I read the article yesterday. IIRC, one of the arguments for transplanting the animals is the lack of control some Asian and African governments have in controlling poachers and other encroachers of habitat. I understand the Darwinian argument, but I just have a hard time believing that poachers killing needlessly to produce fur and ivory products is what Darwin had in mind regarding "survival of the fittest." I would like to believe that necessity dictated by nature, not people's aestethic "wants", is what drives Darwinism.
Oh yea, and I saw some posts on here about exploitation based on wage and working hours. So I will add that I was on salary (680/week), usually worked 35 hours a week, so that comes out to the yearly equivalent of about 35 grand. I wouldn't call that exploitation, especially with the modest standard of living in Cincinnati (luckily I could stay with my parents and live 8 minutes from work), especially when my company also gives job offers to 80% of its interns.
I'm finishing up a unique internship next week. I'm an intern working for Proctor & Gamble. I work with a Bioscience group doing web development and creating custom database solutions. The basic role of the group is technology solicitation. There are 6 directors based in 6 areas of the world, The Americas, Central Europe/Africa/Middle East, London/UK/Russia/Baltics, India/Singapore, China/Taiwan/South Korea/Japan, and Australia/Ireland/NZ. I work with brilliant biochemists and neuroscientists, the Chinese guy I work with got a PhD in Biochem and also his MD in China. He's now finishing up his MBA at UChicago.
Anyway the group goes around the world traveling to Biotech conferences, forming partnerships and alliances, yada yada yada. The interest in the group grows, but they as a team don't. They needed some kind of infrastructure to streamline their work process and make it much more seamless. I've developed their website that is going to go live in late October. It has a high usability factor, and it it's real achievemant is the specificity of needs to which it allows the external world to view. Obviously it would be a loss in competetive advantage if all these needs were published. So I developed a custom database solution based in XML/SOAP/WS/XSDL that allows for all of their needs to be tagged with meta-data, and this meta data can be vetted, viewed, and filtered logically by internal parties, but only allows the outside world to see it if their technology cross references with the meta-data sufficiently.
Interest in the site has grown exponentially. Many groups within P&G want to adapt it to their needs internally and externally. We even had the leader of the team who developed P&G's main solicitation interface for the external world come and try to tell us that we need to use their system, but then when I demo'd it and explained all it's capabilities, they told my boss that they wanted to use ours!
It's been great working with brilliant scientists, because even though they know nothing about IT, they were able to get me in touch with the IT component of the company to provide mentors and guidance as to what kind of tech I had at my disposal. The only downside is that I didn't get to work with a formal team in a development cycle, all the protocycling was my own, and it will be reviewed and probably refactored if need be by the IT guys when I'm gone. Anyway, I highly recomment finding a job out of the mainstream, I love what I do.
I had to use these 3 years ago at Vanderbilt for the first semester of physics. Our teacher had a couple prompts throughout the day that we were graded on. The funny thing is that the professor would put in his answer with his clicker and would put his back to the class while doing so; therefore, he allowed us to pretty much see the answer every time. We were actually graded on correct answers, but other sections were merely graded on participation. Nobody wanted to go to the worthless 8:10am lecture, so groups were formed with clicker duty. It was rather amusing seeing someone try to get 5 or 6 clickers to register before the quiz timed out. Basically I think my university used/uses it as a method to make kids go to class... bah
The assumptions you make in this reply are ridiculous.
If you own skis you are not poor? This assumes the skis are recently bought. Of course you totally ignore the possibility that they were owned before someone was a ski bum.
Slacker living off other people? Tell this to the hundreds of ski bums who spend their nights working restuarant jobs to make rent in the small apartment they usually share with 4-5 other people.
Come back home? You assume their parents support them being ski bums... I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. This makes it sound like any struggling artist or writer who is out living in a similar manner doesn't have it rough because they could easily just return home.
Besides, who says these ski bums, or artists, or writers are complaining. They're attempting to live their dream! The fact that free hosting services help legitimate people who are currently financially strapped is a postive thing! The fact that people always have a choice to lead a different life that may be more financially secure is a piss poor argument for requiring payment for web services. The world would be pretty stale if everyone only took paths that were financially conservative from a well-being standpoint.
This is extremely short sighted. When I graduated high school I had a decision to make. Proceed onto college at a very good and prestigious school, or continue my life of amateur and professional ski competitions (err... the stuff you see in the X-games if you watch that kind of thing). I chose college because I didn't know where I'd be at 30 after a skiing career. Most of my friends went the other route. For three years many of them have been in various ski bum situations where they are homeless living out of a van, or going couch to couch. Internet forums, postings, and bloggings via the public library were the only way for my friends to stay in contact with the outside world and keep up to date on competition updates or aiding the search for sponsorship opportunities. Conversely if you were someone who was out of work and money was tight. You might use the library to search for work, or keep a resume or blog on free hosting in order to better chances (however small) at future employment.
