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Now, if only they could make these street-legal...

That would be great. Then we could all put around in our aluminum frame, 1" ground clearance, back breaking go carts. He's probably wincing and holding his right hand near his head because he just sliced off a few fingers in the wheel spokes. Oops.

-Adam

Actually there are plent of country boy geeks. When I went to Rose-Hulman a bunch of us geeks would head out to go shooting. We looked like typical rednecks. That is where we coined the phrase "high-tech redneck".

I wish. I live in northeast Indiana. I just got out of college with a B.S. in computer science, and I still can't get interviews even on those few relevant job postings that show up on CareerBuilder.

Well, I wasn't too sure if our project page was still up since it's been about 3 years since I graduated but it's still there.

Computer System Architecture

Looking back at it, it was a very fun project but most of us (i.e. myself) were also very inexperienced in anything like this so our documentation is lacking. We never did finish it which kind of disappoints me.

In Indiana, you can't sell products containing mercury tilt switches to anyone under 18, including thermostats.

We built a broom balance for Operation Catapult and our project advisor had to buy us two thermostats so we could get the tilt switches.

Oh, and watch out when you're soldering leads onto those bastards - I overheated mine and cracked the glass. Our chem labs were glad to dispose of the mercury for us.

Something that we noticed and ended up using as a filter rule was whether or not a person would stick with a job for more than 6 months.

So do you suggest that somebody with a BS in computer science from a reputable school but zero employment history and no ability to relocate because of disability and family issues (such as myself) should go work at a fast-food workaurant for a year just to demonstrate employer loyalty?

By "free" grandparent probably meant "included in the tuition and fees," as was the case at my school, rather than "distributed in breach of the EULA."

As somebody who attended university in Terre Haute, IN, this does nothing aside from confirm my belief that it is the Armpit of America.

xScruffx

Cool spook toys -- all very sexy.

But what about the assassination devices -- shellfish toxins, flechette umbrellas, that sort of thing?

What about MK-ULTRA -- the covert testing of hallucinogens on unsuspecting civilians?

What about CIA/Mafia alliances?

What about Operation Phoenix?

-kgj

the job (which is the reason for moving) pays for the move...

Do signing bonuses cover relocation expenses for BSCS graduates fresh out of college even in this recession?

Or you can get any job you can to pay the bills.

I've tried applying at various places, but I kept getting turned down for being overqualified.

Then give both team tests and individual tests. I had a math professor who did this for a geometric modeling course at my school.

The iTunes Music Store is not a beta project.

I'm assuming Apple wanted to get the bugs out of the system with a 20x smaller user base first. You'll find lots of Slashdot users who, in the first week of iTunes Music Store's operation, commented about analogies to a beta test.

I have a Mac, but it's a 75 MHz Performa 6230. My grandpa uses it to do a local bar's books. Before that, I had an 8 MHz Macintosh Classic. I was a Mac person until I went to a Windows school, and my current machine was purchased while I attended the Windows school.

Out of curiousity, that didn't happen to be this school, per chance?

:)

And if you're bored, you can download Citizen's Arrest's entire CD in 128 or 256 kbps mp3 form.

Given a membership of two Applied Optics, one Physics, and one CS/Math major, we made some pretty rockin' skapunk.

If only rose wasn't trying to rip out our souls at the same time... the entire thing was recorded the weekend before finals.

WiFi on the Aibos is nothing new.
We have a few "older" Aibos. They all of pcmcia wireless cards. They don't support wep, but I'm not too worried about somebody sniffing packets while the dogs talk to each other. The funny part is that the pcmcia slot is in the rear of the dogs between the legs. You gotta stick card in the dog's ass. I guess if the wifi is built in, its more humain than the sepository form.

I know the parent was meant to be funny, but believe it or not, that's what my school did. They unregistered all cards from their DHCP database and are requiring everyone to re-register on condition of passing a brief virus scan to get back on the network. Our network is set up to disallow external routing for any not-registered machines.

I guess that's what they get for forcing everyone to migrate to XP last year...

Computer Engineering, eh? While I'm majoring in Computer Science rather than engineering, I can assure you you'll get your money's worth at Rose-Hulman. It's not nearly as big as the other's you mentioned, but that has definite advantages. Average class size is 23 people. That means your professor can learn your name before the quarter ends. Also, you can find your professor and they will make time to answer your questions and make sure you understand things. Rose-Hulman is located in a city along with 4 other colleges. So you will have access to as much as any other college town despite Rose's small size. Give it a look.

