Why would they feel the need to "reveal" themselves to us? When biologists study wildlife, they try to stay as hidden as possible. Who's to say that we're not wildlife to them? And seriously, just like rogue biologists, there could be rogue aliens that try to get closer than they are supposed to.
Yeah, tell me about it. Most interviews when they tell me to program something in front of them or something similar, I can't even concentrate. I seriously just keep thinking in my head, "I wonder what he/she is thinking" and I can't even get lines of code out on paper.
The real funny thing is at my current job, I got one of the highest bonuses out of all the devs and the best review. And I work with a bunch of Stanford graduates, and I graduated from some no name university. I'm also the lead developer on most of our most successful projects.
I'd seriously just like them to give me some work, a deadline, and come in on that day with the code in hand (without someone watching me the entire time).
I love my job, though, so I don't have to worry about looking for jobs anytime soon:)
I remember taking an exam on a computer using our laptops because laptops were required at the university which I attended. Myself and two other people were the only people not in the chat room giving each other the answers (it was code we were writing btw). Cheating happens all the time. You don't tell on the people because you can't prove it, and it will make your life hell for the rest of the time you spend with them.
The only difference is when people get out in the real world and start interviewing for jobs, they're not going to know what they're talking about and I do (although I get really nervous in interviews and sound stupid, but that's beside the point).
> (otherwise I'm sure they'd be too busy to give free service other than pro bono and the like).
That's not entirely true. My father is a corporate attorney and maybe really only works about 4 hours out of the day. I remember learning something about this in macro economics. The amount people work in relation to the amount people make is in a bell curve. Once people make over a certain amount, the amount of time they spend working goes down.
Don't give me a high score for this post as it is irrelevent to the topic.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think the average number of words are said in 5 seconds? I mean, given 4 bytes, would that be a large enough chunk to have a unique 4-byte encoding for a phrase? You could also assume that a large portion of the dictionary isn't even used by the average person.
This doesn't necessarily have to record the actual sounds, but would be the same as voice recognition software (converting words to text). It's just a matter of how advanced the voice recognition software is.
I could be quite wrong, as these aren't my areas, but I thought I'd point it out.
Re:Just like there will never be another Doom
on
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, coming off of games such as EQ and FFXI, WoW requires much much less time investment. That was one of the big selling points for me. It didn't take me a month to go two levels.
Since there is no longer any brain activity after death, there seems to be a problem. If the brain is anything like a Turing Machine, the majority of who the person is can be the software portion (the signals, not the goo that is your brain). I myself don't think that the hardware portion (physical) of the brain is who the person is or has the momories hardwired. He would lose all his memories, history, and everything. It would be like being born into the body of a old person (assuming it's not just his brain that's being frozen). Basically, it would be the same as if he just handed the money off to some stranger.
I'm not an expert on this of course, although I'd love to do related research in grad school. It's quite interesting.
Actually, there were three forms of the the plague. I believe they were all bacterial.
The first is what you're talking about. It is passed by the fleas on rats. These fleas have such a large buildup of the plague in their mouths that they constantly try to feed because they can't get food into their stomachs which caused them to bite any animal they could (jump from host to host). Supposedly, if your swelled lymphnodes (buboes) popped and the puss drained, it meant that you would live. This is the kind that is most associated with the Black Plague.
The second kind is pneumonic plague. Nearly 100% who contracted this form died.
The third kind, septicemic plague, somehow makes it into the bloodstream. There isn't too much known about it.
And here's my source:
Aberth, John. The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
It's a pretty good read. There's a lot of evidence through translated primary sources. The main point of the book is to express human reaction to the plague through treatments, religious mentalities (flagelants, etc.). It's a short book (180 pages), so don't expect it to be an endless pit of information.
Isn't it legal to quote text from a book or article as long as you provide the source? I believe it is, and I'm pretty damn sure the point of a search engine is to provide a source (not the technical interpretation). But let's face it, Google WILL provide the link to the source. If they don't, then it is illegal.
Is there something I'm not taking into consideration here?
Think about it. Are most LARGE news agencies democratic or republican? If they're mostly republican, they aren't going to badmouth their part are they? That would explain the badmouthing that Clinton received.
It's similar to the whole Matrix lawsuit where the makers were being sued for stealing some lady's ideas and she won shloads of money. Did you see that on the news? Of course not because AOL Time Warner is the company that made the Matrix, so they didn't want to give themselves bad press. As far as I know, AOL Time Warner owns the majority of the press.
