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MS Office targets the office manager and the clerical worker.

The features that work for them are what sell the product - and it sells very, very, well even at retail.

In the top 25 software bestsellers at Amazon.com, versions of MS Office rank 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, and 17.

No. 1 is the 3 seat version of Office Home 2010. No. 3 is the 3 seat Win 7 Upgrade Family Pack.

No. 27 iWork '09. No. 41 iWork '09 Family pack.

Bestsellers In Software

That is really quite an achievement when you look at the free "Office Web" apps and the many discounts available for Office home and student use: Take Office Home! for only $9.95

---- and it is a practical, real-world, validation of the Ribbon UI, whether the geek is willing to admit it or not.

But the geek spends far too much time praising the virtues of OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice as a stand-alone office suite. Where Microsoft excels - if you will excuse the pun - is in the development of integrated office solutions that scale to an enterprise of any size.

i haven't used the 3D feature, and i won't... requiring me to keep special glasses around my viewing area, keeping the batteries charged, having enough for everyone, and being forced to wear them, is not something i'm willing to do.

I really never understood how powerful the value of "1" was until I hit my second year of college Calculus. (I know, I'm a little slow). But They Might Be Giants easily explains the concept to children: One Everything (scroll down, item 14)

Zeros, High Five, Seven, and Seven Days of the Week are also favorites. Check out the videos on youtube.

This was the thesis put forward in Issac Newton: the Last Sorcerer.

The idea we sometimes get of these "first scientists" ushering in an era of rational thinking in an age of superstition is revisionist history. Science and reason as we know it today did not exist back then. If you looked at 'scientific' work of the day, you'll find a lot of odd ideas and theories that would strike us as superstitious or mystical. Isaac Newton was an occultist, and alchemist, and dabbled in all kinds of esoteric things. That he made great contributions to math and physics is more or less a bonus for us. Advancing the human body of knowledge or understanding the world through reason was not his project. He was a mystic and an occultist. Science and progress are modern-day inventions.

It does a better job of explaining stuff than does "bearded sky man says so".

I've got on order this video, which I saw once two years ago and want to see again.

here is one that has been for sale on amazon since 1999... i'm pretty sure there were casio color models released before that, as i bought my TI-85 in 1995.

That's a not uncommon notion put forth most popularly by these guys. The book is a monument to ex post narrative building, but it's still a fun read.

There's yet to be any evidence the universe doesn't run on very specific mathematical rules. For example, there's a very good reason for inflation having to do with the 'pressure' at high energy states. [ShakaUVM]

Huh? Your customarily vague but authoritative comment which doesn't include an "IANAP" disclaimer will just reinforce the disturbingly common impression that physicists are bullshitting about concepts like inflation and dark matter.

The cosmology course I've mentioned was taught by Dr. Nanopoulos using Kolb's The Early Universe. He pointed out that physicists have known for decades that something like inflation is required to explain the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Kolb disusses these topics in chapter 8, though his overview is somewhat dated now. WMAP has since observed temperature fluctuations on the 10^(-5) level, which matches predictions based on modelling quantum fluctuations in the early universe. More precisely, inflation predicts that these fluctuations would deviate slightly from the perfect scale invariance expected in a universe without inflation. After 7 years, WMAP can exclude the possibility of a scale invariant spectrum by more than 3 sigma. The WMAP results also show that the universe is perfectly flat, at least to within the limits of measurement. Inflation isn't necessary for the universe to be perfectly flat, but it's sufficient to explain what may seem like "fine-tuning" at first glance.

That's why physicists think inflation happened, but it's an argument based on how relativistic causality affects the large-scale thermodynamics of the universe, not pressure. Pressure is at least tangentially relevant to almost every physics problem imaginable, though, and inflation is no exception. I've explained that dark energy's negative pressure acts as a kind of anti-gravity. Later, Dr. Stoeger (Jesuit priest, astrophysicist working for the Vatican Observatory) observed that "There is, of course, a much deeper connection between inflation and dark energy. The only way we can really conceive of inflation occurring in the early universe is under the influence of a large amount of vacuum energy, which is a type of dark energy. This dark energy must be quickly transformed into the particles and radiation at the end of inflation. So, it's not at all clear if there is a relationship between the dark energy which drove inflation and the dark energy which we have evidence is driving the gentle acceleration of cosmic expansion now. It may be that the dark energy now may be a remnant of the dark energy left over from the very early universe."

