It's basically a decentralized, censorship-resistant P2P internet. The philosophy has merit, but the performance sucks and it is currently mostly a venture capitalist funded scam.
We had a perfectly working internal IRC system at work. For some managerial reasons, the decision was made to 'keep up with the trend and adapt to new softwares, firstly by moving on to Slack'.
I am young, in my mid-twenties. I like new. I like Slack too. But I honestly couldn't see any reason why we moved to it. We pay slack probably more than what we needed to maintain our own old tiny IRC box. But money aside, there are real issues with Slack that are just not there with hosting your own IRC.
The major one being privacy. For a field that is almost religiously against abuse of privacy, we sure as heck don't seem to have an issue with all of our work conversations being stored on another company's server.
Another quip I noticed was archiving. While my IRC allowed archiving without any limits, there are limits imposed on how much archives you can have access to on Slack. Of course, its customizable, but for that first time you're looking for something said 6 months ago by an ex-employee, you realize that there is no way to go back. You set your preference and learn to move on, cause well, its a different company after all. And you're paying for it.
The article doesn't say that information from B or C is useful. All it explains is only 2 particles can be entangled with each other. So either A is entangles with B or it is entangled with C, not both. Which means that either Anne's reality is correct, or yours. The whole thing about the decoding machine is just described to oversimplify it for the benefit of the masses.
What's wrong with imagination, hypothesis and a simple analogy that can reach out to the masses? One might argue that your approach to science as only a set of facts based on formula is boring at best. One needs to ponder the meaning behind the formula and results. Yes, we got a number, but what is the implication of it? After all, doesn't science exist to satisfy our curiosity about the world in the first place?
I work for an IT consultancy that has about 40 people and an open office. I have never had any issues. Probably because almost everyone is a developer/administrator and people mostly prefer communicating through IRC. The office space is completely silent, and the desks are in groups, far apart from each other. It is wonderful, looks good and doesn't make me feel depressed sitting in a cubicle with partitions shorter than my height giving a fake sense of privacy.
All I am saying is there is a wrong way and a right way of maintaining open offices. Bashing all open offices for being cheap and unproductive is naive.
I work at a startup and I am 25. I have saved up some money and seriously considering retirement by the time I am 30.
Not that I have a lot of money saved up. I just have a couple of thousand bucks. Nothing fancy. But to me it is a seed money to try out new things, at an age where making huge mistakes wouldn't result in me being 70 and penniless. There will still be enough time to return back to IT once (if) I fail miserably. And it will also be an extended break in the worst case.
I want to explore the world, jobs, hobbies, people. I have realized the 8 hours everyday I spend on my desk is the best time to be out and about. The sunshine is literally gone by the time I get off work. If this is what hundreds of years of progress and planning has led to, I think we have failed.
So yes, I support people who think about retiring early, and actually living their lives when they are still young. If youth is the best time of one's life, it shouldn't be wasted on the desk.
I understand citizens and residents of US have their own valid concerns regarding this issue. However, as a foreigner working on a temporary visa who was denied an H1B in last year's lottery, here's an alternate point of view - Imagine being born and raised in a country that does not have adequate research areas in the the field you love - computer science. What do you do? You move to a place that better encourages your dreams. You know you cannot directly get a guaranteed job in US that supports research and the field of work you love, so you take a hefty loan and come for a graduate degree to US. You live hand-to-mouth (remember that it is infinitely tougher for people from poorer countries to get the total sum needed for a master or a PhD in US.), struggle through all the cultural barriers, loneliness and constantly battle feeling alienated, all to finally one day achieve the life you dreamed of - a job you are passionate about, and a life that respects you as a human being.
Fast forward to job hunting - unlike residents and citizens, you know you don't have the luxury of 'not having a job' for more than 2 months after completing your graduation - imagine the stress it puts on you. But you battle it out and land up in a company. If you are lucky, it so happens that you are doing what you love. But for a lot of foreigners, the deadline to have a job and stay here just so you can at the very least repay you loans in USD is far greater than the original dream they have, and so they accept whatever is offered.
