Europe and Japan can run with GSM because they are more densely populated than the US, but you need hefty chunky phones because of your wide open spaces?
If this is the case, what incentive does the rest of the world have to take up your standard? Their cute little GSM phones will work fine for them. If you're right, though, GSM won't take off in the US, so your standard will at least prevail on your own turf.
I wouldn't count on it, though. I'm Australian. You think the US is sparsely populated? Australia has a population similar to that of New York, only it's spread over a continent. And we're pretty happy with GSM: most Aussies I know who've been to the US were unimpressed with the mobile phone system there.
I'm an Australian CS tutor (I believe Americans call us "T/As"). I have a couple of points:
1) When my students grizzle that we're teaching them C and MIPS R2000 assembler instead of Java and Pentium assembler, I point out to them that in my first year, 1986, I learned interpreted Pascal and VAX Macro. Where would I be if I'd refused to learn anything apart from what I did at Uni? Unemployable, that's where. Current vendors would like you to think that their products are the final phase of computer technology and will never be outdated. This is, of course, horseshit. If you graduate with a BCompSci and manage to make a professional programmer of yourself, you'll be retraining yourself every couple of years.
2) A related point: people who get most of their computer knowledge from the back of PC Week or similar publications will get the impression that programmers need to know some API or another, and will jump to the conclusion that universities should teach an API (such as.NET). It seems to me that APIs come and go, and this year's.NET specialist will be next year's dole recipient if s/he isn't willing and able to retrain to the next fashionable package. As a University, my institution is offering training as a background to a lifetime of employment. We're trying to give you the tools with which you can re-educate yourself: flexibility, critical thinking, logic, and a sound understanding of the basics. You won't come out of one of *my* prac classes without knowing what a "core dump" is for!
3) Recently, the IT Support department at my university tried to make MS Visual C++ the standard C compiler in our PC labs. The first-year lecturers overrode them: we're currently using Borland C++ for those first-years who choose not to use Linux/GCC (first-year pracs can be done under the OS of their choice, but we enforce linux for subsequent years). The key reason for Borland over Microsoft in this case is that students can fetch a compatible C compiler that they can use at home from borland.com, for free. Not cheap. Free. As in beer. Oh yeah, and when you go to tell me how cheap the academic versions of things are, please remember that the Australian dollar is worth bugger-all at the moment, so it's going to be twice as many of our dollars...
I don't think that a rental model will avoid major bumps. Software vendors will still want to add new features, change their UI when it starts to look a bit five minutes ago, etc. Presumably, users of rented software will still be forced to "upgrade" every so often, as otherwise vendors end up having to support legacy versions; renters, however, can be forced to upgrade with appropriate tinkering of the activation model.
The problem is that end-users don't actually like having to learn a new interface just to keep using the same software to do the same job. In my experience, most people learn to use their software by rote: "click here then click there then type XYZZY in the text box". Anyone who manages to form a coherent mental model of what the application is actually doing is a genuine Power User in my book. I really hate the idea of forcing rote-learners to acquire a new interface every time the UI designers read a new textbook on the Right Way to Interact.
I accept that sometimes upgrades are issued to give the product useful new features or fix bugs, but I suspect many of the upgrades out there are simply attempts to provide incremental additions of arty-farty graphics-weenie k3w1n355.
Dr. Damian Conway is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Software Engineering at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), where he teaches object-oriented software engineering.
And first-year Intro to Programming.
Yes, as well as his services to the Perl community, Damian is also responsible to introducing roughly two hundred first-year students a year to the wonders of programming, and I am one of the tutors (I think Americans call us TAs) who gets those students the semester after that. I'm really not looking forward to taking students who haven't had his input.
If anyone else from Monash reads this: do you think we ought to solicit donations to keep him here?
Position Linux to developers as a viable gaming platform. This is the most difficult task...
I don't think it'll be all that difficult. Developers themselves seem to love linux. Why? Well, if your job involved pushing your hardware to its limits to squeeze out more frames per second, with lots of low level device access in there, you'd really like a system with sensible memory protection.
