"The human eye can discern between roughly 2^24 different colors (this number obviously varies greatly from person to person and depends a lot on viewing conditions), so a 24-bit image is needed to represent the full range of colors that we can perceive."
2^24 = 16,777,216 colors, which is just slightly bigger than 16,000.
Oh, btw, the real fact is to get into any of these schools that will take you, then make your decision as to the school that best fits you. Not this drumbeating of unseemingly pitting one institution over another as if some prizes by committees validates one institution as more or less than another.
Well, perhaps there is still a point. I'm an engineering grad. student at MIT, and the work I'm doing is work I could have done Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc... because, quite frankly, my work is not groundbreaking. For most graduate students, I think this is the typical case.
On the other hand, there are a few grad. students who pick up the work of their adviser, work which may be groundbreaking and which may make them as a student look very good. It's not commonplace, but when it does happen, it's extremely beneficial.
As far as for how well a school "fits," I found that the adviser is the one who sets the tone for your academic life, not the university itself, because classes really are a second priority. What's left is really how well you like the social life at the university.
So I think these comparisons are useful because they give a student looking for a graduate school a chance to find the place that will benefit them the most professionally.
Should you be paid like a lawyer or doctor? No. (1) The supply and demand (of IT professionals) doesn't justify it, and, frankly, (2) the skills required in IT are not even close to that of, say, a surgeon or a prosecutor.
I speak from experience. I have lawyer friends who run circles around me when it comes to their work. They don't call me "stupid," they simply understand that our specialties do not overlap very much.
Keep in mind that IT is a *support* field. You job is to develop and maintain the infrastructure that allows them to carry out their (very important) jobs more efficiently.
I mean, is Deep Impact really that anti-communist?
My guess is that in the Chinese government's frantic effort not to let any sexually-oriented sites slip through the cracks of censorship, Deep Impact was judged by its title.
Oddly, it seems blocking Slashdot would have made more sense than blocking non-political, academic web sites such as MIT EECS, MIT Alumni club, Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, and so on... . See for yourself on the list of blocked sites.
If China is looking to continue to improve its science and engineering skills, why block these sites???
My high school did as well, but that was 9-10 years ago. Frankly, I think Pascal and QBasic are spectacular languages for learning programming. But Pascal isn't really used anymore, is it? What ever happened to that great language?
If you're going to make such an absolute statement, then back it up with references if you want anyone to take you seriously, failing that, it's just another mindless rant.
I believe you too made a fairly bold statement without providing references when you wrote "in most countries copying software is not a crime."
Here's a reference: The WIPO Copyright Treaty, adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996, provides additional protections for copyright deemed necessary in the modern information era. It ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works.
A list of countries that have signed the document as well as signed and enforcing the treaty can be found here. So, in a sense, both of you are right -- most countries are not party to the treaty, but the missing signatures are primarily from the 3rd world. Of course, also notably lacking is the biggest copyright violator of them all: China.
It's odd that every comment here is about circuits and electricity. The article refers kids couldn't figure out that pouring water from a a tall thin jug into a fat small jug gives you the same amount of water!!!
What the living heck does that have to do with ICs? You can play with electricity not understanding the simply or complicated explaination underlying physics all day long. This is about the basics of interacting with this world on a mechanical level.
OK, but like many of you, I taught myself programming as a kid and studies EE later... but hell, I also played outside and got a sense for gravity, forces, and geometry. That's what this is REALLY about!
I think this is a really good point. What comes first, support from the browser or a push from developers? In this case, I don't think it's a chicken-and-the-egg problem, and the browsers should support it first. When web developers have a choice of tools, they'll (hopefully) make the best choice from what's available.
My guess is that the browser developers' reluctances stem from not knowing which standard will take off next -- which standard should they spend their time developing, debugging, and perfecting?
Any firefox developers out there who want to field this one????
Just a quick point -- our isolation (via embargo) of Cuba since the 60's hasn't worked at all to remove Fidel Castro, and our isolation of N. Korea hasn't worked to stem the tide of their nuclear ambitions at the expense of its own people. Each of these nations has an agenda and intends to see it through. Both governments (like China) isolate their people despite our efforts ( Cuban example), and, further, they use our isolationist tactics against us by demonizing America to justify their abusive power.
