If it wasn't for him decrying the state of games for years Louisiana wouldn't have tried to push the bill.
Except he didn't pass the law, they did -- the legislature has the authority, the responsibility, and the culpability. It's their fault for listening to the fool, and the voters fault for electing those legislators.
Thompson is a media whore, but the fact that his views carry weight is as much a problem with his listeners as it is with him.
I understand what you're saying, and I agree in general... but I also think it's a good thing to open up the admissions process.
I'm sorry if you felt insulted by my OP. I only meant to say that there are sometimes overlooked advantages to someone being an uncut stone.
My expereince has taught me that it can be very difficult to teach someone who is largely self-taught and believes they know it all, and this can be detrimental to others in the classroom. Does this hold true for most self-taught kids? I don't think so. But the parent post to my OP seemed to say that there was no value at all in someone who hadn't expressed an interest in programming throughout high school.
The only other thing I'd like to mention is that people tend to mature a lot when they leave high school, especially since they tend to be separated from their peer group. People who are turned off by nerdiness in high school often sing a different song later in life.
Of course, the flip side to that is that no product stands alone -- part of your assessment of a product has to include the nature of the producer.
In the short-term, your client's need may be best fulfilled by a Microsoft product. In the long-term, you may be hampering your client by supporting a company that destroys competitive processes.
The question is, do you (and your clients) consider the long-term non-obvious implications of choosing to use a Microsoft solution? The most common example I can think of is vendor lock-in.
At any rate, I'll agree that it's important to give products a shot before decrying them as terrible. But I lend some credence to consensus opinions of others, and also try to factor long-term, more conceptual, cost factors into implementation decisions.
Where are you getting the "uninterested" from? Curious, since that has no bearing at all to the people we're discussing. If they are uninterested, they'll change programs and/or fail out.
As for bad habits, needing to teach them out of someone at the collegiate level is as bad as needing to teach them basics at the collegiate level -- this is what I was referring to, not what happens at the professional level. You really think that bad habits brough into college are immaterial since they might pick up additional bad habits in caollege?
I think you're working off the assumption that it's impossible for someone to not be highly interested in high school (or earlier) and then to develop an interest while at university. This is the entire point of opening up the admissions process, to capture those with a latent interest and aptitude. You can still fail out the weaklings.
I've got a close friend who is an Canadian Immigration Officer in NY. Despite the thinking that Canadian Immigration is lax, you'd be surprised at how tight it has become. The vetting process is pretty extensive.
It does not take long for the Microsoft Defenders to act, does it?
Not a MS defender. But I am annoyed by repetitive meaningless posts. As for confused -- how so? If you're going to bother with an ad hominem, why not make it one with some semblance of truth?
You can't expand a monopoly, you can only lose it.
Not so. You can expand to other products. You can increase the stranglehold you have. You can decrease penetration of competitors. You're confusing absolute monopoly with functional monopoly.
Slavery is one of the names used for situations where you have to pay and you have no choice due to fraud and force others have used.
Not so. Show me any source that defines slavery this way. Lack of consumer choice != slavery, and you equating them is sensationalistic and misleading.
My message is as constant as reality
And that's my point, really. You make posts with nothing new to say, nothing new to add to the conversation. I'm happy to see that later comments of yours to this article actually do have something to say -- but your OP in this thread, not so.
try arguing with something of substance rather than my supposed writing style, history or personality. You can't really, because there is little of substance behind M$.
That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think? Your OP has nothing of substance, which is exactly what I was pointing out. It has nothing to do with your writing style or personality -- it has everything to do with the emptiness of a lot of your posts. I'm not arguing from the standpoint of defending MS, I'm arguing from the standpoint of being sick of hearing anti-MS chum that doesn't add anything of value to the discussion. Do you understand the distinction?
What I find interesting is how many congressmen are fighting this. In particular, it is the dems that are most upset.
Hmm. That's not what I've read, and at any rate, is a bit misleading.
