Firstly, he's not being drummed out on a criminal charge and dragged away in legs irons - he being removed from a position that needs to be untainted by such non-scientific suggestions. I read about what he "said" elsewhere, and was appalled by it. Did I research it further and scientifically - no, because it is a political issue and so depends on interpretation.
I'm glad to see that he was misquoted, but damage has been done - the creationists will exploits these statements, and the word 'misquote' won't appear on any of their websites. The best that Royal Society can do, is to ensure that the quotes are attributed to the 'Former Education Director' as opposed to the 'Current Education Director'.
From the original/. posting:
The thing the Royal Society does not appreciate is the true nature of the forces arrayed against it and the Enlightenment for which the Royal Society should be the last champion.
This is unfortunately quite true.
Secondly, as Richard Dawkins states, religion should keep its nose out of science. Equally, science should keep its nose out of religion - a sentiment that I think the good professor would agree with. Let philosophy heads discuss whether creationism should be taught in philosophy classes, that's their business - but its none of the Royal Society's. If there was some suggestion, as in the US, that it should be taught as a science - that's a different matter.
Originally you had the Peter principle: that everyone is promoted until they can't do the job - and that's where they stop. And then the Dilbert principal (which I present here as a serious conjecture) that everyone is promoted to the position where they can do the least damage.
They're similar, obviously, but without a doubt my experience is that the Dilbert principal is the more correct - certainly in Dilbert like organizations.
It leads to a problem of a "ruling" class of idiots - and the worst thing is that they equate "success" with ability. Hence, you have a manager, who, at best, knows the buzzwords within the technical group - but has no idea what he's talking about (I'm actually thinking of real people). They will generally then impose their will on the technical group, believing their own press, and make really terrible commitments. Now they have been promoted to the position where they can do least damage - so the tech group can ignore these commitments, and clients will equally treat them with contempt once they realize that the PHB has no power to deliver on them - however, there is a lot of goodwill lost in the meantime.
Occasionally, you come across those who are governed by the Peter principal, and those guys (and gals) are really good. They also know when to shut up. But the larger the company, the more likely it is to be a Dilbert organization.
If you need to know if you work for a Dilbert organization, just read some - it's absolutely terrifying how accurate it is sometimes.
You see I'm a member of that small group of people who just don't get Seinfeld. I've tried, lord knows I've tried, but I just don't find it funny (along Frasier, Sex and the City and the Vicar of Dibbly).
And I didn't get that 'ad' either - so I just figured it was just like an episode of Seinfeld.
Which one is Kramer? That funny old dude with the glasses? He is funny.
Don't be stupid, he was referring to Phyrum's... ah shit.
Will you ever learn?
on
LHC Success!
·
· Score: 5, Funny
If disaster movies have taught us anything, it is that only when the party is over and everyone is a little tipsy, the problems will arise.
At that point, one lowly scientist (possible of Asian origin) will still be working in his office - despite regular calls of 'Hu! It's all fine, come out here and have some champagne'. He shouts out 'In a minute, I'm just checking something' Then to himself 'This is wrong. This is all wrong. Planck's constant shouldn't be varying like that.'
And then it all goes wrong.
Jeez, were you born yesterday!
Mark my words... come Friday, we'll all be eating black holes for breakfast with lashings of superheated strange milk.
The original constitution insisted that a bill of rights be created - but there was no stipulation as to the nature of those rights. They were agreed after ratification. That said, it's not my constitution - regardless in what regard I might hold it or its authors - so you may have the benefit of any doubt.
(I don't care, though, for you using <quote> tags and rewriting what I said - that's bad form.)
The original US constitution didn't give monkeys about religion, it had to be added in later. Which points out the fundamental flaw in the 'do not fuck with freedom of religion' argument. There is no natural law that suggests that this should be guaranteed, and I would imagine that these guarantees were enshrined by people with a religious point of view. Since then this right has been abused in attempts to impose religious nonsense on society.
