Try grape or cranberry juice (normal or 'light') diluted 4x or 5x with water. Tastes a lot better than water (not as bland), quenches thirst a lot better than juice (far less sweet), has low sugar content, and keeps you hydrated...bruce..
I lived in Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama) for two years, back in 1972-74. The literacy rate in Honduras and Nicaragua at that time was around 25-30%; there were no public schools; still, most people had electricity and a significant number had telephones. I knew lots of bright kids and young adults who would have benefitted tremendously from something like the $100 laptop. Using the US consumer price index as a crude measure of purchasing power, a current (2006) $100 laptop would be a $25 laptop back then--and lots of families I knew could have afforded that (and would have leapt at the opportunity).
Interestingly enough, the literacy rate in neighboring Costa Rica at that time was something over 95%, higher than even in the US. The people were well educated, but (compared to the US) poor. I can argue that they would benefit even more from the $100 laptop.
Several posters here seem stuck on a image of giving these laptops to Masai tribes in unelectrified Kenyan backcountry. The potential market for such laptops is global; there are many millions of people who live in countries with the requisite electric infrastructure, who could eke out $100 for one of these laptops, and who could benefit thereby due to poor educational opportunities in their countries...bruce..
My wife and I have about 2,500+ books, plus several hundred back issues of magazines, as well as assorted notebooks, binders, and so on. I've got them all out on a total of 21 bookcases here in our basement, organized by general and specific topics. For example, all my computer-related books are in three (very large) bookcases, with specific shelves for software engineering, network security, AI, specific/related programming languages, and so on. No index cards, no database, no Dewey decimal system. I don't even alphabetize, though for some topics (e.g., history), I will use a rough chronological order.
To pack more books into a given bookcase, I do group some books by size; that is, a given bookcase will often have one shelf set up for oversized books and another set up for paperbacks. But the topics on those shelves correlate with the bookcase as a whole. I also tend to group bookcases by topic; for example, I use five bookcases to hold all our fiction; each case has a general theme (classic, modern lit, mystery/thriller, SF, fantasy), but I feel free to let genres (most notably SF) spill over to adjacent bookshelves due to lack of space.
I can pretty much find any book I'm looking for within a minute and often within seconds: go to the appropriate bookcase(s), go to the appropriate shelve(s), and scan across. Since the topical organization is of my own choosing, I can easily remember and maintain it. I even have a couple of shelves set aside for "books I've recently acquired and plan to read in the near future", so I don't just file them and then lose track of them.
There are occasional glitches, but they tend to be self-correcting. For example, this morning I was looking for an old textbook, _Improving Your Reasoning_ by Alex Michalos. I looked on the philosophy shelf--not there--and on the shelves containing books on English composition, writing, etc.--not there, either. I finally found it stashed on a half-full shelf a few bookcases over (placed there, I think, due to lack of free space on the English comp shelves). After using it, I refiled it in the philosophy shelf, since that was the first place I looked for it (and there was room for it there). I will likewise do occasional reorganization of selected shelves or entire bookcases when new approaches seem to be more obvious or make more sense.
It's all very simple, easy, effective, and low maintenance. However, it does require the appropriate wall space and bookcases. YMMV...bruce..
I turn 53 in a few months and I still buy and play computer games on a regular basis; recent purchases include Civ IV and Star Wars Battlefront II (I've reviewed both on Amazon). I suspect I'm in the distinct minority among my peers, but I could be wrong; my age group was pretty much the first one that grew up playing (and writing) computer games. Put another way, I've been playing computer games (30+ years) longer than some of you have been alive. (I also was involved in professional computer game design for several years back in the early years of PC-based games [1981-85; see here and here], as well as writing columns on the subject and reviewing commercial computer games.)
Still, most people in the 40s and 50s just don't have time for computer games. Between family, work, church/community and other activities (yardwork, household repairs, struggles to get to the gym, etc.), they typically don't have the amount of free time required by most modern computer games. I work out of a home office on a consulting basis, so unless I'm swamped by current engagements, I can easily block out several hours to spend on a game. However, there have been other times in my life when I've had a 'regular' job; during those times, I've gone months or years without playing a computer game for the reasons cited above.
Another downside for older gamers is that the 'costs' of spending lots of time on games are higher--e.g., it can interfere with work (and income), can cause serious marital problems, and so on. I know a man in his early 30s whose marriage is undergoing severe stress largely because of his obsession with HalfLife 2. In my own case, I have from time to time simply thrown away games because I felt I was wasting too much time playing them and not enough time on other projects (books, etc.).