Then there's the problem of heavy exotic particles predicted by most GUT's; the only one I'm familiar with is the magnetic monopole. In my senior year, I took electrodynamics using the standard Griffiths 3rd ed. Page 327 shows how symmetric Maxwell's equations appear in the presence of magnetic monopoles, and Griffiths opines that they "beg for magnetic charge to exist." My fondest memory of that class is problem 8.12 on page 362, along with footnotes 11

There's yet to be any evidence the universe doesn't run on very specific mathematical rules. For example, there's a very good reason for inflation having to do with the 'pressure' at high energy states. [ShakaUVM]

Huh? Your customarily vague but authoritative comment which doesn't include an "IANAP" disclaimer will just reinforce the disturbingly common impression that physicists are bullshitting about concepts like inflation and dark matter.

The cosmology course I've mentioned was taught by Dr. Nanopoulos using Kolb's The Early Universe. He pointed out that physicists have known for decades that something like inflation is required to explain the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Kolb disusses these topics in chapter 8, though his overview is somewhat dated now. WMAP has since observed temperature fluctuations on the 10^(-5) level, which matches predictions based on modelling quantum fluctuations in the early universe. More precisely, inflation predicts that these fluctuations would deviate slightly from the perfect scale invariance expected in a universe without inflation. After 7 years, WMAP can exclude the possibility of a scale invariant spectrum by more than 3 sigma. The WMAP results also show that the universe is perfectly flat, at least to within the limits of measurement. Inflation isn't necessary for the universe to be perfectly flat, but it's sufficient to explain what may seem like "fine-tuning" at first glance.

That's why physicists think inflation happened, but it's an argument based on how relativistic causality affects the large-scale thermodynamics of the universe, not pressure. Pressure is at least tangentially relevant to almost every physics problem imaginable, though, and inflation is no exception. I've explained that dark energy's negative pressure acts as a kind of anti-gravity. Later, Dr. Stoeger (Jesuit priest, astrophysicist working for the Vatican Observatory) observed that "There is, of course, a much deeper connection between inflation and dark energy. The only way we can really conceive of inflation occurring in the early universe is under the influence of a large amount of vacuum energy, which is a type of dark energy. This dark energy must be quickly transformed into the particles and radiation at the end of inflation. So, it's not at all clear if there is a relationship between the dark energy which drove inflation and the dark energy which we have evidence is driving the gentle acceleration of cosmic expansion now. It may be that the dark energy now may be a remnant of the dark energy left over from the very early universe."

Then there's the problem of heavy exotic particles predicted by most GUT's; the only one I'm familiar with is the magnetic monopole. In my senior year, I took electrodynamics using the standard Griffiths 3rd ed. Page 327 shows how symmetric Maxwell's equations appear in the presence of magnetic monopoles, and Griffiths opines that they "beg for magnetic charge to exist." My fondest memory of that class is problem 8.12 on page 362, along with footnotes 11

If you've read Daemon and/or Freedom by Daniel Suarez, this sounds like the Hummers guarding Matthew Sobol's house. There's other autonomous vehicles, but I won't give anything else away.

If you've read Daemon and/or Freedom by Daniel Suarez, this sounds like the Hummers guarding Matthew Sobol's house. There's other autonomous vehicles, but I won't give anything else away.

Boost is really much more than template programming. To get the most out of it, it helps to understand the more general concepts of meta-programming and generic programming. C++'s template system just happens to be how you use those paradigms in C++.

Here's a good overview of generic programming:
    http://www.boost.org/community/generic_programming.html

Dave Abrahams' book is a good intro to template meta-programming:
    http://www.amazon.com/Template-Metaprogramming-Concepts-Techniques-Beyond/dp/0321227255

I've also found Python to be a great language for learning both concepts. While you won't get all the performance benefits of C++, Python's rapid development cycles make it easy to play around with the both techniques.

