Despite your smiley, I feel it necessary to point out that I meant they should make it easier for everyone to freely sample music online, not just those who ignore the RIAA's legal flamethrower.
The music industry has just lost sight of economics, as has been pointed out. Sure, some companies might die off because they're unwilling to produce product at the equilibrium price, but the recording industry is pretty close to perfect competition, so that's just the way it is - if you don't like it, be more competitive by selecting better artists for your label.
Time for my standard response that makes people hate me for getting them hooked:
First off, the reason we fly straight up and then sideways is that it's a lot easier to accelerate sideways at 70km than it is at 0km altitude, because of the thinner atmosphere. Since the only significant delta-V in an orbital launch is the tangential component, you can tune your ascent to minimize fuel requirements and save up for the big sideways burn.
Now, for the fun part: Orbiter is a free (as in beer + SDK for making your own ships) space-flight simulator that is both mathematically accurate and visually stunning. It includes the space shuttle Atlantis (don't even bother starting out with that one, as it takes practice to get to orbit) and some fictitious spacecraft capable of getting you to Mars or even beyond.
You can even look around online and find add-ons such as my latest favorite, an Apollo mission including a pretty realistic cockpit complete with the Apollo computer system. You even have to do your own LEM extraction and so forth.
1. Burned CD's don't live as long as pressed CD's and tend to be more sensitive to temperature and other environmental changes, in my experience
2. Some artists actually care about their albums being distributed intact. Just because bubble-gum pop listeners have a short attention span doesn't mean that better artists should have the quality of their artwork degraded by you grabbing random tracks
The real solution is to make it easier to sample music and less expensive to buy CD's. The 'easier to sample music' can be accomplished by going the hell away and letting us download as we see fit. The only reason I don't buy CD's based on what I find I like online is because they cost too much. I do base my CD buying decisions on what I download, though - even if I hear a song on the radio first, I'll download it to make sure I like it enough to invest in a higher-quality recording.
Unless she's got the mindset, it's too late for her to learn how to program. Programming is an artform and a way of thinking, and unless you spend your whole life thinking like that you will not be able to program other than through excruciating mental anguish to create even the most rudimentary of programs.
Why does California give all the wrong rights but take away all those recognized by the US Constitution? They probably honor 3 of the first 10 amendments, and then make up dozens of their own "bills of rights". Do they have a Dangerous Sex Offender Bill of Rights yet?
I wonder if the music industry would grant amnesty for all file sharing in the past and future for anyone who beats a musical ring tone user beyond the ability to use a phone. I'd start this afternoon.
I have a negative terrorism quotient - I own guns and will shoot you if you are a terrorist, so the more of me there are, the fewer terrorist points we have.
There is no way for more than 50% of a group to be below average. So, unless 48% of the group is exactly at the average (meaning that 2% of the group somehow is so far ahead of the pack that they offset the 98% who are at or below the average), your statement is a complete fallacy.
I don't think that bad grading is what's hurting your ability to get a writing-based scholarship, bud. Your comment is barely comprehensible, has almost no examples of correct English grammar, and has some spelling issues and capitalization deficiencies, as well.
No tension? In case you haven't noticed, Enterprise (as much as I enjoy watching it) pays about as much attention to continuity with other Trek series as it does to Roddenberry's vision. I wouldn't be surprised if they did blow up Earth, after all.:)
Orbital craft are launched straight up because it is inefficient to try to accelerate tangential to the Earth's surface at low altitudes, due to the air density. They fly more or less straight up to about 30km before really pitching over to start the tangential acceleration into a periodic orbit (as opposed to a once-through orbit like the one you enter when you jump off the ground). Low earth orbit basically begins around 130km, where the atmosphere has thinned out enough that you can remain in orbit. I think the ISS is in the 230km-300km range.
I'm going to plug a great simulator for you all, and that is Orbiter. You'll learn a ton about astrophysics just by starting the program up and trying to get into orbit your first time, and it won't quit from there.
