I work on the 12th floor of Pupin and I'm just now hearing about this. 1) I think it's actually under Mudd/CEPSR/Uris, not Pupin -- at least, that's what the kids tell me. 2) They were keeping it quiet, trying to stave off the rioting SEAS students and CUSFS larpers. 3) Now I'm sad. I missed out on the WTC, too. Why must everything cool die before I get there?
Not that it isn't fascinating to watch the progress of technology in robotic locomotion, but I have to agree with some of the earlier posters: it's like watching a young calf learning to walk. That only makes it a slow pack mule for generally any terrain -- but it might be more practical to have specialized robotic mules that can handle a particular terrain very efficiently, rather than one quadruped robot with only evenly moderate transportation skills on all terrain. That said, I'm sure it will come in handy in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Waziristan.
But until this thing is capable of ambulatory sprints, there's just no room for it on a battlefield. My two cents.
What we need is a professional standards body that actually measures skills and mandates periodic skills reviews to maintain certification according to accepted industry guidelines. Practical examinations as well as an apprenticeship period would be preferable to ensure capability.
If I'm not mistaken, one can still go out and buy a CompTIA A+ certification book, schedule a time to take the test and be certified without ever actually opening the case on a computer, which was also the cause of the complete industry-wide invalidation of the MCSE certification when it came out.
Take for example Cisco certs (yeah yeah); the CCNA means nothing in a practical sense, but it does indicate that you have some grounding in networking fundamentals. Ok. So you can assist our network techs and troubleshoot problems at the LAN level. After a couple years experience you write the CCNP test. Now you're able to move into the bigger office and assist our WAN techs and touch the real routers. A few years of this and you enroll in the CCIE program. Combine that with 10+ years in the trenches and suddenly four letters mean you can pretty much write your own ticket. Thanks for the idea, but you can still take it much further. The main issue seems to be the use of a standardized test for qualifying new techs. I can tell you from personal experience, that a test is all it takes to become a licensed stock broker, via the series 7 exam, and perhaps that should be warning enough. But in the case of doctors and lawyers, the MCAT and LSAT are still very good indicators of how someone will perform in training or school. Blkdeath mentions the value of the CCIE label when 10 years of real-world experience follows it, but the value of the CCIE, or any such standardized test, is also invaluable in getting the experience in the first place.
What we need is a technical certification program that pre-screens its applicants and presumes a minimum facility for technology and background. Maybe even a practical test of a physical assembly, given unlabeled parts. At the minimum they should know how a CPU works, if only to demonstrate they understand the concept of a computer better than a lego set. We might even get a higher level of performance and design out of people, if they had a place to break their teeth that wasn't a job in our own departments.
At least then we could trust that the kids calling themselves techs would know what a motherboard looks like.
I want you to know that Hawking's question, and all of your responses helped me glue together how I really feel about all of this, and I'm responding to the above reply because it's the only one of the thousand that I had time to read that felt closest to the mark.
I think the central problem facing us is the same one that's faced us for millenia, which wasn't 'scientifically available' until Stanley Milgram's study in the 60s; the human tendency of obedience to authority. *see -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Look: all of us begin and learn by accepting what our parents or parental figures teach us. The challenge is to move on and think for ourselves, but this is by no means easy, or safe, or even mildly comfortable. Is it any wonder then that the best compromise is to attach ourselves to what other people say is true, regardless of anything else? Certainly religious leaders are going to have their authority challenged if they speak out against what people can immediately observe for themselves, but how do you argue with the unseeable? It's often less a matter of human capacity that 'secularists' are able to 'break the bonds' of religious dogma and move on to more pragmatic thought and more a matter of circumstance, and available authorities whose own heads are a little less in the clouds. But even then we haven't solved the problem, and it's arguable whether we've even truly improved it. Just because science provides us with a more morally sound basis today doesn't mean it's been as successful in the past.
