I only watched TV one hour a day. We got a B&W TV when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I would watch Lunny Tunes for my allowed hour. I guess I only dreamed of why the hell Wyle E. Coyote could never get the Road Runner, or why the scenes always changed to favor the Road Runner.
I guess I never had the insight to explain this to my therapist. Such a waste of $125/hr when the answer was there all along!
What I am surprised is that most conventional cars don't have as aerodynamic bodies as this. It almost looks like a plane modified to travel on roads. I would have thought something like this would have caught hold back in the late 1970's. We would have saved lots of gas just going with an aerodynamic body, which would have pushed the state of the art much farther today. I am looking forward to conventional cars begin to adapt aerodynamic design features from high-end exotic military planes like the F117 & Northrup Grumman B-2. Who knows, if this trend keeps up [and will overtake the state of the art, due to volume], automakers might be giving ideas to military aircraft designers.
Re:Let's forget the turing test
on
Loebner Talks AI
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· Score: 2, Funny
Have it decipher Republican campaign slogans!!
I am sure every computer will crash trying to extract information from nonsense.
I use to believe that AI could be attainable in my lifetime. I am not an AI expert. I took an undergrad CS class in AI in 1984. I wrote some heuristic algorithms for computational geometry, which "aimed to be an expert systems." I often wonder how far one can go with heuristic algorithms. I have read a couple of articles about Neural Networks, as well as Fuzzy Logic around 1990.
I read 2001 IEEE's Spectrum article called, "Its 2001, HAL, where are you?" which discussed the state of the art in AI, as well as the difficulty in making predictions about AI along with a time line. After all, without a estimated time line, anything you say has a probability of becoming true. Better yet, the farther out you make the claim, the better chance you have of getting it right.
Forget Turning Test. I haven't seen a demo of anything which can even solve most "well defined" and simple AI problems. I have yet to see a resume parser which can put www.monster.com's outputted formatted resume into its internal representation. When I was in grad school, I use to crash the differential equation solver in Maxima by using the Peano method on a power series solution.
I suppose you can crash most AI algorithms just by asking it to identify a simple pattern inherent in the solution, but not explicitly stated. Just think of a cleaver idiomatic expression, like "He saw the girl by the tree." or "Time flies, you cannot, they go too fast." and ask the computer to explain the meaning of it. Or maybe give it a couple of complex ill-posed high school math problem you have discussed (A man faces sees a bear due North, walks one kilometer meters due West, and shoots due North, and kills the bear. What color is the bear?) I suppose many foreigners and autistic people might have problems with that as well.
Well, I have other things to do during the day. For example, practice my karate, make dinner, work on the yard, visit my friends, clean the house (especially the bathroom), pay the bills, spend time with my wife and kids, take care of problems and issues. Of course, you have a maid/lawn/pool/mechanic/wife service for that.
On top of that, one should realize that to be cultured and educated, one should be diversified. What's the sense of being able to memorize some computer stuff if you cannot read, write and analyze other things in life. One big shortcoming of various technical educations is that they completely disregard education in non-technical disciplines. I have met too many programmers who really knew their technology, but were utter morons in other aspects of their life. That's fine for them, but that's not what I want to be.
I wonder, do lawyers come home and work on keeping up their profession, as well as keep up their computer skills?
Most computer skills I have learned I have had to drop. It goes out of date faster than Elvis paraphernalia. I think I forgot my Jovial precedence rules as well as CDC Cyber OS syntax.
Its a good thing I post to slashdot or I'd forget how to write things other than tech specs.
Engineers think different. Maybe it should have been said that engineers bother to think. They usually know from "engineering problems" that sometimes the solution to problems is something that has to be analyzed rather than regurgitated. Engineers are usually better educated than the "poor unwashed masses". That and they "dare to criticize" the source. It it amazing in how a democratic populace like the US, people "like being told what to think". A simple example is GWB's why do they hate us so much? Gee, hasn't someone thought beyond the given reply and maybe even ventured a guess that maybe we are "at fault", gasp!! You mean "the C student from Yale" might be wrong? Also, engineers have access to lots of information by virtue of their profession. They meet and travel all over the world, so some of that "foreign propaganda" rubs off. The might even have met a Middle Eastern who is educated too, while as most people's encounter with Ahmed is at the filling station.
Secondly, in a modern sophisticated society, weapons and tactics used by the military have common roots from that taught in engineering. It is a sort of a chicken and egg dilemma, but lots of engineering projects have been funded by the military. There is symbiosis of engineering with the military that goes back to the "Battle for Troy". Why I bet even Grog (the caveman) might have mumbled to Geek (the tinker) on how to improve his stone knife.
Thirdly, engineers might even understand the plight of other people. Most likely, someone who is and engineer probably came up from the lower middle class end of society, and knows that the distribution of economic wealth is not fair. If he had been better off, he would have been a lawyer, banker or businessman. He might even question why the hell is a capitalistic country like the US subsidizing the Bear Sterns sell off to Morgan Stanley while his house price is falling below the price that he paid for it. Or worse yet, he might be an unemployed middle-aged engineer listening to Bill Gates talk about raising the number of H1B visas, while he is contemplating becoming a cashier at the supermarket.
