Is it possible that you went to the wrong university? Did you shy away from "hard" sounding courses? Is it also possible that you weren't properly motivated? Most schools will allow students to do as much research/independent study as they please. Not trying to attack, but if you don't challenge yourself in course selection than I can see where that may be the case. Personally I did both research and independent work for my undergraduate, and I feel like I learned quite a bit about independence and free thinking.
You are an exception, that is all. While it would not be too much of a streatch to get an art degree and become a web designer or something of the sort, one generally will not take their art degree to adobe or microsoft and say "You know, I really want to program." and actually have any chance of getting a job.
The problem is that while not everything on cable is worth watching, almost nothing on democracy looks remotely even interesting. I doubt anyone would have a problem if there was at least something that looked good.
You seem to fail to get the point. Who the hell cares about the little details of a language (yes syntax is mainly about the details). If syntax is so much of a giant hurdle to get into a new language, then perhaps you should choose another field.
A good CS major should be able to pick up any langauge, and that is the important part. If you come out of a good program you should be able to pick up any language--be it lisp, pascal, c, logo, or whatever you can think of. They shouldn't need "training" in a language, because they should be able to pick up a book and learn enough of a language in a weekend to be useful (and that is possible).
Why does the world need more users, and not more people that can program? Do you believe that there is no educational benefit to learning how to program? I would have to disagree. The American attitude is going in a direction that if it aint readin', writin', or 'rithmatic that it isn't important. Education is useful no matter who you are or what you do. Just like studying language, music, literature, art, and shop can help students in other areas of achievement, programming helps teach one to think--to use valuable problem solving skills that can be applied (not always consciously of course) to their surroundings.
Of course I'm not saying that the market should be flooded with people that want to be programmers. Quite the contrary. I have learned quite a lot of math in my schooling. Does that mean that I am qualified to be a mathmatician? Of course not. Children should be exposed to a wider variety of things at a younger age.
So, I would think that it's quite the opposite. The world needs less people simply using computers, and more people programming them.
"So pretty soon, every child in India will have a laptop, while here in America, we're lucky if half the graduating High School seniors know how to read.
This is an outsourcer's wet dream come true.
Expect HUGE sporsorships from the usual suspects."
While I don't exactly agree with the point that you are making, your point gets close to something that I am feeling. I understand that it is wonderful to help the rest of the world, but what about America? I believe one of the articles said that they did not want to make these things available to the general public. What would it hurt to sell these things retail for cheap? We may be a fairly rich country, but poverty still exists in America, and these things could help students of all ages who are middle to low income.
I believe that it was supposed to have both a power cord and a crank for the battery so you can power it by hand. From the Article:
Negroponte's goal is for the machine to work on a 100:1 crank ratio - one minute of hand cranking generates sufficient power for the laptop to operate for 100 minutes."
Along the same lines, if you think cooling is the problem, and you are using your laptop in situations that would permit it's use, I would suggest something that gives a little more of a raise than extra large feet (although they certainly couldn't hurt). I use a griffin icurve, but there are plenty such products out there that will give your laptop a good boost allowing quite a bit of air to circulate around it. An added benefit is that with my particular desk and chair it raises my laptop to eye-level which has helped reduce neck strain after long hours of using it. I think that I got mine off ebay for like 30 bucks (I don't know what you would consider cheap, but for a lot of people that isn't exactly a bank breaker).
"Oh, a couple more things. First, I'm not really suggesting that the grandparent post be modded down! I'm just disagreeing with it! It's a good post in and of itself. And totally intended to be helpful to the questioner, so please don't mod down the poster who first suggested perl!"
Looks like it's a little too late for that, buddy. Thanks anyway, though.
To one of your main points, however, yes perl doesn't exactly force you to use good programming habbits, but certainly C does not abide by your "there's one way to do it" philosophy. Plus, I try not to suggest new programmers to use C right out of the box because of it's uncanny ability to allow you to shoot yourself in the foot. I am not saying that C is bad, I have done a lot of C programming and as a language I absolutely love it, but dispite it's power, speed, and ease of use it may not be a great choice for a beginner who is not in a classroom setting (I would suggest it to either someone who has a little experience or someone who has a teacher to show them when they are doing something that is incredibly stupid). It is not always easy for someone to learn to program by themself, even someone that is experienced as a user.