I don't know much about FreeDOS and haven't used it, so tell me if I get something wrong (and I'm sure Slashdot will!). My question is whether someone has actually purchased one of their FreeDOS systems and experienced incompatibilities between the OS and some device on the Dell computer such as a sound card or something. If there haven't been any such issues, then Dell has probably done testing to make sure it works on that system (maybe even coding to help FreeDOS be compatible). I haven't seen any cost analysis that involves the cost for testing the system to make sure it works with an operating system or the cost of fixing any problems so much of the article is speculative.
Another issue is that the system will NOT sell as many as the windows system, so the pricing will be different for that system to make a profit. Even though it may be the same system as one of their windows boxes, they cannot advertise it as such, so to keep legal, it has to be treated as a different product and because it is a different product, it accumulates more costs (because there are always costs involved in a new product lines). I'm not saying that I'm right about this, but it does need to be taken into consideration. Saying it's because they're evil is just too convenient and requires no analysis.
I'm not saying everything Dell does is great (in fact I hate Dell). I'm just saying that there are a lot of variables that need to be taken into consideration before you can argue whether the pricing scheme is done because of some shady practices or because they really had to make it cost more just to make a profit off of it.
I actually just erased a bunch more stuff because it was mainly redundant and I wanted to keep my ranting to a minimum.
Kids spending time walking through graveyards watching each tombstone video? I could really see this as a fad for kids and maybe adults too. I mean, how interesting would it be to walk through a graveyard and actually find out something about the bodies under the ground?
This is my first post ever, so here it goes.
I have a lot of friends who know very little about computers, yet have one (of course!). Probably the biggest issue is that when asked about operating systems, most really don't know about anything but Windows. A few of them are starting to find out about OS X, and they think it looks neat and actually debate on whether to buy it. Some decide against it because they find out the new game they want isn't made for OS X, others think it is too expensive (and that can be untrue). I still know lots of people who are making the switch or want to make the switch.
Despite the growing number of switchers, Apple needs to work on correcting a lot of the misinformed people out there. Actually, just recently, someone I know told me he didn't like Macs because he tried it at his sister's and he said it sucked. Well, she was running OS 9. In my opinion (and probably a lot of others as well), OS 9 isn't anywhere near OS X. I showed him OS X and now he wants one.
The reason people don't know about other operating systems is that they don't see it on TV or in magazines, etc, except for Macs maybe. Macs get placed all over the place in movies now, but a lot of people don't differentiate between computers people are using in movies.
I'm assuming that their iPod is probably the biggest marketing tool for their computers. When people walk into Apple stores, they see that they also sell computers and are shown how the user interface is and are told the advantages, etc.
In my opinion, Apple is going to be the biggest threat to Microsoft (in the home user market) because they are MARKETING their products. I've never seen a Linux commercial, so very few non-computer people even know about it. Maybe if people saw it on TV (basically if they are informed) and were told all the advantages (It's FREE! or pretty close to it if you buy the CDs), they would be more likely to buy it (and hopefully their install process works fine otherwise they will tell other people that they couldn't get it to work). Maybe if Linux were marketed (or better marketed if it already is marketed), it would stand a chance in the home user market.
If people don't know their options, there are no options for them. I believe that is why Microsoft has held their monopoly for so long (along with many other factors of course).
If you think people should switch to linux, stop telling all the other computer-knowledgeable people about it and start telling the general consumers. I tell a lot of people they should switch to the Mac, and I show them what it's like and let them see how EASY TO USE it is. They usually end up liking it a lot and then know that there EXIST other options besides Windows.
Beyond this, I would like to say that Dell and other computer manufacturers should also be held accountable for knowingly contributing to Microsoft's monopoly. Other companies are so willing to help out wrongdoings if they can make a buck without any consequences.
There are a lot of changes in the law and how government works that I would like to see changed that would effect such things, but this post is already long enough for my tastes.
Anyways, I think that's enough writing. Hopefully some of you find this an interesting (and coherent) thought. I have a tendency to wander off-topic.
-Jon
Slashdot Mirror
They should stop teaching to the lowest common denominator not increase the time.
Why would they feel the need to "reveal" themselves to us? When biologists study wildlife, they try to stay as hidden as possible. Who's to say that we're not wildlife to them? And seriously, just like rogue biologists, there could be rogue aliens that try to get closer than they are supposed to.
Yeah, tell me about it. Most interviews when they tell me to program something in front of them or something similar, I can't even concentrate. I seriously just keep thinking in my head, "I wonder what he/she is thinking" and I can't even get lines of code out on paper.
The real funny thing is at my current job, I got one of the highest bonuses out of all the devs and the best review. And I work with a bunch of Stanford graduates, and I graduated from some no name university. I'm also the lead developer on most of our most successful projects.
I'd seriously just like them to give me some work, a deadline, and come in on that day with the code in hand (without someone watching me the entire time).
I love my job, though, so I don't have to worry about looking for jobs anytime soon :)
I know this has nothing to do with it, but I'm in Silicon Valley and I can't even ping youtube. Is anyone else having this issue?
> Don't tell people what to work on? And exactly how does that finish projects, ever? Well, it works in the open source community....
I remember taking an exam on a computer using our laptops because laptops were required at the university which I attended. Myself and two other people were the only people not in the chat room giving each other the answers (it was code we were writing btw). Cheating happens all the time. You don't tell on the people because you can't prove it, and it will make your life hell for the rest of the time you spend with them. The only difference is when people get out in the real world and start interviewing for jobs, they're not going to know what they're talking about and I do (although I get really nervous in interviews and sound stupid, but that's beside the point).
> (otherwise I'm sure they'd be too busy to give free service other than pro bono and the like). That's not entirely true. My father is a corporate attorney and maybe really only works about 4 hours out of the day. I remember learning something about this in macro economics. The amount people work in relation to the amount people make is in a bell curve. Once people make over a certain amount, the amount of time they spend working goes down. Don't give me a high score for this post as it is irrelevent to the topic.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think the average number of words are said in 5 seconds? I mean, given 4 bytes, would that be a large enough chunk to have a unique 4-byte encoding for a phrase? You could also assume that a large portion of the dictionary isn't even used by the average person. This doesn't necessarily have to record the actual sounds, but would be the same as voice recognition software (converting words to text). It's just a matter of how advanced the voice recognition software is. I could be quite wrong, as these aren't my areas, but I thought I'd point it out.
Actually, coming off of games such as EQ and FFXI, WoW requires much much less time investment. That was one of the big selling points for me. It didn't take me a month to go two levels.
Since there is no longer any brain activity after death, there seems to be a problem. If the brain is anything like a Turing Machine, the majority of who the person is can be the software portion (the signals, not the goo that is your brain). I myself don't think that the hardware portion (physical) of the brain is who the person is or has the momories hardwired. He would lose all his memories, history, and everything. It would be like being born into the body of a old person (assuming it's not just his brain that's being frozen). Basically, it would be the same as if he just handed the money off to some stranger.
I'm not an expert on this of course, although I'd love to do related research in grad school. It's quite interesting.
Actually, there were three forms of the the plague. I believe they were all bacterial.
The first is what you're talking about. It is passed by the fleas on rats. These fleas have such a large buildup of the plague in their mouths that they constantly try to feed because they can't get food into their stomachs which caused them to bite any animal they could (jump from host to host). Supposedly, if your swelled lymphnodes (buboes) popped and the puss drained, it meant that you would live. This is the kind that is most associated with the Black Plague.
The second kind is pneumonic plague. Nearly 100% who contracted this form died.
The third kind, septicemic plague, somehow makes it into the bloodstream. There isn't too much known about it.
And here's my source:
Aberth, John. The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
It's a pretty good read. There's a lot of evidence through translated primary sources. The main point of the book is to express human reaction to the plague through treatments, religious mentalities (flagelants, etc.). It's a short book (180 pages), so don't expect it to be an endless pit of information.
Isn't it legal to quote text from a book or article as long as you provide the source? I believe it is, and I'm pretty damn sure the point of a search engine is to provide a source (not the technical interpretation). But let's face it, Google WILL provide the link to the source. If they don't, then it is illegal.
Is there something I'm not taking into consideration here?
You're not taking into consideration that it's a message from someone on your buddy list, not a perfect stranger.
Think about it. Are most LARGE news agencies democratic or republican? If they're mostly republican, they aren't going to badmouth their part are they? That would explain the badmouthing that Clinton received.
