You're serious, aren't you? Have you any evidence to support that assumption, or did you pull it out of your ass?
Financial transaction processing is done via relational database in almost all cases. Or do you really think the volume of transactions handled by a decent-sized bank, even on a daily basis, could fit in 65k lines?
There are very few finance outfits that do any kind of statistical analysis with Excel... none on the scale that would have much of an impact on the economy.
If you think financial actuaries and eocnomists use Excel for statistical analysis of their data... well... you need to talk to people in the industry.
Your understanding of accounting is way off (and so you shouldn't claim to speak for accountants when you write that gibberish).
Also there are a few uncertain assumptions in your little 'analysis' -- one, that the seller chooses to reinvest his sale profits with the bank. You claim that most cash proceeds from the sale of houses was deposited in banks -- this is false. Most was actually reinvested in other real property or elsewhere.
Plus, you ignore the opportunity cost of the funds the bank is due and the risk of default (hence the interest rate on the loan).
I know the banking industry has its problems, but claiming it's a ponzi scheme is just uneducated. The banking system is NOT dependent on influx of new investors to pay their creditors (leaving a gaping cash hole when new investors stop appearing). They are dependent on the stream of payments from existing debtors. When that stream dries up, their ability to lend dries up, since they become cash-flow negative, and eventually have no capital to lend.
The problem is that the banks are unwilling to lend when the expected return on their capital outlay is negative. Due to the fluxed up state of the economy, banks in general have decided that lending is unwise, since the risk of default is so high. The big problem is that banks did not properly assign risk to certain loans, so that they undercharged on the interest rate. The reason this slightly relates to a Ponzi scheme, is that as long as another bank was willing to underwrite a risky loan, then bank could get rid of its risk when the property in question was sold. It was a game of hot potato -- whoever was left holding the risky loan when everyone stopped lending lost. And the big problem was that it continued for too long -- eventually the amount of risky loans was so large that almost *everyone* was left holding a sack of hot potatoes. If credit rules had been tightened, rather than loosened, then a few banks would have gotten burnt early, and the problem would not have spiraled.
He'd have to be very careful with this, many of the 'free' oldies available for download from existant publishers, such as C&C, or Bethesda's first 1st-person RPG, have a EULA only... that is, you can download and play the game, but you can't distribute it.
Read the license you agree to before distributing any systems with these games installed.
If you know the kids, you can tailor the games to their interests... I'm not sure how much mileage you'll get out of installing nethack when the recipient of the PC is a typical 14-yo girl.
If they have a good internet connection, all they need are links to decent flash games sites. I'm fond of recommending Kongregate, since they also have great tools and tutorials for creating your own games, and I've yet to see malware there. (Doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
*Some* sarcasm will make use of wordplay, but typically sarcasm is saying the opposite of what you mean, in a manner that conveys to the listener that you do not mean what you are saying.
The best sarcasm, IMO, is dry sarcasm, where you do not tip off the listener... they need to be actually listening and involved in a conversation in order to get the 'joke'. I often use very dry sarcasm to determine if my partner in the conversation (or my student, if I am teaching) is actively listening... now I know that I need to rule out dementia before I can say they aren't actively listening:).
Were I you, the first thing is to observe your team to identify their personalities, leaders, and quirks.
Yeah, cause no one resents a new boos hovering over them to figure out what's what. Observing your team from a distance is a great way to ensure that they feel there is a divide between you and them.
Meet with your team informally (a business lunch works well) to get to know them. Then have formal meetings for project status, concerns, etc. You'll be able to figure out what's what in those meetings. Then meet with your team members frequently. Get them involved in the decision-making process. Get them to contribute to the point they feel they are co-authors of the meaty parts of the project plan... and if you do it right, they should be co-authors.
Let them do what they want in the way they want to do it and all should be well.
Have you ever been in a position where this isn't possible, where your boss has passed on requirements that need to be passed on to your staff? That is where the real managerial skills come into play.
