I for one, heard that it's probably spreadsheets that are responsible for the proliferation of computers. Initially companies got interested in them because they wanted to use VisiCalc in their accounting. Then other departments wanted to have one too, they saw how the spreadsheet instantly responds and updates itself when one of the cells change, that made it easy to play the "what-if" game. Imagine having hundreds of formulas all inter-related that calculate the cost of a new plant. Then someone asks the question "what if we use a different building material?". Re-doing all the calculation by hand might take a couple of days, a spreadsheet, in turn,will give the answer in seconds.
Now fast forward to present. I would agree that people want to use Excel for everything: database, graphics, plotting, forms, as a programming environment (oh the humanity!) etc, etc. Most excel users probably don't even know how to use a formula in Excel. The other extreme is when the calculations are so complex that it would be better to switch to Mathematica or Matlab. But Excel is the only tool they know and they want to use it for everything. I can hear my boss's voice in my head "Let's use Excel for this" with the intonation that would make one believe it's the greatest idea ever. Oh, well, have to get back to work where I am forced to use Excel for most of those tasks mentioned above, yes, I am one of the guilty.
And I have implemented a protocol that is 7,000 times faster than cable. It works over many parallel fiberoptic channels. Blah blah...
This article is probably published by Al Gore who, after inventing the Internet, still works on optimizing the speed of many protocols that he came up with back in the day.
It turns out that companies like Sun and IBM have researched this before. The results they came up with is that the new users found their way around and accomplished tasks faster with a GUI interface, but were more likely forget by the next time how to do it. With command line, it took a while to learn it, but then the retention rate was higher. The research, I believe, the systems used were running Solaris/AIX respectively with their X Windows vs. the command like on the same systems.
I would tend to disagree. It is rather a fault of the professors who taught Calc to fail to point out the practical uses of it, or at least the possible uses of it.
I never liked math much. I could figure it out, but physics, chemistry, comp. sci were more related to the world we live in. It was later in college when I had the painful realization that without math all those disciplines (and most others) are meaningless. I regret I had not put more effort into it then, that would have made my life much easier now. For example I took a Linear Algebra course in soph. year and after the exam week I had forgotten what an eigenvector was. It would have been nice for the prof. to point out the importance and the uses of it. Now I take a Quantum Computing course and I had to go back to the 4 year old dusty Linear Algebra notes for a review.
This is a nice development. I still don't understand why all these new books, are there really that many new developments in college level math to justify all the new calc books we are forced to buy and spend $100+? I am sure in the past 50 or so years there were a number of good books, so why not stick to those. The pulishers, of course, will want to rearange the homework problem and perhaps add a web link and "there you go", a new $100 book.
I would hope at least the professors would be on the students' side and understand what it's like. If they are concerned about using an old book that everyone can find solutions for, they can (what a concept!) develop the problems themselves.
In the end it seems, the publishers won't be able to keep up with people who set up textbooks trading websites. They would have to publish new versions every quarter or so. At my Univ. there is at least one guy who set up a textbook trading site to bypass the ridiculous ripoff by college bookstore and publishers. That's another thing that web is good for (besides porn of course).
I lived not that far from Cernobyl. I was 8 at the time. When it happened it was so downplayed that nobody outside that small area realized the impact, until much later. It was on the evening news and it was a 5 minute thing, my dad was a little worried but said it's probably something minor. They showed a cloud of smoke comming from the place and that's all, then other daily news followed. I also remember later, my mom saying how that year many of her plants outside had died, don't know if it is related or not. The worst is when the government had asked for volunteers to help clean-up the mess and promised appartments for those who sign up. They didn't say that when they come home to those new appartments, they won't have that time much to enjoy them. There were rumours how people with heavy doses where "cooked" that the skin and meat was comming of their bones and they couldn't even feel that.
That's why the above is probably just an urban legend. I living in former USSR do not recall any major pipeline explosion, of the likes described. But the version I heard, people have been harmed. And as I said, I doubt the people who have put so many missions into space could not come up with a software to control the pipelines.
There are already two competing companies, Time Warner (i.e. cable) and Zoomtown with DSL. This will make things interesting. The price for cable is $40.00 a month with downlstream _advertised_ around 2Mbps and upstream much lower than 1Mbps. I would switch to pay $10 less, it would ammount to $120 a year!
