Things wear out because of shoddy materials and/or shoddy workmanship. This is possible with programmers and their environment. Is that more clear?
Analogies need not be almost identical to the point in order to prove it.
Lot of "I" comments coming up, but hopefully it will give some ideas to someone who finds they can relate.
I spent more time at university than I needed to because everyone told me I was intelligent (and therefore going to university), and was "good with computers" (hence I must go in computer science, even though the people who told me this don't know what the hell compsci is). It took me a while to figure out that coding isn't something I like *that* much in of itself, and that my university often did a poor job of preparing me for a "computer science job" anyways.
Some time off made me realize the main problem is I like "computer stuff" but my interests and natural skills are too varied to be sitting any *only* doing coding for 12 hours a day. I'm more of a "jack of all trades" person. Network admin/sysadmin is a much better fit - some coding (which has a much higher "instant gratification" factor), problem-solving, management, people skills, even getting dirty and playing with hardware and toys. I've pre-learned some material, and sat down and figured out some Linux skills, and am planning to setup some more stuff this winter and spring. I am going to a great college this fall which teaches real practical skills (despite the bs Canadian students are fed that smart kids must only go to university).
I've found investing time in learning these things comes much easier because it's a natural interest, not forced.
Dabble in different fields. Join a higher-end computer user group and see what topics and opportunities arise (that's exactly what helped me to see what *I* actually want).
I would hope with environmentalism being pushed as the trendy thing to do that concepts such as Reware will become more mainstream. We really have more money than we know what to do with.
We really should do this for better reasons (i.e. other than it being trendy), but whatever gets the ball rolling...
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/reware/wiki/Reware
How cool would it be to donate old devices to schools and lets students tinker around with them?
I would make the argument buffer overflows or memory leaks are software's equivalent of "wearing out" (in an ungraceful/unnecessary manner). Kinda of like using very cheap thread to stitch a t-shirt.
Not only ad revenue, but bad publicity. Those costs are harder to measure.
There is more than one reason to not choose the route they did, including financial ones. Companies do things only for the bottom line. It makes me wonder if a) things are so bad they really really couldn't sustain it (and the whole company is about to specatcularly implode) or b) some idiots in suits didn't think this through, or listen to the voice of reason. At all.
That's it. All sports should be naked.
I'm female, so I suspect it will be less of a problem for me. We had quite a discussion about the physics of the nude (male) cyclist who rode through the city a couple months ago.
That's not a reasonable assertion, especially considering history of Chrome and market share. It's a newcomer.
i.e. basic statistics - your sample size is too small and isn't relevant in the context of the things you're comparing it against.
It's interesting that several people say women lack interest in certain fields, and other say they are more geared towards human-oriented fields. I really haven't seen anyone ask WHY and it's implications, which is the important question.
The article summary even hits on this too, in an indirect way. Sure, there's always been more men in IT... but WHY have the numbers changed so much, especially recently?
My own experience with "not fitting in" has usually been with all the other expected facets of geek culture, especially when I was in University. MUDS (at the time), RPGs, MMORPGS, other gaming things, DND, Transformers, movies. Nerdy types tend to be very obnoxious when noting someone doesn't "know" something (as trivial and useless as it is). "OH MY GOD, YOU DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BROADSWORD AND A LONGSWORD?"
Create an aggressive, mocking, obnoxious environment that is bent on feeling genius and superior, and I'll reconsider spending my future surrounded by such people.
On the other hand, it's up to me to trudge through, regardless. I'm glad the adult geeks tend to be more dimensional and accepting than their younger counterparts, I wouldn't have lasted long, otherwise. I'm also ridiculously stubborn, which helps too.
Where I have heard before... that women in working environments vote with their feet. If they are having a difficult time, they aren't likely to speak up, but they will leave. I would very much say that is true. Women are disinclined to speak up, for a number of reasons. A big one is that they feel they will be punished, which I also believe is (often) true.
So if women aren't standing up for women, and men aren't standing up for women, then what do you really expect?
Nerdy types who care about this type of thing are capable of workarounds and WILL do it. Furthermore, there will always be more player in this arena than one company. Procedures won't be *that* standardized. Too many others want alternatives too much.
You see, the real problem we have here is people who consider workarounds and freedom in the first place, and are intelligent enough to implement it. If we got rid of all the smart creative people, then all the world's problems would be solved. Damn them.
I can see it happening already. Again. This is not a party issue. This is not a time to get all hung up on sour grapes.
Please recognize that no matter who introduces it, it requires more than one party to pass it. Get on your MP's case now, inform your friends and family about the situation, and heckle them to do something.