You make it sound so easy, but the truth of the matter is that it's not always feasible to let your developers do as they wish... the good manager will find the way to satisfy management, the project timelines, and their team. This usually means convincing the team of the need for whatever the constraints are -- and a single slashdot post is not going to be able to explain the various strategies for making it happen.
I recommend Kerzner's books on project management (Wiley
& Sons), they have been very useful to me.
Since your question relates specifically to managing the team, I suggest Turner's "People in Project
Management" (Gower)... while useful, you will find this most useful if you already have a foundation in project management.
No, anonymous speech by the public can actually be twisted to serve me^H^H the dictator. See, if no one knows who is saying the bad things, then it is justified to crack down on everyone in the interest of maintaining the 'benevolent' dictatorship.
It's great, I can get everyone of suspecting their neighbors of being bad guys, much easier to keep the populace in line when they see enemies everywhere.
I agree with you on that 100%, but we will never live in a perfect world...
Anonymity is crucial in ensuring that those who need to speak out have the means to do so without fear of retribution.
Not to nitpick, but anonymity is the treatment for the symptoms of the abridgement of free speech, not the symptom itself. Just as with treating disease, we need to treat both the symptom (retribution for speaking out, etc) and the primary disease (abridgement of fundamental rights).
To comment on the specific POV in question, I feel that Esther Dyson views (perhaps subconsciously) anonymous speech as making it easier for people to infringe the rights of others. My disagreement lies with with the assumption that words themselves (from a non-authority figure) can impinge on ones' rights.
What really throws this theory out for me however (And I admit, I can't view the page, it's been/.ed) was that most of Earth's fissle material is in the crust, not the core.
That may be a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Maybe the fissile material in the core was exhausted in the runaway reaction, or in later reactions within the core (perhaps critical T&P exist in the core)... this seems plausible to me if, as with the crust, materials in the core were isolated and concentrated via geologic processes.
It's also possible that the geological processes that occured over the past 4 Bn years have caused the fissile materials to accumulate in the crust instead of the core.
I'm not a fan of anarchy. I believe in the positive aspects of cooperative society. I believe that those who take advantage of societal benefits are beholden to observe the rules of that society, as long as the means are available to change the rules when necessary. I believe that allowing people to act purely on their own moral code is asking for people to violate the rights of others.
I also believe that Heinlein can be lumped in the same pile as Rand -- take that as you wish.
Heh, my post about vanilla basic was intended entire tongue-in-cheek.
Basic is useful to teach elementary-school-aged kids concepts of logical progression, loops, etc. Instructions in a program are likened to whole number stops on a number line... at 10 do this, at 20 do that.
Tweens and kids in their early teens are fully capable of learning loops and iterations without the crutch of numbered lines.
I fully agree with you wrt C. I learned to program in Basic, but that was because I had a Commodore PET... once I learned assembly (which we called "computer language" at the time) and FORTRAN, things started to make more sense... though I find for teaching basic concepts Pascal works better than C because you don't get as bogged down in the syntax.
I guess we should just not try to extract any information from prisoners. Forget the whole "intelligence" thing. We shouldn't spy, we shouldn't use "torture."
Fuck that. We shouldn't be imprisoning people just to gain intelligence. Prove a crime was committed and punish them, or do not detain them. To do otherwise runs contrary to the entire set of principles on which the USA was founded.
When a law is abusive, it becomes the citizen's duty to violate it.
I disagree. When a law is abusive, it is the citizen's duty to protest and get the law changed. Violation of the law should be the means of second-to-last resort[1] (revolution, of course, being the last resort).
I believe the rule of law is of huge importance to the efficient functioning of society, and immediate disregard for any unliked law, even abusive ones, leads ultimately to undermining the foundation of cooperative society.
[1] Special exception: laws which, by their nature, prevent one from further recourse against that law -- such as laws against free speech, laws against the right to bear arms, etc.
But that's not programming at all... HTML is a translator, that's it.
