The Jumpstart he links http://www.bluecollaragency.com/jumpstart#overview doesn't make sense to me because the winning team is a design firm? They should participate in a homogeneous contest, where all the participants are offering related services, like web hosting, cloud services, etc. That helps attracting new customers.
That's what I said in the other reply. Python community is stuck with three versions: 2.6.5, 2.7.x, and 3.x (and now 3.3). Cpython should now announce a deadline for support for 2.6.5 and 2.7.x. I don't think 2.7.x is catching up with Python 3.3 branch anymore. I am not sure. The versioning 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 still throwing people off, at least for me.
I think it was intentional.
"Facebook urged its employees in August to switch from iOS devices to Android so that flaws in the company’s mobile app could be addressed more rapidly."
That statement was ironic. Satire, anyone? Maybe that's the reason why my FB app on Android is getting better? LOL
Google Plus' iPad app sucks to the bottom...... now I wonder what's the correlation...
Django 1.4.2 is still alive! 1.5 support for Python 3 is still considered "experimental". It wouldn't get mature until 1.7, or even 1.7 IMHO. Python community is now stuck at 2.6.5/6, 2.7.3 and 3.x, which does screws people over. Lots of changes in 3.3 now. I am not even sure if 2.7.x is catching up with the 3.3 branch. I doubt.
Whether ABC (or a similar conjecture) is proven has practically no cryptographic impact. This is because you can already write and execute algorithms (whose correctness depends on unsolved conjectures) without proving the conjectures. See http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/69540/would-a-proof-...
Initially I had the same concern, but after digging a bit deeper, I don't believe this would be an immediate outcome. From the little I can gather, the ABC conjecture is really just a statement about the relationship between the operations of addition and multiplication on triples of coprime positive integers. While prime factors are involved in the conjecture, it doesn't seem that the proof of the conjecture would naturally lead to prime factorization in polynomial time. I'm not a mathematician though, and given how radical Mochizuki's proof sounds, I imagine it may (if it stands) eventually lead to more efficient factorization algorithms.
Finite fields, essential to error-correcting codes, are based on properties of primes. This forms the basics of efficient data transfer, whether Internet, CDs or communication with spacecrafts. The book "Number Theory in Science and Communication" mentions that finite fields were used in verification of the fourth prediction of general relativity. See that book for more examples.
Here's one from http://mathoverflow.net/questions/2556: There is a gamma ray telescope design using mod p quadratic residues to construct a mask. Gamma rays cannot be focused, so this design uses a redundant array of detectors separated from the mask to reconstruct directional information.
Cicidas have a cyclic life spanning a prime number of years. It is supposed that this is because a predator has harder job aligning with the cycle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_satiation
There's a legend that generals used the Chinese remainer theorem to count soldiers.
Elementary number theory was a motivating factor and foundation for development of the whole mathematics - algebra, analysis, even logic. Did you know that proving Godel's incompleteness theorem requires using primes? http://mathoverflow.net/questions/19857/has-decidability-got... Transcendence of pi also needs primes. http://mathoverflow.net/questions/21367/proof-that-pi-is-tra.... I did not realize that earlier. Usage of primes is often invisible. Even if there was no cryptography or ECCs, it would be silly to demand practical applications from this subject - it is a foundation for almost everything in mathematics, sometimes rather concealed.
By "practical application" I was also getting at other mathematics/physics laws/theories that are based on prime theory in some way. I guess you have highlighted a few.
Prime numbers can also be used to generate convincing pseudo-random numbers and patterns that don't repeat for long times.
You can basically use them whenever you need a number that has as few relations to other numbers as possible.
Anyway, as math is the language we use to model the universe around us, any mathematical property is likely to be a property of the universe in some way too (if maths is a proper model).
SHOULD is still a strong word. I don't mean to say nasty things to a consultant. But consultant work isn't for every single developer. In fact, I don't like working with contractors. I want to work with the team that works for my company. I don't want to go outside and speak someone who doesn't understand our company's culture and how we work.
Besides, consultant work DEPENDS on the market. You are tied to the market. Your value is depending on the market, not YOU as an individual. If your skill is no longer special because there are tons of people doing the same thing, your value will be lowered. It is a lot secure to work for a company. As a consultant, you need to either find a client yourself because you are starting, or you need to work your ass off just to make enough. I don't know about you, but most of us here can't make enough these days. consultant is freelancer, if you really think about it.
