I'd like to see copyright extended to 2,500 years, and it should be retroactive like the previous laws. That way I can copyright the Bible and *really* rake in the bucks.
Mail me (oops ^H^H) Bill Gates the algorithm. I'm sure I (no ^H) he, will have my (damn, ^H^H) his crack security people validate your claims and then do the right thing by it.
If you can't trust me (shit! ^H^H) him, who else can you trust?
"At first I thought there was some insightful point to this article; then I realized it was just another "Oh no, technology is making us feel old and forcing us to redefine our attitudes" speil... There will always be math becuase no honest engineer is going to trust a software package to such a degree that they can simply forget the underlying princples."
Well, a report my staff wrote today reiterates that very issue with the nature of the engineering students that we're turning out.
Basically, there is concern in a variety of sectors (primarily civil and mechanical) that the engineers coming out today choose to be too reliant on the software and not focus on using their brain to solve the problem and confirm that the software is correct. It's not that they are dependent on the software, it's that this generation has a natural trust and confort with the software that the older engineers really don't have.
You may claim that 'no honest engineer' would do that, but that's exactly what industry is reporting.
I'm not sure why every single/. contributer assumes that a company can only sell a single family of CPU, but has *anyone* considered for a moment that Apple may be ready to put both x86 and PPC in the same lineup?
Consider:
Apple nuked OS 9 booting effective 1/1/03. Mac OS X is clearly being supported internally for x86. Apple is concerned about Mot/IBM pulling through with decent CPUs.
My guess is that Apple is going to put both PPC and x86 in boxes next year. The x86 boxes will run Windows, but OS X won't run on a Dell or HP box, etc.
Apple can sell the superior performance (let's all hope...) 64 bit chip that IBM is working on to the pros, and sell either G4 or x86 to the masses. If you really are concerned about Windows compatability, there's an easy out for you - you don't need to decide between Mac OS and Windows - you can have both.
There's some risk in a strategy like this, but by and large it could be a big win for Apple. The 'switch' campaign gives consumers a way to ease into Apple products - buy a 17" iMac x86, run XP on it (maybe like VPC?). If you want to use iTunes, you can do that, and eventually you may upgrade your Windows software to Mac OS X versions.
Of course, if the PPC performance isn't there, nobody will want those boxes and developers might as well chuck OS X development altogether. That's the biggest risk.
"XNS is an open, XML-based protocol for identifying and linking any resource participating in any kind of digital transaction. You'll find the complete technical specifications on this site.
XNS provides a flexible, interoperable method for establishing and maintaining persistent digital identities and relationships between these identities. The protocol provides services for registering and resolving identity addresses, defining and managing XML identity documents, conducting and protecting identity transactions, and linking and synchronizing identity attributes."
Basically, store what you want, where you want, in an open format. As a public trust organization, they don't store your identity, they only proxy it. Store it with MS, with Apple, with your work, at home.
Point is, they didn't make an alternative to their IC cars because, well, it's suicide for them!
Except that us Californians just changed the rules.
Basically, auto emissions are going to have to come down. Honda is about the only automaker that won't have to do something drastic to meet these requirements, and Toyota is a close second. We can probably kiss Excursions and Ferarris goodby (I won't miss the Excursions, but I get to see a Ferarri at least once a day, and I'll miss that) and the SUVs will either need to go hybrid, fuel-cell, or hack themselves back so badly nobody will buy one who doesn't really need it.
Why is CA doing this now? Well, in part because the air quality issues here, though that's been steadily improving over the last 20 years to the point that LA barely even ranks for bad air quality these days. Personally, I think the state got so soundly fucked by Enron last year while Bush and the rest of DC sat back and watched that this is an opportunity for CA to drive the rest of the nation for a while.
California is unique among states in having the ability to set pollution standards for cars. Automakers won't make two distinct cars for the US market, so CAs rules become the nations rules. I don't expect that CA is going to back down on their timelines either - the automakers are going to have to make some changes. Time to stick it to the Texans, I suppose...
Yeah, I have no idea where 5.6G came from (maybe that's the max that you find on a coaster in NJ now, and they just don't want to go beyond it)
But the problem is that you can't easily provide that kind of evidence in a conclusive way. Someone who was leaning toward a brain aneurism might get taken out at 4Gs. That condition probably was completely unknown. The G loading will vary for me (in my early 30s, in acceptably good health, weighing around 150lbs) and someone in their 40s, who gets minimal exersize and weighs shy of 300lbs, or someone in their early teens, in good health (but who's body is still developing) weighing in at 85lbs.
