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Talk to Jaynes.

Surelyann, RPI's current president, has been very supportive and pivotal in trying to secure "high-tech" employers and industry to come to the Troy/Albany area (yes, I left out Schenectady on purpose - not because GE doesn't bring good things to life, but because they're not really as attached to the initiative as the pols in Albany.)

As part of this initiative, locals have come up with the moniker of Tech Valley to describe the upper Hudson region. The area does have a lot to offer, housing is cheap, sprawl is relatively low (stay away from Colonie, though) and as RPI used to describe in their admissions info, "It's not in the middle of nowhere, it's in the middle of somewhere!" (2.5 hours to NYC, 2 hours to Syracuse, 3 hours to Boston, 3 hours to Lake Placid, etc.)

As someone who grew up, went to high school,and lived in Troy, escaped to NYC, and then transferred back to (and graduated from) RPI, I can say that Troy (and the surrounding area) definitely has a lot to offer (it's been described as other alumni friends of mine not from Troy as a great place to raise a family) - so there is good reason for tech jobs to move there.

The biggest problem thus far, however, has been local opposition and people afraid of expansion. About 2 or 3 years ago, the Rensselaer Technology Park tried to bring lots of jobs to the area and spark the Tech Valley thing, but locals in the Town of North Greenbush, where the tech park is located, killed the plan. The proposed chip fab plant was to be a boon to the area, but local squabbling (always a problem in parochial Albany and Rensselaer Counties) got to it before it could take root. Unless there have been significant changes in very recent history, my guess is that the local hometown opposition ("we don't need no stinkin' chip fab plant!") will continue to be vocal.

For what it's worth, though - President Jackson, RPI and SUNY Albany could really lead the region into great things - IF the locals allow it. Not to mention the kick-ass, two-time NCAA (1954, 1985) champion hockey team! ;)

You should check out
Dan Willard's work he is exploring the boundaries of Gödel's incompleteness theorem and finding some (restricted but still interesting) systems with stronger self consistency than predicted by the incompleteness theorem.

In case you are wondering who Willard is, he is the guy who determined that sequential sorting could be done faster than O(N log N) (asymptotically, not practically unfortunately as the constants are large) without resorting to radix sorting.

I see this as one of the things that really leads to illegal copying. People have no concept of the value of the software they are copying.

However, I don't think that we get to really make that distinction. I don't think the value to the thief is relevant. Somebody could steal my laptop and use it as a paperweight. That doesn't mean they should only be charged with stealing a paperweight.

Plus, stolen goods are, in general, worth far less to the illegal possessor than they were originally.

Although I make the argument that illegally copied software is stolen goods, I don't think that the alleged perpetrators will be charged as such, anyway. The article mentioned maximum sentences of three years and charges of conspiracy and theft of intellectual property. Three years in prison and four years probation is typical for federal convictions of GTA. (here) So they are _not_ being treated as though they really stole millions of dollars in software.

I am very disturbed that you are trying to minimize the issue of Child Pornography on the internet.

I simply asked the question. In my experience. It doesn't seem to exist. Your anecdotes and hearsay don't really bolster your argument.

I decided to check the Criminal Justice records. I'm having trouble finding anything specific to child pornography. According to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1999, Arrests and convictions handled by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Office of the Inspector General, there were 163 arrests with 152 convictions for prohibited mailings containing pornography/obscenity. This is not just child porn. This is everything. Also according to the Sourcebook, U.S. District courts had 328 total cases of pornography/prostitution and 223 cases of sexual abuse in 1998. Again... nothing specific to child porn.

I can only assume that these cases involve adults as well as children. When compared to the number of people that are online in the U.S. the numbers seem statistically insignificant.

Please... show me I'm wrong. Don't give me anecdotes. Give me government statistics.

Look at your initial numbers, nader is the most unpopular first count candidate. The system is not a mechanism to cause unpopular candidates to get elected, its a system to allow voters who don't get what they want to get their second preference.

There are a number of systems with selections from lists of candidates, various versions of proportional representation, and the truly awesome Single Transferrable Vote in use in Ireland, which really has to be seen in practice for entertaining election counts. Check out the algorithm

C.

Exactly! Letting everyone do their own thing works if everyone is competent and even compentency is not enough. See here

I am a lowly programmer like everyone else but I have talked to CIO's and they know the best programmers can be 10 or 100 times or more productive than the worst programmer on staff. But the CIO does not care because if the gifted programmer creates a killer product if that product( I use product as internal program used by companies since most programs fall under this domain.) may only be maintained by that programmer, not the lowest common denominator. That killer product is actually worthless. Why? Because if only person who may be able to maintain the program is the creator and this person is such a great programmer, then their time should be spent developing on new projects, not maintenance. The CIO is most interested in everyone following a similar set of rules and standards with minimal diversion from the standard (but deviation can be ok but there is a limit which is left to discretion).

If everyone follows the same rules and standards, what are the rules? That is where CMM and the others come into play. Instead of creating another standard, follow the work someone has already done. More likely, the following will happen: Take the best pieces of each standard and water them down so the common folk can understand them. KISS is the key.

Like the article says, Wiles solved a special case of STW to knock off Fermat's Last Theorem. I guess this is a proof of the general version (but the article is a little vague--any number theorists around who are in the loop?)

• on Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics
• H ow it relates to FLT
• Several link on FLT and STW
• If you're at a University or otherwise have access to the American Mathematical Society's MathSciNet, there are a couple of papers

I'm a junior at the CS program at SUNY Albany (thank G-d the CS dept is all *nix). I was horrified when I heard from a friend that a well known neiboring college (RPI) CS dept switched to MS VC++/NT/95/98. I do not have any confirmation of this, but I use to think that RPI was a mostly *nix school (or now maybe only the EE dept.)

Another good school pumping out MS drones :(

At least the SUNY systems colleges' CS depts use *nix (or at least Albany and Buffalo).

I'm a junior at the CS program at SUNY Albany (thank G-d the CS dept is all *nix). I was horrified when I heard from a friend that a well known neiboring college (RPI) CS dept switched to MS VC++/NT/95/98. I do not have any confirmation of this, but I use to think that RPI was a mostly *nix school (or now maybe only the EE dept.)

Another good school pumping out MS drones :(

At least the SUNY systems colleges' CS depts use *nix (or at least Albany and Buffalo).

I'm a junior at the CS program at SUNY Albany (thank G-d the CS dept is all *nix). I was horrified when I heard from a friend that a well known neiboring college (RPI) CS dept switched to MS VC++/NT/95/98. I do not have any confirmation of this, but I use to think that RPI was a mostly *nix school (or now maybe only the EE dept.)

Another good school pumping out MS drones :(

At least the SUNY systems colleges' CS depts use *nix (or at least Albany and Buffalo).