Do you want to work on the client side or server side? If client, do you prefer Java/Android or Objective-C/iOS? If server-side then the answer is less clear as there are more competing technologies. If you choose to learn a dynamic scripting language I'd choose Python over Ruby or PHP. Having a working knowledge of traditional SQL is usually handy, though, nowdays, you can also pick one of the non-RDBMS alternatives and go deep on that. Coming from a C-based embedded environment I'd recommend you take some time to really "get" object-oriented design so that your Java (or Objective-C) code doesn't look like it was obviously written by a firmware engineer.
I'm not seeing on that page where it says the rates are only discounted for 12 months. They mention a $10 "online discount", but there's no indication it only lasts for 12 months. Though I certainly wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
I don't pay anything right now because I don't have cable or satellite. I watch a few shows over-the-air and go to a restaurant or bar (or my in-laws place) when I want to watch a sports event that's only on cable. Sports is about the only thing I want to watch that's not broadcast OTA.
Just priced it out and you seem to be right. Uverse is only cost-competitive at 3 Mbps and ~20 Mbps price points, and then only when you use the one-year discounted rate. For $35/mo you get 15 Mbps with TWC vs. 6 Mbps with Uverse. This assumes those Time Warner rates aren't also "fake" one-year discounts.
Uverse:
3 Mbps: $41/mo ($30/mo for first 12 months)
6 Mbps: $46/mo ($35/mo for first 12 months)
18 Mbps: $56/mo ($45/mo for first 12 months)
24 Mbps: $66/mo ($55/mo for first 12 months)
Would you like metered television too? No longer broadcast to you 24/7, now you get to watch 90 minutes a day, and after that you have to pay? Would that make sense to you?
I might actually pay for cable if it worked like that, assuming that plan came at a steep discount over the current "all you can eat" model.
Seems like it would work a bit like electricity provision, though, where you have buy backbone bandwidth based on "peak" usage vs. average. How does that change the equation, if at all?
I'd be fine with that pricing model if it came with the stipulation that network providers be "source/destination neutral". Here's a helpful thought experiment:
Imagine if, overnight, every customer turned into a 5GB/mo customer. Take the amount by which that would lower the provider's cost and divide it by the number of customers. This is what the "base" price should be for 5 GB/mo. Now take that same amount and calculate the per GB price (over 5 GB) the provider would need charge to recoup that same amount, taking into account that charging on a per-usage basis will depress usage relative to the status quo (and that depressed usage will also lower costs; solve for the equilibrium). Voila. Each customer's price now roughly matches his or her cost to the provider. Sub-5 GB/mo customers will see their rates drop, as will those whose usage falls beneath some inflection point. Customers whose usage exceeds this inflection point will see their cost increase at a level proportional to their data usage.
I don't run NoScript. I've never. Ever. Been infected by some drive-by exploit that running NoScript would have prevented. If you run it because you want sites to load faster that's one thing. At least it makes sense. Running NoScript for security reasons is, IMO, unreasonable.
"Not worth your time" is inherently subjective. Maybe I like using Gmail? Or Netflix? Etc. You're essentially advocating that users opt-out of all modern websites. Maybe you find that restriction acceptable; I don't.
The "entire internet of sites" comment neglects the fact that certain cites are disproportionately more useful (on a highly subjective level) than others. If there's a community site centered around some obscure game I play and its literally the only site of its kind on the internet? There's no replacement. I can't take solace in the fact that there's "a whole internet" of other sites I can visit; I don't want to visit those sites, I want to visit a particular site that happens to be annoyingly riddled with ads.
They're not...right now. But remember: we're talking about an arms race. Treating a black list of host names as black holes may work right now, but its pretty easy to imagine how it could be defeated if the practice became widespread.
And if the ads are served from the site you actually need to interact with? At file paths that aren't easily distinguishable from the site's non-advertisement content?
I guess it wouldn't count to run their app on a rooted phone that presents compromised APIs to the apps? Or crack it open, inject logging code, repackage and resign it then submit it to a third-party marketplace? That is to say, the standard security problems all apps face as opposed to a flaw specific to the Wickr app?
Most of the good schools make everyone take a placement exam at the school you want to attend, even if you take AP classes.
Not sure this is true. Though, it may depend on how you define "good school". Harvard only lets you count them toward graduation if you have a full year's worth of credit. However, with a high enough score they let you use them to fulfill prerequisites for other courses. Scores on the foreign language exams regardless of whether you have a full year of credit.
