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I attend Rochester Institute of Technology, in the Information Technology department.
Our entire building (three floors, just recently expanded) is covered with 802.11b connectivity. Many of the students, including myself bring laptops to class. Sure, some kids abuse them, and surf or play games during lecture (I've been known to do the former during a very boring Intro to System Administration 1 class), but there are some excellent uses.

I think the best is checking on something taught in class. More than once in that System Administration class the teacher has mentioned something, I doubted it, googled for it, and either learned it to be true (there was a use for the sticky bit to keep programs memory resident, but in current linux the sticky bit's purpose has changed), or false (Windows 2K does NOT require NTFS to do software RAID -- you can use FAT just as easily). This is an excellent way to reinforce information being taught. Had I not had my laptop in class I would've gotten sidetracked, forgotten about it, and never learned the truth about these and other things.

In another class I took, Network Administration, the teacher, Bill Stackpole, would often take advantage of those in class with laptops. If he brought up a topic and wasn't sure about something he mentioned, he'd encourage those of us with laptops to research it quickly, and let the class know the correct technical data. If a student would ask him a question in class that he couldn't answer, he'd encourage anyone with a laptop to help out and find the answer. From even those few excellent uses of wireless connectivity in the classroom I feel its been a great addition to the technology classes at RIT. If someone is going to goof off using a laptop, then they are the same person who was going to goof off doodling in their notebook, nothing lost, nothing gained.
I could go on and on about the times the Wifi access has saved my ass in one way or another in the GCCIS building. (and maybe I will later) Come out of the wood-work RIT students -- I know you have more stories!

I attend Rochester Institute of Technology, in the Information Technology department.
Our entire building (three floors, just recently expanded) is covered with 802.11b connectivity. Many of the students, including myself bring laptops to class. Sure, some kids abuse them, and surf or play games during lecture (I've been known to do the former during a very boring Intro to System Administration 1 class), but there are some excellent uses.

I think the best is checking on something taught in class. More than once in that System Administration class the teacher has mentioned something, I doubted it, googled for it, and either learned it to be true (there was a use for the sticky bit to keep programs memory resident, but in current linux the sticky bit's purpose has changed), or false (Windows 2K does NOT require NTFS to do software RAID -- you can use FAT just as easily). This is an excellent way to reinforce information being taught. Had I not had my laptop in class I would've gotten sidetracked, forgotten about it, and never learned the truth about these and other things.

In another class I took, Network Administration, the teacher, Bill Stackpole, would often take advantage of those in class with laptops. If he brought up a topic and wasn't sure about something he mentioned, he'd encourage those of us with laptops to research it quickly, and let the class know the correct technical data. If a student would ask him a question in class that he couldn't answer, he'd encourage anyone with a laptop to help out and find the answer. From even those few excellent uses of wireless connectivity in the classroom I feel its been a great addition to the technology classes at RIT. If someone is going to goof off using a laptop, then they are the same person who was going to goof off doodling in their notebook, nothing lost, nothing gained.
I could go on and on about the times the Wifi access has saved my ass in one way or another in the GCCIS building. (and maybe I will later) Come out of the wood-work RIT students -- I know you have more stories!

I attend Rochester Institute of Technology, in the Information Technology department.
Our entire building (three floors, just recently expanded) is covered with 802.11b connectivity. Many of the students, including myself bring laptops to class. Sure, some kids abuse them, and surf or play games during lecture (I've been known to do the former during a very boring Intro to System Administration 1 class), but there are some excellent uses.

I think the best is checking on something taught in class. More than once in that System Administration class the teacher has mentioned something, I doubted it, googled for it, and either learned it to be true (there was a use for the sticky bit to keep programs memory resident, but in current linux the sticky bit's purpose has changed), or false (Windows 2K does NOT require NTFS to do software RAID -- you can use FAT just as easily). This is an excellent way to reinforce information being taught. Had I not had my laptop in class I would've gotten sidetracked, forgotten about it, and never learned the truth about these and other things.