What they've done appears to be totally arbitrary. I'm pretty sure I could design a 5.5G coaster that would put 50% of the population in the hospital.
Personally, I'd prefer that they just require design completed by Professional Engineers that would be liable for any damages. The engineers would would be responsible for ensuring that the coaster was safe. I don't believe that PEs are required to sign off on coaster designs now.
Which is why I think that Apple may be trying to get IBM to roll Mac OS X into the mix. For some jobs (content work, mainly) Mac OS X is a very strong candidate, and if Apple and IBM are in fact closing ranks on a new PPC implementation for both parties to use, it makes even more sense.
In other areas, OS X may be strong as well - such as when you need Office and unix on one box.
Well, it depends a LOT on the nature of the force. Plopping into a chair is a force that the body is pretty well equipped to handle. Car accidents (suddent deceleration) can toss about very heavy G loads - 25 G's isn't unusual. A lot of auto safety now is figuring out how to mitigate those forces (airbags soften the forces relative to the dashboard) and how to redirect them into a more survivable form (why small children ride backward - we can take more G's from our back than our front)
5-6 Gs in the manner that rollercoasters deliver are pretty high (forces that an unsupported head will need to resist against). Sustained for even a few seconds and some people will pass out, and most people will be sore, and few will suffer significant problems due to pre-existing conditions. A CART race was postponed last year when drivers complained of dizziness and difficulty breathing with G forces around 5, though it was for fairly sustained periods.
I think the problem boils down to more people riding coasters, more high G coasters, and more people that aren't in sufficient shape to handle such forces. The number of injuries and deaths aren't high, but for an activity that is supposed to be entertainment, I suspect our tolerance for casualties is pretty low.
"for people that really want to spend as little time as possible in front of it"
Hmm. No. That's not how they bill it.
Macs are billed as the computer for people who really want to *enjoy* as much time as possible in front of it.
The Mac version will be out soon enough. No big whoop. The game won't be any less fun when it's released for OS X. But a lot of people I know own only a Mac and play UT. Mac users enjoy their games as much as their PC counterparts (and spend proportionatly as much much on games), they just aren't as inclined to own their machines as a glorified Xbox.
Is anyone out there successfully juggling running a company and studying at the same time? How do you juggle the two without hampering either due to lack of the right amount of attention?
Well, I've done it, and I work with a lot of engineering students that are doing it now. It's not easy. In my case, it nearly cost me my education, my company, and my state of mind. Now I help others avoid running into the same situation.
The problem isn't the hours or the motivation - it's not really a problem of juggling. It's the fact that you've made a commitment to your business, and now you're making a new commitment to your education. When the day comes - and it will come - when you need to pick one or the other, figure out now how you'll choose. A day will come when the business needs you and an exam is coming up. Will you let your staff solve the crisis without your intervention, or will you blow off the exam. Regardless of what you choose, you need to be okay with your choice the next day. These are things to figure out now. If you do this, and stick to it, you'll probably be okay. Juggling implies that you can run and do one, then run and do the other. You *will* hit a day that you can only do one and not the other. Be ready for that day.
If your business doesn't require you to have the degree (that is, you're getting the degree for you) then make the business your first priority. That'll mean that you fail an exam or a class here and there. Be prepared for that, and be okay with that. If you aren't, you'll find yourself overtaxing yourself and the result often is that you fail to meet any of your commitments.
This advise is pretty flexible. Got a family? Care about them? That's your commitment. They win over school as well.
It works in reverse. Got a commitment to Everquest? You have to choose between being a kick-ass Everquester or a person with a degree. At top universities about 15% of students stick to their gaming commitment and get kicked out. Trust me, I do it all the time. We work with students with jobs and families and medical conditions to help them through. The students that refuse to treat their addictions, we cut them loose. Sorry to say, but we don't want to be a $30k/yr gaming club.
Last bit of advice. Don't focus on Princeton or Stanford or MIT. They're not geared towards flexibility. That't not to say it can't be done, but it's much harder. Look for a large, state university that's got a strong continuing education program. You won't get the top school cache (which really doesn't matter anyway) but you'll get a good solid education. They'll be more understanding of your competing commitments, they'll have better course schedules (evening classes, etc.) and they'll have more frequent offerings of courses so you can stay on track.
