Well, in a non-legacy solution you'd be ridding yourself of three PCI video cards for one AGP or one PCI solution.
Your sound could very well be offloaded onto USB, as could your modem, if you use modems.
SCSI can't yet be replaced by FireWire, I agree, since I use SCSI peripherals. But it's*almost* on parity, and much simpler. I do have FireWire, btw, because NT doesn't support USB!
We may see network get shifted onto FireWire as well.
There's nothing wrong with hidden APIs; what is wrong is that Microsoft 'owns' those hidden APIs. The point was that M$ has a monopoly, and in that light, their actions in creating hidden APIs is to create artifical barriers in the market to prvent entry by new and strong competitors. If it were any other company, hidden APIs are not the problem.
Morally and ethically hidden APIs are fine, except that in this case M$ has such power that by holding hidden APIs they prevent WordPerfect or Lotus from competing, and as such can be legally forced to disclose them.
This is not true for non-monopolies.
Hidden APIs are found with invisible debuggers, of course.:
Corel gains marketshare and profit. They stay alive, and their engineers & families get to eat.
Corel gains mindshare and access to a strong community; the issue with a strong community is that they have to be strong members...
We get access to a world class office suite and graphics hardware, which Linux is sorely lacking. So it's not Open. If Open is in their best interest and they know it, they Open; if it isn't, they don't. If it is and they don't know it, everyone suffers
We get a 'friendly' OS along with a powerful one: Linux, and Debian to boot
We get the stability, reliability, and open nature of Linux
Um, doesn't it count that Corel will be 'giving back' a *real* office suite and graphics tools?
Sure, they're not open source. It just means they have to work *all* that much harder to compete with an open source alternative. But if in the end they make a product that much better and useable, than the open source version, then everyone wins. I'd certainly pay to get the best; if open source was the best, I certainly use that. Currently Photoshop best suits my needs, not GIMP, so I Photoshop!
I'm unsure of the *quality* of manufactured diamonds, but we do have the ability to make 'sheet' diamond atop metal filaments.
It's essentially, under high pressure, using a tungsten heating element run under some methane gasses in a non-combustible environment(nitrogen and stuff), and diamond will start to grow upon the surface.
I may have a few technical details wrong, but I think that's the process.
I may be mistaken, but I thought the iBook used a Cu process G3, and the G4 was also a copper process?
Both are already in the market, with more on the way with future G3 PowerBooks, and quite possibly even SOI and Cu based G3s and G4s.
Computers are not yet based on diamonds because they don't provide any performance improvement over silicon, over the past 19 years. They are definitely part of the research on optical computing, but silicon, in theory, still has another 8 to 10 years of life still at which point an alternative technology may take over. Like optical.
You've assumed that molecules are the lowest level at which we can compute;
We can go smaller, into atoms and energy and spin states of electrons in a shell, for example, both of which are different things entirely. So we haven't quite hit the limits of information and computing yet.
So lets say we use a stable lithium ion as a storage 'bit' where we can flip the electron's spin to indicate 1 or 0. We ignore the two inner s orbital electrons and concentrate on the single valence electron. You'd prolly flip it with a single photon of light. How? Beats me. Anyway, you can actually calculate the energy of the photon required to do so, and the time it takes to flip as well( ~instantaneous?) and that is some sort of limit, but there are still levels beyond that with which we could play information games, I'm sure.
You could go into multi-bit storage by including energy level as well as spin; bump up an electron 1, 2, 3 or 4 levels, and flip it's spin in either direction and we get a 3 bit storage out of a single atom. If you play with two electrons in such a system, you could conceivably get a 5 bit system, or something like that. With a complex enough atom, you could prolly get 6 or 7 bits of data off a single atom!
I guess you can only claim to have learned something from it if you figured out a workable strategy.
The difference being that in a classroom one could be taught strategies. What if students were assigned countries, as they were today? And then allowed to run their economic, diplomatic, military, scientific, and domestic policies? It could be a cool tool in learning about a whole bunch of things.
