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I'm sorry to hear that. Is housing expensive compared to the salaries and/or pension? I stayed in H.K. for 10 days and tried to get a picture of the life there (I spend the nights in a tiny cubicle). I'd like to share some pictures with anyone who's interested: Sha Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. I had the impression that on average the housing situation looks strained but not impoverished.

I'm sorry to hear that. Is housing expensive compared to the salaries and/or pension? I stayed in H.K. for 10 days and tried to get a picture of the life there (I spend the nights in a tiny cubicle). I'd like to share some pictures with anyone who's interested: Sha Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. I had the impression that on average the housing situation looks strained but not impoverished.

I'm sorry to hear that. Is housing expensive compared to the salaries and/or pension? I stayed in H.K. for 10 days and tried to get a picture of the life there (I spend the nights in a tiny cubicle). I'd like to share some pictures with anyone who's interested: Sha Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong. I had the impression that on average the housing situation looks strained but not impoverished.

Not in the traditional sense. One of the main characteristics of a rhetorical question is that the questioner does not want or expect it to be answered. It's hard to find useful references for this kind of thing on the internet, but the following might be of interest:

http://universitywriting.shu.ac.uk/punct/advice/d_exclam.htm
http://www.writers.com/tips_punctuation.html
http://www.whitesmoke.com/punctuation-question-mark.html

The last one gives the best explanation of when you would want to consider punctuation other than a question mark. In any case, it's generally considered perfectly acceptable to do so.

I remember the first actual web site I visited was http://www.shu.ac.uk/. I was with a friend in their CS lab using an early (early!) build of Mosaic on a black & white terminal sometime around 1993. I remember thinking "this will never take off" as I watched the page with it's single, grainy, image load in around 2 minutes (and this was from their LAN!). I was perfectly happy with gopher and *ahem* FSP.

Vostok ice core data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok.html
CO2 concentrations over the last 600000 years: http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg

Sadly, I can't find the graph that superposes the temperature record over the CO2 record. I'm sure another 30 minutes of googling for it will yield it.

The spike is over the last 150 years or so, and basic modeling techniques show you that it is abnormal. All your questions can be answered by looking through the two graphs I provided you.

Alright, I exaggerated when I said that our CO2 output dwarfs all natural emissions. You're right, that's probably wrong. However, our emissions are currently not being absorbed as fast as they are generated, and total concentrations are rising quite nicely. That's the key part - we are putting stuff into the regular cycle that doesn't get absorbed.

I know you don't think that it's affecting the earth. You still haven't given a reason why, despite the well known physics of infrared absorption, which are described quite nicely here: http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/hwb/chemistry/tutorials/ molspec/irspec1.htm
The data about CO2 affecting infrared radiation from earth can be found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142, and at the Wikipedia article about greenhouse gases. If you object to the sources, you can always check the referenced literature.

I've got plenty of data. I can pull data for days. Where's yours? Where's your peer reviewed article? All you have is a few people who had to get a BBC documentary made, because people kept laughing at their theories and wouldn't bother publishing their papers. BTW, I've seen the BBC documentary - the data referenced in there, as well as the analysis thereof, has been widely discredited. For something real, read the IPCC reports: start here (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm), and don't stop until the end. Then come back.

Oh, and just for the heck of it, because I like Woods Hole and a friend of mine worked there, here's a little summary they threw together about the CO2 data collected: http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/ warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm

Again - where's your data?

There are some interesting video on their website 3D Imaging: Fast 3D Scan Technologies

Lower resolution WMV movie for Windows users: (320 x 240, WMV file) , 4.7 MB

Lower resolution QuickTime movie for Mac OSX users: (320 x 240, MOV file) , 3.8 MB

There are some interesting video on their website 3D Imaging: Fast 3D Scan Technologies

Lower resolution WMV movie for Windows users: (320 x 240, WMV file) , 4.7 MB

Lower resolution QuickTime movie for Mac OSX users: (320 x 240, MOV file) , 3.8 MB

There are some interesting video on their website 3D Imaging: Fast 3D Scan Technologies

Lower resolution WMV movie for Windows users: (320 x 240, WMV file) , 4.7 MB

Lower resolution QuickTime movie for Mac OSX users: (320 x 240, MOV file) , 3.8 MB

If this interests you, MERI has additional information in the form of a movie about it.

