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One wonders why someone that can't afford food would have spent money on a computer on which to play these games

Am I the only one that found this particular element of the comment particularly condesending?

Maybe they got a computer because someone out there realized that technological knowledge is important for under privelaged kids to have, and that gaining access to said technology would be beneficial?

Having seen this particular program at work in my community, I've been impressed. They have the kids learn how to build computers, install all the software, and learn how to use common applications. At the end of the summer, they get to take a computer home with them. Pretty sweet.

I'm also in the same graduate department as James, so this is a bit of a shameless plug. However, he's put a ton of time and effort into it, and it is pretty neat that they are providing resources to kids that need them.

Now, these probably aren't your Quake 3 running machines, but who cares.

Just one possible solution...

In college, I was on what seemed like the world's biggest unswitched subnet. All the dorms could see the ethernet traffic from all the others. Some of us ran packet sniffers to see what interesting stuff we could learn. Eventually came the day when the packet sniffers got easy to use and just started dumping out passwords and logons. That's when the port scans followed by log in attempts got almost continuous.

Fortunately for me, about the same time, windows denial of service attacks and remote crash programs were also in vogue (http://www.rootshell.org , but it no longer seems to have the same focus). So, I made my finger port respond with about a dozen of the most popular remote DOS/BSOD exploits. This worked very well. Remote login attempts stopped.

For grad school, I moved off campus. We got a cable modem with Road Runner. I didn't disable that autoresponse. One of the ambitious admins (hi, Mr. Herrick) decided to do some port scans to verify nobody was running mail servers / IRC servers etc. About the third time he port scanned me (with a windows machine), our cable modem was disabled and I had to have a conversation with the admin about what was happening and why. He seemed to like my explanation, asked me to disable my countermeasures and reactivated my cable modem.

The CS degree at my school has a relatively short CS program, where there's a LOT of free electives: 32 credits (2 semesters for most students). If those courses simply weren't required, you could be done with your BS in 3 years. That's why I was able to go for a dual CS major alongside my Mechanical Engineering major and only need to stay one extra semester.

I've been wondering for a while now why they have so many free electives without doing certification or hardware courses (you'd be amazed at how many of my fellow students don't realize some of the limitations of the hardware that they code on).

(Yes I realize that the link above lists 36 credits of free electives, but RPI has since changed their degree requirements).

As far as being in college, it is sometimes useful to register to vote where you go to school. If your home state is somewhere that is heavily supportive of a particular candidate and your college is in a state that is largely undecided, you'd be better off voting in your school's state.

Politicians might claim that this is illegal, but the courts have said otherwise. In New York, for example, you only need to be living there 30 days before an election to vote (as long as you don't vote anywhere else).

Thus the verb for "hit" is different when applied to a dog as opposed to a tree. This potentially helps remove a lot of the confusion in human/machine natural language interfaces

But ambiguity gives REUSE- what some modern programming languages call Generics. If I make a subroutine to hit a $X N times, I don't want to rewrite it 16 times for each possible noun group of $X.

Noun group prefixes only helps with ambiguity when you also want to abbreviate. (Omit repeating the noun, because it can be infered by the group prefix on the verb). The only really important ambiguity in natural languages (and it's rare) is the lack of nested parentheses, creating the "He saw her in the park with a telescope".

studied Xhosa at university.

Do you type that with a lot of ''s? Or with ``s? Or maybe !

In other words....

what like these guys. or these guys. or these guys.

You think that is bad, at RPI our computer center is an old Seminary chapel:

Computer Center @ RPI's Virtual Tour

I feel weird every time I have go in there to do work. That much stone and stained glass... it feels like we are worshiping the god of computers. Which might not be far from the truth....

To make matters worse our chapel center looks like a computer center. It evidently doesn't warrent a place on the campus tour... so I can't link to a picture.

-paridel

I've been using I2Hub for a few months and the downloads aren't that fast, at least as someone who has been spoiled by the internet connection here at RPI. Downloads from a user at another college with i2Hub are usually in the range of 30-80 kb/s. For comparison, this is about the same speed that I get from a p2p app that let's you download from multiple sources, such as eMule. If someone I know off campus, such as a friend from home, downloads a file from me via AIM, they get speeds ranging from 150-200 kb/s. However, for ease of use and individual files, as well as a better community, I2Hub is pretty good.

My advice to you would be to drop the whole CET idea and get a real CS or a real engineering degree. They will be worth a whole lot more in the long run. Or do a dual major with CS/EE and NOT a CET. A CET will cover the basics for CS and EE, but nothing more, you will have lots of general concepts but little hard core, real knowlege. Most high ranked Universities don't offer CET programs, the only ones I know that offer things like CET are 2 year programs, mid-low ranked state schools or ITT Tech trade school type places. A real technical institution like MIT/RPI/CMU etc will only offer REAL enginneering and REAL computer science. Not some strange cross CET that really doesn't explore the nuances of either.