I believe we need to focus less on beliefs and more on communication. Any kind, all kinds. We need to listen, and we need to respond, about how we feel and what we believe, because it's only through communication with other people that we learn to think for ourselves and understand that our own beliefs are as transient and ephemeral as a buddhist sand-painting.
And I'm not trying to be merely philosophical, either: I believe there are very real steps we can take to accomplish this, some more obvious than others. Strike up conversations with strangers more often. Be a part of a community action, whether a church bake sale or a vampire LARP. Read more magazines. Blog. Help VoIP spread and write better code to make it easier, cheaper, and more universal. Learn another language, even if it's dead.
All these things help us communicate, and it's communication that's the key, to my mind. And for god's sake, don't be afraid to offend people -- and moreover, if *you're* not offended at least once a day, you're not listening closely enough. Offense is the best measure of the limits to our expectations, and we should cherish the moments we feel it: it's the rare chance to confront our own close-mindedness and actually start *listening* to other people. We all dream of having a better society, but for once we have technology and tools that are actually dedicated to having this. There's nothing miraculous about it. Nor are we doing all that bad, really... but we have to remember that it's got nothing to do with who's right, and everything to do with how much we're willing to listen, because the real work, and the hardest work, starts right there.
I hope to god someone cites these guys to congress as a reason *against* data retention legislation. It's not big brother we should be worried about, it's his jackass cousins...
At this point, software patents will go from being unworkable to being widely and deservedly recognized as impossible. For not only will they become impossible to enforce; they will become impossible to comply with. In the meantime, real companies will have to pay real lawyers increasing sums to try to avoid lawsuits, negotiate otherwise unnecessary cross- licensing agreements, and continually waste time, money, attention and energy on these and other defensive, rear-guard activities which will add nothing to America's productivity or actual stock of inventive software.
Says it all, doesn't it? Good link and thanks -- some of it seems a little optimistic to me, but it would have been an excellent start to the discussion on this topic.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised more people haven't noticed. Reallyâ" who even still runs Gentoo?
You work here too? Which building did they put you in?
2) They were keeping it quiet, trying to stave off the rioting SEAS students and CUSFS larpers.
3) Now I'm sad. I missed out on the WTC, too. Why must everything cool die before I get there?
come back when you've learned to run.
Not that it isn't fascinating to watch the progress of technology in robotic locomotion, but I have to agree with some of the earlier posters: it's like watching a young calf learning to walk. That only makes it a slow pack mule for generally any terrain -- but it might be more practical to have specialized robotic mules that can handle a particular terrain very efficiently, rather than one quadruped robot with only evenly moderate transportation skills on all terrain. That said, I'm sure it will come in handy in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Waziristan.
But until this thing is capable of ambulatory sprints, there's just no room for it on a battlefield. My two cents.
to a user looking up a definition for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthymeme?
...if the internet's a series of tubes, and plumbers already have a union, does that mean IT workers are unregistered members?
/. posts as dues!
With the current trend in IP pretending that data==money, we could claim
Who's with me? Let's implement a proven solution!
If I'm not mistaken, one can still go out and buy a CompTIA A+ certification book, schedule a time to take the test and be certified without ever actually opening the case on a computer, which was also the cause of the complete industry-wide invalidation of the MCSE certification when it came out.
Take for example Cisco certs (yeah yeah); the CCNA means nothing in a practical sense, but it does indicate that you have some grounding in networking fundamentals. Ok. So you can assist our network techs and troubleshoot problems at the LAN level. After a couple years experience you write the CCNP test. Now you're able to move into the bigger office and assist our WAN techs and touch the real routers. A few years of this and you enroll in the CCIE program. Combine that with 10+ years in the trenches and suddenly four letters mean you can pretty much write your own ticket. Thanks for the idea, but you can still take it much further. The main issue seems to be the use of a standardized test for qualifying new techs. I can tell you from personal experience, that a test is all it takes to become a licensed stock broker, via the series 7 exam, and perhaps that should be warning enough. But in the case of doctors and lawyers, the MCAT and LSAT are still very good indicators of how someone will perform in training or school. Blkdeath mentions the value of the CCIE label when 10 years of real-world experience follows it, but the value of the CCIE, or any such standardized test, is also invaluable in getting the experience in the first place.