Using HTML to teach programming is like using a French-English dictionary to try and get laid in Paris.
You might be teaching them the grammar and words, but it's not going to enable them to programmatically solve a problem.
I'd start by demonstrating a finished product that can be programmed using all the techniques you'll teach in the course, and work backwards to teach them the programming logic and constructs. By the end of the course, they should be able to code something similar to the product you demonstrated.
I'd suggest that at the end of the course, they have a large "thesis" project they've completed... it's the sense of accomplishment that'll drive some of them to continue their studies.
WTF? That was a completely tongue-in-cheek post, intended as humor only.
The fact that it was modded up as insightful scares the bejeezus out of me.
Note to anyone who is tempted to take the parent post seriously:
DO NOT TEACH PROGRAMMING ON BASIC TO 11-14 YEAR OLDS.
Sorry for the all-caps, but it's that important. Basic is useful as a tool to teach very introductory programming logic to young kids, maybe 8 or 9 years old. Logo is just as useful for this purpose, and is less apt to confuse them once they get into more advanced topics. By the time they are 11, but especially 14, you should be steering them to a more modern language, for example one that has memory management. At that age, they shouldn't need the use of line numbers to help them with sequential logic, loops, etc.
DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT do what many comp sci departments and high schools do, and that is "begin with Visual Basic".
I'll heartily second that. Visual Basic is totally inappropriate for a budding programmer.
Make them use vanilla Basic. I suggest using a C64 emulator (or, if you're feeling perverse, a VIC-20 emulator).
What? I had to use line numbers, so should they.
I'd also suggest making them use a cassette tape drive, or even a reel-to-reel drive, to ensure that they understand why bloated code is bad.
Oh, and while you are at it, make sure to supply them with a limitless supply of Tang (no, not 'tang, you'll get in trouble for that) and store-brand potato chips.
Finally, make sure that whatever they do, they need to write out their programs in pencil for review first, then enter the code verbatim once it's been signed off on.
O god... watching Pam Anderson change from the pretty girl-next-door to monster of modern science she is.
Screw that. FTS, emphasis mine:
A user can create lenses on the website, for example, focusing on the price of a DVD at Amazon, and see how the price went up and down over the coming months.
Not only can we use Zoetrope to view the past versions, we can apparently use it to see the future versions. Wait until I create a lens on some stock-tracking site... I'll be rich enough to pay for Pam to have all her work undone... or for her to complete her metamorphosis into Boobarella.
Nope, there is not such a thing, once a 'real life' conflict has been started, then servers start to fall down, lines get cut, and 'cybercaos' ensues on the weak part, just PR though, no military force will use internet to coordinate vital movements, none with a brain, wich is something lacking in the head of those that start the conflic i know, but anyway, this IS 'HYPE',
I see. Economic activity doesn't affect military capability, you think.
Seriously, WTF? Do you really believe that interference with economic activity isn't part of waging war? Why do you think ports are blockaded in time of war? As for PR, that is also a vital part of war.
Or do you believe that the internet is not vital to the US's modern economy?
I'm really having trouble figuring out why you posted what you did -- it's so glaringly full of holes, it must be a troll.
What we really need is more research into GM crops which the environmentalists hate for some reason.
Just wanted to note that it's only a subset of environmentalists who oppose GM crops... and there are plenty of people who don't consider themselves environmentalists who oppose GM crops.
Some reasons, outside of fear of the unkown and religion, that people oppose GM crops:
GM crops tend to promote monoculture, which heightens risk of catastrophic widespread crop failure. GM crops can be used to make farmers dependent on a single supplier for their seed stock (Monsanto, anyone?) GM crops can interbreed with native varieties, resulting in loss of diversity (which could be especially important considering the potential for quick (on a geological level) climate change. GM crops often promote the use of massive amounts of herbicides (Roundup, anyone) which have an impact on local flora. GM crops can cross-pollinate with non-GM crops, which can be a terrible thing when the modified genes are patented.