Micro-manipulation in our days is either done with an expensive customized systems (chip-manufacturement) or manually (cell-manipulation). The aim of micro-robotic projects is to bring automation to the micro-scale.

At the end of the MiCRoN project at least 3 robots where build and fully assembled. For example there is a list of robots, which were build in the MINIMAN-project already. Only 2 of them were used for the final demonstration. Many prototypes had to be build and discarded, before the design was completed.

It is true, that PCB-soldering is fully automated, but this is done with highly customized systems. On the macro-scale even the industry is interested in making assembly lines more flexible. It is also true, that cell-manipulation has become a common task in research and industry. But it is rarely done in an automated way. If a project requires injecting 10000 cells with a fluid, most probably the project will be dropped.

When researchers are operating a scanning electron microscope, they regularly have to break the vacuum to do a very simple manipulation. A microrobot in the vacuum chamber can save a lot of time here.

The MiCRoN public report has not yet been released. However the MINIMAN-report is here and we have published a lot of pictures and demonstration-videos on our MMVLWiki.

Note, that most of the control- and computer-vision-software is running under Linux. The real-time computer-vision library called Mimas and the computer-vision software of the MiCRoN project is available for free under the terms of the GNU license.

Micro-manipulation in our days is either done with an expensive customized systems (chip-manufacturement) or manually (cell-manipulation). The aim of micro-robotic projects is to bring automation to the micro-scale.

At the end of the MiCRoN project at least 3 robots where build and fully assembled. For example there is a list of robots, which were build in the MINIMAN-project already. Only 2 of them were used for the final demonstration. Many prototypes had to be build and discarded, before the design was completed.

It is true, that PCB-soldering is fully automated, but this is done with highly customized systems. On the macro-scale even the industry is interested in making assembly lines more flexible. It is also true, that cell-manipulation has become a common task in research and industry. But it is rarely done in an automated way. If a project requires injecting 10000 cells with a fluid, most probably the project will be dropped.

When researchers are operating a scanning electron microscope, they regularly have to break the vacuum to do a very simple manipulation. A microrobot in the vacuum chamber can save a lot of time here.

The MiCRoN public report has not yet been released. However the MINIMAN-report is here and we have published a lot of pictures and demonstration-videos on our MMVLWiki.

Note, that most of the control- and computer-vision-software is running under Linux. The real-time computer-vision library called Mimas and the computer-vision software of the MiCRoN project is available for free under the terms of the GNU license.

Micro-manipulation in our days is either done with an expensive customized systems (chip-manufacturement) or manually (cell-manipulation). The aim of micro-robotic projects is to bring automation to the micro-scale.

At the end of the MiCRoN project at least 3 robots where build and fully assembled. For example there is a list of robots, which were build in the MINIMAN-project already. Only 2 of them were used for the final demonstration. Many prototypes had to be build and discarded, before the design was completed.

It is true, that PCB-soldering is fully automated, but this is done with highly customized systems. On the macro-scale even the industry is interested in making assembly lines more flexible. It is also true, that cell-manipulation has become a common task in research and industry. But it is rarely done in an automated way. If a project requires injecting 10000 cells with a fluid, most probably the project will be dropped.

When researchers are operating a scanning electron microscope, they regularly have to break the vacuum to do a very simple manipulation. A microrobot in the vacuum chamber can save a lot of time here.

The MiCRoN public report has not yet been released. However the MINIMAN-report is here and we have published a lot of pictures and demonstration-videos on our MMVLWiki.

Note, that most of the control- and computer-vision-software is running under Linux. The real-time computer-vision library called Mimas and the computer-vision software of the MiCRoN project is available for free under the terms of the GNU license.