My own preferences tend to be strategy/simulation games, including historical war games and large-scale strategy games (the Civ games and various space-based 4x [eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate] games). I tend to prefer turn-based games over real-time strategy (RTS) games, but have still spent time with the latter (e.g., LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth). I've played several RPGs (e.g., DungeonSiege, Neverwinter Nights, Freelancer) and even some MMORPGs (Earth and Beyond). While first-person shooter (FPS) games are not my first choice, I'll cheerfully play them if the subject matter is interesting; I've bought and played several of the Star Wars FPS games (Republic Commando, Battlefront I and II).
Were I to design for 'grey gamers', I would probably focus on the following:
Design for short play cycles (30-60 minutes at a time); consider your competition to be an individual TV show.
Provide easy exit from the game and easy re-entry.
Emphasize analysis and thought over reflexes.
Avoid fiendishly difficult puzzles or tasks; we just don't have the frackin' time.
Allow saves (and restarts) at any point; same reason.
Objective-C probably remains my all-time favorite programming language (from some 30 years of programming) simply because it was so clean: ANSI C with a handful of syntactical and semantic extensions for OO development. I used it professionally for 5+ years and found it a delight (compared to, say, C++).
On the other hand, it's been 10 years since I did any Obj-C coding, so I don't know how the current Obj-C implementation compares to the current implementations of Java and C#; there may well be features in Java and C# that I'd be unwilling to give up to go back to Obj-C.
I remember hearing a rumor back in the early 1990s that Microsoft considered Obj-C for its nascent Visual development tools, but ended up going with C++. Sigh...bruce..
It's been nearly 30 years since I took my first (of two) graduate classes in AI. AI was then--and remains now--an area of professional interest (I own about 50 books on AI and/or complexity theory), though I don't actively work or do research in the field. My observation is that AI, like fusion, actually advances at a small fraction of the predicted rate--and, unlike fusion, we don't have any actual working examples of AI.
I'm not saying that AI is impossible--it just appears to be a whole lot harder than we think it is. For that matter, given how little progress (relatively speaking) we've made in some 50 years of AI research, I have to wonder whether we as humans lack the inherent intellect necessary to create AIs equivalent to ourselves, i.e., we're just not smart enough to do it. The reason why I have such an interest in complexity theory is that it may sidestep that problem--but only if human-equivalent intelligence can truly emerge from sub-intelligent agents without becoming bogged down in, ah, the resulting complexity...bruce..
This is a reprint of a column, with commentary about the mac. It isn't the official review.
No, actually, this is the official review. The February 1984 issue of BYTE (I have the issue in my files) contained the Macintosh product introduction and first look articles. Phil Lemmons, editor-in-chief of BYTE, knowing that I had purchased my own Macintosh, asked if I would like to do the official review, and I did; it was the first article I ever wrote for BYTE.
I did later have a column in BYTE, but that didn't start for nearly a year (June 1985).
How hard is it to write a submission about a product without taking a cheap potshot at the competition? Was this really necessary?
I think so. I did a lot of assembly language programming back in 1974-85, including Z80, 8080, 8086, 6502, and 680x0 (and some more bizarre ones, like the F8, Perkin Elmer 8/32, DG Nova, and some mainframes as well). I loved the 6502 for its compact simplicity (let's hear it for Page 0!). I loved the 680x0 for its orthogonality and clean address space. I swore at Intel on a regular basis...bruce..
A few years back, I wanted to recover the Apple Pascal source code for SunDog: Frozen Legacy and so bought several Apple II systems on (of course) eBay. As boxes kept showing up, my wife asked me, "Exactly how many of these do you need?" Of course, I just wanted to be sure to have enough to put together a working, fully loaded (>= 4 disk drives, serial port, extended memory, hi-res color monitor, etc.) system. Which, ultimately, I did.
Of course, having extracted all that I can extract, and facing a move cross-country, I am now contemplating getting rid of the Apple II gear--but part of me just doesn't want to let it go just yet...bruce..
P.S. You can see the main loop of the SunDog program here.
The author comments that tsunami warnings may not help much, as people often flock to the coastline to see the giant waves.
Robert Heinlein noted that human tendency in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress--when the rebelling Lunatics drop a large rock on Earth in a relatively isolated spot (somewhere in Kansas, if I recall correctly) to demonstrate their ability to fight back, large numbers of people flock to the location to watch--and are killed...bruce..
Yeah, I post that this morning, fly to Chicago, check again, and...the odds are now zip. Ah, my brief shot at/. fame ruined by the cold equations.:-)..bruce..