The whole point of the game, if it is as well designed as Civ, is that there are several viable strategies; expansion at the sacrifice of construction, science/military/happiness/wealth strategies, diplomacy and cooperation vs always attacking (and consequently always being a target)
Here's my average Civ scenario: 1: Grow like crazy. take over half a continent and have 10 cities within the first 30 rounds. 2: Cities only have defensive units. Science like crazy. 3: Cities build key strategic wonders. Increase taxes and trade. Increase scientific growth. Increase happiness. 4: Switch over to Monarchy by the time I build my first granary; this is usually by the time I have 12 or 15 cities. 5: Now that everyone is happy, I ratchet down science some and build up my money. Still not militarily significant. Get gunpowder and musketeers. 6: Still very defensive. Build a wonder every 5 turns now. Become democracy by 100AD. Ratchet down science to 40%, taxes to 20%, and luxuries go up to 40%. Cities now grow like crazy(in a democracy city sizes grow by one every turn if a city is happy). 10 turns later every city is size 16 or so. 20 if well managed. 7: *Now* I can become a military machine; go from musketeers to riflemen. Or mechanized infantry. Battleships. etc.
I can imagine quite a few nifty things that could be done with a Palm.
Imagine a tamagotchi like 'game' on the Palm, but it's end goal is to teach genetics. For example, every morning each Palm will get an allotment of resources for each digital petri dish, while the child also gets some 'moderation' points in order to enhance or modify their creatures. Periodically they will be given more points throughout the day.
This is actually non-trivial to do, as it should be, in terms of complexity, on the order of magnitude of a SimXYZ game.
Or a game/program in which children are running countries within their Palms with periodic trade, wars, information exchange, and communication with other players. Think net-civ or somesuch.
Another use would be a suite of tools: The HP scientific calculator in a Palm, for example.
It is not an idea without merit, though I suspect a cheaper device other than a PalmIII is necessary for the idea to be really useful
Redhat is a publically traded corporation. Everything they do is mandated by an obligation to increase their stock price (via the omnipresent threat of shareholder lawsuits, which is very real)
Therefore - how will this group help increase their stock price?
Sorry to be slightly more optimistic, but another way to increase stock price is to actually do tangible and profitable things, not just good marketing. So another alternative is that this group increase Open Source acceptance and awareness to the PHB out there. Who knows? But a coporate minded entity to promote Open Source doesn't sound like a bad idea when it's targets may included other corporate entities that don't Get It(tm) as regards to Open Source.
In the end it may indeed be a flash in the pan and a simple marketing move. One cannot discount the idea that it could be more substantial, either.
Are there actually any powerful OpenGL cards in consumer space that isn't targetted for games? Because those would be the ones that should be 'ported' to the Mac, right?
I guess Permedia?
Gamers are a different issue altogether, and my feeling on that is that the gamer niche is small enough that going with ATI is actually not a bad call. By going with ATI's Rage Fury chipset Apple get's a DVD ready solution with excellent video quality and decent TNT level OpenGL performance. This, I believe, is more than enough for 90% of users out there, and the other 10% would buy V3 boards or something.
How about the iBook vs any WinTel notebook? I think Apple has the price/performance curve beat right there. Comparing an iMac C2 with a PC requires a system with DVD, Firewire, and movie editing software, which will add an additional $300 to the price outright. I don't see that there is a disadvantage in buying Mac, as far as price performance goes. Considering the following:
Price drops if you go for a lower quality monitor, smaller 15" monitor, of course, but the Apple iMac C2 is still pretty competative; nothing compared to a scratch built bargain basement, but many don't have the skills or resources to build one of those!
Mac OSX is not ready. DO not ask for it if all it is going to do is break your, and everybody else's, hearts.
Apple has no choice, I suspect, except to bundle ATI video. They need a supplier who is willing to work closely with Apple and write drivers; 3dfx? NVIDIA? Matrox? Who?
I agree with your Pro announcements -)
I don't care about MHz parity; Price parity is non-existent because most Intel machines are crappy. Add in quality components and a Intel machines starts to approach the cost of a Mac machine. Almost every Mac is desktop graphics ready out of the box, or very nearly so, if I am not mistaken.
No comment possible on QT4 or Sherlock, never used them.
Um, you're talking about the iMac, right? They dropped the (archaic) floppy, used USB for *everything*, and had networking installed in the box. The newer iMacs also have DVD, firewire/iLink, wireless networking options, and advanced power saving features until now only found in notebooks. Welcome to the next level
Integration only sucks then if you know better, obviously. Me not being an audiophile/entertainment freak, I'm not missing much by not having a DVD player, an LP player, B&W speakers(whatever they are), and sticking with the trash amplifier, etc.
Likewise for an iMac, it's actually better on *all* counts than my current PC, so it's actually an improvement.
Still, I can appreciate your statement because I've torn apart and upgraded my system 4 times now, but it's hit the limits of what I can pop in there.
