Don't let them touch the computers until they have at least a basic understanding of how they work. Make sure to emphasive that computers are "tools", like a gun, or an alligator. Thus, they can be dangerous. I'd say a good place to start is with the mathematical formulation of the transistor. Oh, wait you said *inner-city* kids. Perhaps you should start with bipolar transistors before jumping into complex FET behavior.
That should cover the first day. If they are intelligent the rest of the computer should follow from there, but you'll need something to do so you might as well help them out in your free time. For the next 2 weeks work your way up from transistors to binary arithmetic and heading on to microproccessor design and archecture until you get to file caching and pre-emptive multi-tasking the last day. C programming is trivial and can be learned by reading K&R in the evenings.
To make sure they've really understood this, I suggest taking their computers apart and having them reassemble them by themselves. You may want to provide a soldering iron. For extra fun, have them low-level format their hard drives with refrigerator magnets.
Now that they know something about computers have them install Linux and network them together. Use the computers to serve pr0n and use the kiddies as cheap sysadmins.
For the less intelligent students you may just want to install a turing machine emulator on a machine and have them write programs on it. I know that keeps me amused for hours.
This display technology is not limited to a single person. It is viewable by many people at one time from _any angle_ (including directly above).
Sure, it doesn't like to be dropped. But does your monitor like to be dropped?
Sure, it contains moving parts, but doesn't your hard drive, disk drive, CD-ROM drive, refrigerator, etc.
Sure, its bulky but so is a 23-inch monitor!
It is not animated yet, but soon will be. Bandwidth is the limiting factor and a SCSI connection should provide the required bandwidth to do animation.
The globe itself is plastic and larger than a basketball. The image fills up a volume the size of a basketball inside.
The image is best viewed with the lights off but it can be seen easily with the lights on.
The brightness will increase over the next few months as more effecient projector lamps and mirrors are used.
Hello, just because you use bits in sets of 8 doesn't mean anything.
Did you ever stop to think that since this display uses _3-bit color_ the concept of a "byte" might have little meaning in the 3-D display world. RAM chips are sold by the "bit" anyways. Its only computer usres that make use of the "bytes"
Who says that anyone has the right to prevent others from using their creations? If you write a book, I sohuld be able to quote from. I should be able to parody it. And after your copyright period expires, I should be able to do what I want with the characters in it. Mickey's continually extending copyright is oppressive to the rest of the world who would like to exercise their free speech in their own way.
American law has usually sided towards the individual and his rights to use information and technology (whether it be patents or copyrights). I believe it is a balance of rights. Your right to protect your "creation" and my right to execersise my free speech and make use of your creation. Note that many don't believe that copyrights shouldn't exist at all, so don't go assuming that you have a right to own an idea whether it be a book, a character, a song, a concept, a business model etc.
I don't go this far, but think how horrible the world if everything was "copyrighted" and their was no sharing of ideas. Disney could own the concept of a friendly, no, they could own the concept of an animated character. At some point you have to find the balance. IMHO, 70+ years for a corporation to hold a copyright is a bit silly.
I hate to see lawyers decide how technology should work. Especially with regards to software.
The comment about things like PDF readers being integrated into the OS shows how misguided he is. Anyone who has done any work on OS's knows that that kind of functionality does not belong in an modern OS (despite what MS would say - IE, hint hint).
Its fine that he doesn't understand this - he's a lawyer, not a computer scientist. But he does have a lot to say (and some power) in the technology world, which, frankly, frightens me. Its politicians and lawyers that allow us to end with such wonderful pieces of legislation as the DMCA.
If we've learned one thing from reading JonKatz, its this:
You can't generalize what the framers of the Constitution believed 200+ years ago to how we should interpret it today!
Remember, Jefferson believed that the US would remain a nation of independent farmers. He didn't believe in foreign policy or the advancement of technology and never saw industrialization on the horizon. He also believed in an extremely strict interpretation of the constitution. Something that went out the window, say, less that 10 years after it was written! He was extremely short-sighted - but not wrong - its just the US evolved into the complete opposite of what he expected.