While it won't give you precicely the knowledge you want when you want it, they do an excellent job of providing solid direction on some fairly complex scientific topics - even for people without a scientific degree.
It's not too expensive, but they'll do a very nice job of filling in the gaps and provide leads on where to look next for more information.
Basically Apple is finding a use for all of that VRAM while users are futzing around not playing 3D games. Granted, it's finding interesting ways to accelerate 2D video and using the AGP to pull from main RAM as well, but it's in the same sprit as stuffing random data in there.
Rather than buy an extra card for this purpose, the question to ask is how much of that 128MB am I using day-to-day. If the answer is *none* (as Apple determined) then this is a good thing.
Terrorists, on the other hand, go after civilians with the INTENT to kill them. They're killing innocents simply to create fear.
And what have we accomplishing from killing civilians (by accident or otherwise)?
Have we prevented terrorism in any way, or is it just as easy now as before to hijack an oil tanker and steer it flaming into NY harbor?
A dead civilian is a dead civilian. Race, nationality, none of it matters. 3,000 americans die (and don't get me wrong - I'm pretty pissed off about it) and we overthrow a country and kill not only an equal number of foreign civilians, but by now probably 10x as many as incidental deaths and still it's not clear if we got the bad guys.
And what's most embarrassing of all? We've only made the problem worse. The people that run this country are complete fucking idiots, I tell you. I seriously hope we can figure out how to clone people. I want Teddy Roosevelt back running the game.
why we are using word processors instead of typewriters or movable type presses. Why spread sheets are needed? We could use register paper instead of an expensive computer. Index cards are cheaper than databases. Lets go pull the plug on that expensive DB server. Customers and vendors don't really need to do stuff with our web site, they can call in to our customer service lines. Oh, we'll need more bodies in customer service... Who needs e-mail. Snail mail is fine for what we do... Why should we search the web for the best prices, just order catalogs once a year and go to the public library more often to do research.
Great. You've just mentioned 6 things that were invented and deliverable no less than 8 years ago. Why should any of us have spent more than maintenance costs on equipment bought in 1995, or thereabouts?
Nothing you've mentioned has fundamentally improved since then, and a few things have gotten worse such as e-mail and word processors. A lot of the dollars spent since then has been on upgrades for compatibility or upgrades for bug fixes or chasing white rabbits.
The only area that has introduced anything of measurable value is databases, and though exposing DB through the web has the web been of any real value to business.
I'd say that 75-90% of all IT dollars spent in the last 5 years were wasted dollars. Some of it has been good and productive but most hasn't. How many companies are willing to admit to the half-million dollar websites that needed a redesign immediately because nobody could use them? How many double-purchases of Windows? How many consultants at $250/hr to build solutions that never worked?
(or How Can I Make Use of this Seemingly Useless Information from College)
Anthropologists working with communities that practice cannibalism have reported that individuals can more-or-less peg a persons origin based on how they taste - presumably through their diet.
How much variation in flavor can you get in chicken, beef, etc. just through the animals diet?
Additionally, what is it in the makeup of the meat that makes the smell so distinctive. What makes beef taste like beef and chicken like chicken? I would think that beef flavored chicken would be quite a hit for the environment.
It's nice to see someone trying to lower the impact on forests, but if this machine costs too much to opperate, it won't sell. Margins are EXTREMELY important to logging companies.
Clearly you've never seen one of these loggers operate. They're pretty common because in spite of their high initial costs, they are extremely efficient.
The harvester head grips a tree near the base and cuts the tree off. The arm is strong enough to control the descent of the tree so it doesn't fall back on the operator. (see the Phase I photo)
As soon as the tree hits the ground, the two wheels that you see will pull the trunk through and trim the trunk to lengths specified by the operator - to maximize the use of each log. As it pulls the log through, the branches are stripped and left on the ground to decompose. And it's FAST.
The whole process from grabbing the virgin tree to loading the logs on the truck takes about 15-30 seconds. It's absolutely amazing to watch how fast it works, especially if you've ever had the privilege of taking a tree down with a chainsaw. It can take a tree down every 60-120 seconds - look at the length of the boom on the harvester in the top photo.
Look at the videos on the simulator page. It shows more of the process. In fact, the simulation looks a little slower than these do in practice.
