(Oh, I guess I'm a nerd, because I just read a 7,000-word article from start to finish. And enjoyed it.)
To everyone who says that not all smart kids are unpopular: the author recognizes that. He says: "Unless they happen to be very good looking, or great natural athletes, or have older siblings who are popular, they'll tend to become nerds." Note all the exceptions.
To everyone who says that truly popular kids don't bother picking on nerds: again, the article says that. "Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes."
To everyone who pointed out that popular kids feel crappy too: guess what. The article says: "Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners."
I would agree that the author errs in completely dismissing the effect of hormones, and the fact that high-school kids are in an inherently chaotic transitional phase of life. But before you make stock replies or accusations of stereotyping, please read the article. Or else you're the one who's stereotyping.
The suit is against a corporation. Presumably, the corporation does business in Australia; hence, it has assets there, which can be seized to enforce a verdict.
At the moment, corporations are pretty much the only ones at risk, for that very reason. (Although an indvidual may eventually find their possibilities for international travel somewhat limited.) That's the scary part of the Hague treaty. If it's passed, the foreign verdict CAN be enforced in your home country.
That sounds like a fair and balanced approach.
Here at NYU (where I just finished my Junior year), the core CS curriculum is four semesters:
101 - Intro to Programming (Java), usually skipped
102 - Data Structures (Java)
201 - Assembler
202 - Operating Systems (C++)
Thus, a suitable language is used for each task.
It's obviously true that CS students need to learn that. But the foundation of CS is not registers and bit-shifting. Knuth's axiom still holds true:
DATA + ALGORITHMS = PROGRAMS
Of the languages that are in common use in the corporate world (Java, C++, VB, COBOL, Perl), Java is probably the best for learning those concepts.
No news? Well... not quite. From the ComputerWorld story:
the EU committee has urged the parliament to encourage future development and greater use of open-source encryption technology by businesses and citizens in Europe
When's the last time you heard a government encouraging use of open-source encryption?
Slashdot Mirror
...actually read the whole article?
(Oh, I guess I'm a nerd, because I just read a 7,000-word article from start to finish. And enjoyed it.)
To everyone who says that not all smart kids are unpopular: the author recognizes that. He says: "Unless they happen to be very good looking, or great natural athletes, or have older siblings who are popular, they'll tend to become nerds." Note all the exceptions.
To everyone who says that truly popular kids don't bother picking on nerds: again, the article says that. "Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes."
To everyone who pointed out that popular kids feel crappy too: guess what. The article says: "Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners."
I would agree that the author errs in completely dismissing the effect of hormones, and the fact that high-school kids are in an inherently chaotic transitional phase of life. But before you make stock replies or accusations of stereotyping, please read the article. Or else you're the one who's stereotyping.
The suit is against a corporation. Presumably, the corporation does business in Australia; hence, it has assets there, which can be seized to enforce a verdict.
At the moment, corporations are pretty much the only ones at risk, for that very reason. (Although an indvidual may eventually find their possibilities for international travel somewhat limited.) That's the scary part of the Hague treaty. If it's passed, the foreign verdict CAN be enforced in your home country.
That sounds like a fair and balanced approach. Here at NYU (where I just finished my Junior year), the core CS curriculum is four semesters: 101 - Intro to Programming (Java), usually skipped 102 - Data Structures (Java) 201 - Assembler 202 - Operating Systems (C++) Thus, a suitable language is used for each task.
It's obviously true that CS students need to learn that. But the foundation of CS is not registers and bit-shifting. Knuth's axiom still holds true: DATA + ALGORITHMS = PROGRAMS Of the languages that are in common use in the corporate world (Java, C++, VB, COBOL, Perl), Java is probably the best for learning those concepts.
Small nitpick... It's not in fact a hard-drive, it's a write-once medium. Still pretty darn cool, though.