Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Is Coming To A College Near You
Xyn writes "Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates visited UW-Madison today as part of his 2005 College Tour, designed to promote greater youth involvement in technology careers. Gates discussed "The Impact and Opportunity of Technology: Why Computer Science? Why Now?" at a student forum."
I think he wants kids to grow up to replace Ballmer and NOT waste money on broken chairs.
Everyone line up with the shiny bits to welcome Bill! Now... aim....
Why Computer Science? Why Now?
Because we need people with more skill to fix up all your shit Bill.
In those pictures, Bill Gates looks entirely too much like most of my other university professors.
Maybe he got into the wrong line of work? I mean, teaching is such a lucrative industry, after all.
The Slashdot Limerick
From the Post:
Ahem.
Anyway, I searched and searched for more information on Gates' special visit and what he really might have said. Alas, the closest I came was buried on a meta-referred pages was the helpful:
I hate to jump the gun here, but any wagers on the content of his presentation? Any bets "involvement in technology careers" was pretty much a pitch for Microsoft? I'm not saying Gates shouldn't pitch his company, hell he should even die for it (insert your own interpretation here...)! But a surprise guest speaker? Is this a common thing? Regardless, I liken it to political free air time, and the university, to be fair and balanced (ahem), should offer another surprise guest professor, perhaps Linus (and I'm not talking Lucy's brother here)?
What did the liberal arts major say to the compsci major?
>
>
>
>"Would you like fries with that order, sir?"
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
I was going to attend CS 480 tomorrow, but now I just don't know if it's worth the possibility of seeing the Evil One in person.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
...He and Booger immediately started training to win their place as Delta Delta Deltas.
No matter what your opinion of him, if the Richest Man in the world suddenly showed up in your Computer Science class as a guest speaker, that would be mindblowing.
OOH! It'll be just as successful as the Microsoft Student Ambassador Program (http://www.studentambassador.net/) at a Tech School!!! (i.e. not at all)
izm
I mean, why not MIT, etc, as his top five schools to visit? (No offense to any Wisconsiners out there, my Cheesehead suitemate will doubtlessly exact revenge on me for you)
Anyways, wouldn't high schools be an even better choice? I mean, I feel that if I'm in college, I'm either already studying Computer Science, or not. I mean, maybe you could convert engineering students from other disciplines, but most college students with a major in mind would be harder to get to switch. I think he'd do better at the high school level, esp. around junior level, when he can influence the people to apply to schools with a CompSci bent, or convince them to take CompSci as a high school senior.
Just my four cents. I found two extra in a vending machine, which doesn't even take pennies (stupid drunks)
I wouldnt have a heads up for preparing a pie to smash in his face!
If you're sad you missed out on the opening dates, don't worry, there's a few more to come:
Wednesday: University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin.
Thursday: University of Waterloo and Columbia University.
Friday: Princeton University and Howard University.
Found the dates on Kevin Schofield's blog, thanks!
What is left to study in Computer Science? What algorithms are still out there waiting to be uncovered?
In just a short 100 years since people really started thinking seriously about computation, the whole science has progressed to the point that it is a well-understood field (well, maybe not to freshmen). These days, it is more a matter of rehashing and recombining already existing theories and algorithms to come up with interesting implementations. However, the implementations are of non-computer science related ideas rather than pure CS.
We know the best ways to implement loops, data structures, sorting algorithms, searching algorithms, and optimizations. So what we do is just find new ways of putting these together to solve our computing problems. But that isn't science, that's engineering. It's technology.
CS as a field of study is a dead end, unfortunately. The real progress to be seen in the future is not in the science of algorithms, but in the application of the existing corpus to our needs. This requires dreamers, not people who know the nuts and bolts.
So Bill Gates is wrong. CS is not a necessary field. It is necessary to understand the concepts behind CS, but as a strict field of study, it is very lacking. For those who want pure theory, Math is a better field of study. And for those that want to do something with computers, CE or EE is a better way to go.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Does he mention at all that he dropped out of post secondary?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
The intro programming class he crashed, CS 302, teaches OOP using Java.
I don't know about you, but at my college he would have been laughed out of the room... Plus, I really doubt he would show up in any of my CS classes this semester, Unix and System's Security.
