An ad-supported copy of Windows would wind up being a coaster on my desk, thrown directly into the trash, stamped with a "return to sender" label, or mircowaved to prevent infection of other computers.
Is more advertizing really what we need? We already have enough issues with IM, email, telemarketers, and TV. I'm sure we could hack the advertizements out of the OS and other assorted MS Software through intercepts, but then again do we want to invest our efforst on something that is meant to "benefit" corporations instead of the individual.
On the other hand, imagine all the crap system administrators would have to put up with at nonprofits who went the Windows routes. "Mary's tired of getting flower and edible underwear ads when writing word documents." Well maybe she should stop ordering that stuff from work.
Profiling is bad, 'nuff said. Use *nix, BSD, or Mac OS and put the juggernaut out of its misery.
Perdido Street Station and the Scar
on
Iron Council
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
As with all major artists' work the first is usually the most creative and energetic and explorative. However, with Iron Council Mieville has not drifted from his roots, only experimented with different interactions of milieu. I read this book when it first came out last year and was engrossed, however, I do think it is on a different level that PSS or the Scar.
Although not reading an author's previous works allows for a more objective point of view I do believe it would be helpful in setting up New Crobuzon as a back drop. Also, I think the reviewer needs to do a little more analysis on regarding why two of the central character's deaths "are of no moment." The bells and whistles should be going off. Why does it evoke this feeling? How has it evoked this feeling? Is Mieville trying to say something about how the world, other characters, or the readers as an audience react? Or doesn't it matter? Is the lack of "characterization" an allusion to a greater departure of self or in fact a lack of meaning in the world? There are so many questions that a reviewer should ask his/herself before commenting on a work.
Needless to say, I loved Perdido Street Station and the Scar, however, I do think that Iron Council is a work within itself and what it lacks in an externally driven world more than makes up for it when it unites the two in the "revolution."
Not to sound redundant but I'm surprised GW doesn't have a little military outfit he totes around in. Hat, tiny dog, and all. What's next the Texas goose-step. Facism in its finest form. We're not publically executing those representatives or our own citizens yet, but I doubt that's far behind.
Once again, people can say good or bad things about Arnold being governor but this is definitely one of the bad things. When he abolished the Car Tax he basically told the state if you want funding you are going to have to come up with it on your own. Which means, we the people pay. Great job dumb a$$.
Tax on road usage, increase in traffic fines (eg: red light violation was $271 but now is $351), etc. It is definitely an incentive to promote public transportation, however that has taken a hit too. There would be less cars on the road if the car tax was still in affect. The state needs to take charge and start taxing people based on the cars they drive: more taxes for those damn gas guzzling 11 mpg monsters (maybe a yearly, monthly road tax for all vehicles that exceed a certain weight: Hummer, Suburban, Expedition) and less for fuel efficient environmentally friendly vehicles.
A couple of months ago I was trying to convince the head of ITS at my work to switch to Mozilla. When Firefox went 1.0 he obliged and we did a complete rollout to all clients. The only real problem being that many Web programmers do not conform to W3C standards and only build applications that are compatible with IE. Personally, I do not use IE and have not for a long time, but the pages that I do create conform to W3C standards. The move to any browser is dependant on how pages are written. More of the IT/programming world should take this into account if we are to see a greater move away from M$ IE
I completely agree with you here. All this negativity from these people is absurd. Honestly, the Prius delivers what it says to deliver. It may not get 61mpg everytime you drive it and it sure doesn't get that all the time but it is within an acceptable 40-53 mpg range all the time. My girlfriend bought her Prius last June and it has delivered to the letter. We have saved a ton of money regardless of the season. These people not impressed with the Prius or the Honda Hybrid need to re-evaluated their driving habits and car maintenance skills. Foremost, you need to be buying second or first best gasoline. Not the 87 crap, the higher two. It may cost more but its much better for the engine. Secondly, re-evaluaute how you drive. Do you drive accelerate likes its a normal car? Do you ride people's asses in stop and go traffic continually riding the breaks? Are you carting around five passengers with tons of luggage? do you change the oil on time? The Prius is a user friendly car and lives up to most of its advertisements. If you don't accelerate fast, roll instead of breaking all the time, make sure your tires are inflated, bring it in for service on-time, don't load it down, and don't feed it gas that includes ethanol and all that other mixed crap that hasn't been banned yet then you should be fine. The goal of the Prius was to be fuel efficient and environmental friendly. I think it does both extremely well. Toyota has a winner here and I'm sorry to see that other car makers aren't on board like Toyoa.
