Of course it's not transitive.. that would imply that young girls are looking for husbands, husbands are looking for young girls, therefore young girls are looking for young girls. If my memory of ski lodges and young girls serves me right, that isn't true.
Pseudocode for fututologist:
1. wordDb = {"electronic", "flying", "cyborg", "neural", "strawberry", "yogurt", "android","robot","car"}
2. futureWord = wordDb[int(rnd*wordDb.length)]+" "+wordDb[int(rnd*wordDb.length)]
3. print "In the next "+int(rnd*50)+" years we will have a "+futureWord
4. wordDb.add(futureWord)
5. sleep 5000
6. goto 2
Completely true. I've been working for about 6 years now, and since my first job out of university I haven't anything to do with linked lists (I know what they are, that's enough). But I *have* had to:
- find a threading problem in a 5000 class code base that was causing incorrect amounts to be paid to customers. I succeeded, not by solving logic puzzles but by knowing who to talk to and where to look. It was a one line change that fixed the problem.
- learn to refuse to start coding until a complete spec is provided. Okay, everyone knows that.. but I know what a reasonable spec should look like.
- learn to knock on doors, annoy people and do what I have to do to get the business requirements right. Coding skills won't take you very far if you don't know what you're coding for.
- trawl through a 100 log files to find the cause of today's sudden server death syndrome
- know never to trust class diagrams - except as kindling.
With the frameworks we have available, coding is 50% soft skills and 50% technical. If I had to learn a new language or do a double linked list, I know I could. When I was fresh out of university I could write the code blindfolded, but I wasn't one-tenth as productive as I am now.. I couldn't explain to business what I was working on or why I needed a new server, get buy-in on my project, estimate timeframes correctly.. nor could I take a wild guess at the source of the problem and be right 90% of the time.
When I interview I don't do logic puzzles or university problems.. I give them a real problem I've worked on (like my threading problem) and ask them what's wrong with it - mine was a class variable in a servlet.. or give them a project brief and ask them what they'd need to know before they could start coding. There are a few technical questions as well, but I think I work with a great team.
Oh and writing code on a whiteboard would throw most experienced programmers. It's out of context without any tool that they're used to. Also I can't code if somebody's looking over my shoulder (I'm code-shy), but that doesn't make me a bad programmer. I need a keyboard, a pen to chew and a decent editor to code.
The article doesn't mention whether costs are calculated at Purchasing Power Parity or not.. $1 in India goes a lot further (e.g., labour costs) than in Australia or New Zealand. I think (look up the CIA world factbook to verify) that Real US $1 = about $6 at PPP in India. Also IT systems have very low marginal costs to usage - e.g., it costs a little more to serve 1 billion people than to serve 20 million - the relationship is not linear.
Here's an example of what your IT dollars will bring you in Australia - my company accepts customer applications online - what actually happens is that your form gets emailed to a person on the fifth floor whose job it is to fill an aplication form using the details in the email and then put it through the normal fulfillment process. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on that 'system'.
Actually the only reason IT took off in India is because it was the one industry that was offered no government protection and was not subject to any government regulation. All the other industries that were offered government protection produced the same product with no improvements for about 40 years - until they were forced to compete with the rest of the world.
Unless you have a sort of strong alliance with said country, you really should be producing anything that is critical to your national defence in-house.
This is protectionism disguised as spending policy. A ban on foreign companies is equivalent to imposing an infinite tariff. And protectionism is bad because it reduces the playing field rather than making the players more competitive. Think of Soviet cars, Bulgarian shoes, Indian TV's, etc. To give you another example, if the US had outsourced its airport security to an Israeli firm, September 11 would probably not have happened.
I say let the Chinese government procure locally, end up with a substandard product and spend another twenty years catching up with the rest of the world.
India doesn't have any viable ID card system - you can get on a plane without any ID (the last time I went), but the security is extremely thorough - once when you go through the normal security check and once just before you board the plane. They manually go through every last bit in your handbags. I got questioned about my chapstick and they took my spare batteries but gave them back to me when I landed. This is in a country where terrorism is an everyday concern and has experienced hijacking of its planes. It's understood that if someone wants to blow up a plane they need a bomb, not an ID card. I think the money is better spent on improving pay, training and work conditions for airport security staff. Maybe get some airport security people from Israel - countries other than the US have been honing their skills for years without resorting to knee jerk reactions.
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Of course it's not transitive.. that would imply that young girls are looking for husbands, husbands are looking for young girls, therefore young girls are looking for young girls. If my memory of ski lodges and young girls serves me right, that isn't true.
I think you meant symmetric, not transitive..