Bill Gates has been making himself a bit more high profile in the education movement so this is no surprise really. Back in February, he went to a conference with governers from the 50 states to discuss education:
"America's high schools are obsolete..." - Bill Gates
Though I am not a Bill Gates fan, he has a valid point, and more importantly, he has the power & money to actually do something about it beyond just talk. While I have little doubt that he wouldn't mind expanding MS's market share, I do not think Gates is disingenuous in his efforts. Anything/anyone that advocates a good look at our public education is a good thing (and I dont mean talking about vouchers), so lets not let the anti-MS attitudes overwhelm the basic good that can come out of his efforts.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Bill Gates was at the University of Michigan in the morning. He pushed the XBox360, and grabbed the wrong controller for the demo.
So, a guy who famously became the richest person in the world by skipping college and leaving a technical career in favour of business is now trying to persuade people to go to college and study technology?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
No matter what your opinion of him, if the Richest Man in the world suddenly showed up in your Computer Science class as a guest speaker, that would be mindblowing.
I suppose Ikea DOES use computers a fair bit...
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
that low end and high end tech jobs are moving overseas and that plenty of graduates today are out of work and changing careers?
THIS is why tech careers are so unpopular as a major in college now.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Come work in computer science, boys and girls! Why? Because you'll have an opportunity to experience first-hand the effect of offer and demand on the job market, when we at MS will lobby for an increase of H1B -- the ones for 2006 are already allocated.
Because since the industry is mostly managed by lawyers and MBA, not engineers, you in the tech field will never compete with us lawyers and sons of lawyers for these coveted positions of execs who get a raise at the same time techies are laid off.
Because in spite of all Bill Gates' public wailing for attracting talent, he spits on tech talent, and so do most CEOs. The only "talent" he cares really about is execs, especially sales and marketing execs. That's talent. Design? Programming? Architecture? A commodity at best. A cost to be outsourced.
And you wonder why there is such a decrease in engineering and science students? Of course they want to work in finance and law. Do you think they are stupid?
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
...stand on a trireme.
There is still a lot of interesting work going on in CS and will continue to be for some time. CS is a relatively new scientific field. There will be no shortage of new work to be done for a long time.
You could make the same argument about math. After all haven't Newton, Gauss, Lagrange, Leibnitz, et al already discovered everything there is to know hundreds of years ago? Is math a dead end field too? No, but math is basically the same way today as you are describing CS. It's combining and reevaluating what we already know in new ways, but there are completely new things still being discovered, as with CS. Read some of the ACM journals and you will find some interesting stuff (if you're into CS).
If you think Bill Gates going to college is interesting, you might want to watch Bill Gates Goes to College, a movie staring BillG and Napoleon Dynamite, everyone's favorite antihero. Totally hilarious...
Napoleon: "I've got like, computer hacking skills, probably the best I know of."
Bill: "I don't think so."
MS plugs aside, it's really great, and watching Napoleon pull a roller-skating Bill from his totally sweet bike is well worth it. Enjoy =D
...and was greated with this http://weblogs.asp.net/ajuneja/archive/2004/02/25/ 80113.aspx
Zombies go to campus II !!!
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
.. probably not .. because I can just see him getting drilled by tough questions a la Tony Blair during his campaign speech / open discussion in front of some UK youngsters.
The Peanut Gallery, Ubergeek, Biblically Sober
NCAAbbs.com: Thousands of fans, Hundreds of teams, Just one place
Microsoft depends on recruiting young developers more than on any other population segment it reaches - market, purchasers, legislators, investors, whoever. All that crazy-ass "developers developers developers developers, developers developers developers developers" ranting comes from the heart over there. But Microsoft has lost the zeitgeist in that segment - Linux got it. Otherwise, Linux's tiny market share, especially among normals, would never justify the amount of software developed for it by multi-platform vendors.
Gates is out there trying to keep Microsoft looking cool to their most important audience. Too bad he's easily outcooled by an expat Finn and a cartoon penguin.
--
make install -not war
I attended the event this afternoon, and overall found it to be interesting, particularly the Q&A session. Gates' response to a question concerning Microsoft potentially collaborating with Google was entertaining. :)
Other moments of note:
A short starring Bill Gates and Jon Heder (of Napolean Dynamite) was shown, which I found to be surprisingly hilarious..