The wheeled vehicles are problematic because of the amount of debris this process leaves behind. The walker should be able to cruise through forests, plucking out trees without compacting the ground, or destroying much other foliage.
The next real problem is extracting the logs from the forest where they're left. It'll cut a truckload of logs in 15 minutes. There must be a legged forwarder in development that just brings logs to the trucks to haul off.
I think they also incorporate forest management systems in these as well. The harvester measures the diameter of the tree when it locks on so the operator can reject a tree which is too small. I think there's a GPS device in the harvester that records the locations of the trees for the forwarder to find, but also to track which trees are going to mature when. The next season, they can optimize where they cut.
Re:How to think like a computer scientist
on
Think Python
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I think part of the problem is the name `Computer Science', which gives a wrong impression of what the core of the poodle really is.
Well, yeah.
I'd make the following analogies:
Computer Science ~= Physicist
Software Engineering ~= Electrical Engineer
Informatics and Coders ~= Electronics Technician
CS is a science that deals with unravelling how information and logical systems function and developing frameworks to understand them. CS are most likely to determine the boundaries at which things can happen and to lay out how to practically approach that boundary.
Software Engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with manipulating those systems to perform a needed task. They take the work of the CS and design systems to address specific problems. Quick and dirty is just fine, provided that all the needs are being met.
Coders assemble the systems that the SEs design and informaticians maintain those systems.
There's overlap among all of them to some degree, and plenty of people do them all, but from an education point of view, if you mix them together, you get a mess - and most schools mix them together. It was easier to mix them in the past because the field was narrow. But now, you just can't do it.
CS has become very deep, and you can't get into any of the real work if you spend your time dealing with SE and coding practices. SE has become very deep as well and you don't want these folks getting bogged down with the NP completeness proofs and whatnot, or with learning the programming tools too much. There's enough to do in all three areas that they need to be treated as different but complementary disciplines...
While Python is my favourite language, I think it's rather silly to teach Computer Science and especially basic algorithmics with a language that doesn't have pointers...
I'd very much suggest a strongly typed object-oriented language such as C++, Java, or Eiffel...
Actually, while you're probably correct about Python not being ideal for what is about to come, the real problem facing many students learning computer science is that they've never programmed anything before. Many don't know how to break a problem down and build out a logical structure.
It's a basic issue of not demoralizing the student in the first course by tossing a strongly typed, constructor based language at them like Java. Early on, students just need to see how you take a problem and build a solution. The easier and quicker it is, the more likely they are to engage and stay on. As you go, you can illustrate the various benefits of languages that trade off short-term gains for long-term gains. If the students are engaged they'll stay with you.
Most CS students don't graduate from CM or MIT. There are tons of students that attend universities that might be great CS students, but they bail out after a quarter or two because the benefits of the program are lost. That first course in Java is like hell on earth. Hours and hours of writing code that might be the most reusable, modular code on earth but doesn't do a goddamn thing.
Python is a wonderful intro course because you can solve problems quickly. Even in a first course you can teach students to turn their code into a CGI. Now they can actually do productive things. That goes a long way to just keeping students in the program.
In other words, while Microsoft spent two years talking about Web services and technologies, Apple quietly went about actually building them into a program its users will want to use. MS has been announcing and releasing software for other people to build these Web applications, but Apple decided to lead by example instead.
Exactly. I'm sooo tired of the slashdot crowd moaning on about false technology promises from industry. My god, does anyone realize how hard it is to figure out what Apple is going to ship just next month? These guys NEVER promise. No ubiquitous computing, no web browsers in your toaster oven, no tablets that run your life. They just ship products.
And, when Apple doesn't promise pie in the sky, there's more moaning. This is one of the few companies out there that is building real products, shipping them, and moving on to the next real product. And what's more, they are using open standards most of the time. Most of.mac is centered around technology like WebDAV, XML, ZeroConf, and so on. iCal is based on vCalendar format. iSync uses SyncML.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you could wrap it in this
Well, Creative's last annual revenue statement from their website (a bit old, but that's what they have out there) listed $1.3B in annual revenue.
Apple is projected to sell about $650M in iPods this year (analyst numbers).
So, Apple's doing pretty well at this, considering the breadth of Creative's product line.
I'd like to see copyright extended to 2,500 years, and it should be retroactive like the previous laws. That way I can copyright the Bible and *really* rake in the bucks.