One of the space products has been Microspheres several magnitudes more precise than those made on earth. Other of the NASA Microgravity projects can lead directly to ultrapure chip development for use in, for example, pinhead size medical and scientific gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers.

Because the microgravity should allow for high chip yield and high quality, the remaining issue is cost of production.

Allowing for $10,000 per Kg (source) for a mature launch/return system like the Saturn 5, Delta, or Titan series, a 100 Kg furnace containing 10 Kg of product would cost $1,000,000 to orbit. If the output is 0.01 gram chips at 95% yield, that gives you 950,000 chips. If you can sell them for a bit over $1.05 per chip, you're in the money. At only $5000/Kg, you are way ahead!

The medical market alone for $5-10 one-shot broad spectrum biochemical testers would easily absorb the 10 million-plus that could be produced with monthly launches.

1. Insert sample into tester
2. Plug tester into USB/Firewire port
3. Read results from software support package
4. (Profit!)

I went to Sheffield Hallam, a University that also isn't particularly well recognised for computer science. Nevertheless, I was very happy at University, the course was as practically based as it could be for computing (if you get too much into specifics it'll be out of date before you finish). I ended up with a decent grade, a 2:1 (I don't think Merkin Universities allocate grades on the same scale). By contrast a friend of mine went to Imperial College, a very well respected University, and I'm not afraid to admit I was a little jealous of him for getting in there.

Fast-forward to three years after leaving University, he hated his time there and finishd up with only a 2:2. He's doing a rather dull database administrator job whilst I'm a Senior Systems Administrator, working on a large Linux network doing a job I enjoy. And whilst I don't think one should get too hung-up on money, I think it's relevant to say that I earn more than double his salary.

Essentially, I believe that it's more important for you to be at a Univeristy where you are interested in the course and happy with your surroundings. You don't (or shouldn't) go to Uni to say 'I studied at XYZ', you go to learn. You can do this wherever you are, although obviously it helps to have good teaching staff. Since finishing my course I have found that most employers aren't actually too concerned about what University one went to, or even what grade one got or course one studied. They're far more interested in employing someone they feel can fulfil the needs of the role they're interviewing for. If you work hard at University, you know your stuff and you can show it, it really doesn't matter where you studied.

If you're happy at your current University, you like the people you're studying with and the course seems to be covering the topics you want to cover, stick with it.

Maybe you knew that and you're being funny in some way I don't understand?

Here! Here!

The phrase is actually "Hear, hear!", and it originated in the British parliament in the 18th century as a contraction of the phrase, "Hear him, hear him." :D
(Info stolen from The Phrase Finder.)

And don't even get me started on bang and hash.

You mean the Asterisk and Octothorp?

Phrase Dictionary

It's understandable for people to mix this up, but not someone who is paid to be an "editor".

Horray!
This and this answer my questions :)

a lot != allot != alot ("alot" is not a word). Get it? Got it? Oh, never mind.

Sorry if you feel ranted at, you were the straw the broke the camel's back. One language abuser too many.

BTW: The correct phrase is "toe the line".

No. He means toeing

See this link for more information.

> I was referring to people willing to speculate in SCO stock,

P.T. Barnum might suggest that there's a potential SCO investor born every minute.

if the article clearly states that *c* is a prerequisite and is about gcc compiler internals on a very specific hardware platform the article is clearly catering for the technical specialist knowlegeable/or interested about such topics. why shouldnt it be on the front page. Since when has the front page been *slashdot for idiots* ?

if you cannot understand *c* or take the time to read and understand the suggested references then do not be surprised the article is unaccessable. Typical young /. whipper snapper wanting everything NOW ... :)

Dare you *not to do your homework* and post statements like this on the openbsd or gcc usenet forums ... hung drawn and quartered before you could even spell slashdot.

RTFM, RTFTB, man gcc(1), read the manual, already faq ...