-Chris

Improve Octave. Specifically, for ARM. Remember that open-source does not necessarily mean architecture independent. Practically all software is written with the perception that the compiler optimizes any poorly written C / C++ code and that the target is a PC. While this is good for x86, relying on hardware instruction rescheduling to make code more 'efficient', it's pretty awful for anything else. Having done a lot of work with ARM / NEON optimizations myself, I can tell you first-hand that gcc does not do a great job of optimizing C code at all. This is going to become increasingly important as ARM outpaces x86, so please do everyone a favour, and write the code correctly the first time. There are several books about why this is so important, e.g. this one, but you'll probably find that its easier to just dive right in. Look at the Android source code, that's always a good example. uClibc / uClibc++ are also good examples.

Stross? Maybe.

But this sounds more like Stephenson: the darn thing's named Nell, and it could be said to be learning from A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

Stross? Maybe.

But this sounds more like Stephenson: the darn thing's named Nell, and it could be said to be learning from A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

Stross? Maybe.

But this sounds more like Stephenson: the darn thing's named Nell, and it could be said to be learning from A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

Finish your degree as fast as possible. You don't want to burn any extra enthusiasm on anything that won't get you out of school. As it is, you will need every last drop.

Also, read this article: "Three Books For Surviving Graduate School," at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125856586

It's a piece by the author of this book: Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School, http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Your-Stupid-Decision-School/dp/0307589447

My ex wrote a novel that was published by Viking a few years ago and got a fair amount of critical acclaim.

When she first started working on it, in '99, I gave her my old laptop with Debian and Gedit. She did 50 or so pages, and then decided to move to Word to print it out. All the line-breaks were messed up, and she never forgave me. I did eventually set her up with a nice netbook and Openoffice, but it was too late, and now we're divorced.

She went from Gedit, which she hated to Word, which she hated, to OpenOffice, which she admires for its ability to reproduce all the defects in Word. On a good day, it's a tool, and like any tool, if you use it regularly, at some point you're going to hurt yourself with it.

If anything is a distraction, it's not the editor, cursor, or background color, it's wifi. Get a laptop with a Broadcom chipset, and you'll be incredibly productive.

I still get half the royalties from the book, so buy it and help me pay for my child support.

Reminds me of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle which has both been written about by a colonel involved with the project and had a movie based on the book filmed about it.

What we need is less technology in Elementary School.

As a mathematician, I would unquestionably back this assertion and would indeed extend it into the later years of Secondary school. My points mostly apply to mathematics, but I suspect they extend beyond it.

The most important piece of technology for a mathematics educator is a blackboard. The most importance piece of high-tech equipment is a sliding blackboard. For students, their most important tools are paper, pencils, and a ruler and compass. This is all the equipment that should ever be used in mathematics education.

Basically all of the current research on the topic disagrees with your last point. If technology is used incorrectly, as a crutch to take away the learning, then I do agree with you. But there are ways to use technology to improve the learning of mathematics.

I don't happen to agree either with the use of most technology in primary schools because I believe students have to develop a certain base of skills and understandings before they can benefit from it. But after a certain base has been developed, there are benefits to be had. Technology can be used to solve problems that cannot be solved by the paper and pencil methods available to and expected of young students such as roots of quartic and above polynomials, solutions to logarithmic exponential equations that cannot be solved analytically, and other more realistic problems than sticking to quadratics. Also, students can use technology to support making and testing many more conjectures and handling much more data than is feasible by hand. This allows exploring and understanding much more advanced concepts earlier. Would you suggest they calculate regression by hand? Every time? There are other examples, but those should do for starters. I believe that technology should only be used where it can improve understanding in ways that cannot be done without it. The problem is not enough teachers know how to do this, and so technology becomes a crutch.

You know and have learned a lot of mathematics, but your experience does not generalize to the classroom directly. You presumably have a high talent level whereas todays classrooms have a wide range of abilities. In addition, you probably don't have a background in developmental and educational psychology, which are required to have a full understanding of the current research on the use of technology in education, and almost certainly aren't aware of the current state of the research and consensus in the field. That in itself isn't a problem. But presenting yourself as if you have expertise in mathematics education because you are a mathematician is a problem.

If you're interested in the research, Research on Technology and the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics wouldn't be a bad start.