I can't imagine that this comment would come to someone who really is "into" music. The face of music at the front of western culture is refactored and generated by music execs. As someone who's been a musician since they were 10 (11 years now), I can't imagine you are looking very hard to find something that you might consider good music. But to be fair, it's not like you are obligated to. I just feel that making such a broad sweeping statement is an insult to quality musicians and composers who you might never hear about just because you discount the present state of music.
Whenever I see posts debating the value of a college education on Slashdot, I can't help but shake my head at posts along the lines of "taking pointless classes, wasting my money. etc." When it comes to classes that are mandatory in your major, I can understand the frustration of their seeming irrelevancy. However, it is your choice what college and program you attend, and there's nothing preventing research into the classes and programs before "wasting your money on them." I go to Vanderbilt University, and I chose it based on national ranking, reputation of the Engineering school, financial aid, and grant money for research that the departments receive. I don't go to college just to waste my money in class. I get to meet people from all over the country in the world. I get to avoid the real world for four more years, continue the the experience of being young in an environment of people with similar attitudes. Friendships and memories in college are part of the whole deal (IMO) also.
Maybe I'm of a different breed cause I don't consider myself the typical Slashdot geek. I've played sports in college (walk on), partied frequently, had serious relationships in school, but somehow in the middle of that I still love to program and do research. Computers and geekdom aren't inherent in my personality, CS and Mathematics is merely what I study. So before going to college, you should probably decide how your personality is going to react to college life and its benefits. Don't complain about the system when it's you controlling your choices.
I don't remember if this was the same guy I saw on TV. But the guy I saw was performing large multiplications and finding large roots in front of an elementary school class. They later showed doctors or scientists doing brain imaging on him while he solved math problems. What they found was that he was using parts of his brain that most people utilize during visualization (not sure how they were able to separate it from him actually seeing something). He said he visualizes the number in his head and then he can perform various manipulations on them and he can "see" the math work itself out. Obviously some is probably genetic, but he also commented on practicing his methods for 5-7 years. He also appears to not be the only root master.
I go to school there (Vanderbilt). The dance marathon is actually a legitimate charity event that a fairly good number of people actually go to. I showed these pictures to one of my roommates and he actually knows some of the guys. I wonder if I added a link of this site in my instant messaging profile if the owner would soon find out about it due to a small number of degrees of separation... hmm.... Or if it was a farce, he'd get even more publicity from students here.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the article yesterday. IIRC, one of the arguments for transplanting the animals is the lack of control some Asian and African governments have in controlling poachers and other encroachers of habitat. I understand the Darwinian argument, but I just have a hard time believing that poachers killing needlessly to produce fur and ivory products is what Darwin had in mind regarding "survival of the fittest." I would like to believe that necessity dictated by nature, not people's aestethic "wants", is what drives Darwinism.
Hahaha... oh man, you got me, actually this is not the first time I've done that, what a horrible habit. I definitely deserve that.
Oh yea, and I saw some posts on here about exploitation based on wage and working hours. So I will add that I was on salary (680/week), usually worked 35 hours a week, so that comes out to the yearly equivalent of about 35 grand. I wouldn't call that exploitation, especially with the modest standard of living in Cincinnati (luckily I could stay with my parents and live 8 minutes from work), especially when my company also gives job offers to 80% of its interns.
I'm finishing up a unique internship next week. I'm an intern working for Proctor & Gamble. I work with a Bioscience group doing web development and creating custom database solutions. The basic role of the group is technology solicitation. There are 6 directors based in 6 areas of the world, The Americas, Central Europe/Africa/Middle East, London/UK/Russia/Baltics, India/Singapore, China/Taiwan/South Korea/Japan, and Australia/Ireland/NZ. I work with brilliant biochemists and neuroscientists, the Chinese guy I work with got a PhD in Biochem and also his MD in China. He's now finishing up his MBA at UChicago. Anyway the group goes around the world traveling to Biotech conferences, forming partnerships and alliances, yada yada yada. The interest in the group grows, but they as a team don't. They needed some kind of infrastructure to streamline their work process and make it much more seamless. I've developed their website that is going to go live in late October. It has a high usability factor, and it it's real achievemant is the specificity of needs to which it allows the external world to view. Obviously it would be a loss in competetive advantage if all these needs were published. So I developed a custom database solution based in XML/SOAP/WS/XSDL that allows for all of their needs to be tagged with meta-data, and this meta data can be vetted, viewed, and filtered logically by internal parties, but only allows the outside world to see it if their technology cross references with the meta-data sufficiently. Interest in the site has grown exponentially. Many groups within P&G want to adapt it to their needs internally and externally. We even had the leader of the team who developed P&G's main solicitation interface for the external world come and try to tell us that we need to use their system, but then when I demo'd it and explained all it's capabilities, they told my boss that they wanted to use ours! It's been great working with brilliant scientists, because even though they know nothing about IT, they were able to get me in touch with the IT component of the company to provide mentors and guidance as to what kind of tech I had at my disposal. The only downside is that I didn't get to work with a formal team in a development cycle, all the protocycling was my own, and it will be reviewed and probably refactored if need be by the IT guys when I'm gone. Anyway, I highly recomment finding a job out of the mainstream, I love what I do.
