Downloading from couch with laptop facing "array" across room, 100% signal strength
Dog walks into room between laptop and array, 30% signal strength while dog passes
Child walks in room and stands in front of you to talk to you, 0% signal strength until conversation ends, or kid dies for cutting off your slashdot post mid submit!
Wife walks in with credit card bill with pr0n charges, array gets smashed and you get served.
Ladies and gentlemen, please. Let me try and *NOT* use a car analogy, but a direct professional parallel. Coders "own their code" after it has been paid for, like an architect owns a building after it's been built/paid for.
Why is this an important distinction/parallel? Easy. The architect passes liability for faults off to the owner after a certain period of time, agreed upon in an initial contract. When the certificate of occupancy (i.e., quality assurance) is issued, and the client takes possession of the building they paid the architect (and engineers, and contractors) to build, it's no longer the architect's liability to maintain that building. That is, unless they are contracted again to do so, for more pay (i.e., a maintenance contract on a piece of software, a la RedHat).
So, do you really want to own that source code, or would you rather treat it like a building that you designed where you document the project, keep all the original source files, learn from the experience, possibly (if not expressly forbidden in your contract) reuse some of the objects of that code in other projects? Oh, don't get me wrong, I am all about "licensing" significant works, like a file system that's new, a new sort of material connection for structure or aesthetics, or something really unique along either of those lines. But, to think that you would want to claim full ownership and responsibility for every bit of code you write could entail a lot more headache than you would care to even think of taking on.
Code is not like a book! Code has utility, function as an executable binary beyond just the lines of text that comprise its source. It is a creative work of form and function, much like a building. Things can go on inside it that, in turn, can also be creative works on their own. Do you presume to own those as well? Would an architect own any ideas conceived within the walls of the buildings he/she designed?
Use them to pull some nice Cat5e (or Cat6) of your own. Those coaxial cables are pretty strong, and as long as they are not stapled to studs inside the wall you should be able to lop the connectors off the far end and pull some nice Cat5e/6 using the old coax as the puller. Grip it and rip it, baby!
That seems a harsh way to find out that your Windows machine has been rooted.
I don't know about anyone else, but I would think that any way you find out your machine is rooted is going to be harsh. Sure, the not booting thing is annoying (still don't know why Windows or Intel/AMD chpsets don't support a Target Disk Mode for events like this), but finding out that someone else has had free reign over your machine for who knows how long (whether it is currently booting or not) is a harsh reality.
If all your processes must communicate with each other constantly, you lose the benefits of having each process processed by a different core.
This statement is just flat wrong, and hardly insightful. The only time this condition is true is if you are dealing with processors *completely isolated* from each other's memory resources. To my knowledge, there is no such beast (cluster or multi-core system) and hasn't been since the days before MPI and OpenMP (or their predecessors) existed. The only bottlenecks in the above quoted situation are latency and bandwidth so that each process CAN communicate simultaneously with any other process, running on any core, tied to the same high-speed bus/network. There are actually other ways to create data parallelism within a system so that even discrete processors can still contribute work toward a larger problem.
...what new sites or services started the day of the first stripe? Given that you did a every 40th sample this could potentially be a sampling error, or a moire pattern caused by said sampling error.
I'd go with a site or service coming online somewhere within the organization where the data came from. If it's a higher-education institution it could have been anything or anyone setting up a website, or it could even have been a trojan or virus that is now using a machine to tunnel through the firewall and share music, video or warez.
Ahhh, but where did you try to use it, and for what purpose? This device will not be a primary computer for someone (well, maybe a few of the less computer literate masses), but will serve as a consumer device/appliance for: media browsing and viewing, gaming, and spot utility computing much like the iPhone and iPod Touch now.
People seem to be getting stuck on the idea that this thing will be a fully software customizable compute device like a netbook. It ain't gonna be. It's not even going to run a full version of OS X (latest rumors all pint to a new version of iPhone OS), at least not in the near future, let alone anything like a Linux distro.
How's about we pass judgement on the utility of a device AFTER it comes out and we have at least 90-days to a year to play with it. Any value judgements before that are, well, as useful as a vaporware product.
Last time I checked, computer science *WAS*/*IS* applied mathematics. If you don't like math you should probably consider a different career, or be ready for a long hard road of slogging through a career while the more mathematically inclined advance right past you in the market. I started a software development company last year and I will not hire anyone who is not more proficient (or current/fresh) at mathematics than I am, and I'm pretty good.
