Re:Start them on a tricycle? Or a GSXR?
on
Hello World!
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· Score: 1
Well, I for one started programming at the age of about 3 or 4 on my dad's Commodore 64, and it was all about just typing in these bits of code from some books he had, and starting through that to understand how different structures work, and more importantly, how to think about structuring a program. I was a mathematician at Uni (23 now), and am now working as a techie/programmer for an OM firm, and that initial exposure to BASIC programming (pun intended) has stood me in good stead to pick up things like MATLAB and C while at Uni, and Python at work. I would absolutely say to start on algorithmics and simple programs - it's like maths, understand the basics and how the stuff underneath works and the rest will follow.
As some of you may know, I'm a mathematician, and I have to say that there can be space on a particular topic for a mix of high and low level content. Taking, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Sets, the Wikipedia Article on Julia Sets, we see a fairly readable intro which admittedly uses the words "complex dynamics" and "holomorphic function." Now, the average reader who doesn't know what these are will skip over these, perhaps picking up on "complex" and "function," depending on how advanced a mathematician they are. However it goes on to say that "informally consists of those points whose long-time behavior under repeated iteration of f can change drastically under arbitrarily small perturbations" and that the behaviour of the function on J(f) is "chaotic." Now, for the user who is reading this with some vague interest, this description should be reasonable. Wikipedia cannot be aimed at people with absolutely no knowledge in the area - how would this article be written? "A Julia Set is a kind of Fractal which is made from some Function..." and then we kind of peter out of ideas for the layman?
One of the articles that the article itself points out as a bit rubbish on the layman readability front is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion. As a mathematician, I've always had an issue with Biology, but I can still pick out some phrases which give me reasonable information to what a Mitochondria is: "In cell biology, a mitochondrion" tells me it's a part of a cell, "Mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants," because they churn out energy for the cell", the cell structure part gives a nice image of a mitochondria, and the mitochondrial functions section gives me more information on the energy conversion and its other uses. I would say that this article is a good example of a Wikipedia article being readable to the layman (with a basic degree of Biology knowledge, otherwise why would they look at it) with enough information for the expert.
In conclusion, I don't agree with the original article's sentiment, and believe that Wikipedia Science articles are, in general, readable enough to laymen, and have enough information for experts.
JebJoya
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this?
on
The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 2, Informative
Well, to be fair it is listed fairly prominently on the "community support" section of ubuntu.com. They also tell you how to access the IRC server ("If you are very new to Ubuntu, and haven't used IRC before, find the application 'gaim' from Applications->Internet on your Ubuntu desktop. Then login to irc.freenode.net and join the #ubuntu channel."), and give you access to a number of other documentation sources (presumably for people like me who are having issues getting their wireless card to work, although I know IRC so logged on and got directed to the correct place - am meant to be getting started now but went to check my email... Then I ended up on/.).
Yeah, I'd love to, but unfortunately I'm in a student house at the moment with 3 other people (who only use the internet for net/email and know about the limits), so I'm kinda stuck until August, then I'm back home and back on ntl... sorry, i mean Virgin Media, then back on campus next year on the wonderful uni network which gets 3Mb/s download overnight, and about 1Mb/s during the day, but no p2p or on campus dc++ network anymore which is a shame, so I'm going to have to get OO.o and my Linux fix another way (direct dl instead). How hum:)
Meh, it's not as bad as Tiscali in the UK (my ISP), who not only give you awful connection (constant disconnects/reconnects) but under their "Fair Use Policy" state that anyone excessively using their connection at peak hours will be put on, essentially, a totally borked connection during these times. Knowing this I set netlimiter to only allow 3k/s in these times for firefox only, no other connection allowed, and yet I still got put on the FUP line, which is borked 24/7, not just the 5 hours a day that they say. Ah well, at least I can actually view/. today.
Your comment about Wiles is right on, and as a Mathematician, I'd love to see Sawyer's Theorem (something about holomorphic dynamics no doubt)! However, you are right about this line being blurred with strategy and software patents - when you look at the different things that can be trademarked, copyrighted or patented, and the respective coverage of each, there does appear to be a reason to re-evaluate the entire system.
As for everyone else shouting "copyright!" at me, yes, you are right, but I hope (touch wood) that you can see where I'm coming from in terms of purely looking at patents. Works which can be copyrighted are unpatentable, but we have this strange spectrum between this sort of innovation and physical innovation. When you look at physical products as simply results of the physical space we are working in, we can equally say that a Theorem is a result of the space of mathematics, and an algorithm (or game/app for that matter) is a result of the software space.