So for me, at least, and I suspect for others, the iMac is not a bunch of crap you never wanted. About the only thing that I don't have a choice over is the fact that I get both ethernet and a 56.6k modem.
Well, give us a model on how a software house can stay in business if, for example, Id releases the source to QuakeIII?
Let's give your ideas another spin:
1. Millions pay Id software to develop the technology to make QuakeIII possible, essentially by buying QuakeII. Id makes money and has incentive to make QuakeIII, as well as buy(and give away) Ferraris.
2. Id releases QuakeIII, and in memory of all the people who made it possible, release QuakeII source. Competitors and fans alike now have access to the source.
3. Id embarks on QuakeIV, subsidized by the people who demand it, by buying QuakeIII. Being marginally more challenging and difficult, they decide to hire some cool programmers, who coincindentally grew up around Quake1 and already grok the technology/culture.
4. Repeat the cycle, and when QuakeIV ships, there is now a source for QuakeIII, and new programmers to hire for QuakeV, who happened to have grown around the QuakeII source.
So Id makes money by providing technology and games that no one else can. Id has the incentive to do so because we pay them to.
Id grows the market as well by increasing demand for 3d sound and video cards, SIMD CPUs, faster CPUS, larger/faster/bigger memory/busses/CD-ROMs, which also happens to reduce the price of second best systems, creating more market for their games, as well as other technologies, and increasing the talent pool of programmers.
In the end everyone benefits, so no one loses. It's a Win for everyone, so there is no need to change the cycle.
You do know that the physical description you gave is almost an iMac?
5 fruity gender neutral flavors/colors Integrated speakers, CD-ROM, and monitor. Unless you meant that video and sound should be integrated? Your statement was confusing. Did you intentionally mean a double negative? Non-integrated parts but not the speakers, CD-ROM, floppy, and monitor?
Apple may actually have most of that planned in the iMacII, right?
Yeah! Who wants a stupid sheep when we could get a Wooly Mammoth?
But if that's the case, we could also clone rhinos and elephants and other rare/endangered species, right?
However, the shortened teleomeres thing might put a damper on things. Also the fact that we need to take into account the 1 successful birth out of like 11 successful implantations out of 200 eggs created out of like 1000 attempts, or whatever the astronomical odds are.
Plus, are we just going to use elephants as hosts?
What about genetic incompatibility or contamination? Elephant antibodies and such?
Now all I have to do is get married, have kids, and raise a daughter =)
Seriously, though, (junior|middle) high school tutoring programs seem a very attractive thing to pursue, and no I am not a pedophile. Or a cradle robber. But I seriously do think there is something wrong in my society.
You can't force anyone to do anything. But I think it's important that we don't consciously or unconsciously exclude them as well, which I strongly believe our culture in the US does.
There isn't something that can be done for the immediate present, but that can be done for the future. What, exactly, I haven't figured out yet, but if it's a problem, it can be solved =)
I'd imagine it's a taught thing, though, and not a born thing. I know plenty of guys with similar traits; no interest at all in CS except that it pays well.
No exploratory spirit or wonder at technology. Just irritation that it doesn't work.
For many that's fine. They aren't CS majors, and computers are a tool, like a pen or a bookshelf, to organize data and communicate with others.
I don't know how to change things. I'd love it when I had my own daughter if she were interested in computers. They seem so wondrous, in their ability to simulate Reality Itself(tm).
Still, that's a long way from now, and I do have other issues to deal with. Dinner.
Good luck, both as a CS major and as a female CS major! Um, I didn't know they had computers in Maryland =)
Assume 16kg of high quality Uranium, reactor grade, and essentially unlimited amounts of nitric acid in solution.
I think that's what reports indicate happened.
Work into this that the workers actually saw the blue glow, and hypothesize that if it actually is Cerenkov radiation what minimum amount of uranium or nitric acid is required.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, in a non-legacy solution you'd be ridding yourself of three PCI video cards for one AGP or one PCI solution.
Your sound could very well be offloaded onto USB, as could your modem, if you use modems.
SCSI can't yet be replaced by FireWire, I agree, since I use SCSI peripherals. But it's*almost* on parity, and much simpler. I do have FireWire, btw, because NT doesn't support USB!
We may see network get shifted onto FireWire as well.
So the only PCI solutions would be:
SCSI
Network
Video AGP
Sound USB
Now that might not make you happy...
-AS
There's nothing wrong with hidden APIs; what is wrong is that Microsoft 'owns' those hidden APIs. The point was that M$ has a monopoly, and in that light, their actions in creating hidden APIs is to create artifical barriers in the market to prvent entry by new and strong competitors. If it were any other company, hidden APIs are not the problem.
