BS. Standards of living for the particular area you're living in should determine how much you make. I went to school in Blacksburg, I now live in NoVa. Want to know what the difference in SOL is? My $50k starting equated to $38k down there. It's all relative.
Not to mention, you should take a job you enjoy with work you're interested in and an employer you respect. I would gladly (and did) drop a couple $k off my salary to find a job that I could be happy with as opposed to hating or enduring going to work each day.
Frankly, we have no one to blame but ourselves. At some point in our history, the US as a country became very self-centered. You can argue it's always been that way, since the first white guys (technically the second, since I actually give the Norse some mad props for exploration, but they're routinely left out of American history) stepped on America's soil and proudly proclaimed "Mine!". However, it's become more obvious, IMHO, that in the last century American's are self-centered. At some point, I would have called us Family-centered or Nationalistic at worst, but many really only care about themselves. These people should not be breeding, because without devoting your time and love more to your children than yourself, you're chlidren will grow up to be as selfish as you, if not more so.
The television, video games, movies and music became an easy way for children to be entertained while affording the parents time to do what they wanted. Add technology that has shortened the time required for our daily chores, and you end up with a LOT of free time. I try to explain to my girlfriend every time she says she has no time for things that, in reality, we're overflowing with extra time, but she doesn't believe me. Compare the standard family life of a suburbanite to that of an agrarian less than two centuries ago. They spent all their time working, and it was necessary for each member of the family to pitch in and do their share. Lifestyle improvement through technology should have been a good thing because it gives us more free time, but that's only if we use the free time to better ourselves. Most people don't do that, however.
Necessary, no. But neither are computers, cars, airplanes, defibrillators, dialysis machines, etc. The human race could survive and breed just fine without all those. However, individual's lives are made better by some of these pieces of technology. There is always a balance that needs to be reached between simplicity and innovation, but in general technology allows us to advance as a race.
Before I get flamed for comparing Grand Theft Auto to a lifesaving dialysis machine, let me say that I 'blame' video games for getting me interested in technology. I became an engineer because while playing video games I would think about the mechanics behind some of the games. Clock speeds, refresh rates, timers, action order, all lead me to think logically, which is key for an engineer. Could it evolved out of something other than video games? Probably, but that was my experience. I don't think video games are always bad or always good, they're somehwere in the grey.
Banning violent video game sales to minors imposes on a parent's right to choose what's best for their kids.
How so? If a parent wants their kid exposed to something, they'll buy it for them. This is to prevent the use of inappropriate material by kids without their parent's permission or knowledge. If a parent thinks an R rated movie is appropriate for their kid, they'll rent/buy it for them, but the kid can't do it themselves. Likewise, if a parent thinks a kid is ready for pornography, they can buy that for them. We only make items illegal that have physical reprecussions associated with them...namely drugs and alcohol.
I think your argument is flawed, a parent still has all his/her rights in this matter, it's the kids whose rights are being infringed. Since kids don't have all the same rights as adults anyway, I don't see the issue.
Depends on the game...my favorite on PartyPoker is 7 card stud, but any stud type game (hold 'em, for instance) diminishes the chance of figuring out who has the 'good' hand since a hand can go from crappy great when the last card is revealed and, subsequently, the last betting round is held. More than once have I gone from having only a pair of 2's and losing to having three of a kind and winning. I've also experienced the opposite.
Even draw games disadvantage playing multiple hands, other than increasing your odds to win by having multiple plays per round. More hands may mean more wins, but it will also cost you more in blind bets, antes and opening rounds.
Specifically, whoever paid for the accounts is the owner. Assuming that the company is paying you to host the site/mail accounts, they own them all and 'sublet' the accounts to their employees. Once that employee has vacated, the account is yours again.
OCR aside (you're right, it's far more advanced than most of the 'captchas' I've seen), this would be easy to do. Follow:
1) Person comes to sign up for porn 2) Porn site requests the captcha from the free email provider 3) Porn site presents the captcha to the user 4) User types in the string 5) Porn site presents the string to the free email provider. 6) If email provider accepts, good to go. If not, throw back exception to the user. Goto step 3.
No sessions are being expired here, you have your basic man in the middle attack.
I'll agree, we hear a bit about rape, but you can find examples of death on nearly every television channel, any day of the week. Rape is still a taboo subject in our society, though I agree with you that both the act and the lie are disgusting acts.
What makes the simulated shooting down of 30 innocent people in a video game more socially acceptable?