Perhaps this is an over-simplification, but it's certainly an interesting topic to think about:)
Jeb
(BTW, my name's Jamie Sawyer, I've just realised that the Sawyer's Theorem reference would have been totally lost if you didn't know that... Oops:) )
Stating that an algorithm is just an "artifact of math" is perhaps questionable. Now, let me begin by saying that I don't believe that a Theorem etc. should be patentable - that's patently stupid (imagine what would happen if you needed to reference that Theorem in your work - yowzers). However, in mathematics, let us take the example of Andrew Wiles (guy who proved Wiles' Theorem aka Fermat's Last Theorem). Now, by your arguement (or at least an extension thereof), Wiles' Theorem is simply an artifact of maths - yep, I have no problem with this. However, to suggest that somehow this result did not require a huge amount of design work - he had to take areas from well outside the problem's number theoretic roots, and spent 7 years working solidly on it.
The root of my question is how does this work on designing a proof of a Theorem differ from a patentable software, or even a patentable car. The process of creating each of these examples is based upon some initial system - be it a mathematical system, computing system or physical system - and the result is by nature of the system possible (since it's been made). You could say that a n-linked list is a "artifact" of computing, or that my Fiat Punto is an "artifact" of the physical world.
Now, don't think that I'm suggesting that Theorems should be patentable, and equally don't think that I'm saying that cars (read: anything physical) should be unpatentable. The problem we have is that a line has to be drawn somewhere, but we have a large grey area which certainly needs some fiddling. (As another facetious example, consider a game, say Half Life or something. Can't the code be construed to be simple an algorithm which takes certain user inputs and gives certain audio/visual outputs? Shouldn't games and apps be unpatentable if algorithms are? If we can't patent short algorithms, but can patent long algorithms where do we draw the line? Number of lines of code? Some measure of "complexity"?...). Regardless, it's a tough issue...
Fair enough, did not know that, so to reword it we only have MATLAB on the Windows machines, and Octave (harder to initially use, and there is no course on using it available to students) on the Linux machines.:)
I'm a student at Warwick University in the UK studying Maths, and I have to say that the IT systems around the uni are certainly more Windows-centric than Linux (no Macs at all to my knowledge). As a 3rd year, I'm having to use LaTeX and MATLAB/Octave a lot (essays and modelling respectively), and the dept has 2 computer rooms - one Windows one (always full), and one Linux one with about the same number of computers (normally has 2 or 3 people on the 25 PCs). Now, this may sound like the Windows machines are more popular than the Linux ones - perhaps since students are more familiar with the products, whatever - but in fact there are some other trends. First of all, the Linux machines tend to be used more by older undergrads or postgrads - Octave certainly runs (and loads) a lot quicker than MATLAB on Windows. Second, in terms of room bookings, most courses are taught on Windows PCs (Maths by Computer uses MATLAB, Physics courses use MATLAB or Mathematica) - so students are being taught how to use the Windows tools. The windows centricity is further heightened by the fact that the version of KDE that the computers in the lab use is from 2002/03, and the version of OpenOffice being used is... dated to say the least. Also, we have about 10Mb of storage space on the Linux machines which gets filled when we get about 6 sets of lecture notes in PDF format...
Anyway, bit long and ramble-y, but the gist is that the IT dept seems to focus on Windows entirely, even though Linux is a better tool for many applications (LaTeX being a prime example - on the Windows machines thanks to the distributed software thing you spend about 15 minutes (literally) loading MiKTeX before you can compile:S). But, I'm hoping to put some pressure to at least get some upgrades to the Linux machines as an exec member of the Maths Society at Warwick - I run LaTeX courses in the Linux room and we need to get some better systems:S
And furthermore, you need to pay cable/sattelite costs on top of licence fees if you get them (although TV licence does cover 7 BBC TV channels (digital) with a load of extras and stuff - sports coverage wise, there are no stations that beat the BBC excluding sports dedicated channels (Sky Sports mainly) - BBC pays out quite a bit for World Cup (soccer for you yanks:P ), Premier League highlights, Wimbledon etc etc... Just a shame that it lost the F1, I hate when they cut to ads on ITV and you miss something cool happening...) Apologies for the rant there:S
Although to be fair, TV licences in the UK are to pay for the BBC - commercial free TV. Since it's a public service, the BBC should either be paid for like that or through taxation, and at least this way you only pay if you are actually watching TV:)
Hey, one thing I've got to say regarding your client who changes hardware on a day-to-day process - surely (at least, I'd hope that) Microsoft would provide companies like that with some kind of special dispensation... Wouldn't they?
