What are people's opinions on Java as a language and its shelf life after all the stuff that Oracle is pulling with Android.
I'm particularly interested as I've just finished an intro to Java and it seemed quite annoying to write in when I compared it to my use of C# and Python.
Will Google just recode everything in GO (having tried out the language it doesn't seem all that hard and is intuitive). Obviously the concern is that the language is made by a particular company who would benefit from its popularity.
Yeah, depending on how the fight turns out, the shelf life of Java will be the least of anyone's worries. That said, Java will be around for a very long time simply because it is (probably) the most ubiquitous programming language in the world, and the frameworks built on it are irreplaceable at this point in time.
I am looking into sending my kid to a private school for grades 10-12. The one we are looking at is a Christian school and these curriculum from Alpha Omega publications (looks like a homeschooling curriculum). We know one family who sends their gender confused kid there and they report that their child has done much better there than they did in the public high school.
Since it sounds like the social side is good my concern is with the curriculum. I don't want my kid being taught weird creationism stuff. I have not been able to find any good reviews of the publishers materials either. Thoughts?
Really depends on the amount of religion pushed. I know creationism is very popular in the US and there is a strong religious agenda.
However I went through public school from kindergarten to year 10. Then went to a boys only, Christian college that was very prestigious at the time and expensive (parents got me in through academic scholarship plus my brother got in at year 8 on a bursary just because he was related to me).
Helped me to reinforce teaching adults with respect (had lost most of this in public school as teachers were stupid / under qualified /stressed). I got to see what rich kids and rich parents were like. The education side was way better though as the classes were 1/4 the size and the teachers cared or got fired. Also found the students to be really tolerant of different students (whereas I was ostracised in public high school as it was mainly all working class and rural students coming to high school).
Pretty good food, amazing sports grounds, medical facilities and recreation centre.
Religiously I had the option of not going to the chapel but went anyway as it was interesting seeing another religion at the time (having been brought up Hindu). There was a religious / philosophy class which was cool because the chaplain was very open to having ideal speech discussions and I could also use it as free study time.
Really depends on the Head Master and the chaplain. I had options because these guys wanted me to go to their school.
The specific Christian sect also could play a role into what kind of creationist crapola you can find there. If it's a school run by Catholics, mainline/moderate protestants like Episcopalians, etc., odds are you wouldn't have to worry about it (in fact, the Catholic Church has pretty much explicitly stated that Evolution is the scientific explanation behind God's method of creation and they have no problem with it). If it's run by Southern Baptists, however, all bets are off.
Wait, here we go. Apparently they do teach Creationism in all likelihood. Here is one of the course materials provided by Alpha Omega publications: Unlocking the Mystery of Life. A few quotes from its description:
this science-based DVD tells the story of contemporary scientists who are advancing a powerful but controversial idea, the theory of intelligent design. Challenging Charles Darwin's theory in "On the Origin of Species", this Christian-based DVD uses stunning, state-of-the-art computer animation to transport students into the interiors of the living cell to explore systems and machines that bear the hallmarks of design.
Making the scientific case for intelligent design, this DVD is a perfect addition to your science lessons
Why in the hell are business still using physical fax machines? Specifically clinics, hospitals and doctor's office. Their fax machines are either always busy or fucking busted. It's 2014 use an online fax service!
Why in the hell are business still using physical fax machines? Specifically clinics, hospitals and doctor's office. Their fax machines are either always busy or fucking busted. It's 2014 use an online fax service!
Why in the hell are business still using physical fax machines? Specifically clinics, hospitals and doctor's office. Their fax machines are either always busy or fucking busted. It's 2014 use an online fax service!
Online fax services cost money, per fax and/or per month. A fax machine is a one time capital expense. In addition, large enough offices probably have them integrated in their copiers and workgroup printers, so they're basically getting one for free. Plus, there are often security issues involved. You'd be surprised how many online fax services don't even use SSL! If you're a hospital/doctor/etc., and have to deal with HIPPA, no way in hell are you going to use a fax service that doesn't even do encryption.
I was also going to mention the security angle. I work for a company that provides voice and data services as well as our own online fax tool. One of the more peculiar things we also found out was that some of those fax services store the documents that are sent so they can be "recovered" which struck me as some particularly weird legal territory to get into. Basically, you are right, they could do that... but it's not as simple as just flipping a switch.