"Where do you want to go today?"
"Wherever I feel like going, gosh..."
XBOX 360s were on-hand, but should have been demoed by a gamer rather than Bill himself; seeing him attempt to fumble through and explain the menu systems was more painful than informative, and seeing him try to take a corner successfully in Project Gotham Racing 3 was humorous, to say the least. :)
If you happen to be there. Ask him lots of questions. Let's get something on the record. Here are some I can think of. Make up your own.
Could Microsoft ever open its code and make more money from support than developement?
What's up with Microsoft and Linux? Seems like you guys have the same goal of wanting to write geat software for the benefit of everyone. Why not collaborate?
Microsoft was recently sued by 20 states and found guilty of violatling the Clayton and Sherman anti trust acts. What have you done to rectify that?
It's still not possible to buy an MS-free computer from many vendords. Why? Will you personally pledge you will put no pressure on an vendors to sell "microsoft only" systems.
Just keep asking questions. We want to know.
Anyone involved with the music programs at the remaining colleges on the tour should organize pep bands to greet him with the Imperial March.
someone can bean him with a pie again! Thats about the best picture of him.
He probably needs to go to these places to try to build a relationship with colleges so that they'll actually expose their students to windows development. Of course most computers are running Windows, but at least from what I've seen, colleges aren't teaching with it. The general sentiment, and in many cases the right sentiment, at school plays microsoft as the enemy and if you can't get developers to like your company, you can't get developers to work for it.
.NET, and then direct us to get free software from MSDNAA. To her surprise no one in the class had heard of it. The administration had decided that its students didn't need free software from Microsoft and set up the site to access the software but never told anyone. At a different school, the SysAdmins refused to allow Visual Studio to be installed on lab computers for a class that is taught in C#, but were eventually convinced to allow it but only if the teacher and not them would support it.
Microsof can't get Universities to take something for nothing. They offer many schools' students free downloads of Windows Operating Systems, developer tools, and server tools as part of their "MSDN Academic Alliance." At one school, we had a Microsoft speaker come to class to talk about
There is a general reluctance to use Microsoft tools and language in academia, and this is probably leading to graduates that are far less equipped to program for windows than for Linux. It should be important to Microsoft to try to get good press on campus.
First off, I think you are spot on about this. However, you are looking at it from a different angle than I am.
The foundations are set and, as you say, unless someone comes up with a completely new type of computational structure, those foundations are relatively easily grasped. Why, then, is it necessary that students wishing to go into the computer fields should have a full CS curriculum? These fundamental concepts are teachable in a single semester. The rest of the curriculum ought to be focused on how to put these things together into usable structures (programs), but that isn't CS, it is CE.
CS, the solving of problems like finding elegant solutions to very thorny problems (P=NP, etc), is a branch of mathematics, and I fully agree that as a discipline within mathematics it ought to be kept around as a branch curriculum. However, on its own it lacks the rigor that a pure math curriculum can provide.
So I think that studying CS as a scientific discipline in isolation is pretty useless. You can only get so far until you reach the limits of the conceptual framework. And studying CS as a means to learn computer programming leaves you with far too much conceptual baggage to be able to think "outside the box". There will of course be those who have both a firm grasp of the theory and a great idea and the means to implement it. These people will inevitably come up with the Next Big Thing, but it won't be a breakthrough in Computer Science that brought it forward but a new way of looking at an existing problem. That requires an understanding of real-world problems, not the purity of Computer Science.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I wasn't actually trolling, I really would like to know more.
I was referring to the fact that "Gates' busy afternoon" only warranted 3 paragraphs. What "exciting opporunities" are there that Gates alludes to?
What "new breakthrough technologies" did he introduce to his audience?
To me, this seems like bad reporting.
I realise that the full video stream would be available tomorrow and I also realise that by then I won't care anymore. Enquiring minds want to know now!
Tout careers in technology or outsource jobs. Do both, and it will just confirm what we knew all along: it's better to be lucky than good.
welcome our new... WHAT AM I SAYING! *slaps self*
whew, that was close.