I do believe the science suggesting Marijuana can lead to mental illness, which is why I believe it should be a restricted substance.

Please watch What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?

I saw it a few days ago and it completely changed my world view. Well, I suppose updated it to better match reality would be a better way to put it; I've felt so much more connected to the world, and the people, and my brain, and have felt more confident as well. (I am totally serious, and I have no financial incentive with this movie; dis-incentive more like it, as I am planning to purchase a copy for every Senator and Congressperson.)

In the movie they talk about a correlation between mental illness and cannabis consumption, and that generally the consumption is used to mitigate the debilitating effects of the illness. In other words, it's self-medicating, and it works.

As to your idea about a "pot park" with it illegal elsewhere, that seems as feasible as a "hospital park" with doctors operating outside it jailed. From the title of the movie, we constantly have tumors growing in our bodies, that we fight off. Cannabis helps to fight those tumors. Blocking the receptors caused mice to both act more depressed, and grow larger tumors. Not allowing full and complete access to this naturally-occurring plant is a death sentence to all of us.

For instance a study this week announced that mental disorders are far higher among smokers then non-smokers. Gosh, I knew some smokers in the past, no kidding. Chicken and the Egg? Perhaps, perhaps it is only the mentally unstable to smoke but do we really want people with mental problems to consume yet more drugs?

Please watch What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?

In it they discuss how cannabis is associated with people with personality disorders. People who have them, and smoke, tend to be more stable with their disorder than people who do not smoke.

It also reduces tumors, tumors that we are constantly growing and fighting off; it helps us fight them off better. And it makes us happier. When they blocked the endocannabinoids (receptors present in animal bodies) in mice, the mice acted depressed and grew much larger tumors which killed them quicker.

Outlawing this plant is a death sentence.

And it is me and countless other non-users you got to convince. Majority rule in a democracy remember?

Exactly. I am considering sending a copy of the movie to every Senator and Congressperson.

Well, your position is rational, but it most definitely is also unreasonable.

Cannabis cures cancer.

Medical marijuana is already legal under California state law, so it is not directly relevant to the debate over Prop. 19.

I say, let's first legalize marijuana and then see if it is a problem, rather than pre-emptively passing legislation in anticipation. There is nothing radical or unreasonable about my position.

Well, your position is rational, but it most definitely is also unreasonable.

Cannabis cures cancer. To say "I'll wait for a perfect law next voting season" means that people will die of tumors that could have been cured by cannabis.

Yours is a well-argued position, and as I said, rational. I feel for the victims, though. (Victims of our prohibition, that is.)

I think it's better to educate than to advocate self-immolation. For the GP, please watch What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?

A couple days ago I watched a movie that forever changed my world view: What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?

In short, it does, and the reason is our bodies have endocannabinoids which are receptors that combine with the cannabinoids in the cannabis. They are two constructs that started together and then evolved in different directions (one animal, one plant). These are shown through laboratory experiments to reduce tumors in mice -- and cause tumors when the endocannabinoid receptors are blocked, as well as depression in the mice. The opposite of "high" is "low" ... which of these is preferable?

This has reminded me a great deal of Pandora, from Avatar. Their world was completely interrelated, and they knew it and made use of it. Our world, it's turning out, is also.

I mean, I've known for years that I need water and some of the water that flows through my organism has flown through billions of other organisms, so in that sense it's a shared experience.

However, to learn that there is something in my body that when treated with a substance from a plant both makes me happy, and goes to work reducing all my tumors (we always have many; mostly we are able to fight them off) -- this is truly mind-blowing.

And tragic, as well; it helps me to realize that these laws and the enforcers of these laws are acting against public health. These laws cause death.

If nothing else, try the IDE. It's really quite well done. When you click 'Go' it turns the source code into a game, starts the game in one pane of the IDE, generates a map of locations you've defined, etc. There is extensive documentation and examples, including a recipe book of code snippets.

It's available free (as in beer) for Mac, Windows, and (I think) Gnome.