You don't need to be an environmentalist to be wary of GM crops -- you could be a personal property rights advocate, you could be a pragmatist wrt: genetic diversity, you could be a supporter of people's right to be able to farm without having to pay the Monsanto tax (which is especially nasty considering the strings that much WB aid comes with).
Slashdot Mirror
You're serious, aren't you? Have you any evidence to support that assumption, or did you pull it out of your ass?
Financial transaction processing is done via relational database in almost all cases. Or do you really think the volume of transactions handled by a decent-sized bank, even on a daily basis, could fit in 65k lines?
There are very few finance outfits that do any kind of statistical analysis with Excel... none on the scale that would have much of an impact on the economy.
If you think financial actuaries and eocnomists use Excel for statistical analysis of their data... well... you need to talk to people in the industry.
Your understanding of accounting is way off (and so you shouldn't claim to speak for accountants when you write that gibberish).
Also there are a few uncertain assumptions in your little 'analysis' -- one, that the seller chooses to reinvest his sale profits with the bank. You claim that most cash proceeds from the sale of houses was deposited in banks -- this is false. Most was actually reinvested in other real property or elsewhere.
Plus, you ignore the opportunity cost of the funds the bank is due and the risk of default (hence the interest rate on the loan).
I know the banking industry has its problems, but claiming it's a ponzi scheme is just uneducated. The banking system is NOT dependent on influx of new investors to pay their creditors (leaving a gaping cash hole when new investors stop appearing). They are dependent on the stream of payments from existing debtors. When that stream dries up, their ability to lend dries up, since they become cash-flow negative, and eventually have no capital to lend.
The problem is that the banks are unwilling to lend when the expected return on their capital outlay is negative. Due to the fluxed up state of the economy, banks in general have decided that lending is unwise, since the risk of default is so high. The big problem is that banks did not properly assign risk to certain loans, so that they undercharged on the interest rate. The reason this slightly relates to a Ponzi scheme, is that as long as another bank was willing to underwrite a risky loan, then bank could get rid of its risk when the property in question was sold. It was a game of hot potato -- whoever was left holding the risky loan when everyone stopped lending lost. And the big problem was that it continued for too long -- eventually the amount of risky loans was so large that almost *everyone* was left holding a sack of hot potatoes. If credit rules had been tightened, rather than loosened, then a few banks would have gotten burnt early, and the problem would not have spiraled.
He'd have to be very careful with this, many of the 'free' oldies available for download from existant publishers, such as C&C, or Bethesda's first 1st-person RPG, have a EULA only... that is, you can download and play the game, but you can't distribute it.
Read the license you agree to before distributing any systems with these games installed.
Free-as-in-beer, or free-as-in-speech?
If you know the kids, you can tailor the games to their interests... I'm not sure how much mileage you'll get out of installing nethack when the recipient of the PC is a typical 14-yo girl.
If they have a good internet connection, all they need are links to decent flash games sites. I'm fond of recommending Kongregate, since they also have great tools and tutorials for creating your own games, and I've yet to see malware there. (Doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
Wordplay/Punning != Sarcasm.
:).
*Some* sarcasm will make use of wordplay, but typically sarcasm is saying the opposite of what you mean, in a manner that conveys to the listener that you do not mean what you are saying.
The best sarcasm, IMO, is dry sarcasm, where you do not tip off the listener... they need to be actually listening and involved in a conversation in order to get the 'joke'. I often use very dry sarcasm to determine if my partner in the conversation (or my student, if I am teaching) is actively listening... now I know that I need to rule out dementia before I can say they aren't actively listening
Yeah, cause no one resents a new boos hovering over them to figure out what's what. Observing your team from a distance is a great way to ensure that they feel there is a divide between you and them.
Meet with your team informally (a business lunch works well) to get to know them. Then have formal meetings for project status, concerns, etc. You'll be able to figure out what's what in those meetings. Then meet with your team members frequently. Get them involved in the decision-making process. Get them to contribute to the point they feel they are co-authors of the meaty parts of the project plan... and if you do it right, they should be co-authors.