If he came by my university, UC Santa Cruz, I think he would not be verbally attacked. Not in an abusive way, but I think the professors might ask him questions that make him look stupid. The School of Engineering here is almost entirely Unix based and almost all (or all, I'm not sure) the professors in the School of Engineering run some flavor of *nix (Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X). I remember worrying about having to use windows for my CS major when I got here, and quickly learned that you do not need anything windows. In fact, having windows just means you need to use cygwin or putty, instead of using an OS that does all that stuff natively. I think if Bill were to come here, he might regret it as many of the professors here have relatively high reputations in the CS research community and are very anti-Microsoft.
From the first day of my Operating Systems class:
(This is all from memory from six months ago)
"How many of you use a Unix based OS?"
about 2/3 of the class raises their hands
"How many of you use Windows?"
the remaining 1/3 raises their hands
"I hope to change that by the end of this quarter."
-Daryl Long
I hope that most universities are like mine. I could not understand how a professor of Computer Science could actually use Windows. To me, it just does not compute. In that case, Bill better choose his route carefully. Hey! Thats probably why chose to go to Wisconsin of all places (It was one of those sad places they use Windows maybe)!
So in my college psyc class, the teacher asks us to think of the most intelligent person we know. One kid said bill gates. i couldnt help but laugh at him. he was truly puzzled by my laughter, and asked "dont you like xbox!"
Muahhaaahahhaaa!!
When will you stop beating your wife?
How many chairs does Ballmer go through in a month?
You've said "the Chinese fucked us" to Kai Fu Lee, what exactly did you mean by that?
What do you think about outsourcing?
Why Computer Science? Why bother?
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I don't want Bill to show up @ my school for CS... I want him to teach me the GREAT BILL GATES TECHNIQUES OF: Business Take Over And Underhanded Techniques
-=Linsys=-
http://www.intrusionsec.com
I think it is important that you really nail down what you mean be "breakthroughs in computing". In fact, I do not see anywhere where I used that term. You must have pulled it out of thin air, because I didn't say anything about laymen coming up with any sort of computing breakthrough. I will be the first to admit that there is an extrordinarily high probability that someone doing active research in any topic will discover a field-specific breakthrough before a layman.
But none of this gets to the point of my original post which is that CS is a relatively limited subset of mathematics and should be treated as such rather than separated out into a wholly different field.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
About 2 years ago he lectured in a southern Calif university. I was there (on the outside) as part of a demonstration against H1B's and outsourcing. One of his suited handlers came up to a demonstrator and claimed more H1B's were needed for the "tech shortage". He was talking to an unemployed techie. Gotta love suits. They have their own reality.
Table-ized A.I.
I'd rather see something like this...
One night only: Come see renowned hypnotist Tom Delucha as he tries his craft on Steve "Monkeyboy" Ballmer!
This sig is false.
The tickets for his visit to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sold out quickly too. But his talk was remarkably dull, the questioners were inarticulate (even the one person who tried to raise a FLOSS argument against Gates), and the hall was nowhere near filled. After asking around, I learned that Gates basically told the University he wanted to address the students; he essentially invited himself over. UIUC, being a large source of Microsoft employees, was perfectly willing to continue their relationship with Microsoft and promote his talk heavily. The local media didn't ask any questions (such as how he became so wealthy), nor did they refrain from expressing their unexamined adulation of money.
What would have been far more interesting (particularly considering these are ostensibly educational facilities) would have been to have a response talk from someone at the FSF that was promoted with equal vigor and University backing, and broadcast on University television just as Gates' talk was. When Brad Kuhn came to visit not that long after Gates' visit, Kuhn's talk was also sparsely attended nor was it carried on University television. But thanks to a UIUC group (Free Software Society) you can download it and hear what he had to say (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#FS S04). Kuhn's talk was far more substantive than Gates' graphics demo.
Perhaps Gates will take the opportunity to again call free software "unamerican" or a "cancer" as Microsoft reps have done on previous visits to campuses and in other tours. Then the follow-the-leader coverage of his visit will have something interesting to quote and an excuse to ask why free software matters. But I'm not holding my breath for the local media or the Universities that let him give his job pitch to supply a more thorough examination of how we got where we are.
