While fiber inside a case may be feasible (with plug-in fibers such as they have for router SONET interfaces), it wouldn't be a good idea for keyboards or mice, since fiber _breaks_ when bent too much (the "safe" bending distance is roughly a 3.5" diameter circle).
The fields of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and electrical engineering (EE) are very inter-related.
In a nutshell, CS is pure math/software (do NOT think CS is just programming), EE is pure hardware (from to atomic level up), and CE is basically a blend.
CS majors have very little hardware (I think one, maybe two digital logic courses is all).
EE major have very little software (a little assembler in a uP course, and one or two C/Java courses).
CE people do both. For example, at the University of Waterloo CE program, hardware and software is basically equally split, with a slight emphasis on hardware.
The problem is that, while CS and EE are basically the same everywhere, CE is _not_ the same everywhere.
Keep in mind that while a CE (and even EE, to some extent) can easily move into most programming jobs, a CS will find it difficult, at best, to move into hardware fields. CE/EE also have the advantage of understanding how hardware works, so are often preferred for writing low-level code (such as drivers), and will be better at debugging said code on a product.
If you like hardware and hate software, choose EE. If you don't like hardware, choose CS. If you like both, choose CE.
FYI, I am currently in a computer engineering program, but I had considered myself destined for computer science for all but the last bit of high school. I have zero regrets about choosing CE or CS (I know quite a few CS majors).
The computer engineering program at the University of Waterloo (in Canada) doesn't use a specific OS to learn from (although the textbook uses the traditional ones for examples - NT, *nix, particularly Solaris).
Instead, the project is to design (from scratch, including a design document) and implement a real-time operating system on an embedded system (currently MotorolaColdfires).
One should note that QNX came out of the UW CS real-time course, not the OS course.
Hard drives, like everything else, is a balance: you can get larger capacity, with only limited performance gains that are associated with bigger platters. Or you can get memory-like speed (50 us access time) with "solid state" drives at the expense of cost, and size (available from 268 MB to 3.20 GB). These babies, however, work on SCSI-3 at can only do 30 MB/s transfer speed. Hooks them up in a RAID striping configuration, and it's even faster.
There are also, I believe, some solid state - normal hybrids, where there are platters like in mainstream drives but the cache on the drives are huge - the only issue that a battery is required so data can be written to the platters during power outages.
Ultimately, however, we're going to have to get away from the parallel interface to an uber-fast serial interface (hmm... OC-3 for hard drives?). I think another limiting factor is simply the physics of hard drives... so maybe some sort of holographic sugar-cube storage (this message will dissolve in 5 seconds...). Of course, being able to accurately predict reading & writing locations is good too.
Personally, I like using C for CGI. There are some very nice libraries out there for CGI programming that makes it all easy. (ie. Jemtek).
On the other hand, Perl _is_ far more popular. One reason, I think, is because one can download Perl code and use it, while unless someone was using a C interpreter (and who in their right mind would), all C CGI is compiled, and thus unreadable. This makes it out of reach for most beginners, or for someone who wants specific functionality that is already popular enough to just go out and grab from a script archive or homepage.
And to repeat: Perl is much better at strings and is easier to test; C is faster, but also more likely to core badly.
I really think that many of the people who believe humanity will destroy itself via Cyberclysm are extremists. I find myself have a hard time even imagining it. Not that I don't recognize society's dependence on technology, electricity in particular.
I see advances in this kind of technology as tools and venues of entertainment. Technology has great potential for increasing productivity, such as the computer. The problem is when they are not properly implemented (such as bad, unreliable software *ahem*).
My computer has replaced television. I don't own a TV, I own a TV card, which I will occasionally hook up to a VCR or a pair of rabbit-ears, but I do not subscribe to cable TV, and I certainly don't watch ten hours worth of shows. I wouldn't skim five hundred channels, even if I could. That saves me twelve hours already!
Most things I can see on TV I can find on the Internet. The same goes with the newspaper, except when I read/. or other news sources, I can easier narrow the content to what interests me, and the news is normally much more recent (as in a can pick up a newspaper, scan the front page and check off the articles "old news, old news, old news").
I'm a computer engineering student. I don't own a cell phone, or a pager, and I don't need one. My personal telephone dates back to the Calgary Olympics. The _only_ thing hooked up to the Internet is my computer. I intend to buy a PDA, but only to replace my less convenient pen-and-paper agenda. I don't own a car, nor do I have regular access to one.
