We need to limit our actions to those which:
- increase security
- improve communications and transparency
- improve access
Monitoring communications has to come after that --- the whole point to a society is to maintain and increase human dignity --- any action by a government which doesn't do this is an absolute travesty and should be prosecuted as a criminal act.
There is an unspoken assumption by abusers that the abusive way they're treating people is normal and that it's just that the person complaining is "too sensitive."
This is literally another form of abuse in and of itself. It's called minimizing.
Linus is playing the "people want me to be PC" card, and mixing it in with some anti-American-ism for popularity.
Nobody's asking him to be PC. Not many people are asking him to be friendly or polite. People are asking him to not be publicly abusive, to not be a bully, and to recognize the impact his words have on others. It is perfectly possible to be an effective manager and leader without being abusive and bullying. Stick to the facts, among other things.
Ie:
"Your code check-in appears to cause a bunch of compile errors, so I've rolled it back. Also, I've noticed that this isn't the first time. We're a large-scale project and it is helpful if contributors extensively validate their contributions."
Not:
"Don't you know how to validate your code? Stop wasting my time! Come back to me when you've evolved past a chimpanzee."
"Hello! Thank you for your code check-in! Now, I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a small problem with your code. If it's not too much trouble...." etc etc.
Yep. Fictional examination of that: http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
The first half seems all-too likely.
Or are the kids only going to be using these indoors?
Is anyone doing a true daylight viewable display, like the transflective LCDs which were used on Fujitsu tablets?
I need to replace my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121, and there simply don't seem to be any real options (need a Wacom stylus as well).
This is a great point. When I was younger and in college, I took advantage of the fact that I could coast through my engineering classes with the barest minimum effort. So, spent them drinking, playing in a band, and chasing tail. I still graduated in the top 10, but I could have easily done much, much better. Grad school and a couple of jobs later, my philosophy changed, and from somewhere, ambition crept in.
I will say that I have accomplished a lot more with drive and mediocre application of intelligence than with intelligence and little in the way of drive or hard work.
The problem is that you need them both at the right times in your life. Otherwise, it's too late. At a different period of my life, I may have gone through with a PhD and potentially been a physicist if I had had the sense to apply both grit and intelligence.
Today, I am a management consultant, where I use my analytical skills to solve mediocre problems, but where grit and drive and many other soft skills play a role. In fact, I would argue that my intelligence has taken a back seat and I bust ass to make up for gaps in my technical skills (e.g., finance).
Sadly, I am well past the point of publishing seminal papers; but at least, I can make the best of what I have and make a boatload of money for my next generation. But you're right -- it's not coming first. It's not even coming third. It's somewhere around fifth to the tenth. Above average, if you will, but definitely not great.
"Watch this space for updates."
If only there were places on the web one could go to watch live streaming coverage of event such as this, or liveblogs. Or a service where small messages containing updates could be broadcast to other users, searchable by special keywords called "hashtags"....
A trivial partial solution is to require reader ratings of at least X to get a share, or a rating of at least Y to get a higher share.
Or require that the subscriber actually read a certain portion of the book, which is Amazon's implementation. Since they control the Kindle market and can track what you do with your Kindle, I suspect that it will work pretty well. There are probably ways of abusing it, but they are not exactly trivial.
And Russians stand uncomfortably close by American standards. If I were to stand as close to an American student as most Russians would, I would be considered weird and creepy. Americans also consider eye contact to be very important when, say, disciplining a child. Lots of Hispanic cultures prefer that children look down and away when being disciplined, which causes a lot of American teachers to assume that their Hispanic students are ignoring them or being defiant.
Moral of the story: different cultures accept different things. Americans often smile at each other, and a male teacher should not be considered suspicious because of this.
Ars long, vita brevis.
Make beautiful things with the wood which will be cherished by generations to come --- that's what I tried to do when making my archery case:
Let us know when you've worked up a design for a transmitter which will respect property lines.
"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra
