Mythbusters is a great show! Oh, yeah I should ask a question.
I understand completely why you guys warn us to "not try this at home". But who warns you guys?
Ok all joking aside. You guys do some really dangerous stuff on the show. What has been the scariest/ most hair raising moment on the show so far, a time when you might have thought "this is really going to hurt"?
Hey, that would be a great game. You could have a crazed lawyer chase down everyone making fun of his ridiculous antics and serving them with a lawsuit.
Heck I pay someone $1 to make a game like that. Unlike Thompson, I would make good on my offer....
Yeah, you nailed it! Espicially that part about Hungarian notation.
But really the thing you really got right is that is more important to follow reasonable guidlines and take responsibility for your projects. I would like to add that creating a checklist of procedures and rules won't help your company write better code, it will just add busywork for your developers.
What about Apple and FairPlay? Should Antitrust violations be brought up against them because I can't play my iTMS music on my Sony PSP, or how about the videos from iTVS? Don't even answer, because I know what you're answer is going to be. Its the same boat.
Wow, thats amazing, I actually had to think up my response, but you already knew what it was.
I believe that anti-trust is relevant here because Microsoft has over 90% of the word processing market and continually changes their file formats to foil competition. Apple actually is getting pretty close IMHO to having enough of the market for online music to be bordering on having anti-trust issues with regards to other player support.
Its not about how you do business (open formats or not) it about how the market is layed out and how much of it you control. Microsoft uses its file formats to control Office software suites, and Apple uses Fairplay to control the mp3 player market. Actually both cases do have potential antitrust issues, it all depends on market share.
What really needs to be done is for the accessibility lobby to put pressure on Microsoft to support Opendoc.
Microsoft is using them. The one thing Microsoft can't have is an open format supported for Office documents. Office is the real monopoly, windows loses a lot of its lockin if it weren't for Office.
Microsoft will fight this tooth and nail. What Mass. should do if the Opendoc inititave fails, is mandate that their provider of office software publically provide specifications for their file formats. If Microsoft refuses that, I think they should return to court on antitrust violations.
I'm sick of Microsoft always getting away with playing dirty. And it is playing dirty to use people who have accessibility issues using a comptuer to maintain your monopoly.
People can have many different beliefs, this is the entire point of the FSM. That those beliefs should stay in people's homes and churches, and that science should stay in the classrooms, is the secondary point.
While I actually do agree with you that science shouldn't include ID (I can't even see how you could spend more than a day studying ID in science class), I am disturbed by your comment of faith belonging in homes and churches. Can not faith also be expressed in public?
That is the biggest thing that bothers me about ID. That is: Why are they even bothering to push this? There are so many other more important issues about religious freedom (for any religion) in this country than the mistaken belief that we should teach a faith based theory in science class.
I would much rather have public schools that had philosophy (elective and not required) AND science classes, than schools that only had science, but worked in things like intellegent design.
Its very weak because you are arguing that science should not include faith, and to try to prove it all the FSM people do is mock faith.
If you want to prove the non-existance of God, you need to figure out things like, the origin of matter and the setup for the big bang and you need to do it in a scientific way.
Formulating the FSM doesn't not prove this, it is just an ad-homeniem attack on faith, and proves (or disproves) nothing but that people can have many different beliefs.
Both of you who responded to my post are talking about low performing teachers being a problem.
Which underscores the real problem of No Child Left Behind, since they're not testing how good the teachers are, but what the children know of the test material.
But finding out who the good and bad teachers is is not at all in the interest of the teachers unions or the Federal bureaucrats. Both, of you are right however, finding, rewarding and encouraging the best teachers is the real right answer.
Yep and 40 years of sending more funding (and just coincedentally demanding more control) NOTHING is getting better.
Here's the deal, its not Politically Correct, but it is what is happening. Everyone can't be Average, without everyone being mediocre. To actually leave no child behind you have to move education at the pace of the SLOWEST learners. Sure, you can talk about having gifted programs, but that costs money, and the federal government isn't giving out money based on how many gifted students you have, its based on how AVERAGE (or below) your students are. No child left behind demands that every child receive a mediocre education, or at least that the most effort is put forth for the school to achieve uniform mediocrity.