Rose-Hulman claims nearly 100% career placement annually. Plus, they're highly thought of.

Rose-Hulman claims nearly 100% career placement annually. Plus, they're highly thought of.

Professor-student ratio: 1: 13
Faculty: 140 full-time teaching faculty
Enrollment: 1,812

1812 / 140 = 12.94285714285714285714

You mean kinda like this?

Developed by some people I know (well, only Anna actually) who graduated one year after me. It doesn't give you an environmental lecture about the product you're scanning, but I guess it very well could. Aimed at the blind to help them with shopping. Actually, make it remotely possible...not easy to tell 200 different soups apart, or cereal boxes, when you're blind.

Rose-Hulman has been requiring laptops and having wired ethernet in nearly every classroom since 1995, the year before I got there. They've since added wireless which I believe gets the rooms that weren't able to be wired easily.

While I saw and was part of some of the type of on-topic conversing going on back then, it wasn't a large part of the usage of the laptops. Aside from where they were explicitly used as part of the lecture, I used mine for about 1/2 on and 1/2 off topic.

For instance, during math and science classes it was very useful to be able to do and play around with complex calculations quickly while a lecture was going on. The ability to do bits of research in realtime helped too. And yes, some real-time conversing on the subject.

I guess some of my usage fell in-between on and off topic. Things like working on homework for that or other classes, being able to do little bits of work on projects as you happen to think of things during classes, speaking with or emailing team members, that kind of thing. Education related, but not necessarily related to the topic at hand.

As for off-topic, that ranged from emails to web surfing to playing network games with other people in that and other classrooms around you. 95% of that probably happens in the first quarter of school, though. That kind of goofing off drops off pretty quickly as the novelty wears off and as you realize just how much you're paying for that time. Many (probably most) of the profs were too intense to be able to do other things anyway.

I've recently learned that my high school will begin requiring/providing laptops in this coming school year. The whole campus is already bathed in 802.11b goodness. It will be interested to see how *that* turns out...

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has required laptops for incoming freshmen since 1995 so I understand where you are coming from. I've sat through lectures where students played Quake, chatted on ICQ (with sounds enabled), and have actually visited porn sites (with sounds enabled). You would think that people would have the common courtesy to be discreet but there will always be someone who just doesn't care.

Of course, with reference to back-channeling a lecture, in all my programming classes, we had newsgroups set up. During class, we would post bits of code and discuss algorithms while the professor was lecturing. Most profs actually encouraged it. Personally, I think it's a great idea but only if the users stay on topic. It would have to be monitored/controlled by the lecturer so things don't get out of hand.

Then again, a nice bout of Quake always goes well during "College Life Skills" lectures.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has required laptops for incoming freshmen since 1995 so I understand where you are coming from. I've sat through lectures where students played Quake, chatted on ICQ (with sounds enabled), and have actually visited porn sites (with sounds enabled). You would think that people would have the common courtesy to be discreet but there will always be someone who just doesn't care.

Of course, with reference to back-channeling a lecture, in all my programming classes, we had newsgroups set up. During class, we would post bits of code and discuss algorithms while the professor was lecturing. Most profs actually encouraged it. Personally, I think it's a great idea but only if the users stay on topic. It would have to be monitored/controlled by the lecturer so things don't get out of hand.

Then again, a nice bout of Quake always goes well during "College Life Skills" lectures.

Grimaldi is a professor at my alma mater. I can understand how the book might be a bit tough to crack.

Never really had to take his discrete math class, since I was an EE major. But if you're having problems with the book, maybe you could shoot him an email about it. Rose-Hulman professors are busy, but it's not like they have 350 students in each class.

He may be interested in knowing what you found difficult about the book, to perhaps improve the next edition. Also he might give you a few hints on how to understand the book's perspective, and maybe even recommend some good discrete math book from his own experience.

Just be straighforward and avoid excessively detailed problems and explanations. Maybe ask him, first, if it would be okay to consult with him about his book. If you have trouble finding his email address, let me know and I can try to help you get in touch with him.

I would put money on the fact that you're not paying for Windows XP or Office. You're just paying for the CDs.

My [former] college did this. They even told us that through tuition and other fees that we had already paid for it, they just were forcing us to cough up some more money for CD duplication. Copy of them telling us we already own it

I tested this "you already own it" theory by ripping the CD's and distributing them on the internal network via SMB

Not too long after I got a nasty e-mail from des Führer of the network.

