A couple of years ago I had to build the rough of a book from various sources ; I won't expand on the hassles I had to overcome, let just say I had to try about any word *.doc filter I could put my hands on just to merge the chapters (each written by an author on his own word version, ranging from Mac classic to Word XP / 2KX...). I ended doing the major part of the work with OpenOffice.org, but that's not the point. In the meantime, I borrowed a Mac and was surprised it could understand a section pagebreak + beginning of next section on an odd page (so the filter implmentation was correct), but I saw no way to tell it to create such a 'special' pagebreak.
Maybe I missed it (but that's no tribute to the UI design), maybe it has been added by now, but for me at the time this was a show stopper. I didn't digged it more than that, but there are functional differences between word windows and word Mac.
Where do people get the idea that something like international laws actually exist? If a country decides to do something they'll just rewrite their own laws to allow it. If someone decides to ignore the UN or what not then it's not "illegal".
Your logic is completely false. If you decided on your own to ignore the speed limits for a time, and by any luck if you escape the ticket, does it make speeding laws unlawful ? Of course, not. It's the same with international rules. They are true rules, but they depend on the common willingness of participating nations to be enforced. Thus, if some major contributor fails to back up the rule in a specific case, the rule may not be enforced against a nation. But it doesn't make the situation lawful. Neither for the - at the moment - spared nation, nor for any other violator in the future.
On the other hands, nations can (and did) ally at UN level to enforce a rule against a non-UN member nation ; that's pretty much as making laws as can be.
An organization that was started to keep the peace and prevent wars, and that hasn't done those things, is a failure.
An organisation that managed to keep the USA and Soviet Russia at the same table during the 40 years of the cold, thus contributing to the lasting peace between the two ennemies, is a proven hugely successful organisation.
Nations, however, are not analogous to citizens. There is no international gov't that all nations are subject to. There's no universal, international authority. The U.N. lacks both the philosophical, legal, and military credibility to serve that role and there are no other close competitors. So, without a meta-national institution to make laws to govern nations, there's really no such thing as international law that all nations are subject to.
This is completely wrong. There are international treaties, which scopes are negociated, and some of them apply even to non signing parties, under the UN authority. Sovereign countries can seek UN umbrella if they face an invasion (Kuwait did and the coalition of the 1st iraq war was authorized by the UN) ; some countries can even be invaded by UN authorized forces if their leaders are violating UN rules (Afghanistan).
What UN lacks most is funding, and unsurprinsingly, the biggest debt to the UN is held by the USA, for more than 60% of the total of the debts of funding countries. Or to put it in a riddle, when you want to kill your dog, just brag he suffers from rabies.
While the UN isn't perfect by all accounts, it does a reasonable job. It has authority, and when properly supported by contributing nations, it has power. It takes all the unwillingness of the USA to stop it from looking too closely at what the USA consider their own private mess (Palestine/Israel, Iraq II the revenge, etc.)
Precisely ; we learned in Algeria that tortures and extrajudicial executions don't give any satisfactory results when fighting against terrorists. There's absolutely no interest for you to do the same stupid mistakes we did. We finaly left Algeria, we changed our constitution, we learned, and we changed our methods accordingly. Moreover, you should have known it since 'Nam, where it didn't work either for you. And let me stress it : I'm speaking about *terrorists*, this is completely different than a war where there are 2 sides, a begining and an ending. The USA face 2 options now, but those will utimately yield the exact same result : 1) immediate shameful return home, with a tarnished reputation for years, and leave Iraq crumble on itself or 2) escalation of tortures, massive spying on domestic and foreign populations, global pissing off of the world, tarnished reputation for years and final shameful withdrawal from a crmbling Iraq. Nobody can 'win' away from home when the local population doesn't support your views, that means a daily increasing bodycount, and one of those days your own population want their soldiers home - and votes accordingly.
I agree with your reply. Up until Napleon's final defeat, and later France's humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War, France had for centuries been one of the most successful warrior nations on the planet.[...]That said, France does sometimes repeat its mistakes in war. From the citadel of Bitche up through the Maginot line and later Dien Bien Phu, France took a very long time to realize the limitations of fixed defenses.
