HTML hardly constitutes "programming" in any reasonable sense. That's not to disparage knowing it as a skill, but regardless of what some people think, it's not programming.
While of course strictly true, I don't think that for the true beginner "programming" is actually the most important thing.
Learning to write HTML (okay, learning to write standards-compliant, non-lazy HTML) forces one into the mindset of thinking about how a computer is going to interpret something. Don't underestimate the effort involved in parsing a line of code, be it a loop in C or a row of table data in HTML; training one's mind to be able to walk through code of any flavor is a crucial skill to hone early on.
Some of my first efforts to make a computer do what I wanted programatically involved creating simply web pages (this was back in 1993 or so). It was very exciting to see the results of my work, and figuring out why my output didn't look quite right was, in effect, my first exposure to the debugging process. Eventually I wanted one of those newfangled email forms, so I next picked up Perl. (Yeah, please refrain from poking fun at my early language choices.)
So, HTML proved a "gateway drug" into software development. Many years later, I came to learn C, Obj-C, Python, PHP/MySQL, etc. "Programming" can wait - let kids start out with web pages.
(As an aside, I never did learn Java. In retrospect, I wish I had learned Java in lieu of the Perl and PHP I cultivated for server-side web work; while Perl has definite sysadmin uses, Java could have replaced PHP quite satisfactorily and would have been more broadly useful outside web work. Just advice I would give to those starting to program.)
My bias: I primarily run Linux (writing this on a Debian workstation), so I suppose I might be more of a "Microsoft basher" than an "Apple fanboy."
However, one thing I will say about Apple is that it has arguably the best customer service of any large company I have ever dealt with in ANY FIELD.
Fortunately, Apple products tend to "just work" and continue "just working" so I don't have to deal with service that much. However, when I have I have been impressed.
When I called Apple support for a particularly obscure software problem, within I got conferenced in with an OS X software engineer who had kernel HFS code in front of him. Keep in mind, this was the standard consumer 800-number level support! How often would this happen at, say, Microsoft?
I broke one of the mechanical components of my iPhone, walked into an Apple store, and within ten minutes walked out with a replacement phone - no arguing, frustration, or upselling attempted. Along the same vein, a friend of mine had a laptop that was YEARS off warranty, and when the DVD drive finally died Apple still offered to repair it at no charge.
I've even gone into the Apple store to look at accessories like earphones and had a salesperson tell me that a different retailer was having a sale that I should check out to save money.
My point I suppose is that the "Apple tax" (or what I would more formally refer to as the "brand premium") is in no small part to pay for having a large number of well-trained (even more with respect to customer interaction than technical skill) employees with sufficient authority to actually deal with problems. Apple takes the attitude that customer satisfaction is more important than low prices - and I thank them for it.
I own a NerdKit and have been having a lot of fun playing with it. While the components certainly cost a lot less than $80, the documentation and real human-based tech support (right down to helping you debug your own code at no charge) is well worth it.
It should also be noted that if you choose to make more of the kits by buying components, the NerdKits people supply their bootloader and assistance for installing it on a fresh microcontroller. I think it's a pretty sweet deal, even if perhaps a Slashvertisement is a bit uncouth.
I don't think that "hey check out this song" obviates copyright considerations.
One is typically permitted to share/post small excerpts for critical commentary. IANAL, but I highly doubt that sending an entire song to a friend is within the letter of the law.
(As an aside, I don't think this is all that unreasonable. Either send an excerpt - which would be OK - or have your friend buy it on iTunes, Amazon, whatever.)
Infringing a copyright is infringement, whether it is a single act or mass distribution for commercial gain. The difference is in severity (and degree of punishment/restitution if caught).
I have several "Sharpie Metallic" silver pens. They don't have thick ink, the ink doesn't flake off. They are great for marking literal black boxes, like servers and routers.
While I consider myself a libertarian (and carry a Cato-issued pocket Constitution), and agree with the notion of the government existing for the common defense, with all due respect your language and tone of voice hinders "our" argument.