Digital Citizen
er... where is my pie!?
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
If he had obtained that money in a reasonably honest way and by producing the best product we'd be all over him. As it is he was handed a monopoly by IBM and has illegally defended said monopoly whilst producing sub-standard products that would have died in a competitive market. The antipathy I have towards Bill Gates is having to clean up his mess on my non-technical friends' and family's PCs because crushing the competition and fancy marketing was more important than making a decent product.
So whilst it's great that he donates to charity let's not forget that he obtained his fortune illegally.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
No. Microsoft owns a monopoly on the OS business. Giving up their position to do support would do nothing but result in huge profit losses since they'd have to hire THOUSANDS of on-site 'technical support' people for the MILLIONS of users out there. Give a good financial reason why and they'd consider it.
What's up with Microsoft and Linux? Seems like you guys have the same goal of wanting to write geat software for the benefit of everyone. Why not collaborate?
Because their business goals are mutually exclusive. Oh and the whole 'you will not get paid for writing this massive program which millions of users will use for FREE' isn't something employees like to hear. Money still makes the world go round.
Microsoft was recently sued by 20 states and found guilty of violatling the Clayton and Sherman anti trust acts. What have you done to rectify that?
Nothing. Linux still isn't in position to topple Windows as a major OS. You don't shoot the horse pulling the buggy until you can afford a car. Try again when Linux becomes mass market feasible.
It's still not possible to buy an MS-free computer from many vendords. Why? Will you personally pledge you will put no pressure on an vendors to sell "microsoft only" systems.
Dell recently started selling Windows-less PC. If it catches on, you've won. If it doesn't, then it means the market for non-Windows only PCs isn't ready yet. Try again later.
If anything I'd ask Bill Gates, what was the reasoning for deciding to make the anti-virus program of Windows Vista non-standard despite the numerous complaints against viruses in older Windows versions? Also, to what level of guarantee would customers recieve should they sign for anti-virus protection with Microsoft? Finally, for what reason has Microsoft decided to withhold the source code of the now defunct code of Windows 1.0, 3.0, 3.1, 95 (and maybe 98, but thats kind of pushing it)?
One thing that I noticed in my two years of college now is that Microsoft is *very active*, always coming to CS orientation classes to give talks (UIC alums working at MS), giving talks to the CS college, actively looking for interns two times a year, actively partecipating in job fairs.
Kudos to them. They realize that if they want future talent, they need to sell the idea of working for MS as early as possible. Why don't I see Apple, Sun, IBM doing this?
Personally, I don't think there would be much substance in college dropout's talk on software engineering. His career is the ultimate proof - all software MS ever created was largely driven with a single thing in mind - how to lock in the world and make everybody else's software obsolete.
Now, if he decided to speak about how to become extremely successful in business that would be another story.
He's coming to somewhere near me?
*reaches for sniper-rifle*
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
anyway to get to see him even if you don't go to columbia?
If I had been in the class, I would have asked Bill the following:
I was present for the large speech that he gave, amazenly adept at improv speaking, the question and answer session was by far the most interesting part. Although a close second was a tech that he demoed using a cell phone as basically a storage unit. What it was was a camera and a projector hooked up to a computer, when he placed his cell phone on the table the camera recognized it, and communicated to it (bluetooth?) at which time, right above it the projector put out an image of a Windows CE style desktop, asking for authentication, at which time he did a fingerprint scan and confirmed his identity. Then to demo one of the aspects of the tech he laid a business card on the desk, the camera scanned it and automatically got the rest of the info off of his phone, then put up another "window" on the table displaying all the info and the picture. He then flipped the card over, showing some hand written notes, which the scanner converted to text and then added to a "notes" section. He then just flipped the card over and dragged it to the CE section of the table and it downloaded all the info to his phone. This was really interesting to me and to see it was quite interesting with what is in the works. I have a feeling thought that some other company besides Microsoft will come out with this first, if only because it seems quite simple to implement once the idea is in someone's head.
I agree with your reasoning. However, whether I would agree with his comments or not, I would still like to hear what he has to say. For better or worse, Bill Gates and his comments influence the course of technological development. This article avoids any risk of controversy or depth by just being a puff piece.