In another class I took, Network Administration, the teacher, Bill Stackpole, would often take advantage of those in class with laptops. If he brought up a topic and wasn't sure about something he mentioned, he'd encourage those of us with laptops to research it quickly, and let the class know the correct technical data. If a student would ask him a question in class that he couldn't answer, he'd encourage anyone with a laptop to help out and find the answer. From even those few excellent uses of wireless connectivity in the classroom I feel its been a great addition to the technology classes at RIT. If someone is going to goof off using a laptop, then they are the same person who was going to goof off doodling in their notebook, nothing lost, nothing gained.
I could go on and on about the times the Wifi access has saved my ass in one way or another in the GCCIS building. (and maybe I will later) Come out of the wood-work RIT students -- I know you have more stories!

I attend Rochester Institute of Technology, in the Information Technology department.
Our entire building (three floors, just recently expanded) is covered with 802.11b connectivity. Many of the students, including myself bring laptops to class. Sure, some kids abuse them, and surf or play games during lecture (I've been known to do the former during a very boring Intro to System Administration 1 class), but there are some excellent uses.

I think the best is checking on something taught in class. More than once in that System Administration class the teacher has mentioned something, I doubted it, googled for it, and either learned it to be true (there was a use for the sticky bit to keep programs memory resident, but in current linux the sticky bit's purpose has changed), or false (Windows 2K does NOT require NTFS to do software RAID -- you can use FAT just as easily). This is an excellent way to reinforce information being taught. Had I not had my laptop in class I would've gotten sidetracked, forgotten about it, and never learned the truth about these and other things.

In another class I took, Network Administration, the teacher, Bill Stackpole, would often take advantage of those in class with laptops. If he brought up a topic and wasn't sure about something he mentioned, he'd encourage those of us with laptops to research it quickly, and let the class know the correct technical data. If a student would ask him a question in class that he couldn't answer, he'd encourage anyone with a laptop to help out and find the answer. From even those few excellent uses of wireless connectivity in the classroom I feel its been a great addition to the technology classes at RIT. If someone is going to goof off using a laptop, then they are the same person who was going to goof off doodling in their notebook, nothing lost, nothing gained.
I could go on and on about the times the Wifi access has saved my ass in one way or another in the GCCIS building. (and maybe I will later) Come out of the wood-work RIT students -- I know you have more stories!

I attend Rochester Institute of Technology, in the Information Technology department.
Our entire building (three floors, just recently expanded) is covered with 802.11b connectivity. Many of the students, including myself bring laptops to class. Sure, some kids abuse them, and surf or play games during lecture (I've been known to do the former during a very boring Intro to System Administration 1 class), but there are some excellent uses.

I think the best is checking on something taught in class. More than once in that System Administration class the teacher has mentioned something, I doubted it, googled for it, and either learned it to be true (there was a use for the sticky bit to keep programs memory resident, but in current linux the sticky bit's purpose has changed), or false (Windows 2K does NOT require NTFS to do software RAID -- you can use FAT just as easily). This is an excellent way to reinforce information being taught. Had I not had my laptop in class I would've gotten sidetracked, forgotten about it, and never learned the truth about these and other things.

In another class I took, Network Administration, the teacher, Bill Stackpole, would often take advantage of those in class with laptops. If he brought up a topic and wasn't sure about something he mentioned, he'd encourage those of us with laptops to research it quickly, and let the class know the correct technical data. If a student would ask him a question in class that he couldn't answer, he'd encourage anyone with a laptop to help out and find the answer. From even those few excellent uses of wireless connectivity in the classroom I feel its been a great addition to the technology classes at RIT. If someone is going to goof off using a laptop, then they are the same person who was going to goof off doodling in their notebook, nothing lost, nothing gained.
I could go on and on about the times the Wifi access has saved my ass in one way or another in the GCCIS building. (and maybe I will later) Come out of the wood-work RIT students -- I know you have more stories!

I don't think this is the majority attitude. Could be wrong though.

I sure hope it isn't. But with the economy being the way it is, I'm sure people are re-evaluating where they spend their "entertainment dollar."