First, "liberal" in a classical sense means something very different than what you seem to think it means. Note that we strive to be a "liberal democracy" and that free market principles constitute "liberal market economy." When people use the word as a slur I cringe - not only for the lack of "decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind," but for the bastardization of the English language.
Second, I remain unclear as to what exactly you are trying to achieve by calling people "stupid hippies," or telling them to "fuck off." It's been my observation that when interlocutors resort to name-calling it is because they are unable to articulately engage their opponents. Classical liberalism ("libertarianism") exists within a strong intellectual framework; you do disservice to the thinkers of the ages when you blatantly insult those with whom you disagree.
I think that the parent to whom you are responding has the correct idea in their head but is simply exceptionally bad at explaining their thoughts.
Catalysts do lower the activation energy of reactions, which is what I think the parent means by, "Y becomes lower for the same value as Z."
You are obviously correct that the thermodynamics of a reaction is a state function dictated only by starting materials and products, thus catalysts cannot change the net energetics of a reaction.
What the parent I think means is that the activation energy for some reactions is supplied as a more "refined" form of energy than the thermal energy (typically) recovered as the transition state leads to product on the reaction coordinate. For example, a Paterno-Buchi cycloaddition may go via a high-energy transition state and thus "return" energy as heat, but that energy is "degraded" relative to the UV light that was used to reach the transition state. In such a case, while a catalyst would not affect reaction thermodynamics, it might allow one to drive the reaction with heat instead of light.
You know, I am not a lawyer, but I have yet to encounter a consumer contract that I have not understood. (And I read EVERY contract to which I affix my signature, including one from AT&T.)
For the very few cases where there is some completely undefined legal term, Black's Law Dictionary has been all I needed.
Having successfully battled (out of court) internet providers, phone carriers, credit card companies, and insurance firms, using nothing but their own contracts, I cannot agree with your assertion that no contract in the U.S. can be understood without a decade studying contract law.
Yes, but keep in mind that mail sent via U.S. Postal Service has, at least in theory, some incredibly strong legal protections.
Tampering with the mail is considered a grave enough offense that the U.S. Postal Inspectors are sworn, gun-toting federal agents with the full power to conduct investigations and arrests related to to the mail.
While I might not be able to guarantee privacy of postal mail (in the technical sense, unless I am printing out a PGP-signed message), I DO have a reasonable expectation that if I have reason to believe my mail has been compromised, there will be a rigorous investigation (again, at least in theory).
No, fusion is endothermic only when the product element has a lower binding energy per nucleon than the starting elements. Iron-56 has the highest binding energy per nucleon, and thus elements lighter than it have an exothermic fusion process while heavier elements have an exothermic fission process.
This is why the sun "burns" hydrogen while nuclear reactors "burn" uranium; both processes are the beginning of pathways that thermodynamically terminate at iron-56.
I forgive this "abuse" since there is nothing wrong with it - it's simple economics.
Some people, myself included, know how to perform hardware upgrades quickly and correctly. Many more do not, and may consider their time spent on such an upgrade (which would include learning about the upgrade process, shopping for hardware, and carrying out the upgrade) as more valuable than the couple hundred dollars needed to pay Apple to do it. It is then perfectly rational to pay Apple the money.
Apple, being a profit-maximizing rational actor (to a first approximation) charges as much as they can without causing steep drop-off in purchases. Why is this a problem? If the median Apple consumer actually thought the prices were abusive then she would vote with her dollars and Apple would be forced to lower the price.
As an aside, related to some of the matters above, I suggest you read more about the concept of comparative advantage to better understand why Apple can and should do some of the things it does.
You don't understand, the Census tries to count ALL residents, legal or illegal, citizen or not.
Furthermore, the Constitution of the United States REQUIRES that an ACTUAL ENUMERATION occur every decade. This effectively precludes the use of statistical sampling techniques.
All things considered, given the massive amounts of money that we spend on other pointless endeavors, the relatively low cost of conducting an accurate census does not bother me much.
Now... the cost overruns due to faulty contracting... those I detest.
they should be transferred to the National Archives (unless deemed classified)
It is the job of the Archivist of the United States to manage classification levels of documents. He/she gets ALL documents, regardless of classification, and works with others to release them publicly as appropriate.
That said, no, it has nothing to do with it not being "intuitive to me". OOo's tables, or at least the user interface around them, simply have less features than MS Office ones. For people who just need a "n x m" table now and then that's surely not a problem, but the moment you're required to make a very complex table layouts to accommodate within millimeter of precision fields that will be printed on non-blank, pre-printed paper form, you have a really hard time doing so in OOo. The funny thing, though, is that you can import a document with a complex table from MS Office to OOo, and it works well. That's why I think the problem is in OOo's user interface, not on its internal table support. If you actually need millimeter precision, you should not be using a word processor for the task!
Actually, I don't use word processors at all. I think they are stupid and inefficient (linked essay is NOT my own writing). Whether or not you agree with this sentiment, however, you have to see that page layout programs (be it LaTeX or Adobe InDesign) are the proper tools for constructing complex, structured documents.
If you have never tried using one for your table task, you might find it makes your life much easier than using Word.
First, I think you will find many people (myself included), who have much more respect for PRINT journalists than TELEVISION journalists. It has been observed (on C-SPAN, don't have the reference unfortunately) that evening news typically rips stories from the pages of that morning's New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Second, while I will concede that some rather trivial local affairs (e.g. the iron chef competition at the county fair) could be covered adequately by "citizen journalists," real INVESTIGATIVE reporting (which lies at the heart of the First Amendment protection of the Press) is very difficult, very time consuming, and very expensive. It is unlikely that the general public will ever be able to break meaningful stories on subjects like Watergate, warrantless wiretapping, or Enron. The reasons for this are manifold, and are at least in part articulated by Scott Gant ("We're All Journalists Now"):
i) The working Press have special access privileges (e.g. priority seating in courtrooms, embedded reporting in wartimes, etc.) that must be limited out of physical necessity. They also receive privileged treatment that would be financially impractical if doled out to everyone (e.g. no-cost Freedom of Information Act requests).
ii) To understand subjects like Enron in even a moderately sophisticated manner requires devoting one's life to their study, for weeks, months, or even YEARS. Since the vast majority of the non-Press have day jobs, this is all but impossible.
iii) The Press rely heavily on confidential sources, not necessarily to provide substantive information (certainly not without fact-checking) but certainly to provide a starting point for future information. Such sources confide in the Press because of a long tradition of confidentiality and respect by members of the Press; indeed, reporters have gone to prison for refusing to disclose their sources. Additionally, confidential sources - who very well could be breaking the law by talking to reporters - may have a degree of trust that a reporter will not disclose information that is unduly personally damaging or that would materially harm the national interest. It is unlikely that Daniel Ellsberg would have leaked the Pentagon Papers to his hairdresser. (And if anyone reading this does not know the name Daniel Ellsberg, for the love of God pick up a history book.)
iv) No matter what pundits may say, journalists at major newspapers take great pains to be unbiased. (Do not confuse the opinion pages with the news pages; in good newspapers there is NO crosstalk between the two.) If you don't believe me, look at the news sections of the Wall Street Journal or the Christian Science Monitor. Neither neoconservativism (abundant in the editorial's of the former) nor religion (built into the charter of the latter) creep into the news in either. Similarly, the New York Times - bastion of editorial liberalism - always takes care to give all sides of an issue voice in a news article. While blogs and websites DO exist with a similar level of impartiality, they are few and far between. It simply is not the way of the blogger (or the human in general).
I expect that many on Slashdot will disagree with me, but I will voice my opinion anyway.
The University (or the College) exists as an intellectual haven, a location for like-minded individuals to congregate and exchange ideas in order to advance human knowledge. While the credential that one receives upon graduation is certainly important (and usually helps career development), it is not the primary (or even A primary) motivation for attendance.