As you say though - Bill Gates has always been a better business man than an engineer/technologist, but the media never seems to see him that way. I wonder if this constant misrepresentation has been part of his success? Have other business people constantly underestimated him and his business acumen, just seeing him as a computer geek?
Perhaps the fact that this article was on a school's news site has something to do with depth (or a lack of it) of information / discussion provided. Video feed is due tomorrow though - should be interesting to check.
And if Microsoft had competition in their marketplace? Would Windows be better or worse. Blaming the user for the flaws in Windows is an appalling argument. How the hell would a user know that their web browser could download malicious software silently. That idiotic functionality is built-in to IE and it shouldn't be. It's always the same arguments from MS apologists: it's the user's fault (but it's supposed to be easy to use); it's buggy drivers (so what's the HAL for?); oh you're just a communist et al.
Apple don't have a monopoly on online music, there are plenty of others about that you can use. However with even basic clerical jobs needing computer literacy and just about everything only running on Windows what other supplier can I go to? Linux is great but I can't run everything I want to on it. Apple might be cool but I'm not buying another computer for it. *BSD? Same problem as Linux.
People buy Windows because there's nothing else, due to the illegal (as declared in both US and EU courts) abuse of their monopoly position, and because it comes preloaded on their PCs. If there were alternatives that were practical Microsoft's only business advantage would melt away.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I believe he was originally planning to do a talk on business , but the university board had thought it too similar to Prof. D Vader's lectures on people skills
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I have a few questions for Bill,
1) Should a society defend it self against monopolies. If so how?
2) Should children be raised with the thechnologie from one company?
3) What is worse, people using pirated windows or people using linux?
4) Should technology be accesable to everyone or only those who can afford?
5) What is more important, money or a social society?
6) How can we learn operating systems without the source?
Are the answers from Microsoft different than your own? If sow why?
200GB/2TB $7.95 Coupon: SAVE90DOLLAR
Maybe Bill's involvement with Bob had something to do with his interest in Melinda, Bob's manager.
"Why Computer Science? Why Now?" This fallacy involves a question which at the same time presents a conclusion or consists of a conclusion in the guise of a question. The fallacy is committed by combining two or more questions which cannot be answered together (hence the name "compound questions"), or more often, by asking a question implying that a previous question has already been asked and answered in a particular way. The compound question thus prevents or avoids any opposing arguments and incriminates the answerer regardless of the response he gives because any answer would admit the preliminary conclusions built into the question. The classic, ancient example is, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" If you say, "no," you admit that you beat her. But if you say, "yes," you also admit that you used to beat her.
threadeds blog
RUN!!!!
... and then they built the supercollider.
The advancement of technology will lead to its own death. Man's capacity to master the complexities is not limited but he is stretched too thin that it consumes a large part of his productive life. Furthermore the fruits of its rewards does not serve man's needs -- his happiness. Therefore he will abandon his pursuit for technology, or it does not strike his interests to pursue a goal that does not serve his peace and the peace of mankind, mainly for these:
1) it is increasingly being used to harm mankind
2) it encroaches into his privacy, leaving him caged like a paranoid animal
3) even when used in peacetime, the war waged on the business circles is likened to war -- the hostility have devastating effect on the frail morale of an average human
4) touting its capability, hostile competition only promotes creativity of a kind that pushes man over the edge -- where the surviving few have little chance to live and tell
5) overt technology saps the human soul, making him spiritually dead
Geeks out there, SPEAK UP!
Indeed, why? When you can learn something useful, like bricklaying, and earn as much or more with less effort?
Awesome. Someone that understands the power of computer science is advocating it. I think this is very beneficial to the fact that the interest in the field may be starting to wane because of globalization.
My UID is prime is yours?
What about pie detectors? :)
http://www.bitstorm.org/gates/
It is interesting to note that the security Gates has here in Waterloo is far greater than that of the Canadian prime minister who visited the day before.
Adventure City Tours
Can you say AMT (alternative minimum tax)? It basically limits your deductions. The AMT kicks in at around $150K. There are other ways to get around it, but in no case do you get a 1-for-1 deduction on charitable giving.
Which brings up the question: how many colleges have Microsoft clubs?