Disney thinks so small sometimes...
Mail me (oops ^H^H) Bill Gates the algorithm. I'm sure I (no ^H) he, will have my (damn, ^H^H) his crack security people validate your claims and then do the right thing by it.
If you can't trust me (shit! ^H^H) him, who else can you trust?
Yours Belovedly,
Not Bill Gates
"At first I thought there was some insightful point to this article; then I realized it was just another "Oh no, technology is making us feel old and forcing us to redefine our attitudes" speil... There will always be math becuase no honest engineer is going to trust a software package to such a degree that they can simply forget the underlying princples."
Well, a report my staff wrote today reiterates that very issue with the nature of the engineering students that we're turning out.
Basically, there is concern in a variety of sectors (primarily civil and mechanical) that the engineers coming out today choose to be too reliant on the software and not focus on using their brain to solve the problem and confirm that the software is correct. It's not that they are dependent on the software, it's that this generation has a natural trust and confort with the software that the older engineers really don't have.
You may claim that 'no honest engineer' would do that, but that's exactly what industry is reporting.
I'm not sure why every single /. contributer assumes that a company can only sell a single family of CPU, but has *anyone* considered for a moment that Apple may be ready to put both x86 and PPC in the same lineup?
Consider:
Apple nuked OS 9 booting effective 1/1/03.
Mac OS X is clearly being supported internally for x86.
Apple is concerned about Mot/IBM pulling through with decent CPUs.
My guess is that Apple is going to put both PPC and x86 in boxes next year. The x86 boxes will run Windows, but OS X won't run on a Dell or HP box, etc.
Apple can sell the superior performance (let's all hope...) 64 bit chip that IBM is working on to the pros, and sell either G4 or x86 to the masses. If you really are concerned about Windows compatability, there's an easy out for you - you don't need to decide between Mac OS and Windows - you can have both.
There's some risk in a strategy like this, but by and large it could be a big win for Apple. The 'switch' campaign gives consumers a way to ease into Apple products - buy a 17" iMac x86, run XP on it (maybe like VPC?). If you want to use iTunes, you can do that, and eventually you may upgrade your Windows software to Mac OS X versions.
Of course, if the PPC performance isn't there, nobody will want those boxes and developers might as well chuck OS X development altogether. That's the biggest risk.
I'm surprised that /. isn't all over this...
Check out http://www.xns.org
"XNS is an open, XML-based protocol for identifying and linking any resource participating in any kind of digital transaction. You'll find the complete technical specifications on this site.
XNS provides a flexible, interoperable method for establishing and maintaining persistent digital identities and relationships between these identities. The protocol provides services for registering and resolving identity addresses, defining and managing XML identity documents, conducting and protecting identity transactions, and linking and synchronizing identity attributes."
Basically, store what you want, where you want, in an open format. As a public trust organization, they don't store your identity, they only proxy it. Store it with MS, with Apple, with your work, at home.
Point is, they didn't make an alternative to their IC cars because, well, it's suicide for them!
Except that us Californians just changed the rules.
Basically, auto emissions are going to have to come down. Honda is about the only automaker that won't have to do something drastic to meet these requirements, and Toyota is a close second. We can probably kiss Excursions and Ferarris goodby (I won't miss the Excursions, but I get to see a Ferarri at least once a day, and I'll miss that) and the SUVs will either need to go hybrid, fuel-cell, or hack themselves back so badly nobody will buy one who doesn't really need it.
Why is CA doing this now? Well, in part because the air quality issues here, though that's been steadily improving over the last 20 years to the point that LA barely even ranks for bad air quality these days. Personally, I think the state got so soundly fucked by Enron last year while Bush and the rest of DC sat back and watched that this is an opportunity for CA to drive the rest of the nation for a while.
California is unique among states in having the ability to set pollution standards for cars. Automakers won't make two distinct cars for the US market, so CAs rules become the nations rules. I don't expect that CA is going to back down on their timelines either - the automakers are going to have to make some changes. Time to stick it to the Texans, I suppose...
