I'm mostly concerned that it would set a potentially dangerous precedent. It starts with free access to a limited internet and gradually works towards the norm of paying for a limited internet.
When introducing someone to computer science, it's important to teach the basic concepts without getting stuck on syntax. Obfuscating things like memory management can be helpful to simplify the learning environment.
Back in 2001 I was attending Minnesota State University Mankato. The CS program there did all of the introductory programming courses in Python. A year or two prior to my enrollment all the intro classes were taught in Java. The profs found that students would get hung up on java syntax when their goal was to teach them basic programming concepts so they switched to Python. Courses in Python only lasted for a couple semesters. After that the rest of the curriculum was primarily taught in Java. I think that Python accomplished the CS department's goal quite well.
Oil tankers tend to go forward a long while even after the engine is off.
MS has been going forward quite a while now without any engine running. And restarting it means that you have to invest a LOT of fuel just to get it going again, unless you strip that tanker down to a speedboat and leave the rusted hulk behind.
Can you rephrase this as a car analogy. I'm not familiar with nautical terminology.
Think in 3D, not 2D.
This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423
According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)
Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 million cubic _kilometers_ of ice.
while we're at it: surface area of the planet: 510,072,000 sq km (wikipedia).
So. simple math from there: 26,540,000/510,072,000 = 0.052km... or about 52m (170ft) for the planet if all ice in Antarctica melts. The article actually says potential equivalent of 58m, so an exercise to the reader to determine where the extra 6m comes from.. and how many cities that would affect.
BTW: Highly recommend seeing the movie Chasing Ice http://www.chasingice.com/ for a view of how fast the glaciers are changing. Netflix carries it.
I couldn't agree more. Whenever I have moved to a new apartment/house there is always a 1-3 week period where I have no cable or internet. After I would get home from work my wife and I would pretty much make dinner read a book and go to bed. It was absolutely amazing how our stress levels went down and how much more recharged we were waking up after calm evenings like that.
Now of course like most people, once my cable and internet showed up, my tv was always on, I was checking my email and working in the evenings. Long story short, I think the mind really does need some time to relax.
I guess if we need a car analogy we need a car analogy.
As much as I enjoyed the dessert analogy I think you went a little to the extreme.
It's more like if you had a car but the radio doesn't work. You can fully enjoy the car but a feature of the car that is completely disconnected from the core purpose of the vehicle doesn't work.
From an evolutionary perspective its easier to leave no longer needed biological features in tact than it is to completely remove them. That is why creatures like snakes and whales have small remnants of legs.
My company was hit pretty hard by the conficker virus. It took a lot of users offline for days. The cleanup effort included bringing in a small army of consultants to help fix the issue. After everything was cleaned up and ready to go, IT's response to the outbreak was to kick our Virus Scanner into some crazy ultra cautious mode. The end result of that is 50% of my cpu is being used up by my virus scanner constantly and opening an app or compiling something in eclipse takes substantially longer than it used to.
The fact that virus scanning software decreases worker productivity by tying up substantial system resources should be part of the TCO as well.
Java & eclipse will do the same thing that your visual basic environment will do (from a teaching perspective), and your students can install it at home and tinker with it at no cost to them if they so desire.
To all programmers out there, learn multiple languages! Even if you just tinker with them. I guarantee you'll find yourself to be a better programmer and problem solver after you pickup some concepts of a new language.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm mostly concerned that it would set a potentially dangerous precedent. It starts with free access to a limited internet and gradually works towards the norm of paying for a limited internet.
When introducing someone to computer science, it's important to teach the basic concepts without getting stuck on syntax. Obfuscating things like memory management can be helpful to simplify the learning environment.
Back in 2001 I was attending Minnesota State University Mankato. The CS program there did all of the introductory programming courses in Python. A year or two prior to my enrollment all the intro classes were taught in Java. The profs found that students would get hung up on java syntax when their goal was to teach them basic programming concepts so they switched to Python. Courses in Python only lasted for a couple semesters. After that the rest of the curriculum was primarily taught in Java. I think that Python accomplished the CS department's goal quite well.