Personally I have a dual major with CS and Electronic Art/Communication. Again, I would highly reccomend a dual major over a major that claims to combine two others. It will be more work but it will pay off in the long run.

This is just not true. Ethylene glycol is HO-CH_2-CH_2-OH, no double bonds involved. For toxicity info, see here or here.

Besides, the compund the article talks about is polyethylene glycol, which is the polymer of ethylene glycol (as the name says), chemical formula is HO-(CH_2-CH_2-O)_n-H (n usually >>100). See here.

The "poly" means that it's a polymer, like the polyethylene that's otherwise known as plastic.

Polymerization chains up lots of molecules together, so it's not surprising that something that was previously toxic can be "used extensively in the cosmetic and toiletry industry." Because of the new chain structure, polyethylene glycol is a waxy substance whereas ethylene glycol is liquid. There's no way to inhale it, and no way to drink it, and anyway, the new structure has rendered it non-toxic.

Well, okay, the MSDS says "large doses of the lower molecular weight products may cause gastro-intestinal upset."

UP!

Shades of the RPI Players

--
Phil

There is the whole energy efficiency things too. New York for example is switching its stop lights to save energy.

I think what you mean is that in the future your computer will be designed be an Electrical Engineer.

EEs can calculate anything they want! EEs calculate ALL the time and don't even think twice about it.

Making clothes out of this 'yarn' may not be such a good idea... wear it out to picture day and you may be going home burned and naked!

Blockwars: free, multiplayer, head-to-head Tetris like game

Well, if you are interested in a strong overall education, and not on lots of women I'd suggest my alma mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It's a top 50 schools, and their engineering schools is great. I'd look into IT here, they are part of the cisco academy, which means you can take courses as part of your college work, and earn cisco networking certifications, CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP, among others. IT@RPI

I forgot that some people on slashdot take things literally.

Its a well written book that assumes the reader knows nothing of fortran. He teaches Fortran at RPI.

Top Ten RPI Pickup Lines

10. Can you flash my BIOS?
9. 010100001000101011100
8. Would you like to see the special functions on my calculator?
7. I can integrate in my sleep. No, really.
6. Anywhere else, you're a 3. Here, you're an 8.
5. How are your transistors doing?
4. Do you play Counter-Strike?
3. Um... er... uh... that is... nevermind!
2. Hey baby, let's make some flux.
1. Can I take your second derivative so I can see your curvature?

Top Ten RPI Pickup Lines

10. Can you flash my BIOS?
9. 010100001000101011100
8. Would you like to see the special functions on my calculator?
7. I can integrate in my sleep. No, really.
6. Anywhere else, you're a 3. Here, you're an 8.
5. How are your transistors doing?
4. Do you play Counter-Strike?
3. Um... er... uh... that is... nevermind!
2. Hey baby, let's make some flux.
1. Can I take your second derivative so I can see your curvature?

I certainly don't want a vehicle so orientationally confused.

Like so many other things in life, this situation can be summarized by a Simpson's sound byte.

Even if you did have $300 a month free for use, the $300 month comes out of a large slice of pie. Most banks will not let you have more than 30% of your total income tied up in debt. (People who try to spend 75% of their income on a house are neglecting the fact that they have to buy utilities and eat.) Any other loans you have count against that. If you're racking up student loans, then they know what's happening and won't let you. RPI's tuition is not cheap either. Where is that coming from? Unless you have a full scholarship, or your parents are paying all of it... there's no way a bank would give you a loan with $100K near-term debt.

20% of 60K is $12,000 - and if you don't have 20% down payment they will ding you on mortgage insurance.

$300/month is $3600/year, which means that with no other debt at all, you need a steady job about $10K/year to hold it. Even at $10/hour you'd have to work about 25 weeks to pull that kind of cash. Maybe you have a great job. I made $5/hr managing a movie theater in college.

It is very unusual for a college student to mortgage a house, unless you've been working the same place for a few years and don't plan on moving around. Otherwise someone would have to guarantee (cosign) the loan, which is probably what you did.

PS: If you can renovate an entire house yourself in 3 months including all plumbing, electric, carpentry, sheetrocking, and trim... all while working full-time to pay for the house, and going to college and passing your classes (okay, maybe you did it during the summer)... and, you got all the proper licenses and permits, and it's legal and up to code, you should quit college and become a contractor immediately.

RTFA, it said that these guys were doing it already.