But what the hell do I know?
Do the police take real world bullying seriously?
Or do they just break it up and bring the bullies to their parent to straighten them out [which the parents could care less about]?
I think there is a serious shortage of inexpensive competent honest lawyers. Maybe Congress might want to address that issue.
I went to a lawyer, who said he would charge me next to nothing to get a frivolous $500 towing charge dismissed. His idea of next to nothing was $200. Mine was like $20. But he had me come into his office, and pontificate for an hour about the ticket and such.
Then, he asked me for $100. After court, he asked for another $100. I asked for a receipt, which he wrote on a PostIt note in unreadable handwritting.
Well, I have to agree with the statement regarding the pay disparity between the programmers and the corporate executives. First, let me get this straight. Most companies want some 10x more productive than his peers, yet work for 25% more than his peers. Oh heck, maybe you give him a 5K bonus in front of his peers to really make him feel swell. He might be pissed to all hell with the corporate pay structure in the first place.
Second, there are a lot of really great programmers who you don't want on your team. Richard Stallman is one of them. I like RMS and his idea, but I know why he would be terrible in your organization. Somehow, you seem to think that really creative and intelligent people want to be on your team. Have you considered that maybe since they are great programmers, they just don't fit into your corporate structure because they have their own agenda.
Third, there is this domain of expertice issue going on. Just because someone is great at one thing doesn't translate to other areas. Einstein was brilliant, but had quite a few character flaws. On top of that, he was a communist. I am sure that once he started talking about ideas that he wanted to discuss, you would be trying to get him to shut up and "manage him". Managing smart people is like herding cats. Moreover, have you considered that he might not take well to being managed. All of a sudden, you start telling him what he should be doing. You might want him to work in the quant theory and he wants to work in relativity.
The only solution that I have for you is to turn your staff into the superstars that you want them to be. If you can't, then you are the failure, not your staff. Most managers have yet to impress me with their superstar abilities. Steve Jobs might be a great manager, but from what I have seen in the movie "The Pirates of Silcon Valley," based on Woz's portrail, he seems like an asshole to work for. But hey, all of those poor suckers who busted their butt working 90 hour weeks who didn't get their stock options got screwed in the end.
I heard that Brazil was the first country which started asking Americans to undergo the same scrutiny that foreigners were subject to when visiting the US. This is all fine, but I would like ways to subject every peon to the same ass probing as I am subject to in the name of security. The next time some official wants information about me, I think I should get information about him. How do I know that he is not going to sell this stuff to somebody else. Similarly, I think its high time that we Americans demand far more control over use of our tax dollars. Rather than having some petty bureaucrat pass bills on our behalf, we should have a referendum on everything that we are paying for with full disclosure of uses. Funds collected for one item cannot be rolled over to another item. Just two decades ago, our leaders were discussing how little freedom there was in the Soviet Union & Eastern block countries. Well, all of that was in the name of security.. Well, it seems that once the Soviet Union has fallen, America is no longer obligated to adhere to its democratic principles.
A country which gives away a bit of its freedoms in exchange for more security, gains neither nor deserves both. T. Jefferson
Not until you have interviewed for a job will this sort of BS go away. Most managers want a project done yesterday. They don't want to hear you say that you are trying out some ideas before you actually present a solution. Most often times, your beta version is the released version.
I wish it weren't that way. Tell me where to send my resume, and I'll join you.
The other issue is that there are lots of people who are accountants or what not, who have been recruited to solve a problem via programming. They just don't have the time to piss around with pointers and want a language that handles that for them. They aren't interested in hand scratching their mnemonics on bare metal either.
Economomics is driven by rarity. Helium is the rarest of all the naturally occuring elements and was discovered in the sun's spectra before it was discovered here on earth.
Once it is released, it it practically impossible to recover.
Sooner or later, someone is going to succeed finding a commericial use for this stuff.
I once went to a talk at NASA concerning one motivation for going to the Moon in the 1960's. It was hoped that there would have been enough He 3 (2 protons, 1 neutron) in the moon's atmosphere to make a fusion reaction an economic payoff. If these types of reactions yield enough energy, then it will be well worth it to travel to the moon to harvest He 3.
I don't know if fusion reactions for He 4 to yield enough energy to be economically viable.
I read an article on the web about "The Outer Limits" episode called "Obits", where the government has the technological capability to maintain surveillance on anyone. The article went on to discuss how close we are coming to this today, through the use of traffic, store, bank, and drug enforcement cameras. The article went on to discuss a British counter terrorism surveillance which is able to track people from camera to camera.