Thus, why are we looking to the dead white male framers of the constitution as a guide to how we should behave today? So the framers never intended strong IP law? They also acknowledged the existence of slavery, and prohibited women to vote. It was a very different era...
Most of lessig's argument is bullshit. What ole TJ said 200+ years ago has no bearing on whats going on today. I hate to appear to bash the Constitution like this, but the reality is that the Constitution today is not used at all like it was originally intended (especially by TJ).
Who's the black private dick thats a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft! Damn right. Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about? Shaft! Who is the man that would risk his life for his brother man? Shaft! They say that Shaft is one bad mother- Shut your mouth! But we're talkin' about Shaft! We can dig it He's a complicated man, that no one understands but his woman John Shaft.
You gotta love those _totally impossible_ ad photos with the car and the gears being so far out of the screen that you can seem them when the monitor is view from the side ie. there is no "screen" behind them.
This is physically impossible as you need a screen or something similar for the image to lie on. This is a blatant case of false advertising (and illegal).
Harvard already lacks adequate computer facilities. The labs are always filled and far too small. The SC kiosks are one of the few places on campus were you can easily check your E-mail during the day. Otherwise you have to go all the way back to your dorm. The kiosks get a lot of use and are very convenient. To think that the students would give them up because there is a conference nearby is silly. As far as Harvard goes the Science Center is a "public" space. The conference was sharing the space just like the Greenhouse does, just like the Cabot library does, just like the numerous classrooms, labs, and lecture halls in the building do.
The media lab in question (that the yahoo/ZDNet article mentioned) is pretty far down the hall and around a bend from where the conference was. Actually quite a walk aways. And it has glass windows so if you looked closely perhaps you could see a Mac. To think that they papered over these windows is just stupid.
btw, I've always thought the SC was a poor place to hold a conference.
I used to be a user assistant back when I was a student there and I knew Frank Stein. I quickly learned that there is _a lot_ of politics at Harvard (as there is in most universitys). I wouldn't be surprised if this order came from higher up than Frank Stein.
Many universities, including Harvard, rely on companies to donate or give reduced rates on equipment. This is not the first time FASCS would have been pressured into something. I remember a big issue when I was there was that the Harvard Extension school gave some money for the new SC lab, so the extension students were allowed to use the lab, but the user assistants were not allowed to help them because they were Harvard undergrads...
I think its sad that Frank Stein and FASCS had to give in to Intel. But I'm sure Intel in return was probably promising some kick ass machines. And when you weigh getting free/cheap computers with just covering a few Macs I can see how they gave in. In the long run the students will be better off. I remember the computers there as being just *awful* because FASCS (HASCS) was always under-funded.
Somehow I think joining the DNRC will solve this problem
www.dilbert.com
Depends on what kind of anime you like...
on
Essential Anime
·
· Score: 3
For classic comedy check out: Ranma 1/2, the first season (18 episodes) because after that it begins to really suck.
Good shojo SF: Please Save My Earth (one of my favorites).
Don't forget Miyazaki! especially, Nausicaa and Laputa
and of course, Evangelion! (one of the best few years)
don't ignore these classics!
If your look for good anime music check out: Macross Plus Escaflowne Any of the Miyazaki's films Other good ones: Jojo's bizarre adventure (short and weird, but good) Dragon Half (really funny!)
Flashcom is the absolute worst company I've ever dealt with.