I had to use these 3 years ago at Vanderbilt for the first semester of physics. Our teacher had a couple prompts throughout the day that we were graded on. The funny thing is that the professor would put in his answer with his clicker and would put his back to the class while doing so; therefore, he allowed us to pretty much see the answer every time. We were actually graded on correct answers, but other sections were merely graded on participation. Nobody wanted to go to the worthless 8:10am lecture, so groups were formed with clicker duty. It was rather amusing seeing someone try to get 5 or 6 clickers to register before the quiz timed out. Basically I think my university used/uses it as a method to make kids go to class... bah
The assumptions you make in this reply are ridiculous. If you own skis you are not poor? This assumes the skis are recently bought. Of course you totally ignore the possibility that they were owned before someone was a ski bum. Slacker living off other people? Tell this to the hundreds of ski bums who spend their nights working restuarant jobs to make rent in the small apartment they usually share with 4-5 other people. Come back home? You assume their parents support them being ski bums... I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. This makes it sound like any struggling artist or writer who is out living in a similar manner doesn't have it rough because they could easily just return home. Besides, who says these ski bums, or artists, or writers are complaining. They're attempting to live their dream! The fact that free hosting services help legitimate people who are currently financially strapped is a postive thing! The fact that people always have a choice to lead a different life that may be more financially secure is a piss poor argument for requiring payment for web services. The world would be pretty stale if everyone only took paths that were financially conservative from a well-being standpoint.
This is extremely short sighted. When I graduated high school I had a decision to make. Proceed onto college at a very good and prestigious school, or continue my life of amateur and professional ski competitions (err... the stuff you see in the X-games if you watch that kind of thing). I chose college because I didn't know where I'd be at 30 after a skiing career. Most of my friends went the other route. For three years many of them have been in various ski bum situations where they are homeless living out of a van, or going couch to couch. Internet forums, postings, and bloggings via the public library were the only way for my friends to stay in contact with the outside world and keep up to date on competition updates or aiding the search for sponsorship opportunities. Conversely if you were someone who was out of work and money was tight. You might use the library to search for work, or keep a resume or blog on free hosting in order to better chances (however small) at future employment.
I can't imagine that this comment would come to someone who really is "into" music. The face of music at the front of western culture is refactored and generated by music execs. As someone who's been a musician since they were 10 (11 years now), I can't imagine you are looking very hard to find something that you might consider good music. But to be fair, it's not like you are obligated to. I just feel that making such a broad sweeping statement is an insult to quality musicians and composers who you might never hear about just because you discount the present state of music.
Whenever I see posts debating the value of a college education on Slashdot, I can't help but shake my head at posts along the lines of "taking pointless classes, wasting my money. etc." When it comes to classes that are mandatory in your major, I can understand the frustration of their seeming irrelevancy. However, it is your choice what college and program you attend, and there's nothing preventing research into the classes and programs before "wasting your money on them." I go to Vanderbilt University, and I chose it based on national ranking, reputation of the Engineering school, financial aid, and grant money for research that the departments receive. I don't go to college just to waste my money in class. I get to meet people from all over the country in the world. I get to avoid the real world for four more years, continue the the experience of being young in an environment of people with similar attitudes. Friendships and memories in college are part of the whole deal (IMO) also. Maybe I'm of a different breed cause I don't consider myself the typical Slashdot geek. I've played sports in college (walk on), partied frequently, had serious relationships in school, but somehow in the middle of that I still love to program and do research. Computers and geekdom aren't inherent in my personality, CS and Mathematics is merely what I study. So before going to college, you should probably decide how your personality is going to react to college life and its benefits. Don't complain about the system when it's you controlling your choices.
They are predominantly Persian IIRC.
I don't remember if this was the same guy I saw on TV. But the guy I saw was performing large multiplications and finding large roots in front of an elementary school class. They later showed doctors or scientists doing brain imaging on him while he solved math problems. What they found was that he was using parts of his brain that most people utilize during visualization (not sure how they were able to separate it from him actually seeing something). He said he visualizes the number in his head and then he can perform various manipulations on them and he can "see" the math work itself out. Obviously some is probably genetic, but he also commented on practicing his methods for 5-7 years. He also appears to not be the only root master.
I go to school there (Vanderbilt). The dance marathon is actually a legitimate charity event that a fairly good number of people actually go to. I showed these pictures to one of my roommates and he actually knows some of the guys. I wonder if I added a link of this site in my instant messaging profile if the owner would soon find out about it due to a small number of degrees of separation... hmm.... Or if it was a farce, he'd get even more publicity from students here.