I remember reading about "Total Information Network", later renamed "Terrorist Information Network", and wonder how much of this already applied in the interests of National Security. Sort of like renaming the "War Department" the "Department of Defense." Its mission was perhaps far more accurately described by the old label. [Read Smetly Butler's book "War is a Racket" for a great discussion.] Moreover, with Amdocs and various other cell phone companies maintaining and selling records of your telephone contacts, Credit card selling your spending habits, this really opens the channels to Big Brother. Also, someone once pointed out that with the impregnation of common consumer devices with RFID tags, it is getting easier to track everyone quite closely. Yes, there are ways to get around some of this, but with enought redudencies in the system, it may be impossible to avoid being tracked.
While as we support this action when it comes to tracking terrorists, the line is drawn when the populace decides to take action against its government. Chile was able to suppress dissension largely through well established surveillance techniques, and a strong armed police force. I am sure that the government doesn't care about most people, unless its population starts thinking about a revolution. All of a sudden, our constitutional freedom "To overthrow the government by any means necessary" becomes a commie witch hunt.
We laugh at the Soviet Union and the intrusion into its citizen's lives, but we are becoming very much like that regime. The USSR did not intrude into civil liberties, but did so out of a need for self preservation.
While as I think it is silly to spend that much money on "toys", there are lots of people who do. Some of this is silly hype created by the industry, but that is part of the process (of creating wealth).
There are lots of other memorabilia where similar other items are misrepresented. This type of fraud happens in more serious industries, e.g. finance [Merril-Lynch], insurance [mandatory in many cases], education [MBA mills], politics [need I say WMD and sexed up intelligence reports], and medical services [unnecessary procedures].
The guy has merit to sue for damages above and beyond a $1K. Maybe, he was looking to make a flip by selling it on EBay for far more. I am sure that most art collectors buy art with the full expectations of making far more in the future. To a large extent, this sort of speculation is behind the real estate bubble and by the Federal Reserve for meddling with interest rates. A lot of people were making lots of money flipping property which was well beyond expectations. I am sure those that bought property which was fraudulently represented are also suing developers.
The thing about technology is that it can be used both ways. Maybe we [users] can set up a web site called www.whereishenow.com . Hence, we can type in a name, e.g. George Bush, and have it show us where he is right now, using input from a variety of sources, video cameras, travel documents, etc. I read an article last month about the "Outer Limits" episode called OBIT about this futuristic device used to monitor everyone on the planet. Outer Limits didn't get the details, but was very close on the idea.
My suggestion is that we turn the technology on the top 2000 most influential people or Masters of the Universe (re 1950's book, "The Organizational Man"). Maybe Gates might get pissed off if instead of monitoring us, we are monitoring them.
Ok, I'd like to sue the USA. Not because I am against the war or anything like that. Its just that I don't get my $50M [unlike Haliburton] to go rebuild a bridge in Iraq and outsource the project to the Pakis who offer to do it for $1M.
Part of the problem is that we programmer look to recruiters for our next assignment. This is really tough, first because recruiters are flooded with resumes. Secondly, recruiters tend to drive down the rate and take their 20% overhead cut. How many times have recuiters told you flat out that the rate is such and such. Getting programming work really means getting to the person who NEEDS the work done. This takes a lot of effort and making enough contracts until that person is found. It takes cold calling, and a certain sence of persistence. I am guessing that "finding work" CONSUMES 50+% of one's time. Unfortunately, this also means that we spend a great deal of time doing something which we are not good at doing. We probably are good programmers because we honed our skills in that endevour, and shunned our people skills. Not that its easy and definately not that its fun, but to land work, it takes an incredible amount of time searching for the opportunity. Unfortunately, the only way I know how to approach this is through the age old technique of cold calling. It is boring and has a low return rate. Worse, sometimes it leads to project which we are not interested about, but might take because it is some income. Just my 2 cents!
This is impossible to do.
However, I was thinking if the reverse is possible. To keep and diseminate critical information about companies and its C-level employees. So, DoubleClick tracks us. Maybe we should track DoubleClick's CEO. How about seeing up a web site like a total fan would? Make him more popular than Britney Spears. Users can submit pictures of him driving down the highway, going shopping, visiting clients, taking a bathroom break at the rest stop. And lets not stop at examining his purchasing habits. Those flowers he picked up might not go to his wife. Make sure the audit trail doesn't stop, follow up. Keep records of all cars in his driveway. All along with time tagged information tied into Google Earth.
Hey, if "National Inquire" appeals to "Inquiring minds that need to know," maybe we might want to know as well.
One of the most innovative ideas created by Americans was the plane invented by the Wright brothers. The Wrights realized that planes had to be lightweight in order to function, unlike the heavy weight ideas being built by Curtis, and receiving the gov't contracts.
From his biobliography, Wright was pissed off about having his patents taken away by the gov't in order to prepare for WWI and having to merge with his rival Curtis in order to stay in business.
A sad part of history not discussed is that while airplanes were invented in the US, they were perfected in Germany as jet planes. Funny, the same thing happened with rockets. Goddard was completely ignored and died without seeing his ideas recognized. Only after the Germans surrendered and the plans for the V2 became well known, did the Germans acknowledge Goddard. Then the Americans named NASA's building after Goddard. Good PR!!