Orbit each planet. Land a probe on each planet. Land a probe on each moon. Bring back samples from each location. Colonize.
Until we do all those, we are cavemen with delusions of grandeur.
At least we have really nice caves these days.
Oil tankers tend to go forward a long while even after the engine is off.
MS has been going forward quite a while now without any engine running. And restarting it means that you have to invest a LOT of fuel just to get it going again, unless you strip that tanker down to a speedboat and leave the rusted hulk behind.
Can you rephrase this as a car analogy. I'm not familiar with nautical terminology.
Think in 3D, not 2D. This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423 According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)
Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 million cubic _kilometers_ of ice. while we're at it: surface area of the planet: 510,072,000 sq km (wikipedia).
So. simple math from there: 26,540,000/510,072,000 = 0.052km... or about 52m (170ft) for the planet if all ice in Antarctica melts. The article actually says potential equivalent of 58m, so an exercise to the reader to determine where the extra 6m comes from.. and how many cities that would affect.
BTW: Highly recommend seeing the movie Chasing Ice http://www.chasingice.com/ for a view of how fast the glaciers are changing. Netflix carries it.
Your not thinking fourth dimensionally!
It's kinda like a maroon.
Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong.
Did you know that it is also the main ingredient in acid rain!
We'll all remember to get off your lawn.
I really would like chrome OS on a tablet device. Seems like the perfect place to use it IMHO.
I have to say this really is a good idea, and me without mod points.
That takes me back, If I recall correctly, fog was used on the N64 as a visual trick to limit the rendering depth of a scene.
I couldn't agree more. Whenever I have moved to a new apartment/house there is always a 1-3 week period where I have no cable or internet. After I would get home from work my wife and I would pretty much make dinner read a book and go to bed. It was absolutely amazing how our stress levels went down and how much more recharged we were waking up after calm evenings like that.
Now of course like most people, once my cable and internet showed up, my tv was always on, I was checking my email and working in the evenings. Long story short, I think the mind really does need some time to relax.
I guess if we need a car analogy we need a car analogy.
As much as I enjoyed the dessert analogy I think you went a little to the extreme.
It's more like if you had a car but the radio doesn't work. You can fully enjoy the car but a feature of the car that is completely disconnected from the core purpose of the vehicle doesn't work.
From an evolutionary perspective its easier to leave no longer needed biological features in tact than it is to completely remove them. That is why creatures like snakes and whales have small remnants of legs.
Yeah but why did we have to change, they were the ones who sucked.
My company was hit pretty hard by the conficker virus. It took a lot of users offline for days. The cleanup effort included bringing in a small army of consultants to help fix the issue. After everything was cleaned up and ready to go, IT's response to the outbreak was to kick our Virus Scanner into some crazy ultra cautious mode. The end result of that is 50% of my cpu is being used up by my virus scanner constantly and opening an app or compiling something in eclipse takes substantially longer than it used to. The fact that virus scanning software decreases worker productivity by tying up substantial system resources should be part of the TCO as well.
I just handled a similar problem where I work and the solution was a pretty simple combination of using rsync over ssh.
In a billion years I would think that humans will have long since evolved many times over into something not really resembling humans anymore.
Java & eclipse will do the same thing that your visual basic environment will do (from a teaching perspective), and your students can install it at home and tinker with it at no cost to them if they so desire.
A bj to go with a BSOD? It's brilliant. I can't think of a better way to get users to test the hell out of a system.
You sir are a genius!
Don't portions of SharePoint use webdav and ntlm authentication?
"Right tool for the right job"
I couldn't agree with you more.
To all programmers out there, learn multiple languages! Even if you just tinker with them. I guarantee you'll find yourself to be a better programmer and problem solver after you pickup some concepts of a new language.
Maybe we should start using stimulus money to build some type of theme park, maybe on a remote island.
We'll call it Billy and the Clonasaurus Park!