I talked to them first week of January to get DSL installed. They tol dme it would take 4-6 weeks. About three weeks later I called back to check on my status. They were unable to find any record of my request (just changed databases or something). They only thing they said they could do is E-mail everyone in the office and then have whoever was my sales-rep call me up (they couldn't look up that info and I had never received E-mail from them). They never called. Two days later I called back and they told me the same thing. The third or fourth time this happened I demanded to speak to the manager. That didn't happen. I didn't get anywhere until I put the president of my company on the phone to talk to them. They said they would resubmit the request. Two weeks later I talked to them again (its been about 5 weeks so far, and no word from them). This time, with a bit of diffuculty they were able to find some record of me. I asked how progress was going and they were unable to tell me anything. Frustrated, I told them I wanted to cancel my request because it was talking so long (this was for a high-tech startup that needed a connection ASAP!). They told me that there was a $250 charge for early cancellation. I had never heard of this before and they said it was in the contract I ahd signed. I had never signed a contract! I had never even seen a contract. But I decided to give them another week. After several more calls I was finally able to get someone to help. Oddly, it was a tech support person for people who already had connections. He took my request for walked into the next room and faxed it to Covad, a process that took him 5 minutes but I had waited 6 weeks to happen. If he hadn't done that I'm sure I would still be without DSL today. That was the very _first_ step in getting DSL installed. Throughout this process they insisted that they would make the 6 week deadline that they had quoted me. It finally took them about 3 months.
So, Flashcom sucks. Their service is horrible. And their tech support is incompetent. I actually had the tech support guys asking me how to configure linux (oh, like how does ifconfig work). The one good thing about them is that they're cheap...
The internet will change the world like no other network ever has before. As many very intelligent people have said in times long ago past, never before has such a giant change has come upon us in the this rapidly changing society which has been oppressed by the media for centuries before Thomas Jefferson had once said, "This is not Sunday School! This is normal school, and no praying is allowed!"
While stating the obvious, let me point out that Congress and large Corporations have been passing laws not only to curb our free speech but our dogs too. People have fought back. They thrown things. But only how has the government begun to grasp the reasoning which lies in between the law, namely the DMCA, that evil piece of legislation, that suppresses our rights, represses our sexuality, oppresses our right to free beer, and is totally against what Thomas Jefferson stands for. Vote TJ in 2000!
Let me reiterate myself redundantly, by pointing our some more obscure, nonsensical points that will be ambiguous to all but my girlfriend. Copyright doesn't exist any more, man! Its like, well, nonexistent, dude. Its floating up there. Ya can't see it, but its all around us. Whoa thats so deep. You are so cool. Gimme another hit. Its all in binary, dude. Think digitial.
Let me just say that this battle will not be over until the war is won...
I remember way back in freshman year when I took CS121 (Intro to Formal Systems and Computation)...
The night before the final I posted a message on comp.theory asking for a proof that P=NP because it would greatly help on the problem set I was working on (namely invalidating the proofs I had to do to show that several different problems were NP-Complete).
Well, Unfortunately everyone on the newsgroup took me seriously and there was some angry responses along the lines of: "Are you stupid? Your going ot fail your final tommorrow if you don't already know that this is the biggest unsolved porblem in computer science..."
The best was that a few weeks later (after the grades were turned in, thank god), my TA noticed the post and E-mailed me in disbelieve asking if I had really posted that question... I don't kow how she knew it was me since I only signed with my initials...
Since when does a justified opinion in a Slashdot comment warrant a "Troll" classification.
Microsoft is a large organization. With lots of money that it has obtained illegally from its customers, namely a good portion of America. There are many ways to inflict a penalty, with fines being the simplest (but not the best). Have them pay back for the damages they have done. Just because they are not an "individual" doesn't mean that they cannot make amends for their wrongs of the past.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't let them touch the computers until they have at least a basic understanding of how they work. Make sure to emphasive that computers are "tools", like a gun, or an alligator. Thus, they can be dangerous. I'd say a good place to start is with the mathematical formulation of the transistor. Oh, wait you said *inner-city* kids. Perhaps you should start with bipolar transistors before jumping into complex FET behavior. That should cover the first day. If they are intelligent the rest of the computer should follow from there, but you'll need something to do so you might as well help them out in your free time. For the next 2 weeks work your way up from transistors to binary arithmetic and heading on to microproccessor design and archecture until you get to file caching and pre-emptive multi-tasking the last day. C programming is trivial and can be learned by reading K&R in the evenings. To make sure they've really understood this, I suggest taking their computers apart and having them reassemble them by themselves. You may want to provide a soldering iron. For extra fun, have them low-level format their hard drives with refrigerator magnets. Now that they know something about computers have them install Linux and network them together. Use the computers to serve pr0n and use the kiddies as cheap sysadmins. For the less intelligent students you may just want to install a turing machine emulator on a machine and have them write programs on it. I know that keeps me amused for hours.