Perl may not be the best choice, but as I said, it sounds like it would probably be a great choice for someone in his specific shoes. He didn't sound like he wanted to change careers to become a programmer for a living, so many other languages may be quite unnecessary for him. Yes, perl doesn't exactly force you to program by the book, but it is something that he could get his feet wet with and possibly create something that could be of use to himself relatively quickly.
Sorry, don't mean to rant, it just pisses me off sometimes that there are so many mods that don't understand the moderation system. I also would have modded my original post redundant if it would have read "ME TOO!!!!! PERL IS UBER L33T!!! LOLOLOL!!!", or something to that effect. I may not have added much info to the post before it, but I don't think modding it down was unnecessary.
Perl is a great suggestion. It is one of the easiest languages to get into if you have never programmed before, and for someone in your shoes it is particularly good beccause of how easy it is to write simple but helpful scripts to run on various machines you work on.
True, however I would second both as valid choices. I have had bad luck with mplayer on my linux machine (fedora), but on linux I have had great luck with Xine, and on OS X VLC is just a great program.
This may be redundant or obvious, but this should have been a non-issue in the first place. Hacking? Laughable. These poor kids did what kids with computers do--explore. Not to mention that the password they typed in, the "hacking", was on the back of the damn computers. Shame on the administration for being stupid cowards, and shame on the police for being so ignorant that they would even think of taking action once they heard the story. Are there not enough bad guys out there committing real crimes that they have to resort to extreme punishments against kids? Everything I read about this case indicated that this was a school matter, and should have been treated as such, you know detention, or at the very worst a short suspension! I just hope that this doesn't screw up these kids' lives.
Exactly, plus last time I checked firefox was open source. You can't say they are hiding information when anyone can read the source and try and figure it out for themselves.
I use opera. Apparently, I was a l33t haxor and I didn't even know it.
A lot of people seem worried about the how long the drive will last, but I would also be curious about the port. You would have to keep it a lot cleaner and I would imagine there would be problems with the port simply failing.
Cool idea otherwise though. I like the idea for a lot of things like the music or movie idea, and for directions and such, however I don't think I would feel safe having it as the starting mechanism.
Also if this is in place of the ignition, what is in the door locks? Having usb ports on the exterior seems like it would be asking to get your car hacked and having to carry around at least 2 keys would be a pain by default. There are always other means, but these things came to mind.
You have never heard someone speak english using poor grammar? Perhaps this is true for smaller subsets of native language speakers, however not for a society as a whole (america at least).
I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but I'll bite anyway. Yes, because you are saying that we should not respect peoples rights to create, and to own what they create. I am in favor of your utopian dream, but not if it means a.) breaking laws and b.) disrespecting the people who create. The ends do not justify the means. You keep feeling that it is not only your right, but you duty to take free cable, music, movies, etc., then feel free, but I hope you are also willing to own up to the consequences if you get caught.
I do believe that laws should represent the will of the people, however what you are failing to realize is that the government is not only supposed to represent the will of the majority, but also protect the rights of the minority. I am quite happy where I am, thank you.
Great logic. And without laws to protect the work that people do, we would not have any media to copyright, nor would we have new drugs because no one would be able to make money off them.
"Copyright and drugs laws: the perfect examples of people being ruled instead of represented by their government."
Either you lack any ambition to do anything worth stealing, or you are so full of your utopian society that you cannot fathom reality. Either way you lose.
Are you saying that it is alright to pirate music then? Is it also ok to steal cable television? What have they lost? Potential revenue. Yes, I know this is not exact, but I think that it is a start. There does exist a person who asks "Why would I buy a cd that I just downloaded?". I have encountered many who feel that way personally.