There's even actual documentation out there for linux! That's not the case for a lot of consoles. And if you find a bug in your devkit, you might even be allowed to fix it!
The people who still need convincing are the money men who stand behind the game developers and pay them their (pitiful) salaries. Now that linux is getting a sizeable user base, money is beginning to trickle in.
Disclaimer: I'm not a game developer, but the man who fills my hot water bottles is.
...to develop a genetic map indicating which components... determine certain human traits, from depression to disease to susceptibility to addiction to eye color or artistic ability.
I'm not a geneticist, but it's my understanding that genes don't actually code for traits per se but for much, much lower level phenomena: for the production of certain proteins or enzymes, for example. This means that many genetic disorders can be said to have their origin in "a gene", in the same way that a program may have a bug in a function. A = creeps in where you meant ==, or a sequence is omitted or duplicated, and there you go -- Huntingdon's chorea or whatever.
On the other hand, I do not believe that there is a single gene, or even a gene complex, that is responsible for phenomena such as musical talent or even complaisance or physical beauty. To extend the computer metaphor, these traits are like the behaviour of a very complex suite of programs running on poorly-understood hardware and most importantly, operating on incomprehensible amounts of data. The program is the genetic code, the hardware is the physical body and the data is life experience: percepts, if you like. (yes, I know that programs don't create hardware, but things can happen to the body that are not coded for in the DNA: injuries, for example.) How would you program so as to ensure or avoid a given output behaviour, when you have no control over the data?
It seems pretty obvious to me that output is not solely determined by algorithm but also by the input data. Acculturation seems to me to be a much better predictor of human behaviour than genetics: in small, less genetically diverse communities, I think there is more variation in temperament than can be accounted for by genetics alone. Look at thoroughbred racehorses!
Furthermore, even if it were possible to find a part (or parts) of the genome that is responsible for, say, intelligence, such a discovery lies a long way beyond determining which parts of the DNA sequence code for which protein. It's like the difference between a neuron and a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
Sue people... for copying the creativity gene?
I guess if they don't have it, they're not going to come up with it themselves, are they?
> Would Brittney be flashing her belly button for > Pepsi or, would she be doing Country & Western > in some sleazy dive in Ohio for $8 an hour?
If only. Oh, if only.
Roll on the death of mass corporate advertising, and the consequent tyranny of the talented.
If this is the case, what incentive does the rest of the world have to take up your standard? Their cute little GSM phones will work fine for them. If you're right, though, GSM won't take off in the US, so your standard will at least prevail on your own turf.
I wouldn't count on it, though. I'm Australian. You think the US is sparsely populated? Australia has a population similar to that of New York, only it's spread over a continent. And we're pretty happy with GSM: most Aussies I know who've been to the US were unimpressed with the mobile phone system there.
I'm an Australian CS tutor (I believe Americans call us "T/As"). I have a couple of points:
.NET). It seems to me that APIs come and go, and this year's .NET specialist will be next year's dole recipient if s/he isn't willing and able to retrain to the next fashionable package. As a University, my institution is offering training as a background to a lifetime of employment. We're trying to give you the tools with which you can re-educate yourself: flexibility, critical thinking, logic, and a sound understanding of the basics. You won't come out of one of *my* prac classes without knowing what a "core dump" is for!
1) When my students grizzle that we're teaching them C and MIPS R2000 assembler instead of Java and Pentium assembler, I point out to them that in my first year, 1986, I learned interpreted Pascal and VAX Macro. Where would I be if I'd refused to learn anything apart from what I did at Uni? Unemployable, that's where. Current vendors would like you to think that their products are the final phase of computer technology and will never be outdated. This is, of course, horseshit. If you graduate with a BCompSci and manage to make a professional programmer of yourself, you'll be retraining yourself every couple of years.