I couldn't agree with you more but I wouldn't go as far to say that CS programs should "wkae up and catch up, [...] teach[ing] what's useful in 'the real world'!" Of course its a matter of opinion, but you have to take into account that a B.S. in Computer Science is about innovation. To be "innovative" you need to know the Computer Science timeline, what's been used to get where we are today, and where were going. Hence the need for Discrete Math, Combinational Math, Automata Theory, Numerical Analysis and Computational Models.
However, I do think that the emphasis on Calc I,II, III and Diff-EQ should be dropped down to just Calc I and maybe Calc II. Like someone said "its the initiaition." The math from high school will help but if you are going to be an creative, innovative, and do I dare use it, efficient, programmer (not this dumb-downed Visual Basic crap), you need the Math theory. It may not be used much in today's realm but if you're doing challenging work in the game industry or getting paid for scientific research for instance then you definitely need that math.
I hate to say it, but the higher-level math (the Calcs) is like a preliminary for Grad School. If you do well there, then your school or others might want you to go to grad school if you did well in CompSci overall.
Sorry to digress, but yes, logic, intellectual skills, communication, attitude, and coding styles/examples/techniques are the key factors today. You can teach a humanities or arts individual to be an excellent programmer, but you shouldn't discount the "comp-math" (discrete, etc.) from the equation in the long run as it is an invaluable asset. Anyone can be a programmer, but very few are excellent "programmers" (developers) without the "comp-math" theory.
As an individual with a B.S. in Computer Science I find all this negativity towards CS Majors absurd. If you are considering a B.S. in Computer Science you have to decide what you enjoy doing. Do you enjoy programming, solving problems, implementing solutions that require in depth technical knowledge of how both hardware and software function, etc? Or are you more of a customer service related, implement technology solutions with knowledge of how hardware and software interact, and want to concentrate on using pre-existing software apps to provdide solutions? Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg in deciding MIS and C.S. A lot of my friends from school loved doing web programming (HTML, XML, some applets, and web design), but hated the whole theoretical aspect of computer science. If you can't take the theory and its inter-relation with math then you should go MIS.
Computer Science is itself inherent to math. You can't really separate the two. Sure you can implement all these solutions with A+, Network+, CCNA, MSCE, but how much do you really understand about truly optimizing performance. What about tailoring apps to employers requirements? Cost/benefit analysis of code? Sure, all that helps, but your not really implementing a complete solution just by setting up a network and providing support. There's so much more to it and that's where the theory, programming, and math come in. Sure you can get by without the math and theory, but how are you going to implement better solutions and design without them? Even with a loose understanding, CS majors have a skillset and problem solving ability that IT majors just don't have. A good question for potential CS majors would be can you make a contribution to the linux development community? If not, maybe you should concentrate on getting an MIS or minoring in IS with a major in business or another field of interest to improve your marketability.
In the end I guess it comes down to each person's ability and interests. Math is inherent to computer science, but focuses on better development and better development techniques while understanding the underlying structure of systems. If you don't want to understand this underlying strucutre and don't care about innovation and theory then stick with IT. IT is innovative, but is more system functionality and maintenance rather than optimization, efficiency, development, and extensibility.
Hey, I do have to say that Sun has been making some good strides in the development realm using Java. Especially in Databases. I love Java. Although, I also love C. However, if IBM acquires Java I fear for our community and the ability to develop openly. If Microsoft acquires power in deciding where Java is going to go I'm going to make the complete change to Linux. Too many developers out there complain about Java and its steep learning curve and ignore the potential and capability that it has. Look at Visual Basic though, its basically a non-thinking, non-innovative way to develop Microsoft-only solutions (because its easy and dumb-downed). Enough is enough already. Sun may not be profitting right now, but I won't go as far to say they are dead.
