I'd add that one of the problems is that these movies are crap: they go for the cheap thrills of space monsters, magic technology and aliens based on anthropic archatypes, instead of building on the truly amazing possibilities for human evolution in space.
They might as well be religious fantasy stories, just replace the space monsters with dragons/demons, the aliens with elves/angels, and the wormholes with magic portals.
All the 'sciency' stuff is really superflous in these movies, an excuse to add more wiz-bang special effects; so why not just go for pure fantasy to begin with? Hence the modern success of The Lord of the Rings versus than Star Wars trilogy(s).
To truly get kids captivated by space, you need to create stories that capitalize on space travel/colonization's unique potentials. Alien environments and their effects on people's daily lives, freedom from terrestrial governments and cultures, the possibility and nessesity to evolve according to new ecological niches radically different from the womb planet, and the implications of those changes to society and to the human psyche.
Works that get this right are Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, and "2001: A Space Odyssey". These works take into account the facts of space and the facts of the human condition/situation to generate possible futures for human evolution in space.
And each of these works (2001 does it in a metaphorical manner towards the end) shows how fantastic developments are possible within the lifespan of the current generation.
Who benefits? American programmers. They have fatter pay packets (which they notice), but most things they buy will be more expensive (which they won't notice). (Things are more expensive since the part of their cost which covers the price of the software used to make them has gone up).
Prices may go up somewhat (or rather, stay up, since VISA's are the status quo), but not enough to totally negate the pay benefits from preventing your field from being overun by inexpensive foreign workers. That's because the programming costs of products are only a small component of the full costs of any product one buys, so the price hikes would be negligible compared to the effect on individual programmer's salary.
All this is besides the point, since the original claim is that bringing in foreign programmers would be the best way to compensate for the lack of sufficient skill sets in native programmers. I think that claim is dubious and flawed, since I see no evidence that foreign programmers have better skill sets than native ones; and as others have mentioned, a better solution is to improve the training of native programmers, since that resolves the problem in a way which doesn't erode the local programming profession, nor funnels money out of the country (you don't actually think those foreign programmers are gonna spend all their salary locally, do you?).
It takes 20% of the time to do the easy 80% of the work. Then 80% of the time to do the remaining hard 20%. Components give you the easy 80%. Which you could already do pretty quickly anyway, so you're really not gaining much.
Actually, you're gaining 20%. That ain't bad.
Now, with your other points factored in you might not break even, but if they can be mitigated then something which can give a 20% improvement is certainly worth considering.
managing 'application portfolios' much as they do stock portfolios
They fail to appreciate that The Defining Characteristic of software applications is that they interact with each other and other resources (employees,customers,etc) in complicated patterns
Comparatively, stocks are just abstract financial instruments representing fractions of a companies value. They don't interact. They just sit there and keep representing their particular fraction of their particular company. The underlying companies MIGHT interact, but this is generally not the norm and rarely the most significant aspect of a stock.
Not Niven's best, but some of the concepts explored are interesting. A key one is the hypothesis that morality is dependant upon technology, and that as technology changes so too does what is moral. The book revolves around a technological revolution (the development of a means for engineering replacement organs) resulting in a moral/cultural/social one.
Really, does the government think that criminals will just hand over the encryption keys which they are using?
All they will do is hand over one set of keys, and then use those registered keys to encrypt around messages already encrypted with their secret keys. The government monitors will see that the messages are encrypted with the registered keys, and think they are fine, not bothering to look inside them.
All this does is criminalize and/or make useless encryption by law abiding citizens.
Oh, they understand alright
on
"H-Prize" Announced
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· Score: 3, Interesting
You have to generate the hydrogen somehow...from oil, coal... no one understands this point, including the President and the Secretary of Energy
Oh, I think they understand it just fine. The Whitehouse administration has been in bed with the oil industry from the beginning. The whole 'hydrogen economy' promotion is just an attempt to make it look like they are taking action towards energy independance and alternative energy source development, as to divert interest/funds for alternative energy research towards their fossil-fuel industry cronies.
The most tragic thing about this whole scenario is that it diverts resources away from alternative energy source developments which could have an impact in the immediate to short term future (like wind, solar and hydro-electric power, gas electric hybrid cars, and energy conservation) in favour of a pipe-dream that even the proponents admit is decades away.
A tight company with good control over trade secrets can see the advantage for decades.
Depends on the industry; specifically on how hard it is to reverse engineer new products.