Yeah, I have no idea where 5.6G came from (maybe that's the max that you find on a coaster in NJ now, and they just don't want to go beyond it)
But the problem is that you can't easily provide that kind of evidence in a conclusive way. Someone who was leaning toward a brain aneurism might get taken out at 4Gs. That condition probably was completely unknown. The G loading will vary for me (in my early 30s, in acceptably good health, weighing around 150lbs) and someone in their 40s, who gets minimal exersize and weighs shy of 300lbs, or someone in their early teens, in good health (but who's body is still developing) weighing in at 85lbs.
What they've done appears to be totally arbitrary. I'm pretty sure I could design a 5.5G coaster that would put 50% of the population in the hospital.
Personally, I'd prefer that they just require design completed by Professional Engineers that would be liable for any damages. The engineers would would be responsible for ensuring that the coaster was safe. I don't believe that PEs are required to sign off on coaster designs now.
Which is why I think that Apple may be trying to get IBM to roll Mac OS X into the mix. For some jobs (content work, mainly) Mac OS X is a very strong candidate, and if Apple and IBM are in fact closing ranks on a new PPC implementation for both parties to use, it makes even more sense.
In other areas, OS X may be strong as well - such as when you need Office and unix on one box.
Well, it depends a LOT on the nature of the force. Plopping into a chair is a force that the body is pretty well equipped to handle. Car accidents (suddent deceleration) can toss about very heavy G loads - 25 G's isn't unusual. A lot of auto safety now is figuring out how to mitigate those forces (airbags soften the forces relative to the dashboard) and how to redirect them into a more survivable form (why small children ride backward - we can take more G's from our back than our front)
5-6 Gs in the manner that rollercoasters deliver are pretty high (forces that an unsupported head will need to resist against). Sustained for even a few seconds and some people will pass out, and most people will be sore, and few will suffer significant problems due to pre-existing conditions. A CART race was postponed last year when drivers complained of dizziness and difficulty breathing with G forces around 5, though it was for fairly sustained periods.
I think the problem boils down to more people riding coasters, more high G coasters, and more people that aren't in sufficient shape to handle such forces. The number of injuries and deaths aren't high, but for an activity that is supposed to be entertainment, I suspect our tolerance for casualties is pretty low.
"for people that really want to spend as little time as possible in front of it"
Hmm. No. That's not how they bill it.
Macs are billed as the computer for people who really want to *enjoy* as much time as possible in front of it.
The Mac version will be out soon enough. No big whoop. The game won't be any less fun when it's released for OS X. But a lot of people I know own only a Mac and play UT. Mac users enjoy their games as much as their PC counterparts (and spend proportionatly as much much on games), they just aren't as inclined to own their machines as a glorified Xbox.
Is anyone out there successfully juggling running a company and studying at the same time? How do you juggle the two without hampering either due to lack of the right amount of attention?
Well, I've done it, and I work with a lot of engineering students that are doing it now. It's not easy. In my case, it nearly cost me my education, my company, and my state of mind. Now I help others avoid running into the same situation.
The problem isn't the hours or the motivation - it's not really a problem of juggling. It's the fact that you've made a commitment to your business, and now you're making a new commitment to your education. When the day comes - and it will come - when you need to pick one or the other, figure out now how you'll choose. A day will come when the business needs you and an exam is coming up. Will you let your staff solve the crisis without your intervention, or will you blow off the exam. Regardless of what you choose, you need to be okay with your choice the next day. These are things to figure out now. If you do this, and stick to it, you'll probably be okay. Juggling implies that you can run and do one, then run and do the other. You *will* hit a day that you can only do one and not the other. Be ready for that day.
If your business doesn't require you to have the degree (that is, you're getting the degree for you) then make the business your first priority. That'll mean that you fail an exam or a class here and there. Be prepared for that, and be okay with that. If you aren't, you'll find yourself overtaxing yourself and the result often is that you fail to meet any of your commitments.
This advise is pretty flexible. Got a family? Care about them? That's your commitment. They win over school as well.
It works in reverse. Got a commitment to Everquest? You have to choose between being a kick-ass Everquester or a person with a degree. At top universities about 15% of students stick to their gaming commitment and get kicked out. Trust me, I do it all the time. We work with students with jobs and families and medical conditions to help them through. The students that refuse to treat their addictions, we cut them loose. Sorry to say, but we don't want to be a $30k/yr gaming club.
Last bit of advice. Don't focus on Princeton or Stanford or MIT. They're not geared towards flexibility. That't not to say it can't be done, but it's much harder. Look for a large, state university that's got a strong continuing education program. You won't get the top school cache (which really doesn't matter anyway) but you'll get a good solid education. They'll be more understanding of your competing commitments, they'll have better course schedules (evening classes, etc.) and they'll have more frequent offerings of courses so you can stay on track.