We've seen this before. They gave the Russkies the software that passed the QA tests, but was designed to fail when in operation. How wonderful, they blew up a gas pipeline and killed a bunch of innocent villagers who lived nearby, who probably had never even heard the word "sofware". But then again, one could say it's the Russians that blew it up ultimately. It's not like they didn't have software developers back in the USSR.
I am blaming the military. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be possible to create a "Denial of Entry" by jamming those frequencies in a given area. On the other side, that would make people actually open their doors by hand (what a concept!), they might loose some weight and build some muscle in the process too.
Growing up in one of the Soviet occupied countries, they made sure that every citizen knows Gagarin, Sputnik, Lunohod and the 2 dogs that flew into orbit (I forgot their names and I am glad). Not a whole a lot of "Armstrong" and "The Shuttle" talk... go figure.
They would shove all that stuff down our throats starting in kindergarden. Not really the science aspect, more propaganda, to contrast the "backward" America where they had "slavery" and "lynch mobs". So, I am sure to a much lesser degree, the vice-versa was happening in U.S. That's the reason probably why you haven't heard much of Lunohod.
I tried to right-click to download, and "oh the humanity" they've blocked the righ-click. You get a message that it's for viewing only. But it doesn't occur to them that people are "viewing" the photos on their machines, the pictures are already downloaded into their cache/temp/watever directory. In other words "view"="download", so I guess they'll have to sue every visitor to the website.
Wait, what's that!? Someone is already knocking on my door! Oh noooo! Please, I didn't mean to steal the extra cute train pictures...
And all the blacks are criminals and media is owned by the Jews.... Oh, sorry, I guess I wasn't being too politically correct, but that is exactly what BBC was doing by putting the Open Source advocates in the criminal category. If they are all trying to be politically correct towards the races/religions/gender/etc./etc. in this day and age, shouldn't they have the same attitude towards the Linux users "minority".
I could see how affirmative action would be useful to getting a job or get scholarships. "We would hire you sir, but you see, you just happen to be using Windows and we want to make our company more diverse and all-inclusive"
Slashdot Mirror
Now fast forward to present. I would agree that people want to use Excel for everything: database, graphics, plotting, forms, as a programming environment (oh the humanity!) etc, etc. Most excel users probably don't even know how to use a formula in Excel. The other extreme is when the calculations are so complex that it would be better to switch to Mathematica or Matlab. But Excel is the only tool they know and they want to use it for everything. I can hear my boss's voice in my head "Let's use Excel for this" with the intonation that would make one believe it's the greatest idea ever. Oh, well, have to get back to work where I am forced to use Excel for most of those tasks mentioned above, yes, I am one of the guilty.
From what I understood the recent hotmail problems where caused by the Passport .NET log-in failure not Hotmail per-se.
This article is probably published by Al Gore who, after inventing the Internet, still works on optimizing the speed of many protocols that he came up with back in the day.
In the meantime I'll just risk being labeled "old-fashioned" and compile C straight to binary
But, can it eat doughnuts, drink coffee, and racially profile people, that's the real question!
I am better than the Robotcop III robot, I shove Chinese kids down the stairs.
Yes, yes, I know it's from a South Park Episode link to script
It turns out that companies like Sun and IBM have researched this before. The results they came up with is that the new users found their way around and accomplished tasks faster with a GUI interface, but were more likely forget by the next time how to do it. With command line, it took a while to learn it, but then the retention rate was higher. The research, I believe, the systems used were running Solaris/AIX respectively with their X Windows vs. the command like on the same systems.
I can live without most of them especially BET/MTV/VH1. I'll miss the Comedy Central, but then I should be doing homework anyway.
I never liked math much. I could figure it out, but physics, chemistry, comp. sci were more related to the world we live in. It was later in college when I had the painful realization that without math all those disciplines (and most others) are meaningless. I regret I had not put more effort into it then, that would have made my life much easier now. For example I took a Linear Algebra course in soph. year and after the exam week I had forgotten what an eigenvector was. It would have been nice for the prof. to point out the importance and the uses of it. Now I take a Quantum Computing course and I had to go back to the 4 year old dusty Linear Algebra notes for a review.