I'm not saying it's not a pain in the arse for most home users - it would annoy me immensely since I was planning on upgrading my PC (lock stock and barrel) about 6 months after vista comes out... Should be fun... But surely business customers would get special treatment, especially in the special circumstances that the parent mentioned.
One final point - I bloody well hope there's a UK number for reactivation - iirc when XP first came out it was only a US number to ring if your licence key didn't work, and I don't really fancy the phone bill (especially if they keep you on hold for hours... damn you ntl - but that's another story...)
"The ratio scores that many of these sites implement make it actually hard to get a higher ratio for your average user, because of the saturation of seeders."
True, of course, but as an 'average user' myself with a ratio of just over 1 the "saturation of seeders" as you put it is of course advantageous to me - I can get what are normally little-downloaded files as the mad seeders will seed things like that because there are less seeders seeding.
Okay, maybe a few to many "seeds" in that last paragraph, but I hope you get my gist.
Can you do that and browse the web/change settings though? I didn't think that you could, but I don't have my PSP with me atm to test... I may be wrong...
Yeah, to be fair the moment I saw the intro video that they made, it instantly said to me that this was either a scam or an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) (I suppose that's just because I'm an ARG player, so you know:) )
If it is an ARG, we can expect something to go horribly wrong with their experiments shortly and us all (all 200,000 or whatever of us who've signed up) will get an email through then:)
If it does turn out to be an ARG, take a look at this forum
Well, you can scroll around, but you can't actually do anything else (like browse your movies, or even the system settings)... (Just to clarify i mean you can scroll your music, but only horizontal XMB scrolling outside of that menu)
Jeb
DISCLAIMER: That is only up to v2.0 of the firmware, has to be said, if it changes above there then my apologies:)
Well, it kind of is - they specifically say that it is the first direct feed of the GUI that has been OKayed by sony, so obviously better quality than filming the screen with a digital camera.
Although, has to be said that the cruddy digcam vid 3 months ago was more informative than this one to me... bit boring:(
Jeb
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I for one started programming at the age of about 3 or 4 on my dad's Commodore 64, and it was all about just typing in these bits of code from some books he had, and starting through that to understand how different structures work, and more importantly, how to think about structuring a program. I was a mathematician at Uni (23 now), and am now working as a techie/programmer for an OM firm, and that initial exposure to BASIC programming (pun intended) has stood me in good stead to pick up things like MATLAB and C while at Uni, and Python at work. I would absolutely say to start on algorithmics and simple programs - it's like maths, understand the basics and how the stuff underneath works and the rest will follow.
As some of you may know, I'm a mathematician, and I have to say that there can be space on a particular topic for a mix of high and low level content. Taking, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Sets, the Wikipedia Article on Julia Sets, we see a fairly readable intro which admittedly uses the words "complex dynamics" and "holomorphic function." Now, the average reader who doesn't know what these are will skip over these, perhaps picking up on "complex" and "function," depending on how advanced a mathematician they are. However it goes on to say that "informally consists of those points whose long-time behavior under repeated iteration of f can change drastically under arbitrarily small perturbations" and that the behaviour of the function on J(f) is "chaotic." Now, for the user who is reading this with some vague interest, this description should be reasonable. Wikipedia cannot be aimed at people with absolutely no knowledge in the area - how would this article be written? "A Julia Set is a kind of Fractal which is made from some Function..." and then we kind of peter out of ideas for the layman?
One of the articles that the article itself points out as a bit rubbish on the layman readability front is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion. As a mathematician, I've always had an issue with Biology, but I can still pick out some phrases which give me reasonable information to what a Mitochondria is: "In cell biology, a mitochondrion" tells me it's a part of a cell, "Mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants," because they churn out energy for the cell", the cell structure part gives a nice image of a mitochondria, and the mitochondrial functions section gives me more information on the energy conversion and its other uses. I would say that this article is a good example of a Wikipedia article being readable to the layman (with a basic degree of Biology knowledge, otherwise why would they look at it) with enough information for the expert.
In conclusion, I don't agree with the original article's sentiment, and believe that Wikipedia Science articles are, in general, readable enough to laymen, and have enough information for experts.
