But the risks of a safari are much greater than that of a zoo. Do you want to create and maintain a huge fence that is probably a few hundred if not thousand km long? And what do you do when an animal escapes? Remember that there are probably very few natural predators for any of the animals in the safari.
If you really want to breed African animals, do it in Africa! The only reason Kerry Packer wants to do it in Oz is to manage his media image, "as caring about Oz as your man next door". But it shows how little he thought this one through and in his desire to bolster his image, he will end up hurting the Australian flora and fauna much more than he will benefit it.
Yes, so here he is again, trying to put himself forth as a preserver of all that is good and beautiful in Australia. It is therefore a bit strange that he picks African animals as a way to boost the Australian image and attraction.
Please Mr Packer, if you're really into saving the endangered species and not just into massaging your own ego, there are heaps of organizations in Africa against illegal poaching etc that can use that sort of investment. It will be money much better spent than in a wildlife preserve in Australia.
So, the filthily wealthy has decided in his insecure ego (the contradiction in terms is on purpose) that he needs to leave some tangible legacy behind. And what, in his utter wisdom, has he chosen?
Yes, the preservation of wildlife. A noble cause in itself, noble indeed. But to introduce African wildlife into Australia? That is pathetic.
Let's start with the famous rabbits, foxes, cane toads etc which roam the Australian country side. It's not a pretty sight, with all the introduced animals, having perhaps few predators and therefore outbreeding the local fauna.
There may also be the small problem of germs brought into Australia by the animals. Ever been to Oz? Ever try to bring something even remotely animal-sourced material into the country? Even the soil under your shoes has to be cleaned, for fear of foreign infection due to the relative isolation of the continent.
And also, if they plan to put a big fence around the property, they also need to maintain the damn thing, which, due to the size of it, should mean a constant monitoring of the thing and watching for any escaping animals (which would bring us back to point 1).
In short, any "let's bring in species X into that continent" has, up to now, caused so many unforeseen side effects this should not be done without a proper scientific ground, and even with that, it should not be done lightly. And certainly not on the whim of an insecure rich man like Kerry Packer.
Lack of DRM in ebooks most likely won't lead to a noticeable increase in the piracy of books. [...]
This ignores the fact that e-books are different in essence than paper books. A photocopied paper book is far more unwieldy than the original, and is degraded in quality as well. E-books don't suffer this, so it's far more tempting, and likely far easier, to copy e-books than it is with physical books.
Reasons why paper replacements are still far away
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Electronic Paper
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· Score: 5, Informative
Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?
First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.
Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!
Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.
While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.
And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.
And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.
These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.
It seems that when you follow good programming practice, you end up destroying your job security; and as silly as it sounds... it appears to be sooth.
If you really mean that, than there's something seriously wrong. If you need that kind of obscurity to get job security, perhaps you should look in the mirror more accurately and find other ways to raise your performance. Or your manager knows jack shit about IT.
Creating code that a machine understands is easy. Creating code that humans understand is what makes coding difficult. Any able manager would love to see a coder in his staff producing code that any programmer off the street can jump into and work on efficiently. I'd get that coder a raise to make sure he doesn't leave! Far from destroying job security, it increases job security!
// get rid of the array
for (i = 0; i array_size; i++)
free(array[i]);
free(array);
I actually think this is a bad use of a comment. A comment should do more than tell me what I can see from the code itself. It should tell me why something was done, or why it was done in the way it is done. It should show intent.
[proper comments]: Write out what you are planning to do in English. (or whatever else may be the dominant language in your development group) Fill in every step in the problem. This is NOT psuedo code. This is akin to: Find out who www.yahoo.com is, open a connection, ask for the main page, and check to see if our cache is still valid. If the cache is stale (the yahoo page has been updated), get a new copy of the main page. If the cache is still valid, pull the page from cache instead. Drop the page into the "ready" bin and send a message to the user that the page is here.
Again, this is an example of either a section of code that is too long and complex for a single routine, or it doesn't add more understanding than the code itself. Remember that comments need to be maintained as well! That is why documenting intent is so much more important than documenting the actual steps taken. If the comment showed intent ("We cache pages for efficiency, but we need to check against updates of the actual page") I know why the check is important.
Yes, I agree in terms that one should be careful when building personal relationships on the work floor. Especially when it concerns direct boss-employee relationships, favouritism is an ugly word, even when the accusation is false the damage will be done.
It really depends on the work environment. On my current job, apart from a "coach" and the direct management, there's only three real degrees of seniority: junior, medior and senior, and there's no competition to get to the promotions. Of course, on every project, there will be a project/team leader, but that changes per project, even though the more senior or most able people tend to get those. But that's also well accepted. My coworkers are all there to help me out if I need them, they are a constant source of inspiration.
As for maintaining a professional relationship, well, it really boils down to building a fairly thick wall once you step into the office. If I botch up a job, I get my arse kicked. But I'll take that as a professional level and not at a personal level.
The trick is maintaining that balance, and making sure others on the work floor understand and respect that balance. Not all work environments cater for this, but then again, I can't imagine working somewhere where this is absent.
But you see, that's not the choice I'm making. I have enough money to sustain the lifestyle I want. I also have a bit left over by the end of the month. And good enough future prospects which allows me not to worry too much about the future.
It's not go for the most money or worry about the bills, it's about choosing which bills you want, and going for enough money to meet those bills and seek the healthiest environment which meets that criterium.
Money is just one criterium, an important one, but not the only one, and for me, certainly not the most important one.
I'm just starting out really. Had half a year of work after getting my Master's, then I took a year off to travel to Australia and New Zealand. Getting back to Europe, I'm now in my first 6 months, so no, I'm not in the top bracket.
But I also do not feel the need to claw my way to the top. And actually, the path I've plotted for myself keeps myself from the fastest way to the big money. Precisely because there are things more important than the money, for example, interesting and innovative work where my coworkers are a source of inspiration rather than a source of backstabbing.
But that's just my current goal in life. I have enough money to pay the bills, very decent to good future prospects, and am happy at my work. But if others'd rather go for the money, well, e my guest!
Are you serious? So you believe that IT people are just a typical cross-section of society as a whole? That certain personality types are not more attracted to IT than to other professions? You must have your eyes closed.
Well, perhaps not typical, but not deviating as much to make the question relevant. Perhaps we tend to be slightly more on the non-social side of the line, but to suggest that a good portion of it has no need to socialize is just... offending almost.
Most IT companies I know are just simple guys (and even some girls) who like some fun, who employ the usual care in an appropriate seperation between private and professional life. Just like people in other branches. So if you think that most IT people are prototypical nerds who don't socialize except through a computer, it's you who has his eyes closed.
Lets get a few facts straight, theres no such thing, as a "Friend" at work, these are called assosiates, you work with them, but you are careful what you say around them. Talk bad about the boss around the wrong guy and next thing you know you'll be fired or in your bosses office explaining yourself.
I know i cant be the only person here who knows that the first rule is never trust anyone at work.
This is truly very dependent on the work environment. Of course, one should take care on the work floor with personal relationships, but if the basic trust is not present in the company, it's time for me to move to a different employer. I like a working environment where we actually go out of our way to help people and not stab each other in the back.
The second rule is never try to make friends with people at work.
Not my experience. But this ties in directly with your first point. It is important though, to keep some sort of seperation between your private and your professional life, at least to keep some parts of your private life, well, private, somewhere you can get away from it all. That's not to say that you shouldn't make friends at work, but rather that you should take care not to have all your friends at work.
Third rule is not to date women from work. If you are a high up CEO or boss, and all the women are after you, dont fall for it, you know they just want a raise and want to move up.
