I wonder if there's a simple work around -- an understanding that a particular HTML code would signify that the software would not notice that page, like the X-No-Archive flag, and put the software deep inside IBM where the Chinese government can't get at it?
Not terribly free and open I admit, and obviously you'd need to trust IBM to do the right thing, but too much transparency is a bad thing, at least for political voices in the Chinese hinterland.
What's really ironic about this, is that the only people who believe in ID are the people who are so small-minded that they can't understand that religion and science can coexist -- after all, God could possibly be responsible even for the things that are explained by science, just because He could have set things up that way.
The irony goes deeper than that. Your position above -- that religion and science can coexist -- is what the ID proponents have been trying to tell you. You've been too busy shouting that they're "small minded" to listen to what they're saying. I'm not really a in ID, but you are!
Intelligent design seems to contradict the idea of taking the creationist story literally. The idea that the world was created in 7 days is not Intelligent Design. Intelligent design believes that it is more a story, like you yourself mentioned, and could have happened over thousands of years through the process of evolution.
Good point. Evolution happened, ID proponents and pretty well everyone else agrees. There are waaaaayyy too many fossils around. Darwin didn't discover (/invent?) evolution, he explained it: evolution by natural selection. The ID folks are saying that, since there are a few observations in nature that are messy to explain this way, Darwin's theory should not be taken as the only explanation for our current state. Fine so far, but they haven't proposed a testable alternative. Worse, some or all of the proponents are so clearly advancing an evangelical Christian program that it is hard to take the movement seriously.
At least it's hard for me to, but I live far from Kansas:-)
Think about engineering (did you know that the desert salt bush can maintain internal negative pressures far below the boiling point of water?).
Some interesting points there, but I'm still struggling to apply my Engineering degree to understand what that one means. And yes, I have reread it a couple of times.
This is 100% wrong! The scientific method is not up for debate.
That seems wrong. If you could posit some improvements on the scientific method, then test them and prove them consistently valuable, wouldn't the method require that you adopt these modifications?
Parent has some good ideas, but I would stay away from fixed career paths for positions. Career paths are appropriate for people, not jobs.
When I have done this for clients (I am a former nerd; now work as an HR consultant), I set up a simple form with them where employees can put down what career path they want, and show it to either their boss or a special succession planning committee. If it seems reasonable, they can work out together a development plan which increases the employee's chance of getting the next job in the path.
BTW, a committee of managers which makes succession planning decisions can be an excellent way to select people when vacancies open up, but needs strong support of top management to succeed, and it doesn't sound like you have that yet.
Career planning does a lot more than keep employees interested in their employer; more importantly (to them) is that they can prepare people for future vacancies, reducing the costs of turnover (which are very high).
I have done some development work in third-world countries, and the stuff Bill & Melinda's foundation supports is brilliant. They are not encumbered by the obligations government aid gets (buy from donor country, or cannot support abortion rights). They also have piles of money, so they can take on smart, useful and long-term projects which ultimately save many lives and improved education levels and economies.
Having said that, I believe that Bill never donated a dime to anyone until he got married, saying that he wanted to be actively involved in working with recipients and didn't have the time back then.
I don't like the guy's software, nor his business practices, and his sudden conversion to philanthropy may be a concern, but the work his foundation does is absolutely fantastic.
disclaimer: I graduated with a Mech. Eng. degree almost 20 years ago from the University of Western Ontario; I now work as a management consultant with a focus on HR Management, about as far from engineering as you can get.
On our first day of Engineering school, the Dean got all the freshmen in one theatre and said "Look to your left; look to your right; only one of you will be graduating in four years." The truth was that, for every year's cohort, a third dropped out, a third took an extra year and only a third graduated on time.
Whether this sort of natural selection is the best way to select engineers is debatable. We did have some quite good lecturers, especially in the first two years, and I never experienced anything like the horror stories others posted. We did have one or two incompetent professors, and the lab TAs were seldom really helpful or understanding, but we learned the stuff. I failed a couple of courses, but made them up and got out in four years.
I think the critical issue is whether the system can be improved so that a higher proportion of incoming students can graduate as engineers, whether by better selection or better teaching. I think some improvement is necessary, given the increasing complexity of everything in our world, including applied science. Students who think they will get the same quality of teaching in university as they got in high school are in for a disappointment; that is not how professors are selected. There is an incorrect assumption that knowledge of a topic makes one able to teach it.
A final point to Parent: research in engineering is very, very important. Most of our ability to make increasingly powerful and complicated tools is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and depends on engineering not pure science. Look at materials science for one example out of many. The primary research is done by scientists, but adapting materials to real-world conditions is done by engineers.