The only plus in this is that by using test scores, smart students can actually have an impact on the average score of their class. But then that leads to the factor that some classes have more gifted kids in them that do well on tests, so the school district will have good scores one year, and bad ones the next because of the class dynamics change from year to year. But the feds won't like that. Remember, mediocre sameness every year is the goal. So they'll punish the school for the lower scores even though its just statistical abberation.
Its the detail and dedication of your child's indiviudual teachers that will make them learn on not. Federal regulations can't teach your child, its that simple. And right now the regulations are only getting in the teacher's way.
The day/. is pretentious enough to have right and wrong modifiers is the day I stop reading it.
I know that many people at/. really believe that they _know_ the truth, but/.'s about the discussion, not one interest group's belief.
Also, on topic, I just plain know too many religious scientists to believe that all this crap over intelligent design means anything.
I mean really how long could you actually teach intelligent design in a science class? I would think it would go like this: "One theory is that God has directed evolution along its current course.:" There, thats it, you're done. As far as I can see there is nothing else you could actually teach about intelligent design. I honestly don't know what all the yelling is really about -- from either side.
Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION
on
Ma Bell is Back
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· Score: 1
I understand what you are saying about the baby bells all being involved in Cellular. The neat thing about it though was that they were selling Cellular service in each others territory, they didn't have their natrual teritorial monopoly and actually had to compete against each other.
Now as for all the mergers in the cellular world.... I don't believe that's a good thing, but its in the baby bells nature to try to recombine.
Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION
on
Ma Bell is Back
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It didn't work.
Really? Many people like to claim that the breakup of AT&T meant nothing. But I have to ask. "Do you have a cell phone?"
I don't see any reason the the telephone monopoly would have ever gladly spawned the cellular telephone network. They might have developed it yes, but they would have had no impetus to provide good coverage and reasonable rates.
Any scenario I could imagine where AT&T was the only phone company providing cell service doesn't look good at all.
The record companies. The songs are licensed for sale in one country only. Apple would love to be able to offer their entire catalog to anybody anywhere, but the record companies won't allow that. They have to negotiate completely separate licensing agreements for each country.
What, are the record companies stupid or something?... oh, wait, nevermind.
Anecdotally I just don't see it. I've even had pastors who believe in evoultion. I think that there may be some denominational factors at play here as well. Although my church has a large percentage of college educated (college town), and many people with incomes over $ 50,000 so theistic evlotion would probably be the dominant theory from my vantage point.
But, religion still isn't the real root cause of the decline of science today. Pop culture has been attacking science for decades now. And while science (espically computer) was really big during the internet bubble, the backlash against the bubble has more than leveled any of the positive effects.
As a protestant american my only response to your post woult be...WTF?? Are you high or something, your post makes no sense whatsoever. Do you even know any protestant Christians?
Oh, also I am absolutely dumbfounded at how all the comments on this story were basically highjacked by the first post about the "religious right". The religious right is far, far down the long list of things setting back science education in America. Some of those things go back many decades before there even was a "religious right".
Its not THAT religion thats causing the problem. Its the worship of brainless entertainers and sports stars by the masses. As well as the disdain of anything not glitzy or of anything having any depth of thought.
That's the religion that is hurting science in this country.
Ok, here is your new business model: SELL MP3S OVER THE INTERNET!!!!!
There are quite literally millions of people who would buy them. iTunes would have a serious run for its money (at the same pricepoint)for remaining the top site in internet music.
The record companies could do this and they would earn BILLIONS of dollars.
There are millions of people out there who will buy the music. There are millions of file sharers who will actually start buying the music.
All the RIAA needs to be is reasonable, but they're not. All they have to do is make it so easy and reasonably affordable (read same price as iTunes or less) and they can sit back and real in billions of dollars. And there are quite likely millions of people sitting on the sidlines right now, like me, who aren't downloading anything, but also aren't buying CDs.
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Mythbusters is a great show! Oh, yeah I should ask a question.
I understand completely why you guys warn us to "not try this at home". But who warns you guys?
Ok all joking aside. You guys do some really dangerous stuff on the show. What has been the scariest/ most hair raising moment on the show so far, a time when you might have thought "this is really going to hurt"?
Hey, that would be a great game. You could have a crazed lawyer chase down everyone making fun of his ridiculous antics and serving them with a lawsuit.
Heck I pay someone $1 to make a game like that. Unlike Thompson, I would make good on my offer....