Licensing will never cease to amaze me. "So I have a license to it, I can install it and use it." "Yes." "Can I have it?" "You have to buy the CD" "But you already said that I have the license." "That's correct" "So why can't I..."

I went to an engineering college where laptops were mandatory. They've done it for ages...I think the original laptops were 486/33's.

I used my laptop every day, 16 or even 24 hours per day, for 4 years. The vast majority of classrooms had network ports and power outlets at every seat. Many professors required in-class laptop use.

I didn't find it useful for taking notes. If tablet PC's were around at the time, it would have been great: I can type as fast as the professor can talk, but I can't draw a picture or complex formula as fast. There was one kid who did everything in Maple, and would jump into Paintbrush, draw a diagram, and insert it into the document in realtime...but he was insane like that. But a tablet PC...if you can switch instantly from typing to drawing...would be excellent. One approach I found useful was to type notes on the computer, and use a notebook to draw formulas and diagrams. Then you can use the day's date and a reference number to link your text to your drawings easily.

Get a laptop. And...do NOT cheap out on this...the best four-year warranty you can buy. My laptop (an Acer Extensa 710T) used up a hard drive, a motherboard, a screen, a power supply, a power regulator, and multiple plastic parts including the entire top of the case and LCD bezels. Strangely, the battery did not die, and I can still get about 1.5 hours out of it. That's because I didn't succumb to the stupid "memory effect" myth that doesn't apply to Li-ion batteries. I simply read the user's manual where it said the battery was good for a couple hundred full-discharge cycles, and about a thousand partial-discharge cycles. So I only used the battery when no power was present.

People will say that a laptop can get stolen from you very easily. Never happened to me. Unlike a desktop, you can take a laptop with you! So the desktop is far more likely to be left unattended than the laptop...and yes, people do break into quiet dorms or apartments and steal computers. A cable lock is a good investment, if you want to leave the laptop in your room with the door open while you chat down the hall. I've known people to lose their computers that way. First few weeks every year are the most dangerous, because no one knows who everyone is on their floor.

I did have a desktop during the last year of school. The laptop was showing its years and was beginning to drag in the areas of MATLAB simulations and code compiling. So I used a mixture of VNC (laptop:Linux, server:windows), X (laptop and server Linux), and Remote Desktop (laptop:Win98, server:WinXP) to use my laptop as a terminal to my main computer depending on what OS was running.

You could get a better laptop, but figuring in resale value after two years, you'd spend another thousand+ to get a laptop that will still be two years old when you get out of school. Better to spend $500 for a new desktop, and have two computers to use.

PDA's are not useful until you get a job, where you have rapidly changing schedules and meetings to attend.

The GBA and the GC combined, almost reach the sales of the PS2.

Where I come from, there are three kinds of lies: lies with short legs, lies with long noses, and statistics. Are you talking overall sales, or only the previous fiscal quarter? (The PS2's head start may not be relevant to some arguments.) Units, or dollars? (A GBA and a GCN put together cost only slightly more than a single PS2 system.)

But, while it could be coincidence, I'm guessing that it just means that Trinity has a healthy amount of self-esteem. If you were a leather-clad female trapped in a hovercraft with a bunch of antisocial geeks, you'd probably start to think you were God too.

For real-life proof of this, visit Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Consider that when I was there the female:male ratio was about 1:8, added to the fact that even a smaller percentage were marginally attractive (and there were exactly six in my class year who were in fact hot).

Even before my freshman year, I had been informed of the "Rose Goddess" syndrome. After the first few weeks, the girls learned that they just didn't have to care anymore. Just throw on a wrinkled t-shirt and sweatpants, and the attention level STAYS THE SAME!

The atmosphere around a DDR machine is something you simply can't get at home.

Perhaps not in a single-family residence, but at the school I went to, there was a weekly meeting of the DDR club, complete with region-modded PS1 systems, and that was full of atmosphere.

DDR had the first new control scheme (used in more than a couple of games) since the light gun.

Sorry, but Nintendo beat Konami to it: Power Pad. (This cartridge is fake.)

(Aside: Anyone know of a method that would allow for a 'any n of m keyholders needed to decrypt' schema? It's something that has advantages, but I've no idea how to go about it)

See Applied Cryptography, chapter 3, "Secret Splitting", for an introduction. I found a toy implementation and mathematical explanation here. Or just Google for "secret splitting".

Sure enough, I can now play flash flash revolution during those boring high school comp science classes.