Seems to me that most of them are fighting some of the unintended consequences of Amendment 41, such as kids of state employees (even very low-paid employees) being ineligible for scholarships.
At any rate, the big problem with prohibiting gifts to legislators, other than free speech issues, is that only the already wealthy will be able to win elections. It's a problem Amendment 41 doesn't begin to address, and bodes poorly for democracy in general.
It's a death spiral for M$. The harder they try, the more expensive the monopoly becomes the more people will want to escape.
s/b: The harder they try, the more extensive the monopoly becomes the more people will be unable to escape.
What bothers me about your post is that it's the same as the rest of your posts -- all you ever really say is "haha M$ is PWNed".
It also shows the costs of maintaining the monopoly we are all paying
How? It doesn't show any costs to me. What it shows is that MS is willing to use its considerable clout to get what it wants politically.
The slave holder gets all tools and income from slaves.
Huh? This says nothing; you're just trying to draw an unjustifiable link between MS and slavery.
Real successes, where states and businesses actually save time money and trouble by bucking M$, will be promote even more challenges.
Agreed. But what does that have to do with the parent post or TFA? It's so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated anyway -- we all know it.
It's funny that consideration of any alternative should be considered a "challenge" but that's they way M$ sees it and acts.
Why is that funny? Any time one of my clients considers using a competitor's product, it's a challenge. Why is it any different for Microsoft?
In all, I'm not surprised to see the same post from you as always -- but I'm also sure you actually have interesting and insightful observations. Why not bother thinking a bit before you post and include them in your comments?
Let me put it this way: the AP Computer Science exam really is horrendously stupid, and really does focus far too much on Object-Oriented Programming. Urgh.
Consider yourself fortunate. AP Comp Sci used to be about data declarations and structures in Pascal.
If all web traffic is artificially inflated close to the same amount, then this becomes a non-issue.
True. But I'm certain some websites have a higher proportion of visitors with cookies disabled... slashdot, for example. The trick, then, in order to make discrete visitor metrics truly useful (from a marketing standpoint) is to normalize for cookies-disabled visitors. Some factors that would have to be considered are how many cookies-disabled visitors access your site, and whether disabled visitors exhibit the same repeat visit habits as enabled visitors.
This is why there is research out there to use methods other than cookies and IP addresses to identify users -- see this article from last September.
I'm sure this concept can get some VC if companies begin distrusting current traffic anlayses -- it would be a useful adjunct to traditional traffic monitoring.
But leadership?!? Computer geeks aren't leaders; we're the guys who sit hunched in front of our computers for hours at a time, not the guys who spend hours on campaign posters trying to be Student Council Advocate or somesuch nonsense.
Well, if you're happy to sit at the bottom of the org chart, more power to you. I hire people who I think are suited to become leaders; they tend to be better at all levels of an organization, partly due to their ability to understand how a team functions. Plenty of characteristics that are associated with good leaders are also associated with competent employees -- such as "people skills".
It does the less-apt applicants a disservice, and it does the apt applicants a disservice.
Possibly; but if it does the apt applicants a disservice, that is a problem with the program, not with criteria for admission. The program should be able to accomodate those who need some "remedial" classes, as well as those that are ahead of the curve. I think your views wrongfully exclude a lot of people who could end up being great in the comp sci field.
The trick is to cast a wide net and keep the best, even if it takes a bit to identify the best. Limiting the people to choose from doesn't seem wise to me.
E-mail and faxes will probably be better received than snail mail, given the fact that mail to government offices gets delayed while it gets irradiated to ameliorate biological threats.
Better received, but considered less important. For almost every legislator, handwritten letter > printed letter > phone call > fax > pre-printed post card > email.
There are staffers (interns, most likely) whose job it is to sort and tally correspondence, and summarize it to the legislator.
Also, don't ask them to look into the issue. Provide them with information, then tell them what you want them to do. The occasional well-written letter will make it into the hands of the legislator.