I will admit that there so many unnecessary gadgets out there. But they are not inherently wrong. It is only the misuse and growing dependence on these gadgets that could bring down humanity. As for me, if the Cyberclysm happens in my lifetime, I'll look forward to the Abacus World Expo (see After Y2K for details).
I run a PII-400MHz 2.2.10 system, which is essentially single user. I have 128 MB RAM, and 128 MB swap space. I've never seen Linux use more than 1 MB of swap space, even when compiling the kernel. While running X. And Netscape. And X11Amp.
Oh course, if I were running a server, I'd keep the 128MB, just in case. But I don't. Next time I reinstall Linux, I'm reducing the swap to 32MB (just in case...).
It is really important that the root causes are flushed out. Maybe this round of media coverage will do it, maybe not. But it is _supremely_ important that any geek that gives a testimonial protect him or herself. This is a serious issue that should not be underestimated.
I find it odd that journals, those who are trained to report objectively, could use a course or two in critical thinking.
It seems to me that self-styled "geeks" aren't affected very much by being picked on, so maybe labelling the two Colorado "gunboys" isn't justified. But the media has never been known to be particularly accurate with their labelling.
Anyway, I don't believe that the internet, or games caused this. Even if the boys had bought their guns off the internet.
I think the first people to blame are the boys. Every man, woman, and child is in control of their own actions. To lay the blame on the Internet or violent games is almost saying that it wasn't their fault, when it was completely their fault. I use the internet all the time, and I've played violent games a very long time (beginning with Wolfeinstein 3D and Spear of Destiny for all you pre-Doom folk), and I haven't done anything remotely violent. Even if they were motivated by feeling left out, being picked on by "jocks", they should either deal with it or seek help.
The second people to blame are their parents. I recognize that parents can't be responsible for everything their children do, but I think that they probably should have seen something like this coming. Or else they're guilty of neglecting their children. Nature and nuture.
Hmmm... speed reading would be great. Even better would be being able to *stay awake* when reading (things such as textbooks and dry technical documents). Anybody have advice for this?
Slashdot Mirror
... there stands a martian squeegee kid.
While fiber inside a case may be feasible (with plug-in fibers such as they have for router SONET interfaces), it wouldn't be a good idea for keyboards or mice, since fiber _breaks_ when bent too much (the "safe" bending distance is roughly a 3.5" diameter circle).
... on one gesture shopping.
Oops. My mouse slipped.
The fields of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and electrical engineering (EE) are very inter-related.
In a nutshell, CS is pure math/software (do NOT think CS is just programming), EE is pure hardware (from to atomic level up), and CE is basically a blend.
CS majors have very little hardware (I think one, maybe two digital logic courses is all).
EE major have very little software (a little assembler in a uP course, and one or two C/Java courses).
CE people do both. For example, at the University of Waterloo CE program, hardware and software is basically equally split, with a slight emphasis on hardware.
The problem is that, while CS and EE are basically the same everywhere, CE is _not_ the same everywhere.
Keep in mind that while a CE (and even EE, to some extent) can easily move into most programming jobs, a CS will find it difficult, at best, to move into hardware fields. CE/EE also have the advantage of understanding how hardware works, so are often preferred for writing low-level code (such as drivers), and will be better at debugging said code on a product.
If you like hardware and hate software, choose EE. If you don't like hardware, choose CS. If you like both, choose CE.
FYI, I am currently in a computer engineering program, but I had considered myself destined for computer science for all but the last bit of high school. I have zero regrets about choosing CE or CS (I know quite a few CS majors).
The computer engineering program at the University of Waterloo (in Canada) doesn't use a specific OS to learn from (although the textbook uses the traditional ones for examples - NT, *nix, particularly Solaris).
Instead, the project is to design (from scratch, including a design document) and implement a real-time operating system on an embedded system (currently Motorola Coldfires).
One should note that QNX came out of the UW CS real-time course, not the OS course.
Hard drives, like everything else, is a balance: you can get larger capacity, with only limited performance gains that are associated with bigger platters. Or you can get memory-like speed (50 us access time) with "solid state" drives at the expense of cost, and size (available from 268 MB to 3.20 GB). These babies, however, work on SCSI-3 at can only do 30 MB/s transfer speed. Hooks them up in a RAID striping configuration, and it's even faster.
There are also, I believe, some solid state - normal hybrids, where there are platters like in mainstream drives but the cache on the drives are huge - the only issue that a battery is required so data can be written to the platters during power outages.
Ultimately, however, we're going to have to get away from the parallel interface to an uber-fast serial interface (hmm... OC-3 for hard drives?). I think another limiting factor is simply the physics of hard drives... so maybe some sort of holographic sugar-cube storage (this message will dissolve in 5 seconds...). Of course, being able to accurately predict reading & writing locations is good too.
Personally, I like using C for CGI. There are some very nice libraries out there for CGI programming that makes it all easy. (ie. Jemtek).
On the other hand, Perl _is_ far more popular. One reason, I think, is because one can download Perl code and use it, while unless someone was using a C interpreter (and who in their right mind would), all C CGI is compiled, and thus unreadable. This makes it out of reach for most beginners, or for someone who wants specific functionality that is already popular enough to just go out and grab from a script archive or homepage.
And to repeat: Perl is much better at strings and is easier to test; C is faster, but also more likely to core badly.
I really think that many of the people who believe humanity will destroy itself via Cyberclysm are extremists. I find myself have a hard time even imagining it. Not that I don't recognize society's dependence on technology, electricity in particular.
/. or other news sources, I can easier narrow the content to what interests me, and the news is normally much more recent (as in a can pick up a newspaper, scan the front page and check off the articles "old news, old news, old news").
I see advances in this kind of technology as tools and venues of entertainment. Technology has great potential for increasing productivity, such as the computer. The problem is when they are not properly implemented (such as bad, unreliable software *ahem*).
My computer has replaced television. I don't own a TV, I own a TV card, which I will occasionally hook up to a VCR or a pair of rabbit-ears, but I do not subscribe to cable TV, and I certainly don't watch ten hours worth of shows. I wouldn't skim five hundred channels, even if I could. That saves me twelve hours already!
Most things I can see on TV I can find on the Internet. The same goes with the newspaper, except when I read
I'm a computer engineering student. I don't own a cell phone, or a pager, and I don't need one. My personal telephone dates back to the Calgary Olympics. The _only_ thing hooked up to the Internet is my computer. I intend to buy a PDA, but only to replace my less convenient pen-and-paper agenda. I don't own a car, nor do I have regular access to one.
I will admit that there so many unnecessary gadgets out there. But they are not inherently wrong. It is only the misuse and growing dependence on these gadgets that could bring down humanity. As for me, if the Cyberclysm happens in my lifetime, I'll look forward to the Abacus World Expo (see After Y2K for details).
I run a PII-400MHz 2.2.10 system, which is essentially single user. I have 128 MB RAM, and 128 MB swap space. I've never seen Linux use more than 1 MB of swap space, even when compiling the kernel. While running X. And Netscape. And X11Amp.
Oh course, if I were running a server, I'd keep the 128MB, just in case. But I don't. Next time I reinstall Linux, I'm reducing the swap to 32MB (just in case...).
It is really important that the root causes are flushed out. Maybe this round of media coverage will do it, maybe not. But it is _supremely_ important that any geek that gives a testimonial protect him or herself. This is a serious issue that should not be underestimated.
I find it odd that journals, those who are trained to report objectively, could use a course or two in critical thinking.
It seems to me that self-styled "geeks" aren't affected very much by being picked on, so maybe labelling the two Colorado "gunboys" isn't justified. But the media has never been known to be particularly accurate with their labelling.
Anyway, I don't believe that the internet, or games caused this. Even if the boys had bought their guns off the internet.
I think the first people to blame are the boys. Every man, woman, and child is in control of their own actions. To lay the blame on the Internet or violent games is almost saying that it wasn't their fault, when it was completely their fault. I use the internet all the time, and I've played violent games a very long time (beginning with Wolfeinstein 3D and Spear of Destiny for all you pre-Doom folk), and I haven't done anything remotely violent. Even if they were motivated by feeling left out, being picked on by "jocks", they should either deal with it or seek help.
The second people to blame are their parents. I recognize that parents can't be responsible for everything their children do, but I think that they probably should have seen something like this coming. Or else they're guilty of neglecting their children. Nature and nuture.
Anyway, those are my quick two cents.
Hmmm... speed reading would be great. Even better would be being able to *stay awake* when reading (things such as textbooks and dry technical documents). Anybody have advice for this?