Why in the hell are business still using physical fax machines? Specifically clinics, hospitals and doctor's office. Their fax machines are either always busy or fucking busted. It's 2014 use an online fax service!
Virtually every clinic I worked for used a fax, 90% of the time I successfully convinced practice managers to switch to email and PDF only or receiving faxes through a modem and saving as a PDF.
Health industry is fucked up technologically both software and hardware. Even the consulting software is incredibly trash. Can't wait to wade into this market with something healthcare professionals will want.
Why in the hell are business still using physical fax machines? Specifically clinics, hospitals and doctor's office. Their fax machines are either always busy or fucking busted. It's 2014 use an online fax service!
If anything, Ye Olde Faxe Machine is more susceptible to attack by someone tapping the wires, and considering that most doctors' offices have them in a central location it'd be dead easy for someone to go snatch a stack of faxes off of them when nobody is looking. If someone ever develops a reliable, functional, easy-to-use client that can grab x-rays/CTs/MRIs from a PACS server, take those DICOM images and encrypt them along with the patient's full records, and then shoot them over to the completely unrelated receiving clinic that uses the same client software (which can then accept the transfer of information, decrypt them and store them on their own PACS server), they'd probably be able to parlay that startup into a nice chunk of change.
Making the scientific case for intelligent design, this DVD is a perfect addition to your science lessons
How is this even allowable on a curriculum. I'm so happy my parents decided against immigrating to the US and chose Australia instead. Private religious school and/or parental home schooling, so they can set their own rules. Freedom of speech and religion and all that, I suppose. Parents do have the choice of not sending their kids to schools like that, and institutes of higher learning can choose to consider educations at those schools to be "substandard" relative to those using more sane curricula.
If anything, Ye Olde Faxe Machine is more susceptible to attack by someone tapping the wires, and considering that most doctors' offices have them in a central location it'd be dead easy for someone to go snatch a stack of faxes off of them when nobody is looking.
Physically tapping the wires is somewhat more intrusive than running a simple man-in-the-middle-attack over the general internet. Someone can notice you breaking into a wire closet, patching into a telephone pole, etc. However, it's much more clandestine to simply install some sort of packet sniffing malware on a machine somewhere along the route between the fax service and the office computer. Of course, if any of the endpoint machines are compromised, you're fucked, but the main problem is that there is a myriad of machines between the endpoints that could be compromised. With a classic circuit-switched phone network, the only physically connected machines are typically the two endpoints. Switching machines between those endpoints tend to be relatively simplistic compared to IP-based routers, so it's a form of "security through uselessness" -- i.e. it's secure because the machines are too dumb to remotely exploit in any useful way. Finally, an IP-based exploit can automatically forward the purloined information to anywhere else on the planet without having any sort of conspicuous gadget on the network. Tapping physical phone lines requires a physical tap of some sort that either keeps the stolen data onboard or perhaps uses some sort of wireless tech to beam it elsewhere.
Then again, VOIP throws a whole other monkeywrench into the situation, but I hope any VOIP traffic going over the public internet is properly encrypted.
All other things being equal, I consider a physical phone line to be more secure than an unencrypted IP connection.
I agree with you on the point that swiping printed faxes is trivial... but then again, I've heard so many horror stories of shared passwords in medical offices that it's probably equally trivial to swipe e-faxes.
If someone ever develops a reliable, functional, easy-to-use client that can grab x-rays/CTs/MRIs from a PACS server, take those DICOM images and encrypt them along with the patient's full records, and then shoot them over to the completely unrelated receiving clinic that uses the same client software (which can then accept the transfer of information, decrypt them and store them on their own PACS server), they'd probably be able to parlay that startup into a nice chunk of change.
The technology behind that sounds easy enough to implement. It's making it easy-to-use that could be tricky. Sadly, end-to-end crypto by its very nature, can be hard to use. Encrypting the links via SSL is pretty easy and can be done invisibly -- it's making sure that only authorized people on either end can access the data that's hard to make easy-to-use. The only way I can see you could pull that off is to use some sort of public/private key system and most people can't seem to wrap their heads around how to use it (at least based on PGP usage). Still, I think it's possible to pull that off... Of course, then there is all the HIPPA certification and all that complicating matters.