I had some work in Sudan last year, and it is pretty much illegal to take photographs. You first need to get a permit from an office which never opens, and then you are banned from photographing a long list of buildings and structures, including pretty much everything owned by the government. Since the economy sucks, pretty much everything in Khartourm is owned by the government, so nothing to snap.
I took my camera up into my client's office building one day anyway, took a few snaps out the windows, and got a thirty minute interrogation from Security for my transgression.
But, compared to Sudan, Ghana is likely paradise.
Well, it depends on how you count. Another site http://www.dbresearch.com/servlet/reweb2.ReWEB?rwk ey=u806 sets it at US$219 billion, which comes out at about $1000 per person, which sounds about right to me. The CIA figure uses purchasing power parity, which is often a better measure but somewhat arbitrary. Also, the wealth is much more unequally distributed in Indonesia (top 20% of population account for over 40% of expenditure) than in many other economies. A lot of the money comes from mining and oil sectors, which tend not to diffuse money to local communities, but benefit shareholders in the big cities and overseas.
Schapelle Corby only made the mistake of forgetting to lock her boogie board bag, so that airside baggage handlers in Brisbane could add a 4.1kg "going-away-for-a-long-time present" of weed that their mates in Sydney forgot to collect before her connecting flight. Tragic.
I have a real problem with this whole line of reasoning. If I am part of a big drug mob, and I want to move 100kg of grass from one city to another, am I going to
a) put it in my trunk and drive it there, or
b) divide it up into 25 packages, drive them to the airport, bring them inside, put them into 25 different bags, communicate to my mate which bags, hope they all arrive on schedule, that he gets to all the right bags ahead of his coworkers, finds the dope and can get it out to the parking lot?
I know the Australians are talking about there being a lot of drugs transported this way, but it seems unbelievable to me. But, what do I know... I gave the stuff up two decades ago.
Well, as a Canadian living in Indonesia for the last thirteen years, I have been following the outcry over the verdict much more closely than the trial itself.
Would she be found guilty in any given Western country, if she was found with 4kg of dope but without any evidence that it was not hers? I think you would have to say yes. I note that Australians now are split 50-50 according to the latest poll, whereas right after the trial 90% were said to think she iss innocent. I imagine this is due to the stories going around about her families long history of drug dealing.
Do I *know* if she is guilty or innocent? No. Do I think there was sufficient evidence presented to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt? Yup. Was the judge too harsh in not allowing her to explain her defence? Maybe, but what evidence could she present?
Next, separate, question: Was 20 years too much? People differ on their views on drug trafficking sentencing, but Southeast Asian countries take it very seriously. In Singapore and many other countries, she would be executed. I also think her sentence was influenced by the Australian bozo who flew up to hold press conferences and plead her case in the media, then announced that someone had approached him about bribing the judge. I don't imagine that led the judge to look too kindly on the whole thing. With friends like that...
You've triggered one of my pet peeves. Since people built ships, they've known the earth is round. All you have to do is watch one sail away -- first the waterline disappears, then the deck, but you can still see the superstructure (mast, sail, etc.). Finally, just the top of the mast remains.
The only way this is possible is if the earth is not flat, but rounded.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if there's a simple work around -- an understanding that a particular HTML code would signify that the software would not notice that page, like the X-No-Archive flag, and put the software deep inside IBM where the Chinese government can't get at it?
Not terribly free and open I admit, and obviously you'd need to trust IBM to do the right thing, but too much transparency is a bad thing, at least for political voices in the Chinese hinterland.
Now THAT's ironic!
At least it's hard for me to, but I live far from Kansas
Some interesting points there, but I'm still struggling to apply my Engineering degree to understand what that one means. And yes, I have reread it a couple of times.
That seems wrong. If you could posit some improvements on the scientific method, then test them and prove them consistently valuable, wouldn't the method require that you adopt these modifications?
Or, maybe I'm just getting way too abstract?
When I have done this for clients (I am a former nerd; now work as an HR consultant), I set up a simple form with them where employees can put down what career path they want, and show it to either their boss or a special succession planning committee. If it seems reasonable, they can work out together a development plan which increases the employee's chance of getting the next job in the path.
BTW, a committee of managers which makes succession planning decisions can be an excellent way to select people when vacancies open up, but needs strong support of top management to succeed, and it doesn't sound like you have that yet.
Career planning does a lot more than keep employees interested in their employer; more importantly (to them) is that they can prepare people for future vacancies, reducing the costs of turnover (which are very high).