Now personally I don't have a problem with anyone believing any old nonsense they want to, but when it comes to filling children's heads with this crap and forcing restrictions on one group in society over another, that's another thing.
(I'm not talking about the freedom of assembly right - if someone has a problem with that let them deal with it).
While your points are valid, there are a number of problems that would be solved by a more structured professional organisation.
Firstly, that of standards. It seems to me that everyone I know is a Senior Engineer or whatever. Some deservedly so, others definitely not - the ink isn't even dry on their final exams. Job ads are full of specifications that are just plain stupid based on the combination of salary and desired skills. As to seniority versus ability, as things stand, I find that seniority, right or wrong, is on top more often than not.
Secondly, standards again. But standards of work: there are those that are on paper brilliant at development, producing 100,000 lines in 5 days - but their quality is down the toilet. This leads to headaches when they walk away and some poor sod has to patch the dam. Most clueless PHB's I know were originally technical (not good, just technical) - that's how they got in the door.
That said, I had the house recently wired by a fully certified electrician, and it would have been better if I had let the dog do it.
Thirdly, as to outsourcing - the professional bodies ensure that, at least for the domestic market, that there is a bias against outsourcing and that there are barriers to entry.
I'm no fan of Unions that insist on the plainly useless being rewarded on par with the exceptional on the basis of equality for the lazy. But there are more options than the two you are suggesting. There is a middle ground that can be more effective.
Think about schools that give kids assignments in MS Word and Excel.
OOXML as ISO means that Microsoft can legitimately claim that Word is a proper standards compliant Word Processor and - based on Microsoft being the lowest bidder (or best "deal") - should be used as the word processor of choice.
I wonder, however, when you go to 'Save As...' will the default format be OOXML - or will be our old friend and constant companion.doc or some equally nefarious vendor lock-in format.
But presumably the sun is only spotless on the face that we can see, or do we know that the 'dark' side of the sun is also spotless. Given that it takes 25 days for the sun to rotate, a spot might flare up and we'd know nothing about it.
Or is there some solar observatory that I don't know about?
(Not speaking from a US point of view, but the idea is the same).
The government has a responsibility to ensure that you are conducting your business in a proper manner. Hence you are required to keep accounts, have them audited and publish them.
The reason for this is not so that they can know ever sordid detail of your life (trust me, they're not interested) - they do this so that if you, as a business, go to the banks for a loan or ask for credit from a supplier or sell shares in your company or otherwise, bank/supplier/shareholder is not conned into buying a load of crap.
Similarly, if you decide to open a creche in your house - the government will come into your house and have a good nosy around. They do that because I, as a parent, demand that they do so.
If you don't want them to do this - don't open a creche. And if you don't want them looking at your books - don't start a business.
The newbie should learn Java (or C++ or C# or whatever) and master it; understand the nuances, get a handle on the best way to do things and get a strong feel for how the design holds the systems together.
Doing this while trying to concentrate on all sorts of different languages is only distracting and will lead to a poor understanding of the theory of good design and development in favour of the quirks of different implementations.
Once you have a decent grasp of the important concepts - then there is a huge amount to learned from another language, from the things you've always assumed to be invariant. e.g. moving from C++ to Java - reflection is mad, but very useful - you miss the preprocessor, yet you learn very quickly that it was quite a dangerous feature. That's not to say you will dump such features but you will be more judicious about their use.
Maybe 2 years ago this might have been 'Wow!' - but with the likes of the Eee etc around - the appropriate response is 'Meh.'
Just some quick back of a fag packet calculation on the Eee put it at 9cm^3. Obviously, a lot more than this with its 5cm^3, but you do get * a keyboard * a screen * 3 usb ports * wireless ethernet * mouse pad * power * loads more disk space * 3 times the processor * etc all for 300 quid
Which if you got rid of would reduce the size right down to a lot less than 5cm^3.