Oh yea, if you were actually looking for an answer to your origional question, itunes charges.99, I think that may be a start.
I understand where this is news for nerds, but come on, tell me that the last sentence in this submission isn't just a little loaded. They buy more music. Good. That gives them the right to steal whatever they want then, right? Yes, I know that this is slashdot and I am going to get hammered on this one, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean that you cant do whatever the hell you want. I like gin. I don't like paying for gin. When I go out to get gin, I don't steal it, despite my desire to have both my cash and my gin.
There are a wealth of music programs out there (which these people are apparently using). Most of the pay for networks give you the ability to preview music right? Sure it's often a small clip of it (itunes gives 30 seconds which I think is reasonable), but that is one of the biggest defense of sharers: that they somehow need to preview before they buy. Well they can, and people are still trading music illegally. Ghasp!
You hate the system, fine. I'm not exactly fond of the way things like this are going right now either. If you want it to be different, file sharing copyright content will not make things better, it will just get your ass sued. Start voting with your dollars.
Now, as usual, let the "fuck the **aa posts commence."
I don't see the point. If you want it to look, feel, and act like firefox, why not get firefox. Yes that is the redundant part. As for the office (scuttlemonkey's idea for a place where this can be useful): if you're equipment is being held so tightly that you can't install firefox, don't you think installing this will get you fired? Many companies keep really tight control over such equipment. Seriously, this is interesting for any ie fanboys, but I don't see any practical application for such an extension (nor do I envision a market for such a thing).
One thing that really caught me off guard (other than the bizarre inconsistencies in tiger that I havn't noticed) is the comment reguarding spotlight's searching as you type being counter-productive? I have a Powerbook G4 (so obviously not the most powerful mac available currently), and I have noticed absolutely no lag in performance when typing in a spotlight search. Actually you can often see the document you need in spotlight as you type, so by finding it before you even finish typing your search query wouldn't you actually be slightly (although unnoticably) more productive? Unless of course the moving text in the spotlight box is just so confusing and hypnotizing that he cannot continue typing.
"It's not that hidden, it's right at the top of the Get Info window; and it's not just for documents, it's for *any* file or folder."
I saw a few comments similar to the one you were answering here, and my take is that all of the features he considers hard to find may only be so if one has only ever used Windows, and cannot get out of the windows mindset. I have had my notebook for about a year (and I have used many oses including dos, every version of windows to date, linux, irix, etc), and I find most features and ways of organization in os x to be more intuitive than any other os I have used.
Oh yea, I also agree about the origin of spotlight. He clearly says that he has no clue wether features like spotlight were originally intended, or came from microsoft? First of all, has apple historically ever worried about microsofts features validating their own ideas before including them? He certainly leaves the possibility open that apple somehow copied the idea for spotlight from microsoft, but it doesn't seem logical. For spotlight to work so well, and be so bug free (I have not noticed problems anyway) I doubt that they said "hey that sounds cool, we'll do it too".
Perhaps in another article he will talk about microsoft adding a new dashboard-like feature, so apple must have stolen it from microsoft. Give me a break.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it possible that you went to the wrong university? Did you shy away from "hard" sounding courses? Is it also possible that you weren't properly motivated? Most schools will allow students to do as much research/independent study as they please. Not trying to attack, but if you don't challenge yourself in course selection than I can see where that may be the case. Personally I did both research and independent work for my undergraduate, and I feel like I learned quite a bit about independence and free thinking.
You are an exception, that is all. While it would not be too much of a streatch to get an art degree and become a web designer or something of the sort, one generally will not take their art degree to adobe or microsoft and say "You know, I really want to program." and actually have any chance of getting a job.
Bettering one's self is highly overrated. Just teach me Visual Basic damn it!
The problem is that while not everything on cable is worth watching, almost nothing on democracy looks remotely even interesting. I doubt anyone would have a problem if there was at least something that looked good.