Actually, in the ARL (Algorithmic Robotics Lab) at RPI, I'm working on a research robot based on the Via Epia ME6000. In fact, we've just switched away from the Ampro Encore PP1 (a powerpc board) because of Ampro's complete lack of support and general flakiness of the board. So far I'm reasonably pleased with the Via board, though we'll see how it works out in terms of power consumption (though even with conservative power usage estimates we still expect to get 3+ hours, down from about 4.5-5 with the powerpc). It was certainly trivial to get Linux 2.6.0-test7 up and running on the board, though I haven't tackled setting up the onboard firewire (for our camera) yet. From what I've seen so far, it's hard to beat the sheer functionality you get with the Epias, for the low price (we paid about $120 compared with $1000 for the PP1 with baseboard).

More info on our project here.

/alma mater

I remember hearing about this a few years ago. Then when I got to college (RPI), I noticed that the weather tends to be nicer earlier in the week.

Hrmmmmmm...scratch those links. These should work: WAVE
Other sounds of Homer

Hrmmmmmm...scratch those links. These should work: WAVE
Other sounds of Homer

The RIAA wants $15,000 for one measly song.

You missed a zero there, they sue for $150,000 per song. Perhaps you missed the case where the RIAA sued a college student for $97.8 billion?

No, that is not a typo, B as in Billion.

-

I learned to type on this when it was part of Typing Tutor III for the Apple II. That program was sort of the vi of typing tutors, as opposed to the newer ones that remind me more of MS Office style bloatware. It looks like you actually can get Letter Invaders separately on a bunch of modern platforms these days, even AIX!

Type-R Segway

I'm not a biochemist either, but this website shows the basic Glycolysis reactions and their output.

Basically, in this process Glucose + ATP is broken down into glucose-6-phosphate + ADP, giving off a net reaction of energy.

Without knowing the the reactions in the process that Dr. Eda et. al. have developed, I can only guess that the oxidized glucose will combine with the some other ions (such as a phosphate) and become waste products just liek any other in the body. I'm not really sure what happens to the glucose-6-phosphatea after Glycolysis.

A 500k video of clippy getting his ass kicked.

Here and Here.

Links thanks to Google and people with unprotected image directories ;)

Unlike the folks at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Slashdot/Jesse Jordan the guys at MIT & Boston City still have some sense then bending over backwards...hmmm..but then they are swapping music aren't they?

No point in screaming bloody murder but you don't have to play dumb either....

What would the space shuttle look like if NASCAR-like sponsership was allowed?

Shouldn't be too hard if this is possible

REAL Ultimate Power!!!

EEs are sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants.

Facts:

1. EEs are mammals.
2. EEs solve equations ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the EE is to flip out and write matlab code.

REAL Ultimate Power!!!

EEs are sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants.

Facts:

1. EEs are mammals.
2. EEs solve equations ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the EE is to flip out and write MATLAB code.

In their duct tape wallet?

Here at RPI, the ACM (at least when I was a freshman) would release RedHat CDs that they'd made for the IBM model laptops that you could get through the school. Since so many students had the school model laptop, these allowed the students to have a Linux that they already knew would work on the hardware, and was designed to remove any difficulties that might arise with it. Not an educational distro, per se, but of course, Maple and all those other titles can be run remotely over X, so the point of an educational distro would be a little odd.

Yes, RPI does provide legal advice to students via the student union. However, if you read down the page, you find that they don't handle "Patent and copyright problems".

$12,000 at RPI... hmmm... Tuition for 2002-3 was reportedly $26,400.

I mean, granted, there's tons of financial aid, grants, and scholarships to figure in, but that's still a ton of money.

Tuition for the '02-'03 year was approximately $26,400. It was somewhat less when I attended, but not signifigantly. Did I get what I paid for? Probably. I've got a decent job with a decent salary. Then again, I didn't have to send half of a year's tuition to an organization that purports to represent the interests of the musicians. I wonder how much of that $12,000 actually went back to those musicians... I'd guess not a penny. Are they getting what they're paying for?

Networking Class Videos

I did see a video class on linear algebra in the MIT open course ware site. Are there any others available.

-Shivkumar
http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/Homepages/shivkuma/index.h tml

Flip out and write MATLAB code

I mean, they're the only EEs with REAL ULTIMATE POWER!

Oh please, dear God, please remember the name John Deep and rue it until the day you die. The name John Deep should be to geeks as kryptonite is to Superman.

I also had the misfortune of working for John Deep. He is a manipulative criminal. He started Aimster/Madster/Intranaut/BuddyUSA by exploiting the hopes of college students at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He promised big money and didn't deliver, but worst of all, he delivered little by little while tricking you into handing whatever you had over to him.

The man manipulates everyone, including his own daughter, who he whores out to sell his wares. Her name isn't even Aimee. I've met her.

This is not a bad businessman or a lousy person. This man embodies evil on this planet. This man needs to be killed in public.