This display technology is not limited to a single person. It is viewable by many people at one time from _any angle_ (including directly above). Sure, it doesn't like to be dropped. But does your monitor like to be dropped? Sure, it contains moving parts, but doesn't your hard drive, disk drive, CD-ROM drive, refrigerator, etc. Sure, its bulky but so is a 23-inch monitor!
Nope, its DDR RAM which totals about $1500.
It is not animated yet, but soon will be. Bandwidth is the limiting factor and a SCSI connection should provide the required bandwidth to do animation. The globe itself is plastic and larger than a basketball. The image fills up a volume the size of a basketball inside. The image is best viewed with the lights off but it can be seen easily with the lights on. The brightness will increase over the next few months as more effecient projector lamps and mirrors are used.
Hello, just because you use bits in sets of 8 doesn't mean anything. Did you ever stop to think that since this display uses _3-bit color_ the concept of a "byte" might have little meaning in the 3-D display world. RAM chips are sold by the "bit" anyways. Its only computer usres that make use of the "bytes"
By Nature they are good.
Soon we will not need our human bodies (shells) at all.
Our consciousness will be uploaded to a giant computer were will we live (in the Wired).
So you better learn to use a computer at a young age. And learn to use it well.
Who says that anyone has the right to prevent others from using their creations? If you write a book, I sohuld be able to quote from. I should be able to parody it. And after your copyright period expires, I should be able to do what I want with the characters in it. Mickey's continually extending copyright is oppressive to the rest of the world who would like to exercise their free speech in their own way.
American law has usually sided towards the individual and his rights to use information and technology (whether it be patents or copyrights). I believe it is a balance of rights. Your right to protect your "creation" and my right to execersise my free speech and make use of your creation. Note that many don't believe that copyrights shouldn't exist at all, so don't go assuming that you have a right to own an idea whether it be a book, a character, a song, a concept, a business model etc.
I don't go this far, but think how horrible the world if everything was "copyrighted" and their was no sharing of ideas. Disney could own the concept of a friendly, no, they could own the concept of an animated character. At some point you have to find the balance. IMHO, 70+ years for a corporation to hold a copyright is a bit silly.
I hate to see lawyers decide how technology should work. Especially with regards to software.
The comment about things like PDF readers being integrated into the OS shows how misguided he is. Anyone who has done any work on OS's knows that that kind of functionality does not belong in an modern OS (despite what MS would say - IE, hint hint).
Its fine that he doesn't understand this - he's a lawyer, not a computer scientist. But he does have a lot to say (and some power) in the technology world, which, frankly, frightens me. Its politicians and lawyers that allow us to end with such wonderful pieces of legislation as the DMCA.
If we've learned one thing from reading JonKatz, its this:
You can't generalize what the framers of the Constitution believed 200+ years ago to how we should interpret it today!
Remember, Jefferson believed that the US would remain a nation of independent farmers. He didn't believe in foreign policy or the advancement of technology and never saw industrialization on the horizon. He also believed in an extremely strict interpretation of the constitution. Something that went out the window, say, less that 10 years after it was written! He was extremely short-sighted - but not wrong - its just the US evolved into the complete opposite of what he expected.
Thus, why are we looking to the dead white male framers of the constitution as a guide to how we should behave today? So the framers never intended strong IP law? They also acknowledged the existence of slavery, and prohibited women to vote. It was a very different era...