A good CS major should be able to pick up any langauge, and that is the important part. If you come out of a good program you should be able to pick up any language--be it lisp, pascal, c, logo, or whatever you can think of. They shouldn't need "training" in a language, because they should be able to pick up a book and learn enough of a language in a weekend to be useful (and that is possible).
Did you mean 3 years? Greater than three years isn't very specific or meaningful in this context.
Of course I'm not saying that the market should be flooded with people that want to be programmers. Quite the contrary. I have learned quite a lot of math in my schooling. Does that mean that I am qualified to be a mathmatician? Of course not. Children should be exposed to a wider variety of things at a younger age.
So, I would think that it's quite the opposite. The world needs less people simply using computers, and more people programming them.
This is an outsourcer's wet dream come true.
Expect HUGE sporsorships from the usual suspects."
While I don't exactly agree with the point that you are making, your point gets close to something that I am feeling. I understand that it is wonderful to help the rest of the world, but what about America? I believe one of the articles said that they did not want to make these things available to the general public. What would it hurt to sell these things retail for cheap? We may be a fairly rich country, but poverty still exists in America, and these things could help students of all ages who are middle to low income.
I believe that it was supposed to have both a power cord and a crank for the battery so you can power it by hand.
From the Article:
Negroponte's goal is for the machine to work on a 100:1 crank ratio - one minute of hand cranking generates sufficient power for the laptop to operate for 100 minutes."
Along the same lines, if you think cooling is the problem, and you are using your laptop in situations that would permit it's use, I would suggest something that gives a little more of a raise than extra large feet (although they certainly couldn't hurt). I use a griffin icurve, but there are plenty such products out there that will give your laptop a good boost allowing quite a bit of air to circulate around it. An added benefit is that with my particular desk and chair it raises my laptop to eye-level which has helped reduce neck strain after long hours of using it. I think that I got mine off ebay for like 30 bucks (I don't know what you would consider cheap, but for a lot of people that isn't exactly a bank breaker).
Looks like it's a little too late for that, buddy. Thanks anyway, though.
To one of your main points, however, yes perl doesn't exactly force you to use good programming habbits, but certainly C does not abide by your "there's one way to do it" philosophy. Plus, I try not to suggest new programmers to use C right out of the box because of it's uncanny ability to allow you to shoot yourself in the foot. I am not saying that C is bad, I have done a lot of C programming and as a language I absolutely love it, but dispite it's power, speed, and ease of use it may not be a great choice for a beginner who is not in a classroom setting (I would suggest it to either someone who has a little experience or someone who has a teacher to show them when they are doing something that is incredibly stupid). It is not always easy for someone to learn to program by themself, even someone that is experienced as a user.
Perl may not be the best choice, but as I said, it sounds like it would probably be a great choice for someone in his specific shoes. He didn't sound like he wanted to change careers to become a programmer for a living, so many other languages may be quite unnecessary for him. Yes, perl doesn't exactly force you to program by the book, but it is something that he could get his feet wet with and possibly create something that could be of use to himself relatively quickly. Sorry, don't mean to rant, it just pisses me off sometimes that there are so many mods that don't understand the moderation system. I also would have modded my original post redundant if it would have read "ME TOO!!!!! PERL IS UBER L33T!!! LOLOLOL!!!", or something to that effect. I may not have added much info to the post before it, but I don't think modding it down was unnecessary.
Perl is a great suggestion. It is one of the easiest languages to get into if you have never programmed before, and for someone in your shoes it is particularly good beccause of how easy it is to write simple but helpful scripts to run on various machines you work on.
True, however I would second both as valid choices. I have had bad luck with mplayer on my linux machine (fedora), but on linux I have had great luck with Xine, and on OS X VLC is just a great program.
This may be redundant or obvious, but this should have been a non-issue in the first place. Hacking? Laughable. These poor kids did what kids with computers do--explore. Not to mention that the password they typed in, the "hacking", was on the back of the damn computers. Shame on the administration for being stupid cowards, and shame on the police for being so ignorant that they would even think of taking action once they heard the story. Are there not enough bad guys out there committing real crimes that they have to resort to extreme punishments against kids? Everything I read about this case indicated that this was a school matter, and should have been treated as such, you know detention, or at the very worst a short suspension! I just hope that this doesn't screw up these kids' lives.