Only great powerful companies with political connections like Haliburton, IBM and Raytheon make money from the government to develop and design the next generation of systems. For example, during the 1950's IBM received trillions of dollars from the Dept of War to develop computers and IC components. The public funds basic R&D, while the large corps make the money when it becomes commericially viable. The same thing happens in the pharm industry. The govt pays to develop basic R&D, but if one of drugs looks promising, the pharms get in and commercialize it.
By its very nature, research is a losing game, where most of the ideas fail. With this sort of economic model, why would someone choose to get in on the losing end of the deal. Better to become some bean counter or beurocrate running the project, than to be the one doing the work.
Hey, its easy to spend other people's money. If it fails, the tax payer gets stuck with the bill. If it works, big business muscles in and takes home the winning ideas.
I remember reading an article about how Xerox patented copiers. But IBM changed the design so that the photocopier moved and the paper stood still. If you throw in enough peon, you can crack anyone's patents.
When I went to college in 1980 to get my B. Sc., most bright Americans went to further their education by going into law, business, or medicine. That's were the money is. Something like 90% of the Ph. D. given in the physical sciences went to people born outside of the US, most likily because they knew that their chances were lower in fields requiring personal connections, as they did not have them.
If I were to do it all over again, I'd get a degree in finance, something that would get me a job for life.
Most American realize that the plumber, carpenter, and auto mechanic has a better lifestyle than a Ph. D. in engineering, chemistry, physics or math. Some say that truck drivers have a better stream of work all through their careers. At least they don't go around chasing 2 year appointments well into their mid careers.
Ten years from now, major software companies will be getting big handouts to train people to become SWEs because there will be a lack of qualified individuals and we need to stay a world class competitor in computers.
The other day, I went to an interview at a major computer corporation. During the interview, the company told me that they (the company) gets (from the government) $15K/year/employee to stay competative. When this is done in the Soviet Union or Japan, our elected officials would be raising hell. Well, this all stinks of state sponced capitalism. Think of the imminent domain laws passed in NYC. Basically if a quasi govt corp (e.g. Trump) wants to expand its large facility and your own the property adjacent, they can buy you out for peanuts. Simiarly, note that the NY Stock Exchange pays no taxes to NYC because it creates "jobs". Why should I pay taxes; I create jobs for the subway system, the construction industry, the food service industry. This reminds me of NYC and how Julieanni's NYC redevelopment program was going to save NYC. In 2002, there was a lot of legistation about the commuter tax. Basically, for the privilage of working, I was going to be taxed 10%, which would be given to my employer to keep jobs in NYC. Well, at the same time, I was reading an article in the NYT about how a worker in communist China would have to bribe is local boss with a 10% kickback. Well, it seems that we have beat them at their own game.
We all believe in laisse affair economics, expect when it comes to having the gov't bail out big business. If NYC is ecomomically unviable, then we should let the NYC ecomony fail. Wasn't this the advice Bush Sr. had for Eastern Europe. I think it should go for the US as well.
The point of this discuess is that whenever our jobs are being outsourced to China or India, our gov't is quick to enact legistation to facilitate it because it is good for business. However when big business is in trouble, the taxpayer get footed with the bill. Remember the big bail out in 1992 of investors in Mexico. Half a trillion dollars of our money to fund this bad investment. When the hell am I going to get money for the lose of my job due to outsourcing?
This reminds me of a joke on the comedy channel. The comic says, for 50 years, we had to listen to the annoying interruption, "This is an test of the emergency broadcast system. If this had been an emergency, this message would have been followed by an announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Well, on 9/11, there was no Announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Seems like an incredible waste of time and effort."
However, the other joke was that Congress had build bunkers for themselves, but not the "little people". We joke about the Soviets, but their disaster planning was organized and methodical. I am sure it was full of holes and beareteic logistics, but it was far better coordinated. I guess if you had the money, you used your private funds to build a fall out shelter, something that I hear was popular in the 50's.
In 12 years of schooling, we only had one "Emergency Attack Planning Drill". Maybe having too many might make too many people rethink the MAD strategee. Hey, people might even rebell and decide to rid the world of nuclear weopeons or the 60's "Give Peace a Chance". Ironically, in the US in the 90's, the slogan became, "Give War a Chance". Fundametally, with this sort of attitude on both sides of the Iron Curtain, I am quite surprised that an all-out nuclear war never materiallized. Hell, the USSR would be destroyed 200 times over, while the US would have surived 80% (according to Edward Teller). Maybe if Yuri Andropov had survived, and Gorbechov never rose to Primir status, that would have been the likely outcome. Stalin was committed to insuring the survival of the USSR. Whatever you might think of him, Stalin did insure that the USSR never collapsed under his reign, one in which the USSR was fundamentally far more weaker than it was in the 90's.
An excellent article summarizing the history and current situation of the educational system in China.
I liked its length because the author took the time to explain his thoughts and justification.
This differs from the "USA Today" mentality where most "information" is presented with bold and misleading statements and no explanations whose intention is to brainwash to populace into a way of thinking.