If you really, really want to be a developer I'd say to suck it up and take BOTH classes. There's no such thing as too much math if you are a CS major, or just someone that wants to be a developer.
Ok, do I really want to get into a philological discussion on a computer website? NO! Will I ask you to explore how words become part of an official language, and that even bad ones, or improper ones (like those with double negatives) make it into vernacular, dialect, and then possibly the root language? YES! Would I also remind you to look at the 'Usage' and 'Origin' sections of any definition? YES!!!!
Anyone can make up any word, have it spread through a local or regional vernacular, then get it picked up by an entire dialectic group, but if it makes no logical sense it's still ridiculously stupid to use and shows that its user has a poor grasp of written and spoken language as communication.
I know that language changes over time, but 'irregardless', no matter how 'popular', is illogical and thus does not convey meaning, and is thus NOT A WORD! And, I'm out!
Irregardless is not a proper English word. Its usage has *ALWAYS* irked me from when I was a small boy to now. To use common vernacular, it's a mashup of 'irrespective' (one negative; prefix) and regardless (also, one negative; suffix). 'Irregardless' is a double negative and is thusly illogical by construction and would only be understandable to people born in the U.S. since 1970, and those less literate in the U.S. prior to that.
On my words that aren't words list it's right up there with 'impactful'.
Not understanding the different between two different terms shows you haven't been exposed to it.
Different/Same, Difference/Similarity (to play your sig game)
If you're going to point out that words and meaning are important, then you must always read and revise electronic correspondence before clicking "Submit" or "Send", as well as using correct punctuation and capitalization.
Oh, and OP, I'd rather be called an "IT Guy" than a "Computer Guy". I hate it when my friends introduce me as a "Computer Guy", but that's because (to me) computers are tools I use to make a living. They do not define who I am as a person. Again, that's just my opinion, and a pet peeve. Like it or not, people label things. We have little control over how those labels get applied to us if we're not the ones creating them.
...did they test this with headphones?!?! Unless you're spending $1,000.00USD or more for a pair of headphones, then you're certainly not going to tell a lot of difference between the audio tracks as described in the article. You're just not going to get adequate signal reproduction from headphones that cannot accurately represent audio frequencies that are truncated using the sampling rates and encoding methods described. I will also call shenanigans on using downloaded files for the test! What tool was used to encode them? What hardware? Was the tool the same for each song file AND each encoding scheme? Was the encoding algorithm of each scheme similar or the same?
Best pseudo-science remain being called opinion.
First of all, most people don't know shite about audio quality to begin with. They actually think that CDs sound better than records. Not only is that technically inaccurate, it's downright sad.
Second, most people listen to music on crappy headphones or crappy home or car stereos, so obviously they are going to think that a direct digital feed of a symphony from a 24/96 DAC is going to sound like a 128kbps MP3 recording of the same performance.
Third, most people's ears have been damaged in some way that either has killed their low range or high range frequency response in one ear or the other, or both. So, when they say they "CAN'T" tell the difference, they actually mean it.
Finally, who cares? If I had my way we'd all get 32-bit/192kHz quality content for everything that was digital and have either big ass reel-to-reel decks, with 1" or 2" tape or similar analog equipment for recording and playback. But, that ain't practical. So, whatever you can stand is fine. Just don't expect me to buy too much of it if I can only get it in that quality.
I know, I know, the answer is probably, "Yes!", but this thing came within 14,000 km of Earth. I know there's more than a few satellites out at that orbital distance. Did any of them get hit? They never seem to mention the catastrophic consequences to global navigation, communication and weather prediction should one of these objects pass just close enough to take out some key orbiting satellites, let alone hit the planet. Yikes! if one of these flying rocks ever takes out a bunch of satellites as it cruises through!
I'm sorry, I've been alive for twenty years shorter than the parent poster and I do not remember a time when science was ever "popular". Popularized, maybe, with the moon shots and all, but NEVER popular. If science was ever popular how would it ever lose popularity? Think about that for a moment. Science is a constantly changing beast, with something new emerging from an enormous variety of fields... hourly! How could you ever get bored with science should it ever become popular?
I call shenanigans on the whole notion of science having been "popular"... well, ever! Not even in Newton's time, and certainly not Galileo's when it wasn't even called science. Hell, it wasn't even called science until the last, what? 150 years of its existence. It was a branch of philosophy (natural philosophy) before that!
Science has never and probably will never be popular. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but use some scientific method and tell me when science was ever popular. I have no evidence to support the assertion and know of none to even test.