Charitable deductions are not affected by the AMT.
However, the charitable deduction itself is limited to 50% of your AGI (30% for certain charities). See http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/index.html for more than you ever wanted to know about it...
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
If I knew you were comin, I'd 'a baked a cake.
http://media.santoalt.com/101/090304/gatespie.mpg
Probably why they didn't tell anyone. There is a bakery
down the street.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
If they figure out P=NP, say goodbye to the usefulness of modern crypto algorithms, as they'll be trivial to crack. That's a pretty big deal.
Ever hear of the knapsack problem?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
This convinced the students to go work for Apple.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I think he wants to send them a message of good driving lessons.
No sig for now.
Free MS-Linux preview CDs to all attendees!
Free MS Office for Linux beta for first 100
Sign up for free MS Linux Developers Kit
That ought to make the question and answer session interesting.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
can't get over the hangover!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Billg complaining about people not paying for SW is rich because he developed his famous basic interpreter on a DARPA-funded PDP-10 in the Aiken Computation Lab at Harvard. Actually, the rumor was that he first developed an interpreter for the Altair on which to develop the basic interpreter. The rumor at that time at Harvard was also that he got into some trouble for this use of a government funded machine for private profit.
Harvard's CS program has an extract of his code on display. He was quite technically good.
Disclaimer: this was a rumor at the time, not first hand knowledge. However I was in CS at Harvard when billg was.
I really hope one of those students is smart enough to stand up and ask Bill Gates:
"Mr. Gates, why are you trying to convince us to study CSC when your company is off shoring jobs? Are we supposed to spend the considerable money needed for tuition and the considerable time to learn CSC merely to be unemployed or to fill the lower quality, less interesting jobs that are left over?"
Why put the time and time, effort, and money, into a degree, which is, at best, optional?
For developers, and admins, the difference between having a BSCS, and not having it, are neglidgable at best.
On the other hand, if you want to be an EE, you must have at least a BSEE. This makes the BSEE worth something.
Besides, if you have an engineering degree, you can all yourself an "engineer" a true professional. As opposed to somebody who does computer work, and is lucky to be employed at all, and is generally treated like the dog who gets kicked around.
So seriously, why chose BSCS over engineering? You can certainly do computer work with engineering degree - if that's what you want.
I know there are a lot Linux advocates around here, I wonder what kind of questions they will be allowed to ask. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be all about "Become programmers, buy... I mean learn C# and forget about that open source crap".
Meh.
I didnt know the Unabomber posted on slashdot.
Believe me, he did a great job there. Some tricks with floating-point on that messy 8-bit machine with 3 (!) registers, two of them are only index counters (X and Y) and only one 8-bit accumulator! I reversed some of his code at the time, I remember he did some real 'real programmer' stuff there.
I'm inclined to believe that Bill Gates was a sharp programmer back in the late 1970's and early 1980's from what I've read.
Not to mention that he has a talent for reading legalese (Dad was a lawyer) that typically turns off many programmers. That talent was instrumental in his company's ascendency; people didn't expect a computer nerd to pay attention to contract language and he was able to attack and defend his interests the better due to his opponents underestimating his ability.
But what I (and I suspect many other programmers here) are curious about is to see actual examples of code Bill Gates has written. Someone's code tells a lot about them, in the same way that written language in general is emblematic of the author, his personality, outlook on life, etc.
So, I'd like to see examples of Bill Gates' code, just out of historical curiousity.
Or is it still closed source after a quarter of a century?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Bill Gates was an undergraduate in the Math department before he dropped out, you might want to get your facts straight.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
I prefer to look at it as engineering is a means to an end, while science is an end in itself.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
By then it's too late (for most, anyway). If he really wants to inspire youth to technology careers, then he needs to be visiting high schools.
My sig sucks.