BTW, I love in the USA. Elsewhere I'd have to serve in the military. Here, the Red Necks, Hispanics and Blacks sign up and die in my place serving the country! How can you not love a country like this?
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I only watched TV one hour a day. We got a B&W TV when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I would watch Lunny Tunes for my allowed hour. I guess I only dreamed of why the hell Wyle E. Coyote could never get the Road Runner, or why the scenes always changed to favor the Road Runner. I guess I never had the insight to explain this to my therapist. Such a waste of $125/hr when the answer was there all along!
What I am surprised is that most conventional cars don't have as aerodynamic bodies as this. It almost looks like a plane modified to travel on roads. I would have thought something like this would have caught hold back in the late 1970's. We would have saved lots of gas just going with an aerodynamic body, which would have pushed the state of the art much farther today. I am looking forward to conventional cars begin to adapt aerodynamic design features from high-end exotic military planes like the F117 & Northrup Grumman B-2. Who knows, if this trend keeps up [and will overtake the state of the art, due to volume], automakers might be giving ideas to military aircraft designers.
Have it decipher Republican campaign slogans!! I am sure every computer will crash trying to extract information from nonsense.
I use to believe that AI could be attainable in my lifetime. I am not an AI expert. I took an undergrad CS class in AI in 1984. I wrote some heuristic algorithms for computational geometry, which "aimed to be an expert systems." I often wonder how far one can go with heuristic algorithms. I have read a couple of articles about Neural Networks, as well as Fuzzy Logic around 1990. I read 2001 IEEE's Spectrum article called, "Its 2001, HAL, where are you?" which discussed the state of the art in AI, as well as the difficulty in making predictions about AI along with a time line. After all, without a estimated time line, anything you say has a probability of becoming true. Better yet, the farther out you make the claim, the better chance you have of getting it right. Forget Turning Test. I haven't seen a demo of anything which can even solve most "well defined" and simple AI problems. I have yet to see a resume parser which can put www.monster.com's outputted formatted resume into its internal representation. When I was in grad school, I use to crash the differential equation solver in Maxima by using the Peano method on a power series solution. I suppose you can crash most AI algorithms just by asking it to identify a simple pattern inherent in the solution, but not explicitly stated. Just think of a cleaver idiomatic expression, like "He saw the girl by the tree." or "Time flies, you cannot, they go too fast." and ask the computer to explain the meaning of it. Or maybe give it a couple of complex ill-posed high school math problem you have discussed (A man faces sees a bear due North, walks one kilometer meters due West, and shoots due North, and kills the bear. What color is the bear?) I suppose many foreigners and autistic people might have problems with that as well.
Well, I have other things to do during the day. For example, practice my karate, make dinner, work on the yard, visit my friends, clean the house (especially the bathroom), pay the bills, spend time with my wife and kids, take care of problems and issues. Of course, you have a maid/lawn/pool/mechanic/wife service for that. On top of that, one should realize that to be cultured and educated, one should be diversified. What's the sense of being able to memorize some computer stuff if you cannot read, write and analyze other things in life. One big shortcoming of various technical educations is that they completely disregard education in non-technical disciplines. I have met too many programmers who really knew their technology, but were utter morons in other aspects of their life. That's fine for them, but that's not what I want to be. I wonder, do lawyers come home and work on keeping up their profession, as well as keep up their computer skills? Most computer skills I have learned I have had to drop. It goes out of date faster than Elvis paraphernalia. I think I forgot my Jovial precedence rules as well as CDC Cyber OS syntax. Its a good thing I post to slashdot or I'd forget how to write things other than tech specs.
Engineers think different. Maybe it should have been said that engineers bother to think. They usually know from "engineering problems" that sometimes the solution to problems is something that has to be analyzed rather than regurgitated. Engineers are usually better educated than the "poor unwashed masses". That and they "dare to criticize" the source. It it amazing in how a democratic populace like the US, people "like being told what to think". A simple example is GWB's why do they hate us so much? Gee, hasn't someone thought beyond the given reply and maybe even ventured a guess that maybe we are "at fault", gasp!! You mean "the C student from Yale" might be wrong? Also, engineers have access to lots of information by virtue of their profession. They meet and travel all over the world, so some of that "foreign propaganda" rubs off. The might even have met a Middle Eastern who is educated too, while as most people's encounter with Ahmed is at the filling station. Secondly, in a modern sophisticated society, weapons and tactics used by the military have common roots from that taught in engineering. It is a sort of a chicken and egg dilemma, but lots of engineering projects have been funded by the military. There is symbiosis of engineering with the military that goes back to the "Battle for Troy". Why I bet even Grog (the caveman) might have mumbled to Geek (the tinker) on how to improve his stone knife. Thirdly, engineers might even understand the plight of other people. Most likely, someone who is and engineer probably came up from the lower middle class end of society, and knows that the distribution of economic wealth is not fair. If he had been better off, he would have been a lawyer, banker or businessman. He might even question why the hell is a capitalistic country like the US subsidizing the Bear Sterns sell off to Morgan Stanley while his house price is falling below the price that he paid for it. Or worse yet, he might be an unemployed middle-aged engineer listening to Bill Gates talk about raising the number of H1B visas, while he is contemplating becoming a cashier at the supermarket. But what the hell do I know?
