Why not learn a little language while you work Amigo: related news

Why not learn a little language while you work, Amigo?

Books, CDs, flashcards, classes -- there are a lot of tools to help you learn a foreign language. If you spend much of your time near a computer, software may be one of the better options. Ian McIntosh's Amigo is a friendly language utility for the Linux user, notable for how well it integrates into the desktop.

Learn a Foreign Language As an Engineer?

Ben B writes "I'm working on an undergraduate degree in computer engineering in the US, and I'm a native English-speaking citizen. In fact, English is the only language that I know. Maybe it's not the same at other schools, but for the engineering program at mine, a foreign language is not required. If my plans are to one day be involved in research, is it worth my time to learn a foreign language? If so, which one?" Learning something new is almost never a waste of time, but how much energy have others found worthwhile to expend with all of the programming/math/tech type courses to be had at a large university?

Why 401(k) Retirement Plans Really Don't Work

The good news about the Internet is the information we can get our cursors on instantly; the bad news is the information we can get our heads around instantly, but without any way of gauging accuracy, relevance, or completeness. This is particularly evident in the financial-investment-retirement world, where thousands of websites tell us how to do things and why, and why things work the way they do and how. Few gurus explain why and how certain concepts and plans of action just may not work the way they are supposed to.

Same Dev Tools/Language/Framework For Everyone?

AC writes "Upper management of the company I work at recently declared that all new development should be done with a single combination of development tools, language, and framework. The main rationale is that people can be relocated from one group / project to another faster, because they don't need to learn a new environment when they switch. Of course the chosen language / framework used by everybody does not need to be the best tool for the job, but it should be good enough to allow every project to get done. What does Slashdot think about this? Is it OK to use the same development tools and language for every project, instead of choosing what fits best? Will the time saved be sufficient to offset the time lost to the 'not the best tool for the job' environment developers will be forced to use?"

Last Call: XProc: An XML Pipeline Language

The XML Processing Model Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language, a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. A pipeline consists of steps. Like pipelines, steps take zero or more XML documents as their inputs and produce zero or more XML documents as their outputs. Comments are welcome through 26 September. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity.

Why Linux is Not on the Desktop

"Reason #14 - "Do Something for the Environment" - I agree with most of the arguments made here. Yes, with Linux you don't have the boxes and the CDs that traditional software has. My only problem here is: Would this convince one of my non-technical acquaintances to switch? Not really. If they can help the environment, they do, but they are not going to go out of the way to switch to a whole new operating system because it's good for the planet. In other words, they are not hippies."

Hard life for Indian sculptor after train bombings

Mahendra Pitale, 34, travels to work in a local train in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. Pitale, right, lost his left arm on July 11, 2006 while he was on his way to work when a series of seven blasts went off on commuter trains across Mumbai. The bombings, which India blamed on Muslim militants, killed 187 people and injured more than 800. Mahendra Pitale, 34, travels to work in a local train in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. Pitale, right, lost his left arm on July 11, 2006 while he was on his way to work when a series of seven blasts went off on commuter trains across Mumbai. The bombings, which India blamed on Muslim militants, killed 187 people and injured more than 800. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Google Me

If you read my introductory blog then you all know I work a variety of jobs. With this economy everyone is turning into “Hey Mon� from In Living Color. For the most part, I try my hardest to keep the jobs as separate as possible, but sometimes they intertwine thanks to a little thing called the Internet. Not to tell my age (then again you already know lol), but does anyone remember when there wasn’t an Internet? Don’t get me wrong, the Web has been an absolute blessing for me; there is no better tool for mass self-promotion. However, it does get a little odd when people you work with come up to you and say I “googled� you today. How do you respond to that? I know some people as soon as they meet someone they immediately look them up on the Internet and then they get upset about what they did or did not find out.

Top 10 Free MMORPG Games

The summer is almost over but some of you are still in vacation and besides your normal activities, some of you play mmorpg games. While there are many out here, not all people like the subscription models, so they play free mmorpg games. They are not exactly free because they all have shops that can offer you an advantage if you buy special items from there, but it’s not mandatory and in some, it’s not necessary at all if you know what you’re doing. Developers must get money someway in order to maintain the servers and the game, so that’s why we have the shops.

Programming Jobs Abroad For a US Citizen?

An anonymous reader writes "I am a American citizen with a masters in Computer Science from a 3rd tier college and 4 years of work experience under my belt. I would like to work somewhere abroad in Europe for a couple years before I get too settled in life but have no clue where to start. I only speak English but would love to learn a second language. What sort of opportunities are there for American citizens to work abroad? What countries offer the best opportunity to balance a challenging work environment with enough vacation to explore the rest of Europe in my free time? Any hassles I should know about?"

" The case stems from Amazon's decision to make print-on-demand publishers use its ...

Elizabeth, What about Amazon using book sales as its loss leader? You know, where a company intentionally loses money on one or a multitude of products to lure in customers to sell others where they do make a profit? Perhaps Amazon should quit discounting books so heavily, if they are losing money--they have a choice, despite their decision not to leave POD publishers any. Why don't they stop discounting altogether if they're losing so much that we should feel sorry for them? And why can't they own up to being a book retailer and accept 40% off list like other bookstores, online or not? Why is it that Amazon's BookSurge, in two years of Amazon ownership, could not compete on a level playing field with the rest of the POD print providers?

Why Shouldn't Competitors Be Able To Weigh In On Patent Applications?