While Microsoft does not have a monopoly now, they abused their monopoly position in the past to place any potential competitors at a disadvantage, which is illegal under U.S. antitrust law. They were convicted of this, both in the U.S. and in the E.U. Neither case resulted in any significant punishment, and so the market is still left unbalanced by their past anticompetitive behavior. Consider what the market might have looked like if Microsoft had not been allowed to behave as a monopoly; if, for example, their scheme of coercing computer manufacturers into enforcing their operating-system monopoly had been prevented. P.S. Open Source advocates are not a uniform group; they represent many widely varying points of view. Strongly-held opinions of some members may conflict with strong opinions held by other Open Source advocates. "They're" not changing "their" opinion, because "they" never had a uniform opinion on the matter to start with.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
and the hall was nowhere near filled.
This speaks ill of your university, not Gates. Depending on your personal philosophy, he is either the richest man of the world, the most important figure in the software industry or the evil incarnate. Either way your students couldn't drag their sorry ass to see any of these three in person.
Bill Gates was also at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor campus) on Wednesday (the 12th) as well.... He was there at 10 am though. I was studying for a hell of a midterm or else I would have gone to see him.
Usually the founder of a successful company very quickly goes into management. (S)he has very little choice in the matter, as they understand the ideas best, and can probably sell them best. Naturally, they'd need to hire someone to work on the code that they're now trying to sell full-time.
It's a logical, natural progression - the first guy almost never stays at the bottom for long. Once out of the "garage" phase, he's the "President" of the firm, and probably not doing a lot of coding at that point. How absurd would it sound if the owner of the company is sitting in a cube, working 14 hour days, coding his heart out, all the while reporting to a manager he hired?!
Yeah, Bill probably didn't write much code, relatively speaking, but he's always been a fantastic salesman, which is what the founder of any successful firm has to be.
it's not surprising he'd visit our sister UW in Wisconsin to give a speech.
I mean, I'm sitting in Suzzalo right now, across from the Paul Allen library, next to Mary Gates hall, and walked past probably six Gates buildings just this morning.
Will in Seattle (UW)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
When a newsgroup is prefixed with "uw.", it refers to University of Waterloo, NOT University of Washington...ffs
buisiness major? I'm taking your job.
Why? So you can see your job outsourced to India. Duh!
Make love, not reality television.
so we can work for him at the new MSFT buildings in Bangalore, India?
Just curious.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I think he is very wealthy, but wealth doesn't inherently make him worth seeing. It would be naive to think that he will impart what actually gave him such tremendous wealth. I don't think he is "evil incarnate" or "the most important figure in the software industry". The ticket-holders who didn't attend the lecture probably figured out how many other better things they could do with their time. Also, this false trichotomy has nothing to do with one's philosophy. The first matter is a matter of fact—either he is the world's richest person or he isn't. The other two are matters of opinion, but I don't think there's any reasonable argument (nor is it productive to characterise) in terms of "evil", and importance to an "industry" is both vague and overvalued. Business should not be the measure of all things.
Finally, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign did what they could to promote Gates' shallow talk—they distributed all available tickets very quickly. They can't force people to show up.
Digital Citizen
Macintosh and Linux are not competition since they cannot run even a fraction of the Windows software out there. Ever heard of the phrase 'applications barrier to entry'. The reason that no serious competitor has emerged to challenge Microsoft on the desktop is because they cannot compete against the entrenched monopoly that holds all the cards. No amount of childish abuse will change that fact. I will concede that IE does [b]now[/b] pop up a box asking you if you want to install it. That has only been the case for a year. Blaming the users anyway is a pathetic cop out, would MS be able to get away with it on a level playing field? Of course they wouldn't.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
The reason why the companies had to clamor for increase in H1 visas and then hire people from outside is because, the lack of *quality* CS talent in US.
In fact it is more expensive and troublesome for companies to get foreign workers on H1 visas, and it doesn't result in any cost saving, rather they have to shell out more money on the paper work and stuff, and besides there are communication problems.
If more American students study CS, and do masters or phd, then definitely the number of people working in Microsoft or any IT company on H1 visas will decrease.
Instead of heckling others and being outright xenophobic, look at yourself and try to figure out why you were fired?
And outsourcing, the work which is outsourced is generally the low end one, but if people stop studying advanced level technical subjects, then pretty soon even the high level work will have to be outsourced.
Creativity uninhibited www.kreeti.com
The local LUGs have the whipped cream and pie pans ready for him!
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
Dress like your favorite StarWars/StarTrek character and win chance to get free Vista developer's kit
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.