Thank you for having taken the time to write a documented answer. Truth is, France hasn't really been an expansionist country for most of its existence, save Louis the XIVth and Napoleonics ventures. Most of the time, we had to fight in wars we didn't choose to engage in, inside our boundaries, with our civilians in the front line. This creates an enormous difference between us and the USA. We know the true price of war, we paid more than our share in blood. I don't think any US citizen can imagine the scale of it ; just to stick to recent history, 2 out of my 4 grand-grand fathers died in ww1, 1 was maimed for life. Only 1 on 4 lived through it untouched. Both my grand fathers were POW for 5 years in Germany in WWII ; luckily, none died, but it was a close call for one who faced execution after his 2nd evasion attempt. And we are a lucky family !
Nonetheless, we didn't do bad under those adverse conditions, retaining most of our boundaries throughout centuries. When we finaly ventured into expansion wars under Napoleon's rule, it took the whole Europe to ally to bring us back home. Even though, we left a legacy of laws and public services behind us, as well as seeds of democracy for most of the countries we invaded. But truly, we were never really at ease outside home. This explaining probably our choice of fixed defenses as a primary tactical tool.
As an American who has always been treated well whenever I've visited France,[...]I think that America's popular disdain for France stems from a perception (much of it quite valid) that France has recently adopted certain foreign and domestic policies that work against our interests. In fact, it is a common perception in America that many of these French policies were adopted for the primary purpose of frustrating what the French people perceive (much of it quite validly) as American hegemony.
There, I have to disagree, I fear (while I wouldn't treat you bad for your opinion). The clear feeling here is that you know jack about Islamic terrorism, to put it mildly, while we've been confronted to it for 20 years already. Mind you, the algerian GIA even hijacked a plane in the intent of throwing it somewhere in Paris, and we managed to forcefully land it, kill the terrorists and rescue the hostages before they had time to reach "La défense" tower. We had bombs in the subway, and we live with a combined army-police watching force in all stations and airport since then. In the same time, we gave support to Algeria get rid by themselves of their terrorists, with results. Not to say we are sheltred from terrorism, but we deal with it since longer than you, we have better overall results, and yet we didn't felt the need to invade Switzerland to make our point through, we didn't enforce anything remotely as coercitive as the PATRIOT act, and we didn't see fit to torture some unnamed prisonners on a remote island. I don't think that would have been supportive for us to go forward on the sloppy road the USA are on for the fun of it, and really, I think the reasons why we didn't go, and the way we explained them, were a much better support ; it takes a true friend to give impopular advices.
Let me clarify : France is the only european nuclear power independent enough to have worldwide strike capacity, even against the USA if need be.
Also next time you check a map of the Pacific Ocean, try to find the New Caledonia, the French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna. Those are french overseas territories.
Microsoft has threatened to invade France to reimpose "order" on the chaos of the ODF. France has pre-emptively surrendered.
This idotic attempt at making fun should not call for an answer, but it is offensive enough that I'm making one. France casualties in WWI alone were higher than the total of USA casualties among all wars they fought, american civil war included, while our population ratio has been a steady one fifth of yours (sources : http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html, http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/bl ww1castable.htm). WWII was a sad mess, we were thrown to war without adequate preparation by politicians who betrayed us, and we were beaten fair and square by Germany (which was a nation of strong warriorship traditions too). So, I don't think we need to take any lesson of fighting spirit from anyone, considering that after France liberation in WWII our Free French Forces kept fighting along with Allied forces all the way up to Berlin.
But if you still want to dig into this, let me just remind you that we're currently the only european nation with independent nuclear power with a worldwide strike capacity (usa included, in case you ask).
We are currently a pacific nation, and being perceived as harmless may not be bad advertising ; but don't get fooled by your own propaganda. We're not in the habit of making the same mistakes twice, and any hostile power would have a surprise trying to play fool with us.
