jballanc

95 ms·

871.
by jballanc 15y ago
This really is the key point. In graduate school I worked along side many individuals with close ties to the pharmaceutical industry, and many had very similar stories to tell... Getting a drug approved is an interesting process. Not only d
872.
by jballanc 15y ago
I honestly have to wonder why we don't have robots doing the majority of these tasks. Obviously, a robot couldn't troubleshoot detailed or obscure problems, but for things like provisioning a server, rerouting around bad network hardware, r
873.
by jballanc 15y ago
You're putting the cart before the horse. People are not upset because the wording was offensive. People are offended because the wording was upsetting. The flyer clearly objectified "Women". Objectification of any category of humans should
874.
by jballanc 15y ago
What you're describing is moral relativism. If I kill someone that everyone hates, is that wrong? If I kill a homeless person that had no friends and no family so nobody notices they're dead, is that wrong? The real question here is would y
875.
by jballanc 15y ago
There is a difference between "We thought it was funny. We were wrong." and "We are sorry you were offended." The former makes the person in bad taste the responsible party. The later makes the "offended" person the responsible party. When
876.
by jballanc 15y ago
I don't doubt what you say, but medicine (like most highly-skilled professions) has a long lag time. I would wager (without looking it up) that the median graduation date for practicing doctors today is around 1990. A beter indicator of cur
877.
by jballanc 15y ago
> Or does enjoying seeing attractive women in public make me a bad person? As a man, is this my original sin? If you cannot understand the difference between admiring attractive women while programming, and listing "Women" as a "Great
878.
by jballanc 15y ago
I don't think it's a fake line at all. It's the same as: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll never be hungry." Or, if you prefer: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide
879.
by jballanc 15y ago
To take a common CS example: sorting. You can teach someone how to use a library sort function. That's teaching a trade. You can teach someone how to write a quick sort. That's still teaching a trade. Alternatively, you can teach someone ho
880.
by jballanc 15y ago
The author's attitude toward CS degrees stems from an insidious issue affecting higher education in America (and that, in my opinion, will eventually be its downfall). College is not where you go to learn something. That's what trade school
881.
Executives see worsening work-life imbalance(reuters.com)
1 points by jballanc 15y ago|0 comments
882.
by jballanc 15y ago
I think you're missing the point. The post-PC era means that only tech savvy people need/will use PCs, not that PCs will disappear completely. What I'm really waiting for is for some company to realize this and make a device that caters ex
883.
by jballanc 15y ago
In some ways, I wish this was a case of a company enforcing its own morals. Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays. Fine. I don't eat there. Enough people do to keep them open. Great. The thing about morals, though, is that everyone can have thei
884.
by jballanc 15y ago
It's missing the 13W3 video ports used for a long time by Sun and SGI machines (and some of the best monitors around in the late 90s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB13W3
885.
by jballanc 15y ago
Their P/E is currently lower than Amazon and Google, and just about even with Oracle. Yeah, I think it's undervalued.
886.
by jballanc 15y ago
Well, maybe not a monorail, but I feel compelled once again to point out that Apple could afford to build its own space station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_space_station#Pro...
887.
by jballanc 15y ago
I think a one-time dividend is much more likely. A recurring dividend sends the wrong signal to Wall Street (we're no longer a growth company). A one-time dividend says something more like, "Yeah, we have a crap load of cash...here, have so
888.
by jballanc 15y ago
I still haven't heard a good reason why universities are switching away from Scheme... I'm not one to claim "we must follow the old ways" just for the hell of it. I can understand the desire to look out at the world of programming languages
889.
by jballanc 15y ago
This will happen. One of the reasons the Concorde never really succeeded was due to the nature of faster than sound travel. A sonic boom doesn't just happen as you pass the sound barrier, but rather trails behind an aircraft the entire time
890.
by jballanc 15y ago
Granted these charts are 2 years old now, but 2 years ago when I first saw them I thought they might be a pretty good indicator of the future for the respective companies... Google revenue broken down by product: http://articles.businessin
891.
by jballanc 15y ago
Man finds a black kind of rock that burns; discovers that you can get a lot of this rock if you dig deeper, but deep mines have water. In order to successfully mine this rock, man devises a steam powered engine (neatly enough powered by thi
892.
by jballanc 15y ago
The kind that feels they could put in their own board members and have them immediately distribute Apple's cash hoard to the investors, at which point the investors cut and run. I don't think Apple has so much money that this is a profitabl
893.
by jballanc 15y ago
They NEED to do something with the cash reserve because they are a publicly traded company, and investors are greedy. While it would never realistically happen, a coalition of investors could demand cash distributions and threaten to vote
894.
by jballanc 15y ago
Based on the number and independence of the business units at Sony, such a comparison is strained at best. The real reason they shouldn't buy Disney is that it would be an ideological step backward. Disney creates entertainment in the same
895.
by jballanc 15y ago
Just to give some perspective on how much money Apple has, they almost have enough to re-build the US Interstate Highway system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world%27s_most_expensiv... ) or construct their own space station ( http:
896.
by jballanc 15y ago
Here, I'd wager: http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model?class=S&mod... Edit : Skip to the "Audio & Entertainment" section to see how you can have modern technology without the confusion. Especially check out the "SPLITVIEW
897.
by jballanc 15y ago
Ah, this brings back memories of the old "If Detroit designed cars like Microsoft designed software" jokes of the late 90s... I once had the opportunity to chat with Woz. Somehow we got on the subject of cars and he told me that he had a To
898.
by jballanc 15y ago
The weeks immediately following 9/11 were much worse than what we have now. I remember flying home for Thanksgiving, and literally everyone was setting off the metal detectors they had them tuned so high. The only reason I didn't was I ha
899.
by jballanc 15y ago
In the vein of "Don't attribute to malice..." this would be my vote for most likely explanation for the TSA and countless other changes in the US since 9/11. The longer I live, the more I'm convinced that much of human behavior, or even hum
900.
by jballanc 15y ago
What you're referring to is a "soft target". You have to pay rather close attention, but terrorists have long recognized the opportunity presented by soft targets: malls, hotels, and yes, the TSA waiting line. Interestingly enough, it's the

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