I have done some development work in third-world countries, and the stuff Bill & Melinda's foundation supports is brilliant. They are not encumbered by the obligations government aid gets (buy from donor country, or cannot support abortion rights). They also have piles of money, so they can take on smart, useful and long-term projects which ultimately save many lives and improved education levels and economies.
Having said that, I believe that Bill never donated a dime to anyone until he got married, saying that he wanted to be actively involved in working with recipients and didn't have the time back then.
I don't like the guy's software, nor his business practices, and his sudden conversion to philanthropy may be a concern, but the work his foundation does is absolutely fantastic.
disclaimer: I graduated with a Mech. Eng. degree almost 20 years ago from the University of Western Ontario; I now work as a management consultant with a focus on HR Management, about as far from engineering as you can get.
On our first day of Engineering school, the Dean got all the freshmen in one theatre and said "Look to your left; look to your right; only one of you will be graduating in four years." The truth was that, for every year's cohort, a third dropped out, a third took an extra year and only a third graduated on time.
Whether this sort of natural selection is the best way to select engineers is debatable. We did have some quite good lecturers, especially in the first two years, and I never experienced anything like the horror stories others posted. We did have one or two incompetent professors, and the lab TAs were seldom really helpful or understanding, but we learned the stuff. I failed a couple of courses, but made them up and got out in four years.
I think the critical issue is whether the system can be improved so that a higher proportion of incoming students can graduate as engineers, whether by better selection or better teaching. I think some improvement is necessary, given the increasing complexity of everything in our world, including applied science. Students who think they will get the same quality of teaching in university as they got in high school are in for a disappointment; that is not how professors are selected. There is an incorrect assumption that knowledge of a topic makes one able to teach it.
A final point to Parent: research in engineering is very, very important. Most of our ability to make increasingly powerful and complicated tools is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and depends on engineering not pure science. Look at materials science for one example out of many. The primary research is done by scientists, but adapting materials to real-world conditions is done by engineers.
I had some work in Sudan last year, and it is pretty much illegal to take photographs. You first need to get a permit from an office which never opens, and then you are banned from photographing a long list of buildings and structures, including pretty much everything owned by the government. Since the economy sucks, pretty much everything in Khartourm is owned by the government, so nothing to snap. I took my camera up into my client's office building one day anyway, took a few snaps out the windows, and got a thirty minute interrogation from Security for my transgression. But, compared to Sudan, Ghana is likely paradise.
Well, it depends on how you count. Another site http://www.dbresearch.com/servlet/reweb2.ReWEB?rwk ey=u806 sets it at US$219 billion, which comes out at about $1000 per person, which sounds about right to me. The CIA figure uses purchasing power parity, which is often a better measure but somewhat arbitrary. Also, the wealth is much more unequally distributed in Indonesia (top 20% of population account for over 40% of expenditure) than in many other economies. A lot of the money comes from mining and oil sectors, which tend not to diffuse money to local communities, but benefit shareholders in the big cities and overseas.
a) put it in my trunk and drive it there, or
b) divide it up into 25 packages, drive them to the airport, bring them inside, put them into 25 different bags, communicate to my mate which bags, hope they all arrive on schedule, that he gets to all the right bags ahead of his coworkers, finds the dope and can get it out to the parking lot?
I know the Australians are talking about there being a lot of drugs transported this way, but it seems unbelievable to me. But, what do I know... I gave the stuff up two decades ago.
Well, as a Canadian living in Indonesia for the last thirteen years, I have been following the outcry over the verdict much more closely than the trial itself.
Would she be found guilty in any given Western country, if she was found with 4kg of dope but without any evidence that it was not hers? I think you would have to say yes. I note that Australians now are split 50-50 according to the latest poll, whereas right after the trial 90% were said to think she iss innocent. I imagine this is due to the stories going around about her families long history of drug dealing.
Do I *know* if she is guilty or innocent? No. Do I think there was sufficient evidence presented to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt? Yup. Was the judge too harsh in not allowing her to explain her defence? Maybe, but what evidence could she present?
Next, separate, question: Was 20 years too much? People differ on their views on drug trafficking sentencing, but Southeast Asian countries take it very seriously. In Singapore and many other countries, she would be executed. I also think her sentence was influenced by the Australian bozo who flew up to hold press conferences and plead her case in the media, then announced that someone had approached him about bribing the judge. I don't imagine that led the judge to look too kindly on the whole thing. With friends like that...
You've triggered one of my pet peeves. Since people built ships, they've known the earth is round. All you have to do is watch one sail away -- first the waterline disappears, then the deck, but you can still see the superstructure (mast, sail, etc.). Finally, just the top of the mast remains. The only way this is possible is if the earth is not flat, but rounded.