For example, it's relatively trivial for a competing pharma company to determine the structure of a small molecule drug(which pretty much every commercial pharmaceutical is) given a sample.
this sounds like a mixed blessing, and brings about visions of some sterile, Spandex-jumpsuit future where food production is controlled by some central authority
That's all well and good, and I agree with you about it, but it does not mean that a BBC employee's actions are automatically the BBC's actions as well.
What is the BBC if not the sum of its employees? At least when they are on their work time.
You could simply get a laptop without networking, or with restricted networking.
You could mitigate the loss of information from the loss of networking by installing a static copy of wikipedia on the laptop (the english version only takes up about 3 GB or so).
And your solution of putting the computer in a public area of the house will NOT prevent your kids from looking up 'bad' stuff (I know this from experience, as it didn't stop me); you can't be around all the time. The only thing that will do that is good parenting.
Having access to loads of information doesn't make you smarter.
Idunno, I certainly think having access to Wikipedia makes me smarter. The pace of learning is simply so much faster when you can follow one subject to another with a single click on a hyperlink than if I have to look it up in an index or in another book (which I might not even have).
involves comparing SCO Unix to Linux... the most vulnerable operating system for manual hacker attacks was Linux, accounting for 65.64% of all hacker breaches reported
Of course there are more attacks against linux than against SCO Unix. I'd imagine there are somewhere around, 300 to 400 trillion more instances of linux running than instances of SCO Unix. So it's not strange that there are more attacks against them. This is just an instance of failing to take into account the base rate.
Of course, I'm having some fun with numbers myself here, so don't take my word for it.
They probably first attempted to get funding for breeding plants which can survive in earth deserts(which could, you know, feed people), but that line of justification didn't have enough cachet.
"To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt"
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
-- Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (ADc56-c.115)
Personally, I say hooray for the cable companies. They get to keep control of their equipment and the users who are utilizing it. Broadband and dial-up wholesale outfits generally provide poor service and limited capability (no Static IP or PPP Multilink.)
I'm glad you think so highly of the cable companies internet services, because you can expect them to get worse due to this ruling. Before, they had to compete with those independant ISPs, now they don't because they can just shut them down. Do you think the cable companies internet service will become better with less competition?
Also, you're painting some pretty broad strokes on the range of independant ISPs. Many of the ones I've had in the past had much better service than did the cable and phone companies offerings, across the board. I'll admit that the later businesses have improved by leaps and bounds as of late, which is why I get my internet directly from the cable company. But they did so because they were losing customers to the independants. This development is definitely bad for the consumer.
'Taxation is theft, since it restricts the right to own property'
An alternative viewpoint is that 'property is theft'. The rationale being that what 'property rights' actually do is defend the theives of the past from being stolen from today.
Just food for thought. I'm not really sure which (if either) viewpoint is valid, but I can appreciate the arguments for both.
Slashdot Mirror
Then it'll probably have less resources available, after you factor in the Windows bloat
They might as well be religious fantasy stories, just replace the space monsters with dragons/demons, the aliens with elves/angels, and the wormholes with magic portals.
All the 'sciency' stuff is really superflous in these movies, an excuse to add more wiz-bang special effects; so why not just go for pure fantasy to begin with? Hence the modern success of The Lord of the Rings versus than Star Wars trilogy(s).
To truly get kids captivated by space, you need to create stories that capitalize on space travel/colonization's unique potentials. Alien environments and their effects on people's daily lives, freedom from terrestrial governments and cultures, the possibility and nessesity to evolve according to new ecological niches radically different from the womb planet, and the implications of those changes to society and to the human psyche.
Works that get this right are Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, and "2001: A Space Odyssey". These works take into account the facts of space and the facts of the human condition/situation to generate possible futures for human evolution in space.
And each of these works (2001 does it in a metaphorical manner towards the end) shows how fantastic developments are possible within the lifespan of the current generation.
Prices may go up somewhat (or rather, stay up, since VISA's are the status quo), but not enough to totally negate the pay benefits from preventing your field from being overun by inexpensive foreign workers. That's because the programming costs of products are only a small component of the full costs of any product one buys, so the price hikes would be negligible compared to the effect on individual programmer's salary.
All this is besides the point, since the original claim is that bringing in foreign programmers would be the best way to compensate for the lack of sufficient skill sets in native programmers. I think that claim is dubious and flawed, since I see no evidence that foreign programmers have better skill sets than native ones; and as others have mentioned, a better solution is to improve the training of native programmers, since that resolves the problem in a way which doesn't erode the local programming profession, nor funnels money out of the country (you don't actually think those foreign programmers are gonna spend all their salary locally, do you?).
