Slashdot Mirror

Their life expectancy is also 30 years.

without the space

Actually, I have a 600 Mhz G3 iMac running Webvision on OS X and it is plenty fast. Go ahead click around, it can take it.

In a nutshell the grandmother can provide additional food resources to the weaned children of her child or her childrens mates (to increase their fertility) since she no longer has to provide those resources to her direct children and can produce excess to what she consumes.

Thus there is an evolutionary advantage to women surviving following their fertile years, and this advantage likely continues in different ways now.

isn't this a realisation that a good coder makes by the third year of tertiary education?

Or before. People should realize that before they even sign up to be a CS major, or they're probaly not cut out for it.

I went toUtah, which I think is a decent school, very simliar to most good CS schools in the USA. The curriculum was 4 years packed with science and engineering classes, excactly zero of which were programming classes. Any Computer Science school which actually makes majors take classes like "Programming in C++" is really just a trade school.

It's weird how sure people are that CS is about programming. It's like thinking that learning to be a surgeon is 4 years of learning how to cut with a scalpel.

isn't this a realisation that a good coder makes by the third year of tertiary education?

Or before. People should realize that before they even sign up to be a CS major, or they're probaly not cut out for it.

I went toUtah, which I think is a decent school, very simliar to most good CS schools in the USA. The curriculum was 4 years packed with science and engineering classes, excactly zero of which were programming classes. Any Computer Science school which actually makes majors take classes like "Programming in C++" is really just a trade school.

It's weird how sure people are that CS is about programming. It's like thinking that learning to be a surgeon is 4 years of learning how to cut with a scalpel.

There are already several remote access solutions for PDA users. Best of all they're freeware and cross platform.

Using the VNC graphical protocol (servers for Linux, Solaris, Windows, Mac, Dec Alpha):

• PalmVNC for Palm OS.
• VNC Viewer for PocketPC (a version for Windows CE is also available on the official site.

Text remote access using SSH (which may be all you need if you want access to the command line and to, for example, send/read email with something like PINE):

• Top Gun SSH for Palm OS.
• SSH (port of BSD SSH) for the PocketPC (aka: Windows CE).

You should know this before buying an expensive commercial solution that may not be what you really want. The only advantage the article's commercial solution is that I think VNC doesn't include encryption by default (although I bet it wouldn't be difficult to add).

I should also add that they are incredibly flexible machines and can take the heat when it comes to performance. For instance, check out Webvision. This site is being run on a little G3 iMac and gets about 35k hits/day and handles it just fine. Go ahead click. It can take it. I also run our lab website from my primary G4 workstation making it truly a all purpose machine. (bioinformatics, Photoshop, Office, Safari, Apache, x-windows for all that UNIX stuff all in an elegant plug and play package.

Moreover, from what I've read, caffeine is outlawed, so no CS program there... (None that would matter.)

Oh really?

Lots of people here who are bigtime Linux/Unix advocates

I also, am one of them.

have made the case that one of the big problems with Windows NT is that the GUI is built in, whereas with Linux/Unix the GUI is seperate and not even necessary to the functionality of the whole. When Microsoft went from NT 3.51 to NT 4.0 one of the bad things they did was integrate the Graphics into the NT kernel, which reduced reliability considerably, and sabatogued the microkernel design.

This is one of the nice things about OS X. I can run it from a terminal or even boot into the cli and never have to invoke the GUI. Honestly, this is rare these days as for 95% of tasks, the GUI is more efficient.

That last paragraph sounds like you read it off a fax direct from Apple Marketing.

Nope, just a satisfied customer. You should try them out before being so critical. Even from a server perspective, I have been quite impressed. For instance, check out Webvision. This site is averaging approximately 35 thousand hits/day from all over the world, is graphics intensive, and is running off of an old G3 iMac running OS X. Maintenance is minimal, setting it up was trivial, its completely silent as it has no fan so it can sit next to my desk without bothering me, and it was cheap.