This is important, work floor romantic relationships open a huge can of worms. Not just because they want just a raise and a promotion, but just because there will be tension on the professional side of the relationship which can spill over to your personal relationship and vice versa. And you still have to watch out for even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Perhaps using a computer provides some of the fundamental interaction that we require, making social interaction less important for computer programmers. Stupid idea? People have emotional relationships with cats and dogs, and even with creatures which arguably don't have any self-awareness or emotions (pet spiders and fish, for instance). These animals fulfil some basic emotional need for interaction, and something to care about. Can the same thing not be said of a computer? They evoke emotional responses from humans after all. (Especially when the damn things crash when you haven't saved a copy of your work).
Are you trolling or are you serious? This is exactly the thing which causes questions like the one posed in this thread. I do not have an emotional bond with my computer, I do not use it to replace any social interactions with real people.
In fact, just as there are some more solitary people in other branches of work, there will be some more solitary people in IT. It's only because our sector is IT, it will be commented on and remembered as a prime example of the non-social "nerd" (in the pejorative sense of the word). This is called Confirmation Bias and is well documented in psychology.
What is this article supposed to convey? The stereotypical non-social nerd (in the common media meaning of the word) who's in love with his computer?
IT personnel are, on the average, just normal people, whose job simply happen to involve a lot of computers. Yes, we are of a technical nature, but then again, so are mech engineers, etc. And there's never any question about whether or not they socialize.
I'm almost offended by the tone of the question posed. No, I don't really go out on the weekends with my coworkers, but that's more of a keeping my private/professional life seperate. I will and do have a drink with them, or go to "nerdie" movies with them, mostly at the end of the week or something like that. In fact, it's probably not much different in other types of workfloor.
Those TV office romances are really just that, TV stuff. Workfloor romantic relationships usually have too many professional implications to hop into as easily as the media would like you to believe.
When will the men in charge realise that human factors are the single biggest cause of security breaches. You can have a super secure network, but it takes only one dumb employee who uses a dial-up connection to bring it down. Or hang his home laptop into the network. Or bring a floppy disk with his home work into the office. Or telling his coworkers his passwords for easier cooperation.
The list is endless, and all the network security in the world is not going to change it if you don't educate the people working with it.
As for taking a break, I agree it can be useful, but be careful not to stray too far from the CS path. If you do, it's going to be hard to get back in if you ever want to; knowledge dates faster in our industry than just about everywhere else. Time out of the loop could seriously count against you when you come to applying for jobs.
Taking time out is a good idea. I (now 25) took a year off for travel (Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong) last year after finishing my Master's degree. Not that I "lost the fire" but more that I didn't really know which way to go in the rest of my life.
Mind you, it was a better economic climate than today, but if you are an intelligent person who is good at CS, taking a year off for something completely different, like travel, it very likely will not be held against you in the better jobs. Smart people can get up to date with current technology quite quickly, and you'll have developed "soft skills" that are severely underaddressed in your average CS courses.
I'm working now at an innovative IT company (which is a subcompany of one of my country's bigger IT services company), so being a year out of the loop hasn't hurt my chances of landing a good job, and I'd say it has helped it rather than hindered.
have you ever tried asking your mum why she uses Windows? Until Linux gets a bit more user friendly and people like Red Hat,etc make their names more household brands then people are going to keep buying Windows. i doubt a lot of people have even heard of Linux, let alone know what it is.
The problem is not so much that Linux is more difficult to use. It's more like what people are used to rather than whether or not it's actually more difficult (though UI seems to be mostly an afterthought with Open Source appls) The problem is more that it's perceived to be more difficult to use. And of course that actually installing the stuff and getting it to run is a bit more of a hassle.
it's good that a lot of smaller businesses are considering putting Linux on their workstations rather than NT/2K but there is still a long way to go before most people will be convinced
But the main reason Win* is on most of the workstations is because the employees are all running Win at home and it's what they're familiar with. This is a spiral of course, because people use Win since that's what's usually installed in the office... It doesn't help that the Office suite is actually quite a good suite. It's just too bad that it comes with such a sorry excuse of an OS (mind you, Win2K is much better than earlier versions)
the good news though is that all these latest plans by Bill Gates and M$ are definately going to push people away and start thinking about alternatives to the dreaded Windows. People aren't stupid and sooner or later they'll get sick of this, it's just up to Linux developers to make sure there is something there that is user friendly to fall back on.