This is no different than it's ever been. While I do call bullshit on your 20 to 1 ratio. Secondly, stop being a mooch.

I didn't say it was different, and the 20-1 is just my group ;^) We're all pretty cheap, so overall we save a lot of money as a group. We all mooch.

Also, I attend RIT, a college full of gamers and geeks. Games are lent and traded (and pirated, but that's another argument altogether) freely. Why buy a game when you can borrow it for free a week after it comes out. Odds are you know -someone- who bought it.

I just mooch more (leach, if you prefer) because I care somewhat less about the games than everyone else. That, and I'm finding myself much more financially stable by not wasting my money on games. ;^) Always look out for #1.

This is the same point as 2. If this is truely you attitude, you'd never buy any of these games to begin with.

No, I probably wouldn't. It's the same with mp3s. I have no desire to spend money on music or games, but I'll take them for free if I can. If they're no longer free, I find another hobby.

Your points have been the same since I was playing the Atari 2600. They have no bearing on why current game sales have slipped.

Consider this. Despite all the new games we have, and all the new consoles we have, we (my friends and I) play the old NES more than anything else. There was something about those old games that made them fun and worth playing over and over again. When I left for college (and left my SNES with my brother), I went right about re-buying all my favorite games. Didn't give it a second thought (didn't know about emulation back then). Those games were worth the money, even a second time.

To me, most new games just aren't. As for other people, if they are repeatedly burned by less-than-fun games, they become less likely to buy more games in the future.

This design has been tackled recently by a person at my engineering school. The results were good considering it was done with only a few grand. A lot of documentation on how it was completed is posted.

GPS Tractor

Some of my friends worked on a smaller-scale project for their senior design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Apparently it worked fairly well, even in inclement winter weather!

The really geek chique about the new ship designs is that the S-wing looks to be made entirely out of 'old skool' space lego pieces, circa 1980s ;-)

Oh, and without custom moulded lego pieces we'd never have had the undersea set, and thus legocthulhu!

The cult recently opened one of their "temples" in California (of course). They have many local churches.

Like the Scientologists who have their "e-meter", these lego freaks have their or psuedo-technological props. They even have an mystic Oracle that you can ask questions on the internet. And just like the leader of the Scientologists, their leaders aspire to be JRR Tolkien. Not only that, these foul fiends have the temerity to rewrite the Bible.

And they are Holocaust revisionists, too boot

1. Exhibit A - one of their foul leaders proudly displays their trumped up "evidence"
2. Exhibit B
3. Exhibit C
4. Exhibit D
5. Exhibit E
6. Exhibit F

They worship strange, vile gods. And are building machines to take over the world.

Yeah, Ghost is very nice. I've used it several times a day at work lately, preparing setups for an upcoming symposium.

When I have the extra cash to blow on a new drive or two, I imagine i'll set up something using that, or a couple other suggestions posters have made below.

Guido van Rossum: In 1986 I moved to a different project at CWI, the Amoeba project. Amoeba was a distributed operating system. By the late 1980s we found we needed a scripting language. I had a large degree of freedom on that project to start my own mini project within the scope of what we were doing.

CS Professors wrote a book about Plan 9. Ive played with the vmware image. Its some cool stuff - though a bit weird in terms of the UI metaphores - but then agian _everything_ is a file.

Props to my profs Bischof and Schreiner.

HERE

Actually if you go to the link off my name in the post
I setup a Bittorrent server with links to the ISO Image before the FTP permissions were released.
If anyone cares to try out bittorrent for this one -- go for it!

As a perfect example of P2P: Lets show some legit usage.
You can get 5.1-RELEASE i386 ISOs right now -- before they're publicly available on the FreeBSD FTP mirror at
glow.rh.rit.edu

Torrent files for your enjoyment: Gnomeness & KDEness

Torrent files for your enjoyment: Gnomeness & KDEness

Taken from MentlFlos's link below:
Gnome
KDE

Taken from MentlFlos's link below:
Gnome
KDE

Gnome Flavor
KDE Flavor

Gnome Flavor
KDE Flavor

Sorry if there was confusion. RIT is The Rochester Insitute of Technology

Sounds like C-Print. Unfortunatley, I don't know of an easy way to get a hold of it.