As pal says above they need to reformulate. Partnerting with Microsoft sucks for all of us Java and C folks, but if they can update their server market and engineering techniques as well as creating some initiatives in the realm of Java develpoment (like the Academic Initiative they'll be fine. Think of how RedHat stock kept dipping after its initial public release. It may not be a similar instance, but its an illustration of growth that Sun needs to follow.
You know, I completely agree with you. I learned how to program, first in BASIC, then in TurboPascal and C. But I did most of my programming in TurboPascal, and like you say, the interface was just an extension of our fingers. You got used to the short cuts and the syntax coloring was awesome. What's more, it reminds you of the drop into a DOS prompt to run your program. Oh, if only programming were still that simple...of course it wouldn't be as fun as it is now!:P
Again, it comes down to the fact that a majority of Americans as a whole are lacking any realistic sense of accountability for their actions. These individuals think that when something goes wrong they can blame the software engineers, the I.T. department, and the network guys for not maintaining a secure "infrastructure." Then, when we retrict rights and acces to prevent these users from inflicting damage to themselves and other local users they scream that we are retricting their rights.
Before graduating from college I worked in an I.T. helpdesk position that responded to a variety of software, hardware, and network related calls. The majority of them were from n00b users who play games, check e-mail, and use MS Office applications. Not one had any clue of how computers actually work. They didn't understand that if everyone in a certain block of IP addresses were pushing fat DVD images over the school's network, that network spped would slow for everyone. Nor did they understand that providng their own information to ad agencies would incurr spam, nor did they realize that they might need antivirus software or a firewall of somesort, nor did they realize that their were uninstall features for the programs bogging down system utilization time, etc, etc, etc.
If the Senator from New York is going to attempt to pass legislation with as many loopholes, protection for the stupid-by the stupid, and give empowering rights to the government to do the same thing the legislation prevents (not that they do that now:P) I suggest he might want to pass legislation requiring every computer using citizen in the U.S. to take a "how computers work course," sign an accountability waiver when they purchase a computer, and require that manufacturers start including "Computers for Dummies" and "Networking for Dummies" with every computer purchase. Although this might sound absurd so is this legislation's attempt at allowing "stupid users" the luxury of not having any sort of accountability for their actions.
Slashdot Mirror
An ad-supported copy of Windows would wind up being a coaster on my desk, thrown directly into the trash, stamped with a "return to sender" label, or mircowaved to prevent infection of other computers. Is more advertizing really what we need? We already have enough issues with IM, email, telemarketers, and TV. I'm sure we could hack the advertizements out of the OS and other assorted MS Software through intercepts, but then again do we want to invest our efforst on something that is meant to "benefit" corporations instead of the individual. On the other hand, imagine all the crap system administrators would have to put up with at nonprofits who went the Windows routes. "Mary's tired of getting flower and edible underwear ads when writing word documents." Well maybe she should stop ordering that stuff from work. Profiling is bad, 'nuff said. Use *nix, BSD, or Mac OS and put the juggernaut out of its misery.
As with all major artists' work the first is usually the most creative and energetic and explorative. However, with Iron Council Mieville has not drifted from his roots, only experimented with different interactions of milieu. I read this book when it first came out last year and was engrossed, however, I do think it is on a different level that PSS or the Scar.
Although not reading an author's previous works allows for a more objective point of view I do believe it would be helpful in setting up New Crobuzon as a back drop. Also, I think the reviewer needs to do a little more analysis on regarding why two of the central character's deaths "are of no moment." The bells and whistles should be going off. Why does it evoke this feeling? How has it evoked this feeling? Is Mieville trying to say something about how the world, other characters, or the readers as an audience react? Or doesn't it matter? Is the lack of "characterization" an allusion to a greater departure of self or in fact a lack of meaning in the world? There are so many questions that a reviewer should ask his/herself before commenting on a work.
Needless to say, I loved Perdido Street Station and the Scar, however, I do think that Iron Council is a work within itself and what it lacks in an externally driven world more than makes up for it when it unites the two in the "revolution."
Not to sound redundant but I'm surprised GW doesn't have a little military outfit he totes around in. Hat, tiny dog, and all. What's next the Texas goose-step. Facism in its finest form. We're not publically executing those representatives or our own citizens yet, but I doubt that's far behind.