Have you ever been in a position where this isn't possible, where your boss has passed on requirements that need to be passed on to your staff? That is where the real managerial skills come into play.
You make it sound so easy, but the truth of the matter is that it's not always feasible to let your developers do as they wish... the good manager will find the way to satisfy management, the project timelines, and their team. This usually means convincing the team of the need for whatever the constraints are -- and a single slashdot post is not going to be able to explain the various strategies for making it happen.
I recommend Kerzner's books on project management (Wiley & Sons), they have been very useful to me.
Since your question relates specifically to managing the team, I suggest Turner's "People in Project Management" (Gower)... while useful, you will find this most useful if you already have a foundation in project management.
No, anonymous speech by the public can actually be twisted to serve me^H^H the dictator. See, if no one knows who is saying the bad things, then it is justified to crack down on everyone in the interest of maintaining the 'benevolent' dictatorship.
It's great, I can get everyone of suspecting their neighbors of being bad guys, much easier to keep the populace in line when they see enemies everywhere.
I agree with you on that 100%, but we will never live in a perfect world...
Anonymity is crucial in ensuring that those who need to speak out have the means to do so without fear of retribution.
Not to nitpick, but anonymity is the treatment for the symptoms of the abridgement of free speech, not the symptom itself. Just as with treating disease, we need to treat both the symptom (retribution for speaking out, etc) and the primary disease (abridgement of fundamental rights).
To comment on the specific POV in question, I feel that Esther Dyson views (perhaps subconsciously) anonymous speech as making it easier for people to infringe the rights of others. My disagreement lies with with the assumption that words themselves (from a non-authority figure) can impinge on ones' rights.
That may be a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Maybe the fissile material in the core was exhausted in the runaway reaction, or in later reactions within the core (perhaps critical T&P exist in the core)... this seems plausible to me if, as with the crust, materials in the core were isolated and concentrated via geologic processes.
It's also possible that the geological processes that occured over the past 4 Bn years have caused the fissile materials to accumulate in the crust instead of the core.
[citation needed]. Truth is, Symbian still dominates the mobile platform market, with RiM in second (though Apple is closing in on Rim).
Apple's market share is about 1/4 that of Symbian.
Please, don't talk out your ass about market share without doing your homework.
as opposed to, "In Shitty Old Economy, smartphone blows you"?
Sorry. Couldn't resist. But that's an app I'd pay more than 0.99 for.
I'm not a fan of anarchy. I believe in the positive aspects of cooperative society. I believe that those who take advantage of societal benefits are beholden to observe the rules of that society, as long as the means are available to change the rules when necessary. I believe that allowing people to act purely on their own moral code is asking for people to violate the rights of others.
I also believe that Heinlein can be lumped in the same pile as Rand -- take that as you wish.
Heh, my post about vanilla basic was intended entire tongue-in-cheek.
Basic is useful to teach elementary-school-aged kids concepts of logical progression, loops, etc. Instructions in a program are likened to whole number stops on a number line... at 10 do this, at 20 do that.
Tweens and kids in their early teens are fully capable of learning loops and iterations without the crutch of numbered lines.
I fully agree with you wrt C. I learned to program in Basic, but that was because I had a Commodore PET... once I learned assembly (which we called "computer language" at the time) and FORTRAN, things started to make more sense... though I find for teaching basic concepts Pascal works better than C because you don't get as bogged down in the syntax.
Fuck that. We shouldn't be imprisoning people just to gain intelligence. Prove a crime was committed and punish them, or do not detain them. To do otherwise runs contrary to the entire set of principles on which the USA was founded.
I disagree. When a law is abusive, it is the citizen's duty to protest and get the law changed. Violation of the law should be the means of second-to-last resort[1] (revolution, of course, being the last resort).
I believe the rule of law is of huge importance to the efficient functioning of society, and immediate disregard for any unliked law, even abusive ones, leads ultimately to undermining the foundation of cooperative society.