I think you're a bit too optimistic about all that. As long as it doesn't get into the way of people too much, people won't be bothered to change. People are lazy. Very lazy. So they'll stick to what they know until it's no longer efficient to do so.
I barely trust them with a cc#, especially since they're in bed with MS
I can see why you don't want to trus them with a CC#, but what has MS got to do with it? Not that I like them that much, but this sounds more like the usual anti-MS gripe than anything else.
On the other hand, what do you think that others can actually do with just your bank account number? It's not a number with which you can actually do a lot, unless you want to pour money IN it of course, in which case you're welcome to have it...
Microwave beams don't create radiation, so we'll be safe from that at least. Unless that's all a lie, in which case I'm glad I don't own a microwave oven and haven't had a microwave dinner in ages!
Have you tried the Dance Dance Revolution games out there and the line of drums, guitar and samba games that accompany them? They are by far the most original thing that has come out in the past few years in the arcades.
Though it's mainly the Asian public who plays them (in my experience that is) they are immensely popular, and fun to watch as well (with the exception of the samba game, I haven't tried them myself).
So have a little faith. There's always room for real innovation, even in the age old arcades.
Re:Question about chess/players and alternate game
on
Kasparov King No More
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· Score: 1
What I do know about is that Mr Polgar (father of the three chess playing Polgar sisters, of whom Judit is the best) has been experimenting with variants of chess, including different dimensions of the board.
I have no idea how these variants play though, so I can't tell you anything about those.
Ah, but Cantonese has all sorts of tones. Easier still is Bahasa Indonesia. No need for tenses etc, and also no rising, falling, high and low tones giving different meanings, as with Cantonese.
But let's not get into a "my language is better than yours" debate.
That was not my point, the post I was replying to claimed that English was really easy grammar wise. I was merely trying to say that English actually is quite a complex language to learn grammar wise and that this is no reason why English should be preferred as a global language above all other languages.
A couple of points. I've gotten to know quite a lot Japanese and Korean people lately, and even when they possessed a good amount of computer literacy, it didn't guarantee competent English at all.
Bridging software has been around for quite a while now, so Chinese/Japanese/Korean (etc) people are able to send stuff over in characters instead of the transcription in latin letters.
Furthermore, the basic vocabulary needed to communicate in any language should be just about the same. The difference between English and any other language isn't that big.
And finally, English is not an easy language to learn as you are suggesting. Surely, there are more difficult ones, but grammar's quite difficult, in particular the correct usage of the different tenses, that sort of things. For a really easy language grammar wise, try Cantonese. No need for tenses, no need for number (one cow, two cow, three cow), easy as hell.
While English as the world's business language does make sense in some way, in Hong Kong there has been a notable shift in students from learning English to learning Mandarin after 1997.
People there are realizing that being able to comminucate with mainland officials is essential to business in that area of the world, and communicating with mainland officials means being able to speak Mandarin.
Mandarin is starting to present itself as an alternative to English for business in Asia and with all the world's focus on Asia, perhaps we don't need a global domination campaign by China before people start to realize that Chinese might become more important than English.
Indeed it is not the manager who does the work. But sometimes (often?) it is the manager who sets the policy of using a particular OS as their standard.
That standard may very well be NT because it has less patches than *nix. It may not be the competent admin that has the choice of OS.
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But the risks of a safari are much greater than that of a zoo. Do you want to create and maintain a huge fence that is probably a few hundred if not thousand km long? And what do you do when an animal escapes? Remember that there are probably very few natural predators for any of the animals in the safari.
If you really want to breed African animals, do it in Africa! The only reason Kerry Packer wants to do it in Oz is to manage his media image, "as caring about Oz as your man next door". But it shows how little he thought this one through and in his desire to bolster his image, he will end up hurting the Australian flora and fauna much more than he will benefit it.