Basically, we as a society are desensitized to seeing acted out death; that is to say, watching someone die but they don't really die. Movies, tv shows, games, etc, all show people dying in front of us, but we know they aren't really dead...it's just a virtual world or the person is acting.
Sexual crimes, on the other hand, we have not been desensitized to. American society is becoming less sensitive to sex (see Britney, Christina and half the women falling out of their dresses on the Golden Globes), but we aren't comfortable with sex to the point that we'll expose people to it and say "That's alright, it's just fake".
In addition, rape and pedophilia are most definitely considered 'icky'. We don't like seeing, hearing or talking about them. Death is more okay, mostly because it happens in legitimate forms all the time ("Grandpa died of old age yesterday"..."Fluffy died from being hit by that car"). Sexual assault doesn't have to happen, death does, so it doesn't take the same toll on our psyches.
I dunno, I've never slaughtered 10's of people walking the streets of my town, but I'm relatively sure I could cap 1 person, leaving everyone else screaming and frantic, jump in my car and drive without being immediately caught by the police and thrown in jail.
Remember...the main character of GTAIII is an escaped felon who is already 'on the run' from the police. He is hiding in warehouses and back alleys with no permanent address or identification. He also doesn't need to eat, present paperwork anywhere or otherwise associate with society. The game hints at the fact that not only is crime rampant in Liberty City, but the police force is corrupt (hence the easily accessible 'bribes' found throughout the game).
The police are ridiculously easy to get away from, but that is due to Rockstar following the first rule of game making...'Anything that makes the game less fun rather than more fun to play is bad'. If the police instantly caught you, or continued looking for you after you escaped, the game would suck. If you want real life, go live it. This is an escape from the real world.
As to attacking women on the street...nothing makes attacking a woman easier than attacking a guy. There are equal numbers of women/men walking around the streets. In fact, I can't think of a single mission off the top of my head where you're instructed to go kill a women (I'm about 2/3 of the way through the game). All the missions I've come upon you are supposed to kill men.
Okay, I'm currently playing through GTAIII for the first time, and I can (as most of us can) that you kill, maim and pillage many, many more guys than chicks. I don't think I've come across a single mission, as a matter of fact, where you were supposed to kill a chick. Yeah, you can grab a hooker, go somewhere private, watch the car bounce (while you two sit in the front seats, not moving), and afterwards beat the hell out of her, but that's the limit so far for violence towards women. Every OTHER missions is "go kill this guy that's been following/dealing/stealing/snitching on me". In all fairness, this game is much more geared towards killing men.
SDL is a GREAT graphics library that is cross platform and easy to use. Simply amazing what you can do with it, and how easily. There are libraries out there for TTF support, along with networking and multi-threading. Really, everything you need for a simple 2D graphics game.
Project 1: Make a puzzle game, maybe one of those image sliding things where you divide an image up into a 5x5 set of tiles, mix them up, remove one and you have to shuffle things. Additions to this would be to make the tiles 'animate' (slide, as opposed to just move), let the user choose an image, record high scores/times. Advanced stuff would be to make it a client/server program and have two players compete with each other for fastest times. Add chat features so they can talk before/after matches.
These are all basics, but they're really, REALLY hard to learn at first when you've never done anything and the concepts are foreign. My first client/server game took me months to debug and get working right, and that was an 'eat the apple' type of game.
Welcome to college. I swear, I could never figure out why I wanted to play a game where only when I screwed up or got screwed was I allowed to drink. But damn it, being president was worth it!!
These days (I'm 3 years out, dating a 4th year in college), I'll play, but I rarely drink when I'm supposed to...beer is too good to guzzle. I realized about my junior year that I just really liked playing cards *and* drinking beer and asshole was the perfect combination. Now, you start playing drinking strip poker, and dude I'm there.
What worked with my girlfriend are two diametrically opposed games, IMHO...Grand Theft Auto III and Morrowind. She loves both of these games. I bought her a copy of Morrowind and a better graphics card so she can play in her free time, and we play GTA together quite often, taking turns after each mission.
With Morrowind, I'm pretty convinced it's the open storyline along with how tangible the entire world is. She's like a 5 year old (or an engineer?) sometimes, she wants to play with every little button and device she can find.
GTA is just get away fun...where else can you drive realistic cars at breakneck speeds and cap people without worry?