No disrespect to the folks that put this thing together - and yes I would like one please - but... it's not rockin' my world.
It's all well and good to poke fun at the British Government for their consistent negligence. But the only reason this is being reported is because of the data protection laws in the UK - which basically means that if you lose someone's data, there is someone going to come down hard on you and that they have the legal capacity to do it.
Data protection, however, is not ubiquitous - so before railing hard on these guys, ask yourself if you're protected and is there someone looking after your interests? If not, then you're data could be being lost on a daily basis without you ever having any knowledge of it - and with no recourse even if you did.
The difference is that you have control over whether the nation goes to war or not through your elected representatives (yeah I know "ROFL"), whereas with this system you won't have control over which music becomes 'popular' - which is the same stupid mechanism that already exists.
This thing seems to me to be just another way of not facing up to the reality of their business model. Their objective is to define a role for the 'music corporation' in the new order - where the end-user and the artist are directly connected a la Radiohead/In Rainbows - and to discourage, by 'innovative' solutions, everyone else from looking at the actual situation. Fact is, there is no role for the corporation and it's time for them to pack their three card monte stand and move on - but I don't see them doing that without a fight.
Slashdot Mirror
Firstly, he's not being drummed out on a criminal charge and dragged away in legs irons - he being removed from a position that needs to be untainted by such non-scientific suggestions. I read about what he "said" elsewhere, and was appalled by it. Did I research it further and scientifically - no, because it is a political issue and so depends on interpretation.
I'm glad to see that he was misquoted, but damage has been done - the creationists will exploits these statements, and the word 'misquote' won't appear on any of their websites. The best that Royal Society can do, is to ensure that the quotes are attributed to the 'Former Education Director' as opposed to the 'Current Education Director'.
From the original /. posting:
The thing the Royal Society does not appreciate is the true nature of the forces arrayed against it and the Enlightenment for which the Royal Society should be the last champion.
This is unfortunately quite true.
Secondly, as Richard Dawkins states, religion should keep its nose out of science. Equally, science should keep its nose out of religion - a sentiment that I think the good professor would agree with. Let philosophy heads discuss whether creationism should be taught in philosophy classes, that's their business - but its none of the Royal Society's. If there was some suggestion, as in the US, that it should be taught as a science - that's a different matter.
Yes, that's right the web should be filtered through /. rating system.
Then those mod points I keep getting would make me the most powerful user in the world! Mwhahahahaha!
There are plenty of people making a fortune off selling rocks in IT.
Princip.....leughh.
I got confused, and had to post before my head exploded.
I guess need more practise.... ah shit!
(I see the tag already there for Dilbert).
Originally you had the Peter principle: that everyone is promoted until they can't do the job - and that's where they stop. And then the Dilbert principal (which I present here as a serious conjecture) that everyone is promoted to the position where they can do the least damage.
They're similar, obviously, but without a doubt my experience is that the Dilbert principal is the more correct - certainly in Dilbert like organizations.
It leads to a problem of a "ruling" class of idiots - and the worst thing is that they equate "success" with ability. Hence, you have a manager, who, at best, knows the buzzwords within the technical group - but has no idea what he's talking about (I'm actually thinking of real people). They will generally then impose their will on the technical group, believing their own press, and make really terrible commitments. Now they have been promoted to the position where they can do least damage - so the tech group can ignore these commitments, and clients will equally treat them with contempt once they realize that the PHB has no power to deliver on them - however, there is a lot of goodwill lost in the meantime.
Occasionally, you come across those who are governed by the Peter principal, and those guys (and gals) are really good. They also know when to shut up. But the larger the company, the more likely it is to be a Dilbert organization.
If you need to know if you work for a Dilbert organization, just read some - it's absolutely terrifying how accurate it is sometimes.
Bitter? Me? Naaaah!
You see I'm a member of that small group of people who just don't get Seinfeld. I've tried, lord knows I've tried, but I just don't find it funny (along Frasier, Sex and the City and the Vicar of Dibbly).