Yes, so here he is again, trying to put himself forth as a preserver of all that is good and beautiful in Australia. It is therefore a bit strange that he picks African animals as a way to boost the Australian image and attraction.
Please Mr Packer, if you're really into saving the endangered species and not just into massaging your own ego, there are heaps of organizations in Africa against illegal poaching etc that can use that sort of investment. It will be money much better spent than in a wildlife preserve in Australia.
So, the filthily wealthy has decided in his insecure ego (the contradiction in terms is on purpose) that he needs to leave some tangible legacy behind. And what, in his utter wisdom, has he chosen?
Yes, the preservation of wildlife. A noble cause in itself, noble indeed. But to introduce African wildlife into Australia? That is pathetic.
Let's start with the famous rabbits, foxes, cane toads etc which roam the Australian country side. It's not a pretty sight, with all the introduced animals, having perhaps few predators and therefore outbreeding the local fauna.
There may also be the small problem of germs brought into Australia by the animals. Ever been to Oz? Ever try to bring something even remotely animal-sourced material into the country? Even the soil under your shoes has to be cleaned, for fear of foreign infection due to the relative isolation of the continent.
And also, if they plan to put a big fence around the property, they also need to maintain the damn thing, which, due to the size of it, should mean a constant monitoring of the thing and watching for any escaping animals (which would bring us back to point 1).
In short, any "let's bring in species X into that continent" has, up to now, caused so many unforeseen side effects this should not be done without a proper scientific ground, and even with that, it should not be done lightly. And certainly not on the whim of an insecure rich man like Kerry Packer.
Lack of DRM in ebooks most likely won't lead to a noticeable increase in the piracy of books. [...]
This ignores the fact that e-books are different in essence than paper books. A photocopied paper book is far more unwieldy than the original, and is degraded in quality as well. E-books don't suffer this, so it's far more tempting, and likely far easier, to copy e-books than it is with physical books.
Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?
First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.
Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!
Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.
While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.
And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.
And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.
These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.
It seems that when you follow good programming practice, you end up destroying your job security; and as silly as it sounds... it appears to be sooth.
If you really mean that, than there's something seriously wrong. If you need that kind of obscurity to get job security, perhaps you should look in the mirror more accurately and find other ways to raise your performance. Or your manager knows jack shit about IT.
Creating code that a machine understands is easy. Creating code that humans understand is what makes coding difficult. Any able manager would love to see a coder in his staff producing code that any programmer off the street can jump into and work on efficiently. I'd get that coder a raise to make sure he doesn't leave! Far from destroying job security, it increases job security!
I actually think this is a bad use of a comment. A comment should do more than tell me what I can see from the code itself. It should tell me why something was done, or why it was done in the way it is done. It should show intent.
Again, this is an example of either a section of code that is too long and complex for a single routine, or it doesn't add more understanding than the code itself. Remember that comments need to be maintained as well! That is why documenting intent is so much more important than documenting the actual steps taken. If the comment showed intent ("We cache pages for efficiency, but we need to check against updates of the actual page") I know why the check is important.
Yes, I agree in terms that one should be careful when building personal relationships on the work floor. Especially when it concerns direct boss-employee relationships, favouritism is an ugly word, even when the accusation is false the damage will be done.
It really depends on the work environment. On my current job, apart from a "coach" and the direct management, there's only three real degrees of seniority: junior, medior and senior, and there's no competition to get to the promotions. Of course, on every project, there will be a project/team leader, but that changes per project, even though the more senior or most able people tend to get those. But that's also well accepted. My coworkers are all there to help me out if I need them, they are a constant source of inspiration.
As for maintaining a professional relationship, well, it really boils down to building a fairly thick wall once you step into the office. If I botch up a job, I get my arse kicked. But I'll take that as a professional level and not at a personal level.
The trick is maintaining that balance, and making sure others on the work floor understand and respect that balance. Not all work environments cater for this, but then again, I can't imagine working somewhere where this is absent.