If your sole interest lies in getting a job, there are institutions that exist for this purpose; they are called trade schools. While many look down on them, they are perfectly legitimate entities that simply serve a different role in society. If you find the idea of transferring to one unpalatable, then I advise you worry less about your employment.
In my experience there are two facts true about most college students. First, a great many will end up in a career largely unrelated to their field of study. Second, those who have difficulty finding a job tend to be those who focused too narrowly in their studies and thus lack flexibility.
So, what specific advice would I have for you?
1) Read things not related to computers: the New York Times, James Joyce, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, Stephen Hawking, or whatever your choice of source or author may be. It is fine to read computer books (in fact, I am currently giving myself a refresher on database theory), but computer books will not teach you how to communicate, nor guide you when you meet an inevitable obstacle in the real world. It is worth noting that all but the most menial jobs require good communication skills; I have personally seen a worse scientist receive a professorship simply because the better contender was ineffective at explaining his research.
2) Get to know many people, especially those outside your field. Laymen can often provide insights into problems that would never have occurred to "experts." If nothing else, you will build a network of friends to whom you can turn when searching for career options.
3) Take classes outside your field: learn Chinese, or study early modern Christianity, or take up political science.
4) Relax, and remember that programming languages change rapidly, even fundamental design principles change. You can, and will, evolve your skill set to match. It is more important to now gain wisdom about less ephemeral topics.
Take the advice for whatever you feel it is worth.
As someone who works in the field, I can say that the ACS publishes relevant and fairly reasonably priced journals. While mass-subscription journals like Science and Nature have lower subscription fees, I suspect that the ACS just about breaks even on its publishing costs.
Companies like Elsevier are the bad actors in the publishing world... I suspect that the summary author doesn't actually known anything about journals and publications, which is the only possible reason the ACS could have been cited as a "media company."
Except books are resilient. I have confidence that the printed work will exist and be readable in a thousand years; I have little such confidence in electronic books.
I would like for human knowledge to be able to outlive any disasters that could eliminate the power grid or the Internet.
"Dead tree format" (or another physical medium) worked well for the ancient Greeks, for Newton and Einstein, for Shakespeare and H. G. Wells. I suspect it will continue to work well for us and our posterity.
I agree that not enough college students care enough about politics or are sufficiently informed (though I take issue with them being supposedly mindless).
However, I think that most NON college students are in exactly the same boat; we have a general apathy and lack of knowledge across the board. I don't claim to be an expert on civic affairs, but I do pay passing attention each day. The following are a few simple questions related to current civic events that in my view a well-informed citizen should be able to answer. How many on Slashdot can?
1) Please explain the potential impact of PAYGO on the prospects for repeal of the AMT, as proposed recently in the House Ways & Means Committee.
2) What is the status of the FCC-proposed "must carry" cable rules?
3) What was the Baldwin amendment to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act? Why are Democrats being attacked for not including it?
4) Did your district's Representative vote for or against the interim military supplemental budget bill just passed in the House?
5) Yesterday, Ben Bernanke unveiled a new set of policies at the Federal Reserve intended to improve transparency to the public. Please summarize these policies.
6) What is a Motion to Recommit? Why is this viewed as an increasingly powerful weapon in the arsenal of the congressional minority?
7) An ongoing power struggle exists between Congress and the Executive branches regarding control of the armed forces. Which articles of the Constitution are point of dispute?
While I agree in general, the President is NOT a normal citizen, and special rules can and do apply.
First, as Commander-in-Chief he is in the unique role of being both a civilian and a military leader, and members of the military voluntarily surrender a number of the liberties and protections afforded private citizens.
Second, as Head of State he is the leader of the United States 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. ANYTHING he reads or writes is potentially relevant to his job, and should be retained if necessary. (A similar argument can be made for him acting in his dual capacity of Chief Executive.)