That sounds about as enticing as a benign tumour
Actually, you're gaining 20%. That ain't bad.
Now, with your other points factored in you might not break even, but if they can be mitigated then something which can give a 20% improvement is certainly worth considering.
They fail to appreciate that The Defining Characteristic of software applications is that they interact with each other and other resources (employees,customers,etc) in complicated patterns
Comparatively, stocks are just abstract financial instruments representing fractions of a companies value. They don't interact. They just sit there and keep representing their particular fraction of their particular company. The underlying companies MIGHT interact, but this is generally not the norm and rarely the most significant aspect of a stock.
:) Larry Niven's A Gift From Earth
Not Niven's best, but some of the concepts explored are interesting. A key one is the hypothesis that morality is dependant upon technology, and that as technology changes so too does what is moral. The book revolves around a technological revolution (the development of a means for engineering replacement organs) resulting in a moral/cultural/social one.
... when we have an army of liberal brainwashed clones! MWA HA HA HA HA!
I propose that we enact legislation to track all politicians who hold governmental offices. That way we can make sure that they aren't up to no good.
Slimy Politician: This new energy policy was not influenced by the oil industry.
Citizen/Reporter: Then why does your location log indicate you visited the major oil companies' headquarters while preparing the legislation?
Slimy Politician: Umm...
All they will do is hand over one set of keys, and then use those registered keys to encrypt around messages already encrypted with their secret keys. The government monitors will see that the messages are encrypted with the registered keys, and think they are fine, not bothering to look inside them.
All this does is criminalize and/or make useless encryption by law abiding citizens.
Oh, I think they understand it just fine. The Whitehouse administration has been in bed with the oil industry from the beginning. The whole 'hydrogen economy' promotion is just an attempt to make it look like they are taking action towards energy independance and alternative energy source development, as to divert interest/funds for alternative energy research towards their fossil-fuel industry cronies.
The most tragic thing about this whole scenario is that it diverts resources away from alternative energy source developments which could have an impact in the immediate to short term future (like wind, solar and hydro-electric power, gas electric hybrid cars, and energy conservation) in favour of a pipe-dream that even the proponents admit is decades away.
The administration is shameless
Depends on the industry; specifically on how hard it is to reverse engineer new products.
For example, it's relatively trivial for a competing pharma company to determine the structure of a small molecule drug(which pretty much every commercial pharmaceutical is) given a sample.
Tell that to the VB6 developers.
As one of my old profs said: Powerpoint has the ability to make a mediocre presentation seem good, and to make a fantastic presentation seem good.
100th anniversary? Yeah, but it's all relative
Sorry, but the ability to commit a crime does not make the crime acceptable.
That's what we have now
What is the BBC if not the sum of its employees? At least when they are on their work time.
You could mitigate the loss of information from the loss of networking by installing a static copy of wikipedia on the laptop (the english version only takes up about 3 GB or so).
And your solution of putting the computer in a public area of the house will NOT prevent your kids from looking up 'bad' stuff (I know this from experience, as it didn't stop me); you can't be around all the time. The only thing that will do that is good parenting.
Idunno, I certainly think having access to Wikipedia makes me smarter. The pace of learning is simply so much faster when you can follow one subject to another with a single click on a hyperlink than if I have to look it up in an index or in another book (which I might not even have).
Of course there are more attacks against linux than against SCO Unix. I'd imagine there are somewhere around, 300 to 400 trillion more instances of linux running than instances of SCO Unix. So it's not strange that there are more attacks against them. This is just an instance of failing to take into account the base rate.
Of course, I'm having some fun with numbers myself here, so don't take my word for it.
So they went to NASA, cuz they'll fund anything.
"To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt" --Elizabeth Cady Stanton "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (ADc56-c.115)
I'm glad you think so highly of the cable companies internet services, because you can expect them to get worse due to this ruling. Before, they had to compete with those independant ISPs, now they don't because they can just shut them down. Do you think the cable companies internet service will become better with less competition?
Also, you're painting some pretty broad strokes on the range of independant ISPs. Many of the ones I've had in the past had much better service than did the cable and phone companies offerings, across the board. I'll admit that the later businesses have improved by leaps and bounds as of late, which is why I get my internet directly from the cable company. But they did so because they were losing customers to the independants. This development is definitely bad for the consumer.
An alternative viewpoint is that 'property is theft'. The rationale being that what 'property rights' actually do is defend the theives of the past from being stolen from today.
Just food for thought. I'm not really sure which (if either) viewpoint is valid, but I can appreciate the arguments for both.