Sounds like C-Print. Unfortunatley, I don't know of an easy way to get a hold of it.

Having gone to college for a long time, at several different schools at different stages (in my 30s and only fully finished two years ago), I can tell you that most professors absolutely abhor the student who flips open the laptop and begins typing away during lectures. You'll be lucky to only get scowled at. You may get flat out kicked until you show up with a spiral notebook. Seen it happen more than once.

Just curious, what college did you atttend(and what program)?

I've been going to RIT for 3 years now, and i've NEVER seen somebody get kicked out of class for using a laptop. Admittedly, this place is Geek Central, but still...Even the professor for my art history course this quarter had one (iBook).

Hell, even at the dinky community college I went to for a year, a few people had laptops- everyone seemed to think it was kinda neat, and as long as they didn't start blatantly gaming or something, nobody really gave a damn.

I've always been told that you're in college because you want to be, and professors aren't there to babysit...Blow off the class, it's your own problem.

I have trouble with the motivation thing too. The only way I could get round it was to write plans, lots of plans. I'd list all the things I needed to do to get things done, and if any of them looked too big, I'd try to break them up like solving a maths problem - tackle what looks easy until it falls apart.

And then I'd try to prioritise these things and work them into a schedule. When I started, I had an overview, but I only scheduled one day at a time. I'd schedule lunch as well. And I'd try to make each day's thing look easy. And then I'd email the schedule to someone. It's good if you can trust your boss with this. But you need to get your boss to understand that the schedule is for me not you. They like their schedules to show bigger pictures and sometimes you can't do that or you get overwhelmed. If you can't trust a boss, try a friend who is not a co-worker. Emailing the thing off somewhere increases your committment to actually doing some of the things on the schedule.

When I'm really good I'd write tomorrow's schedule at the end of each day (schedule plan time). This would be really handy the next morning when I couldn't always remember where I was at, the schedule would actually set me back into my train of thought. There should be at least two or three different things on the schedule each day. If the schedule says the same thing each day eg "code sales app" for days on end then you haven't broken it down enough.

If I wrote a plan, I had a fair chance of keeping the daytime tv at bay, if I didn't then the tv won. I've been thinking about selling my tv.

There's a bit of help on the web, key in "procrastination" and "overcome" etc

Overcoming Procrastination
Dealing with Procrastination
And I read most of the sample chapters I could find at Amazon, but the uni stuff to help students helped me.

Of course when your dot-com company runs out of money and makes you redundant, it is really really hard to overcome that kind of disappointment. However, I must, because I still have a system to finish before I have something coherent or useful to add to my resume.

And I know I like coding - because I happily slapped together something to help out my local club keep score when they hosted a championship recently. There is something else going on in my head that makes me put off doing things I enjoy.

Some colleges even work tuition like a scam.

The Rochester Institute of Technology(which I currently attend), for example, lets practically anyone with the motor skills to fill out an application in. They charge them their $26 000 or so for their first year, and then they fail half of them. You see, RIT happens to have an attrition rate over 50%.

Now, that $26 000 certainly isn't spent on the freshman taking English 101 and "Intro to VB." It's spent on the upperclassmen. The failures end up subsidizing the upperclassmen, and everything's great.

I'm just ranting. Ignore me.

Perhaps a BS in Applied Networking and System Administration could get you some of the answers you are looking for.

Transparent displays would also be a significant advance for the field of Augmented Reality.

Umm...What's this, then?

3 Calculus courses, 2 Discrete Math courses, and a Statistics course, just for a BS in Computer Science. Among other things, that's why I switched degrees from CS...I could handle some of it, but I didn't want to practically get a minor in Math.

I'm willing to bet most other CS programs at large technical schools are close to the same.

My apologies, maybe the anti-American comment was a bit much. Anyway, long post ahead...

Seeing your mention of rent, tuition and a PSX game, I would estimate that you are pretty young. You haven't been around long enough to SEE with your own eyes how the world has changed for the worse and how EVIL the government has become.