JebJoya
Well, to be fair it is listed fairly prominently on the "community support" section of ubuntu.com. They also tell you how to access the IRC server ("If you are very new to Ubuntu, and haven't used IRC before, find the application 'gaim' from Applications->Internet on your Ubuntu desktop. Then login to irc.freenode.net and join the #ubuntu channel."), and give you access to a number of other documentation sources (presumably for people like me who are having issues getting their wireless card to work, although I know IRC so logged on and got directed to the correct place - am meant to be getting started now but went to check my email... Then I ended up on /.).
Ah well, rabbited on too long
Jeb
http://mathmo.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I'd love to, but unfortunately I'm in a student house at the moment with 3 other people (who only use the internet for net/email and know about the limits), so I'm kinda stuck until August, then I'm back home and back on ntl... sorry, i mean Virgin Media, then back on campus next year on the wonderful uni network which gets 3Mb/s download overnight, and about 1Mb/s during the day, but no p2p or on campus dc++ network anymore which is a shame, so I'm going to have to get OO.o and my Linux fix another way (direct dl instead). How hum :)
Meh, it's not as bad as Tiscali in the UK (my ISP), who not only give you awful connection (constant disconnects/reconnects) but under their "Fair Use Policy" state that anyone excessively using their connection at peak hours will be put on, essentially, a totally borked connection during these times. Knowing this I set netlimiter to only allow 3k/s in these times for firefox only, no other connection allowed, and yet I still got put on the FUP line, which is borked 24/7, not just the 5 hours a day that they say. Ah well, at least I can actually view /. today.
Your comment about Wiles is right on, and as a Mathematician, I'd love to see Sawyer's Theorem (something about holomorphic dynamics no doubt)! However, you are right about this line being blurred with strategy and software patents - when you look at the different things that can be trademarked, copyrighted or patented, and the respective coverage of each, there does appear to be a reason to re-evaluate the entire system.
:)
:) )
As for everyone else shouting "copyright!" at me, yes, you are right, but I hope (touch wood) that you can see where I'm coming from in terms of purely looking at patents. Works which can be copyrighted are unpatentable, but we have this strange spectrum between this sort of innovation and physical innovation. When you look at physical products as simply results of the physical space we are working in, we can equally say that a Theorem is a result of the space of mathematics, and an algorithm (or game/app for that matter) is a result of the software space.
Perhaps this is an over-simplification, but it's certainly an interesting topic to think about
Jeb
(BTW, my name's Jamie Sawyer, I've just realised that the Sawyer's Theorem reference would have been totally lost if you didn't know that... Oops
Ooh, nelly, there's a minefield right there...
Stating that an algorithm is just an "artifact of math" is perhaps questionable. Now, let me begin by saying that I don't believe that a Theorem etc. should be patentable - that's patently stupid (imagine what would happen if you needed to reference that Theorem in your work - yowzers). However, in mathematics, let us take the example of Andrew Wiles (guy who proved Wiles' Theorem aka Fermat's Last Theorem). Now, by your arguement (or at least an extension thereof), Wiles' Theorem is simply an artifact of maths - yep, I have no problem with this. However, to suggest that somehow this result did not require a huge amount of design work - he had to take areas from well outside the problem's number theoretic roots, and spent 7 years working solidly on it.
The root of my question is how does this work on designing a proof of a Theorem differ from a patentable software, or even a patentable car. The process of creating each of these examples is based upon some initial system - be it a mathematical system, computing system or physical system - and the result is by nature of the system possible (since it's been made). You could say that a n-linked list is a "artifact" of computing, or that my Fiat Punto is an "artifact" of the physical world.
Now, don't think that I'm suggesting that Theorems should be patentable, and equally don't think that I'm saying that cars (read: anything physical) should be unpatentable. The problem we have is that a line has to be drawn somewhere, but we have a large grey area which certainly needs some fiddling. (As another facetious example, consider a game, say Half Life or something. Can't the code be construed to be simple an algorithm which takes certain user inputs and gives certain audio/visual outputs? Shouldn't games and apps be unpatentable if algorithms are? If we can't patent short algorithms, but can patent long algorithms where do we draw the line? Number of lines of code? Some measure of "complexity"?...). Regardless, it's a tough issue...