Well, we say "I've completed a graduate degree, taken up a job and now I have to repay my loan before I can continue with the American dream." But then within a year you have yet another deadline - H1B. And unlike previous deadlines, this one is out of your hands - utterly and completely. You are a highly educated person working as a skilled worker in a respected position, and now your whole life is dependent only on one thing - a lottery. A random lottery will decide your fate. At that point it hits home - all your life you thought your hard work was an investment towards a better future, but now you know its no different than if you were buying lottery tickets for the past two decades.
Imagine the helplessness, the crushing sensation of all your dreams shattering. That's what its like to have your whole life dependent on a lottery. Want to limit foreign workers? Make interviews tougher, change laws to reject the possibility of working after a graduate US degree. I mean it - do anything but please do not let our lives and fate be decided by a random lottery. It is humiliating.
P.S. What's funny is to realize that unlike all other categories of immigrants, H1B skilled workers are here on their own merit. I am not married to someone with a green card and dependent on him. I am not here illegally after crossing borders at midnight. I am not here because I have a lot of family wealth. And yet, for a country that prides itself on hard work, it is somehow toughest for people in H1B category to get a visa. I cannot help but wonder if today I decide to get married to anyone with a permanent status here, I will immediately be out of this agony, and can choose to be totally dependent on another person's income, contribute nothing to the economy, and easily get permanent residence. Can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of laws.
Aside from what others have said about Quanta being a layman's website, I would also like to point out that the special thing about science is everything is subject to debate and discussion, no matter however established it might be. We often bring relativity into discussion, why should Darwin's theory of evolution be kept out of it?
It seems like lately science is getting more and more defensive to protect itself against religious forces. While understandable, such a change is not good for the progress of science. Science is a free-thinker's religion. Let's keep it that way. Nothing at all is above getting challenged or questioned. Neither god, nor evolution.
We have some exoplanets 100-500 light years away that seem very earth-like. I think the first step to finding a lifeboat is to start researching on space shuttles speeds (faster than light), wormholes, teleportation etc. As far-fetched as these may seem, its unlikely that with sufficient time and investment neither one of these alternatives will be successful. Something is bound to work. We only need one of these to be able to travel farther in human time. And it is only then that we should even think about sending manned missions to these potential planets.
We are looking at space exploration in the wrong way. All space organizations seem to have entered this sort of competition where manned missions to just about anywhere currently reachable in limited time is the goal. Nobody is pausing to think that maybe we should look into better travelling options to be able to explore far off planets and objects. The probability increases with reachable area.
Agreed that few things like pillow fighting are not at all misogynistic, but the title of the book should've been "Barbie The Game Designer" or similar. Saying that Barbie is a computer engineer and then having stuff like "Steven and Brian will do the coding" is nonsensical. Its like saying Barbie is an actress but Ron and Bob will play her character on stage. Make sense?
Also, at the end Barbie doesn't credit the guys for fixing the issue, and take all the credit in front of her sister.
While not all of it is against women, most of it is nonsensical, immoral and just something I wouldn't want to read to my girls if and when I have them.
The terrorists want to turn everyone to Muslims and kill them all. Can we just end all other religions, convert to Islam and then willingly get murdered to skirt the whole war against terrorism issue, please?
There is a problem in the author's views, but its not what you pointed out.
On one hand the author feels she loses her cultural identity by trying to mingle with a while group. On the other she advocates diversity. And yes, she also feels comfortable when working in a predominantly black team.
I think the solution that she forgets to mention is having people of all groups equally represented (most or less) in any field. With that happening, I can see how nobody would feel like an outsider, and get to preserve their cultural prefernces and tastes, along with mingling with other cultures and races.
It doesn't have to be a black team, a white team and a brown team. All that is needed is people of all races in the workplace with diverse teams. That will balance things out.
As for "What can you do as a white person other than not being a racist and voicing your prejudices openly" .. I don't think there's much you can do. I guess those of you in recruiting positions can encourage people from all backgrounds to come up. Not saying give special treatment to minorities, but generally try to keep bias away from recruitment procedures. Same applies to promotions, relocations and the like.
Aside from actual CS knowledge, I think it would benefit MBA students that do not have a background in CS to know how software development and deadlines usually work. Would be nice if you manager understands that building a bug free software requires time, and inflexible deadlines is certainly not an option to motivate a software programmer.