:
Morally and ethically hidden APIs are fine, except that in this case M$ has such power that by holding hidden APIs they prevent WordPerfect or Lotus from competing, and as such can be legally forced to disclose them.
This is not true for non-monopolies.
Hidden APIs are found with invisible debuggers, of course.
-AS
Here's why business can be a win-win.
Corel gains marketshare and profit. They stay alive, and their engineers & families get to eat.
Corel gains mindshare and access to a strong community; the issue with a strong community is that they have to be strong members...
We get access to a world class office suite and graphics hardware, which Linux is sorely lacking. So it's not Open. If Open is in their best interest and they know it, they Open; if it isn't, they don't. If it is and they don't know it, everyone suffers
We get a 'friendly' OS along with a powerful one: Linux, and Debian to boot
We get the stability, reliability, and open nature of Linux
So everyone wins if Corel pulls this off.
-AS
Um, doesn't it count that Corel will be 'giving back' a *real* office suite and graphics tools?
Sure, they're not open source. It just means they have to work *all* that much harder to compete with an open source alternative. But if in the end they make a product that much better and useable, than the open source version, then everyone wins. I'd certainly pay to get the best; if open source was the best, I certainly use that. Currently Photoshop best suits my needs, not GIMP, so I Photoshop!
-AS
I'm unsure of the *quality* of manufactured diamonds, but we do have the ability to make 'sheet' diamond atop metal filaments.
It's essentially, under high pressure, using a tungsten heating element run under some methane gasses in a non-combustible environment(nitrogen and stuff), and diamond will start to grow upon the surface.
I may have a few technical details wrong, but I think that's the process.
-AS
I may be mistaken, but I thought the iBook used a Cu process G3, and the G4 was also a copper process?
Both are already in the market, with more on the way with future G3 PowerBooks, and quite possibly even SOI and Cu based G3s and G4s.
Computers are not yet based on diamonds because they don't provide any performance improvement over silicon, over the past 19 years. They are definitely part of the research on optical computing, but silicon, in theory, still has another 8 to 10 years of life still at which point an alternative technology may take over. Like optical.
-AS
You've assumed that molecules are the lowest level at which we can compute;
We can go smaller, into atoms and energy and spin states of electrons in a shell, for example, both of which are different things entirely. So we haven't quite hit the limits of information and computing yet.
So lets say we use a stable lithium ion as a storage 'bit' where we can flip the electron's spin to indicate 1 or 0. We ignore the two inner s orbital electrons and concentrate on the single valence electron. You'd prolly flip it with a single photon of light. How? Beats me. Anyway, you can actually calculate the energy of the photon required to do so, and the time it takes to flip as well( ~instantaneous?) and that is some sort of limit, but there are still levels beyond that with which we could play information games, I'm sure.
You could go into multi-bit storage by including energy level as well as spin; bump up an electron 1, 2, 3 or 4 levels, and flip it's spin in either direction and we get a 3 bit storage out of a single atom. If you play with two electrons in such a system, you could conceivably get a 5 bit system, or something like that. With a complex enough atom, you could prolly get 6 or 7 bits of data off a single atom!
-AS
I guess you can only claim to have learned something from it if you figured out a workable strategy.
The difference being that in a classroom one could be taught strategies. What if students were assigned countries, as they were today? And then allowed to run their economic, diplomatic, military, scientific, and domestic policies? It could be a cool tool in learning about a whole bunch of things.
-AS
I always did the fast-sci track.
Got things like muskets and such by 200BC.
No legion could stand a chance to me!
The whole point of the game, if it is as well designed as Civ, is that there are several viable strategies; expansion at the sacrifice of construction, science/military/happiness/wealth strategies, diplomacy and cooperation vs always attacking (and consequently always being a target)
Here's my average Civ scenario:
1: Grow like crazy. take over half a continent and have 10 cities within the first 30 rounds.
2: Cities only have defensive units. Science like crazy.
3: Cities build key strategic wonders. Increase taxes and trade. Increase scientific growth. Increase happiness.
4: Switch over to Monarchy by the time I build my first granary; this is usually by the time I have 12 or 15 cities.
5: Now that everyone is happy, I ratchet down science some and build up my money. Still not militarily significant. Get gunpowder and musketeers.