I realize what you're trying to say, but geez, that just made me laugh out loud. If you want to debate with me, fine, but lose the caps everywhere maybe? At any rate, i'm 22, and i'll graduate from RIT with a Bachelor's in IT in a couple years. Feel free to insert a joke about how it obviously hasn't done me any good or something, since you seem to think I couldn't possibly have valid views on the government if i'm young. Oh, and this'll probably hurt your head, but my SO is about 10 years older than me, and she uses our various game systems almost more than I do.

And no, I'm not anti-American. I'm anti-BIG BROTHER.
I don't want anyone controlling my life

Okay, so you're just quite paranoid, sorry. I'd hope you're the one in control, anyway, unless you're writing this from prison or The Matrix or something.

spying on me

Oh god, I knew the geese in my backyard were up to something!

watching what web pages I visit

Get a good firewall, don't accept cookies from places you don't trust completely, clean the ad/spyware and viruses off your system, don't let anyone look over your shoulder...I dunno. You're posting on Slashdot, of all places, and you complain about something like that?

compiling databases on what I buy or the friends I consort with

So, use cash only when you buy things, or at least only use credit cards with places you absolutely trust. I think there was an amusing Calvin & Hobbes strip along those lines once. Watch out for the black helicopters and Agents when you go to see friends, too...Do you think someone's always behind you with a camera or something? Please.

and I don't appreciate busting my ass then having to spend all my money on SHIT imported from China and Mexico, made by slave labor so the fat cats at the top of the corporate ladder can get fatter while paying less taxes

Umm...So don't buy that stuff. Hope you don't like playing with high-tech things too much, though. I find the fact that you think anything made in Asia or Mexico is automatically made by "slave labor" amusing, as well.

And that cheap SHIT from Wally World is garbage. Things used to last for years and then you could repair them. You could buy parts and fix things. Not any more. Throw it away, clog the land fills up and buy a new one.

*snip ranting about inflation, youth, and rising prices*

I can't speak for your personal experiences, but I don't buy "cheap SHIT from Wally World", and I never did, really, besides maybe a bag of chips on the way home from work or something. Sounds to me like you're more upset that things are too complicated for you to fix yourself these days, at any rate....Tough luck. Maybe you should be paying some tuition costs as well.

Funny you should make that comment about cars, too. I'm getting a used car as a gift from my parents soon, a 1989 Camry that has 200,000+ miles on it, and will still get me around just fine.

Until you KNOW what you are talking about from personal experiance, it's best to just observe.

Gee, guy, thanks. I'll just sit back and let all those two or three times older than me debate all the important issues. I'm sure things'll work out just fine, right?

I've been around and I've seen how it WAS, how it is, and where it's going. Wisdom comes from personal experiance. You can't learn wisdom, it can't be taught in a classroom, you don't get it from the TV set and you certainly won't get any out of that PSX console...

Who are you to say (again) that I have nothing to contribute, and to throw in that snide little remark about video games? Unless you have personal experience with me, I don't think you're qualified to say much. Oh, and guess what? You won't get much wisdom from whining to the clerks at Wal-Mart or Home Depot, either.

Another way technology plays into poetry is Aleatory Poetry. I experimented with this a bit in this dynamic poem, revelation to pi.

Here at RIT the Computer Science exams are all closed-everything, but for the ones that don't test algorithms, they give us JavaDocs for all the crap we need to use.

However, as a math major, I take all my principle field of study exams closed-book, closed-note, no-calculator. :-)

System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond

Huh? What rock has this guy been living under?

OS/360, VM/CMS, MVS, Z/OS, OS/400, OS/2(...)

We could make a game out of this...

NetWare
The OS for any computer built before MS incorporated (C64, Apple II, etc.).
Multics
Amoeba (ok, it isn't much more than a research project...)
PalmOS
Symbian/EPOC

Anymore? C'Mon, I know there's gotta be a huge list!