Yeah, you nailed it! Espicially that part about Hungarian notation.
But really the thing you really got right is that is more important to follow reasonable guidlines and take responsibility for your projects. I would like to add that creating a checklist of procedures and rules won't help your company write better code, it will just add busywork for your developers.
What about Apple and FairPlay? Should Antitrust violations be brought up against them because I can't play my iTMS music on my Sony PSP, or how about the videos from iTVS? Don't even answer, because I know what you're answer is going to be. Its the same boat.
Wow, thats amazing, I actually had to think up my response, but you already knew what it was.
I believe that anti-trust is relevant here because Microsoft has over 90% of the word processing market and continually changes their file formats to foil competition. Apple actually is getting pretty close IMHO to having enough of the market for online music to be bordering on having anti-trust issues with regards to other player support.
Its not about how you do business (open formats or not) it about how the market is layed out and how much of it you control. Microsoft uses its file formats to control Office software suites, and Apple uses Fairplay to control the mp3 player market. Actually both cases do have potential antitrust issues, it all depends on market share.
What really needs to be done is for the accessibility lobby to put pressure on Microsoft to support Opendoc.
Microsoft is using them. The one thing Microsoft can't have is an open format supported for Office documents. Office is the real monopoly, windows loses a lot of its lockin if it weren't for Office.
Microsoft will fight this tooth and nail. What Mass. should do if the Opendoc inititave fails, is mandate that their provider of office software publically provide specifications for their file formats. If Microsoft refuses that, I think they should return to court on antitrust violations.
I'm sick of Microsoft always getting away with playing dirty. And it is playing dirty to use people who have accessibility issues using a comptuer to maintain your monopoly.
Oddly enough, all this purchasing power seems to stem from the 12-18 year old market.
Thats because the demographic groups that care walked away a long time ago.
I'm pretty sure he spelled frak right.
Frak is actually a made up swear word from Battlestar Galactica.
It is sometimes used by the super geeky. Like er, um, er.. me.
People can have many different beliefs, this is the entire point of the FSM. That those beliefs should stay in people's homes and churches, and that science should stay in the classrooms, is the secondary point.
While I actually do agree with you that science shouldn't include ID (I can't even see how you could spend more than a day studying ID in science class), I am disturbed by your comment of faith belonging in homes and churches. Can not faith also be expressed in public?
That is the biggest thing that bothers me about ID. That is: Why are they even bothering to push this? There are so many other more important issues about religious freedom (for any religion) in this country than the mistaken belief that we should teach a faith based theory in science class.
I would much rather have public schools that had philosophy (elective and not required) AND science classes, than schools that only had science, but worked in things like intellegent design.
Its very weak because you are arguing that science should not include faith, and to try to prove it all the FSM people do is mock faith.
If you want to prove the non-existance of God, you need to figure out things like, the origin of matter and the setup for the big bang and you need to do it in a scientific way.
Formulating the FSM doesn't not prove this, it is just an ad-homeniem attack on faith, and proves (or disproves) nothing but that people can have many different beliefs.
indeed. what happens when google executes order 66?
Damn, I wish I had some mod points for ya. Thats a good one.
Wow after comments like these I can almost feel the next article coming on about how far the US is lagging behind the rest of the world on broadband.
Both of you who responded to my post are talking about low performing teachers being a problem.
Which underscores the real problem of No Child Left Behind, since they're not testing how good the teachers are, but what the children know of the test material.
But finding out who the good and bad teachers is is not at all in the interest of the teachers unions or the Federal bureaucrats. Both, of you are right however, finding, rewarding and encouraging the best teachers is the real right answer.
Yep and 40 years of sending more funding (and just coincedentally demanding more control) NOTHING is getting better.
Here's the deal, its not Politically Correct, but it is what is happening. Everyone can't be Average, without everyone being mediocre. To actually leave no child behind you have to move education at the pace of the SLOWEST learners. Sure, you can talk about having gifted programs, but that costs money, and the federal government isn't giving out money based on how many gifted students you have, its based on how AVERAGE (or below) your students are. No child left behind demands that every child receive a mediocre education, or at least that the most effort is put forth for the school to achieve uniform mediocrity.