2. Businesses arent going to buy iLamp servers: something with pretty colors but without RAID-5 isnt really a server, sorry.

Ummm, I have been running several fairly heavy duty web pages off of Macs for some time. However to respond directly to your statement, I have a webserver here that is running off of an old G3 iMac and OS X. Yeah, go ahead and click around all you want. This site is routinely getting about 30 thousand hits/day from around 1000 unique visitors. Any small business could use any Mac running OS X and function just fine with it as a webserver.

Hey, they are still available through educational channels. I just ordered another one given the success I have had with an iMac running Webvision. This site is a new iMac G3 running OS X and is getting on average 30 thousand hits/day and the machine is absolutely quiet with no fans so one can actually have their server up and running right next to your desk.

After thinking about it, the concept on disseminating information on the web via online textbooks for education is actually a difficult problem. How are textbooks different online versus a traditional book and how can they be best implemented to represent the data?

One of the oldest online textbooks, Webvision has attempted to do this, but there are significant problems. (Disclaimer: there is lots of very old html on the Webvision site and it needs a complete redesign with less gaudy graphics. I've been asked to take over it for the future and am now working on updating it in addition to finishing up my dissertation.)

Here at the University of Utah they have the "Property Redistribution" bullding, aka 'Surplus'. They sell everything remaindered by the university, usually really old; They've had every manner of medical electronics, musical instruments, computers and office furniture -- even cars )if you don't mind Ford Tauruses and Chevy Luminas). Right now they have a Sun 690MP and SGI Iris up for bid.

I've bought at least 500 bucks a crap fromt eh in teh alst two years: 3 Powermacs, 1 laptop, 2 monitors, 2 hubs and an SGI Multilink adpater (for $10 bucks that I sold on eBay for $300).

I've heard similar stories about UCLA, Oregon State and Texas A Basically, the universities strongest curiculae will have surplus from that, and for the UofU it's medical and computers.

Here at the University of Utah they have the "Property Redistribution" bullding, aka 'Surplus'. They sell everything remaindered by the university, usually really old; They've had every manner of medical electronics, musical instruments, computers and office furniture -- even cars )if you don't mind Ford Tauruses and Chevy Luminas). Right now they have a Sun 690MP and SGI Iris up for bid.

I've bought at least 500 bucks a crap fromt eh in teh alst two years: 3 Powermacs, 1 laptop, 2 monitors, 2 hubs and an SGI Multilink adpater (for $10 bucks that I sold on eBay for $300).

I've heard similar stories about UCLA, Oregon State and Texas A Basically, the universities strongest curiculae will have surplus from that, and for the UofU it's medical and computers.

I've been a firm believer that computer science for computer sciences sake is a limited enterprise, and that corporations (or small businesses) would be much more interested in someone who has expertise in another field and just happens to know how to program.

Applied computation science is certainly useful. I've personally never hired a pure CS person, but without them where would we be? Check out this link to see what I mean. All of the graphics that gamers rely on and CAD/CAM etc..etc...etc... depend on basic research.

To this end, I suggest graduate study in another field. Many graduate programs in the hard sciences (especially PhD programs in the sciences) offer good compensation packages and sometimes include low-cost housing. On top of that, you don't have to pay off your student loans for a while.

Most good PhD programs in the hard sciences (including CS) will offer a stipend as well as a tuition waver making graduate school an attractive alternative.

Now can we please make the next taboo not having a hands-free headset while driving?

Irrelevant. At least one study seems to indicate that it doesn't matter whether the phones are hands-free or not, the risk is still there. According to the same link, a previous study revealed that talking on the phone impairs driving ability significantly more than talking to other passengers in your vehicle.