Oops, I meant am, not was.
I use opera. Apparently, I was a l33t haxor and I didn't even know it.
Cool idea otherwise though. I like the idea for a lot of things like the music or movie idea, and for directions and such, however I don't think I would feel safe having it as the starting mechanism.
Also if this is in place of the ignition, what is in the door locks? Having usb ports on the exterior seems like it would be asking to get your car hacked and having to carry around at least 2 keys would be a pain by default. There are always other means, but these things came to mind.
You have never heard someone speak english using poor grammar? Perhaps this is true for smaller subsets of native language speakers, however not for a society as a whole (america at least).
I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but I'll bite anyway. Yes, because you are saying that we should not respect peoples rights to create, and to own what they create. I am in favor of your utopian dream, but not if it means a.) breaking laws and b.) disrespecting the people who create. The ends do not justify the means. You keep feeling that it is not only your right, but you duty to take free cable, music, movies, etc., then feel free, but I hope you are also willing to own up to the consequences if you get caught.
I do believe that laws should represent the will of the people, however what you are failing to realize is that the government is not only supposed to represent the will of the majority, but also protect the rights of the minority. I am quite happy where I am, thank you.
"Copyright and drugs laws: the perfect examples of people being ruled instead of represented by their government."
Either you lack any ambition to do anything worth stealing, or you are so full of your utopian society that you cannot fathom reality. Either way you lose.
Are you saying that it is alright to pirate music then? Is it also ok to steal cable television? What have they lost? Potential revenue. Yes, I know this is not exact, but I think that it is a start. There does exist a person who asks "Why would I buy a cd that I just downloaded?". I have encountered many who feel that way personally.
Oh yea, if you were actually looking for an answer to your origional question, itunes charges .99, I think that may be a start.
There are a wealth of music programs out there (which these people are apparently using). Most of the pay for networks give you the ability to preview music right? Sure it's often a small clip of it (itunes gives 30 seconds which I think is reasonable), but that is one of the biggest defense of sharers: that they somehow need to preview before they buy. Well they can, and people are still trading music illegally. Ghasp!
You hate the system, fine. I'm not exactly fond of the way things like this are going right now either. If you want it to be different, file sharing copyright content will not make things better, it will just get your ass sued. Start voting with your dollars.
Now, as usual, let the "fuck the **aa posts commence."
I don't see the point. If you want it to look, feel, and act like firefox, why not get firefox. Yes that is the redundant part. As for the office (scuttlemonkey's idea for a place where this can be useful): if you're equipment is being held so tightly that you can't install firefox, don't you think installing this will get you fired? Many companies keep really tight control over such equipment. Seriously, this is interesting for any ie fanboys, but I don't see any practical application for such an extension (nor do I envision a market for such a thing).
"It's not that hidden, it's right at the top of the Get Info window; and it's not just for documents, it's for *any* file or folder."
I saw a few comments similar to the one you were answering here, and my take is that all of the features he considers hard to find may only be so if one has only ever used Windows, and cannot get out of the windows mindset. I have had my notebook for about a year (and I have used many oses including dos, every version of windows to date, linux, irix, etc), and I find most features and ways of organization in os x to be more intuitive than any other os I have used.
Oh yea, I also agree about the origin of spotlight. He clearly says that he has no clue wether features like spotlight were originally intended, or came from microsoft? First of all, has apple historically ever worried about microsofts features validating their own ideas before including them? He certainly leaves the possibility open that apple somehow copied the idea for spotlight from microsoft, but it doesn't seem logical. For spotlight to work so well, and be so bug free (I have not noticed problems anyway) I doubt that they said "hey that sounds cool, we'll do it too".
Perhaps in another article he will talk about microsoft adding a new dashboard-like feature, so apple must have stolen it from microsoft. Give me a break.