[1] Special exception: laws which, by their nature, prevent one from further recourse against that law -- such as laws against free speech, laws against the right to bear arms, etc.
Teach them assembler. Make them bootstrap a C compiler before they can begin coding in C.
Then you'll see how bright they are.
But that's not programming at all... HTML is a translator, that's it.
Using HTML to teach programming is like using a French-English dictionary to try and get laid in Paris.
You might be teaching them the grammar and words, but it's not going to enable them to programmatically solve a problem.
I'd start by demonstrating a finished product that can be programmed using all the techniques you'll teach in the course, and work backwards to teach them the programming logic and constructs. By the end of the course, they should be able to code something similar to the product you demonstrated.
I'd suggest that at the end of the course, they have a large "thesis" project they've completed... it's the sense of accomplishment that'll drive some of them to continue their studies.
WTF? That was a completely tongue-in-cheek post, intended as humor only.
The fact that it was modded up as insightful scares the bejeezus out of me.
Note to anyone who is tempted to take the parent post seriously:
DO NOT TEACH PROGRAMMING ON BASIC TO 11-14 YEAR OLDS.
Sorry for the all-caps, but it's that important. Basic is useful as a tool to teach very introductory programming logic to young kids, maybe 8 or 9 years old. Logo is just as useful for this purpose, and is less apt to confuse them once they get into more advanced topics. By the time they are 11, but especially 14, you should be steering them to a more modern language, for example one that has memory management. At that age, they shouldn't need the use of line numbers to help them with sequential logic, loops, etc.
I'll heartily second that. Visual Basic is totally inappropriate for a budding programmer.
Make them use vanilla Basic. I suggest using a C64 emulator (or, if you're feeling perverse, a VIC-20 emulator).
What? I had to use line numbers, so should they.
I'd also suggest making them use a cassette tape drive, or even a reel-to-reel drive, to ensure that they understand why bloated code is bad.
Oh, and while you are at it, make sure to supply them with a limitless supply of Tang (no, not 'tang, you'll get in trouble for that) and store-brand potato chips.
Finally, make sure that whatever they do, they need to write out their programs in pencil for review first, then enter the code verbatim once it's been signed off on.
Screw that. FTS, emphasis mine:
Not only can we use Zoetrope to view the past versions, we can apparently use it to see the future versions. Wait until I create a lens on some stock-tracking site... I'll be rich enough to pay for Pam to have all her work undone... or for her to complete her metamorphosis into Boobarella.
I see. Economic activity doesn't affect military capability, you think.
Seriously, WTF? Do you really believe that interference with economic activity isn't part of waging war? Why do you think ports are blockaded in time of war? As for PR, that is also a vital part of war.
Or do you believe that the internet is not vital to the US's modern economy?
I'm really having trouble figuring out why you posted what you did -- it's so glaringly full of holes, it must be a troll.
Just wanted to note that it's only a subset of environmentalists who oppose GM crops... and there are plenty of people who don't consider themselves environmentalists who oppose GM crops.
Some reasons, outside of fear of the unkown and religion, that people oppose GM crops:
GM crops tend to promote monoculture, which heightens risk of catastrophic widespread crop failure.
GM crops can be used to make farmers dependent on a single supplier for their seed stock (Monsanto, anyone?)
GM crops can interbreed with native varieties, resulting in loss of diversity (which could be especially important considering the potential for quick (on a geological level) climate change.
GM crops often promote the use of massive amounts of herbicides (Roundup, anyone) which have an impact on local flora.
GM crops can cross-pollinate with non-GM crops, which can be a terrible thing when the modified genes are patented.
You don't need to be an environmentalist to be wary of GM crops -- you could be a personal property rights advocate, you could be a pragmatist wrt: genetic diversity, you could be a supporter of people's right to be able to farm without having to pay the Monsanto tax (which is especially nasty considering the strings that much WB aid comes with).