If I've run IRC servers for the past 8 years or better, does that make me more evil, or do I have to cite having run an NNTP server to get the prize?;)
He's right...I was diff-eq, two semesters of linear/abstract algebra, and an elective shy of a math major by the time I left. I should've gone that 7th semester, after all - I wouldn't be so sleep deprived now, that way.:D
My alma mater is kind of notorious for being very theoretical in CS, but lately has succumbed to the pressure to be more practical. The curriculum requires Formal Languages and Automata, a 400-level CS course. Discrete Math from the math department covered most of the logic, and if you didn't learn it there you learned it in the required EE 201: Digital Electronics and its lab. Data Structures and Algorithms is another required course, and depending on the professor you either learn it right or you don't. I knew it already, so my professor didn't hurt me, but the guy they had teaching it my last year in school used about a 1200-page textbook, which is a good thing.:) You also have to take Datacomm, which requires you to know all about NRZ, Manchester, et al. right up through how TCP works and has evolved.
Another required course is Programming Languages, which didn't go into enough depth but still required you to write functional programs (in Lisp), logical programs (in Prolog), and concurrent programs (in your choice of languages; I used C++ to save time).
Will you use most of these skills daily in a programming job? Not consciously, but they pervade your thoughts and you write better-informed code as a result.
This is definitely the case, but I saw flunk the ones who aren't interested in the course. I had to take a lot of math to get my CS degree, and I took even more math because I enjoyed it. I applied myself in my math courses because it was enjoyable to do so.
I don't care if it's required for your degree or not - if you aren't interested in a class, don't take it. If that means you can't complete your degree, get an exception from the department chair or Dean, or change majors.
You don't even have to do 3D graphics to get into this stuff. I wrote a space simulation engine for PennMUSH and stopped at no lengths on some things...it only updates once per second, but I want to detect collisions accurately. Calculus saved the day. I wanted to turn in a spherical configuration space (where most people doing this use a cylindrical one) - take the cross product of where you are and where you want to be, and rotate yourself the amount you want to turn around said cross product. This is probably close to 100 lines of code, just to turn a ship.
Any programming at all involves math. The better you are at math, the better a programmer you will be. If you are not good with math, you will not be a good programmer. HTML and what most people do with PHP et al. is not programming - it is markup.
My CS degree required that I take Calculus I & II, discrete math, a statistics course (I took the harder of the two accepted for this, a 400-level math), and a math elective or two. I took a graduate-level cryptology special topics class for one of the electives - it was three CS students and about 6 math graduate students. At the end of the semester, the professor wrote a list of 3-digit numbers, most of them on the range [400,599], and said "This is a list of math courses we've covered at least half of in this class. Take them if you want to know more." There were about a dozen numbers on the list. My other elective was Calculus III, which I took concurrently with Crypto, across the hall, from the same professor. That was a challenge, as he made it extra hard on me in both classes (both because I'm good but also because I'm a smartass). He threatened to encrypt my Calc final.;-D
At the very least, a programmer should have discrete math, multi-dimensional Calculus including working with series and sequences, number theory, linear algebra, and diff-eq (I regret not finding time for the last two).
Like I said - your abilities as a programmer are directly proportional to your abilities as a mathemetician. There's not a science you can study properly without using math.
"We came up with the idea of Stonehenge because it doesn't matter who you are -- everyone looks at the Pyramids and Stonehenge and structures like that (and asks) who built them, why did they build them?"
So, we're building something out of rocks because we don't know why someone else built something out of rocks? What will people think in 5,000 years when they come across the new Stonehenge? "Hey, these people were obviously great astronomers!" Wrong! They were copycat idiots with too much time and money on their hands.
How do we know that Stonehenge itself wasn't built without a reason other than "because we got bored"? That's why I do everything I do, from turning Cray YMP hard drives into margarita mixers to writing a Lisp interpreter instead of studying for finals in college, so there's no legitimate reason to believe that Stonehenge doesn't have similar roots.
Slashdot Mirror
Despite your smiley, I feel it necessary to point out that I meant they should make it easier for everyone to freely sample music online, not just those who ignore the RIAA's legal flamethrower.
The music industry has just lost sight of economics, as has been pointed out. Sure, some companies might die off because they're unwilling to produce product at the equilibrium price, but the recording industry is pretty close to perfect competition, so that's just the way it is - if you don't like it, be more competitive by selecting better artists for your label.