Furthermore, the National Post article on here a while ago indicated that it was the Liberals who introduced it the previous session (before the Conservatives were voted in).
I realize those who didn't vote Conservative like to scream and point fingers at them, but while you're whining about the evils of the Other Party we've got a parliament session happening with bills being voted upon. Get on it and do something useful with your government, it's the only one you've got.
It's like you're standing beside a building that's burning down, jabbering on about how self-righteous and awesome you are that you don't play with matches. STFU and put out the fire, you twits.
I'll bet phone salespeople won't be looking terribly closely at the passport photos.
Stealing a passport or doing a half-assed job of faking one if probably sufficient. It's a good thing them thar terrorists have no interest or talent in faking or stealing passports.
I don't care if the OCR can read others' handwriting. I just need it to analyze *my* handwriting.
I forget the exact terms from my Machine Learning course, but...
This reminds me of Bayesian spam filtering you can use on email boxes. You can also have training data to help sort new cases.
In this case the sample size is either a bit larger than the typical use (about 50 possibilities if we're talking about common alphanumeric characters), or whole words (if we use dictionary instead). Some combined solution may be more effective: using a dictionary to help your training data collected from simple characters.
Filtering out the writing from the page can already be done to some degree where the scanning method is true bitmap... text is decided as either black or white, with a certain value of grey being a deciding threshold.
You can also start with several basic handwriting styles, use that as a base and have the training data adjust to you.
How about an "open" handwriting database where the training data report back to a repository?
A lot of people here have contributed useful advice on the technical aspect of the situation.
One big lesson I've learned this year is *huge* value of personal relationships. I knew it was important before, but now I'm really beginning to appreciate the magnitude of it.
I think a lot of us nerd and geek types grew up independent and idealistic... perhaps not pursuing many group activities because we could sense a great deal of bs required in such things (saying things you don't mean, kissing butt, holding your tongue). We're smart enough to realize what a big silly game it can be. Us geeky types are principle-oriented... we wouldn't want to drawn into playing that game. As an adult, you look around and see that the same thing very much exists there too.
Geeks expect our intelligence and skills to get us everywhere, but personal relationships and how people perceive you are the things that will give you opportunities.
You need to develop all sorts of contacts. Get involved with many different groups. Talk more with the more distant family members (cousins are generally a good one). Don't be shy about putting yourself into situations you're not comfortable in, and don't be shy about asking for something you would like or need. Start doing personal favors for people other than your closest friends. If you're at a party where there are people you don't know, make the effort to start and carry on a conversation with them.
Learn to take genuine interest in others, and they will remember you.
Maybe if there's no income in music, people will start picking it up and playing it themselves. Maybe it will become something that brings a community together.
This comes to mind because it reminds me of my brother in his University years. He was working in a resort town and living in a campground. To stave off boredom, he had his acoustic guitar with him and often fooled around with it (he self-taught at 15). One night, people wandering by the campsite (to get water, go have a shower etc.) would stop and chat to him. One guy went to get his guitar. Before you know it, there were twelve people as his campsite, singing and playing along.
I think less time whining about music quality and "playing" guitar hero would afford all of us to learn new things and connect to our community, neighbors, and ourselves in better ways.
Installfests and install practice with all sorts of distros (for students and non-students) and computer hardware assembly practice. Group troubleshooting is a great way to learn practical skills. It gives you the potential for connection with the community too.
How about asking for donations of different IDEs? You don't even need multiple copies... one copy on a machine to play around with is good enough. Some stuff might be available through a MSDNAA program.
Don't know about your university, but mine neglected learning the actual software or languages you were using (most lectures and material were theoretical but assignments were practical!) Also, putting together a computer or installing an OS was something some people picked up on their own, but is scary to do by yourself for the first time (especially if your only available machine is your production machine at home). It's something that's kind of expected out out CS students, but never taught.
It just occurred to me that the more companies rely on others to do their programming for them, the fewer developers we have for other projects.
Is the growth rate of programmers close to the growth rate of available projects? Will more projects spark an interest in programming in some of the population?
Hey, you're allowed. The sad thing is many Canadians don't know the difference...
So many Canadians are busy feeling the hate on the other political party because it makes them look cool to their peers. What they should be doing instead is paying attention what their own damned MP or party is doing.
Slashdot Mirror
Things wear out because of shoddy materials and/or shoddy workmanship. This is possible with programmers and their environment. Is that more clear? Analogies need not be almost identical to the point in order to prove it.
Lot of "I" comments coming up, but hopefully it will give some ideas to someone who finds they can relate.
I spent more time at university than I needed to because everyone told me I was intelligent (and therefore going to university), and was "good with computers" (hence I must go in computer science, even though the people who told me this don't know what the hell compsci is). It took me a while to figure out that coding isn't something I like *that* much in of itself, and that my university often did a poor job of preparing me for a "computer science job" anyways.