[ObCreds: BSCS, with some graduate work; close to 30 years in the IT industry]
IMHO, a PhD in Computer Science is useful for: doing research and/or getting a tenured position at a university; becoming a high-end consultant; getting a CTO/chief scientist position at a large corporation or a hot startup; being an expert witness (litigation support).
Other than that, I'm not sure that it helps much, and it can definitely hurt you in many classic IT situations. Far too many organizations see IT jobs as 'commodity' positions (witness the current rush to off-shore development) and have little idea as to how to attract, identify, hire, and retain quality IT personnel. Such firms may well see your PhD as an 'overqualification'; a few may even worry about you being 'too smart' to bring in (i.e., a potential troublemaker).
As noted, I don't have a PhD myself, so I speaking only by my own observations; I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of those who do have PhDs and who have been in the trenches. I've toyed with the idea of going back and getting my own PhD several times over the past 25 years--and even had one university offer me a PhD slot with an on-going teaching position--but each time I did a cost/benefit analysis, I decided to pass. I may yet finish my MSCS, though, even at my 'advanced' age.:-)..bruce..
First, Nemesis didn't tank because of competing films. Nemesis could have been released at any point in the year, however clear the schedule, and it would have tanked. I agree with most of the previous comments as to what's wrong with the ST franchise, including the political correctness, plot holes, cute humor, and Left Coast touchy-feeliness.
Second, I think the real demise of the (movie) franchise came after ST3:TSFS. At that point, you had the Enterprise destroyed and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the run from the Federation in a Klingon cruiser. Stop for a moment and think what a killer movie you could make with that setup, going off on a completely different tangent from anything seen in ST movies or shows, but still true to form to Kirk's approach to problems. Instead, we got ST4:TVH, which put everyone back in their neat little boxes and made everything all better again (and threw in some gee-whiz eco-sensibility about whales). (Did I mention that my wife for Christmas got me a t-shirt that says "Nuke the gay whales!"? And I'm a registered Democrat.)
Anyway, while individual episodes and movies have shown promise, the whole franchise is sinking down to heat death; Nemesis and Enterprise are likely to be the end of the Star Trek franchise. It's been a nice run, but let it go, folks...bruce..
My first clue about Xupiter was last night when my NIS alerted me that something called XupiterToolbar was trying to access the net. I blocked it, did a google search on Xupiter, found Spybot S&D, downloaded it, ran it, and found a whole slew of spyware, which I purged.
Sad to say, there has been little such progress in the last 30 years. One of the things I do for a living is act as an expert witness in litigation over failed IT projects. In my research, I reviewed 120 such lawsuits that took place over a 25-year period and found (a) that they all fall into one (or two or three) of half a dozen fact patterns, and (b) the root causes are all the same. (I wrote a white paper summarizing my findings). The simple fact: we make the same mistakes over and over again, and these are mistakes that have been well-known and well-documented for 30 years.
Brooks, in the "No Silver Bullet" essay referenced above, stated that there is both essential and accidential complexity in software development, and because of that there never would be a "silver bullet" to slay the software "monster". However, there are fundamental practices that increase the likelihood of success and fundamental pitfalls that every project faces. And, in the end, the root causes of most failed IT projects are human factors; in fact, you could just cite the "seven deadly sins"--pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth--and probably hit the nail on the head.
In conjuction with that, far, far too many practitioners in the IT field lack one or more of the following:
Sufficient (or any) education in software engineering (or even computer science)
Any familiarity with the literature from the past 30+ years. I'm not talking about IEEE/ACM Transactions, I'm talking about standard classic works such as _The Mythical Man-Month_ (Fred Brooks), _The Psychology of Computer Programming_ (and everything else by Gerry Weinberg), _Principles of Software Engineering Management_ (Tom Gilb), _Peopleware_ (and everything else by Timothy Lister and/or Tom DeMarco), _Assessment and Control of Software Risks (and anything else by Capers Jones), _Death March_ (and anything else by Ed Yourdon), _Journey of the Software Professional_ (Luke Hohmann), and any of the 100 or so texts on software engineering on the bookshelf behind me.
To quote George Santayana (who is often misquoted):
Progress, far from consisting of change, depends upon retentiveness...Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it.
Software engineering is hard enough--with all the human issues--without further handicapping ourselves with ignorance of all that has been already discovered and documented. Yet that is exactly what most IT workers do. Until we find a way to solve _that_ problem, the failure rate for IT projects will remain high indeed...bruce..
Firefly: I threw the "science fiction" label out the window as soon as they mentioned finding a "new system with hundreds of [habitable, or at least, terriformed] planets". But that's OK. The show doesn't take itself seriously; neither should the folks hyperventilating here about it. (That is, they shouldn't take themselves so seriously.) (Or the show.) My wife loved it; I enjoyed it.
