Advertizers pay for the commercials and air time, regardless if I, or anyone else, watch them or buy their product.
This is not correct. Broadcasters and cable channels sell "eyeballs," not airtime. When an advertiser buys time during a show, the network/station promises to deliver a certain number of viewers. If the network fails to deliver that number of viewers (measured through ratings data) they must give the advertiser another commercial (for free). This is called a "make-good."
This doesn't impact your point about having the choice to watch/not watch a commercial, but I figured I'd set the record straight for how ad time works.
I may have missed something, but...
on
P2P Meets Push
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· Score: 1
From what I read, only the prebroadcasts are digitally signed. What is to stop someone from receiving the broadcast file and replacing it with something malicious. This malicious file would then be forwarded on to all the nodes that replied to its prebroadcast message.
I'd like to see more details about what a "prebroadcast" consists of. I would think there would be at least a checksum or something to allow receiving nodes to verfiy the file they received was actually the one that was sent by the original broadcaster.
Sounds like an interesting class, but others have done this before. Boston College, for example, has had a course called Technology in Society for a few years now.
You may want to be careful when taking photos on the subway in Boston. Technically, the T is regarded as property of the MBTA and, though it is "public" transportation, it is not considered a public place. You are correct that you do not need the permission of the people in the photographs, but you DO need the permission of the MBTA to take photos on the T. If you are taking photographs with said permission, the MBTA can confiscate your camera, your film or both (if they feel so inclined). Just wanted to give you a heads up.
Boston College, though it lacks a graduate program in CS, is still doing some really interesting work in HCI. The CameraMouse and EagleEyes use computer vision and muscle eletric potential, respectively to control the mouse cursor. While this is mainly a user-assistive technology, they're continuing to develop the technology and at some point one of these could move into the mainstream of HCI.
There is a fairly large difference between being physically present in another country and someone from another country viewing something that may be contrary to local laws. There is no way to obey the laws (let alone the customs) of every country from which people may view a website. In my opinion, web content should be compliant with the laws of the country in which the server that hosts the site is located.
The army is using nanotechnology to make a new generation of combat uniforms. This isn't quite the same thing as what the article is talking about, but it is fairly similar (and interesting).
"I don't know - what's the worst possible thing M$ could do that would cripple Open Source? M$ is trying to discredit and destroy a philosphy, which is historically a lot more difficult to do than going after an individual or a corporation. Even countries that have used much more extreme measures than anything M$ has tried have failed when it comes to that."
Microsoft is not directly attacking Open Source, they are attacking the GPL. I think you'll find that most corporations harbor a fear of the GPL. Its language is somewhat ambiguous as to the rammifications if a commercial software product was released with bits of GPL'ed code in it and no one wants to be the first company to have to find out if it will hold up in court. Even if Microsoft is able to influence legislation regarding the GPL, it is doubtful that this will "cripple" Open Source. There are a plethora of other licenses out there and more are crated every day.
What I was wondering about was the degree to which M$ participates in Open Source development... do they have any Open Source projects in development (using something other than the GPL)?
While it is true that you can have memory leaks in java, learning things like malloc() are not worthless exercises. If nothing else, it teaches you to appreciate the differences that are encountered on different platforms/architectures.
I do not doubt that you can teach someone to program in java and he/she will turn out to be a good programmer, but the danger is this: java provides things that students wont find in other languages. A student taught in java may not know that an integer isnt necesarily represented with the same number of bits on every system.
It is definately possible to become a good programmer no matter what language you start with (it all depends on the person), but starting with java is a diservice to students because it may result in their taking too many things for granted.
I am currently a CS major entering my senior year. My school has used C in its intro courses up until now. Starting this year, freshmen will be required to take Java. C++ will still be taught, but in an upper-level OOP class. I dont agree with this choice. C/C++ is still very prominent in the software field, especially in Linux programming. While C++ includes everything C does, not having a course that uses ANSI C will result in many students missing out on the kinds of things you can do with a procedural, powerful language.
Java hides quite a bit of low-level stuff from the programmer. While this is well and good, it still needs to be learned. Understanding pointers is a topic that is especially valuable and, if java is used, they wont even be mentined.
This raises another question: is OOP suitable for all programming tasks? By teaching intro courses in Java and then C++ in upper level courses, students may be able to get out of college without ever programming in a procedural language (the only non-oop language may end up being assembly). Should schools be so eager to jump on the OOP bandwagon that they abandon all procedural programming?