The laws of physics show that semiconducter LED technology can't achieve a better than 25% electrcity to light conversion, which would be under flourecent and about half metal halide. Currently white LED's are about 12% efficient.

most of the time the OS just talks to the BIOS

This used to be true for DOS and a lot of early PC operating systems, but isn't anymore. Hardware is accessed directly - the hardware drivers are now the intermediaries between the OS and the hardware. That being said, there is a reason people stopped using the BIOS for hardware access (besides the fact that the BIOS limited what and how you could use devices) - it was slow. Same thing with a sandwhich layer OS, except now you are getting the benefits of architecture abstraction.

Which brings me to the next point - the OS doesn't have to talk to the hardware in a "sandwhich" OS. See for example the Flux OSKit project - it just provides a layer of hardware drivers with a common interface for higher-level OS facilities. It's being used for a lot of the current language-as-an-os projects.

Hmmm... I'm suprised that somebody hasn't tried to use OSKit to build an Emacs kernel. Think of it... Hurd could replace GNUMach with Emacs! Wow!

GNU/Hurd/Emacs - Press [Meta][Bucky][Cokebottle]X to enter kernel debugger mode.

,\

Check out Janos. From their page:

The Janos Virtual Machine (JanosVM) is a virtual machine for executing Java bytecodes. Unlike any available virtual machine, the JanosVM supports multiple, separate processes (called "teams" in JanosVM) within a single VM. Based on KaffeOS (and thus Kaffe), the JanosVM supports per-team separate heaps, per-team garbage collection threads, inter-team thread migration, safe cross-team reference objects, and a spiffy tutorial. Designed to support asynchronous termination of uncooperative or malicious Java bytecode applications, the JanosVM provides robust and scalable multi-process support within a single virtual machine.

The flask paper has a one paragraph argument against system call interposition. Basically the time of check is not the time of use and there may be different names to address the same resource, in other word aliasing problems.

These are valid arguments that show problems for a system call interposition tool. However, Systrace is a hybrid system, it has parts in the kernel that allow it to get whatever additional control it requires. Aliasing is not an issue in practise because resource names can be normalized and the remaining aliasing problems are merely hyptothetical. The same goes for the TOCTOU argument. In practise, you can ensure that such race conditions are not relevant.

But let me ask you another question. Have you ever used a system that is based on Flask? Or do you know anyone who has?

On the other hand, Systrace is available for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD and OpenBSD.

Interesting, my company is involved in a grant with the National Science Foundation to produce a multimedia database primarily for medical information which is all professionally cataloged so as to accept/reject submitted multimedia based on the quality and accuracy of the information the contributor provides. Anyway the goal is to give educators and students a place to share and find information with 100% signal, and no noise. It uses an established, focused, and standard vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings) as well as the usual keyword-based searching.

Reinventing the wheel, it seems (sigh).

-Sou|cuttr

Oh no, this never happens on OS X.

here's an interesting undergrad project for you -- how many famouse computer scientists in the past 40 years have originally started as mathematicians.

Actually, here is an interesting bit of information/history on famous mathematicians and computer scientists who have made it big. The interesting thing is that the University of Utah is the nexus that all of these guys came through.

Let me remind you old folks with the Altair (still in the basement) about something. Computer Engineering is not just a hobby or a club which you are qualified to join if you built a computer from the transistors up (or trio-tubes as the case may be). It is a legitamate industry and profession, as you well know.

Russ may not have designed the IC with VLSI, but he and his team designed the ALU, Registers, Datapath, Control, Memory Interface, VGA controller, DAC (if he used one), and gamepad controller, not to mention writing their own assembly that would translate to IntelMCS format, oh...and the code itself. I am sure it took more than 2 weeks to do this. Besides how many of you started by building a transistor radio? That doesn't seem to be anything cool by today's standards. Are you afraid that us younguns' are gonna pass you by?

On a redeeming note, THANK YOU ancient ones! Were it not for your tenacity and ingenuity (some a result of quick fixes ie. 8086->8088) we young wippersnappers would not be where we are today. Were it not for your concrete and cement, we greenies would have to travel in muddy rut-filled roads!