Time for my standard response that makes people hate me for getting them hooked:
First off, the reason we fly straight up and then sideways is that it's a lot easier to accelerate sideways at 70km than it is at 0km altitude, because of the thinner atmosphere. Since the only significant delta-V in an orbital launch is the tangential component, you can tune your ascent to minimize fuel requirements and save up for the big sideways burn.
Now, for the fun part: Orbiter is a free (as in beer + SDK for making your own ships) space-flight simulator that is both mathematically accurate and visually stunning. It includes the space shuttle Atlantis (don't even bother starting out with that one, as it takes practice to get to orbit) and some fictitious spacecraft capable of getting you to Mars or even beyond.
You can even look around online and find add-ons such as my latest favorite, an Apollo mission including a pretty realistic cockpit complete with the Apollo computer system. You even have to do your own LEM extraction and so forth.
Couple of problems with that...
1. Burned CD's don't live as long as pressed CD's and tend to be more sensitive to temperature and other environmental changes, in my experience
2. Some artists actually care about their albums being distributed intact. Just because bubble-gum pop listeners have a short attention span doesn't mean that better artists should have the quality of their artwork degraded by you grabbing random tracks
The real solution is to make it easier to sample music and less expensive to buy CD's. The 'easier to sample music' can be accomplished by going the hell away and letting us download as we see fit. The only reason I don't buy CD's based on what I find I like online is because they cost too much. I do base my CD buying decisions on what I download, though - even if I hear a song on the radio first, I'll download it to make sure I like it enough to invest in a higher-quality recording.
Here's a pseudo-tmesis for ya: Time Fucking Management
Unless she's got the mindset, it's too late for her to learn how to program. Programming is an artform and a way of thinking, and unless you spend your whole life thinking like that you will not be able to program other than through excruciating mental anguish to create even the most rudimentary of programs.
Why does California give all the wrong rights but take away all those recognized by the US Constitution? They probably honor 3 of the first 10 amendments, and then make up dozens of their own "bills of rights". Do they have a Dangerous Sex Offender Bill of Rights yet?
No, that'd be another $100 million in development costs.
I wonder if the music industry would grant amnesty for all file sharing in the past and future for anyone who beats a musical ring tone user beyond the ability to use a phone. I'd start this afternoon.
I have a negative terrorism quotient - I own guns and will shoot you if you are a terrorist, so the more of me there are, the fewer terrorist points we have.
98% of students may be "average" or worse
There is no way for more than 50% of a group to be below average. So, unless 48% of the group is exactly at the average (meaning that 2% of the group somehow is so far ahead of the pack that they offset the 98% who are at or below the average), your statement is a complete fallacy.
Don't forget: Can the program be bribed? :)
I don't think that bad grading is what's hurting your ability to get a writing-based scholarship, bud. Your comment is barely comprehensible, has almost no examples of correct English grammar, and has some spelling issues and capitalization deficiencies, as well.
The system was tested over a 2-year pilot program and produced results virtually identical to those of trained readers
I think this says more about the training that the "trained readers" are receiving than it does about the software.
It's a great timesink, too...Even at 10,000x acceleration it take a hell of a long time to fly to Jupiter. :)
No tension? In case you haven't noticed, Enterprise (as much as I enjoy watching it) pays about as much attention to continuity with other Trek series as it does to Roddenberry's vision. I wouldn't be surprised if they did blow up Earth, after all. :)
Orbital craft are launched straight up because it is inefficient to try to accelerate tangential to the Earth's surface at low altitudes, due to the air density. They fly more or less straight up to about 30km before really pitching over to start the tangential acceleration into a periodic orbit (as opposed to a once-through orbit like the one you enter when you jump off the ground). Low earth orbit basically begins around 130km, where the atmosphere has thinned out enough that you can remain in orbit. I think the ISS is in the 230km-300km range.
I'm going to plug a great simulator for you all, and that is Orbiter. You'll learn a ton about astrophysics just by starting the program up and trying to get into orbit your first time, and it won't quit from there.