Moreover, I choose a job based on the role and the culture there. I can expect $80k ~ $100k on average for a software engineer nowadays in the city. I can keep myself comfortable with one single task, not multiple task.
What I suspect in the future is a team of really qualified teachers offer short videos online, like those on KhanAchamdey and use them as supplement. But I don't see traditional school disappearing because of jobs and keeping a child at home is very dangerous. Hybrid class runs by having one recitation/dicussion and the rest online. On the recitation day the students have to take a quiz to show they watched the videos. What it killed is daily interaction with others.
You can try to do that in college, but not below college. Kids would enjoy to go to school just to see their friends.
Another thing is considered is once again jobs. What are you going to do with millions of teachers? If each school makes a video, only 1/1000000 videos will be favored.
Online classes have many bad things, and personally I only use it to supplement my college courses.
Yeah. I agree. But one point to make: it would be great if this is integrated into a debugger. A way to mark codes for floating point inspection. One cpp file. Very clean.
The author is a consultant so I find this article biased. A friend of mine works as insurance manager and he has dealt with some startups and many medium-size companies. Group purchase is relatively cheaper and more convenient to manage.
So why people love universal health package from your boss? The most obvious reason is it cost a few thousand dollars per year to cover your own premium. http://news.ehealthinsurance.com/pr/ehi/how-much-does-health...
According to the source above, family is around $4000, and individual is around $3000
Google and Facebook always competes for the best people in this industry. Suppose both get rid of health insurance, but Facebook is willing increase salary by $1000 - $2000 on average. WoW. So which one would you go now, Mr. Author? Facebook? Yeah. Because that $2000 is used to cover premium. On the other hands, Google doesn't raise my salary and I would have to take out $4000 total to cover my whole family.
The fact that your employer has someone to deal with the agent, does all billing and contacts for you makes your life easier as a worker. You don't have to scratch your heads trying to find the best agent out there. All the basic health plan covers the same. Some big companies will purchase expensive package because they want to attract more talent workers.
The amount your boss will save by canceling health package is a lot, but they won't increase your salary by $5000 - $10k. They just won't. Maybe $1000. You still have to pay for the rest yourself.
Getting breakfast, lunch and even dinner all by yourself is a lot of money. Big tech companies are known to offer free meals because they want to make sure their workers can get the most out of their work time AND at the same time getting the most out of their salary. Which company would offer more than 20% of salary raise by getting rid of employee benefits?
Another problem is showing caring. Even in a small bakery shop, the #1 benefit is they can purchase left over food at very low price. Some nice owners even let workers to take them home (I used to work for a bakery). My boss didn't pay me health insurance because it was a small shop, but I get to save my breakfast for my parents by getting free food every night! Many Chinese takeout hire workers from other states and they live in the same apartment. That's their benefit. That kind of convenient makes both employer and employees happy.
I hate to say but people should stop trying to make life as a software. Seriously.
If you like software methodology, fine, here is one: stop re-inventing a common wheel. Let your boss does the billing for you. You use that third-party API. Now move on.
"According to the source above, family is around $4000, and individual is around $3000"
Additionally, I think the average listed there is a misleadingly low self-selector in that most anyone who has a pre-existing condition is likely to get quotes so expensive that getting an individual or family plan outside of the workplace is simply not a financially viable option.
There are many, many Americans for whom health insurance outside of a workplace group policy simply isn't an option, and that is sad, but the last thing needed to fix this problem is an application of Randian principles.
As somebody who is not an american, why would it be cheaper to get a health insurance through work if I had a preexisting condition - other than the obvious tax savings?
Your individual pre-existing condition does not bubble up to the group. However, when negotiating as an individual, then each pre-existing condition does get considered and factored into the cost. There's power in groups.
Well, in most situation yes. You as an individual. There other problem with pre-condition, it's very broad. They can make up all kinds of BS and claim your application must be filed different because of some "magical" precondition.
and to make my point even more clear. Companies will keep their good workers by giving them benefits + higher salary. Benefit is just the floor. There is no upperbound. Google, Facebook, Apple all want the best people, so they will keep increasing salary. Other startups too. When they have money, they will do the same.