Huh? They let you hook headphones and a 3 by 3 foot DANCE PAD up to their computers and jump around on it during class? At my school, I could only connect a dance pad to an institute-owned machine during meetings of DDR club.

If you're going to dance with your fingers on the keyboard, you might as well play Konami's official version of DDR on a Game Boy Color system.

Philips licensed the logo for their use; it's up to Philips to decide if they're in breach of that license agreement.

And Philips has in fact decided to warn the labels about the use of the logo on non-conforming discs.

I dispute the notion that you have the foggiest idea what you're talking about.

The CD-R FAQ, section 2-4, lists the major CD copy protection methods in use. Thus far, I have concentrated on the "static" method, for which I could find the most evidence of potential violation of the Red Book specification.

I also dispute the notion that anything you've said here is even remotely true.

I have presented evidence by linking from my comments to web pages containing evidence. It's your turn to present the flaws in the evidence to which my comments link.

For instance, this web page states: "According to the Red Book standard, the BLER count for a disc must be less than 220. In practice, an average BLER of 50 is more acceptable ... A Burst Error is defined as seven consecutive blocks in which the C1 decoding stage has detected an error [... and] constitutes a Disc Failure." I have presented the evidence; what do you not accept about it?

You are an idiot, therefore nothing you say should be listened to.

"You are a coward, therefore nothing you say should be listened to." See how that sounds?

The onus is then on you to prove that you are not, in fact, an idiot.

What do you think gives me such a burden of proof? I'd guess you don't get along with others well in real life either if you think everybody is an idiot by default.

So far, you've blown it.

id.i.ot n. "A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers" (American Heritage® Dictionary). Given that I have scored 130 on an IQ test and received a B.S. in computer science from a reputable engineering school, I don't see how I match this precise definition of "idiot". If you claim that this definition is in error and that I match some other precise definition of "idiot", please state such a definition, along with why "idiots" under your definition should not be listened to.

doesn't know how to read Google's help page, maybe?

You claimed that Google would phrase enclosed in quotation marks as an exact phrase. Then why does Google's help page state: "Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks"?

If you continue to argue without providing evidence against what I have mentioned in this thread, then you are a troll, and I can find all sorts of reasons not to listen to trolls.

What about a boy with no legs? Is that funny?

The only people I have sympathy for are people who pirated XP to run on their PII-266 and people whose hardware is limited to 128 or 256 megs total memory (like a crappy old Sony Vaio desktop I have to setup for a relative).

Such as the class of 2003 at my school. Replace "pirated" with "got a site-licensed upgrade to" and "PII-266" with "school-issued PII-333 laptop". Laptops have slow hard drives designed for low current drain rather than for fast performance, and that doesn't help boot times or hibernate/wake times much.

Actually, the army *wanted* him gone with the coup attempt in 2002 after Chavez's supporters opened fire on anti-Chavez protestors. He was removed from power, which the US governement applauded because he is a right bastard. However, after a day or two, elements in the army restored him to power. At which point, he spent the next year purging the military of those he felt were disloyal to him. He's disarming opposition police forces. Now he's rounding up and murdering political enemies, truck bombing countries who criticize him, and cozying up to other dictators.

Plenty of damning evidence against Chavez, these links are just the first I found while searching.

Baby #1 is born with a defect that leaves him crippled for life.

Some birth defects don't pose a practical problem. Even being born without legs may not; there exist numerous adaptive devices in today's world.

Baby #2 is born normal.

Define "normal". The only objective definitions for "normal" that I can think of are the orthogonal vector to a surface and the Gaussian statistical distribution.

"But I'm at work and we don't have mozilla" download the zip file, extract it to your desktop, and run the executable from there. It works fine.

What about "But I'm at work and the machine says I don't have enough permissions to run executables from my {NT|UNIX} home directory"? Or "But I'm at school and my home directory's quota isn't big enough to hold a Mozilla installation"? A simple polite e-mail worked to get Mozilla installed (alongside Netscape 4.6) on the Rose-Hulman math department's Solaris OE workstations, but how would a fellow go about negotiating with the IT department if that fails?

Actually RHIT, I know Wake Forest was working on laptops at the time mid 90s, as well as quite a few other tech schools. Long story short, maple wasn't enought to overcome my poor study habits and I transfered after two years and got a business degree, which got me into a career that I am enjoying quite a bit today.

Starting the fall of '95 my college Rose-Hulman started requiring everyone to buy their laptop freshman year. It sounds like a great idea until you get to be a junior or senior...

BIASED ...towards people with feet!

as opposed to some of these pictures?