I'd argue they're roughly equivalent if you're planning to study computer science as an undergraduate. Whichever you don't take in high school you'll end up taking at university, so there's no knowledge lost. If it were the case that university Calculus courses sucked but intro Computer Science classes were amazing then yeah, I'd agree you're better off taking the Calculus AP exam so you don't have to take it at university. But...that's probably no the case. Both intro courses are usually pretty lame. If you're a high school principal deciding which to offer, though, then I agree Calculus makes more sense, but only because it appeals to a larger number of students (by virtue of being a requirement for a broader range of degrees).
Makes sense to me. That doesn't explain the dearth of women in tech, though, because men should have the same financial motivation to become doctors as you do.
She claims that of the ~15,000 schools offering at least one AP course only 2300 offer an AP Computer Science course.
Re: cost, the cost may be high for some, but presumably you're only taking the AP exam if you're planning to attend college. If that's the case then the cost of the exam is small compared to the cost of taking the course for real. Then again, if you're someone for whom the cost of an AP exam is significant then maybe you're not going to be paying tuition anyway.
In some ways it makes sense that the CS exam is less popular than the other because it's narrowly focused. Compare it to the English exam. Most colleges require you to take an English class regardless of what degree you're pursuing. So every college-bound high school student would benefit from taking the English exam. Ditto History. Calculus is less broad, but its still a requirement for all the Engineering degrees, Business, Math, Computer Science and all the hard sciences. Computer Science, on the other hand, is usually only a requirement for the Computer Science degree, maybe Engineering and maybe Math.
If you drill down to some of her Excel spreadsheets you'll find that the overall number of female CS exam takers was 18.5%. One might explain that by arguing that women just don't like math/science/etc. But you'll also find that 48% of Calculus AB exam takers were women. Possible explanation: you need calculus if you're planning to do pre-Med as an undergraduate and lots of women wants to be doctors. Apparently very few women want to be software devs and/or engineers. But it's not because they're unwilling to take a math class, as we can see from the rate of females taking the Calculus exam.
Slashdot Mirror
Is IBM just "Global Services" now?
Do you want to work on the client side or server side? If client, do you prefer Java/Android or Objective-C/iOS? If server-side then the answer is less clear as there are more competing technologies. If you choose to learn a dynamic scripting language I'd choose Python over Ruby or PHP. Having a working knowledge of traditional SQL is usually handy, though, nowdays, you can also pick one of the non-RDBMS alternatives and go deep on that. Coming from a C-based embedded environment I'd recommend you take some time to really "get" object-oriented design so that your Java (or Objective-C) code doesn't look like it was obviously written by a firmware engineer.
I'm not seeing on that page where it says the rates are only discounted for 12 months. They mention a $10 "online discount", but there's no indication it only lasts for 12 months. Though I certainly wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
I don't pay anything right now because I don't have cable or satellite. I watch a few shows over-the-air and go to a restaurant or bar (or my in-laws place) when I want to watch a sports event that's only on cable. Sports is about the only thing I want to watch that's not broadcast OTA.
Just priced it out and you seem to be right. Uverse is only cost-competitive at 3 Mbps and ~20 Mbps price points, and then only when you use the one-year discounted rate. For $35/mo you get 15 Mbps with TWC vs. 6 Mbps with Uverse. This assumes those Time Warner rates aren't also "fake" one-year discounts.
Time Warner:
2 Mbps: $15/mo
3 Mbps: $30/mo
15 Mbps: $35/mo
20 Mbps: $45/mo
30 Mbps: $55/mo + $6/mo modem rental
50 Mbps: $65/mo + $6/mo modem rental
Uverse:
3 Mbps: $41/mo ($30/mo for first 12 months)
6 Mbps: $46/mo ($35/mo for first 12 months)
18 Mbps: $56/mo ($45/mo for first 12 months)
24 Mbps: $66/mo ($55/mo for first 12 months)
Yep. Overpriced internet is still a ludicrous reason to conclude "WORST COUNTRY EVER".
I dub this post "First World Problems, Slashdot version". I have to pay $30/month for 5Mbit/s internet?!? WORST COUNTRY EVER .
I might actually pay for cable if it worked like that, assuming that plan came at a steep discount over the current "all you can eat" model.
Seems like it would work a bit like electricity provision, though, where you have buy backbone bandwidth based on "peak" usage vs. average. How does that change the equation, if at all?
Where, if I may ask? I thought U-Verse was available most places Roadrunner is. Can check here.
Ah, I see what you did there.