Good luck.
While it won't give you precicely the knowledge you want when you want it, they do an excellent job of providing solid direction on some fairly complex scientific topics - even for people without a scientific degree.
It's not too expensive, but they'll do a very nice job of filling in the gaps and provide leads on where to look next for more information.
Basically Apple is finding a use for all of that VRAM while users are futzing around not playing 3D games. Granted, it's finding interesting ways to accelerate 2D video and using the AGP to pull from main RAM as well, but it's in the same sprit as stuffing random data in there.
Rather than buy an extra card for this purpose, the question to ask is how much of that 128MB am I using day-to-day. If the answer is *none* (as Apple determined) then this is a good thing.
Apple has yet to reveal their clustering solution for Mac OS X and Xserve, but consider how easy Rendezvous will make this task.
DVD[+-]RW?
Terrorists, on the other hand, go after civilians with the INTENT to kill them. They're killing innocents simply to create fear.
And what have we accomplishing from killing civilians (by accident or otherwise)?
Have we prevented terrorism in any way, or is it just as easy now as before to hijack an oil tanker and steer it flaming into NY harbor?
A dead civilian is a dead civilian. Race, nationality, none of it matters. 3,000 americans die (and don't get me wrong - I'm pretty pissed off about it) and we overthrow a country and kill not only an equal number of foreign civilians, but by now probably 10x as many as incidental deaths and still it's not clear if we got the bad guys.
And what's most embarrassing of all? We've only made the problem worse. The people that run this country are complete fucking idiots, I tell you. I seriously hope we can figure out how to clone people. I want Teddy Roosevelt back running the game.
why we are using word processors instead of typewriters or movable type presses.
Why spread sheets are needed? We could use register paper instead of an expensive computer.
Index cards are cheaper than databases. Lets go pull the plug on that expensive DB server.
Customers and vendors don't really need to do stuff with our web site, they can call in to our customer service lines. Oh, we'll need more bodies in customer service...
Who needs e-mail. Snail mail is fine for what we do...
Why should we search the web for the best prices, just order catalogs once a year and go to the public library more often to do research.
Great. You've just mentioned 6 things that were invented and deliverable no less than 8 years ago. Why should any of us have spent more than maintenance costs on equipment bought in 1995, or thereabouts?
Nothing you've mentioned has fundamentally improved since then, and a few things have gotten worse such as e-mail and word processors. A lot of the dollars spent since then has been on upgrades for compatibility or upgrades for bug fixes or chasing white rabbits.
The only area that has introduced anything of measurable value is databases, and though exposing DB through the web has the web been of any real value to business.
I'd say that 75-90% of all IT dollars spent in the last 5 years were wasted dollars. Some of it has been good and productive but most hasn't. How many companies are willing to admit to the half-million dollar websites that needed a redesign immediately because nobody could use them? How many double-purchases of Windows? How many consultants at $250/hr to build solutions that never worked?
(or How Can I Make Use of this Seemingly Useless Information from College)
Anthropologists working with communities that practice cannibalism have reported that individuals can more-or-less peg a persons origin based on how they taste - presumably through their diet.
How much variation in flavor can you get in chicken, beef, etc. just through the animals diet?
Additionally, what is it in the makeup of the meat that makes the smell so distinctive. What makes beef taste like beef and chicken like chicken? I would think that beef flavored chicken would be quite a hit for the environment.
It's nice to see someone trying to lower the impact on forests, but if this machine costs too much to opperate, it won't sell. Margins are EXTREMELY important to logging companies.
Clearly you've never seen one of these loggers operate. They're pretty common because in spite of their high initial costs, they are extremely efficient.
The harvester head grips a tree near the base and cuts the tree off. The arm is strong enough to control the descent of the tree so it doesn't fall back on the operator. (see the Phase I photo)
As soon as the tree hits the ground, the two wheels that you see will pull the trunk through and trim the trunk to lengths specified by the operator - to maximize the use of each log. As it pulls the log through, the branches are stripped and left on the ground to decompose. And it's FAST.