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This is not correct. Broadcasters and cable channels sell "eyeballs," not airtime. When an advertiser buys time during a show, the network/station promises to deliver a certain number of viewers. If the network fails to deliver that number of viewers (measured through ratings data) they must give the advertiser another commercial (for free). This is called a "make-good."
This doesn't impact your point about having the choice to watch/not watch a commercial, but I figured I'd set the record straight for how ad time works.
From what I read, only the prebroadcasts are digitally signed. What is to stop someone from receiving the broadcast file and replacing it with something malicious. This malicious file would then be forwarded on to all the nodes that replied to its prebroadcast message.
I'd like to see more details about what a "prebroadcast" consists of. I would think there would be at least a checksum or something to allow receiving nodes to verfiy the file they received was actually the one that was sent by the original broadcaster.
Mmmmmm .... Solent Windows.
Sounds like an interesting class, but others have done this before. Boston College, for example, has had a course called Technology in Society for a few years now.
You may want to be careful when taking photos on the subway in Boston. Technically, the T is regarded as property of the MBTA and, though it is "public" transportation, it is not considered a public place. You are correct that you do not need the permission of the people in the photographs, but you DO need the permission of the MBTA to take photos on the T. If you are taking photographs with said permission, the MBTA can confiscate your camera, your film or both (if they feel so inclined). Just wanted to give you a heads up.
Boston College, though it lacks a graduate program in CS, is still doing some really interesting work in HCI. The CameraMouse and EagleEyes use computer vision and muscle eletric potential, respectively to control the mouse cursor. While this is mainly a user-assistive technology, they're continuing to develop the technology and at some point one of these could move into the mainstream of HCI.
There is a fairly large difference between being physically present in another country and someone from another country viewing something that may be contrary to local laws. There is no way to obey the laws (let alone the customs) of every country from which people may view a website.
In my opinion, web content should be compliant with the laws of the country in which the server that hosts the site is located.
The army is using nanotechnology to make a new generation of combat uniforms. This isn't quite the same thing as what the article is talking about, but it is fairly similar (and interesting).
"I don't know - what's the worst possible thing M$ could do that would cripple Open Source? M$ is trying to discredit and destroy a philosphy, which is historically a lot more difficult to do than going after an individual or a corporation. Even countries that have used much more extreme measures than anything M$ has tried have failed when it comes to that."
Microsoft is not directly attacking Open Source, they are attacking the GPL. I think you'll find that most corporations harbor a fear of the GPL. Its language is somewhat ambiguous as to the rammifications if a commercial software product was released with bits of GPL'ed code in it and no one wants to be the first company to have to find out if it will hold up in court. Even if Microsoft is able to influence legislation regarding the GPL, it is doubtful that this will "cripple" Open Source. There are a plethora of other licenses out there and more are crated every day. What I was wondering about was the degree to which M$ participates in Open Source development... do they have any Open Source projects in development (using something other than the GPL)?
While it is true that you can have memory leaks in java, learning things like malloc() are not worthless exercises. If nothing else, it teaches you to appreciate the differences that are encountered on different platforms/architectures. I do not doubt that you can teach someone to program in java and he/she will turn out to be a good programmer, but the danger is this: java provides things that students wont find in other languages. A student taught in java may not know that an integer isnt necesarily represented with the same number of bits on every system. It is definately possible to become a good programmer no matter what language you start with (it all depends on the person), but starting with java is a diservice to students because it may result in their taking too many things for granted.
I am currently a CS major entering my senior year. My school has used C in its intro courses up until now. Starting this year, freshmen will be required to take Java. C++ will still be taught, but in an upper-level OOP class. I dont agree with this choice. C/C++ is still very prominent in the software field, especially in Linux programming. While C++ includes everything C does, not having a course that uses ANSI C will result in many students missing out on the kinds of things you can do with a procedural, powerful language. Java hides quite a bit of low-level stuff from the programmer. While this is well and good, it still needs to be learned. Understanding pointers is a topic that is especially valuable and, if java is used, they wont even be mentined. This raises another question: is OOP suitable for all programming tasks? By teaching intro courses in Java and then C++ in upper level courses, students may be able to get out of college without ever programming in a procedural language (the only non-oop language may end up being assembly). Should schools be so eager to jump on the OOP bandwagon that they abandon all procedural programming?