Most of lessig's argument is bullshit. What ole TJ said 200+ years ago has no bearing on whats going on today. I hate to appear to bash the Constitution like this, but the reality is that the Constitution today is not used at all like it was originally intended (especially by TJ).
Who's the black private dick thats a sex machine to all the chicks?
Shaft!
Damn right.
Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about?
Shaft!
Who is the man that would risk his life for his brother man?
Shaft!
They say that Shaft is one bad mother-
Shut your mouth!
But we're talkin' about Shaft!
We can dig it
He's a complicated man, that no one understands but his woman
John Shaft.
You gotta love those _totally impossible_ ad photos with the car and the gears being so far out of the screen that you can seem them when the monitor is view from the side ie. there is no "screen" behind them.
This is physically impossible as you need a screen or something similar for the image to lie on. This is a blatant case of false advertising (and illegal).
Harvard already lacks adequate computer facilities. The labs are always filled and far too small. The SC kiosks are one of the few places on campus were you can easily check your E-mail during the day. Otherwise you have to go all the way back to your dorm. The kiosks get a lot of use and are very convenient. To think that the students would give them up because there is a conference nearby is silly. As far as Harvard goes the Science Center is a "public" space. The conference was sharing the space just like the Greenhouse does, just like the Cabot library does, just like the numerous classrooms, labs, and lecture halls in the building do.
The media lab in question (that the yahoo/ZDNet article mentioned) is pretty far down the hall and around a bend from where the conference was. Actually quite a walk aways. And it has glass windows so if you looked closely perhaps you could see a Mac. To think that they papered over these windows is just stupid.
btw, I've always thought the SC was a poor place to hold a conference.
I used to be a user assistant back when I was a student there and I knew Frank Stein. I quickly learned that there is _a lot_ of politics at Harvard (as there is in most universitys). I wouldn't be surprised if this order came from higher up than Frank Stein.
Many universities, including Harvard, rely on companies to donate or give reduced rates on equipment. This is not the first time FASCS would have been pressured into something. I remember a big issue when I was there was that the Harvard Extension school gave some money for the new SC lab, so the extension students were allowed to use the lab, but the user assistants were not allowed to help them because they were Harvard undergrads...
I think its sad that Frank Stein and FASCS had to give in to Intel. But I'm sure Intel in return was probably promising some kick ass machines. And when you weigh getting free/cheap computers with just covering a few Macs I can see how they gave in. In the long run the students will be better off. I remember the computers there as being just *awful* because FASCS (HASCS) was always under-funded.
Actually I believe they are naming the new companies Micros and Oft.
Actually I believe they are going to call the companies Micros and Oft.
Somehow I think joining the DNRC will solve this problem
www.dilbert.com
For classic comedy check out:
Ranma 1/2, the first season (18 episodes) because after that it begins to really suck.
Good shojo SF:
Please Save My Earth (one of my favorites).
Don't forget Miyazaki!
especially, Nausicaa and Laputa
and of course,
Evangelion! (one of the best few years)
don't ignore these classics!
If your look for good anime music check out:
Macross Plus
Escaflowne
Any of the Miyazaki's films
Other good ones:
Jojo's bizarre adventure (short and weird, but good)
Dragon Half (really funny!)
Were you planning on using ethernet on those cables? You can't use ethernet over distances of a few kilometers without a repeater.
Flashcom is the absolute worst company I've ever dealt with.