If you aren't using phoenix, and you use linux or windows or both, then start using it now. This browser changed my life. Seriously. Because it takes me less time to surf my daily sites I get more sleep. Read about it in my journal.

I also felt compelled to teach others the majesty of this browser. Check this out. If anyone actually shows up I'll be amazed. And if enough turn up I'll probably do more of them, until I no longer have free time, which will be in about 2 weeks.

I'm glad phoenix changed it's name to Firebird, because now I don't have to change the sweet icons I've got for it. I reccomend using the build from 3/20 and installing at least the tabbed browsing extensions. I believe the 3/20 build is the newest one where importing bookmarks isn't broken, that's why. I also rather like the Phusion theme. The guy who makes it is totally awesome, he updated it after I requested him to. Open source world needs more guys like that.

So you mean you get no spam at all to apreche@mail.rit.edu? None at all to apreche@mail.rit.edu?

Lucky you, I guess.

My College

We love to play our Counter-Strike here at RIT.

Here's a couple that come to mind in less than 30 seconds...
Run Lola Run and The Professional are two highly action packed flicks that are great guy movies. Guaranteed to keep ypou entertained. The Professional is especially riveting. The whole movie is action packed from the get-go. It also has that special "evil genius" villain quirkiness only Gary Oldman can deliver on screen.
Both really good movies to own on DVD and keep in the archives.

Oh crap busted copy paste. here's the real link

http://www.rit.edu/~slr2777/resumes/

Like anyone is going to hire a guy who can't even get a link straight. My Karma is excellent however, and that shows a lot.

Al Biles from RIT has been working with genetic algorithms to do jazz solos.
Here's a link to information on his genetic algorithm, GenJam.

-Matt

Al Biles from RIT has been working with genetic algorithms to do jazz solos.
Here's a link to information on his genetic algorithm, GenJam.

-Matt

They also block incoming port 25 on resnet, presumably so we can't run open relays. Of course, I'd rather they block 25 out, and make us use their SMTP server to send out. (Or would this not fix the problem?) At any rate, I can't run my own mail server. And to make matters worse, RIT doesn't have SSL on their IMAP servers.

I guess after the 2 years I've been using the same exploit I'll have to learn something new :(

With windows 2000 the administrator password is accully left blank by default if you select the auto login (all users use same login) option on the windows 2000 install. That what makes this exploit so widespread. Its nothing new, Rit.edu had a the exact attack almost a year ago.

Actually, if you follow the link to megaprime from ARS, you'll find that the camera is called MegaCam, from the MegaPrime project...
http://www-dapnia.cea.fr/ ... /index.html (Link works, but Slashdot pushes spaces in words over 40
chars

Hmm... what I thought of instantly was the fellow that turned a flatbed scanner into a wide-field still image camera.
Building a megapixel digital camera from a flatbed scanner

And the later revisions in the concept by interested folks with science as their tool of genius.
Industry always begins with hacking existing toys Thus the ultimate reason the DMCA is a BAD BAD BAD law.
Improved Scanning Digital Camera

I see the article is about an array of the imaging sensors with one bigass lens. I guess they'll get a quicker image this way.

Actually, if you follow the link to megaprime from ARS, you'll find that the camera is called MegaCam, from the MegaPrime project...
http://www-dapnia.cea.fr/ ... /index.html (Link works, but Slashdot pushes spaces in words over 40
chars

Hmm... what I thought of instantly was the fellow that turned a flatbed scanner into a wide-field still image camera.
Building a megapixel digital camera from a flatbed scanner

And the later revisions in the concept by interested folks with science as their tool of genius.
Industry always begins with hacking existing toys Thus the ultimate reason the DMCA is a BAD BAD BAD law.
Improved Scanning Digital Camera

I see the article is about an array of the imaging sensors with one bigass lens. I guess they'll get a quicker image this way.

http://www.cis.rit.edu/~jerry/Software/iMovie/
has a set of free plug in, some of which do a conversion to 16*9

And there's an RIT version mentioned in the Wired write up. Complete with a link straight to the press release RIT sent out soon after.

Photos here!

I don't buy it. If you were so successful, explain THIS.