If someone ever develops a reliable, functional, easy-to-use client that can grab x-rays/CTs/MRIs from a PACS server, take those DICOM images and encrypt them along with the patient's full records, and then shoot them over to the completely unrelated receiving clinic that uses the same client software (which can then accept the transfer of information, decrypt them and store them on their own PACS server), they'd probably be able to parlay that startup into a nice chunk of change.
As a practitioner you would never send your full records unless you knew exactly who the receiving practitioner is. Current shitty software allows for doctors to fix up any histories that are written poorly or they've expressed stupid thoughts or included reasoning such as "won't make enough money for the clinic" as a reason.
That DICOM idea is only the tip of the iceberg. The main issue is selling it to health professionals who as a generality are stupid as fuck when it comes to technology.
You want to see the digital x-ray I've just taken? Choose from the following stupidity -
Either print the image out and bring it to the consult room. Burn it to a disc on computer receiving the x-rays to the consult room. Screen grab / pdf export it and attach the static low quality image to the consult file. Bring the client to the imaging room to see the x-rays where you can optimally show the client the changes in the images as you move through contrast and brightness so they can spot what you've identified. Multiply extensively for ultrasound, CT and probably MRI (I only worked at one clinic with an MRI and it was hardly every used not to mention none of the employed Vets knew how to read MRI's yet but were charging $1000 a scan).
Making the scientific case for intelligent design, this DVD is a perfect addition to your science lessons
How is this even allowable on a curriculum. I'm so happy my parents decided against immigrating to the US and chose Australia instead.
Private religious school and/or parental home schooling, so they can set their own rules. Freedom of speech and religion and all that, I suppose. Parents do have the choice of not sending their kids to schools like that, and institutes of higher learning can choose to consider educations at those schools to be "substandard" relative to those using more sane curricula.
I think this freedom of speech for the stupid is hurting America a fair bit from "vaccinations cause autism", "how do I know you're a citizen" to "make sure you don't rule out the FSM as supreme overlord when it comes to education and politics". Religion is in every country in the world whether it is allowed to enter areas which should be secular determines how much I respect them. It's usually the countries with a diversity of religion which identify the benefits of a secular society. I'm hoping these Universities outright deny entry for students who want to get a BSc. if they go to a FSM science school?
I think this freedom of speech for the stupid is hurting America a fair bit from "vaccinations cause autism", "how do I know you're a citizen" to "make sure you don't rule out the FSM as supreme overlord when it comes to education and politics". Religion is in every country in the world whether it is allowed to enter areas which should be secular determines how much I respect them. It's usually the countries with a diversity of religion which identify the benefits of a secular society. I'm hoping these Universities outright deny entry for students who want to get a BSc. if they go to a FSM science school?
I agree that freedom of speech for the stupid is troubling, but you kind of need it if you want freedom of speech for the smart. If you decide to do something to cut back on freedom of speech for the stupid, who gets to decide who is "stupid"? What if the stupid somehow get enough political power to declare the smart people "stupid"? Then what?
As far as universities denying entry for students who went to FSM high school, well, it comes down to the university. Degree mills and/or FSM universities will probably let them in, but the more selective and secular a university is, the more likely they will be to deny entry to those from FSM schools, whether or not they're applying for a BSc.
As far as universities denying entry for students who went to FSM high school, well, it comes down to the university. Degree mills and/or FSM universities will probably let them in, but the more selective and secular a university is, the more likely they will be to deny entry to those from FSM schools, whether or not they're applying for a BSc.
There has been some problems like that down here for places and services that require children either be vaccinated, or have a valid reason for not being vaccinated - turns out, there's a bunch of doctors who will quite happily give out the non-vaccination paperwork even when(or, I suppose, especially when) it's completely unnecessary.
I think this freedom of speech for the stupid is hurting America a fair bit from "vaccinations cause autism", "how do I know you're a citizen" to "make sure you don't rule out the FSM as supreme overlord when it comes to education and politics". Religion is in every country in the world whether it is allowed to enter areas which should be secular determines how much I respect them. It's usually the countries with a diversity of religion which identify the benefits of a secular society. I'm hoping these Universities outright deny entry for students who want to get a BSc. if they go to a FSM science school?
I agree that freedom of speech for the stupid is troubling, but you kind of need it if you want freedom of speech for the smart. If you decide to do something to cut back on freedom of speech for the stupid, who gets to decide who is "stupid"? What if the stupid somehow get enough political power to declare the smart people "stupid"? Then what?