Some time off made me realize the main problem is I like "computer stuff" but my interests and natural skills are too varied to be sitting any *only* doing coding for 12 hours a day. I'm more of a "jack of all trades" person. Network admin/sysadmin is a much better fit - some coding (which has a much higher "instant gratification" factor), problem-solving, management, people skills, even getting dirty and playing with hardware and toys. I've pre-learned some material, and sat down and figured out some Linux skills, and am planning to setup some more stuff this winter and spring. I am going to a great college this fall which teaches real practical skills (despite the bs Canadian students are fed that smart kids must only go to university).
I've found investing time in learning these things comes much easier because it's a natural interest, not forced.
Dabble in different fields. Join a higher-end computer user group and see what topics and opportunities arise (that's exactly what helped me to see what *I* actually want).
People named Bob?
I would hope with environmentalism being pushed as the trendy thing to do that concepts such as Reware will become more mainstream. We really have more money than we know what to do with.
We really should do this for better reasons (i.e. other than it being trendy), but whatever gets the ball rolling...
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/reware/wiki/Reware
How cool would it be to donate old devices to schools and lets students tinker around with them?
I would make the argument buffer overflows or memory leaks are software's equivalent of "wearing out" (in an ungraceful/unnecessary manner). Kinda of like using very cheap thread to stitch a t-shirt.
Not only ad revenue, but bad publicity. Those costs are harder to measure.
There is more than one reason to not choose the route they did, including financial ones. Companies do things only for the bottom line. It makes me wonder if
a) things are so bad they really really couldn't sustain it (and the whole company is about to specatcularly implode)
or
b) some idiots in suits didn't think this through, or listen to the voice of reason. At all.
Having known idiots in suits, I'm going with b).
Subby, if you die, it really isn't your problem anymore. Don't worry about it.
That's it. All sports should be naked. I'm female, so I suspect it will be less of a problem for me. We had quite a discussion about the physics of the nude (male) cyclist who rode through the city a couple months ago.
That's not a reasonable assertion, especially considering history of Chrome and market share. It's a newcomer. i.e. basic statistics - your sample size is too small and isn't relevant in the context of the things you're comparing it against.
It's interesting that several people say women lack interest in certain fields, and other say they are more geared towards human-oriented fields. I really haven't seen anyone ask WHY and it's implications, which is the important question.
The article summary even hits on this too, in an indirect way. Sure, there's always been more men in IT... but WHY have the numbers changed so much, especially recently?
My own experience with "not fitting in" has usually been with all the other expected facets of geek culture, especially when I was in University. MUDS (at the time), RPGs, MMORPGS, other gaming things, DND, Transformers, movies. Nerdy types tend to be very obnoxious when noting someone doesn't "know" something (as trivial and useless as it is). "OH MY GOD, YOU DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BROADSWORD AND A LONGSWORD?"
Create an aggressive, mocking, obnoxious environment that is bent on feeling genius and superior, and I'll reconsider spending my future surrounded by such people.
On the other hand, it's up to me to trudge through, regardless. I'm glad the adult geeks tend to be more dimensional and accepting than their younger counterparts, I wouldn't have lasted long, otherwise. I'm also ridiculously stubborn, which helps too.
Where I have heard before... that women in working environments vote with their feet. If they are having a difficult time, they aren't likely to speak up, but they will leave. I would very much say that is true. Women are disinclined to speak up, for a number of reasons. A big one is that they feel they will be punished, which I also believe is (often) true.
So if women aren't standing up for women, and men aren't standing up for women, then what do you really expect?
Either a person smells bad, or good (i.e. nothing).
What would be more useful is a graph theory formula to find the seat that exposes you to the minimum amount of stench. Ready? Go.
I'm so glad I have you guys, it's not like I can post this request on my linux group listserv.
I sthuggesth Tweety Bird.
Nerdy types who care about this type of thing are capable of workarounds and WILL do it. Furthermore, there will always be more player in this arena than one company. Procedures won't be *that* standardized. Too many others want alternatives too much. You see, the real problem we have here is people who consider workarounds and freedom in the first place, and are intelligent enough to implement it. If we got rid of all the smart creative people, then all the world's problems would be solved. Damn them.
Has someone mentioned isopropyl alcohol yet? I hear it can clean electronics.
I can see it happening already. Again. This is not a party issue. This is not a time to get all hung up on sour grapes.
Please recognize that no matter who introduces it, it requires more than one party to pass it. Get on your MP's case now, inform your friends and family about the situation, and heckle them to do something.
Furthermore, the National Post article on here a while ago indicated that it was the Liberals who introduced it the previous session (before the Conservatives were voted in).
I realize those who didn't vote Conservative like to scream and point fingers at them, but while you're whining about the evils of the Other Party we've got a parliament session happening with bills being voted upon. Get on it and do something useful with your government, it's the only one you've got.
It's like you're standing beside a building that's burning down, jabbering on about how self-righteous and awesome you are that you don't play with matches. STFU and put out the fire, you twits.
I'll bet phone salespeople won't be looking terribly closely at the passport photos. Stealing a passport or doing a half-assed job of faking one if probably sufficient. It's a good thing them thar terrorists have no interest or talent in faking or stealing passports.
I don't care if the OCR can read others' handwriting. I just need it to analyze *my* handwriting.
I forget the exact terms from my Machine Learning course, but...
This reminds me of Bayesian spam filtering you can use on email boxes. You can also have training data to help sort new cases.
In this case the sample size is either a bit larger than the typical use (about 50 possibilities if we're talking about common alphanumeric characters), or whole words (if we use dictionary instead). Some combined solution may be more effective: using a dictionary to help your training data collected from simple characters.
Filtering out the writing from the page can already be done to some degree where the scanning method is true bitmap... text is decided as either black or white, with a certain value of grey being a deciding threshold.
You can also start with several basic handwriting styles, use that as a base and have the training data adjust to you.
How about an "open" handwriting database where the training data report back to a repository?
A lot of people here have contributed useful advice on the technical aspect of the situation.
One big lesson I've learned this year is *huge* value of personal relationships. I knew it was important before, but now I'm really beginning to appreciate the magnitude of it.
I think a lot of us nerd and geek types grew up independent and idealistic... perhaps not pursuing many group activities because we could sense a great deal of bs required in such things (saying things you don't mean, kissing butt, holding your tongue). We're smart enough to realize what a big silly game it can be. Us geeky types are principle-oriented... we wouldn't want to drawn into playing that game. As an adult, you look around and see that the same thing very much exists there too.
Geeks expect our intelligence and skills to get us everywhere, but personal relationships and how people perceive you are the things that will give you opportunities.
You need to develop all sorts of contacts. Get involved with many different groups. Talk more with the more distant family members (cousins are generally a good one). Don't be shy about putting yourself into situations you're not comfortable in, and don't be shy about asking for something you would like or need. Start doing personal favors for people other than your closest friends. If you're at a party where there are people you don't know, make the effort to start and carry on a conversation with them.
Learn to take genuine interest in others, and they will remember you.
When I read the summary, I already thought "there's a Chuck Norris joke in here somewhere".
Maybe if there's no income in music, people will start picking it up and playing it themselves. Maybe it will become something that brings a community together.
This comes to mind because it reminds me of my brother in his University years. He was working in a resort town and living in a campground. To stave off boredom, he had his acoustic guitar with him and often fooled around with it (he self-taught at 15). One night, people wandering by the campsite (to get water, go have a shower etc.) would stop and chat to him. One guy went to get his guitar. Before you know it, there were twelve people as his campsite, singing and playing along.
I think less time whining about music quality and "playing" guitar hero would afford all of us to learn new things and connect to our community, neighbors, and ourselves in better ways.
Installfests and install practice with all sorts of distros (for students and non-students) and computer hardware assembly practice. Group troubleshooting is a great way to learn practical skills. It gives you the potential for connection with the community too.
How about asking for donations of different IDEs? You don't even need multiple copies... one copy on a machine to play around with is good enough. Some stuff might be available through a MSDNAA program.
Don't know about your university, but mine neglected learning the actual software or languages you were using (most lectures and material were theoretical but assignments were practical!) Also, putting together a computer or installing an OS was something some people picked up on their own, but is scary to do by yourself for the first time (especially if your only available machine is your production machine at home). It's something that's kind of expected out out CS students, but never taught.
I'm not familiar with the current small/fast more obscure distros, so my first thought was
"I wonder how fast a really old OS would run on new hardware." Assuming it could run on the new hardware, of course.
Remember the "Turbo" button? Whoa. Slow down, buddy.
"tasked"? There's a pointy-haired boss somewhere in this process.
It just occurred to me that the more companies rely on others to do their programming for them, the fewer developers we have for other projects.
Is the growth rate of programmers close to the growth rate of available projects? Will more projects spark an interest in programming in some of the population?
Hey, you're allowed. The sad thing is many Canadians don't know the difference...
So many Canadians are busy feeling the hate on the other political party because it makes them look cool to their peers. What they should be doing instead is paying attention what their own damned MP or party is doing.