2) A related point: people who get most of their computer knowledge from the back of PC Week or similar publications will get the impression that programmers need to know some API or another, and will jump to the conclusion that universities should teach an API (such as
3) Recently, the IT Support department at my university tried to make MS Visual C++ the standard C compiler in our PC labs. The first-year lecturers overrode them: we're currently using Borland C++ for those first-years who choose not to use Linux/GCC (first-year pracs can be done under the OS of their choice, but we enforce linux for subsequent years). The key reason for Borland over Microsoft in this case is that students can fetch a compatible C compiler that they can use at home from borland.com, for free. Not cheap. Free. As in beer. Oh yeah, and when you go to tell me how cheap the academic versions of things are, please remember that the Australian dollar is worth bugger-all at the moment, so it's going to be twice as many of our dollars...
The problem is that end-users don't actually like having to learn a new interface just to keep using the same software to do the same job. In my experience, most people learn to use their software by rote: "click here then click there then type XYZZY in the text box". Anyone who manages to form a coherent mental model of what the application is actually doing is a genuine Power User in my book. I really hate the idea of forcing rote-learners to acquire a new interface every time the UI designers read a new textbook on the Right Way to Interact.
I accept that sometimes upgrades are issued to give the product useful new features or fix bugs, but I suspect many of the upgrades out there are simply attempts to provide incremental additions of arty-farty graphics-weenie k3w1n355.
Dr. Damian Conway is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Software Engineering at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), where he teaches object-oriented software engineering. And first-year Intro to Programming. Yes, as well as his services to the Perl community, Damian is also responsible to introducing roughly two hundred first-year students a year to the wonders of programming, and I am one of the tutors (I think Americans call us TAs) who gets those students the semester after that. I'm really not looking forward to taking students who haven't had his input. If anyone else from Monash reads this: do you think we ought to solicit donations to keep him here?
I don't think it'll be all that difficult. Developers themselves seem to love linux. Why? Well, if your job involved pushing your hardware to its limits to squeeze out more frames per second, with lots of low level device access in there, you'd really like a system with sensible memory protection.
There's even actual documentation out there for linux! That's not the case for a lot of consoles. And if you find a bug in your devkit, you might even be allowed to fix it!
The people who still need convincing are the money men who stand behind the game developers and pay them their (pitiful) salaries. Now that linux is getting a sizeable user base, money is beginning to trickle in.
Disclaimer: I'm not a game developer, but the man who fills my hot water bottles is.
I'm not a geneticist, but it's my understanding that genes don't actually code for traits per se but for much, much lower level phenomena: for the production of certain proteins or enzymes, for example. This means that many genetic disorders can be said to have their origin in "a gene", in the same way that a program may have a bug in a function. A = creeps in where you meant ==, or a sequence is omitted or duplicated, and there you go -- Huntingdon's chorea or whatever.
On the other hand, I do not believe that there is a single gene, or even a gene complex, that is responsible for phenomena such as musical talent or even complaisance or physical beauty. To extend the computer metaphor, these traits are like the behaviour of a very complex suite of programs running on poorly-understood hardware and most importantly, operating on incomprehensible amounts of data. The program is the genetic code, the hardware is the physical body and the data is life experience: percepts, if you like. (yes, I know that programs don't create hardware, but things can happen to the body that are not coded for in the DNA: injuries, for example.) How would you program so as to ensure or avoid a given output behaviour, when you have no control over the data?
It seems pretty obvious to me that output is not solely determined by algorithm but also by the input data. Acculturation seems to me to be a much better predictor of human behaviour than genetics: in small, less genetically diverse communities, I think there is more variation in temperament than can be accounted for by genetics alone. Look at thoroughbred racehorses!
Furthermore, even if it were possible to find a part (or parts) of the genome that is responsible for, say, intelligence, such a discovery lies a long way beyond determining which parts of the DNA sequence code for which protein. It's like the difference between a neuron and a thought.
I don't mind the occasional ACK, but I get worried when my hands start to NAK.