Pseudocode for fututologist: 1. wordDb = {"electronic", "flying", "cyborg", "neural", "strawberry", "yogurt", "android","robot","car"} 2. futureWord = wordDb[int(rnd*wordDb.length)]+" "+wordDb[int(rnd*wordDb.length)] 3. print "In the next "+int(rnd*50)+" years we will have a "+futureWord 4. wordDb.add(futureWord) 5. sleep 5000 6. goto 2
These are the same people who brought us "evolution". How can we ever trust them?
IV League Schools - they're just dripping with knowledge
You can download GWBASIC here: http://www.geocities.com/KindlyRat/GWBASIC.html I just tried it and it works. If you want to get the full window, type "screen 0"
Welcome to Australia - where every day is a slow news day.
Completely true. I've been working for about 6 years now, and since my first job out of university I haven't anything to do with linked lists (I know what they are, that's enough). But I *have* had to: - find a threading problem in a 5000 class code base that was causing incorrect amounts to be paid to customers. I succeeded, not by solving logic puzzles but by knowing who to talk to and where to look. It was a one line change that fixed the problem. - learn to refuse to start coding until a complete spec is provided. Okay, everyone knows that.. but I know what a reasonable spec should look like. - learn to knock on doors, annoy people and do what I have to do to get the business requirements right. Coding skills won't take you very far if you don't know what you're coding for. - trawl through a 100 log files to find the cause of today's sudden server death syndrome - know never to trust class diagrams - except as kindling. With the frameworks we have available, coding is 50% soft skills and 50% technical. If I had to learn a new language or do a double linked list, I know I could. When I was fresh out of university I could write the code blindfolded, but I wasn't one-tenth as productive as I am now.. I couldn't explain to business what I was working on or why I needed a new server, get buy-in on my project, estimate timeframes correctly.. nor could I take a wild guess at the source of the problem and be right 90% of the time. When I interview I don't do logic puzzles or university problems.. I give them a real problem I've worked on (like my threading problem) and ask them what's wrong with it - mine was a class variable in a servlet.. or give them a project brief and ask them what they'd need to know before they could start coding. There are a few technical questions as well, but I think I work with a great team. Oh and writing code on a whiteboard would throw most experienced programmers. It's out of context without any tool that they're used to. Also I can't code if somebody's looking over my shoulder (I'm code-shy), but that doesn't make me a bad programmer. I need a keyboard, a pen to chew and a decent editor to code.
The article doesn't mention whether costs are calculated at Purchasing Power Parity or not.. $1 in India goes a lot further (e.g., labour costs) than in Australia or New Zealand. I think (look up the CIA world factbook to verify) that Real US $1 = about $6 at PPP in India. Also IT systems have very low marginal costs to usage - e.g., it costs a little more to serve 1 billion people than to serve 20 million - the relationship is not linear. Here's an example of what your IT dollars will bring you in Australia - my company accepts customer applications online - what actually happens is that your form gets emailed to a person on the fifth floor whose job it is to fill an aplication form using the details in the email and then put it through the normal fulfillment process. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on that 'system'.
Told them I was leaving the country next week. Checkmate.
"we show ~80% US tv shows on our free-to-air TV stations" That's because Australian shows are boring cr*p and nobody wants to watch them.
If you really need to talk to someone right away, phone them. If they're out, it won't kill you to just leave a message.
If their answering machine is down, do I just send a pigeon?
Actually the only reason IT took off in India is because it was the one industry that was offered no government protection and was not subject to any government regulation. All the other industries that were offered government protection produced the same product with no improvements for about 40 years - until they were forced to compete with the rest of the world.
Unless you have a sort of strong alliance with said country, you really should be producing anything that is critical to your national defence in-house.
Oil?
Alright. Which 10%?
This is protectionism disguised as spending policy. A ban on foreign companies is equivalent to imposing an infinite tariff. And protectionism is bad because it reduces the playing field rather than making the players more competitive. Think of Soviet cars, Bulgarian shoes, Indian TV's, etc. To give you another example, if the US had outsourced its airport security to an Israeli firm, September 11 would probably not have happened. I say let the Chinese government procure locally, end up with a substandard product and spend another twenty years catching up with the rest of the world.
India doesn't have any viable ID card system - you can get on a plane without any ID (the last time I went), but the security is extremely thorough - once when you go through the normal security check and once just before you board the plane. They manually go through every last bit in your handbags. I got questioned about my chapstick and they took my spare batteries but gave them back to me when I landed. This is in a country where terrorism is an everyday concern and has experienced hijacking of its planes. It's understood that if someone wants to blow up a plane they need a bomb, not an ID card. I think the money is better spent on improving pay, training and work conditions for airport security staff. Maybe get some airport security people from Israel - countries other than the US have been honing their skills for years without resorting to knee jerk reactions.