The pro side is the device retains compatibility with classic film slrs ; the con side, it's way too big for my OM1 ! Couldn't have they put just the GPS receiver part on the hot shoe, and use whatever link (be it bluetooth or even a wire) to hold the recorder in a pocket ? As it is, I don't see how you can snap a pic without a tripod. The weight would necessarily tilt and shake the body.
I've already provided a reference to a mainstream scientist quotation on the subject, sir. This quotation is not the only one to the effect, but one of the most salliant I stumbled upon. But don't feel compelled to believe me and do your homework on the subject, you'll be as much surprised as I was when I did it. Until you're done on it, you'll be the one speaking out of your ass, sir.
I won't contradict you on Faraday, but as of Marconi, it's very very different in nature ; scientists believed transatlantic radio to be impossible because of the straight travel of electromagnetic waves ; therefore, as earth is round, they thought falsely that radio waves would go out in space following a straight path, and would never reach the other side. That was an established *law*. What they didn't knew, and learnt on that occasion, is that earth's atmosphere is not uniform and some of its layers bounce electromagnetic waves down. It doesn't change physics but it adds to the knowledge of another field of science. And the device (if it works) may uncover some "structures" we don't know about - yet. That doesn't mean it would prove current theories to be false, but it may change our views on something remote.
Not to bother you, but Lord Kelvin (yes, the K scale father and founder of thermodynamics), actually stated that "heavier than air flight is impossible" just 2 years before the maiden flight of the Wright brothers. And when confronted to the reality of birds flight by a reporter, he simply said "that's different, they are alive". Draw your conclusions.
Ok, then, just from the top of my mind, look for electricity induction (Faraday) or transatlantic radio transmission (Marconi).
I'm in no way saying that the idea of the guy works or not. And really, I don't care. But dismissing it as "impossible" without at least waiting for it to be adequately peer reviewed is *bad* science. Science is all about experiments, not about ready made ideas based on incomplete understanding of a complex universe. If it happens to work, then be it, and adapt the theories ! If not, stick to the already known laws.
There's an easy one to check : planes (generaly heavier-than-air) flight has been deemed impossible by the scientific community until the Wright brothers publicly demonstrated it, several years after the first flight of Clément Ader (who was treated like a lunatic). And in spite of the demo, it took again several years after the event for some scientists to actualy admit it !
And this didn't happened in the middle ages, but at the eve of the XXth century, the time of the triumph of science !
Mandatory : "Everybody said it was impossible, then a fool came who didn't knew and made it."
It wouldn't be the first time in science history that something happens to work in spite of mathematics, not because maths are wrong per se but because the thing reveals an entirely unknown field of physics.
As a part time teacher myself, I wanted to write exactly the same ; teachers really wanting to put e-cheating to a grinding halt can do it easily following this basic iteration : 1) read assignement, 2) spot 'too good to be true' parts, 3) google them up and 4) Profit !
Except it takes some guts to break hell loose. Students are pissed, fellow teachers are pissed (because they need to homework to be on par), management is pissed because parents call by the dozen complaining that their genius offsprings have been chosen as a revenge target by a frustrated, incompetent assistant, etc.
In the long run, I think it's better addressing the question beforehand. Why do students cheat so obviously ? I have no scientific answer to put forward, but I have a feeling today's students are *scared*. Much more than I and my friends were 10 years ago. They obviously don't want to be at the low side of the scale, but they're too scared to fight on their own, in a world where a single failure can spoil a career forever ; they revert to a 'tribe mode', feeling that if half the classroom is stubbornly giving the same answers (to the choice of the font, no less), the teacher won't be able to mark them bad, for fear of his own reputation. And they're not completely wrong ! But I don't think this behaviour is linked to lazzyness in any way. Whatever even they brag about, I can vouch for the cheaters I have personaly confronted that they're more afraid than laid back.
Now, I only mark papers written in front of me. No telephones in classroom, all departure definitive (think about pissing before sitting).
mathematics killed hobbyist programming.
on
Why Johnny Can't Code
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I have been thinking it is due to a few reasons. First off, it seems that math education is sorely lacking in many college students.
