Are you going to use my tax dollars to rebuild it? If so, then please don't rebuild the part that is below sea level and stuck between a lake and the frickin' golf of Mexico. Only the French would have built it that way in the first place...zing!
Our little planet has evolved through thick and thin well before we arrived. It has seen global warming and cooling a million times more powerful then humans have managed to muster. Through varying levels of solar radiation, massive releases of volcanic gas, meteor stirkes, and who knows what else Earth has managed to become the fairly stable environment we know today. Should we go full throttle trying to screw it up? No, that would be mean, but I am positive the planet will sort out whatever we have managed to throw at her so far.
I like that Rastafarianism is above Scientology. Stupid Tom Cruise, hasn't even made a good movie since Top gun.
[quote]Science is an antidote to blind faith. Fortunatly, some have taken the time to carefully tease out what works and what doesn't. We don't throw virgins into volcanos to appease the gods any more.[/quote]
No it isn't, science is an antidote to superstition which is a very different concept then blind faith. Hope is blind faith and there is not antidote for hope, just a counterpoint, dispair, which is normally a product of one losing thier faith. We don't throw virgins in volcanoes anymore because societies fullfillment of faith has evolved past such things. Although the 300 millon primal indigenous believers may argue this point:)
Blind faith is an intricate part of the human condition. Without it many people, likely most people, would not be able to function. In order to fullfill this need societies developed religion based on the world that surrounded them. These disparate belief systems eveloved, merged, seperated, and re-integrated over the entire development of the human race. It seems odd that in our current modern era three dominant religions have now encompassed about %75 (my own estimate it may be way off) of the worlds population. These three religions, Christian, Jew, and Muslim, are essentially the same. Culturally they vary greatly but this is besides the point. Does this spiritual evolution provide some scientific backing to the existence of God?
Of course not, that would defeat the purpose of blind faith and we would have to start all over again fulfilling out needs to believe in something we can not possible prove nor disprove.
Apparently, you beleive in none of this. This makes you an outsider of humanity not an enlightened individual who knows whats best for everyone. But that is fine for you, many people are spiritual adolescense.
The Build Your Own Computer workshop is a great idea on campus. I had a CS profesor assign a project to design our own PC for under $1000. The project was fairly off topic for the class, but he found it disconcerting that so many CS majors had no clue what was in their machine. Of course, we didn't actually get to build the machines because we were all poor public university students.
Most of the topics you mention here are good thing to teach because Information Systems nor Computer Science nor Engineering touch them, other then the programming languages which your CS department should cover thoroughly. Consider Ruby on Rails as a starter for your web apps although I do enjoy Python for my glue code.
On the other hand, these topics can readily be self taught from internet sources. I would hope the point of Infromation Sciences degree is to teach its students to be capable of teaching themselves these new technologies. Organizing a club is a great idea to actually put this knowledge to practice, but in my experience in college, if you don't have free pizza and beer you won't get much interest.
As a side note, most Universities will give you "Club" status if you have enough people attending regular meetings. This status likely comes with a small amount of money to buy your pizza and beer.
What if it becomes feasable to have machines write code?
I had a professor say the entire computer science discipline exists to code itself into irrelevance.
At one time there was Assembly, then fortran, then C, then Java, Python, Ruby,.NET. Eventually programming is just going to be plugging precompiled parts together with some glue code. The script kiddies will get paid like today's interns and the only programmers making real money will be the ubber geeks developing the next generation of libraries making the script kiddies even less necessary. *end exaggeration*
I don't have a right to a job. I do however have a right to apply for a job, a right not to be turned done due to race, creed, or sex, a right to quit a job, a right NOT to have a job, a right to work for damn self, and a right to offer others jobs. Nothing here states or implies a right to a job.
On the other hand I do have RESPONSIBILITIES that make me have a job. Rights and responsibilites are two different things.
In this case why in the world would you still want that job. If you did have a union before hand, the company would have just shut down the entire operation. What would a union do about that?