Also, there's a recently-published book about writing games with Inform 7, "Creating Interactive Fiction With Inform 7"

Actually, $2500 is not expensive for a premium watch these days. I looked a a Robb Report lying in my doctor's office (this worries me..) and was absolutely shocked at the cost of elite watches. Even "cheap" premium watches sold at Amazon are insane. Check out this list of the "best men's watches of 2010. Absolutely nuts!

I wear a ten year old Bell & Ross I bought during the net bubble when I was "rich", or a fifteen year old Movado I got for a birthday present.

I would one day love a Breitling, but I'd like a Ferrari too, and that's not gonna happen either.

The Attorney General's investigation is pursuant to the work of Michael Mann on the "hockey stick" graph (of temperatures over the last millennium). For a detailed presentation of the evidence that the work was probably bogus, see the book Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford. There is more than enough evidence to justify investigation of Mann's work. And the attempt by Mann's colleagues to cover up for one of their own is shameful.

I bought one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-VOT132-Mini-Desktop-PC/dp/B002RL8VE2

Ok, it's not under $300, but it plays back 1080p just fine, runs Windows MCE nicely and for your little extra money you get a real home server that uses less power than a fridge light bulb when not in use but plays back any conceivable current or future format and is always available as for backups, central media hub, home automation, print server, etc.

Same here. Although I primarily use Plex for media, netflix, hulu, etc. It will re-encode MP4 audio on the fly to AC3 for those external tuners, supports Lanczos3 for resizing on those big TV's, and it plays pretty much anything you throw at it.

I did a little surgery on the drive bay so that I could cram a 1 GB drive in there (takes a bit of chopping at the plastic bits to make the 12.5 mm fit) but it makes a fine HTPC. It also comes with a built in SPIDF which is nice. All it required was a DVI to HDMI cable, and a TOSLINK cable that I picked up for about $2 bucks.

http://www.amazon.com/6ft-Toslink-Mini-Cable/dp/B000FMXKC8

He plays baseball in the Spring and Fall, will be starting football next year, we love building things from Backyard Ballistics (yes, I'm very safe with everything), he swims in the summer at the neighborhood pool, etc., etc. School -> Homework -> Extending Reading -> And then if there is time for a quick game, he's allowed to play. He has more freedom for games on the weekends.

If you insist on using a keyboard, your best bet would be to go with a self-built miniITX system or one of the more powerful nettops paired with a wireless keyboard like this one.

If you already have a PS3 or an Xbox 360, and you're willing to forgo the keyboard, then TVersity would be your best bet. It's free (as in beer), can stream video directly from BBC, Youtube, Hulu, and others...plus, it will automatically transcode (if necessary) any audio, video, or picture file from your computer and stream it to your console. The automatic transcoding alleviates any concerns regarding file formats...for example, you could stream a .mov file to your Xbox 360 with it.

not just that, if you have a Sony BDP-s370 blu-ray player, you can (apart from play blueray discs of course), plug a USB HDD into it and play movies on that (even in mkv format), or stream vids from your PC (using a DNLA server like PS3MediaServer, Tversity, Twonky, Mezzmo or any of the others). Or you can stream video from iPlayer, GoogleTV or similar, and even LoveFilm (not sure if you get some of these in the USA, but there's bound to be alternatives).

Nice review here.

LoveFilm for example, is £10 a month and you get a bluray disc in the post whenever you send the old one back, but you can also stream movies for free (once you're a subscriber, that is)

And its £120 for the device, which is $134 in the USA :(

If you want to take this to it's logical conclusion, this is the book to read.. Must've read this book 20 times.

We haven't terraformed Mars because the exact way to get it done has not been predicted, yet.

You should grab any hard-sci fi anthology on terraforming and/or Mars and look into it. ...

While I don't want to dissuade you from reading science fiction about terraforming, I will point out that science fiction really is not the best way to learn about real science. We science fiction writers make stuff up in order to make a good plot. In particular, SF writers often make up magical technology, in order to make terraforming happen at a rate faster than geological time scales.

Best way to learn about terraforming would be to read Martyn Fogg's book Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments (SAE Press). A few years old now, but still the best top level summary ever. ...and, as for science fiction, try Gardner Dozois' anthology Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming . (I only say this because I have a story in it.)