By the way, for an outlined plan of what Russ did, check out this site Computer Design It may not be up much longer since the semester is over. Maybe you guys could get an XESS board and do it too, instead of stamping out the creativity in this poor undergraduate's mind! Oh yeah, nobody's going to pay you to do it either!

Links to the files:

Tetris- WMV (18 MB) - MPG (78 MB)
Space Invaders- WMV (21 MB) - MPG (89 MB)

Click away.

Links to the files:

Tetris- WMV (18 MB) - MPG (78 MB)
Space Invaders- WMV (21 MB) - MPG (89 MB)

Click away.

Links to the files:

Tetris- WMV (18 MB) - MPG (78 MB)
Space Invaders- WMV (21 MB) - MPG (89 MB)

Click away.

Links to the files:

Tetris- WMV (18 MB) - MPG (78 MB)
Space Invaders- WMV (21 MB) - MPG (89 MB)

Click away.

Russ Christensen
Russ Christensen. 579 Heritage Center. Salt Lake City, UT 84112. (801)585-4943.
rchriste@cs.utah.edu. OBJECTIVE. Obtain a summer internship. ...
www.cs.utah.edu/~rchriste/Resume_files/resume.ht m - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.cs.utah.edu ]

teaching tennis - Challenge Matches - tennis players - first ...
... AJ Bartlett - 7-6, 7-6 Sam Moyle def. Russ Christensen - 6-4 Sam Christensen def. ... Jackie
Nygaard 7-6 Russ Christensen def. Aubrie Cope 6-4 Haley Cash def. ...
www.teachingtennis.com/site/challenges.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

teaching tennis - tennis players - first serve - second serves, ...
... Issac Nelson 18 bye 8 Mike Shigf 20 Bye 14 Allie Bergen 30 Jon Twiggs 0 3 0 3 4
Tyler Hyrske 3 0 3 0 28 Bye 12 Kaleb Nygaard 26 Bye 6 Russ Christensen 24 Bye ...
www.teachingtennis.com/tour/092102isc.htm - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.teachingtennis.com ]

russ christensen
Mr. Christnsen's Choir Page, (A festival of Lessons and Carols! St. Mary's Church
in Mt. Angel.). 2001 CD's on sale for $12 in the office... 2001. 2000. 1998. 1991. ...
sprague.salkeiz.k12.or.us/staff/christensen_russ / - 5k - Cached - Similar pages

Metro Users Group : Board of Directors
... PRESIDENT Russ Christensen LA Times ... Russ Christensen Russell J. Christensen,
Print Quality Manager, has worked at the Los Angeles Times for 34 years. ...
www.metrousers.org/board.asp?title=christensen - 8k - Dec. 11, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

Faculty Update
... northern Senegal during the 1994-95 academic year. Russ Christensen:
German Studies. A member of the Department of Modern Languages ...
www.hamline.edu/depts/isc/faculty.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

moneycentral.communities.msn.com/RHSShowChoir/prof ile?user=Russ%20Christensen
1k - Cached - Similar pages

Bill Gibbs, Kay Christensen, Angie Beck, Randy Norton, Russ ...
... In attendance: Bill Gibbs, Kay Christensen, Angie Beck, Randy Norton, Russ Butler,
Kai. Dixon, Tom Huls, Wes Womack, Cheryl Lyda, Cal Edwards, Wanda Light. ...
www.isu.edu/departments/fsen/satfacultycouncil/ 010315satfc.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Contacting the Green Independent Party of Maine
... Russ Christensen 239 Morrison Hill Rd., Farmington 04938, ph. ... 359-2283 eggplant@prexar.com,
Russ Christensen 239 Morrison Hill Rd., Farmington 04938, ph. ...
www.mainegreens.org/contact.html - 32k - Dec. 11, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