I talked to them first week of January to get DSL installed. They tol dme it would take 4-6 weeks. About three weeks later I called back to check on my status. They were unable to find any record of my request (just changed databases or something). They only thing they said they could do is E-mail everyone in the office and then have whoever was my sales-rep call me up (they couldn't look up that info and I had never received E-mail from them). They never called. Two days later I called back and they told me the same thing. The third or fourth time this happened I demanded to speak to the manager. That didn't happen. I didn't get anywhere until I put the president of my company on the phone to talk to them. They said they would resubmit the request. Two weeks later I talked to them again (its been about 5 weeks so far, and no word from them). This time, with a bit of diffuculty they were able to find some record of me. I asked how progress was going and they were unable to tell me anything. Frustrated, I told them I wanted to cancel my request because it was talking so long (this was for a high-tech startup that needed a connection ASAP!). They told me that there was a $250 charge for early cancellation. I had never heard of this before and they said it was in the contract I ahd signed. I had never signed a contract! I had never even seen a contract. But I decided to give them another week. After several more calls I was finally able to get someone to help. Oddly, it was a tech support person for people who already had connections. He took my request for walked into the next room and faxed it to Covad, a process that took him 5 minutes but I had waited 6 weeks to happen. If he hadn't done that I'm sure I would still be without DSL today. That was the very _first_ step in getting DSL installed. Throughout this process they insisted that they would make the 6 week deadline that they had quoted me. It finally took them about 3 months.
So, Flashcom sucks. Their service is horrible. And their tech support is incompetent. I actually had the tech support guys asking me how to configure linux (oh, like how does ifconfig work). The one good thing about them is that they're cheap...
is Lisp...
The internet will change the world like no other network ever has before. As many very intelligent people have said in times long ago past, never before has such a giant change has come upon us in the this rapidly changing society which has been oppressed by the media for centuries before Thomas Jefferson had once said, "This is not Sunday School! This is normal school, and no praying is allowed!"
While stating the obvious, let me point out that Congress and large Corporations have been passing laws not only to curb our free speech but our dogs too. People have fought back. They thrown things. But only how has the government begun to grasp the reasoning which lies in between the law, namely the DMCA, that evil piece of legislation, that suppresses our rights, represses our sexuality, oppresses our right to free beer, and is totally against what Thomas Jefferson stands for. Vote TJ in 2000!
Let me reiterate myself redundantly, by pointing our some more obscure, nonsensical points that will be ambiguous to all but my girlfriend. Copyright doesn't exist any more, man! Its like, well, nonexistent, dude. Its floating up there. Ya can't see it, but its all around us. Whoa thats so deep. You are so cool. Gimme another hit. Its all in binary, dude. Think digitial.
Let me just say that this battle will not be over until the war is won...
Save me please!
I remember way back in freshman year when I took CS121 (Intro to Formal Systems and Computation)...
The night before the final I posted a message on comp.theory asking for a proof that P=NP because it would greatly help on the problem set I was working on (namely invalidating the proofs I had to do to show that several different problems were NP-Complete).
Well, Unfortunately everyone on the newsgroup took me seriously and there was some angry responses along the lines of: "Are you stupid? Your going ot fail your final tommorrow if you don't already know that this is the biggest unsolved porblem in computer science..."
The best was that a few weeks later (after the grades were turned in, thank god), my TA noticed the post and E-mailed me in disbelieve asking if I had really posted that question...
I don't kow how she knew it was me since I only signed with my initials...
They'll just reform into a BEOWOLF CLUSTER and once again blow away the competition...
trollin' for science
Since when does a justified opinion in a Slashdot comment warrant a "Troll" classification.
Microsoft is a large organization. With lots of money that it has obtained illegally from its customers, namely a good portion of America. There are many ways to inflict a penalty, with fines being the simplest (but not the best). Have them pay back for the damages they have done. Just because they are not an "individual" doesn't mean that they cannot make amends for their wrongs of the past.
Damn, now I've just posted another "Troll" post.
One company to do the Windozes with numbers (ie 96,98
One company to do the Windozes with letters (ie NT)
One company to do Internet Explorer
One company to do Excel
One company to do Word
One company to do Access and SQL Server, no make that two companies
One company to do Power Point
One company to buy the above products as wholesale and resell them as "Office"
One company to do mice and keyboards
One company for MSN
One company for Teletubbies. wait. get rid of that one.
One company for games
One company for development tools
One company to do acquisitions, and then spin them off into other little companies
One company for Microsoft Greeting Card
Bill Gates should be put in charge of that last one.