This connection isn't sound. If my calculations are correct, it should be sometime around 2007 for whomever is reading this. DO NOT USE THESE CABLES. Something... happens with them. Something came through, something from somewhere else. We were overrun in days, not many of us are left. WE LIVE UNDERGROUND! ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT NOW. SAVE US. DO NOT USE THESE CABLES.

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Vista-Ultimate-SP1-VERSION/dp/B0013O77GM/

Heh this is probably correct... Best would be to go get some virus CODE and display it on a screen and step through how it hooks itself into a system. A great thing to use here is the 0ldschool types that would infect the exe headers and plant itself at the end. Or some that do the code cave storage. Then move from there and show them rootkits, as they are pretty much just a way more advanced version of those. Plenty of resources online for that. One particular book that is somewhat old now but still really informative http://www.amazon.com/Rootkits-Subverting-Windows-Greg-Hoglund/dp/0321294319

You could write entire books on the subject of what comprises 'reasonable' in the realm of law and society. It's not really a subject that I think can be productively addressed to my own satisfaction in this forum beyond the most obvious and superficial.

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forget grey goo, I have this nightmare end of world scenario where all of the Earth's matter is converted into AOL disks

Sounds like pollutantus literati!

David Macaulay, author and artist of those wonderful books Castle, Cathedral, and City, also wrote a more tongue-in-cheek book called Motel of the Mysteries . It's a humorous look at how assumptions can be made (and be wildly off the mark) in the process of archaeology, as we try to decipher the uses and meanings of various bits of antique detritus. The key plot point is that it's thousands of years in the future, and archaeologists are finally digging North America out of a great disaster that happened in 1985:

In 1985 a cataclysmic coincidence of previously unknown proportion extinguished virtually all forms of life on the North American continent.

On the morning of November 29, an accidental reduction in postal rates on a substance called third- and fourth-class mail literally buried the North Americans under tons of brochures, fliers, and small containers called "free".

That afternoon, impurities that had apparently hung unnoticed in the air for centuries finally succumbed to the force of gravity and collapsed on what was left of an already stunned population.

In less than a day, the most advanced civilization of the ancient world had perished.

...

MOTEL OF THE MYSTERIES

Worth the read. Enjoy!

Cheers,

forget grey goo, I have this nightmare end of world scenario where all of the Earth's matter is converted into AOL disks

Sounds like pollutantus literati!

David Macaulay, author and artist of those wonderful books Castle, Cathedral, and City, also wrote a more tongue-in-cheek book called Motel of the Mysteries . It's a humorous look at how assumptions can be made (and be wildly off the mark) in the process of archaeology, as we try to decipher the uses and meanings of various bits of antique detritus. The key plot point is that it's thousands of years in the future, and archaeologists are finally digging North America out of a great disaster that happened in 1985:

In 1985 a cataclysmic coincidence of previously unknown proportion extinguished virtually all forms of life on the North American continent.

On the morning of November 29, an accidental reduction in postal rates on a substance called third- and fourth-class mail literally buried the North Americans under tons of brochures, fliers, and small containers called "free".

That afternoon, impurities that had apparently hung unnoticed in the air for centuries finally succumbed to the force of gravity and collapsed on what was left of an already stunned population.

In less than a day, the most advanced civilization of the ancient world had perished.

...

MOTEL OF THE MYSTERIES

Worth the read. Enjoy!

Cheers,

forget grey goo, I have this nightmare end of world scenario where all of the Earth's matter is converted into AOL disks

Sounds like pollutantus literati!

David Macaulay, author and artist of those wonderful books Castle, Cathedral, and City, also wrote a more tongue-in-cheek book called Motel of the Mysteries . It's a humorous look at how assumptions can be made (and be wildly off the mark) in the process of archaeology, as we try to decipher the uses and meanings of various bits of antique detritus. The key plot point is that it's thousands of years in the future, and archaeologists are finally digging North America out of a great disaster that happened in 1985:

In 1985 a cataclysmic coincidence of previously unknown proportion extinguished virtually all forms of life on the North American continent.

On the morning of November 29, an accidental reduction in postal rates on a substance called third- and fourth-class mail literally buried the North Americans under tons of brochures, fliers, and small containers called "free".