I am reading through these responses and some have good generic questions in them, but a lot of them are questions you should be asking HR BEFORE you interview, i.e., how many people with children work for the company? Your interview team is not going to know that number. HR will.
There were also a lot of common sense, "Duh!", questions in there, i.e., what sysadmins tools do you use?, what code versioning system do you use? If you don't know the specific questions to ask about the discipline or job environment you're applying for then you're in trouble. Maybe that just seems obvious to me?
Finally, "Where's lunch?" is not a question I want to hear come out of a candidate's mouth, unless the interview has gone really well and it's lunch time. That's a "their time" question and is not relevant. A more generic question about benefits and the work environment would be prudent, i.e. "What facilities are available for employees' health and wellness?" That question will cover cafeterias, gyms, day care, etc. and won't make the interviewer think you're only applying for the job because there's a restaurant you like around the corner, or will be hanging out in the cafeteria all day instead of doing work. Of course, this might also be a pre-interview HR question.
First of all, like any good applicant, you should tailor your questions to the information that was unavailable through the company's website, application posting or from the interview itself. Those questions should be based on things that matter to you and have, through your DIRECT experience, been lacking or of high quality in other jobs you have worked. Having a canned set of questions is like having a canned cover letter. They can be spotted immediately and do not reflect well upon the applicant. It shows they haven't done their homework or are just not paying attention. If you want this job and want to work for this company you had better show it in the interview by being focused, not only on the company, its products and services, its people, its benefits, etc., but on the job function you will perform and the personalities of the people in the room.
When you're sitting in the interview room after they've finished grilling you, there's usually an opportunity to reciprocate. There will be some niche questions for specializations (sys admin, programming, PM, QA, etc.), but there are some generic ones that come to mind, such as: what is the (official) dress code?
If you feel like you're being "grilled" then the situation is all kinds of wrong. Either the people interviewing you are not people you'll want to work for, or you are not the right fit for the job. In one of those cases the best thing to do is to excuse yourself from the interview. Don't let it drag out. It's uncomfortable for you and the interviewers. Be the bigger person and admit that this isn't going to work out and thank them for their time.
An interview is not a court proceeding where the plaintiff and the defense get their turn in subsequent order. It should be a dialogue, not an inquisition. You should be asking relevant questions as they come up in your mind, or as the interviewers prompt you with their questions or hypothetical situations. You should not be a passive lump that only responds to stimuli. That is also an indicator of a poor candidate. Will there be tough questions in any job interview? Absolutely, but those questions are usually designed to gauge your response and how you handle yourself more than they are for the actual answer. If the folks on the other side of the table didn't think you had some idea of what the answer was to their toughest of questions, you wouldn't be interviewing.
Finally, if you're worried about dress code then you're definitely in the wrong place and have not done your homework. That question should be asked BEFORE the interview, i.e., "Do I need to wear a suit to the interview?" If you have to dress like you're going before the Supreme Court for the interview then that's usually what the expected attire will be for daily operations. If the dress code isn't "business casual", or you are unclear what that means, then you are applying for the wrong job. In the modern business era, it is highly irregular for employees below the Director or Senior Manager level to be required to wear formal clothing during daily operations. There are exceptions to that rule, but that will come out when you do a little observation and digging of your own. For instance, Enterprise Rental Cars requires all their customer-facing employees to wear formal business attire (coat and tie). You can see that by just visiting any location. Financial companies are very similar. There are no real surprises there unless you're not paying attention.
When I was going through architecture school we were all very proud of designs that we felt were novel or unique. We would get irritated when our professors and the upperclassmen would say, "Everything has been done before." The idea that something we had never seen before, that we had created, could somehow have existed in a time past was completely infuriating. But, as time and experience mounted and we progressed through the history of architecture, art and invention we came to realize that the adage was true. That just because the tools and technologies, materials and methods, exist today to make some 'novel' ideas practical, doesn't mean they weren't conceptualized in a time when they were impractical, or even impossible. The ideas of da Vinci are probably the prime examples in common history, but what of the dozens of unrecognized people that fueled da Vinci's imagination and helped him conceive the helicopter centuries before the technology and intelligence existed to make it a reality?
Having an idea and having the expertise and means to make it a reality are two different things. I have had a few ideas "stolen" from me over the years. Some have been successfully implemented, and some have fallen flat on their faces. Now, was their success or failure due to the merits of the idea or the people and methods used to implement them? Obviously, it's a mixture of both. Having an idea is one thing. Having the know-how, time and money to make it happen are another thing entirely. Most great ideas are too big to tackle alone. It is imperative that you share your idea to recruit talent and funding to help you implement it.