Pleeeeeaaase... that's still the mantra I was hearing when I was 13 and happily beginning to code (in 1985). Why would 'we' be prevented from the right to code if 'we', litterature oriented people, despise mathematics ? There is still SO much to do with only 4 operations ! Granted, I won't dwelve into image processing, signal analysis or those fields where a strong math background is required. But I have a thing for databases, and in the 90's I was making nice applications to manage library catalogues. In Clipper, no less.
Well I'm not a programmer, save some hobbyist gadgets when I need them now, but I still can code some ASM, Basic, and C. When I feel the need, I'm not afraid to alter some parts of a GTK+/C program to better suit my aim. And I've never felt the urge to become a mathematician.
I think the mathematical mindset requirement is in fact more a deterrent for wannabe young programmers ; nobody knows how much good and creative ideas it cost the world to leave so much brilliant people at the door. Professionaly, I struggle everyday with mathematicaly clean softwares, written by certified engineers, softwares that are blatantly unfit to the mindset of my lawyer job. I have millions of ideas to improve the workflow I'm forced to follow, but when I bring them on the table, I'm sneered at because "I can't possibly understand computers". Stupid assh*les, I've had 3 time more computers in my life than them. But I need to eat, so I back off and go back to my paid work.
It's not really different than before when I was a teen. We had one of the first computer lab in school, but the management of it was trusted by our mathematics and physics teachers. Access to the lab was granted as a reward for good science pupils, no need to say I've never seen those computers closer than 10 meters away. That's because I strongly felt frustrated at the time that I pressured my parents into buying me a Tangerine Oric 1.
I just played for a couple of minutes and found myself mostly in your situation, with only 1 worthy partner with whom I managed to earn 500 points. But after some thinking, I feel the concept is flawed because this competition leads to subpar results. In order to score, everybody tries to dumb down what he sees in the hope his "friend" will do the same. For instance, we were presented the face of a normal guy, with a little beard and fairly bald, but what matched was only his *glasses*. As the picture wasn't about glasses at all, except for the guy to have worn some, this label would actually push the picture to top rank on a glasses search, but the result would be worthless for the user.
". . . I don't beleive I did anything wrong. I'm sure that's going to be a common refrain in this new era of untrusting software and companies. Ah well."
No, not "ah well."
Customers have a legitimate expectation to be treated as if they are wanted and valued not as if they are a threat to the enterprise for using the product they purchased.
Companies that treat their customers as criminals instead of as their reason for being in business will find themselves at a severe competative disadvantage. Such actions will hurt companies who engage in them, in big and small ways.
I think you're getting it backwards ; if MSFT feels it can get out of it, it's a sure clue there's no relevant competition.
In fact, MSFT knows pretty well their customers are helpless, and they can abuse them the way they want because noone's going to raise an eyebrow. Consumers should be protected by the anti-trust laws, but since the DoJ had to back out last time they tried, MSFT has free hands to do whatever they like.
This type of 'accident' may happen even on paper, depending on the slant of a writer or / and an editor. Case in point : France's most notorious (if not most serious) encyclopedia "for the masses" is the Larousse. In the first edition (circa 1870), at the entry "Bonaparte", you could read "Born in Ajaccio 08/15/1769, died in St Cloud, 18 brumaire an VIII of the Republic (11/9/1799)".
As you may know, on this day, Bonaparte made a coup d'État and thus became known as "Napoléon"...
Every time a single person (or institution) is in charge of the writing / editing of any article, a risk exists, and that's why a) encyclopaedias are not scholar references b) science suppose peer review.
Sure. I'm sure it does exists, even in the US : call the Police, submit the clues you have, and let them get a warrant from a judge. The trouble is, if the school point a finger against an innocent, he could rightly fight back for libellous practice (or whatever a lawyer would call it). Well, I hope. Anyway, there's no need for an intermediate as there's already one entitled by law for that purpose. The school is just trying to escape its responsability for what is basically bullying its own pupils, and as far as education goes, I don't think it's an appropriate behaviour for a teaching authority to show students how to escape the bounds of your liability.