That afternoon, impurities that had apparently hung unnoticed in the air for centuries finally succumbed to the force of gravity and collapsed on what was left of an already stunned population.

In less than a day, the most advanced civilization of the ancient world had perished.

...

MOTEL OF THE MYSTERIES

Worth the read. Enjoy!

Cheers,

forget grey goo, I have this nightmare end of world scenario where all of the Earth's matter is converted into AOL disks

Sounds like pollutantus literati!

David Macaulay, author and artist of those wonderful books Castle, Cathedral, and City, also wrote a more tongue-in-cheek book called Motel of the Mysteries . It's a humorous look at how assumptions can be made (and be wildly off the mark) in the process of archaeology, as we try to decipher the uses and meanings of various bits of antique detritus. The key plot point is that it's thousands of years in the future, and archaeologists are finally digging North America out of a great disaster that happened in 1985:

In 1985 a cataclysmic coincidence of previously unknown proportion extinguished virtually all forms of life on the North American continent.

On the morning of November 29, an accidental reduction in postal rates on a substance called third- and fourth-class mail literally buried the North Americans under tons of brochures, fliers, and small containers called "free".

That afternoon, impurities that had apparently hung unnoticed in the air for centuries finally succumbed to the force of gravity and collapsed on what was left of an already stunned population.

In less than a day, the most advanced civilization of the ancient world had perished.

...

MOTEL OF THE MYSTERIES

Worth the read. Enjoy!

Cheers,

idiot

I just want to add to my reply focusing on the actual questions by the submitter:

A couple other questions that might help those students: what non-academic methods would you recommend to students looking for a career in the games industry? What projects and tools are good starting points for learning the ropes?

In no particular order
- Learn to program C and C++ (no not C/C++, learn their differences)
- Learn some scripting language (Lua is used in game programming a lot, Python is also OK)
- As other have said, learn to use tools like Blender, mainly so that they *understand* what does it mean to make a game.
- Work in an Open Source game. Just browse around SourceForge and look for a game... (start with simple games like http://www.wormux.org/ before going all the way to 3D).
- Redo old games... everytime I want to learn a new programming language (or platform like Wii or DS) I do a Tetris clone. Doing a game which is "predesigned" will allow you to focus on the actual *programming* so that you ensure you learn the needed skills. Additionally, you can keep improving the game by adding new stuff as you learn about the platform.. 3D tetris, etc).
- Read books. There are lots of books about programming (e.g. game programming all in one) for very low prices. In the beginning it does not matter if the book is a bit old.

- Finally, after you have tested all that, choose in what part of the game development process you want to specialize. Do you *really* like coding?... or you prefer doing the 3D models? do you like designing the scenarios? or do you prefer the sound? Do you like to create the NPCs AI?. You must have in mind that in commercial games each of these aspects is foreseen by a different person (or group of persons) so it is very likely you will have to specialize.

The slash and burn technique serves to cover up all sources of incriminating evidence, and better yet, hides the true motivation of the attacker unless they actually take the time to leave a message behind. You are not likely to find a trail of breadcrumbs laying around if their intent was business rather than pleasure.

Oh, really? See The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (by Clifford Stoll).

We aren't, QA. We're hedging our bets. Have you considered that unless you want immortality to be restricted to people with the wealth of Bill Gates, we'll pretty much have to develop a means to get off this rock pretty much the day we develop clinical immortality?

Woven into the plot of Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars is a pretty good argument that, even with multiple space elevators running nonstop, it might not be feasible to move enough people off the Earth to offset increased longetivity and high birthrates.

However if there are issues simply from extended periods of being nicely toasty, that definitely isn't good

No, it isn't. And it doesn't even have to be "toasty" -- shortly after acquiring my 2006 Macbook Pro, I developed a case of Tinia cruris that defied treatment with Desenex and Tinactin.

You can see where this is going. It took a trip to the doctor's office and the question to be posed, "did you recently acquire a laptop computer?" before I realized the association.

Yes, Macbooks cause crotch rot. Swamp nuts. Rack rash. The itch. Taint thrush.

Laptop users, take my advice, and go buy a paperstone cutting board. Works great, weighs little, and fits in your laptop bag.