Sharing an idea can be scary, but there are ways to share that will allow you to protect your intellectual property. If you don't have a friend who is a patent attorney (like my friend Lawrence), then you will want to consult one or just follow some good procedures (Google is your friend) to protect the idea so you can refine it, market it, get it funded and get it out there.
Now is the best time to start an entrepreneurial effort. There is little to lose in this economy and a lot to gain. I wish you luck!
Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities.
So. Once they're on the truck they ain't going anywhere. Scan them then!
The ranchers also note that there is no Internet connection on many ranches for filing to a regional database.
Satellite. Cell-based internet. Lame excuse. Business expense that can be (partially) written off.
I'm no "tree hugger", but the overall idea makes perfect logical sense. Your argument that the new "Owner" of the product should be held responsible leads back to the buyer beware attitude. The company producing the product *MUST* be held accountable for the environmental impacts the product has. This is not a "tree hugger" issue any longer. This is about the quality of the environment and ecosystem that the human race needs to sustain itself and how unchecked population growth and consumerism is affecting it.
I'm sorry, but making the disposal of a product that contains toxic or environmentally harmful components the sole responsibility of the consumer is patently irresponsible. It is also irresponsible for a company to knowingly produce a product that contains difficult to dispose of (safely) components and provide no guidance or assistance to the consumer. It may be easy for a person living in a metro area the size of Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas or Atlanta to find a firm that recycles electronics waste, but for a large segment of the population there aren't such facilities nearby or they are unknown because they don't advertise well. Disposing of these products in landfills is not acceptable, unless you are planning on starting a business in the future to mine landfills for precious commodities and mitigate the toxins in them. Let me know how that turns out for you.
Your entitled to your own opinions on this subject, but be prepared to defend them if they are clearly self-serving, ignorant or otherwise indifferent to the well being of us all. The bottom line is we can't keep operating the way we have been and everyone--including big corporations, governments and private citizens--needs to be more responsible. If you think the taxes to do this will be steep, just imagine the penalties for not doing this. Look beyond your own nose, backyard, five minutes into the future, etc. This disposable everything mentality has got to stop, folks!
Didn't read the stub even, but the answer to the question, 'Where are the high-res HMDs?" is simple. The LCDs are being used in projectors that have a much larger market. No matter how cool a high-res HMD may seem, the practicality is limited and therefore so is the potential sales pool. People like to watch things (and show things off) socially, not alone within an HMD. There are some high-res HMDs out there, mind you, but they are quite pricey for obvious reasons. A single 1400x1050 LCD that would fit over your eye (or be in a projector) isn't cheap, then add the fact that you need two of them and the price is easily in the $20,000.00 to $30,000.00USD range for the headset.
But does the high cost and questionable quality of products currently on the market explain why barely 1 in 50 hospitals have a comprehensive electronic records system, and why only 17% of physicians use any type of electronic records?
Well, I know from personal experience in my region that many doctors and medical facilities have been moving to digital record systems for some time, even before the stimulus package was conceived. What I found from discussions with my oncologist and others is that the adoption has been slow partially because of cost (not just installation and initial costs, but support and maintenance costs), but also because they and their staff are not all that computer literate and there is quite an on-ramp for them to clear before they get used to and comfortable working with an electronic system.
Don't get me wrong. There are tons of doctors that are computer and gadget freaks, but there are tons more that rarely touch a computer except for basic Internet and MS Office services and have to be guided through the intricacies of an electronic records system and how to use it. It is similar to what academia has been going through for the last ten to fifteen years as more technology gets used in a classroom and for administrative purposes. This is going to take time and will certainly be dependent on younger doctors and newer medical facilities driving the change and bringing the older, less computer literate generation of professionals along.
Oh, I should mention that all the folks I've talked to prefer the electronic systems to the older paper systems. Better access, ease of use (once trained), etc. are all cited as why they like it. Of course, there are also the cons of the software stability and other, typical support issues one encounters with technology. I look forward to being able to have my complete medical records on a secured storage device so I never lose any again like I did a few years back when an old family doctor destroyed my records without contacting me!
Slashdot Mirror
Downloading from couch with laptop facing "array" across room, 100% signal strength
Dog walks into room between laptop and array, 30% signal strength while dog passes
Child walks in room and stands in front of you to talk to you, 0% signal strength until conversation ends, or kid dies for cutting off your slashdot post mid submit!