Jeb
Fair enough, did not know that, so to reword it we only have MATLAB on the Windows machines, and Octave (harder to initially use, and there is no course on using it available to students) on the Linux machines. :)
Jeb
I'm a student at Warwick University in the UK studying Maths, and I have to say that the IT systems around the uni are certainly more Windows-centric than Linux (no Macs at all to my knowledge). As a 3rd year, I'm having to use LaTeX and MATLAB/Octave a lot (essays and modelling respectively), and the dept has 2 computer rooms - one Windows one (always full), and one Linux one with about the same number of computers (normally has 2 or 3 people on the 25 PCs). Now, this may sound like the Windows machines are more popular than the Linux ones - perhaps since students are more familiar with the products, whatever - but in fact there are some other trends. First of all, the Linux machines tend to be used more by older undergrads or postgrads - Octave certainly runs (and loads) a lot quicker than MATLAB on Windows. Second, in terms of room bookings, most courses are taught on Windows PCs (Maths by Computer uses MATLAB, Physics courses use MATLAB or Mathematica) - so students are being taught how to use the Windows tools. The windows centricity is further heightened by the fact that the version of KDE that the computers in the lab use is from 2002/03, and the version of OpenOffice being used is... dated to say the least. Also, we have about 10Mb of storage space on the Linux machines which gets filled when we get about 6 sets of lecture notes in PDF format...
:S). But, I'm hoping to put some pressure to at least get some upgrades to the Linux machines as an exec member of the Maths Society at Warwick - I run LaTeX courses in the Linux room and we need to get some better systems :S
Anyway, bit long and ramble-y, but the gist is that the IT dept seems to focus on Windows entirely, even though Linux is a better tool for many applications (LaTeX being a prime example - on the Windows machines thanks to the distributed software thing you spend about 15 minutes (literally) loading MiKTeX before you can compile
Apologies for the ramblings - Jeb.
And furthermore, you need to pay cable/sattelite costs on top of licence fees if you get them (although TV licence does cover 7 BBC TV channels (digital) with a load of extras and stuff - sports coverage wise, there are no stations that beat the BBC excluding sports dedicated channels (Sky Sports mainly) - BBC pays out quite a bit for World Cup (soccer for you yanks :P ), Premier League highlights, Wimbledon etc etc... Just a shame that it lost the F1, I hate when they cut to ads on ITV and you miss something cool happening...) :S
Apologies for the rant there
Jeb
Although to be fair, TV licences in the UK are to pay for the BBC - commercial free TV. Since it's a public service, the BBC should either be paid for like that or through taxation, and at least this way you only pay if you are actually watching TV :)
Jeb
Surely you'd have to play with it outside anyway, else you'll just destroy the walls in your house... Rather defies the point doesn't it? :)
Jeb
Hey, one thing I've got to say regarding your client who changes hardware on a day-to-day process - surely (at least, I'd hope that) Microsoft would provide companies like that with some kind of special dispensation... Wouldn't they?
I'm not saying it's not a pain in the arse for most home users - it would annoy me immensely since I was planning on upgrading my PC (lock stock and barrel) about 6 months after vista comes out... Should be fun... But surely business customers would get special treatment, especially in the special circumstances that the parent mentioned.
One final point - I bloody well hope there's a UK number for reactivation - iirc when XP first came out it was only a US number to ring if your licence key didn't work, and I don't really fancy the phone bill (especially if they keep you on hold for hours... damn you ntl - but that's another story...)
Jeb
"The ratio scores that many of these sites implement make it actually hard to get a higher ratio for your average user, because of the saturation of seeders."
True, of course, but as an 'average user' myself with a ratio of just over 1 the "saturation of seeders" as you put it is of course advantageous to me - I can get what are normally little-downloaded files as the mad seeders will seed things like that because there are less seeders seeding.
Okay, maybe a few to many "seeds" in that last paragraph, but I hope you get my gist.
Jeb
Can you do that and browse the web/change settings though? I didn't think that you could, but I don't have my PSP with me atm to test... I may be wrong...
Jeb
Yeah, to be fair the moment I saw the intro video that they made, it instantly said to me that this was either a scam or an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) (I suppose that's just because I'm an ARG player, so you know :) )
:)
If it is an ARG, we can expect something to go horribly wrong with their experiments shortly and us all (all 200,000 or whatever of us who've signed up) will get an email through then
If it does turn out to be an ARG, take a look at this forum
Jeb
Well, you can scroll around, but you can't actually do anything else (like browse your movies, or even the system settings)... (Just to clarify i mean you can scroll your music, but only horizontal XMB scrolling outside of that menu) Jeb DISCLAIMER: That is only up to v2.0 of the firmware, has to be said, if it changes above there then my apologies :)
Well, it kind of is - they specifically say that it is the first direct feed of the GUI that has been OKayed by sony, so obviously better quality than filming the screen with a digital camera. Although, has to be said that the cruddy digcam vid 3 months ago was more informative than this one to me... bit boring :(
Jeb