Finally, it's important to not just contact legislator on the list you provide -- every legislator should be contacted. We've little idea of who will be on the committee in twenty years, and it's best to lay the groundwork for future activism now.
Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science. At one time, she said, admission to the program depended on high overall achievement and programming experience. The criteria now, she said, are high overall achievement and broad interests, diverse perspectives and whether applicants seem to have potential to be future leaders.
They are talking about admissions criteria, in the context of high school computing backgrounds. Attracting talent that may or may not have extensive programming experience, rather than focusing just on the people who enter college with a lot of programming under their belt -- those people are overwhelmingly male.
Might they have some catching up to do? Sure. But at least they won't have bad programming habits to unlearn, which can be just as bad as inexperience.
Something like this actually makes me MORE determined than ever to fight for my 2nd Amendment rights. You can do whatever the fuck you want if some nut with a gun shows up and starts trying to kill you, but I want to be able to defend myself.
I agree with you to a certain extent, but keep in mind that the 2nd amendment is not about protecting oneself from the murderous individual, but rather about protecting oneself from the murderous state. We should never let personal protection from individuals eclipse the intent of the 2nd amendment, otherwise the 2nd amendment loses its meaning.
Seriously though, an interesting tidbit form the ABCNews site:
But many students were looking online for information about schoolmates. Some of them established a so-called "wall" at Facebook.com to share what they knew; others turned to MySpace.com.
I wish I'd had access to something similar in the days just after 9/11 -- it was very painful to not know what had happened to friends and family who worked downtown.
My heart and thoughts go out to all those affected by this tragedy.
when I got NWN and was angered at the number of bugs out of the box (most reportedly fixed by the 1.23 release. Let me repeat 1.TWENTY-THREE, implying there were 22 other releases post-shipping)
I think you're a bit fuzzy on release numbering systems; each decimal place represents a branch. Here's a list of patched versions of NWN, 1.23 was the 5th complete patched version. Still not good, but a far cry from the twenty-third release.
First, Ask them who they represent. Once they answer with the company they are working for tell them to take you off their list and any other lists they have associated with it and to make sure you don't end back up on the list again.
Just to clarify -- it's not good enough to ask them to take you off their list; they'll just take you off the list of the firm that has contracted the telemarketing out to their firm.
The key is to identify both the firm they are representing (e.g., First Hassle Bank or what-have-you) and the firm they are emplyed by (e.g., Bob's House of Telemarketing). Instruct them to take you off both lists, and be added to the Do Not Call list at Bob's. All telemartketers in the US are required to maintain a DNC list, make sure you get on it for each telemarketing company that calls you.
Then, if you are contacted by any firm on behalf of First Hassle Bank, you have legal recourse. If you are contacted on behalf of anyone by Bob's House of Telemarketing, you have legal recourse.
Err, no. A shill is someone who purports to be unbiased, but is in reality paid to write biased copy. Parent post to yours was correct. The person in question never purported to be unbiased; they were paid to do a job, which they did; now they are being hired to do a similar job with a different organization.
However, you'll see a lot more leniency when the comments are being made about someone in the democrat/leftist/liberal camp.
That's because we've been burned by it a lot less than with the republicans. When it's isolated examples, people tend to forgive. When it's systemic, not so much.
I'm sure as more industry connections in the democratic party come to light, the level of outrage will increase. But until then, the republicans deserve every bit of condemnation they receive.
"He's not a Haliburton guy. He just used to work for them. Big Deal."
Except for the fact that he still has connections to them, still receives money from them. This is slightly, but materially, different from the matter at hand -- it remains to be seen if the RIAA will have undue influence due to this appointment (not likely given the nature of the position), which is the reason such ties are worrisome.
In short, there is a reason that there is a double standard -- it's because we (the public) have been more recently, more often, and more thoroughly, burned by the republicans than by the democrats. It sure sucks that reality is biased.
Think back ten years, and the opposite is true (re: which party was given the benefit of the doubt). I wonder why?
Slashdot Mirror
Thompson is a media whore, but the fact that his views carry weight is as much a problem with his listeners as it is with him.
I understand what you're saying, and I agree in general... but I also think it's a good thing to open up the admissions process.
I'm sorry if you felt insulted by my OP. I only meant to say that there are sometimes overlooked advantages to someone being an uncut stone.
My expereince has taught me that it can be very difficult to teach someone who is largely self-taught and believes they know it all, and this can be detrimental to others in the classroom. Does this hold true for most self-taught kids? I don't think so. But the parent post to my OP seemed to say that there was no value at all in someone who hadn't expressed an interest in programming throughout high school.
The only other thing I'd like to mention is that people tend to mature a lot when they leave high school, especially since they tend to be separated from their peer group. People who are turned off by nerdiness in high school often sing a different song later in life.
Except, of course, my main point, which still stands.
Of course, the flip side to that is that no product stands alone -- part of your assessment of a product has to include the nature of the producer.
In the short-term, your client's need may be best fulfilled by a Microsoft product. In the long-term, you may be hampering your client by supporting a company that destroys competitive processes.
The question is, do you (and your clients) consider the long-term non-obvious implications of choosing to use a Microsoft solution? The most common example I can think of is vendor lock-in.
At any rate, I'll agree that it's important to give products a shot before decrying them as terrible. But I lend some credence to consensus opinions of others, and also try to factor long-term, more conceptual, cost factors into implementation decisions.
Where are you getting the "uninterested" from? Curious, since that has no bearing at all to the people we're discussing. If they are uninterested, they'll change programs and/or fail out.
As for bad habits, needing to teach them out of someone at the collegiate level is as bad as needing to teach them basics at the collegiate level -- this is what I was referring to, not what happens at the professional level. You really think that bad habits brough into college are immaterial since they might pick up additional bad habits in caollege?
I think you're working off the assumption that it's impossible for someone to not be highly interested in high school (or earlier) and then to develop an interest while at university. This is the entire point of opening up the admissions process, to capture those with a latent interest and aptitude. You can still fail out the weaklings.
Funny? Yes. Insightful, not so sure.
I've got a close friend who is an Canadian Immigration Officer in NY. Despite the thinking that Canadian Immigration is lax, you'd be surprised at how tight it has become. The vetting process is pretty extensive.
Thanks for clearing that up. I'm looking forward to reading up a bunch more on this tonight, since I suspect a lot of it could be useful in NJ.
Not so. You can expand to other products. You can increase the stranglehold you have. You can decrease penetration of competitors. You're confusing absolute monopoly with functional monopoly.
Not so. Show me any source that defines slavery this way. Lack of consumer choice != slavery, and you equating them is sensationalistic and misleading.
And that's my point, really. You make posts with nothing new to say, nothing new to add to the conversation. I'm happy to see that later comments of yours to this article actually do have something to say -- but your OP in this thread, not so.
That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think? Your OP has nothing of substance, which is exactly what I was pointing out. It has nothing to do with your writing style or personality -- it has everything to do with the emptiness of a lot of your posts. I'm not arguing from the standpoint of defending MS, I'm arguing from the standpoint of being sick of hearing anti-MS chum that doesn't add anything of value to the discussion. Do you understand the distinction?
One would think that being on fire might retard the maturation process in children, never mind Canadian Immigration being ok with immigrants ablaze.
Seems to me that most of them are fighting some of the unintended consequences of Amendment 41, such as kids of state employees (even very low-paid employees) being ineligible for scholarships.
At any rate, the big problem with prohibiting gifts to legislators, other than free speech issues, is that only the already wealthy will be able to win elections. It's a problem Amendment 41 doesn't begin to address, and bodes poorly for democracy in general.
What bothers me about your post is that it's the same as the rest of your posts -- all you ever really say is "haha M$ is PWNed".