Once again, people can say good or bad things about Arnold being governor but this is definitely one of the bad things. When he abolished the Car Tax he basically told the state if you want funding you are going to have to come up with it on your own. Which means, we the people pay. Great job dumb a$$. Tax on road usage, increase in traffic fines (eg: red light violation was $271 but now is $351), etc. It is definitely an incentive to promote public transportation, however that has taken a hit too. There would be less cars on the road if the car tax was still in affect. The state needs to take charge and start taxing people based on the cars they drive: more taxes for those damn gas guzzling 11 mpg monsters (maybe a yearly, monthly road tax for all vehicles that exceed a certain weight: Hummer, Suburban, Expedition) and less for fuel efficient environmentally friendly vehicles.
A couple of months ago I was trying to convince the head of ITS at my work to switch to Mozilla. When Firefox went 1.0 he obliged and we did a complete rollout to all clients. The only real problem being that many Web programmers do not conform to W3C standards and only build applications that are compatible with IE. Personally, I do not use IE and have not for a long time, but the pages that I do create conform to W3C standards. The move to any browser is dependant on how pages are written. More of the IT/programming world should take this into account if we are to see a greater move away from M$ IE
I completely agree with you here. All this negativity from these people is absurd. Honestly, the Prius delivers what it says to deliver. It may not get 61mpg everytime you drive it and it sure doesn't get that all the time but it is within an acceptable 40-53 mpg range all the time.
My girlfriend bought her Prius last June and it has delivered to the letter. We have saved a ton of money regardless of the season.
These people not impressed with the Prius or the Honda Hybrid need to re-evaluated their driving habits and car maintenance skills. Foremost, you need to be buying second or first best gasoline. Not the 87 crap, the higher two. It may cost more but its much better for the engine. Secondly, re-evaluaute how you drive. Do you drive accelerate likes its a normal car? Do you ride people's asses in stop and go traffic continually riding the breaks? Are you carting around five passengers with tons of luggage? do you change the oil on time?
The Prius is a user friendly car and lives up to most of its advertisements. If you don't accelerate fast, roll instead of breaking all the time, make sure your tires are inflated, bring it in for service on-time, don't load it down, and don't feed it gas that includes ethanol and all that other mixed crap that hasn't been banned yet then you should be fine.
The goal of the Prius was to be fuel efficient and environmental friendly. I think it does both extremely well. Toyota has a winner here and I'm sorry to see that other car makers aren't on board like Toyoa.
I couldn't agree with you more but I wouldn't go as far to say that CS programs should "wkae up and catch up, [...] teach[ing] what's useful in 'the real world'!" Of course its a matter of opinion, but you have to take into account that a B.S. in Computer Science is about innovation. To be "innovative" you need to know the Computer Science timeline, what's been used to get where we are today, and where were going. Hence the need for Discrete Math, Combinational Math, Automata Theory, Numerical Analysis and Computational Models.
However, I do think that the emphasis on Calc I,II, III and Diff-EQ should be dropped down to just Calc I and maybe Calc II. Like someone said "its the initiaition." The math from high school will help but if you are going to be an creative, innovative, and do I dare use it, efficient, programmer (not this dumb-downed Visual Basic crap), you need the Math theory. It may not be used much in today's realm but if you're doing challenging work in the game industry or getting paid for scientific research for instance then you definitely need that math.
I hate to say it, but the higher-level math (the Calcs) is like a preliminary for Grad School. If you do well there, then your school or others might want you to go to grad school if you did well in CompSci overall.
Sorry to digress, but yes, logic, intellectual skills, communication, attitude, and coding styles/examples/techniques are the key factors today. You can teach a humanities or arts individual to be an excellent programmer, but you shouldn't discount the "comp-math" (discrete, etc.) from the equation in the long run as it is an invaluable asset. Anyone can be a programmer, but very few are excellent "programmers" (developers) without the "comp-math" theory.
As an individual with a B.S. in Computer Science I find all this negativity towards CS Majors absurd. If you are considering a B.S. in Computer Science you have to decide what you enjoy doing. Do you enjoy programming, solving problems, implementing solutions that require in depth technical knowledge of how both hardware and software function, etc? Or are you more of a customer service related, implement technology solutions with knowledge of how hardware and software interact, and want to concentrate on using pre-existing software apps to provdide solutions? Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg in deciding MIS and C.S. A lot of my friends from school loved doing web programming (HTML, XML, some applets, and web design), but hated the whole theoretical aspect of computer science. If you can't take the theory and its inter-relation with math then you should go MIS.