I totally agree with you ; to achieve same effect, I've this habit since childhood to squat on top of a stool. Many people can't, but because of this practice, I rest confortably on my ankles, my back is mostly straight but my hips are not shifted forward, and I don't hunch forward, too. Much like the rest position in oriental world, except at desk level. It may look funny, but I don't care since I've never had any position trouble since I began using computers, unlike the vast majority of people I know.
I've also definitely adopted a very small keyboard with small course keys, to avoid stress injuries.
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of years ago I had to build the rough of a book from various sources ; I won't expand on the hassles I had to overcome, let just say I had to try about any word *.doc filter I could put my hands on just to merge the chapters (each written by an author on his own word version, ranging from Mac classic to Word XP / 2KX...). I ended doing the major part of the work with OpenOffice.org, but that's not the point. In the meantime, I borrowed a Mac and was surprised it could understand a section pagebreak + beginning of next section on an odd page (so the filter implmentation was correct), but I saw no way to tell it to create such a 'special' pagebreak.
Maybe I missed it (but that's no tribute to the UI design), maybe it has been added by now, but for me at the time this was a show stopper. I didn't digged it more than that, but there are functional differences between word windows and word Mac.
Where do people get the idea that something like international laws actually exist? If a country decides to do something they'll just rewrite their own laws to allow it. If someone decides to ignore the UN or what not then it's not "illegal".
Your logic is completely false. If you decided on your own to ignore the speed limits for a time, and by any luck if you escape the ticket, does it make speeding laws unlawful ? Of course, not. It's the same with international rules. They are true rules, but they depend on the common willingness of participating nations to be enforced. Thus, if some major contributor fails to back up the rule in a specific case, the rule may not be enforced against a nation. But it doesn't make the situation lawful. Neither for the - at the moment - spared nation, nor for any other violator in the future.
On the other hands, nations can (and did) ally at UN level to enforce a rule against a non-UN member nation ; that's pretty much as making laws as can be.
An organization that was started to keep the peace and prevent wars, and that hasn't done those things, is a failure.
An organisation that managed to keep the USA and Soviet Russia at the same table during the 40 years of the cold, thus contributing to the lasting peace between the two ennemies, is a proven hugely successful organisation.
Nations, however, are not analogous to citizens. There is no international gov't that all nations are subject to. There's no universal, international authority. The U.N. lacks both the philosophical, legal, and military credibility to serve that role and there are no other close competitors. So, without a meta-national institution to make laws to govern nations, there's really no such thing as international law that all nations are subject to.
This is completely wrong. There are international treaties, which scopes are negociated, and some of them apply even to non signing parties, under the UN authority. Sovereign countries can seek UN umbrella if they face an invasion (Kuwait did and the coalition of the 1st iraq war was authorized by the UN) ; some countries can even be invaded by UN authorized forces if their leaders are violating UN rules (Afghanistan).
What UN lacks most is funding, and unsurprinsingly, the biggest debt to the UN is held by the USA, for more than 60% of the total of the debts of funding countries. Or to put it in a riddle, when you want to kill your dog, just brag he suffers from rabies.
While the UN isn't perfect by all accounts, it does a reasonable job. It has authority, and when properly supported by contributing nations, it has power. It takes all the unwillingness of the USA to stop it from looking too closely at what the USA consider their own private mess (Palestine/Israel, Iraq II the revenge, etc.)
Precisely ; we learned in Algeria that tortures and extrajudicial executions don't give any satisfactory results when fighting against terrorists. There's absolutely no interest for you to do the same stupid mistakes we did. We finaly left Algeria, we changed our constitution, we learned, and we changed our methods accordingly. Moreover, you should have known it since 'Nam, where it didn't work either for you. And let me stress it : I'm speaking about *terrorists*, this is completely different than a war where there are 2 sides, a begining and an ending. The USA face 2 options now, but those will utimately yield the exact same result : 1) immediate shameful return home, with a tarnished reputation for years, and leave Iraq crumble on itself or 2) escalation of tortures, massive spying on domestic and foreign populations, global pissing off of the world, tarnished reputation for years and final shameful withdrawal from a crmbling Iraq. Nobody can 'win' away from home when the local population doesn't support your views, that means a daily increasing bodycount, and one of those days your own population want their soldiers home - and votes accordingly.