Wife walks in with credit card bill with pr0n charges, array gets smashed and you get served.
No good can come from this!
Ladies and gentlemen, please. Let me try and *NOT* use a car analogy, but a direct professional parallel. Coders "own their code" after it has been paid for, like an architect owns a building after it's been built/paid for.
Why is this an important distinction/parallel? Easy. The architect passes liability for faults off to the owner after a certain period of time, agreed upon in an initial contract. When the certificate of occupancy (i.e., quality assurance) is issued, and the client takes possession of the building they paid the architect (and engineers, and contractors) to build, it's no longer the architect's liability to maintain that building. That is, unless they are contracted again to do so, for more pay (i.e., a maintenance contract on a piece of software, a la RedHat).
So, do you really want to own that source code, or would you rather treat it like a building that you designed where you document the project, keep all the original source files, learn from the experience, possibly (if not expressly forbidden in your contract) reuse some of the objects of that code in other projects? Oh, don't get me wrong, I am all about "licensing" significant works, like a file system that's new, a new sort of material connection for structure or aesthetics, or something really unique along either of those lines. But, to think that you would want to claim full ownership and responsibility for every bit of code you write could entail a lot more headache than you would care to even think of taking on.
Code is not like a book! Code has utility, function as an executable binary beyond just the lines of text that comprise its source. It is a creative work of form and function, much like a building. Things can go on inside it that, in turn, can also be creative works on their own. Do you presume to own those as well? Would an architect own any ideas conceived within the walls of the buildings he/she designed?
Use them to pull some nice Cat5e (or Cat6) of your own. Those coaxial cables are pretty strong, and as long as they are not stapled to studs inside the wall you should be able to lop the connectors off the far end and pull some nice Cat5e/6 using the old coax as the puller. Grip it and rip it, baby!
That seems a harsh way to find out that your Windows machine has been rooted.
I don't know about anyone else, but I would think that any way you find out your machine is rooted is going to be harsh. Sure, the not booting thing is annoying (still don't know why Windows or Intel/AMD chpsets don't support a Target Disk Mode for events like this), but finding out that someone else has had free reign over your machine for who knows how long (whether it is currently booting or not) is a harsh reality.
If all your processes must communicate with each other constantly, you lose the benefits of having each process processed by a different core.
This statement is just flat wrong, and hardly insightful. The only time this condition is true is if you are dealing with processors *completely isolated* from each other's memory resources. To my knowledge, there is no such beast (cluster or multi-core system) and hasn't been since the days before MPI and OpenMP (or their predecessors) existed. The only bottlenecks in the above quoted situation are latency and bandwidth so that each process CAN communicate simultaneously with any other process, running on any core, tied to the same high-speed bus/network. There are actually other ways to create data parallelism within a system so that even discrete processors can still contribute work toward a larger problem.
I build supercomputers, so I should know!
...what new sites or services started the day of the first stripe? Given that you did a every 40th sample this could potentially be a sampling error, or a moire pattern caused by said sampling error.
I'd go with a site or service coming online somewhere within the organization where the data came from. If it's a higher-education institution it could have been anything or anyone setting up a website, or it could even have been a trojan or virus that is now using a machine to tunnel through the firewall and share music, video or warez.
Happy Hunting!
Ahhh, but where did you try to use it, and for what purpose? This device will not be a primary computer for someone (well, maybe a few of the less computer literate masses), but will serve as a consumer device/appliance for: media browsing and viewing, gaming, and spot utility computing much like the iPhone and iPod Touch now.
People seem to be getting stuck on the idea that this thing will be a fully software customizable compute device like a netbook. It ain't gonna be. It's not even going to run a full version of OS X (latest rumors all pint to a new version of iPhone OS), at least not in the near future, let alone anything like a Linux distro.
How's about we pass judgement on the utility of a device AFTER it comes out and we have at least 90-days to a year to play with it. Any value judgements before that are, well, as useful as a vaporware product.
What's next? We're going to have to pay the Italians for using Roman letters and the Saudi's for using Arabic numbers? Ridiculous!
Last time I checked, computer science *WAS*/*IS* applied mathematics. If you don't like math you should probably consider a different career, or be ready for a long hard road of slogging through a career while the more mathematically inclined advance right past you in the market. I started a software development company last year and I will not hire anyone who is not more proficient (or current/fresh) at mathematics than I am, and I'm pretty good.