All expectations are that China will overtake the USA as the world's #1 economy in this century, regardless of Google's actions. If we isolate China, we give the rest of the world to invest in the future cash cow while we're left behind. Sure, in an ideal world, free speech, democracy, and apple pie conquer all, but this is the real world. Fact is, by not isolating China, their markets have opened and captitalism is beginning to take some root. Some believe that the emerging middle class in China will eventually demand reform, but we can only hope.
I think its also important to note that our interactions with China can hardly be classified as Brinkmanship. Remember the debates of this past summer about them pegging their currency to ours? We did nothing about it, despit tough talk from Capitol Hill.
BAD co-dependent enabler of half-assed articles by zealots. Bad! Bad!
Not only a poor joke, but poor judgement as well. Simply put, Wikipedia "The Free Encyclopedia" is a terrific resource. I generally use it cross-reference higher level mathematics (which, by the way, you'd be hard pressed to find in Encyclopaedia Britannica) alongside Mathworld and Planetmath, and I enjoy reading random articles on topics of interest. As a graduate student, I don't have access to $$$ required to buy a full encyclopedia set, and my small donation to Wikipedia is a show of appreciation to those who volunteered their time to write for the site.
Why you believe I or other users of Wikipedia are "co-dependant" or "zealots" is simply odd. I'm hardly surprised, though, given that this is Slashdot, where geeks pretend they are gods. Regardless, it's a free market and this is a non-profit organization. If you don't support Wikipedia, don't make a donation. Others of us who use it regularly will.
Wikipedia has gone from a free, editable-by-everyone encyclopedia to one accessible for contribution by only an elite few.
That's just plain wrong! Just this past week, I made several corrections to some existing pages and submitted another page for deletion.... and I only just created my new user name last week! Before then, I just made my contributions anonymously. Sure, administrators are given the final say in matters like page deletion, but that's simply administrative work, and the majority of Wikipedians don't need such "cleanup" powers anyway.
I'm giving some bucks to the best damned free encyclopedia out there.
It's a short blog, and it didn't take too long to get to this air-clearing quote:
"A while back an Opera spokeswoman told me that they have been approached by major companies in the past but Opera's CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, has always declined the offers, no matter the dollar size.
An Opera official outright denied this claim, after I asked about it, saying 'Rumors come and go. Google is not buying Opera.' "
It seems especially odd that Google would purchase Opera when they already lend support to Firefox.
"Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations she is entitled to the first rank." -- Carl Friedrich Gauss
I believe they are his words as well, and I also believe he (and the republicans) believe its a channel by which they can reach young (tech savvy) Americans. It's a good idea. Thank goodness he doesn't have a "talkback" feature;)
Perhaps adding the "cleaner" time as your suggesting should depend upon the context:
(1) Applying it to a machine that performs read and write operations all day: yes, it definitely should be added because it impacts perceived performance
(2) Applying to a machine that performs read and write operations all day except during the period 2AM-5AM: then, no, it should not be added because the "cleaner" should be executed during this time period, giving no percieved slow-down.
For those of us who leave our machines idle for long periods at a time, this could be useful -- if it performs as advertised.
Personally, I think Google's "beta" GMail is not so much an experiment in large email, but an experiment in how in _reliably_ providing large amounts of remote space for purposes just like an web-based office suite -- so perhaps you will "officially" be able to do just as you said in the near future.
This story appeared on WorldNetDaily.com -- a news website in line with the religous right! Although this is a great story and a remarkable achievement, for worldnetdaily it's a way of saying "See, you DON'T need embryonic stem cells for this type of medicine. You can use adult stem cells."
Slashdot Mirror
"Since your eyes can only detect about 16,000 colors, it's a moot point..."
/ Stills/basics.html
Did you simply make that up? From http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh
"The human eye can discern between roughly 2^24 different colors (this number obviously varies greatly from person to person and depends a lot on viewing conditions), so a 24-bit image is needed to represent the full range of colors that we can perceive."
2^24 = 16,777,216 colors, which is just slightly bigger than 16,000.