"A Linux client has also been in development alongside the requisite Win32 version" for over a decade now.
Sadly, IE no longer supports gopher:// addresses.
If I've run IRC servers for the past 8 years or better, does that make me more evil, or do I have to cite having run an NNTP server to get the prize? ;)
He's right...I was diff-eq, two semesters of linear/abstract algebra, and an elective shy of a math major by the time I left. I should've gone that 7th semester, after all - I wouldn't be so sleep deprived now, that way. :D
My alma mater is kind of notorious for being very theoretical in CS, but lately has succumbed to the pressure to be more practical. The curriculum requires Formal Languages and Automata, a 400-level CS course. Discrete Math from the math department covered most of the logic, and if you didn't learn it there you learned it in the required EE 201: Digital Electronics and its lab. Data Structures and Algorithms is another required course, and depending on the professor you either learn it right or you don't. I knew it already, so my professor didn't hurt me, but the guy they had teaching it my last year in school used about a 1200-page textbook, which is a good thing. :) You also have to take Datacomm, which requires you to know all about NRZ, Manchester, et al. right up through how TCP works and has evolved.
Another required course is Programming Languages, which didn't go into enough depth but still required you to write functional programs (in Lisp), logical programs (in Prolog), and concurrent programs (in your choice of languages; I used C++ to save time).
Will you use most of these skills daily in a programming job? Not consciously, but they pervade your thoughts and you write better-informed code as a result.
s/saw/say/ # I need lunch
This is definitely the case, but I saw flunk the ones who aren't interested in the course. I had to take a lot of math to get my CS degree, and I took even more math because I enjoyed it. I applied myself in my math courses because it was enjoyable to do so.
I don't care if it's required for your degree or not - if you aren't interested in a class, don't take it. If that means you can't complete your degree, get an exception from the department chair or Dean, or change majors.
You don't even have to do 3D graphics to get into this stuff. I wrote a space simulation engine for PennMUSH and stopped at no lengths on some things...it only updates once per second, but I want to detect collisions accurately. Calculus saved the day. I wanted to turn in a spherical configuration space (where most people doing this use a cylindrical one) - take the cross product of where you are and where you want to be, and rotate yourself the amount you want to turn around said cross product. This is probably close to 100 lines of code, just to turn a ship.
;-D
Any programming at all involves math. The better you are at math, the better a programmer you will be. If you are not good with math, you will not be a good programmer. HTML and what most people do with PHP et al. is not programming - it is markup.
My CS degree required that I take Calculus I & II, discrete math, a statistics course (I took the harder of the two accepted for this, a 400-level math), and a math elective or two. I took a graduate-level cryptology special topics class for one of the electives - it was three CS students and about 6 math graduate students. At the end of the semester, the professor wrote a list of 3-digit numbers, most of them on the range [400,599], and said "This is a list of math courses we've covered at least half of in this class. Take them if you want to know more." There were about a dozen numbers on the list. My other elective was Calculus III, which I took concurrently with Crypto, across the hall, from the same professor. That was a challenge, as he made it extra hard on me in both classes (both because I'm good but also because I'm a smartass). He threatened to encrypt my Calc final.
At the very least, a programmer should have discrete math, multi-dimensional Calculus including working with series and sequences, number theory, linear algebra, and diff-eq (I regret not finding time for the last two).
Like I said - your abilities as a programmer are directly proportional to your abilities as a mathemetician. There's not a science you can study properly without using math.
...leads to more questions.
Why?
"We came up with the idea of Stonehenge because it doesn't matter who you are -- everyone looks at the Pyramids and Stonehenge and structures like that (and asks) who built them, why did they build them?"
So, we're building something out of rocks because we don't know why someone else built something out of rocks? What will people think in 5,000 years when they come across the new Stonehenge? "Hey, these people were obviously great astronomers!" Wrong! They were copycat idiots with too much time and money on their hands.
How do we know that Stonehenge itself wasn't built without a reason other than "because we got bored"? That's why I do everything I do, from turning Cray YMP hard drives into margarita mixers to writing a Lisp interpreter instead of studying for finals in college, so there's no legitimate reason to believe that Stonehenge doesn't have similar roots.