As far as universities denying entry for students who went to FSM high school, well, it comes down to the university. Degree mills and/or FSM universities will probably let them in, but the more selective and secular a university is, the more likely they will be to deny entry to those from FSM schools, whether or not they're applying for a BSc.
How would a populace go about ignoring the media and getting themselves educated. Is this another example of the one grave at a time solution as traditional mass media continues to die off?
As far as universities denying entry for students who went to FSM high school, well, it comes down to the university. Degree mills and/or FSM universities will probably let them in, but the more selective and secular a university is, the more likely they will be to deny entry to those from FSM schools, whether or not they're applying for a BSc.
There has been some problems like that down here for places and services that require children either be vaccinated, or have a valid reason for not being vaccinated - turns out, there's a bunch of doctors who will quite happily give out the non-vaccination paperwork even when(or, I suppose, especially when) it's completely unnecessary.
That's more than likely a result of practice / business managers having much more power over practitioners than they should have. Some of the shit the GP's and clinics get away with is just as crazy as the Veterinary industry.
It boils down to 'can we get this client to use our clinic if we tell them what they want to hear, if yes then instruct everyone in the practice that it is required protocol'.
How would a populace go about ignoring the media and getting themselves educated. Is this another example of the one grave at a time solution as traditional mass media continues to die off?
Beats me, but this isn't an example of "one grave at a time." I feel like there is an overall dumbing down of the population that gets worse and worse every year. It's certainly not a generational thing, at the very least. Okay, sure, you're no longer watching the mass media on TV. Instead you spend all day looking at lolcat pics and vids. I don't see much difference there.
Why is the Roberts court routinely derided as being overly partisan and political when so many of its decisions are unanimous or nearly so? Even when there are 5-4 splits they are often not split along the perceived party lines.
Has anyone ever made a game that's like a JRPG, but just the boss fights? Where you customize a party, equip them within a budget, then do long, drawn out boss fights, with no grinding or leveling or anything? Because I think that would be my favorite game ever.
Monster hunter is purely grind. You get crafting elements, make new armor and weapons, then you go fight the next boss monster thing. The boss monster fights are pretty intense but the grinding is just mind numbing.
Comments
I'm particularly interested as I've just finished an intro to Java and it seemed quite annoying to write in when I compared it to my use of C# and Python.
Will Google just recode everything in GO (having tried out the language it doesn't seem all that hard and is intuitive). Obviously the concern is that the language is made by a particular company who would benefit from its popularity.
Since it sounds like the social side is good my concern is with the curriculum. I don't want my kid being taught weird creationism stuff. I have not been able to find any good reviews of the publishers materials either. Thoughts?
However I went through public school from kindergarten to year 10. Then went to a boys only, Christian college that was very prestigious at the time and expensive (parents got me in through academic scholarship plus my brother got in at year 8 on a bursary just because he was related to me).
Helped me to reinforce teaching adults with respect (had lost most of this in public school as teachers were stupid / under qualified /stressed). I got to see what rich kids and rich parents were like. The education side was way better though as the classes were 1/4 the size and the teachers cared or got fired. Also found the students to be really tolerant of different students (whereas I was ostracised in public high school as it was mainly all working class and rural students coming to high school).
Pretty good food, amazing sports grounds, medical facilities and recreation centre.
Religiously I had the option of not going to the chapel but went anyway as it was interesting seeing another religion at the time (having been brought up Hindu). There was a religious / philosophy class which was cool because the chaplain was very open to having ideal speech discussions and I could also use it as free study time.
Really depends on the Head Master and the chaplain. I had options because these guys wanted me to go to their school.
Wait, here we go. Apparently they do teach Creationism in all likelihood. Here is one of the course materials provided by Alpha Omega publications: Unlocking the Mystery of Life. A few quotes from its description:
Health industry is fucked up technologically both software and hardware. Even the consulting software is incredibly trash. Can't wait to wade into this market with something healthcare professionals will want.
I'm so happy my parents decided against immigrating to the US and chose Australia instead.
If someone ever develops a reliable, functional, easy-to-use client that can grab x-rays/CTs/MRIs from a PACS server, take those DICOM images and encrypt them along with the patient's full records, and then shoot them over to the completely unrelated receiving clinic that uses the same client software (which can then accept the transfer of information, decrypt them and store them on their own PACS server), they'd probably be able to parlay that startup into a nice chunk of change.