Oh, btw, the real fact is to get into any of these schools that will take you, then make your decision as to the school that best fits you. Not this drumbeating of unseemingly pitting one institution over another as if some prizes by committees validates one institution as more or less than another.
Well, perhaps there is still a point. I'm an engineering grad. student at MIT, and the work I'm doing is work I could have done Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc... because, quite frankly, my work is not groundbreaking. For most graduate students, I think this is the typical case.
On the other hand, there are a few grad. students who pick up the work of their adviser, work which may be groundbreaking and which may make them as a student look very good. It's not commonplace, but when it does happen, it's extremely beneficial.
As far as for how well a school "fits," I found that the adviser is the one who sets the tone for your academic life, not the university itself, because classes really are a second priority. What's left is really how well you like the social life at the university.
So I think these comparisons are useful because they give a student looking for a graduate school a chance to find the place that will benefit them the most professionally.
Darn -- that was in response to the statement "would the author like cheese with that wine," but it was posted incorrectly.
Should you be paid like a lawyer or doctor? No. (1) The supply and demand (of IT professionals) doesn't justify it, and, frankly, (2) the skills required in IT are not even close to that of, say, a surgeon or a prosecutor.
I speak from experience. I have lawyer friends who run circles around me when it comes to their work. They don't call me "stupid," they simply understand that our specialties do not overlap very much.
Keep in mind that IT is a *support* field. You job is to develop and maintain the infrastructure that allows them to carry out their (very important) jobs more efficiently.
I mean, is Deep Impact really that anti-communist?
My guess is that in the Chinese government's frantic effort not to let any sexually-oriented sites slip through the cracks of censorship, Deep Impact was judged by its title.
Oddly, it seems blocking Slashdot would have made more sense than blocking non-political, academic web sites such as MIT EECS, MIT Alumni club, Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, and so on... . See for yourself on the list of blocked sites.
If China is looking to continue to improve its science and engineering skills, why block these sites???
My high school did as well, but that was 9-10 years ago. Frankly, I think Pascal and QBasic are spectacular languages for learning programming. But Pascal isn't really used anymore, is it? What ever happened to that great language?
If you're going to make such an absolute statement, then back it up with references if you want anyone to take you seriously, failing that, it's just another mindless rant.
I believe you too made a fairly bold statement without providing references when you wrote "in most countries copying software is not a crime."
Here's a reference:
The WIPO Copyright Treaty, adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996, provides additional protections for copyright deemed necessary in the modern information era. It ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works.
A list of countries that have signed the document as well as signed and enforcing the treaty can be found here. So, in a sense, both of you are right -- most countries are not party to the treaty, but the missing signatures are primarily from the 3rd world. Of course, also notably lacking is the biggest copyright violator of them all: China.
and apparently I'm too excited to spell and grammar check my own stuff.... sorry.
It's odd that every comment here is about circuits and electricity. The article refers kids couldn't figure out that pouring water from a a tall thin jug into a fat small jug gives you the same amount of water!!!
What the living heck does that have to do with ICs? You can play with electricity not understanding the simply or complicated explaination underlying physics all day long. This is about the basics of interacting with this world on a mechanical level.
OK, but like many of you, I taught myself programming as a kid and studies EE later... but hell, I also played outside and got a sense for gravity, forces, and geometry. That's what this is REALLY about!
I think this is a really good point. What comes first, support from the browser or a push from developers? In this case, I don't think it's a chicken-and-the-egg problem, and the browsers should support it first. When web developers have a choice of tools, they'll (hopefully) make the best choice from what's available.
My guess is that the browser developers' reluctances stem from not knowing which standard will take off next -- which standard should they spend their time developing, debugging, and perfecting?
Any firefox developers out there who want to field this one????
Just a quick point -- our isolation (via embargo) of Cuba since the 60's hasn't worked at all to remove Fidel Castro, and our isolation of N. Korea hasn't worked to stem the tide of their nuclear ambitions at the expense of its own people. Each of these nations has an agenda and intends to see it through. Both governments (like China) isolate their people despite our efforts ( Cuban example), and, further, they use our isolationist tactics against us by demonizing America to justify their abusive power.