If you really, really want to be a developer I'd say to suck it up and take BOTH classes. There's no such thing as too much math if you are a CS major, or just someone that wants to be a developer.
Ok, do I really want to get into a philological discussion on a computer website? NO! Will I ask you to explore how words become part of an official language, and that even bad ones, or improper ones (like those with double negatives) make it into vernacular, dialect, and then possibly the root language? YES! Would I also remind you to look at the 'Usage' and 'Origin' sections of any definition? YES!!!!
Anyone can make up any word, have it spread through a local or regional vernacular, then get it picked up by an entire dialectic group, but if it makes no logical sense it's still ridiculously stupid to use and shows that its user has a poor grasp of written and spoken language as communication.
I know that language changes over time, but 'irregardless', no matter how 'popular', is illogical and thus does not convey meaning, and is thus NOT A WORD! And, I'm out!
WRONG!
Irregardless is not a proper English word. Its usage has *ALWAYS* irked me from when I was a small boy to now. To use common vernacular, it's a mashup of 'irrespective' (one negative; prefix) and regardless (also, one negative; suffix). 'Irregardless' is a double negative and is thusly illogical by construction and would only be understandable to people born in the U.S. since 1970, and those less literate in the U.S. prior to that.
On my words that aren't words list it's right up there with 'impactful'.
LMAO This comment deserves to go into the /. Hall of Fame for sure. [golf claps]
Not understanding the different between two different terms shows you haven't been exposed to it.
Different/Same, Difference/Similarity (to play your sig game)
If you're going to point out that words and meaning are important, then you must always read and revise electronic correspondence before clicking "Submit" or "Send", as well as using correct punctuation and capitalization.
Oh, and OP, I'd rather be called an "IT Guy" than a "Computer Guy". I hate it when my friends introduce me as a "Computer Guy", but that's because (to me) computers are tools I use to make a living. They do not define who I am as a person. Again, that's just my opinion, and a pet peeve. Like it or not, people label things. We have little control over how those labels get applied to us if we're not the ones creating them.
...did they test this with headphones?!?! Unless you're spending $1,000.00USD or more for a pair of headphones, then you're certainly not going to tell a lot of difference between the audio tracks as described in the article. You're just not going to get adequate signal reproduction from headphones that cannot accurately represent audio frequencies that are truncated using the sampling rates and encoding methods described. I will also call shenanigans on using downloaded files for the test! What tool was used to encode them? What hardware? Was the tool the same for each song file AND each encoding scheme? Was the encoding algorithm of each scheme similar or the same?
Best pseudo-science remain being called opinion.
First of all, most people don't know shite about audio quality to begin with. They actually think that CDs sound better than records. Not only is that technically inaccurate, it's downright sad.
Second, most people listen to music on crappy headphones or crappy home or car stereos, so obviously they are going to think that a direct digital feed of a symphony from a 24/96 DAC is going to sound like a 128kbps MP3 recording of the same performance.
Third, most people's ears have been damaged in some way that either has killed their low range or high range frequency response in one ear or the other, or both. So, when they say they "CAN'T" tell the difference, they actually mean it.
Finally, who cares? If I had my way we'd all get 32-bit/192kHz quality content for everything that was digital and have either big ass reel-to-reel decks, with 1" or 2" tape or similar analog equipment for recording and playback. But, that ain't practical. So, whatever you can stand is fine. Just don't expect me to buy too much of it if I can only get it in that quality.
I know, I know, the answer is probably, "Yes!", but this thing came within 14,000 km of Earth. I know there's more than a few satellites out at that orbital distance. Did any of them get hit? They never seem to mention the catastrophic consequences to global navigation, communication and weather prediction should one of these objects pass just close enough to take out some key orbiting satellites, let alone hit the planet. Yikes! if one of these flying rocks ever takes out a bunch of satellites as it cruises through!
It took long enough for me to find this response!
I'm sorry, I've been alive for twenty years shorter than the parent poster and I do not remember a time when science was ever "popular". Popularized, maybe, with the moon shots and all, but NEVER popular. If science was ever popular how would it ever lose popularity? Think about that for a moment. Science is a constantly changing beast, with something new emerging from an enormous variety of fields ... hourly! How could you ever get bored with science should it ever become popular?
I call shenanigans on the whole notion of science having been "popular" ... well, ever! Not even in Newton's time, and certainly not Galileo's when it wasn't even called science. Hell, it wasn't even called science until the last, what? 150 years of its existence. It was a branch of philosophy (natural philosophy) before that!