6: Still very defensive. Build a wonder every 5 turns now. Become democracy by 100AD. Ratchet down science to 40%, taxes to 20%, and luxuries go up to 40%. Cities now grow like crazy(in a democracy city sizes grow by one every turn if a city is happy). 10 turns later every city is size 16 or so. 20 if well managed.
7: *Now* I can become a military machine; go from musketeers to riflemen. Or mechanized infantry. Battleships. etc.
Take over the world.
Wanna play sometime?
-AS
I can imagine quite a few nifty things that could be done with a Palm.
Imagine a tamagotchi like 'game' on the Palm, but it's end goal is to teach genetics. For example, every morning each Palm will get an allotment of resources for each digital petri dish, while the child also gets some 'moderation' points in order to enhance or modify their creatures. Periodically they will be given more points throughout the day.
This is actually non-trivial to do, as it should be, in terms of complexity, on the order of magnitude of a SimXYZ game.
Or a game/program in which children are running countries within their Palms with periodic trade, wars, information exchange, and communication with other players. Think net-civ or somesuch.
Another use would be a suite of tools: The HP scientific calculator in a Palm, for example.
It is not an idea without merit, though I suspect a cheaper device other than a PalmIII is necessary for the idea to be really useful
-AS
Redhat is a publically traded corporation. Everything they do is mandated by an obligation to increase their stock price (via the omnipresent threat of shareholder lawsuits, which is very real)
Therefore - how will this group help increase their stock price?
Sorry to be slightly more optimistic, but another way to increase stock price is to actually do tangible and profitable things, not just good marketing. So another alternative is that this group increase Open Source acceptance and awareness to the PHB out there. Who knows? But a coporate minded entity to promote Open Source doesn't sound like a bad idea when it's targets may included other corporate entities that don't Get It(tm) as regards to Open Source.
In the end it may indeed be a flash in the pan and a simple marketing move. One cannot discount the idea that it could be more substantial, either.
-AS
Are there actually any powerful OpenGL cards in consumer space that isn't targetted for games? Because those would be the ones that should be 'ported' to the Mac, right?
I guess Permedia?
Gamers are a different issue altogether, and my feeling on that is that the gamer niche is small enough that going with ATI is actually not a bad call. By going with ATI's Rage Fury chipset Apple get's a DVD ready solution with excellent video quality and decent TNT level OpenGL performance. This, I believe, is more than enough for 90% of users out there, and the other 10% would buy V3 boards or something.
How about the iBook vs any WinTel notebook? I think Apple has the price/performance curve beat right there. Comparing an iMac C2 with a PC requires a system with DVD, Firewire, and movie editing software, which will add an additional $300 to the price outright. I don't see that there is a disadvantage in buying Mac, as far as price performance goes. Considering the following:
ATI Rage Fury = $60
64MB Ram = $180
17" monitor = $350
10GB HD = $120
Speakers + Sound Card = $120
FireWire card = $200
Ethernet = $35
Modem = $75
Win9x = $60
Movie Software = $140
price = $1340
Price drops if you go for a lower quality monitor, smaller 15" monitor, of course, but the Apple iMac C2 is still pretty competative; nothing compared to a scratch built bargain basement, but many don't have the skills or resources to build one of those!
-AS
Mac OSX is not ready. DO not ask for it if all it is going to do is break your, and everybody else's, hearts.
Apple has no choice, I suspect, except to bundle ATI video. They need a supplier who is willing to work closely with Apple and write drivers; 3dfx? NVIDIA? Matrox? Who?
I agree with your Pro announcements -)
I don't care about MHz parity; Price parity is non-existent because most Intel machines are crappy. Add in quality components and a Intel machines starts to approach the cost of a Mac machine. Almost every Mac is desktop graphics ready out of the box, or very nearly so, if I am not mistaken.
No comment possible on QT4 or Sherlock, never used them.
-AS
Um, you're talking about the iMac, right? They dropped the (archaic) floppy, used USB for *everything*, and had networking installed in the box. The newer iMacs also have DVD, firewire/iLink, wireless networking options, and advanced power saving features until now only found in notebooks. Welcome to the next level
-AS
Integration only sucks then if you know better, obviously. Me not being an audiophile/entertainment freak, I'm not missing much by not having a DVD player, an LP player, B&W speakers(whatever they are), and sticking with the trash amplifier, etc.
Likewise for an iMac, it's actually better on *all* counts than my current PC, so it's actually an improvement.
Still, I can appreciate your statement because I've torn apart and upgraded my system 4 times now, but it's hit the limits of what I can pop in there.