Anyone who seeks the presidency should be well aware of these facts; they are among the prices paid for a seat in the Oval Office. Note that the court order is not requiring him to DISCLOSE the documents, merely PRESERVE them in the event they are needed. While I would agree even this would be excessive as a blanket order for a private citizen, this is hardly an extreme measure for the president.
Slashdot Mirror
HTML hardly constitutes "programming" in any reasonable sense. That's not to disparage knowing it as a skill, but regardless of what some people think, it's not programming.
While of course strictly true, I don't think that for the true beginner "programming" is actually the most important thing.
Learning to write HTML (okay, learning to write standards-compliant, non-lazy HTML) forces one into the mindset of thinking about how a computer is going to interpret something. Don't underestimate the effort involved in parsing a line of code, be it a loop in C or a row of table data in HTML; training one's mind to be able to walk through code of any flavor is a crucial skill to hone early on.
Some of my first efforts to make a computer do what I wanted programatically involved creating simply web pages (this was back in 1993 or so). It was very exciting to see the results of my work, and figuring out why my output didn't look quite right was, in effect, my first exposure to the debugging process. Eventually I wanted one of those newfangled email forms, so I next picked up Perl. (Yeah, please refrain from poking fun at my early language choices.)
So, HTML proved a "gateway drug" into software development. Many years later, I came to learn C, Obj-C, Python, PHP/MySQL, etc. "Programming" can wait - let kids start out with web pages.
(As an aside, I never did learn Java. In retrospect, I wish I had learned Java in lieu of the Perl and PHP I cultivated for server-side web work; while Perl has definite sysadmin uses, Java could have replaced PHP quite satisfactorily and would have been more broadly useful outside web work. Just advice I would give to those starting to program.)
My bias: I primarily run Linux (writing this on a Debian workstation), so I suppose I might be more of a "Microsoft basher" than an "Apple fanboy."
However, one thing I will say about Apple is that it has arguably the best customer service of any large company I have ever dealt with in ANY FIELD.
Fortunately, Apple products tend to "just work" and continue "just working" so I don't have to deal with service that much. However, when I have I have been impressed.
When I called Apple support for a particularly obscure software problem, within I got conferenced in with an OS X software engineer who had kernel HFS code in front of him. Keep in mind, this was the standard consumer 800-number level support! How often would this happen at, say, Microsoft?
I broke one of the mechanical components of my iPhone, walked into an Apple store, and within ten minutes walked out with a replacement phone - no arguing, frustration, or upselling attempted. Along the same vein, a friend of mine had a laptop that was YEARS off warranty, and when the DVD drive finally died Apple still offered to repair it at no charge.
I've even gone into the Apple store to look at accessories like earphones and had a salesperson tell me that a different retailer was having a sale that I should check out to save money.
My point I suppose is that the "Apple tax" (or what I would more formally refer to as the "brand premium") is in no small part to pay for having a large number of well-trained (even more with respect to customer interaction than technical skill) employees with sufficient authority to actually deal with problems. Apple takes the attitude that customer satisfaction is more important than low prices - and I thank them for it.
I own a NerdKit and have been having a lot of fun playing with it. While the components certainly cost a lot less than $80, the documentation and real human-based tech support (right down to helping you debug your own code at no charge) is well worth it.
It should also be noted that if you choose to make more of the kits by buying components, the NerdKits people supply their bootloader and assistance for installing it on a fresh microcontroller. I think it's a pretty sweet deal, even if perhaps a Slashvertisement is a bit uncouth.
Yes, I apologize for my US-centric view; I should have been more careful with language.
I don't think that "hey check out this song" obviates copyright considerations.
One is typically permitted to share/post small excerpts for critical commentary. IANAL, but I highly doubt that sending an entire song to a friend is within the letter of the law.
(As an aside, I don't think this is all that unreasonable. Either send an excerpt - which would be OK - or have your friend buy it on iTunes, Amazon, whatever.)
Infringing a copyright is infringement, whether it is a single act or mass distribution for commercial gain. The difference is in severity (and degree of punishment/restitution if caught).