The only plus in this is that by using test scores, smart students can actually have an impact on the average score of their class. But then that leads to the factor that some classes have more gifted kids in them that do well on tests, so the school district will have good scores one year, and bad ones the next because of the class dynamics change from year to year. But the feds won't like that. Remember, mediocre sameness every year is the goal. So they'll punish the school for the lower scores even though its just statistical abberation.
Its the detail and dedication of your child's indiviudual teachers that will make them learn on not. Federal regulations can't teach your child, its that simple. And right now the regulations are only getting in the teacher's way.
The day /. is pretentious enough to have right and wrong modifiers is the day I stop reading it.
/. really believe that they _know_ the truth, but /.'s about the discussion, not one interest group's belief.
I know that many people at
Also, on topic, I just plain know too many religious scientists to believe that all this crap over intelligent design means anything.
I mean really how long could you actually teach intelligent design in a science class? I would think it would go like this: "One theory is that God has directed evolution along its current course.:" There, thats it, you're done. As far as I can see there is nothing else you could actually teach about intelligent design. I honestly don't know what all the yelling is really about -- from either side.
I understand what you are saying about the baby bells all being involved in Cellular. The neat thing about it though was that they were selling Cellular service in each others territory, they didn't have their natrual teritorial monopoly and actually had to compete against each other.
Now as for all the mergers in the cellular world.... I don't believe that's a good thing, but its in the baby bells nature to try to recombine.
It didn't work.
Really? Many people like to claim that the breakup of AT&T meant nothing. But I have to ask. "Do you have a cell phone?"
I don't see any reason the the telephone monopoly would have ever gladly spawned the cellular telephone network. They might have developed it yes, but they would have had no impetus to provide good coverage and reasonable rates.
Any scenario I could imagine where AT&T was the only phone company providing cell service doesn't look good at all.
The left doesn't sing kum-by-ya anymore, it has religious references in it....
On another note, this has come up on talk radio and I have even heard it covered on top of the hour newscasts on radio.
The record companies. The songs are licensed for sale in one country only. Apple would love to be able to offer their entire catalog to anybody anywhere, but the record companies won't allow that. They have to negotiate completely separate licensing agreements for each country.
... oh, wait, nevermind.
What, are the record companies stupid or something?
The bottom line is: if our society won't reward anyone that goes into technical careers, why should anyone bother going into them?
I agree completely. Whats more I do fear a nation where the only highly educated position that is encouraged is that of lawyer.
Anecdotally I just don't see it. I've even had pastors who believe in evoultion. I think that there may be some denominational factors at play here as well. Although my church has a large percentage of college educated (college town), and many people with incomes over $ 50,000 so theistic evlotion would probably be the dominant theory from my vantage point.
But, religion still isn't the real root cause of the decline of science today. Pop culture has been attacking science for decades now. And while science (espically computer) was really big during the internet bubble, the backlash against the bubble has more than leveled any of the positive effects.
As a protestant american my only response to your post woult be ...WTF?? Are you high or something, your post makes no sense whatsoever. Do you even know any protestant Christians?
Oh, also I am absolutely dumbfounded at how all the comments on this story were basically highjacked by the first post about the "religious right". The religious right is far, far down the long list of things setting back science education in America. Some of those things go back many decades before there even was a "religious right".
Its not THAT religion thats causing the problem. Its the worship of brainless entertainers and sports stars by the masses. As well as the disdain of anything not glitzy or of anything having any depth of thought.
That's the religion that is hurting science in this country.
WHY? What's wrong with uniform standards for the whole world?
Three letters... DRM. Thats whats wrong.
Hopefully the Chinese standard will be exactly like HD-DVD, only without any DRM.
... and in the Terminator films its Skynet.
Ok, here is your new business model: SELL MP3S OVER THE INTERNET!!!!!
There are quite literally millions of people who would buy them. iTunes would have a serious run for its money (at the same pricepoint)for remaining the top site in internet music.
The record companies could do this and they would earn BILLIONS of dollars.
There are millions of people out there who will buy the music. There are millions of file sharers who will actually start buying the music.
All the RIAA needs to be is reasonable, but they're not. All they have to do is make it so easy and reasonably affordable (read same price as iTunes or less) and they can sit back and real in billions of dollars. And there are quite likely millions of people sitting on the sidlines right now, like me, who aren't downloading anything, but also aren't buying CDs.
But they won't do that.....