And seeing the truth about what management thinks of IT (basically that you're all a bunch of losers who failed to get your MBA and deserve to be treated like shit)
They might think of me and the rest of the developers like this but we think of them as holding an MBA because they failed out of Comp Sci or Engineering and should be looked upon as slackers doing painfully boring work (accounting?). If they decided to pull some shit like you just described it wouldn't take long to convince my fellow developers to threaten a strike. Are they gonna replace 20 experienced programmers overnight? I don't think so, our product has a huge learning curve. Just in time unionization is far more productive then dealing with a teamsters style beuracracy.
I don't like this 1 in 3000 estimation. I think we need some harder evidence of the trajectory before going and changing anything. The last thing we want to do it push it INTO earth orbit by accident.
I am far more concerned with the asteriod with a 1 in 3000 chance of hitting us tomorow that we didn't find 100 years ago. SHIT tomorow if Friday too.
Let the government control it? That's your solution to providing better service? Competition is the way to generate better service. FIOS is run to my condo, Verizon just has to flip the switch. Then I have dial up, DSL, Comcast Cable, or FIOS to choose from. I'll take the one that provides the best service for my needs at my price range and I will switch providers if those needs change. The government can't possibly provide that flexibility but they can kill the competition by subsidizing the hell out of a municipal solution. If they control the network, the only network I might add, what do you do when that service starts to decay just like every other long term government funded program has? You must have choice!
Furthermore, the telco's will provide ubiquotous wireless when the market demands it because then they will make money at it. Honestly, I would be suprised if more then %1 of the population, at the current time, would actually use wifi at any price, even free. If you want it pay Verizon the $60 a month to get it so I don't have to pay a tax for your privledge.
NOTE: Slashdotters are NOT representative of the general population.
I'm not saying they should invent an extremely complicated airship, my point is IS possible. If this new airship thingy pans out then I see no reason why "difficult engineering" would stand in the way of developing this technology into other markets.
To answer you question that is just a statement followed by a question mark, at this time they shouldn't. But, looking ahead a few incarnations of the technology never hurt anybody.
I agree the engineering would be complicated, but certianly not impossible. I envision a submarine, which has an aerodynamic haul for traveling through a liquid and uses a balast system to regulate its depth. Replace water with air and fill the balast with helium or hydrogen and you essentially have the same concept flying through the air. Balancing the size of the balast and the power of the engine would be an engineering challenge. Moreover, the efficiency of such devices would be dependent on the purpose of the task at hand. Moving freight long distances at a slow speed with may prove viable while moving people at a fast speed with one of these things may not be economical at all. Either way, it could be a new untapped field of aerospace. If it could be profitable, the engineering can be worked out.
Forget right and wrong, for most people it comes down to which is easier, steal or pay for it. In many third world countries, I was recently in Malaysia, you can be ripped off music and movies on CDROM right in a store. It is like walking into Target and buying the same ripped off version of a movie that the guy on the corner is selling out of his trunk. It isn't seen as wrong in these places because it is easier and cheaper to buy the stolen merchanise then it is the real thing. Wether or not you or I think it is wrong means nothing because we have no influence over Malaysia at this time.
There was a time in the US were it was easier to download all the music one wanted for free without any possibility of repercussion (especially if you were in college circa 2000). Now there it is more difficult to download stuff for free (if you aren't a tech nerd which most people aren't) and more importantly, there are services to download copyrighted material legally for an exceptable price ($10.99 for an album from Musicmatch ain't bad).
The market corrected itself, eventually, as it will eventually do with other forms of intellectual property such as software. These guys starting a political party over it will likely not pan out, but the more people that try crap like this, the more quickly necesary change will take place.
There would be no need to dientangle IE from windows, it just wouldn't be the app used to browse the internet. Or they could mech the best features form Opera into IE and the consumer would just think IE got a lot better.