The real irony in comparing Firefly with Star Trek is that the original Star Trek series was pitched to the TV studios as "Wagon Train to the Stars" ("Wagon Train" was an actual TV series, one that I'm old enough to have watched). Star Trek, of course, wasn't like Wagon Train at all. Star Trek's actual genesis was, I firmly believe, "Forbidden Planet" (still one of the 10 best SF movies of all time, even nearly 50 years later); watch it sometime and tell me it isn't a classic Star Trek episode, except with better acting and effects. But if Gene Roddenberry had pitched Star Trek as weekly episodes of "Forbidden Planet", the series would likely have died a-borning. (Now _there_ would be an interesting alternative history short story--recast the cultural history of the last 35 years w/out Star Trek.)
By contrast, Firefly really is "Wagon Train to the Stars", but with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It mocks both SF and westerns, two quintessent American media genres. It was entertaining and enjoyable, which is more than I can say for most of what's on TV.
John Doe: I was disappointed in this one. It's a "Pretender" variant, except the main character isn't as sympathetic as Jared. I'll give it a few more episodes, but I have less hope for this one. Look for a mid-season replacement...bruce..
I took a grad-level AI class in college nearly 30 years ago; our final exam was a round-robin tournament among Go-playing programs that we had to write. (More precisely, we each wrote two routines--one to evaluate the board, one to generated a list of moves--and a minimax framework called our routines.) It was a great introduction as to why AI is hard.
I still play Go occasionally, and though I am a mediocre player at best, I can usually beat any Go-playing programs that I've found...bruce..
When I was in elementary school (60s), I devoured the Time-Life Nature and Science series of books. One of them discussed using this very same technique to help eradicate screwfly infestations in the American Southwest. It worked, too.
As for the argument that the few surviving tsetse flies could replenish the entire population: you're forgetting natural predators, the survivors having to find one another, and other population checks. If that argument were generally true, we would have no need for an 'Endangered Species Act'.:-)..bruce..
I personally believe that Hugo Weaving was a wrong choice for Elrond, as he can't quite shake the image of Agent Smith.
Yeah, it took until my third viewing of the film to get past this. The first viewing, it was pretty jarring--every time Weaving was on the screen; I kept expecting him to slip on some sunglasses and make low-key sarcastic threats. Not his fault, of course; shows what a great job he did in The Matrix.
On my third viewing, though, I enjoyed him as Elrond. Certainly a kick-butt kind of elf...bruce..
I've had a subscription for over a year and I live on the East Coast (DC), and I have no real complaints. Netflix has a vastly better selection than any of the local video rental places (Blockbuster, Hollywood, etc.). I don't have to drive, find a parking place, view the movie within the 24-36 hour time slot, drive back, park, return the movie.
When I think of a movie I'd like to see, day or night, I get on line and add it to my queue. It shows up at some point, I eventually get around to watching it, and then I drop it in the mail. My wife and daughter likewise add to the queue as they wish.
The savings in time and convenience, as well as the selection, far outweigh the occasional queue delays. I've had no quality problems with the DVDs. And I actually spend less per month, even with my somewhat-enhanced membership (5 DVDs out at once) than I did when visiting Blockbuster/Hollywood on a semi-regular basis.
Over the past ten years, I have found the single most effective way to deal with or prevent lower back pain is to do the 20-minute stretching portion of Kathy Smith's Instant Workout Tape on a regular or as-needed basis. Seriously. I still use it, though not nearly as often as I should. (It also helps with my weight lifting--both the pumping-iron kind and the moving-my-bloated-aging-carcass-around kind.)
This is not a commercial endorsement. No money changed hands. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited...bruce..
Re:Great parody and far too close to the truth...
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Why get completely out if you knew it was coming? You should have short sold the dot coms and made a bundle.
My investments were in a 401(k), not in hand-picked stocks. The 401(k) offered numerous investment vehicles (various stock funds, REITs, bonds, etc.). I had about 50% of my money divided among 2 or 3 stock funds; in February, I transferred all that money out of stocks and into other investments w/in the 401(k).
As it was, I spent a month wondering if I had been overly concerns (since tech stocks kept going up until mid-March)...bruce..
Great parody and far too close to the truth...
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Perhaps the most amusing/saddening aspect of the dot.com crash is that so many Slashdot posters would read the story above and think it was real. As many others have pointed out, the real stories aren't all that different (and some are worse).