But you see, that's not the choice I'm making. I have enough money to sustain the lifestyle I want. I also have a bit left over by the end of the month. And good enough future prospects which allows me not to worry too much about the future.
It's not go for the most money or worry about the bills, it's about choosing which bills you want, and going for enough money to meet those bills and seek the healthiest environment which meets that criterium.
Money is just one criterium, an important one, but not the only one, and for me, certainly not the most important one.
I'm just starting out really. Had half a year of work after getting my Master's, then I took a year off to travel to Australia and New Zealand. Getting back to Europe, I'm now in my first 6 months, so no, I'm not in the top bracket.
But I also do not feel the need to claw my way to the top. And actually, the path I've plotted for myself keeps myself from the fastest way to the big money. Precisely because there are things more important than the money, for example, interesting and innovative work where my coworkers are a source of inspiration rather than a source of backstabbing.
But that's just my current goal in life. I have enough money to pay the bills, very decent to good future prospects, and am happy at my work. But if others'd rather go for the money, well, e my guest!
Well, perhaps not typical, but not deviating as much to make the question relevant. Perhaps we tend to be slightly more on the non-social side of the line, but to suggest that a good portion of it has no need to socialize is just... offending almost.
Most IT companies I know are just simple guys (and even some girls) who like some fun, who employ the usual care in an appropriate seperation between private and professional life. Just like people in other branches. So if you think that most IT people are prototypical nerds who don't socialize except through a computer, it's you who has his eyes closed.
This is truly very dependent on the work environment. Of course, one should take care on the work floor with personal relationships, but if the basic trust is not present in the company, it's time for me to move to a different employer. I like a working environment where we actually go out of our way to help people and not stab each other in the back.
Not my experience. But this ties in directly with your first point. It is important though, to keep some sort of seperation between your private and your professional life, at least to keep some parts of your private life, well, private, somewhere you can get away from it all. That's not to say that you shouldn't make friends at work, but rather that you should take care not to have all your friends at work.
This is important, work floor romantic relationships open a huge can of worms. Not just because they want just a raise and a promotion, but just because there will be tension on the professional side of the relationship which can spill over to your personal relationship and vice versa. And you still have to watch out for even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Are you trolling or are you serious? This is exactly the thing which causes questions like the one posed in this thread. I do not have an emotional bond with my computer, I do not use it to replace any social interactions with real people.
In fact, just as there are some more solitary people in other branches of work, there will be some more solitary people in IT. It's only because our sector is IT, it will be commented on and remembered as a prime example of the non-social "nerd" (in the pejorative sense of the word). This is called Confirmation Bias and is well documented in psychology.
What is this article supposed to convey? The stereotypical non-social nerd (in the common media meaning of the word) who's in love with his computer?
IT personnel are, on the average, just normal people, whose job simply happen to involve a lot of computers. Yes, we are of a technical nature, but then again, so are mech engineers, etc. And there's never any question about whether or not they socialize.
I'm almost offended by the tone of the question posed. No, I don't really go out on the weekends with my coworkers, but that's more of a keeping my private/professional life seperate. I will and do have a drink with them, or go to "nerdie" movies with them, mostly at the end of the week or something like that. In fact, it's probably not much different in other types of workfloor.
Those TV office romances are really just that, TV stuff. Workfloor romantic relationships usually have too many professional implications to hop into as easily as the media would like you to believe.
When will the men in charge realise that human factors are the single biggest cause of security breaches. You can have a super secure network, but it takes only one dumb employee who uses a dial-up connection to bring it down. Or hang his home laptop into the network. Or bring a floppy disk with his home work into the office. Or telling his coworkers his passwords for easier cooperation.
The list is endless, and all the network security in the world is not going to change it if you don't educate the people working with it.
Taking time out is a good idea. I (now 25) took a year off for travel (Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong) last year after finishing my Master's degree. Not that I "lost the fire" but more that I didn't really know which way to go in the rest of my life.