The patent system is only supposed to grant patents on inventions that are new and non-obvious to those skilled in the art. As we've pointed out in the past, the "non-obvious" part of the requirement has long been (effectively) ignored by the patent office. Instead, it mostly focused on whether the invention was new -- and did so by looking at published examples of prior art. There was very little effort made to examine whether or not the concept was non-obvious, and even less to see if it was non-obvious to skilled practitioners in the field. Luckily, the Supreme Court's decision in the Teleflex v. KSR case brought some attention back to the obviousness question, but only in one particular area (concerning combining two known concepts). However, it did little to actually establish a real test of whether or not a concept is obvious.

What you can learn as a freelancer

Sometimes what you learn as a freelance Web developer is not what you might want to learn. But as Intervals points out, after 9 years building websites, you can learn some important lessons. The 5 Lessons Learned from 9 Years as a Web Development Agency include:

Boldly Go Where the Java Language Has Never Gone Before and JVM Clustering in the Real World - Expert Webcast

Developers don't have to learn a new language to touch other application domains. A new development trend focuses on achieving functionalities not provided by the JVM with the standard Java programming language.

We are not alone: identified ETS

The Parliamentary Library has a nice background paper up on emissions trading schemes in operation or on the drawing board around the world, as well as some detail on how they will work. It’s a good primer for those who apparently live in fear of Australia “going it alone�. Just by the by, this little tidbit on how Switzerland is dealing was interesting: “In Switzerland, companies may opt for emissions trading in lieu of a carbon tax; in the event of non-compliance, the carbon-tax is to be paid. This scheme is to be introduced in mid 2008 and will be linked to both the EETS and also the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism/Joint Implementation Projects credits.� Not sure how that would work, but it might shut up the BCA and other special pleaders.

Interview With Author of the First Spoof Language

An anonymous reader brings us Computerworld's interview with Don Woods, one of the creators of Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym (INTERCAL). INTERCAL and its documentation were created in 1972 as a parody of that era's languages and instruction manuals. Among other things, Woods had this to say: "We designed the language without too much trouble. Writing the manual took a while, especially for things like the circuit diagrams we included as nonsensical illustrations. The compiler itself actually wasn't too much trouble, given that we weren't at all concerned with optimising the performance of either the compiler or the compiled code. I admit I'm surprised at its longevity. Some of the jokes in the original work feel rather dated at this point.

Why ISPs' "Stand" Against Child Porn Is Actually Not a Stand Against Child Porn

TechDirt has an insightful article on the recent push for ISPs to turn off Usenet access under the guise of fighting child pornography. Unfortunately, the "stand against child porn" isn't actually a stand at all, it seems more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will. "Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately... Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable witho

Johann Hari: Why is science allowed to wither in our schools while faith swells?

Johann Hari: Why is science allowed to wither in our schools while faith swells? - Commentators - Independent.co.uk">Digg It

Meet the People Who Have Trillions Riding on Linux this Fall

"If you work around Linux regularly, in some ways the latest amazing news is… not that amazing. The New York Stock Exchange, where the world's largest public companies trade their stocks, is now running on Linux. (Microsoft is not listed on the NYSE; they trade on the NASDAQ. Now *that* would have been a fun headline…) In addition the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also runs on Linux. While perhaps not as famous as the NYSE, the CME is one of the largest exchanges in the world. Even the Tokyo Stock Exchange is running on Linux.

McCain accepts GOP nomination

What it really means is I understand who I work for,� he said: “I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.�

Its 20m over budget, three years late and empty of visitors... so why was the pink elephant of art galleries not stopped to save 60m from being poured down the drain?

Its £20m over budget, three years late and empty of visitors... so why was the pink elephant of art galleries not stopped to save £60m from being poured down the drain?

Is Google making us stupid?

On Wednesday I received 72 e-mails, not counting junk, and only two text messages. It was a quiet day but, then again, I’m not including the telephone calls. I’m also not including the deafening and pointless announcements on a train journey to Wakefield – use a screen, jerks – the piercingly loud telephone conversations of unsocialised adults and the screaming of untamed brats. And, come to think of it, why not include the junk e-mails? They also interrupt. There were 38. Oh and I’d better throw in the 400-odd news alerts that I receive from all the websites I monitor via my iPhone.

Apple Climbs Into Third Place In U.S. PC Market

Tibor the Hun writes "According to Gartner and IDC, Apple now has between 7.8 and 8.5% of market share. While those numbers are not astonishing, they are not insignificant, and their growth does not seem to be slowing down. Will the pearly gates of acceptance open up for them once they reach the magic 10%, and will that have a positive effect on desktop Linux adoption? Hard to tell, but it's good to see that normal people (not just us geeks) are choosing to go with a different OS, rather than staying with the headache-inducing Windows."

Amazonian Tribe Has No Word To Express Numbers

In 2004 we discussed the Piraha, a tribe in the Amazon, when a study appeared characterizing their language as a "one, two, many" language. Now reader mu22le informs us of a new study of the Piraha pointing to the possibility that they use no number words at all. Instead they seem to use the word formerly thought to mean "two" to represent a quantity of 5 or 6, and the "one" word for anything from 1 to 4. The language has about 300 native speakers. "The study... offers evidence that number words are a concept invented by human cultures as they are needed, and not an inherent part of language, Gibson said."

How To Show Code Samples?

Todd writes "I've been looking around at 'help wanted' advertisements for programming jobs, and almost all of them demand that you not only have professional experience, but also that you show samples of your work. This got me wondering; with the work product, trade secret, and non-disclosure laws/agreements, how exactly can you show work that you've done in a professional capacity to a prospective employer without violating the privacy of the company for which the code was written? For instance, I can't say I've written many BASH scripts (at least, not large ones) for myself personally, but the assortment of such scripts written for my current job is wide and varied indeed. I can't very well just deliver these scripts, or even small portions thereof, to third parties to help demonstrate my scripting prowess.

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