So for me, at least, and I suspect for others, the iMac is not a bunch of crap you never wanted. About the only thing that I don't have a choice over is the fact that I get both ethernet and a 56.6k modem.
-AS
Why is integrated stuff bad for the consumer?
Is an AIWA stereo system with CD player, FM tuner, 4 speakers, and equalizer bad for the consumer?
Or is another issue that I'm missing?
-AS
Well, give us a model on how a software house can stay in business if, for example, Id releases the source to QuakeIII?
Let's give your ideas another spin:
1. Millions pay Id software to develop the technology to make QuakeIII possible, essentially by buying QuakeII. Id makes money and has incentive to make QuakeIII, as well as buy(and give away) Ferraris.
2. Id releases QuakeIII, and in memory of all the people who made it possible, release QuakeII source. Competitors and fans alike now have access to the source.
3. Id embarks on QuakeIV, subsidized by the people who demand it, by buying QuakeIII. Being marginally more challenging and difficult, they decide to hire some cool programmers, who coincindentally grew up around Quake1 and already grok the technology/culture.
4. Repeat the cycle, and when QuakeIV ships, there is now a source for QuakeIII, and new programmers to hire for QuakeV, who happened to have grown around the QuakeII source.
So Id makes money by providing technology and games that no one else can. Id has the incentive to do so because we pay them to.
Id grows the market as well by increasing demand for 3d sound and video cards, SIMD CPUs, faster CPUS, larger/faster/bigger memory/busses/CD-ROMs, which also happens to reduce the price of second best systems, creating more market for their games, as well as other technologies, and increasing the talent pool of programmers.
In the end everyone benefits, so no one loses. It's a Win for everyone, so there is no need to change the cycle.
=)
-AS
You do know that the physical description you gave is almost an iMac?
5 fruity gender neutral flavors/colors
Integrated speakers, CD-ROM, and monitor. Unless you meant that video and sound should be integrated? Your statement was confusing. Did you intentionally mean a double negative? Non-integrated parts but not the speakers, CD-ROM, floppy, and monitor?
Apple may actually have most of that planned in the iMacII, right?
-AS
Yeah! Who wants a stupid sheep when we could get a Wooly Mammoth?
But if that's the case, we could also clone rhinos and elephants and other rare/endangered species, right?
However, the shortened teleomeres thing might put a damper on things. Also the fact that we need to take into account the 1 successful birth out of like 11 successful implantations out of 200 eggs created out of like 1000 attempts, or whatever the astronomical odds are.
Plus, are we just going to use elephants as hosts?
What about genetic incompatibility or contamination? Elephant antibodies and such?
-AS
Um. How about Canada? Or Siberia?
As long as they have enough to form a herd, and wolves aren't too big a threat. Wherever Moose live, I guess, you could put a Wooly Mammoth.
-AS
What, I'm a CS major, not a phys major! It's not as if I can do most of this without a couple weeks of research.
Of course I'm also not afraid to be ignorant(too much)
-AS
Now all I have to do is get married, have kids, and raise a daughter =)
Seriously, though, (junior|middle) high school tutoring programs seem a very attractive thing to pursue, and no I am not a pedophile. Or a cradle robber. But I seriously do think there is something wrong in my society.
-AS
You can't force anyone to do anything. But I think it's important that we don't consciously or unconsciously exclude them as well, which I strongly believe our culture in the US does.
:P
There isn't something that can be done for the immediate present, but that can be done for the future. What, exactly, I haven't figured out yet, but if it's a problem, it can be solved =)
Male engineerspeak.
-AS
I'd imagine it's a taught thing, though, and not a born thing. I know plenty of guys with similar traits; no interest at all in CS except that it pays well.
No exploratory spirit or wonder at technology. Just irritation that it doesn't work.
For many that's fine. They aren't CS majors, and computers are a tool, like a pen or a bookshelf, to organize data and communicate with others.
I don't know how to change things. I'd love it when I had my own daughter if she were interested in computers. They seem so wondrous, in their ability to simulate Reality Itself(tm).
Still, that's a long way from now, and I do have other issues to deal with. Dinner.
Good luck, both as a CS major and as a female CS major! Um, I didn't know they had computers in Maryland =)
-AS
For Slashdot?
Assume 16kg of high quality Uranium, reactor grade, and essentially unlimited amounts of nitric acid in solution.
I think that's what reports indicate happened.
Work into this that the workers actually saw the blue glow, and hypothesize that if it actually is Cerenkov radiation what minimum amount of uranium or nitric acid is required.
Thanks!
-AS