Science has never and probably will never be popular. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but use some scientific method and tell me when science was ever popular. I have no evidence to support the assertion and know of none to even test.
I am reading through these responses and some have good generic questions in them, but a lot of them are questions you should be asking HR BEFORE you interview, i.e., how many people with children work for the company? Your interview team is not going to know that number. HR will.
There were also a lot of common sense, "Duh!", questions in there, i.e., what sysadmins tools do you use?, what code versioning system do you use? If you don't know the specific questions to ask about the discipline or job environment you're applying for then you're in trouble. Maybe that just seems obvious to me?
Finally, "Where's lunch?" is not a question I want to hear come out of a candidate's mouth, unless the interview has gone really well and it's lunch time. That's a "their time" question and is not relevant. A more generic question about benefits and the work environment would be prudent, i.e. "What facilities are available for employees' health and wellness?" That question will cover cafeterias, gyms, day care, etc. and won't make the interviewer think you're only applying for the job because there's a restaurant you like around the corner, or will be hanging out in the cafeteria all day instead of doing work. Of course, this might also be a pre-interview HR question.
What do you ask every new (prospective) employer?
First of all, like any good applicant, you should tailor your questions to the information that was unavailable through the company's website, application posting or from the interview itself. Those questions should be based on things that matter to you and have, through your DIRECT experience, been lacking or of high quality in other jobs you have worked. Having a canned set of questions is like having a canned cover letter. They can be spotted immediately and do not reflect well upon the applicant. It shows they haven't done their homework or are just not paying attention. If you want this job and want to work for this company you had better show it in the interview by being focused, not only on the company, its products and services, its people, its benefits, etc., but on the job function you will perform and the personalities of the people in the room.
When you're sitting in the interview room after they've finished grilling you, there's usually an opportunity to reciprocate. There will be some niche questions for specializations (sys admin, programming, PM, QA, etc.), but there are some generic ones that come to mind, such as: what is the (official) dress code?
If you feel like you're being "grilled" then the situation is all kinds of wrong. Either the people interviewing you are not people you'll want to work for, or you are not the right fit for the job. In one of those cases the best thing to do is to excuse yourself from the interview. Don't let it drag out. It's uncomfortable for you and the interviewers. Be the bigger person and admit that this isn't going to work out and thank them for their time.
An interview is not a court proceeding where the plaintiff and the defense get their turn in subsequent order. It should be a dialogue, not an inquisition. You should be asking relevant questions as they come up in your mind, or as the interviewers prompt you with their questions or hypothetical situations. You should not be a passive lump that only responds to stimuli. That is also an indicator of a poor candidate. Will there be tough questions in any job interview? Absolutely, but those questions are usually designed to gauge your response and how you handle yourself more than they are for the actual answer. If the folks on the other side of the table didn't think you had some idea of what the answer was to their toughest of questions, you wouldn't be interviewing.
Finally, if you're worried about dress code then you're definitely in the wrong place and have not done your homework. That question should be asked BEFORE the interview, i.e., "Do I need to wear a suit to the interview?" If you have to dress like you're going before the Supreme Court for the interview then that's usually what the expected attire will be for daily operations. If the dress code isn't "business casual", or you are unclear what that means, then you are applying for the wrong job. In the modern business era, it is highly irregular for employees below the Director or Senior Manager level to be required to wear formal clothing during daily operations. There are exceptions to that rule, but that will come out when you do a little observation and digging of your own. For instance, Enterprise Rental Cars requires all their customer-facing employees to wear formal business attire (coat and tie). You can see that by just visiting any location. Financial companies are very similar. There are no real surprises there unless you're not paying attention.
When I was going through architecture school we were all very proud of designs that we felt were novel or unique. We would get irritated when our professors and the upperclassmen would say, "Everything has been done before." The idea that something we had never seen before, that we had created, could somehow have existed in a time past was completely infuriating. But, as time and experience mounted and we progressed through the history of architecture, art and invention we came to realize that the adage was true. That just because the tools and technologies, materials and methods, exist today to make some 'novel' ideas practical, doesn't mean they weren't conceptualized in a time when they were impractical, or even impossible. The ideas of da Vinci are probably the prime examples in common history, but what of the dozens of unrecognized people that fueled da Vinci's imagination and helped him conceive the helicopter centuries before the technology and intelligence existed to make it a reality?