I don't know for sure, but that sure is a downer...then again the warmest, sunniest place in the US is San Diego, very pricey, followed by Miami. Crime ridden yes, but still very affluent.
Slashdot Mirror
So this is basicly the pretentious British nerd version of http://www.punkinchunkin.com/
Are you going to use my tax dollars to rebuild it? If so, then please don't rebuild the part that is below sea level and stuck between a lake and the frickin' golf of Mexico. Only the French would have built it that way in the first place...zing!
Way to notice the Seinfeld reference, it's a joke...ass.
So how is this any different from most other software companies?
Our little planet has evolved through thick and thin well before we arrived. It has seen global warming and cooling a million times more powerful then humans have managed to muster. Through varying levels of solar radiation, massive releases of volcanic gas, meteor stirkes, and who knows what else Earth has managed to become the fairly stable environment we know today. Should we go full throttle trying to screw it up? No, that would be mean, but I am positive the planet will sort out whatever we have managed to throw at her so far.
I like that Rastafarianism is above Scientology. Stupid Tom Cruise, hasn't even made a good movie since Top gun. [quote]Science is an antidote to blind faith. Fortunatly, some have taken the time to carefully tease out what works and what doesn't. We don't throw virgins into volcanos to appease the gods any more.[/quote] No it isn't, science is an antidote to superstition which is a very different concept then blind faith. Hope is blind faith and there is not antidote for hope, just a counterpoint, dispair, which is normally a product of one losing thier faith. We don't throw virgins in volcanoes anymore because societies fullfillment of faith has evolved past such things. Although the 300 millon primal indigenous believers may argue this point :)
Blind faith is an intricate part of the human condition. Without it many people, likely most people, would not be able to function. In order to fullfill this need societies developed religion based on the world that surrounded them. These disparate belief systems eveloved, merged, seperated, and re-integrated over the entire development of the human race. It seems odd that in our current modern era three dominant religions have now encompassed about %75 (my own estimate it may be way off) of the worlds population. These three religions, Christian, Jew, and Muslim, are essentially the same. Culturally they vary greatly but this is besides the point. Does this spiritual evolution provide some scientific backing to the existence of God? Of course not, that would defeat the purpose of blind faith and we would have to start all over again fulfilling out needs to believe in something we can not possible prove nor disprove. Apparently, you beleive in none of this. This makes you an outsider of humanity not an enlightened individual who knows whats best for everyone. But that is fine for you, many people are spiritual adolescense.
The Build Your Own Computer workshop is a great idea on campus. I had a CS profesor assign a project to design our own PC for under $1000. The project was fairly off topic for the class, but he found it disconcerting that so many CS majors had no clue what was in their machine. Of course, we didn't actually get to build the machines because we were all poor public university students.
Most of the topics you mention here are good thing to teach because Information Systems nor Computer Science nor Engineering touch them, other then the programming languages which your CS department should cover thoroughly. Consider Ruby on Rails as a starter for your web apps although I do enjoy Python for my glue code.
On the other hand, these topics can readily be self taught from internet sources. I would hope the point of Infromation Sciences degree is to teach its students to be capable of teaching themselves these new technologies. Organizing a club is a great idea to actually put this knowledge to practice, but in my experience in college, if you don't have free pizza and beer you won't get much interest.
As a side note, most Universities will give you "Club" status if you have enough people attending regular meetings. This status likely comes with a small amount of money to buy your pizza and beer.
At one time there was Assembly, then fortran, then C, then Java, Python, Ruby,
I don't have a right to a job. I do however have a right to apply for a job, a right not to be turned done due to race, creed, or sex, a right to quit a job, a right NOT to have a job, a right to work for damn self, and a right to offer others jobs. Nothing here states or implies a right to a job. On the other hand I do have RESPONSIBILITIES that make me have a job. Rights and responsibilites are two different things.
A valid reason but I still don't see how a union would have helped anyone.