All expectations are that China will overtake the USA as the world's #1 economy in this century, regardless of Google's actions. If we isolate China, we give the rest of the world to invest in the future cash cow while we're left behind. Sure, in an ideal world, free speech, democracy, and apple pie conquer all, but this is the real world. Fact is, by not isolating China, their markets have opened and captitalism is beginning to take some root. Some believe that the emerging middle class in China will eventually demand reform, but we can only hope.
I think its also important to note that our interactions with China can hardly be classified as Brinkmanship. Remember the debates of this past summer about them pegging their currency to ours? We did nothing about it, despit tough talk from Capitol Hill.
BAD co-dependent enabler of half-assed articles by zealots. Bad! Bad!
Not only a poor joke, but poor judgement as well. Simply put, Wikipedia "The Free Encyclopedia" is a terrific resource. I generally use it cross-reference higher level mathematics (which, by the way, you'd be hard pressed to find in Encyclopaedia Britannica) alongside Mathworld and Planetmath, and I enjoy reading random articles on topics of interest. As a graduate student, I don't have access to $$$ required to buy a full encyclopedia set, and my small donation to Wikipedia is a show of appreciation to those who volunteered their time to write for the site.
Why you believe I or other users of Wikipedia are "co-dependant" or "zealots" is simply odd. I'm hardly surprised, though, given that this is Slashdot, where geeks pretend they are gods. Regardless, it's a free market and this is a non-profit organization. If you don't support Wikipedia, don't make a donation. Others of us who use it regularly will.
Wikipedia has gone from a free, editable-by-everyone encyclopedia to one accessible for contribution by only an elite few.
That's just plain wrong! Just this past week, I made several corrections to some existing pages and submitted another page for deletion.... and I only just created my new user name last week! Before then, I just made my contributions anonymously. Sure, administrators are given the final say in matters like page deletion, but that's simply administrative work, and the majority of Wikipedians don't need such "cleanup" powers anyway.
I'm giving some bucks to the best damned free encyclopedia out there.
Some children are fascinated with breasts, along with some adults.
Which I guess explains why didn't they put up the statistics for Google Image search.
It's a short blog, and it didn't take too long to get to this air-clearing quote:
"A while back an Opera spokeswoman told me that they have been approached by major companies in the past but Opera's CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, has always declined the offers, no matter the dollar size.
An Opera official outright denied this claim, after I asked about it, saying 'Rumors come and go. Google is not buying Opera.' "
It seems especially odd that Google would purchase Opera when they already lend support to Firefox.
Perhaps this will make you feel a bit better: Sony to halt use of controversial CD protection
"Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations she is entitled to the first rank." -- Carl Friedrich Gauss
I believe they are his words as well, and I also believe he (and the republicans) believe its a channel by which they can reach young (tech savvy) Americans. It's a good idea. Thank goodness he doesn't have a "talkback" feature ;)
let me see if I get this.... instead of using a "US-based" DVD format to pirate movies, they'll use their own format?
Perhaps adding the "cleaner" time as your suggesting should depend upon the context:
(1) Applying it to a machine that performs read and write operations all day: yes, it definitely should be added because it impacts perceived performance
(2) Applying to a machine that performs read and write operations all day except during the period 2AM-5AM: then, no, it should not be added because the "cleaner" should be executed during this time period, giving no percieved slow-down.
For those of us who leave our machines idle for long periods at a time, this could be useful -- if it performs as advertised.
Personally, I think Google's "beta" GMail is not so much an experiment in large email, but an experiment in how in _reliably_ providing large amounts of remote space for purposes just like an web-based office suite -- so perhaps you will "officially" be able to do just as you said in the near future.
Whoops -- they did not use adult stem cells, but the point is the stem cells did not come from an aborted fetus.
This story appeared on WorldNetDaily.com -- a news website in line with the religous right! Although this is a great story and a remarkable achievement, for worldnetdaily it's a way of saying "See, you DON'T need embryonic stem cells for this type of medicine. You can use adult stem cells."
(1) Leave my Platonic ruler out of this
(2) If its faster and easier that Taylor Series, why not use it?
(3) Yes, I do think this can be taught to high schoolers. The picture is pretty easy.