Having an idea and having the expertise and means to make it a reality are two different things. I have had a few ideas "stolen" from me over the years. Some have been successfully implemented, and some have fallen flat on their faces. Now, was their success or failure due to the merits of the idea or the people and methods used to implement them? Obviously, it's a mixture of both. Having an idea is one thing. Having the know-how, time and money to make it happen are another thing entirely. Most great ideas are too big to tackle alone. It is imperative that you share your idea to recruit talent and funding to help you implement it.
Sharing an idea can be scary, but there are ways to share that will allow you to protect your intellectual property. If you don't have a friend who is a patent attorney (like my friend Lawrence), then you will want to consult one or just follow some good procedures (Google is your friend) to protect the idea so you can refine it, market it, get it funded and get it out there.
Now is the best time to start an entrepreneurial effort. There is little to lose in this economy and a lot to gain. I wish you luck!
Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities.
So. Once they're on the truck they ain't going anywhere. Scan them then!
The ranchers also note that there is no Internet connection on many ranches for filing to a regional database.
Satellite. Cell-based internet. Lame excuse. Business expense that can be (partially) written off.
I'm no "tree hugger", but the overall idea makes perfect logical sense. Your argument that the new "Owner" of the product should be held responsible leads back to the buyer beware attitude. The company producing the product *MUST* be held accountable for the environmental impacts the product has. This is not a "tree hugger" issue any longer. This is about the quality of the environment and ecosystem that the human race needs to sustain itself and how unchecked population growth and consumerism is affecting it.
I'm sorry, but making the disposal of a product that contains toxic or environmentally harmful components the sole responsibility of the consumer is patently irresponsible. It is also irresponsible for a company to knowingly produce a product that contains difficult to dispose of (safely) components and provide no guidance or assistance to the consumer. It may be easy for a person living in a metro area the size of Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas or Atlanta to find a firm that recycles electronics waste, but for a large segment of the population there aren't such facilities nearby or they are unknown because they don't advertise well. Disposing of these products in landfills is not acceptable, unless you are planning on starting a business in the future to mine landfills for precious commodities and mitigate the toxins in them. Let me know how that turns out for you.
Your entitled to your own opinions on this subject, but be prepared to defend them if they are clearly self-serving, ignorant or otherwise indifferent to the well being of us all. The bottom line is we can't keep operating the way we have been and everyone--including big corporations, governments and private citizens--needs to be more responsible. If you think the taxes to do this will be steep, just imagine the penalties for not doing this. Look beyond your own nose, backyard, five minutes into the future, etc. This disposable everything mentality has got to stop, folks!
And, no, I don't mean NeXT! I mean, next problem to solve.
NEXT!
Didn't read the stub even, but the answer to the question, 'Where are the high-res HMDs?" is simple. The LCDs are being used in projectors that have a much larger market. No matter how cool a high-res HMD may seem, the practicality is limited and therefore so is the potential sales pool. People like to watch things (and show things off) socially, not alone within an HMD. There are some high-res HMDs out there, mind you, but they are quite pricey for obvious reasons. A single 1400x1050 LCD that would fit over your eye (or be in a projector) isn't cheap, then add the fact that you need two of them and the price is easily in the $20,000.00 to $30,000.00USD range for the headset.
But does the high cost and questionable quality of products currently on the market explain why barely 1 in 50 hospitals have a comprehensive electronic records system, and why only 17% of physicians use any type of electronic records?
Well, I know from personal experience in my region that many doctors and medical facilities have been moving to digital record systems for some time, even before the stimulus package was conceived. What I found from discussions with my oncologist and others is that the adoption has been slow partially because of cost (not just installation and initial costs, but support and maintenance costs), but also because they and their staff are not all that computer literate and there is quite an on-ramp for them to clear before they get used to and comfortable working with an electronic system.
Don't get me wrong. There are tons of doctors that are computer and gadget freaks, but there are tons more that rarely touch a computer except for basic Internet and MS Office services and have to be guided through the intricacies of an electronic records system and how to use it. It is similar to what academia has been going through for the last ten to fifteen years as more technology gets used in a classroom and for administrative purposes. This is going to take time and will certainly be dependent on younger doctors and newer medical facilities driving the change and bringing the older, less computer literate generation of professionals along.
Oh, I should mention that all the folks I've talked to prefer the electronic systems to the older paper systems. Better access, ease of use (once trained), etc. are all cited as why they like it. Of course, there are also the cons of the software stability and other, typical support issues one encounters with technology. I look forward to being able to have my complete medical records on a secured storage device so I never lose any again like I did a few years back when an old family doctor destroyed my records without contacting me!