In this case why in the world would you still want that job. If you did have a union before hand, the company would have just shut down the entire operation. What would a union do about that?
It will burn up in the atmosphere. Only those huddled in the bomb shelter will be killed when the small ball strikes the shelter directly.
I don't like this 1 in 3000 estimation. I think we need some harder evidence of the trajectory before going and changing anything. The last thing we want to do it push it INTO earth orbit by accident. I am far more concerned with the asteriod with a 1 in 3000 chance of hitting us tomorow that we didn't find 100 years ago. SHIT tomorow if Friday too.
Let the government control it? That's your solution to providing better service? Competition is the way to generate better service. FIOS is run to my condo, Verizon just has to flip the switch. Then I have dial up, DSL, Comcast Cable, or FIOS to choose from. I'll take the one that provides the best service for my needs at my price range and I will switch providers if those needs change. The government can't possibly provide that flexibility but they can kill the competition by subsidizing the hell out of a municipal solution. If they control the network, the only network I might add, what do you do when that service starts to decay just like every other long term government funded program has? You must have choice! Furthermore, the telco's will provide ubiquotous wireless when the market demands it because then they will make money at it. Honestly, I would be suprised if more then %1 of the population, at the current time, would actually use wifi at any price, even free. If you want it pay Verizon the $60 a month to get it so I don't have to pay a tax for your privledge. NOTE: Slashdotters are NOT representative of the general population.
Are you allowed to declare bankrupcy if you owe money via criminal court order?
This dude just got F'd in the A.
This reads more like a "People to Kill List"
Boy am I glad I called that guy!
I'm not saying they should invent an extremely complicated airship, my point is IS possible. If this new airship thingy pans out then I see no reason why "difficult engineering" would stand in the way of developing this technology into other markets.
To answer you question that is just a statement followed by a question mark, at this time they shouldn't. But, looking ahead a few incarnations of the technology never hurt anybody.
I agree the engineering would be complicated, but certianly not impossible. I envision a submarine, which has an aerodynamic haul for traveling through a liquid and uses a balast system to regulate its depth. Replace water with air and fill the balast with helium or hydrogen and you essentially have the same concept flying through the air. Balancing the size of the balast and the power of the engine would be an engineering challenge. Moreover, the efficiency of such devices would be dependent on the purpose of the task at hand. Moving freight long distances at a slow speed with may prove viable while moving people at a fast speed with one of these things may not be economical at all. Either way, it could be a new untapped field of aerospace. If it could be profitable, the engineering can be worked out.
Forget right and wrong, for most people it comes down to which is easier, steal or pay for it. In many third world countries, I was recently in Malaysia, you can be ripped off music and movies on CDROM right in a store. It is like walking into Target and buying the same ripped off version of a movie that the guy on the corner is selling out of his trunk. It isn't seen as wrong in these places because it is easier and cheaper to buy the stolen merchanise then it is the real thing. Wether or not you or I think it is wrong means nothing because we have no influence over Malaysia at this time.
There was a time in the US were it was easier to download all the music one wanted for free without any possibility of repercussion (especially if you were in college circa 2000). Now there it is more difficult to download stuff for free (if you aren't a tech nerd which most people aren't) and more importantly, there are services to download copyrighted material legally for an exceptable price ($10.99 for an album from Musicmatch ain't bad).
The market corrected itself, eventually, as it will eventually do with other forms of intellectual property such as software. These guys starting a political party over it will likely not pan out, but the more people that try crap like this, the more quickly necesary change will take place.
There would be no need to dientangle IE from windows, it just wouldn't be the app used to browse the internet. Or they could mech the best features form Opera into IE and the consumer would just think IE got a lot better.
1. Write some code 2. Slip Dvorak some free booze 3. Get bought by Microsoft for "pocket change" 4. Move to Grand Cayman
I don't know for sure, but that sure is a downer...then again the warmest, sunniest place in the US is San Diego, very pricey, followed by Miami. Crime ridden yes, but still very affluent.