I agree with your reply. Up until Napleon's final defeat, and later France's humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War, France had for centuries been one of the most successful warrior nations on the planet.[...]That said, France does sometimes repeat its mistakes in war. From the citadel of Bitche up through the Maginot line and later Dien Bien Phu, France took a very long time to realize the limitations of fixed defenses.
Thank you for having taken the time to write a documented answer. Truth is, France hasn't really been an expansionist country for most of its existence, save Louis the XIVth and Napoleonics ventures. Most of the time, we had to fight in wars we didn't choose to engage in, inside our boundaries, with our civilians in the front line. This creates an enormous difference between us and the USA. We know the true price of war, we paid more than our share in blood. I don't think any US citizen can imagine the scale of it ; just to stick to recent history, 2 out of my 4 grand-grand fathers died in ww1, 1 was maimed for life. Only 1 on 4 lived through it untouched. Both my grand fathers were POW for 5 years in Germany in WWII ; luckily, none died, but it was a close call for one who faced execution after his 2nd evasion attempt. And we are a lucky family !
Nonetheless, we didn't do bad under those adverse conditions, retaining most of our boundaries throughout centuries. When we finaly ventured into expansion wars under Napoleon's rule, it took the whole Europe to ally to bring us back home. Even though, we left a legacy of laws and public services behind us, as well as seeds of democracy for most of the countries we invaded. But truly, we were never really at ease outside home. This explaining probably our choice of fixed defenses as a primary tactical tool.
As an American who has always been treated well whenever I've visited France,[...]I think that America's popular disdain for France stems from a perception (much of it quite valid) that France has recently adopted certain foreign and domestic policies that work against our interests. In fact, it is a common perception in America that many of these French policies were adopted for the primary purpose of frustrating what the French people perceive (much of it quite validly) as American hegemony.
There, I have to disagree, I fear (while I wouldn't treat you bad for your opinion). The clear feeling here is that you know jack about Islamic terrorism, to put it mildly, while we've been confronted to it for 20 years already. Mind you, the algerian GIA even hijacked a plane in the intent of throwing it somewhere in Paris, and we managed to forcefully land it, kill the terrorists and rescue the hostages before they had time to reach "La défense" tower. We had bombs in the subway, and we live with a combined army-police watching force in all stations and airport since then. In the same time, we gave support to Algeria get rid by themselves of their terrorists, with results. Not to say we are sheltred from terrorism, but we deal with it since longer than you, we have better overall results, and yet we didn't felt the need to invade Switzerland to make our point through, we didn't enforce anything remotely as coercitive as the PATRIOT act, and we didn't see fit to torture some unnamed prisonners on a remote island. I don't think that would have been supportive for us to go forward on the sloppy road the USA are on for the fun of it, and really, I think the reasons why we didn't go, and the way we explained them, were a much better support ; it takes a true friend to give impopular advices.
Russia is European too (in terms of genealogy and culture, if not entirely in terms of geography).
Hahaha, very funny !!!
err...
(By the way, my previous post was intended as a joke.)
Meaning you were serious about Russia being European ? OMG, OMG...
Let me clarify : France is the only european nuclear power independent enough to have worldwide strike capacity, even against the USA if need be.
Also next time you check a map of the Pacific Ocean, try to find the New Caledonia, the French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna. Those are french overseas territories.
Microsoft has threatened to invade France to reimpose "order" on the chaos of the ODF. France has pre-emptively surrendered.
This idotic attempt at making fun should not call for an answer, but it is offensive enough that I'm making one. France casualties in WWI alone were higher than the total of USA casualties among all wars they fought, american civil war included, while our population ratio has been a steady one fifth of yours (sources : http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html, http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/bl ww1castable.htm). WWII was a sad mess, we were thrown to war without adequate preparation by politicians who betrayed us, and we were beaten fair and square by Germany (which was a nation of strong warriorship traditions too). So, I don't think we need to take any lesson of fighting spirit from anyone, considering that after France liberation in WWII our Free French Forces kept fighting along with Allied forces all the way up to Berlin.
