harddrive to transfer data. No, it's Firewire. That makes it much, much cooler.
Don't try to compete with a big company. But don't try to enter an area with no competition either. (In the former you'll probably get crushed, in the latter there's probably no market.)
Don't try to sell development tools, even though that's probably the area you know the most about. (Lots of programmers think the same thing.)
Look at vertical markets. (They're often too small for the big companies, but if you know the area you can make a decent small-company living from them.)
I owned two Chevy Vegas when I was in college, a '72 and a '74. Both of them sucked down oil like crazy; the aluminum-block engines in them would warp if overheated, so that oil would leak into the cylinders. I always carried a case of oil, a can of old sparkplugs, a sparkplug wrench and some sandpaper with me on road trips. On my typical 90-mile weekend drive to see my girlfriend (now my wife :), I would generally have to stop after about 75 files to put in another quart of oil, and sometimes to swap out or clean the sparkplug in the offending cylinder.
Another great feature of these cars was that the fenders rusted through in a few spots (this was when they were only 5-6 years old), so that road spray would come through the rust holes onto the windshield when it rained.
Boy, those were the good old days...I was lucky that I never got stranded or dumped into a ditch on the interstate by those old beasts...