This is a nice development. I still don't understand why all these new books, are there really that many new developments in college level math to justify all the new calc books we are forced to buy and spend $100+? I am sure in the past 50 or so years there were a number of good books, so why not stick to those. The pulishers, of course, will want to rearange the homework problem and perhaps add a web link and "there you go", a new $100 book. I would hope at least the professors would be on the students' side and understand what it's like. If they are concerned about using an old book that everyone can find solutions for, they can (what a concept!) develop the problems themselves. In the end it seems, the publishers won't be able to keep up with people who set up textbooks trading websites. They would have to publish new versions every quarter or so. At my Univ. there is at least one guy who set up a textbook trading site to bypass the ridiculous ripoff by college bookstore and publishers. That's another thing that web is good for (besides porn of course).
Just wondering..
I lived not that far from Cernobyl. I was 8 at the time. When it happened it was so downplayed that nobody outside that small area realized the impact, until much later. It was on the evening news and it was a 5 minute thing, my dad was a little worried but said it's probably something minor. They showed a cloud of smoke comming from the place and that's all, then other daily news followed. I also remember later, my mom saying how that year many of her plants outside had died, don't know if it is related or not. The worst is when the government had asked for volunteers to help clean-up the mess and promised appartments for those who sign up. They didn't say that when they come home to those new appartments, they won't have that time much to enjoy them. There were rumours how people with heavy doses where "cooked" that the skin and meat was comming of their bones and they couldn't even feel that.
That's why the above is probably just an urban legend. I living in former USSR do not recall any major pipeline explosion, of the likes described. But the version I heard, people have been harmed. And as I said, I doubt the people who have put so many missions into space could not come up with a software to control the pipelines.
There are already two competing companies, Time Warner (i.e. cable) and Zoomtown with DSL. This will make things interesting. The price for cable is $40.00 a month with downlstream _advertised_ around 2Mbps and upstream much lower than 1Mbps. I would switch to pay $10 less, it would ammount to $120 a year!
We've seen this before. They gave the Russkies the software that passed the QA tests, but was designed to fail when in operation. How wonderful, they blew up a gas pipeline and killed a bunch of innocent villagers who lived nearby, who probably had never even heard the word "sofware". But then again, one could say it's the Russians that blew it up ultimately. It's not like they didn't have software developers back in the USSR.
So the "garbage in - garbage out" saying is right after all.
I am blaming the military. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be possible to create a "Denial of Entry" by jamming those frequencies in a given area.
On the other side, that would make people actually open their doors by hand (what a concept!), they might loose some weight and build some muscle in the process too.
A radio telescope has captured a wave pattern of a loud burping noise comming from the direction of a supermassive black hole.
Somehow I see MS blaming Linux for it. "A fat penguin was spotted by the security cameras at the Microsoft Headquarters in Remdond last night..."
Growing up in one of the Soviet occupied countries, they made sure that every citizen knows Gagarin, Sputnik, Lunohod and the 2 dogs that flew into orbit (I forgot their names and I am glad). Not a whole a lot of "Armstrong" and "The Shuttle" talk... go figure. They would shove all that stuff down our throats starting in kindergarden. Not really the science aspect, more propaganda, to contrast the "backward" America where they had "slavery" and "lynch mobs". So, I am sure to a much lesser degree, the vice-versa was happening in U.S. That's the reason probably why you haven't heard much of Lunohod.
Explorer, unfortuantely.
I tried to right-click to download, and "oh the humanity" they've blocked the righ-click. You get a message that it's for viewing only. But it doesn't occur to them that people are "viewing" the photos on their machines, the pictures are already downloaded into their cache/temp/watever directory. In other words "view"="download", so I guess they'll have to sue every visitor to the website. Wait, what's that!? Someone is already knocking on my door! Oh noooo! Please, I didn't mean to steal the extra cute train pictures...
Automation.
And all the blacks are criminals and media is owned by the Jews. ... Oh, sorry, I guess I wasn't being too politically correct, but that is exactly what BBC was doing by putting the Open Source advocates in the criminal category. If they are all trying to be politically correct towards the races/religions/gender/etc./etc. in this day and age, shouldn't they have the same attitude towards the Linux users "minority".
I could see how affirmative action would be useful to getting a job or get scholarships. "We would hire you sir, but you see, you just happen to be using Windows and we want to make our company more diverse and all-inclusive"