Do the police take real world bullying seriously? Or do they just break it up and bring the bullies to their parent to straighten them out [which the parents could care less about]?
I think there is a serious shortage of inexpensive competent honest lawyers. Maybe Congress might want to address that issue. I went to a lawyer, who said he would charge me next to nothing to get a frivolous $500 towing charge dismissed. His idea of next to nothing was $200. Mine was like $20. But he had me come into his office, and pontificate for an hour about the ticket and such. Then, he asked me for $100. After court, he asked for another $100. I asked for a receipt, which he wrote on a PostIt note in unreadable handwritting.
Well, I have to agree with the statement regarding the pay disparity between the programmers and the corporate executives. First, let me get this straight. Most companies want some 10x more productive than his peers, yet work for 25% more than his peers. Oh heck, maybe you give him a 5K bonus in front of his peers to really make him feel swell. He might be pissed to all hell with the corporate pay structure in the first place. Second, there are a lot of really great programmers who you don't want on your team. Richard Stallman is one of them. I like RMS and his idea, but I know why he would be terrible in your organization. Somehow, you seem to think that really creative and intelligent people want to be on your team. Have you considered that maybe since they are great programmers, they just don't fit into your corporate structure because they have their own agenda. Third, there is this domain of expertice issue going on. Just because someone is great at one thing doesn't translate to other areas. Einstein was brilliant, but had quite a few character flaws. On top of that, he was a communist. I am sure that once he started talking about ideas that he wanted to discuss, you would be trying to get him to shut up and "manage him". Managing smart people is like herding cats. Moreover, have you considered that he might not take well to being managed. All of a sudden, you start telling him what he should be doing. You might want him to work in the quant theory and he wants to work in relativity. The only solution that I have for you is to turn your staff into the superstars that you want them to be. If you can't, then you are the failure, not your staff. Most managers have yet to impress me with their superstar abilities. Steve Jobs might be a great manager, but from what I have seen in the movie "The Pirates of Silcon Valley," based on Woz's portrail, he seems like an asshole to work for. But hey, all of those poor suckers who busted their butt working 90 hour weeks who didn't get their stock options got screwed in the end.
I heard that Brazil was the first country which started asking Americans to undergo the same scrutiny that foreigners were subject to when visiting the US. This is all fine, but I would like ways to subject every peon to the same ass probing as I am subject to in the name of security. The next time some official wants information about me, I think I should get information about him. How do I know that he is not going to sell this stuff to somebody else. Similarly, I think its high time that we Americans demand far more control over use of our tax dollars. Rather than having some petty bureaucrat pass bills on our behalf, we should have a referendum on everything that we are paying for with full disclosure of uses. Funds collected for one item cannot be rolled over to another item.
Just two decades ago, our leaders were discussing how little freedom there was in the Soviet Union & Eastern block countries. Well, all of that was in the name of security.. Well, it seems that once the Soviet Union has fallen, America is no longer obligated to adhere to its democratic principles.
A country which gives away a bit of its freedoms in exchange for more security, gains neither nor deserves both. T. Jefferson
Not until you have interviewed for a job will this sort of BS go away. Most managers want a project done yesterday. They don't want to hear you say that you are trying out some ideas before you actually present a solution. Most often times, your beta version is the released version. I wish it weren't that way. Tell me where to send my resume, and I'll join you. The other issue is that there are lots of people who are accountants or what not, who have been recruited to solve a problem via programming. They just don't have the time to piss around with pointers and want a language that handles that for them. They aren't interested in hand scratching their mnemonics on bare metal either.
Economomics is driven by rarity. Helium is the rarest of all the naturally occuring elements and was discovered in the sun's spectra before it was discovered here on earth. Once it is released, it it practically impossible to recover. Sooner or later, someone is going to succeed finding a commericial use for this stuff. I once went to a talk at NASA concerning one motivation for going to the Moon in the 1960's. It was hoped that there would have been enough He 3 (2 protons, 1 neutron) in the moon's atmosphere to make a fusion reaction an economic payoff. If these types of reactions yield enough energy, then it will be well worth it to travel to the moon to harvest He 3. I don't know if fusion reactions for He 4 to yield enough energy to be economically viable.