It's similar to the whole Matrix lawsuit where the makers were being sued for stealing some lady's ideas and she won shloads of money. Did you see that on the news? Of course not because AOL Time Warner is the company that made the Matrix, so they didn't want to give themselves bad press. As far as I know, AOL Time Warner owns the majority of the press.
I don't know much about FreeDOS and haven't used it, so tell me if I get something wrong (and I'm sure Slashdot will!). My question is whether someone has actually purchased one of their FreeDOS systems and experienced incompatibilities between the OS and some device on the Dell computer such as a sound card or something. If there haven't been any such issues, then Dell has probably done testing to make sure it works on that system (maybe even coding to help FreeDOS be compatible). I haven't seen any cost analysis that involves the cost for testing the system to make sure it works with an operating system or the cost of fixing any problems so much of the article is speculative.
Another issue is that the system will NOT sell as many as the windows system, so the pricing will be different for that system to make a profit. Even though it may be the same system as one of their windows boxes, they cannot advertise it as such, so to keep legal, it has to be treated as a different product and because it is a different product, it accumulates more costs (because there are always costs involved in a new product lines). I'm not saying that I'm right about this, but it does need to be taken into consideration. Saying it's because they're evil is just too convenient and requires no analysis.
I'm not saying everything Dell does is great (in fact I hate Dell). I'm just saying that there are a lot of variables that need to be taken into consideration before you can argue whether the pricing scheme is done because of some shady practices or because they really had to make it cost more just to make a profit off of it.
I actually just erased a bunch more stuff because it was mainly redundant and I wanted to keep my ranting to a minimum.
Did anyone else realize that you can't enter the competition on that site if you're in the US. It seems to be targeted only at Europe.
Kids spending time walking through graveyards watching each tombstone video? I could really see this as a fad for kids and maybe adults too. I mean, how interesting would it be to walk through a graveyard and actually find out something about the bodies under the ground?
This is my first post ever, so here it goes. I have a lot of friends who know very little about computers, yet have one (of course!). Probably the biggest issue is that when asked about operating systems, most really don't know about anything but Windows. A few of them are starting to find out about OS X, and they think it looks neat and actually debate on whether to buy it. Some decide against it because they find out the new game they want isn't made for OS X, others think it is too expensive (and that can be untrue). I still know lots of people who are making the switch or want to make the switch. Despite the growing number of switchers, Apple needs to work on correcting a lot of the misinformed people out there. Actually, just recently, someone I know told me he didn't like Macs because he tried it at his sister's and he said it sucked. Well, she was running OS 9. In my opinion (and probably a lot of others as well), OS 9 isn't anywhere near OS X. I showed him OS X and now he wants one. The reason people don't know about other operating systems is that they don't see it on TV or in magazines, etc, except for Macs maybe. Macs get placed all over the place in movies now, but a lot of people don't differentiate between computers people are using in movies. I'm assuming that their iPod is probably the biggest marketing tool for their computers. When people walk into Apple stores, they see that they also sell computers and are shown how the user interface is and are told the advantages, etc. In my opinion, Apple is going to be the biggest threat to Microsoft (in the home user market) because they are MARKETING their products. I've never seen a Linux commercial, so very few non-computer people even know about it. Maybe if people saw it on TV (basically if they are informed) and were told all the advantages (It's FREE! or pretty close to it if you buy the CDs), they would be more likely to buy it (and hopefully their install process works fine otherwise they will tell other people that they couldn't get it to work). Maybe if Linux were marketed (or better marketed if it already is marketed), it would stand a chance in the home user market. If people don't know their options, there are no options for them. I believe that is why Microsoft has held their monopoly for so long (along with many other factors of course). If you think people should switch to linux, stop telling all the other computer-knowledgeable people about it and start telling the general consumers. I tell a lot of people they should switch to the Mac, and I show them what it's like and let them see how EASY TO USE it is. They usually end up liking it a lot and then know that there EXIST other options besides Windows. Beyond this, I would like to say that Dell and other computer manufacturers should also be held accountable for knowingly contributing to Microsoft's monopoly. Other companies are so willing to help out wrongdoings if they can make a buck without any consequences. There are a lot of changes in the law and how government works that I would like to see changed that would effect such things, but this post is already long enough for my tastes. Anyways, I think that's enough writing. Hopefully some of you find this an interesting (and coherent) thought. I have a tendency to wander off-topic. -Jon