Russ Christensen
Russ Christensen. 579 Heritage Center. Salt Lake City, UT 84112. (801)585-4943.
rchriste@cs.utah.edu. OBJECTIVE. Obtain a summer internship. ...
www.cs.utah.edu/~rchriste/Resume_files/resume.ht m - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.cs.utah.edu ]

teaching tennis - Challenge Matches - tennis players - first ...
... AJ Bartlett - 7-6, 7-6 Sam Moyle def. Russ Christensen - 6-4 Sam Christensen def. ... Jackie
Nygaard 7-6 Russ Christensen def. Aubrie Cope 6-4 Haley Cash def. ...
www.teachingtennis.com/site/challenges.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

teaching tennis - tennis players - first serve - second serves, ...
... Issac Nelson 18 bye 8 Mike Shigf 20 Bye 14 Allie Bergen 30 Jon Twiggs 0 3 0 3 4
Tyler Hyrske 3 0 3 0 28 Bye 12 Kaleb Nygaard 26 Bye 6 Russ Christensen 24 Bye ...
www.teachingtennis.com/tour/092102isc.htm - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.teachingtennis.com ]

russ christensen
Mr. Christnsen's Choir Page, (A festival of Lessons and Carols! St. Mary's Church
in Mt. Angel.). 2001 CD's on sale for $12 in the office... 2001. 2000. 1998. 1991. ...
sprague.salkeiz.k12.or.us/staff/christensen_russ / - 5k - Cached - Similar pages

Metro Users Group : Board of Directors
... PRESIDENT Russ Christensen LA Times ... Russ Christensen Russell J. Christensen,
Print Quality Manager, has worked at the Los Angeles Times for 34 years. ...
www.metrousers.org/board.asp?title=christensen - 8k - Dec. 11, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

Faculty Update
... northern Senegal during the 1994-95 academic year. Russ Christensen:
German Studies. A member of the Department of Modern Languages ...
www.hamline.edu/depts/isc/faculty.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

moneycentral.communities.msn.com/RHSShowChoir/prof ile?user=Russ%20Christensen
1k - Cached - Similar pages

Bill Gibbs, Kay Christensen, Angie Beck, Randy Norton, Russ ...
... In attendance: Bill Gibbs, Kay Christensen, Angie Beck, Randy Norton, Russ Butler,
Kai. Dixon, Tom Huls, Wes Womack, Cheryl Lyda, Cal Edwards, Wanda Light. ...
www.isu.edu/departments/fsen/satfacultycouncil/ 010315satfc.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Contacting the Green Independent Party of Maine
... Russ Christensen 239 Morrison Hill Rd., Farmington 04938, ph. ... 359-2283 eggplant@prexar.com,
Russ Christensen 239 Morrison Hill Rd., Farmington 04938, ph. ...
www.mainegreens.org/contact.html - 32k - Dec. 11, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages

The way they connect their dialogs to the windows that created them looks a little bit familiar, no?

Here is the 3D models I made of Belvedere, it has Side and back pictures as well, if you wanted to know how it was done. I had to program it at the University of utah, in a language for their alpha_1 modeling. Took me two weeks to learn the language and make it.

Now if they were switching to L4, that would be cool. But it would be a research effort.

And why does anyone, at this late date, care much about high-speed serial line support?

I am really opposed against guys who are opposed against Canadians. You, my good man, are a choco-pipe. May I introduce you to a laxative? I used to be like you, until I started using Senokot. Now I FEEL GOOD! My choco-pipe couldn't open to the extreme dimensions that it can now.

Click here for a surprise.

Don't worry... no goatse here.

Click here for a surprise.

Don't worry... no goatse here.

Hmm, so God has a command line. I wonder if he asked Mel to write it in Fortran.

It's still being worked on, although why anybody would be working on a port to the DEC Alpha in 2002 is beyond me.