Can you imagine all the uni students sitting in their dorms at night with their l33t Xboxes, munching 256k each?

At Rose-Hulman, every residence hall's network ports are switched. Thus, if you have few matches between one dorm and the other, and you don't go on Xbox Live (which is prohibited according to a strict reading of the ToS), that's not much of a problem.

At my alma mater, there is a display of holograms in one of the halls.

Several typical displays; someone's head, a dollar bill, a computer motherboard.

And there is one fantastic piece. A hologram of a powerful microscope, that appears to stand right out in full scale.

Walk up to the microscope and place your eye where the virtual eyepiece is located. You will be treated to looking down the barrel of this nonexistant microscope, viewing the silicon die of an integrated circuit.

Until the light wavefronts can be accurately manipulated, no 3D display will ever be able to approach this level of realism. I don't see it happening within my lifetime.

Um... no. Taking the 3 seconds to type '"the tick"' into my google bar produces this website... taking the 3 more seconds to click on that link, then on Arthur's picture, then 3 more seconds to read to breif bio reveals that Arthur indeed is a moth, and not a rabbit, or rather a bunny as the site states.

Can the system identify a person born without legs who walks like this?

(You can't see it in these pictures, but yes, he does have wings. Good pictures of him seem to be hard to find. images.google.com found a few, but none were really good ...)

In all seriousness, Kerberos is basically a really cool idea for a distributed system of authorization. My college uses it (in combination with OpenAFS) for pretty much all campus-wide services. The idea is pretty straight forward: when you authenticate to the network, you don't want to have to type in your password once to get email, again to get into your home directories, again to get into protected webspaces, and so forth. One password should let you into everything. Likewise, you should be able to just change your password once, and have this change propagate to all the appropriate servers that you want to authenticate to.

That being said, here's kerberos in a nutshell. You log on to the network, and authenticate with the main kerberos server. This server grants you a "ticket", which you just pass to the machines you want access to. After so long, your tickets expire and you'll need to re-authenticate. (It would be bad if you left your desk for work, and evil joe cracker stole your ticket during the night and read your email and so forth). There's really a lot more to kerberos then that, but the basic idea is that you authenticate to one machine, then use that machine to authenticate to any other machine on the network. It's a rather nice way of doing things, but it is pretty much overkill for anything less than a network of at least 100 users.

In most of the cases the "remake" if you will, is continents apart from it's predacessor.

But doesn't the availability of a game (admittedly with simpler graphics) for an older console weaken the apparent "exclusive"ity of the newer title?

I'll answer your question with a question. Ford produced the Mustang in 1965. What makes the 2003 model any better?

I'll humor you by taking a guess at the answer to your question. In general, a newer sports car has at least the following: improved safety features, improved climate control, a better stereo system, and an engine that produces more power with less fuel and less emissions. The Ford Mustang may have other features.

I'd guess that the new Superman game for Xbox probably has sharper textures and more detailed models than the N64 version. But is involving play there, or is it lacking? I've answered your question; now you answer mine.

Sorry, some people don't have $200-300 dollars laying around to spend on a decent video card to play UT2003.

True, you need a newer video card for UT2003. But you also need a special video card (i.e. one with TV in) to play Xbox games in a crowded dorm room with no space for a stand-alone television set.

Yes, [Unreal Championship] will play online via the Xbox Live service, according to M. Rein.

UT2003 will (barely) work down to a 33.6 modem. Xbox Live, on the other hand, requires high-speed Internet access, which isn't available at consumer prices to all families in the United States. Given that somebody already has dial-up Internet access at $20 per month, Xbox Live costs about $24 per month ($4 per month for Xbox Live and $20 per month for the upgrade from dial-up to cable).

Unless you're 12y/o and like to play PG13 games, then GameCube is for you.

Super Smash Bros. Melee is the most popular video game played on the TV in the lobby of a dorm room in a college. Not a middle school, a college. Well, if Xbox has few if any good exclusive E/T rated games, that's Microsoft's problem.

Yep, now the Weebles can get around.

and they don't have to do this for long distances anymore

Diablo 2 was fun to play? I thought it was all just click here, then here, then here.......

Well, so is Duck Hunt. Just put the light pen on a duck and click. I was able to make the score wrap past a million within the first seven days of owning my NES.

Like Whac-a-Mole? You'll love Hampsterdeath, part of the freepuzzlearena suite. Except Hampsterdeath ends after three minutes and tells you what percent of the hamsters you hit.