I read an article on the web about "The Outer Limits" episode called "Obits", where the government has the technological capability to maintain surveillance on anyone. The article went on to discuss how close we are coming to this today, through the use of traffic, store, bank, and drug enforcement cameras. The article went on to discuss a British counter terrorism surveillance which is able to track people from camera to camera. I remember reading about "Total Information Network", later renamed "Terrorist Information Network", and wonder how much of this already applied in the interests of National Security. Sort of like renaming the "War Department" the "Department of Defense." Its mission was perhaps far more accurately described by the old label. [Read Smetly Butler's book "War is a Racket" for a great discussion.] Moreover, with Amdocs and various other cell phone companies maintaining and selling records of your telephone contacts, Credit card selling your spending habits, this really opens the channels to Big Brother. Also, someone once pointed out that with the impregnation of common consumer devices with RFID tags, it is getting easier to track everyone quite closely. Yes, there are ways to get around some of this, but with enought redudencies in the system, it may be impossible to avoid being tracked. While as we support this action when it comes to tracking terrorists, the line is drawn when the populace decides to take action against its government. Chile was able to suppress dissension largely through well established surveillance techniques, and a strong armed police force. I am sure that the government doesn't care about most people, unless its population starts thinking about a revolution. All of a sudden, our constitutional freedom "To overthrow the government by any means necessary" becomes a commie witch hunt. We laugh at the Soviet Union and the intrusion into its citizen's lives, but we are becoming very much like that regime. The USSR did not intrude into civil liberties, but did so out of a need for self preservation.
While as I think it is silly to spend that much money on "toys", there are lots of people who do. Some of this is silly hype created by the industry, but that is part of the process (of creating wealth). There are lots of other memorabilia where similar other items are misrepresented. This type of fraud happens in more serious industries, e.g. finance [Merril-Lynch], insurance [mandatory in many cases], education [MBA mills], politics [need I say WMD and sexed up intelligence reports], and medical services [unnecessary procedures]. The guy has merit to sue for damages above and beyond a $1K. Maybe, he was looking to make a flip by selling it on EBay for far more. I am sure that most art collectors buy art with the full expectations of making far more in the future. To a large extent, this sort of speculation is behind the real estate bubble and by the Federal Reserve for meddling with interest rates. A lot of people were making lots of money flipping property which was well beyond expectations. I am sure those that bought property which was fraudulently represented are also suing developers.
The thing about technology is that it can be used both ways. Maybe we [users] can set up a web site called www.whereishenow.com . Hence, we can type in a name, e.g. George Bush, and have it show us where he is right now, using input from a variety of sources, video cameras, travel documents, etc. I read an article last month about the "Outer Limits" episode called OBIT about this futuristic device used to monitor everyone on the planet. Outer Limits didn't get the details, but was very close on the idea. My suggestion is that we turn the technology on the top 2000 most influential people or Masters of the Universe (re 1950's book, "The Organizational Man"). Maybe Gates might get pissed off if instead of monitoring us, we are monitoring them.
Ok, I'd like to sue the USA. Not because I am against the war or anything like that.
Its just that I don't get my $50M [unlike Haliburton] to go rebuild a bridge in Iraq and outsource the project to the Pakis who offer to do it for $1M.
Part of the problem is that we programmer look to recruiters for our next assignment. This is really tough, first because recruiters are flooded with resumes. Secondly, recruiters tend to drive down the rate and take their 20% overhead cut. How many times have recuiters told you flat out that the rate is such and such.
Getting programming work really means getting to the person who NEEDS the work done. This takes a lot of effort and making enough contracts until that person is found. It takes cold calling, and a certain sence of persistence. I am guessing that "finding work" CONSUMES 50+% of one's time. Unfortunately, this also means that we spend a great deal of time doing something which we are not good at doing. We probably are good programmers because we honed our skills in that endevour, and shunned our people skills.
Not that its easy and definately not that its fun, but to land work, it takes an incredible amount of time searching for the opportunity. Unfortunately, the only way I know how to approach this is through the age old technique of cold calling. It is boring and has a low return rate. Worse, sometimes it leads to project which we are not interested about, but might take because it is some income.
Just my 2 cents!
This is impossible to do. However, I was thinking if the reverse is possible. To keep and diseminate critical information about companies and its C-level employees. So, DoubleClick tracks us. Maybe we should track DoubleClick's CEO. How about seeing up a web site like a total fan would? Make him more popular than Britney Spears. Users can submit pictures of him driving down the highway, going shopping, visiting clients, taking a bathroom break at the rest stop. And lets not stop at examining his purchasing habits. Those flowers he picked up might not go to his wife. Make sure the audit trail doesn't stop, follow up. Keep records of all cars in his driveway. All along with time tagged information tied into Google Earth. Hey, if "National Inquire" appeals to "Inquiring minds that need to know," maybe we might want to know as well.
One of the most innovative ideas created by Americans was the plane invented by the Wright brothers. The Wrights realized that planes had to be lightweight in order to function, unlike the heavy weight ideas being built by Curtis, and receiving the gov't contracts. From his biobliography, Wright was pissed off about having his patents taken away by the gov't in order to prepare for WWI and having to merge with his rival Curtis in order to stay in business. A sad part of history not discussed is that while airplanes were invented in the US, they were perfected in Germany as jet planes. Funny, the same thing happened with rockets. Goddard was completely ignored and died without seeing his ideas recognized. Only after the Germans surrendered and the plans for the V2 became well known, did the Germans acknowledge Goddard. Then the Americans named NASA's building after Goddard. Good PR!! Only great powerful companies with political connections like Haliburton, IBM and Raytheon make money from the government to develop and design the next generation of systems. For example, during the 1950's IBM received trillions of dollars from the Dept of War to develop computers and IC components. The public funds basic R&D, while the large corps make the money when it becomes commericially viable. The same thing happens in the pharm industry. The govt pays to develop basic R&D, but if one of drugs looks promising, the pharms get in and commercialize it. By its very nature, research is a losing game, where most of the ideas fail. With this sort of economic model, why would someone choose to get in on the losing end of the deal. Better to become some bean counter or beurocrate running the project, than to be the one doing the work. Hey, its easy to spend other people's money. If it fails, the tax payer gets stuck with the bill. If it works, big business muscles in and takes home the winning ideas. I remember reading an article about how Xerox patented copiers. But IBM changed the design so that the photocopier moved and the paper stood still. If you throw in enough peon, you can crack anyone's patents.