And I didn't get that 'ad' either - so I just figured it was just like an episode of Seinfeld.
Which one is Kramer? That funny old dude with the glasses? He is funny.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999
Asking for trouble... 'cos this didn't work out too well for Moonbase Alpha.
Don't be stupid, he was referring to Phyrum's ... ah shit.
If disaster movies have taught us anything, it is that only when the party is over and everyone is a little tipsy, the problems will arise.
At that point, one lowly scientist (possible of Asian origin) will still be working in his office - despite regular calls of 'Hu! It's all fine, come out here and have some champagne'. He shouts out 'In a minute, I'm just checking something' Then to himself 'This is wrong. This is all wrong. Planck's constant shouldn't be varying like that.'
And then it all goes wrong.
Jeez, were you born yesterday!
Mark my words... come Friday, we'll all be eating black holes for breakfast with lashings of superheated strange milk.
"The Google makes work for idle scanners."
Sorry but it is true.
The original constitution insisted that a bill of rights be created - but there was no stipulation as to the nature of those rights. They were agreed after ratification. That said, it's not my constitution - regardless in what regard I might hold it or its authors - so you may have the benefit of any doubt.
(I don't care, though, for you using <quote> tags and rewriting what I said - that's bad form.)
Let me open a can of best worms....
The original US constitution didn't give monkeys about religion, it had to be added in later. Which points out the fundamental flaw in the 'do not fuck with freedom of religion' argument. There is no natural law that suggests that this should be guaranteed, and I would imagine that these guarantees were enshrined by people with a religious point of view. Since then this right has been abused in attempts to impose religious nonsense on society.
Now personally I don't have a problem with anyone believing any old nonsense they want to, but when it comes to filling children's heads with this crap and forcing restrictions on one group in society over another, that's another thing.
(I'm not talking about the freedom of assembly right - if someone has a problem with that let them deal with it).
While your points are valid, there are a number of problems that would be solved by a more structured professional organisation.
Firstly, that of standards. It seems to me that everyone I know is a Senior Engineer or whatever. Some deservedly so, others definitely not - the ink isn't even dry on their final exams. Job ads are full of specifications that are just plain stupid based on the combination of salary and desired skills. As to seniority versus ability, as things stand, I find that seniority, right or wrong, is on top more often than not.
Secondly, standards again. But standards of work: there are those that are on paper brilliant at development, producing 100,000 lines in 5 days - but their quality is down the toilet. This leads to headaches when they walk away and some poor sod has to patch the dam. Most clueless PHB's I know were originally technical (not good, just technical) - that's how they got in the door.
That said, I had the house recently wired by a fully certified electrician, and it would have been better if I had let the dog do it.
Thirdly, as to outsourcing - the professional bodies ensure that, at least for the domestic market, that there is a bias against outsourcing and that there are barriers to entry.
I'm no fan of Unions that insist on the plainly useless being rewarded on par with the exceptional on the basis of equality for the lazy. But there are more options than the two you are suggesting. There is a middle ground that can be more effective.
Think about schools that give kids assignments in MS Word and Excel.
OOXML as ISO means that Microsoft can legitimately claim that Word is a proper standards compliant Word Processor and - based on Microsoft being the lowest bidder (or best "deal") - should be used as the word processor of choice.
I wonder, however, when you go to 'Save As...' will the default format be OOXML - or will be our old friend and constant companion .doc or some equally nefarious vendor lock-in format.
What else!
(And moot now that the sunspeck appeared)
But presumably the sun is only spotless on the face that we can see, or do we know that the 'dark' side of the sun is also spotless. Given that it takes 25 days for the sun to rotate, a spot might flare up and we'd know nothing about it.
Or is there some solar observatory that I don't know about?
Does anyone else think that April 7 should be some kind of world-wide special day, "Internet day"?