Maybe a better suggestion maybe to post a question in the discussion asking for help or for someone to summarize the interesting points. Must use slashdot powers for good, not evil :)

One theory

Want to destroy SCO? Contribute to a Death of a thousand cuts by filing suit in small claims court. Only a 150,000 such suits should tap SCOX's market cap.

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.

I'm a grammar fascist as much as the next really annoying guy, but two points:

One, he was emulating an older form of English. Specifically, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," by Lord Tennyson. I wouldn't nitpick grammar or spelling on anything before around 1900, as English had few formal references and strict rules in those times.

Two, the style above may have been more of a contraction, and not an attempt at a possessive. "Our's not" is the poem-styled contraction of "Ours is not," referring to "Our place is not..." The poet chose to use "Our's" instead of trying to wrap a tongue around the spelling or extra syllable in "Ours's" or "Ours is."

Poetic license allows you to bend the rules, rhyming on 'I' when grammar requires 'me,' or dropping troublesome syllables to achieve natural scance and meter.

Many "mom and pop and kids" circuses that toured small towns could not afford the expense of maintaining large animals such as camels and elephants, or dangerous and also expensive ones such as lions and tigers. Often, their only menagerie was a few dogs and a pony. The majority of their entertainment consisted of clowning, acrobatics and juggling, with a few acts that involved the dogs and pony. The larger, more sophisticated and better equipped circuses came to refer to these little guys as "dog and pony shows."

I'm sure there was the occasional carnie who would put on "special" shows for select clients, but so far as I know beastiality has long been illegal in many US states and, therefore, the practice you describe, performed in the US, would present a very real risk of imprisonment to all participants - hence the legends about "pony shows" down in ye olde Tijuana.

It's "hear, hear." "A shout of support or agreement. Originated in the British parliament in the 18th century as a contraction of 'hear him, hear him'. It is still often heard there although sometimes used ironically these days." http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/178100.html

It certainly suggests the cure(s) (as in many other substance or technology distribution regulation problems) are nearly as bad as the "problem," the famous Pyrrhic victory...

I think if we get back to P2P or E2E, with good tools for users to opt-in to (enforcing filtering is as unpleasant as enforcing reciept) and the marketers realise that there is zero marginal value in sending to a user who has even the mildest filtering, as they are not going to buy... nor is it likely the random strings addressed in the spam-honeypot domains like hotmail.com...

It'll stop when they stop making money bothering unwilling recipients.

Why does spam exist? To sell, and if the spammers are too stupid to realise that I'm not going to accidentally buy their stupid product, not going to come to my senses and realise the value of extra throbbing inches .

You mean this?

All the www's a stage,
And all the web designers and database admins merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one programmer in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the n00b,
Drooling and clicking on his brother's comp.
And then the whining freshman, with his pirated WinXP
And shining new imac, lugging his laptop
Unwillingly to class. And then the coder,
Cursing like furnace, with a woeful sigh
On the night of the deadline. Then a hacker,
Full of strange perl scripts and bearded like RMS,
Jealous in GNU/honor, sudden and quick in attacking M$,
Seeking the wizard reputation
Even in the economic downturn. And then the guru,
In fair round belly with long flowing hair,
With eyes severe and beard uncut,
Full of wise one-liners and modern programming paradigms;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful PDP11 code, well saved, now obsolete
On his rusting i686; and his quick nerdy keystrokes,
Falling again toward newbie typing speeds, null pointers
And unmatched parentheses in his code. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans keyboard, sans monitor, sans processor, sans everything.

Didn't get it? Read Shakespeare's original

Considering that a small paint fleck travelling at 20,000 kph can imbed itself through several layers of lexan, what's to to stop stray bolts from constantly clipping this thing in two?

No - in this punishment, the hanging is not the same as in execution by hanging. A proper explanation from here:

The victim is first hung by the neck but taken from the scaffold while still alive. The entrails and genitals are then removed and the torso hacked into four quarters.