Computer Science is itself inherent to math. You can't really separate the two. Sure you can implement all these solutions with A+, Network+, CCNA, MSCE, but how much do you really understand about truly optimizing performance. What about tailoring apps to employers requirements? Cost/benefit analysis of code? Sure, all that helps, but your not really implementing a complete solution just by setting up a network and providing support. There's so much more to it and that's where the theory, programming, and math come in.
Sure you can get by without the math and theory, but how are you going to implement better solutions and design without them? Even with a loose understanding, CS majors have a skillset and problem solving ability that IT majors just don't have. A good question for potential CS majors would be can you make a contribution to the linux development community? If not, maybe you should concentrate on getting an MIS or minoring in IS with a major in business or another field of interest to improve your marketability.
In the end I guess it comes down to each person's ability and interests. Math is inherent to computer science, but focuses on better development and better development techniques while understanding the underlying structure of systems. If you don't want to understand this underlying strucutre and don't care about innovation and theory then stick with IT. IT is innovative, but is more system functionality and maintenance rather than optimization, efficiency, development, and extensibility.
Hey, I do have to say that Sun has been making some good strides in the development realm using Java. Especially in Databases. I love Java. Although, I also love C. However, if IBM acquires Java I fear for our community and the ability to develop openly. If Microsoft acquires power in deciding where Java is going to go I'm going to make the complete change to Linux. Too many developers out there complain about Java and its steep learning curve and ignore the potential and capability that it has. Look at Visual Basic though, its basically a non-thinking, non-innovative way to develop Microsoft-only solutions (because its easy and dumb-downed). Enough is enough already. Sun may not be profitting right now, but I won't go as far to say they are dead.
As pal says above they need to reformulate. Partnerting with Microsoft sucks for all of us Java and C folks, but if they can update their server market and engineering techniques as well as creating some initiatives in the realm of Java develpoment (like the Academic Initiative they'll be fine. Think of how RedHat stock kept dipping after its initial public release. It may not be a similar instance, but its an illustration of growth that Sun needs to follow.
Linux, Mozilla, ethereal, etc...and of course the almighty rsync!!!
You know, I completely agree with you. I learned how to program, first in BASIC, then in TurboPascal and C. But I did most of my programming in TurboPascal, and like you say, the interface was just an extension of our fingers. You got used to the short cuts and the syntax coloring was awesome. What's more, it reminds you of the drop into a DOS prompt to run your program. Oh, if only programming were still that simple...of course it wouldn't be as fun as it is now! :P
Again, it comes down to the fact that a majority of Americans as a whole are lacking any realistic sense of accountability for their actions. These individuals think that when something goes wrong they can blame the software engineers, the I.T. department, and the network guys for not maintaining a secure "infrastructure." Then, when we retrict rights and acces to prevent these users from inflicting damage to themselves and other local users they scream that we are retricting their rights. :P) I suggest he might want to pass legislation requiring every computer using citizen in the U.S. to take a "how computers work course," sign an accountability waiver when they purchase a computer, and require that manufacturers start including "Computers for Dummies" and "Networking for Dummies" with every computer purchase. Although this might sound absurd so is this legislation's attempt at allowing "stupid users" the luxury of not having any sort of accountability for their actions.
Before graduating from college I worked in an I.T. helpdesk position that responded to a variety of software, hardware, and network related calls. The majority of them were from n00b users who play games, check e-mail, and use MS Office applications. Not one had any clue of how computers actually work. They didn't understand that if everyone in a certain block of IP addresses were pushing fat DVD images over the school's network, that network spped would slow for everyone. Nor did they understand that providng their own information to ad agencies would incurr spam, nor did they realize that they might need antivirus software or a firewall of somesort, nor did they realize that their were uninstall features for the programs bogging down system utilization time, etc, etc, etc.
If the Senator from New York is going to attempt to pass legislation with as many loopholes, protection for the stupid-by the stupid, and give empowering rights to the government to do the same thing the legislation prevents (not that they do that now