Mind you, it was a better economic climate than today, but if you are an intelligent person who is good at CS, taking a year off for something completely different, like travel, it very likely will not be held against you in the better jobs. Smart people can get up to date with current technology quite quickly, and you'll have developed "soft skills" that are severely underaddressed in your average CS courses.
I'm working now at an innovative IT company (which is a subcompany of one of my country's bigger IT services company), so being a year out of the loop hasn't hurt my chances of landing a good job, and I'd say it has helped it rather than hindered.
The problem is not so much that Linux is more difficult to use. It's more like what people are used to rather than whether or not it's actually more difficult (though UI seems to be mostly an afterthought with Open Source appls) The problem is more that it's perceived to be more difficult to use. And of course that actually installing the stuff and getting it to run is a bit more of a hassle.
But the main reason Win* is on most of the workstations is because the employees are all running Win at home and it's what they're familiar with. This is a spiral of course, because people use Win since that's what's usually installed in the office... It doesn't help that the Office suite is actually quite a good suite. It's just too bad that it comes with such a sorry excuse of an OS (mind you, Win2K is much better than earlier versions)
I think you're a bit too optimistic about all that. As long as it doesn't get into the way of people too much, people won't be bothered to change. People are lazy. Very lazy. So they'll stick to what they know until it's no longer efficient to do so.
I barely trust them with a cc#, especially since they're in bed with MS
I can see why you don't want to trus them with a CC#, but what has MS got to do with it? Not that I like them that much, but this sounds more like the usual anti-MS gripe than anything else.
On the other hand, what do you think that others can actually do with just your bank account number? It's not a number with which you can actually do a lot, unless you want to pour money IN it of course, in which case you're welcome to have it...
Microwave beams don't create radiation, so we'll be safe from that at least. Unless that's all a lie, in which case I'm glad I don't own a microwave oven and haven't had a microwave dinner in ages!
Have you tried the Dance Dance Revolution games out there and the line of drums, guitar and samba games that accompany them? They are by far the most original thing that has come out in the past few years in the arcades.
Though it's mainly the Asian public who plays them (in my experience that is) they are immensely popular, and fun to watch as well (with the exception of the samba game, I haven't tried them myself).
So have a little faith. There's always room for real innovation, even in the age old arcades.
What I do know about is that Mr Polgar (father of the three chess playing Polgar sisters, of whom Judit is the best) has been experimenting with variants of chess, including different dimensions of the board.
I have no idea how these variants play though, so I can't tell you anything about those.
But let's not get into a "my language is better than yours" debate.
That was not my point, the post I was replying to claimed that English was really easy grammar wise. I was merely trying to say that English actually is quite a complex language to learn grammar wise and that this is no reason why English should be preferred as a global language above all other languages.
A couple of points. I've gotten to know quite a lot Japanese and Korean people lately, and even when they possessed a good amount of computer literacy, it didn't guarantee competent English at all.
Bridging software has been around for quite a while now, so Chinese/Japanese/Korean (etc) people are able to send stuff over in characters instead of the transcription in latin letters.
Furthermore, the basic vocabulary needed to communicate in any language should be just about the same. The difference between English and any other language isn't that big.
And finally, English is not an easy language to learn as you are suggesting. Surely, there are more difficult ones, but grammar's quite difficult, in particular the correct usage of the different tenses, that sort of things. For a really easy language grammar wise, try Cantonese. No need for tenses, no need for number (one cow, two cow, three cow), easy as hell.
While English as the world's business language does make sense in some way, in Hong Kong there has been a notable shift in students from learning English to learning Mandarin after 1997.
People there are realizing that being able to comminucate with mainland officials is essential to business in that area of the world, and communicating with mainland officials means being able to speak Mandarin.
Mandarin is starting to present itself as an alternative to English for business in Asia and with all the world's focus on Asia, perhaps we don't need a global domination campaign by China before people start to realize that Chinese might become more important than English.
Indeed it is not the manager who does the work. But sometimes (often?) it is the manager who sets the policy of using a particular OS as their standard.
That standard may very well be NT because it has less patches than *nix. It may not be the competent admin that has the choice of OS.