The whole process from grabbing the virgin tree to loading the logs on the truck takes about 15-30 seconds. It's absolutely amazing to watch how fast it works, especially if you've ever had the privilege of taking a tree down with a chainsaw. It can take a tree down every 60-120 seconds - look at the length of the boom on the harvester in the top photo.
Look at the videos on the simulator page. It shows more of the process. In fact, the simulation looks a little slower than these do in practice.
The wheeled vehicles are problematic because of the amount of debris this process leaves behind. The walker should be able to cruise through forests, plucking out trees without compacting the ground, or destroying much other foliage.
The next real problem is extracting the logs from the forest where they're left. It'll cut a truckload of logs in 15 minutes. There must be a legged forwarder in development that just brings logs to the trucks to haul off.
I think they also incorporate forest management systems in these as well. The harvester measures the diameter of the tree when it locks on so the operator can reject a tree which is too small. I think there's a GPS device in the harvester that records the locations of the trees for the forwarder to find, but also to track which trees are going to mature when. The next season, they can optimize where they cut.
I think part of the problem is the name `Computer Science', which gives a wrong impression of what the core of the poodle really is.
Well, yeah.
I'd make the following analogies:
CS is a science that deals with unravelling how information and logical systems function and developing frameworks to understand them. CS are most likely to determine the boundaries at which things can happen and to lay out how to practically approach that boundary.
Software Engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with manipulating those systems to perform a needed task. They take the work of the CS and design systems to address specific problems. Quick and dirty is just fine, provided that all the needs are being met.
Coders assemble the systems that the SEs design and informaticians maintain those systems.
There's overlap among all of them to some degree, and plenty of people do them all, but from an education point of view, if you mix them together, you get a mess - and most schools mix them together. It was easier to mix them in the past because the field was narrow. But now, you just can't do it.
CS has become very deep, and you can't get into any of the real work if you spend your time dealing with SE and coding practices. SE has become very deep as well and you don't want these folks getting bogged down with the NP completeness proofs and whatnot, or with learning the programming tools too much. There's enough to do in all three areas that they need to be treated as different but complementary disciplines...
While Python is my favourite language, I think it's rather silly to teach Computer Science and especially basic algorithmics with a language that doesn't have pointers...
I'd very much suggest a strongly typed object-oriented language such as C++, Java, or Eiffel...
Actually, while you're probably correct about Python not being ideal for what is about to come, the real problem facing many students learning computer science is that they've never programmed anything before. Many don't know how to break a problem down and build out a logical structure.
It's a basic issue of not demoralizing the student in the first course by tossing a strongly typed, constructor based language at them like Java. Early on, students just need to see how you take a problem and build a solution. The easier and quicker it is, the more likely they are to engage and stay on. As you go, you can illustrate the various benefits of languages that trade off short-term gains for long-term gains. If the students are engaged they'll stay with you.
Most CS students don't graduate from CM or MIT. There are tons of students that attend universities that might be great CS students, but they bail out after a quarter or two because the benefits of the program are lost. That first course in Java is like hell on earth. Hours and hours of writing code that might be the most reusable, modular code on earth but doesn't do a goddamn thing.
Python is a wonderful intro course because you can solve problems quickly. Even in a first course you can teach students to turn their code into a CGI. Now they can actually do productive things. That goes a long way to just keeping students in the program.
What, you mean standardized wireless phone communication hasn't resulted in the US leading the worldwide charge in cell phones?
What about Noki...? Hmm, they aren't a US company...
But what about Ericcso...? Hmm, they aren't either.
Sony? No...
Motorola? Ew.
Maybe you've got a point there...
In other words, while Microsoft spent two years talking about Web services and technologies, Apple quietly went about actually building them into a program its users will want to use. MS has been announcing and releasing software for other people to build these Web applications, but Apple decided to lead by example instead.
Exactly. I'm sooo tired of the slashdot crowd moaning on about false technology promises from industry. My god, does anyone realize how hard it is to figure out what Apple is going to ship just next month? These guys NEVER promise. No ubiquitous computing, no web browsers in your toaster oven, no tablets that run your life. They just ship products.
And, when Apple doesn't promise pie in the sky, there's more moaning. This is one of the few companies out there that is building real products, shipping them, and moving on to the next real product. And what's more, they are using open standards most of the time. Most of .mac is centered around technology like WebDAV, XML, ZeroConf, and so on. iCal is based on vCalendar format. iSync uses SyncML.
There's not much hidden magic here.