Absolutely, we should mark the occasion by browsing the Web all day, instead of doing any real work.
does it run on Linux?
I mean it, seriously. The comic presentation is cool, but it keeps talking about Windows and Vista. I'm not hearing anything about other O/S.
It's a bit bit rich to say - oh yeah, we're big into OSS - that's why we chose the most closed O/S to try out on.
Ah... but Windows has a bigger base, you say. You're Beta testing it - what the hell do you want a big base for.
<sulking/>
(Not speaking from a US point of view, but the idea is the same).
The government has a responsibility to ensure that you are conducting your business in a proper manner. Hence you are required to keep accounts, have them audited and publish them.
The reason for this is not so that they can know ever sordid detail of your life (trust me, they're not interested) - they do this so that if you, as a business, go to the banks for a loan or ask for credit from a supplier or sell shares in your company or otherwise, bank/supplier/shareholder is not conned into buying a load of crap.
Similarly, if you decide to open a creche in your house - the government will come into your house and have a good nosy around. They do that because I, as a parent, demand that they do so.
If you don't want them to do this - don't open a creche. And if you don't want them looking at your books - don't start a business.
I think you missed the GPs point.
The newbie should learn Java (or C++ or C# or whatever) and master it; understand the nuances, get a handle on the best way to do things and get a strong feel for how the design holds the systems together.
Doing this while trying to concentrate on all sorts of different languages is only distracting and will lead to a poor understanding of the theory of good design and development in favour of the quirks of different implementations.
Once you have a decent grasp of the important concepts - then there is a huge amount to learned from another language, from the things you've always assumed to be invariant. e.g. moving from C++ to Java - reflection is mad, but very useful - you miss the preprocessor, yet you learn very quickly that it was quite a dangerous feature. That's not to say you will dump such features but you will be more judicious about their use.
Sorry, my bad. I didn't mean 9 cm cubed, I meant 9 cm cubed.
Alien virus console output:
Infecting system. . .
Scanning for O/S Ident. . . . Identified 'Microsoft Windows Vista 2008'
Scanning for exploit(s). . . . . . . . 14336678896 exploit(s) found
Connecting to Wireless Network. . .
Connecting to megadodo-publications.com
Sent report 'Mostly Harmless'.
Virus deleted.
Maybe 2 years ago this might have been 'Wow!' - but with the likes of the Eee etc around - the appropriate response is 'Meh.'
Just some quick back of a fag packet calculation on the Eee put it at 9cm^3. Obviously, a lot more than this with its 5cm^3, but you do get
* a keyboard
* a screen
* 3 usb ports
* wireless ethernet
* mouse pad
* power
* loads more disk space
* 3 times the processor
* etc
all for 300 quid
Which if you got rid of would reduce the size right down to a lot less than 5cm^3.
No disrespect to the folks that put this thing together - and yes I would like one please - but... it's not rockin' my world.
It's all well and good to poke fun at the British Government for their consistent negligence. But the only reason this is being reported is because of the data protection laws in the UK - which basically means that if you lose someone's data, there is someone going to come down hard on you and that they have the legal capacity to do it.
Data protection, however, is not ubiquitous - so before railing hard on these guys, ask yourself if you're protected and is there someone looking after your interests? If not, then you're data could be being lost on a daily basis without you ever having any knowledge of it - and with no recourse even if you did.
The difference is that you have control over whether the nation goes to war or not through your elected representatives (yeah I know "ROFL"), whereas with this system you won't have control over which music becomes 'popular' - which is the same stupid mechanism that already exists.
This thing seems to me to be just another way of not facing up to the reality of their business model. Their objective is to define a role for the 'music corporation' in the new order - where the end-user and the artist are directly connected a la Radiohead/In Rainbows - and to discourage, by 'innovative' solutions, everyone else from looking at the actual situation. Fact is, there is no role for the corporation and it's time for them to pack their three card monte stand and move on - but I don't see them doing that without a fight.