Lovely stuff... I think I'd reserve that one for spammers, personally ;-)

Nirvana
All in all is all we are.

all questions have been asked before
dictionary

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men".

From: Phrase Finder.

-- Multics

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Cut off your nose to spite your face?

By that logic, we should simply shut down the Internet because of all the bad things that can be accomplished by it.
The way this is going, all the 'net will be good for in 10 years is advertising and spying on us in our homes.

Well, I can't find 'selling a bridge' in any permutation there, but that's a well-beaten dead horse already... anyway, there's an idiom reference here that you might try out.

It seems that the president of UW didn't actually sign anything, despite all appearances to the contrary. viz:

"In retrospect, it was a mistake to announce agreement in principle with respect to the curriculum initiatives, a mistake for which I take the responsibility." (my emphasis)

You might call it "good news" although I think at best it's a Pyrrhic victory. The damage done to UW's reputation -- unnecessarily as it turns out -- is going to take more fixing than just another slashdot article. We got stomped on, and justifiably.

Fortunately the forum was streamed and recorded by the student government, the Feds, and you can listen to it by downloading the mp3 (29 MB). Although we might take down UW's internet connection ;-)

I'm hosting a group project to transcribe the recording. Please help! It contains the president's apology but also some interesting information about C# as well.

simon
UW CS Alum
simonwoodside.com

PS. The School of Computer Science rejected the deal before the original announcement. This is all concerned with Computer Engineering, not CS.

I suspect you mean hear, hear.

My god you're a fucking idiot. Haven't you ever heard of the expression "the pot calling the kettle black"?

All this crap probably started when Business schools starting using military strategy and Machiavellian philosopy as the ultimate way to win a war with business competition.

I surmise that you have never been to business school. I am currently getting my MBA. We don't learn many Machiavellian techniques. We learn mostly accounting, finance, some law, and some basic computer information. Pretty standard stuff so that you don't drive a company into the ground. We don't talk about how to get ahead by being the most slimy. Should we? By the time you've reached about 30 (the average age at my school), you're either an ethical person or you're not. I doubt a one-semester course is going to change you much. An ethics class in high school, or perhaps a religious upbringing, would likely have a much greater effect.

I agree with your third paragraph, but your first two are mindless ranting.

I beg to differ, but you are partly right. Look here

> "We would like him to come to the free software community and explain himself to us about it."
> How is this "flying off the handle"?
Its not. However RMS does seem to have started using the royal we :-) Thatcher started doing it and it became clear that she was going completely potty so we should be worried!

> "We would like him to come to the free software community and explain himself to us about it."
> How is this "flying off the handle"?
Its not. However RMS does seem to have started using the royal we :-) Thatcher started doing it and it became clear that she was going completely potty so we should be worried!

In the 14th century it was "champing." The pronounciation has changed to chomping, but the sense is the same. I tend to use "champing" but I'm a 14th century kind of guy, so I think you could use either without raising eyebrows.

The phrase is "eat your cake and have it too" NOT "have your cake and eat it too". You can't eat your cake if you didn't have it in the first place. ;)

But actually, the order is reserved -- and it makes a lot more sense that way. Once you eat your cake, you no longer have it ... you can't have it both ways.

A quick Net search lead to the following, from a phrase discussion group:

"You can't have your cake and eat it too -- One can't use something up and still have it to enjoy. This proverb was recorded in the book of proverbs by John Heywood in 1546, and is first attested in the United States in the 1742 'Colonial Records of Georgia' in 'Original Papers, 1735- 1752.' The adage is found in varying forms: You can't eat your cake and have it too. You can't have everything and eat it too; Eat your cake and have the crumbs in bed with you, etc. ..." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).

As a side note we did something similar to this at my uni. during my final year using a system called FirstClass. Its specifically developed for for interactive CBT and remote learning.

Links
Firstclass intranet and collaborative classroom
Sheffield Hallam University virtual campus
--
Lauren Child, lauren@laurenchild.net