I have several "Sharpie Metallic" silver pens. They don't have thick ink, the ink doesn't flake off. They are great for marking literal black boxes, like servers and routers.
While I consider myself a libertarian (and carry a Cato-issued pocket Constitution), and agree with the notion of the government existing for the common defense, with all due respect your language and tone of voice hinders "our" argument.
First, "liberal" in a classical sense means something very different than what you seem to think it means. Note that we strive to be a "liberal democracy" and that free market principles constitute "liberal market economy." When people use the word as a slur I cringe - not only for the lack of "decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind," but for the bastardization of the English language.
Second, I remain unclear as to what exactly you are trying to achieve by calling people "stupid hippies," or telling them to "fuck off." It's been my observation that when interlocutors resort to name-calling it is because they are unable to articulately engage their opponents. Classical liberalism ("libertarianism") exists within a strong intellectual framework; you do disservice to the thinkers of the ages when you blatantly insult those with whom you disagree.
Gerrymandering is impossible in Senate elections as long as state borders remain fixed.
I think that the parent to whom you are responding has the correct idea in their head but is simply exceptionally bad at explaining their thoughts.
Catalysts do lower the activation energy of reactions, which is what I think the parent means by, "Y becomes lower for the same value as Z."
You are obviously correct that the thermodynamics of a reaction is a state function dictated only by starting materials and products, thus catalysts cannot change the net energetics of a reaction.
What the parent I think means is that the activation energy for some reactions is supplied as a more "refined" form of energy than the thermal energy (typically) recovered as the transition state leads to product on the reaction coordinate. For example, a Paterno-Buchi cycloaddition may go via a high-energy transition state and thus "return" energy as heat, but that energy is "degraded" relative to the UV light that was used to reach the transition state. In such a case, while a catalyst would not affect reaction thermodynamics, it might allow one to drive the reaction with heat instead of light.
(Oh, yes, I Am A Chemist.)
You know, I am not a lawyer, but I have yet to encounter a consumer contract that I have not understood. (And I read EVERY contract to which I affix my signature, including one from AT&T.)
For the very few cases where there is some completely undefined legal term, Black's Law Dictionary has been all I needed.
Having successfully battled (out of court) internet providers, phone carriers, credit card companies, and insurance firms, using nothing but their own contracts, I cannot agree with your assertion that no contract in the U.S. can be understood without a decade studying contract law.
Who mourns for Morn?
Yes, but keep in mind that mail sent via U.S. Postal Service has, at least in theory, some incredibly strong legal protections.
Tampering with the mail is considered a grave enough offense that the U.S. Postal Inspectors are sworn, gun-toting federal agents with the full power to conduct investigations and arrests related to to the mail.
While I might not be able to guarantee privacy of postal mail (in the technical sense, unless I am printing out a PGP-signed message), I DO have a reasonable expectation that if I have reason to believe my mail has been compromised, there will be a rigorous investigation (again, at least in theory).
No, fusion is endothermic only when the product element has a lower binding energy per nucleon than the starting elements. Iron-56 has the highest binding energy per nucleon, and thus elements lighter than it have an exothermic fusion process while heavier elements have an exothermic fission process.
This is why the sun "burns" hydrogen while nuclear reactors "burn" uranium; both processes are the beginning of pathways that thermodynamically terminate at iron-56.
I forgive this "abuse" since there is nothing wrong with it - it's simple economics.
Some people, myself included, know how to perform hardware upgrades quickly and correctly. Many more do not, and may consider their time spent on such an upgrade (which would include learning about the upgrade process, shopping for hardware, and carrying out the upgrade) as more valuable than the couple hundred dollars needed to pay Apple to do it. It is then perfectly rational to pay Apple the money.
Apple, being a profit-maximizing rational actor (to a first approximation) charges as much as they can without causing steep drop-off in purchases. Why is this a problem? If the median Apple consumer actually thought the prices were abusive then she would vote with her dollars and Apple would be forced to lower the price.