But if you still want to dig into this, let me just remind you that we're currently the only european nation with independent nuclear power with a worldwide strike capacity (usa included, in case you ask).
We are currently a pacific nation, and being perceived as harmless may not be bad advertising ; but don't get fooled by your own propaganda. We're not in the habit of making the same mistakes twice, and any hostile power would have a surprise trying to play fool with us.
The pro side is the device retains compatibility with classic film slrs ; the con side, it's way too big for my OM1 ! Couldn't have they put just the GPS receiver part on the hot shoe, and use whatever link (be it bluetooth or even a wire) to hold the recorder in a pocket ? As it is, I don't see how you can snap a pic without a tripod. The weight would necessarily tilt and shake the body.
I've already provided a reference to a mainstream scientist quotation on the subject, sir. This quotation is not the only one to the effect, but one of the most salliant I stumbled upon. But don't feel compelled to believe me and do your homework on the subject, you'll be as much surprised as I was when I did it. Until you're done on it, you'll be the one speaking out of your ass, sir.
I won't contradict you on Faraday, but as of Marconi, it's very very different in nature ; scientists believed transatlantic radio to be impossible because of the straight travel of electromagnetic waves ; therefore, as earth is round, they thought falsely that radio waves would go out in space following a straight path, and would never reach the other side. That was an established *law*. What they didn't knew, and learnt on that occasion, is that earth's atmosphere is not uniform and some of its layers bounce electromagnetic waves down. It doesn't change physics but it adds to the knowledge of another field of science. And the device (if it works) may uncover some "structures" we don't know about - yet. That doesn't mean it would prove current theories to be false, but it may change our views on something remote.
Not to bother you, but Lord Kelvin (yes, the K scale father and founder of thermodynamics), actually stated that "heavier than air flight is impossible" just 2 years before the maiden flight of the Wright brothers. And when confronted to the reality of birds flight by a reporter, he simply said "that's different, they are alive". Draw your conclusions.
Ok, then, just from the top of my mind, look for electricity induction (Faraday) or transatlantic radio transmission (Marconi).
I'm in no way saying that the idea of the guy works or not. And really, I don't care. But dismissing it as "impossible" without at least waiting for it to be adequately peer reviewed is *bad* science. Science is all about experiments, not about ready made ideas based on incomplete understanding of a complex universe. If it happens to work, then be it, and adapt the theories ! If not, stick to the already known laws."First, can you provide an example of this?"
There's an easy one to check : planes (generaly heavier-than-air) flight has been deemed impossible by the scientific community until the Wright brothers publicly demonstrated it, several years after the first flight of Clément Ader (who was treated like a lunatic). And in spite of the demo, it took again several years after the event for some scientists to actualy admit it !
And this didn't happened in the middle ages, but at the eve of the XXth century, the time of the triumph of science !
Mandatory : "Everybody said it was impossible, then a fool came who didn't knew and made it." It wouldn't be the first time in science history that something happens to work in spite of mathematics, not because maths are wrong per se but because the thing reveals an entirely unknown field of physics.
As a part time teacher myself, I wanted to write exactly the same ; teachers really wanting to put e-cheating to a grinding halt can do it easily following this basic iteration : 1) read assignement, 2) spot 'too good to be true' parts, 3) google them up and 4) Profit !
Except it takes some guts to break hell loose. Students are pissed, fellow teachers are pissed (because they need to homework to be on par), management is pissed because parents call by the dozen complaining that their genius offsprings have been chosen as a revenge target by a frustrated, incompetent assistant, etc.
In the long run, I think it's better addressing the question beforehand. Why do students cheat so obviously ? I have no scientific answer to put forward, but I have a feeling today's students are *scared*. Much more than I and my friends were 10 years ago. They obviously don't want to be at the low side of the scale, but they're too scared to fight on their own, in a world where a single failure can spoil a career forever ; they revert to a 'tribe mode', feeling that if half the classroom is stubbornly giving the same answers (to the choice of the font, no less), the teacher won't be able to mark them bad, for fear of his own reputation. And they're not completely wrong ! But I don't think this behaviour is linked to lazzyness in any way. Whatever even they brag about, I can vouch for the cheaters I have personaly confronted that they're more afraid than laid back.