I'm so happy my parents decided against immigrating to the US and chose Australia instead.
Private religious school and/or parental home schooling, so they can set their own rules. Freedom of speech and religion and all that, I suppose. Parents do have the choice of not sending their kids to schools like that, and institutes of higher learning can choose to consider educations at those schools to be "substandard" relative to those using more sane curricula. Physically tapping the wires is somewhat more intrusive than running a simple man-in-the-middle-attack over the general internet. Someone can notice you breaking into a wire closet, patching into a telephone pole, etc. However, it's much more clandestine to simply install some sort of packet sniffing malware on a machine somewhere along the route between the fax service and the office computer. Of course, if any of the endpoint machines are compromised, you're fucked, but the main problem is that there is a myriad of machines between the endpoints that could be compromised. With a classic circuit-switched phone network, the only physically connected machines are typically the two endpoints. Switching machines between those endpoints tend to be relatively simplistic compared to IP-based routers, so it's a form of "security through uselessness" -- i.e. it's secure because the machines are too dumb to remotely exploit in any useful way. Finally, an IP-based exploit can automatically forward the purloined information to anywhere else on the planet without having any sort of conspicuous gadget on the network. Tapping physical phone lines requires a physical tap of some sort that either keeps the stolen data onboard or perhaps uses some sort of wireless tech to beam it elsewhere.
Then again, VOIP throws a whole other monkeywrench into the situation, but I hope any VOIP traffic going over the public internet is properly encrypted.
All other things being equal, I consider a physical phone line to be more secure than an unencrypted IP connection.
I agree with you on the point that swiping printed faxes is trivial... but then again, I've heard so many horror stories of shared passwords in medical offices that it's probably equally trivial to swipe e-faxes. The technology behind that sounds easy enough to implement. It's making it easy-to-use that could be tricky. Sadly, end-to-end crypto by its very nature, can be hard to use. Encrypting the links via SSL is pretty easy and can be done invisibly -- it's making sure that only authorized people on either end can access the data that's hard to make easy-to-use. The only way I can see you could pull that off is to use some sort of public/private key system and most people can't seem to wrap their heads around how to use it (at least based on PGP usage). Still, I think it's possible to pull that off... Of course, then there is all the HIPPA certification and all that complicating matters.
That DICOM idea is only the tip of the iceberg.
The main issue is selling it to health professionals who as a generality are stupid as fuck when it comes to technology.
You want to see the digital x-ray I've just taken? Choose from the following stupidity -
Either print the image out and bring it to the consult room.
Burn it to a disc on computer receiving the x-rays to the consult room.
Screen grab / pdf export it and attach the static low quality image to the consult file.
Bring the client to the imaging room to see the x-rays where you can optimally show the client the changes in the images as you move through contrast and brightness so they can spot what you've identified.
Multiply extensively for ultrasound, CT and probably MRI (I only worked at one clinic with an MRI and it was hardly every used not to mention none of the employed Vets knew how to read MRI's yet but were charging $1000 a scan). Private religious school and/or parental home schooling, so they can set their own rules. Freedom of speech and religion and all that, I suppose. Parents do have the choice of not sending their kids to schools like that, and institutes of higher learning can choose to consider educations at those schools to be "substandard" relative to those using more sane curricula.
I think this freedom of speech for the stupid is hurting America a fair bit from "vaccinations cause autism", "how do I know you're a citizen" to "make sure you don't rule out the FSM as supreme overlord when it comes to education and politics".
Religion is in every country in the world whether it is allowed to enter areas which should be secular determines how much I respect them. It's usually the countries with a diversity of religion which identify the benefits of a secular society.
I'm hoping these Universities outright deny entry for students who want to get a BSc. if they go to a FSM science school?
As far as universities denying entry for students who went to FSM high school, well, it comes down to the university. Degree mills and/or FSM universities will probably let them in, but the more selective and secular a university is, the more likely they will be to deny entry to those from FSM schools, whether or not they're applying for a BSc.
That's more than likely a result of practice / business managers having much more power over practitioners than they should have. Some of the shit the GP's and clinics get away with is just as crazy as the Veterinary industry.
It boils down to 'can we get this client to use our clinic if we tell them what they want to hear, if yes then instruct everyone in the practice that it is required protocol'.