What we need is a technical certification program that pre-screens its applicants and presumes a minimum facility for technology and background. Maybe even a practical test of a physical assembly, given unlabeled parts. At the minimum they should know how a CPU works, if only to demonstrate they understand the concept of a computer better than a lego set. We might even get a higher level of performance and design out of people, if they had a place to break their teeth that wasn't a job in our own departments.
At least then we could trust that the kids calling themselves techs would know what a motherboard looks like.
I want you to know that Hawking's question, and all of your responses helped me glue together how I really feel about all of this, and I'm responding to the above reply because it's the only one of the thousand that I had time to read that felt closest to the mark.
... but we have to remember that it's got nothing to do with who's right, and everything to do with how much we're willing to listen, because the real work, and the hardest work, starts right there.
I think the central problem facing us is the same one that's faced us for millenia, which wasn't 'scientifically available' until Stanley Milgram's study in the 60s; the human tendency of obedience to authority. *see -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Look: all of us begin and learn by accepting what our parents or parental figures teach us. The challenge is to move on and think for ourselves, but this is by no means easy, or safe, or even mildly comfortable. Is it any wonder then that the best compromise is to attach ourselves to what other people say is true, regardless of anything else? Certainly religious leaders are going to have their authority challenged if they speak out against what people can immediately observe for themselves, but how do you argue with the unseeable? It's often less a matter of human capacity that 'secularists' are able to 'break the bonds' of religious dogma and move on to more pragmatic thought and more a matter of circumstance, and available authorities whose own heads are a little less in the clouds. But even then we haven't solved the problem, and it's arguable whether we've even truly improved it. Just because science provides us with a more morally sound basis today doesn't mean it's been as successful in the past.
I believe we need to focus less on beliefs and more on communication. Any kind, all kinds. We need to listen, and we need to respond, about how we feel and what we believe, because it's only through communication with other people that we learn to think for ourselves and understand that our own
beliefs are as transient and ephemeral as a buddhist sand-painting.
And I'm not trying to be merely philosophical, either: I believe there are very real steps we can take to accomplish this, some more obvious than others. Strike up conversations with strangers more often. Be a part of a community action, whether a church bake sale or a vampire LARP. Read more magazines. Blog. Help VoIP spread and write better code to make it easier, cheaper, and more universal. Learn another language, even if it's dead.
All these things help us communicate, and it's communication that's the key, to my mind. And for god's sake, don't be afraid to offend people -- and moreover, if *you're* not offended at least once a day, you're not listening closely enough. Offense is the best measure of the limits to our expectations, and we should cherish the moments we feel it: it's the rare chance to confront our own close-mindedness and actually start *listening* to other people. We all dream of having a better society, but for once we have technology and tools that are actually dedicated to having this. There's nothing miraculous about it. Nor are we doing all that bad, really
[/rant]
(Too bad there is no money in space right now.)
hey now, don't be so quick to judge... there'll be plenty of money in space if we keep throwing it away up there.
Salvage, anyone?
I hope to god someone cites these guys to congress as a reason *against* data retention legislation. It's not big brother we should be worried about, it's his jackass cousins...
At this point, software patents will go from being unworkable to being widely and deservedly recognized as impossible. For not only will they become impossible to enforce; they will become impossible to comply with. In the meantime, real companies will have to pay real lawyers increasing sums to try to avoid lawsuits, negotiate otherwise unnecessary cross- licensing agreements, and continually waste time, money, attention and energy on these and other defensive, rear-guard activities which will add nothing to America's productivity or actual stock of inventive software.
Says it all, doesn't it? Good link and thanks -- some of it seems a little optimistic to me, but it would have been an excellent start to the discussion on this topic.