Though it's easy to say (and hard to prove), I saw the dot.com crash coming. (One piece of evidence: I got out of the stock market completely in February of 2000.) I've been involved in two different startups and have helped bring half a dozen commercial software products to market. I know how tough and unforgiving the market can be, even with good intentions, a decent product, and competent management. Been there, done that, wrote a book about it.
Here, by contrast, were these dot.coms blowing through more venture capital in a month than the last startup I was with used in five years, with no product, no business plan, and no experience in winning and maintaining a customer base. Even under normal circumstance, two out of three VC investments fold--and the VCs still make money, lots of it. The dot.com mania suckered both entreprenuers and investors; the resulting death rate is more like nine out of ten, and many VC firms are hurting in a way they never have before.
I'm not thrilled about the subsequent crash, since it's having an impact all over the economy. My own employer is 'retrenching'; since my current practice isn't sufficiently profitable for their needs, I'm going to be 'spinning off' to run it as an independent. I'll do fine. It's not the first time I've been through this, and it's not the first time that we've been through a tech-related boom-and-bust cycle. But I was hoping to build up a pension over the next dozen years or so. Now I have to do it the hard way, while paying my own employment tax, benefits, legal and accounting services, infrastructure, etc.
I _am_ amused by how every time the stock market rallies a bit, commentators jump in to speculate whether things are going to turn upwards again. To borrow an earlier poster's phrase, I fear we are going scrape along the bottom for some time. I'd love to be wrong about that, but I fear the worse (in the tech sector and possibly in the economy) may stil be yet to come...bruce..
Slashdot Mirror
Try grape or cranberry juice (normal or 'light') diluted 4x or 5x with water. Tastes a lot better than water (not as bland), quenches thirst a lot better than juice (far less sweet), has low sugar content, and keeps you hydrated. ..bruce..
I lived in Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama) for two years, back in 1972-74. The literacy rate in Honduras and Nicaragua at that time was around 25-30%; there were no public schools; still, most people had electricity and a significant number had telephones. I knew lots of bright kids and young adults who would have benefitted tremendously from something like the $100 laptop. Using the US consumer price index as a crude measure of purchasing power, a current (2006) $100 laptop would be a $25 laptop back then--and lots of families I knew could have afforded that (and would have leapt at the opportunity).
..bruce..
Interestingly enough, the literacy rate in neighboring Costa Rica at that time was something over 95%, higher than even in the US. The people were well educated, but (compared to the US) poor. I can argue that they would benefit even more from the $100 laptop.
Several posters here seem stuck on a image of giving these laptops to Masai tribes in unelectrified Kenyan backcountry. The potential market for such laptops is global; there are many millions of people who live in countries with the requisite electric infrastructure, who could eke out $100 for one of these laptops, and who could benefit thereby due to poor educational opportunities in their countries.
My wife and I have about 2,500+ books, plus several hundred back issues of magazines, as well as assorted notebooks, binders, and so on. I've got them all out on a total of 21 bookcases here in our basement, organized by general and specific topics. For example, all my computer-related books are in three (very large) bookcases, with specific shelves for software engineering, network security, AI, specific/related programming languages, and so on. No index cards, no database, no Dewey decimal system. I don't even alphabetize, though for some topics (e.g., history), I will use a rough chronological order.
..bruce..
To pack more books into a given bookcase, I do group some books by size; that is, a given bookcase will often have one shelf set up for oversized books and another set up for paperbacks. But the topics on those shelves correlate with the bookcase as a whole. I also tend to group bookcases by topic; for example, I use five bookcases to hold all our fiction; each case has a general theme (classic, modern lit, mystery/thriller, SF, fantasy), but I feel free to let genres (most notably SF) spill over to adjacent bookshelves due to lack of space.
I can pretty much find any book I'm looking for within a minute and often within seconds: go to the appropriate bookcase(s), go to the appropriate shelve(s), and scan across. Since the topical organization is of my own choosing, I can easily remember and maintain it. I even have a couple of shelves set aside for "books I've recently acquired and plan to read in the near future", so I don't just file them and then lose track of them.
There are occasional glitches, but they tend to be self-correcting. For example, this morning I was looking for an old textbook, _Improving Your Reasoning_ by Alex Michalos. I looked on the philosophy shelf--not there--and on the shelves containing books on English composition, writing, etc.--not there, either. I finally found it stashed on a half-full shelf a few bookcases over (placed there, I think, due to lack of free space on the English comp shelves). After using it, I refiled it in the philosophy shelf, since that was the first place I looked for it (and there was room for it there). I will likewise do occasional reorganization of selected shelves or entire bookcases when new approaches seem to be more obvious or make more sense.