How? It doesn't show any costs to me. What it shows is that MS is willing to use its considerable clout to get what it wants politically.
Huh? This says nothing; you're just trying to draw an unjustifiable link between MS and slavery.
Agreed. But what does that have to do with the parent post or TFA? It's so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated anyway -- we all know it.
Why is that funny? Any time one of my clients considers using a competitor's product, it's a challenge. Why is it any different for Microsoft?
In all, I'm not surprised to see the same post from you as always -- but I'm also sure you actually have interesting and insightful observations. Why not bother thinking a bit before you post and include them in your comments?
This is why there is research out there to use methods other than cookies and IP addresses to identify users -- see this article from last September.
I'm sure this concept can get some VC if companies begin distrusting current traffic anlayses -- it would be a useful adjunct to traditional traffic monitoring.
Possibly; but if it does the apt applicants a disservice, that is a problem with the program, not with criteria for admission. The program should be able to accomodate those who need some "remedial" classes, as well as those that are ahead of the curve. I think your views wrongfully exclude a lot of people who could end up being great in the comp sci field.
The trick is to cast a wide net and keep the best, even if it takes a bit to identify the best. Limiting the people to choose from doesn't seem wise to me.
Better received, but considered less important. For almost every legislator, handwritten letter > printed letter > phone call > fax > pre-printed post card > email.
There are staffers (interns, most likely) whose job it is to sort and tally correspondence, and summarize it to the legislator.
Also, don't ask them to look into the issue. Provide them with information, then tell them what you want them to do. The occasional well-written letter will make it into the hands of the legislator.
Finally, it's important to not just contact legislator on the list you provide -- every legislator should be contacted. We've little idea of who will be on the committee in twenty years, and it's best to lay the groundwork for future activism now.
They are talking about admissions criteria, in the context of high school computing backgrounds. Attracting talent that may or may not have extensive programming experience, rather than focusing just on the people who enter college with a lot of programming under their belt -- those people are overwhelmingly male.
Might they have some catching up to do? Sure. But at least they won't have bad programming habits to unlearn, which can be just as bad as inexperience.
Oh great, just what we need. Cats with fricking alarm clocks on their heads.
Granted, somewhat less effective than sharks with fricking laser beams, but they'll do in a pinch.
One ticket, aisle seat please, blah, blah, blah.
Seriously though, an interesting tidbit form the ABCNews site:
I wish I'd had access to something similar in the days just after 9/11 -- it was very painful to not know what had happened to friends and family who worked downtown.
My heart and thoughts go out to all those affected by this tragedy.
The key is to identify both the firm they are representing (e.g., First Hassle Bank or what-have-you) and the firm they are emplyed by (e.g., Bob's House of Telemarketing). Instruct them to take you off both lists, and be added to the Do Not Call list at Bob's. All telemartketers in the US are required to maintain a DNC list, make sure you get on it for each telemarketing company that calls you.
Then, if you are contacted by any firm on behalf of First Hassle Bank, you have legal recourse. If you are contacted on behalf of anyone by Bob's House of Telemarketing, you have legal recourse.
That's because we've been burned by it a lot less than with the republicans. When it's isolated examples, people tend to forgive. When it's systemic, not so much.
I'm sure as more industry connections in the democratic party come to light, the level of outrage will increase. But until then, the republicans deserve every bit of condemnation they receive.
Except for the fact that he still has connections to them, still receives money from them. This is slightly, but materially, different from the matter at hand -- it remains to be seen if the RIAA will have undue influence due to this appointment (not likely given the nature of the position), which is the reason such ties are worrisome.
In short, there is a reason that there is a double standard -- it's because we (the public) have been more recently, more often, and more thoroughly, burned by the republicans than by the democrats. It sure sucks that reality is biased.
Think back ten years, and the opposite is true (re: which party was given the benefit of the doubt). I wonder why?
2. Who ever said that Microsoft had their priorities right?