Now, I only mark papers written in front of me. No telephones in classroom, all departure definitive (think about pissing before sitting).
Pleeeeeaaase... that's still the mantra I was hearing when I was 13 and happily beginning to code (in 1985). Why would 'we' be prevented from the right to code if 'we', litterature oriented people, despise mathematics ? There is still SO much to do with only 4 operations ! Granted, I won't dwelve into image processing, signal analysis or those fields where a strong math background is required. But I have a thing for databases, and in the 90's I was making nice applications to manage library catalogues. In Clipper, no less.
Well I'm not a programmer, save some hobbyist gadgets when I need them now, but I still can code some ASM, Basic, and C. When I feel the need, I'm not afraid to alter some parts of a GTK+/C program to better suit my aim. And I've never felt the urge to become a mathematician.
I think the mathematical mindset requirement is in fact more a deterrent for wannabe young programmers ; nobody knows how much good and creative ideas it cost the world to leave so much brilliant people at the door. Professionaly, I struggle everyday with mathematicaly clean softwares, written by certified engineers, softwares that are blatantly unfit to the mindset of my lawyer job. I have millions of ideas to improve the workflow I'm forced to follow, but when I bring them on the table, I'm sneered at because "I can't possibly understand computers". Stupid assh*les, I've had 3 time more computers in my life than them. But I need to eat, so I back off and go back to my paid work.
It's not really different than before when I was a teen. We had one of the first computer lab in school, but the management of it was trusted by our mathematics and physics teachers. Access to the lab was granted as a reward for good science pupils, no need to say I've never seen those computers closer than 10 meters away. That's because I strongly felt frustrated at the time that I pressured my parents into buying me a Tangerine Oric 1.
I just played for a couple of minutes and found myself mostly in your situation, with only 1 worthy partner with whom I managed to earn 500 points. But after some thinking, I feel the concept is flawed because this competition leads to subpar results. In order to score, everybody tries to dumb down what he sees in the hope his "friend" will do the same. For instance, we were presented the face of a normal guy, with a little beard and fairly bald, but what matched was only his *glasses*. As the picture wasn't about glasses at all, except for the guy to have worn some, this label would actually push the picture to top rank on a glasses search, but the result would be worthless for the user.
at least an unpassionate yet accurate comment on the issue. cheers. you framed the problem in 12 sentences, that should desserve an award.
OpenOffice.org wants YOU !
No, not "ah well."
Customers have a legitimate expectation to be treated as if they are wanted and valued not as if they are a threat to the enterprise for using the product they purchased.
Companies that treat their customers as criminals instead of as their reason for being in business will find themselves at a severe competative disadvantage. Such actions will hurt companies who engage in them, in big and small ways.
I think you're getting it backwards ; if MSFT feels it can get out of it, it's a sure clue there's no relevant competition.
In fact, MSFT knows pretty well their customers are helpless, and they can abuse them the way they want because noone's going to raise an eyebrow. Consumers should be protected by the anti-trust laws, but since the DoJ had to back out last time they tried, MSFT has free hands to do whatever they like.
As you may know, on this day, Bonaparte made a coup d'État and thus became known as "Napoléon"...
Every time a single person (or institution) is in charge of the writing / editing of any article, a risk exists, and that's why a) encyclopaedias are not scholar references b) science suppose peer review.
Sure. I'm sure it does exists, even in the US : call the Police, submit the clues you have, and let them get a warrant from a judge. The trouble is, if the school point a finger against an innocent, he could rightly fight back for libellous practice (or whatever a lawyer would call it). Well, I hope. Anyway, there's no need for an intermediate as there's already one entitled by law for that purpose. The school is just trying to escape its responsability for what is basically bullying its own pupils, and as far as education goes, I don't think it's an appropriate behaviour for a teaching authority to show students how to escape the bounds of your liability.
I've also definitely adopted a very small keyboard with small course keys, to avoid stress injuries.