It's all very simple, easy, effective, and low maintenance. However, it does require the appropriate wall space and bookcases. YMMV.
Still, most people in the 40s and 50s just don't have time for computer games. Between family, work, church/community and other activities (yardwork, household repairs, struggles to get to the gym, etc.), they typically don't have the amount of free time required by most modern computer games. I work out of a home office on a consulting basis, so unless I'm swamped by current engagements, I can easily block out several hours to spend on a game. However, there have been other times in my life when I've had a 'regular' job; during those times, I've gone months or years without playing a computer game for the reasons cited above.
Another downside for older gamers is that the 'costs' of spending lots of time on games are higher--e.g., it can interfere with work (and income), can cause serious marital problems, and so on. I know a man in his early 30s whose marriage is undergoing severe stress largely because of his obsession with HalfLife 2. In my own case, I have from time to time simply thrown away games because I felt I was wasting too much time playing them and not enough time on other projects (books, etc.).
My own preferences tend to be strategy/simulation games, including historical war games and large-scale strategy games (the Civ games and various space-based 4x [eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate] games). I tend to prefer turn-based games over real-time strategy (RTS) games, but have still spent time with the latter (e.g., LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth). I've played several RPGs (e.g., DungeonSiege, Neverwinter Nights, Freelancer) and even some MMORPGs (Earth and Beyond). While first-person shooter (FPS) games are not my first choice, I'll cheerfully play them if the subject matter is interesting; I've bought and played several of the Star Wars FPS games (Republic Commando, Battlefront I and II).
Were I to design for 'grey gamers', I would probably focus on the following:
Beyond that, I'd apply some of my own preferences on game design:
FWIW. ..bruce..
Objective-C probably remains my all-time favorite programming language (from some 30 years of programming) simply because it was so clean: ANSI C with a handful of syntactical and semantic extensions for OO development. I used it professionally for 5+ years and found it a delight (compared to, say, C++).
..bruce..
On the other hand, it's been 10 years since I did any Obj-C coding, so I don't know how the current Obj-C implementation compares to the current implementations of Java and C#; there may well be features in Java and C# that I'd be unwilling to give up to go back to Obj-C.
I remember hearing a rumor back in the early 1990s that Microsoft considered Obj-C for its nascent Visual development tools, but ended up going with C++. Sigh.
It's been nearly 30 years since I took my first (of two) graduate classes in AI. AI was then--and remains now--an area of professional interest (I own about 50 books on AI and/or complexity theory), though I don't actively work or do research in the field. My observation is that AI, like fusion, actually advances at a small fraction of the predicted rate--and, unlike fusion, we don't have any actual working examples of AI.
..bruce..
I'm not saying that AI is impossible--it just appears to be a whole lot harder than we think it is. For that matter, given how little progress (relatively speaking) we've made in some 50 years of AI research, I have to wonder whether we as humans lack the inherent intellect necessary to create AIs equivalent to ourselves, i.e., we're just not smart enough to do it. The reason why I have such an interest in complexity theory is that it may sidestep that problem--but only if human-equivalent intelligence can truly emerge from sub-intelligent agents without becoming bogged down in, ah, the resulting complexity.
No, actually, this is the official review. The February 1984 issue of BYTE (I have the issue in my files) contained the Macintosh product introduction and first look articles. Phil Lemmons, editor-in-chief of BYTE, knowing that I had purchased my own Macintosh, asked if I would like to do the official review, and I did; it was the first article I ever wrote for BYTE.
I did later have a column in BYTE, but that didn't start for nearly a year (June 1985).
How hard is it to write a submission about a product without taking a cheap potshot at the competition? Was this really necessary?
..bruce..
I think so. I did a lot of assembly language programming back in 1974-85, including Z80, 8080, 8086, 6502, and 680x0 (and some more bizarre ones, like the F8, Perkin Elmer 8/32, DG Nova, and some mainframes as well). I loved the 6502 for its compact simplicity (let's hear it for Page 0!). I loved the 680x0 for its orthogonality and clean address space. I swore at Intel on a regular basis.
Hey, it was four in the morning. Whaddya expect? :-)
Of course, having extracted all that I can extract, and facing a move cross-country, I am now contemplating getting rid of the Apple II gear--but part of me just doesn't want to let it go just yet. ..bruce..
P.S. You can see the main loop of the SunDog program here.
The author comments that tsunami warnings may not help much, as people often flock to the coastline to see the giant waves.
..bruce..