When I went to college in 1980 to get my B. Sc., most bright Americans went to further their education by going into law, business, or medicine. That's were the money is. Something like 90% of the Ph. D. given in the physical sciences went to people born outside of the US, most likily because they knew that their chances were lower in fields requiring personal connections, as they did not have them. If I were to do it all over again, I'd get a degree in finance, something that would get me a job for life. Most American realize that the plumber, carpenter, and auto mechanic has a better lifestyle than a Ph. D. in engineering, chemistry, physics or math. Some say that truck drivers have a better stream of work all through their careers. At least they don't go around chasing 2 year appointments well into their mid careers.
Ten years from now, major software companies will be getting big handouts to train people to become SWEs because there will be a lack of qualified individuals and we need to stay a world class competitor in computers. The other day, I went to an interview at a major computer corporation. During the interview, the company told me that they (the company) gets (from the government) $15K/year/employee to stay competative. When this is done in the Soviet Union or Japan, our elected officials would be raising hell. Well, this all stinks of state sponced capitalism. Think of the imminent domain laws passed in NYC. Basically if a quasi govt corp (e.g. Trump) wants to expand its large facility and your own the property adjacent, they can buy you out for peanuts. Simiarly, note that the NY Stock Exchange pays no taxes to NYC because it creates "jobs". Why should I pay taxes; I create jobs for the subway system, the construction industry, the food service industry. This reminds me of NYC and how Julieanni's NYC redevelopment program was going to save NYC. In 2002, there was a lot of legistation about the commuter tax. Basically, for the privilage of working, I was going to be taxed 10%, which would be given to my employer to keep jobs in NYC. Well, at the same time, I was reading an article in the NYT about how a worker in communist China would have to bribe is local boss with a 10% kickback. Well, it seems that we have beat them at their own game. We all believe in laisse affair economics, expect when it comes to having the gov't bail out big business. If NYC is ecomomically unviable, then we should let the NYC ecomony fail. Wasn't this the advice Bush Sr. had for Eastern Europe. I think it should go for the US as well. The point of this discuess is that whenever our jobs are being outsourced to China or India, our gov't is quick to enact legistation to facilitate it because it is good for business. However when big business is in trouble, the taxpayer get footed with the bill. Remember the big bail out in 1992 of investors in Mexico. Half a trillion dollars of our money to fund this bad investment. When the hell am I going to get money for the lose of my job due to outsourcing?
This reminds me of a joke on the comedy channel. The comic says, for 50 years, we had to listen to the annoying interruption, "This is an test of the emergency broadcast system. If this had been an emergency, this message would have been followed by an announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Well, on 9/11, there was no Announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Seems like an incredible waste of time and effort." However, the other joke was that Congress had build bunkers for themselves, but not the "little people". We joke about the Soviets, but their disaster planning was organized and methodical. I am sure it was full of holes and beareteic logistics, but it was far better coordinated. I guess if you had the money, you used your private funds to build a fall out shelter, something that I hear was popular in the 50's. In 12 years of schooling, we only had one "Emergency Attack Planning Drill". Maybe having too many might make too many people rethink the MAD strategee. Hey, people might even rebell and decide to rid the world of nuclear weopeons or the 60's "Give Peace a Chance". Ironically, in the US in the 90's, the slogan became, "Give War a Chance". Fundametally, with this sort of attitude on both sides of the Iron Curtain, I am quite surprised that an all-out nuclear war never materiallized. Hell, the USSR would be destroyed 200 times over, while the US would have surived 80% (according to Edward Teller). Maybe if Yuri Andropov had survived, and Gorbechov never rose to Primir status, that would have been the likely outcome. Stalin was committed to insuring the survival of the USSR. Whatever you might think of him, Stalin did insure that the USSR never collapsed under his reign, one in which the USSR was fundamentally far more weaker than it was in the 90's.
An excellent article summarizing the history and current situation of the educational system in China. I liked its length because the author took the time to explain his thoughts and justification. This differs from the "USA Today" mentality where most "information" is presented with bold and misleading statements and no explanations whose intention is to brainwash to populace into a way of thinking. BTW, I love in the USA. Elsewhere I'd have to serve in the military. Here, the Red Necks, Hispanics and Blacks sign up and die in my place serving the country! How can you not love a country like this?