I'd be fine with that pricing model if it came with the stipulation that network providers be "source/destination neutral". Here's a helpful thought experiment:
Imagine if, overnight, every customer turned into a 5GB/mo customer. Take the amount by which that would lower the provider's cost and divide it by the number of customers. This is what the "base" price should be for 5 GB/mo. Now take that same amount and calculate the per GB price (over 5 GB) the provider would need charge to recoup that same amount, taking into account that charging on a per-usage basis will depress usage relative to the status quo (and that depressed usage will also lower costs; solve for the equilibrium). Voila. Each customer's price now roughly matches his or her cost to the provider. Sub-5 GB/mo customers will see their rates drop, as will those whose usage falls beneath some inflection point. Customers whose usage exceeds this inflection point will see their cost increase at a level proportional to their data usage.
I don't run NoScript. I've never. Ever. Been infected by some drive-by exploit that running NoScript would have prevented. If you run it because you want sites to load faster that's one thing. At least it makes sense. Running NoScript for security reasons is, IMO, unreasonable.
"Not worth your time" is inherently subjective. Maybe I like using Gmail? Or Netflix? Etc. You're essentially advocating that users opt-out of all modern websites. Maybe you find that restriction acceptable; I don't.
The "entire internet of sites" comment neglects the fact that certain cites are disproportionately more useful (on a highly subjective level) than others. If there's a community site centered around some obscure game I play and its literally the only site of its kind on the internet? There's no replacement. I can't take solace in the fact that there's "a whole internet" of other sites I can visit; I don't want to visit those sites, I want to visit a particular site that happens to be annoyingly riddled with ads.
They're not...right now. But remember: we're talking about an arms race. Treating a black list of host names as black holes may work right now, but its pretty easy to imagine how it could be defeated if the practice became widespread.
And when a site doesn't work correctly with javascript disabled?
And if the ads are served from the site you actually need to interact with? At file paths that aren't easily distinguishable from the site's non-advertisement content?
I guess it wouldn't count to run their app on a rooted phone that presents compromised APIs to the apps? Or crack it open, inject logging code, repackage and resign it then submit it to a third-party marketplace? That is to say, the standard security problems all apps face as opposed to a flaw specific to the Wickr app?
Not sure this is true. Though, it may depend on how you define "good school". Harvard only lets you count them toward graduation if you have a full year's worth of credit. However, with a high enough score they let you use them to fulfill prerequisites for other courses. Scores on the foreign language exams regardless of whether you have a full year of credit.
I'd argue they're roughly equivalent if you're planning to study computer science as an undergraduate. Whichever you don't take in high school you'll end up taking at university, so there's no knowledge lost. If it were the case that university Calculus courses sucked but intro Computer Science classes were amazing then yeah, I'd agree you're better off taking the Calculus AP exam so you don't have to take it at university. But...that's probably no the case. Both intro courses are usually pretty lame. If you're a high school principal deciding which to offer, though, then I agree Calculus makes more sense, but only because it appeals to a larger number of students (by virtue of being a requirement for a broader range of degrees).
Makes sense to me. That doesn't explain the dearth of women in tech, though, because men should have the same financial motivation to become doctors as you do.
I might, actually. Just to spite the misogynists. I suspect I would have been really obnoxious as a woman. Even more so than I am as a man. :)
She claims that of the ~15,000 schools offering at least one AP course only 2300 offer an AP Computer Science course.
Re: cost, the cost may be high for some, but presumably you're only taking the AP exam if you're planning to attend college. If that's the case then the cost of the exam is small compared to the cost of taking the course for real. Then again, if you're someone for whom the cost of an AP exam is significant then maybe you're not going to be paying tuition anyway.
In some ways it makes sense that the CS exam is less popular than the other because it's narrowly focused. Compare it to the English exam. Most colleges require you to take an English class regardless of what degree you're pursuing. So every college-bound high school student would benefit from taking the English exam. Ditto History. Calculus is less broad, but its still a requirement for all the Engineering degrees, Business, Math, Computer Science and all the hard sciences. Computer Science, on the other hand, is usually only a requirement for the Computer Science degree, maybe Engineering and maybe Math.
If you drill down to some of her Excel spreadsheets you'll find that the overall number of female CS exam takers was 18.5%. One might explain that by arguing that women just don't like math/science/etc. But you'll also find that 48% of Calculus AB exam takers were women. Possible explanation: you need calculus if you're planning to do pre-Med as an undergraduate and lots of women wants to be doctors. Apparently very few women want to be software devs and/or engineers. But it's not because they're unwilling to take a math class, as we can see from the rate of females taking the Calculus exam.