As a second year family practice resident, I'd have to disagree. Much of the first two years lend themselves to a lot of computer-based learning. Good examples would be some of the visually-based disciplines, such as Dermatology and Pathology. However, 3rd year and beyond is entirely different. Part of med school is learning the hands-on skills such as listening to heart tones, learning to suture lacerations, basic surgical skills, etc. The other part is the human side. You may be a great surgeon. But if you can't relate to your patients, they won't have confidence in you even though you may know the textbook information by heart. This is only gained by talking to and examining lots and lots of patients.

As for the article itself, 70% patient contact in the clinical years is probably an appropriate amount. Internship/Residency builds on those hands-on and people skills you learned in med school. You do much of the same tasks, just at a much faster pace. I'm definitely in favor of computer-based learning and testing when it's applicable. But eventually you've gotta go see the patient.

(shameless plug)

For an award-winning example of computer-based learning, check out my Alma Mater's Webpath site. (/shameless plug)

... there is indeed something special about blue: it's slightly out of focus! The reason for this is that red and green are relatively close to each other in wavelength (533nm fir max of green , and 564nm for max of red), whereas blue is much further away (437nm). The eye's lens refracts each wavelength slightly differently ( chromatic aberration), and by default focuses for red/green. Hence blue is out of focus. Moreover, blue cones are far less numerous than red and green (there is no point for nature to supply a high retinal resolution if the image is blurred anyways for optical reasons).

That's the reason why tiny yellow text (red+green) on white background (red+green+blue) is so difficult to read: the only difference is blue, which is blurred! However, big yellow text on white background is quite easily readable, as the blurring won't affect large text.

I found this link to be far better than any of the casual pdfs documention apple offers for netbooting w/o shelling out atleast $500 for 10.2 Server.

Also there is a link to how to implement it under linux (read free, as in ninja-bonghits when I'm packing) which 100% works with OS9 clients if you read the explaination of how things work and try to implement it on your own.

You'd be thinking of something like METAFONT (see, e.g., http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/fonts/metafont.htm l), then. I've seen elsewhere in the thread that it outputs some old formats, but it specifies fonts as families algorithmically. Knuth has even added an enourmous library of glyphs in the Computer Modern family. Perhaps the OSS community should provide a way for the output to be used directly in Linux, etc.?

http://insight.med.utah.edu/research/normann/norma nn.htm

I reckon his system looks better.

Multi-process JVMs are coming. Its called "Application Isolatation".

JSR-121: http://www.jcp.org/jsr/detail/121.jsp

The Expert Group is hoping to release its draft API to community review in a month or so. The draft API on the above web page is 1 year out of date, but is useful to get a handle on the scope of what's being done (if not how the API will accomplish it).

If you can't wait, check out the JanosVM:

http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/janos/janosvm.html

Take your pick:

• jsr-121
• KaffeOS
• JX
• Alta
• JanosVM
• MVM

Take your pick:

• jsr-121
• KaffeOS
• JX
• Alta
• JanosVM
• MVM

There's more info here.

Excerpt:

"There are compelling reasons to use proportional share scheduling techniques to support multimedia and other soft real-time applications on general-purpose operating systems. First, proportional share (PS) schedulers are a good match for existing infrastructure such as a periodic timer interrupt and mechanisms for assigning priorities to applications -- priorities can be mapped to shares in a proportional-share environment. Second, PS schedulers provide stronger guarantees to applications than do traditional time-sharing schedulers: they allocate a specific fraction of the CPU to each thread, and some schedulers provide error bounds on the allocation rate. Third, PS schedulers have clear semantics during underload: excess CPU time is allocated fairly, in contrast with some reservation-based schedulers that must idle or back off to a secondary scheduling policy once all application budgets are exhausted."

Uh well yeah. Here is how to do Linux, here is how to make a Solaris Jumpstart Server and here is how to run Mac as a diskless node. They all basically use the same methods via bootp... Couldn't even begin to tell you about windows support.