Robert Heinlein noted that human tendency in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress--when the rebelling Lunatics drop a large rock on Earth in a relatively isolated spot (somewhere in Kansas, if I recall correctly) to demonstrate their ability to fight back, large numbers of people flock to the location to watch--and are killed.
Yeah, I post that this morning, fly to Chicago, check again, and...the odds are now zip. Ah, my brief shot at /. fame ruined by the cold equations. :-) ..bruce..
...that April 13, 2029 is a Friday?
:-) ..bruce..
Not a good omen.
[ObCreds: BSCS, with some graduate work; close to 30 years in the IT industry]
:-) ..bruce..
IMHO, a PhD in Computer Science is useful for: doing research and/or getting a tenured position at a university; becoming a high-end consultant; getting a CTO/chief scientist position at a large corporation or a hot startup; being an expert witness (litigation support).
Other than that, I'm not sure that it helps much, and it can definitely hurt you in many classic IT situations. Far too many organizations see IT jobs as 'commodity' positions (witness the current rush to off-shore development) and have little idea as to how to attract, identify, hire, and retain quality IT personnel. Such firms may well see your PhD as an 'overqualification'; a few may even worry about you being 'too smart' to bring in (i.e., a potential troublemaker).
As noted, I don't have a PhD myself, so I speaking only by my own observations; I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of those who do have PhDs and who have been in the trenches. I've toyed with the idea of going back and getting my own PhD several times over the past 25 years--and even had one university offer me a PhD slot with an on-going teaching position--but each time I did a cost/benefit analysis, I decided to pass. I may yet finish my MSCS, though, even at my 'advanced' age.
First, Nemesis didn't tank because of competing films. Nemesis could have been released at any point in the year, however clear the schedule, and it would have tanked. I agree with most of the previous comments as to what's wrong with the ST franchise, including the political correctness, plot holes, cute humor, and Left Coast touchy-feeliness.
..bruce..
Second, I think the real demise of the (movie) franchise came after ST3:TSFS. At that point, you had the Enterprise destroyed and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the run from the Federation in a Klingon cruiser. Stop for a moment and think what a killer movie you could make with that setup, going off on a completely different tangent from anything seen in ST movies or shows, but still true to form to Kirk's approach to problems. Instead, we got ST4:TVH, which put everyone back in their neat little boxes and made everything all better again (and threw in some gee-whiz eco-sensibility about whales). (Did I mention that my wife for Christmas got me a t-shirt that says "Nuke the gay whales!"? And I'm a registered Democrat.)
Anyway, while individual episodes and movies have shown promise, the whole franchise is sinking down to heat death; Nemesis and Enterprise are likely to be the end of the Star Trek franchise. It's been a nice run, but let it go, folks.
Time to recheck my security settings. ..bruce..
Brooks, in the "No Silver Bullet" essay referenced above, stated that there is both essential and accidential complexity in software development, and because of that there never would be a "silver bullet" to slay the software "monster". However, there are fundamental practices that increase the likelihood of success and fundamental pitfalls that every project faces. And, in the end, the root causes of most failed IT projects are human factors; in fact, you could just cite the "seven deadly sins"--pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth--and probably hit the nail on the head.
In conjuction with that, far, far too many practitioners in the IT field lack one or more of the following:
To quote George Santayana (who is often misquoted):
Software engineering is hard enough--with all the human issues--without further handicapping ourselves with ignorance of all that has been already discovered and documented. Yet that is exactly what most IT workers do. Until we find a way to solve _that_ problem, the failure rate for IT projects will remain high indeed. ..bruce..
Firefly: I threw the "science fiction" label out the window as soon as they mentioned finding a "new system with hundreds of [habitable, or at least, terriformed] planets". But that's OK. The show doesn't take itself seriously; neither should the folks hyperventilating here about it. (That is, they shouldn't take themselves so seriously.) (Or the show.) My wife loved it; I enjoyed it.
..bruce..
The real irony in comparing Firefly with Star Trek is that the original Star Trek series was pitched to the TV studios as "Wagon Train to the Stars" ("Wagon Train" was an actual TV series, one that I'm old enough to have watched). Star Trek, of course, wasn't like Wagon Train at all. Star Trek's actual genesis was, I firmly believe, "Forbidden Planet" (still one of the 10 best SF movies of all time, even nearly 50 years later); watch it sometime and tell me it isn't a classic Star Trek episode, except with better acting and effects. But if Gene Roddenberry had pitched Star Trek as weekly episodes of "Forbidden Planet", the series would likely have died a-borning. (Now _there_ would be an interesting alternative history short story--recast the cultural history of the last 35 years w/out Star Trek.)