As an aside, related to some of the matters above, I suggest you read more about the concept of comparative advantage to better understand why Apple can and should do some of the things it does.
It seems ironic that you would want to go into Economics because IT is too political...
You don't understand, the Census tries to count ALL residents, legal or illegal, citizen or not.
Furthermore, the Constitution of the United States REQUIRES that an ACTUAL ENUMERATION occur every decade. This effectively precludes the use of statistical sampling techniques.
All things considered, given the massive amounts of money that we spend on other pointless endeavors, the relatively low cost of conducting an accurate census does not bother me much.
Now... the cost overruns due to faulty contracting... those I detest.
Actually, I don't use word processors at all. I think they are stupid and inefficient (linked essay is NOT my own writing). Whether or not you agree with this sentiment, however, you have to see that page layout programs (be it LaTeX or Adobe InDesign) are the proper tools for constructing complex, structured documents.
If you have never tried using one for your table task, you might find it makes your life much easier than using Word.
That is not necessarily true, especially for magnetic media.
A good starting point to learn more is Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence
First, I think you will find many people (myself included), who have much more respect for PRINT journalists than TELEVISION journalists. It has been observed (on C-SPAN, don't have the reference unfortunately) that evening news typically rips stories from the pages of that morning's New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Second, while I will concede that some rather trivial local affairs (e.g. the iron chef competition at the county fair) could be covered adequately by "citizen journalists," real INVESTIGATIVE reporting (which lies at the heart of the First Amendment protection of the Press) is very difficult, very time consuming, and very expensive. It is unlikely that the general public will ever be able to break meaningful stories on subjects like Watergate, warrantless wiretapping, or Enron. The reasons for this are manifold, and are at least in part articulated by Scott Gant ("We're All Journalists Now"):
i) The working Press have special access privileges (e.g. priority seating in courtrooms, embedded reporting in wartimes, etc.) that must be limited out of physical necessity. They also receive privileged treatment that would be financially impractical if doled out to everyone (e.g. no-cost Freedom of Information Act requests).
ii) To understand subjects like Enron in even a moderately sophisticated manner requires devoting one's life to their study, for weeks, months, or even YEARS. Since the vast majority of the non-Press have day jobs, this is all but impossible.
iii) The Press rely heavily on confidential sources, not necessarily to provide substantive information (certainly not without fact-checking) but certainly to provide a starting point for future information. Such sources confide in the Press because of a long tradition of confidentiality and respect by members of the Press; indeed, reporters have gone to prison for refusing to disclose their sources. Additionally, confidential sources - who very well could be breaking the law by talking to reporters - may have a degree of trust that a reporter will not disclose information that is unduly personally damaging or that would materially harm the national interest. It is unlikely that Daniel Ellsberg would have leaked the Pentagon Papers to his hairdresser. (And if anyone reading this does not know the name Daniel Ellsberg, for the love of God pick up a history book.)
iv) No matter what pundits may say, journalists at major newspapers take great pains to be unbiased. (Do not confuse the opinion pages with the news pages; in good newspapers there is NO crosstalk between the two.) If you don't believe me, look at the news sections of the Wall Street Journal or the Christian Science Monitor. Neither neoconservativism (abundant in the editorial's of the former) nor religion (built into the charter of the latter) creep into the news in either. Similarly, the New York Times - bastion of editorial liberalism - always takes care to give all sides of an issue voice in a news article. While blogs and websites DO exist with a similar level of impartiality, they are few and far between. It simply is not the way of the blogger (or the human in general).
I expect that many on Slashdot will disagree with me, but I will voice my opinion anyway.
The University (or the College) exists as an intellectual haven, a location for like-minded individuals to congregate and exchange ideas in order to advance human knowledge. While the credential that one receives upon graduation is certainly important (and usually helps career development), it is not the primary (or even A primary) motivation for attendance.
If your sole interest lies in getting a job, there are institutions that exist for this purpose; they are called trade schools. While many look down on them, they are perfectly legitimate entities that simply serve a different role in society. If you find the idea of transferring to one unpalatable, then I advise you worry less about your employment.
In my experience there are two facts true about most college students. First, a great many will end up in a career largely unrelated to their field of study. Second, those who have difficulty finding a job tend to be those who focused too narrowly in their studies and thus lack flexibility.
So, what specific advice would I have for you?
1) Read things not related to computers: the New York Times, James Joyce, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, Stephen Hawking, or whatever your choice of source or author may be. It is fine to read computer books (in fact, I am currently giving myself a refresher on database theory), but computer books will not teach you how to communicate, nor guide you when you meet an inevitable obstacle in the real world. It is worth noting that all but the most menial jobs require good communication skills; I have personally seen a worse scientist receive a professorship simply because the better contender was ineffective at explaining his research.
2) Get to know many people, especially those outside your field. Laymen can often provide insights into problems that would never have occurred to "experts." If nothing else, you will build a network of friends to whom you can turn when searching for career options.
3) Take classes outside your field: learn Chinese, or study early modern Christianity, or take up political science.
4) Relax, and remember that programming languages change rapidly, even fundamental design principles change. You can, and will, evolve your skill set to match. It is more important to now gain wisdom about less ephemeral topics.
Take the advice for whatever you feel it is worth.
I agree!
As someone who works in the field, I can say that the ACS publishes relevant and fairly reasonably priced journals. While mass-subscription journals like Science and Nature have lower subscription fees, I suspect that the ACS just about breaks even on its publishing costs.
Companies like Elsevier are the bad actors in the publishing world... I suspect that the summary author doesn't actually known anything about journals and publications, which is the only possible reason the ACS could have been cited as a "media company."
Except books are resilient. I have confidence that the printed work will exist and be readable in a thousand years; I have little such confidence in electronic books.
I would like for human knowledge to be able to outlive any disasters that could eliminate the power grid or the Internet.
"Dead tree format" (or another physical medium) worked well for the ancient Greeks, for Newton and Einstein, for Shakespeare and H. G. Wells. I suspect it will continue to work well for us and our posterity.
I agree that not enough college students care enough about politics or are sufficiently informed (though I take issue with them being supposedly mindless).
However, I think that most NON college students are in exactly the same boat; we have a general apathy and lack of knowledge across the board. I don't claim to be an expert on civic affairs, but I do pay passing attention each day. The following are a few simple questions related to current civic events that in my view a well-informed citizen should be able to answer. How many on Slashdot can?
1) Please explain the potential impact of PAYGO on the prospects for repeal of the AMT, as proposed recently in the House Ways & Means Committee.
2) What is the status of the FCC-proposed "must carry" cable rules?
3) What was the Baldwin amendment to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act? Why are Democrats being attacked for not including it?
4) Did your district's Representative vote for or against the interim military supplemental budget bill just passed in the House?
5) Yesterday, Ben Bernanke unveiled a new set of policies at the Federal Reserve intended to improve transparency to the public. Please summarize these policies.
6) What is a Motion to Recommit? Why is this viewed as an increasingly powerful weapon in the arsenal of the congressional minority?
7) An ongoing power struggle exists between Congress and the Executive branches regarding control of the armed forces. Which articles of the Constitution are point of dispute?
While I agree in general, the President is NOT a normal citizen, and special rules can and do apply.
First, as Commander-in-Chief he is in the unique role of being both a civilian and a military leader, and members of the military voluntarily surrender a number of the liberties and protections afforded private citizens.
Second, as Head of State he is the leader of the United States 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. ANYTHING he reads or writes is potentially relevant to his job, and should be retained if necessary. (A similar argument can be made for him acting in his dual capacity of Chief Executive.)
Anyone who seeks the presidency should be well aware of these facts; they are among the prices paid for a seat in the Oval Office. Note that the court order is not requiring him to DISCLOSE the documents, merely PRESERVE them in the event they are needed. While I would agree even this would be excessive as a blanket order for a private citizen, this is hardly an extreme measure for the president.