By contrast, Firefly really is "Wagon Train to the Stars", but with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It mocks both SF and westerns, two quintessent American media genres. It was entertaining and enjoyable, which is more than I can say for most of what's on TV.
John Doe: I was disappointed in this one. It's a "Pretender" variant, except the main character isn't as sympathetic as Jared. I'll give it a few more episodes, but I have less hope for this one. Look for a mid-season replacement.
I took a grad-level AI class in college nearly 30 years ago; our final exam was a round-robin tournament among Go-playing programs that we had to write. (More precisely, we each wrote two routines--one to evaluate the board, one to generated a list of moves--and a minimax framework called our routines.) It was a great introduction as to why AI is hard.
..bruce..
I still play Go occasionally, and though I am a mediocre player at best, I can usually beat any Go-playing programs that I've found.
As for the argument that the few surviving tsetse flies could replenish the entire population: you're forgetting natural predators, the survivors having to find one another, and other population checks. If that argument were generally true, we would have no need for an 'Endangered Species Act'. :-) ..bruce..
Yeah, it took until my third viewing of the film to get past this. The first viewing, it was pretty jarring--every time Weaving was on the screen; I kept expecting him to slip on some sunglasses and make low-key sarcastic threats. Not his fault, of course; shows what a great job he did in The Matrix.
On my third viewing, though, I enjoyed him as Elrond. Certainly a kick-butt kind of elf. ..bruce..
When I think of a movie I'd like to see, day or night, I get on line and add it to my queue. It shows up at some point, I eventually get around to watching it, and then I drop it in the mail. My wife and daughter likewise add to the queue as they wish.
The savings in time and convenience, as well as the selection, far outweigh the occasional queue delays. I've had no quality problems with the DVDs. And I actually spend less per month, even with my somewhat-enhanced membership (5 DVDs out at once) than I did when visiting Blockbuster/Hollywood on a semi-regular basis.
That's my take on Netflix. Your mileage may vary.
..bruce..
Over the past ten years, I have found the single most effective way to deal with or prevent lower back pain is to do the 20-minute stretching portion of Kathy Smith's Instant Workout Tape on a regular or as-needed basis. Seriously. I still use it, though not nearly as often as I should. (It also helps with my weight lifting--both the pumping-iron kind and the moving-my-bloated-aging-carcass-around kind.)
This is not a commercial endorsement. No money changed hands. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. ..bruce..
Why get completely out if you knew it was coming? You should have short sold the dot coms and made a bundle.
My investments were in a 401(k), not in hand-picked stocks. The 401(k) offered numerous investment vehicles (various stock funds, REITs, bonds, etc.). I had about 50% of my money divided among 2 or 3 stock funds; in February, I transferred all that money out of stocks and into other investments w/in the 401(k).
As it was, I spent a month wondering if I had been overly concerns (since tech stocks kept going up until mid-March). ..bruce..
Perhaps the most amusing/saddening aspect of the dot.com crash is that so many Slashdot posters would read the story above and think it was real. As many others have pointed out, the real stories aren't all that different (and some are worse).
Though it's easy to say (and hard to prove), I saw the dot.com crash coming. (One piece of evidence: I got out of the stock market completely in February of 2000.) I've been involved in two different startups and have helped bring half a dozen commercial software products to market. I know how tough and unforgiving the market can be, even with good intentions, a decent product, and competent management. Been there, done that, wrote a book about it.
Here, by contrast, were these dot.coms blowing through more venture capital in a month than the last startup I was with used in five years, with no product, no business plan, and no experience in winning and maintaining a customer base. Even under normal circumstance, two out of three VC investments fold--and the VCs still make money, lots of it. The dot.com mania suckered both entreprenuers and investors; the resulting death rate is more like nine out of ten, and many VC firms are hurting in a way they never have before.
I'm not thrilled about the subsequent crash, since it's having an impact all over the economy. My own employer is 'retrenching'; since my current practice isn't sufficiently profitable for their needs, I'm going to be 'spinning off' to run it as an independent. I'll do fine. It's not the first time I've been through this, and it's not the first time that we've been through a tech-related boom-and-bust cycle. But I was hoping to build up a pension over the next dozen years or so. Now I have to do it the hard way, while paying my own employment tax, benefits, legal and accounting services, infrastructure, etc.
I _am_ amused by how every time the stock market rallies a bit, commentators jump in to speculate whether things are going to turn upwards again. To borrow an earlier poster's phrase, I fear we are going scrape along the bottom for some time. I'd love to be wrong about that, but I fear the worse (in the tech sector and possibly in the economy) may stil be yet to come. ..bruce..