Well, as other posts have noted, if/. has been approached, and a gag order been put in place, then Taco can't you ("I can not divulge..."). However, if it hasn't happened, he should be able to tell you that it has never happened. So it's more a boolean thing rather than a number-of-times thing.
Next, you should never rely on JavaScript to do your form validation
Right and wrong. You can/should use JS to provide feedback to the client if they entered something blaringly incorrect (ie, left the last name field blank, formatted a date wrong, etc). You should, however, *always* assume the input coming to your back end is fiddled with and trying to break your system, so still have all input checking on the backend as well. Client side input validation is good because it gives immediate response to the client, helps to decrease your server's load and shortens the overall time needed to input data by informing the client of errors before submitting. While not a problem on your LAN, clients over dialup can take seconds if not longer to submit a single form, let alone page after page of them. Knowing that a date has to be in a certain format or that 5 fields are required before submitting shortens their time considerably.
I'm thinking build a couple of MAME cabinets as well. They don't have to be as grandiose or custom as some people (namely myself) have built, but a monitor with a *good* joystick interface and a quarter drop should be there. Nothing like getting the kids' parents in there at the same time, and the quarters DO add up in no time. MAME ROMs can be bought, legally, on the web.
Agreed...teaching any one operating system is pointless. Have an Operating Systems class that teaches what an OS does. Spend a week at the end saying "Now, Windows incorporated network this-and-that along with GUI that-and-this while Debian/RedHat/SUSE does this...".
Really, if a software package is used as anything, it should be a teaching aid that furthers your understanding of some theory. It should not be in the title of a course because software changes so often. Except vi, but having a course on that would confuse most and inflame the emacs zealots.
Yeah, this is practically a Management Information Systems (MIS) program that's a little heavy on the networking side. MIS is typically taught out of the business school and became popular during the dot-com boom for people who wanted to make money and realized that having computer programming knowledge was a good way to do it</opinion>. I had a roommate and a work partner who both did this, and neither were terribly competant in CS...they just didn't know the theory. They were missing the love for CS that a lot of us have, and only saw CS as a way to make $.
This isn't a CS curriculum, it's a trade school curriculum. Here's why:
First off, don't have speicifics! College should make you learn to think, not make you learn what to think. It's trite, but it's true...the best curriculums expose you to new thought processes, new types of systems and new algorithms.
Why are you taking three semesters of 3 different databases? Have one course: Relational Databases, and take a week to explain the difference between the three. You aren't trying to get someone their certification before graduation.
Where's your fundamental coursework? Data objects? Operating systems? Comparitive languages? Learning how to write hello world? You need these courses as the backbone. Anyone on/. can tell you that once you pick up the fundamentals of programming (which, fyi, takes years to come to grips with and more years to master), switching languages is as easy as learning syntax and a little about the internals of the language. C -> C++ -> Java -> Pascal -> Perl -> VB...all have the same fundamentals.
Two semesters of Exchange? Why? Very few people actually need to know the inner workings, and buying a book for $50 is tons cheaper than two semesters. Teach this through network theory and protocols.
Historical courses...a history of software, hardware changes/design, the 'family tree' of langagues...these help students to flesh out why the smartest people in our field made the choices (some good, some bad) that they did. There were good reasons for creating what seem like God awful languages ((((Lisp/Scheme?)))) as well as needs that lead to developments like Perl and relational databases. Having a professor over the age of 50 who remembers the days before relational databases is a must...someone who worked on a team to write their own would be even better.
I liked the network theory portions of your curriculum, but there's way too much. A semester (maybe two) on the history of networking, TCP/IP and other protocols (why doesn't anyone use Token Ring anymore?), along with basic, cross platform client/server networking in C (if you can write it in C, you can do it in any other language IMHO). Don't have an entire semester of routers, it's just not worth it.
In general, the best curriculums require overviews and offer electives in specifics, typically available starting your junior year (after you've gotten your feet wet). As much as possible, stay away from specific, commercial technologies. Even though Cisco is the leader in routing, teach what routing is without using the name 'Cisco'. If the student is smart, they'll be able to recognize what Cisco did well and why becaues they have the theory to back it up.
More than likely, the class is to help people with average or below average computer skills to survive in an institution of higher education. For instance...lot's of people came to my school, majored in Computer Science/Engineering, and had never written a line of code in their lives. Many had never, or very seldom, used a word processor or more commonly they hadn't used presentation (PP) or spreadsheet (Excel) apps. Every paper and most of the homework was required to be typed up or presented in an attractive, business like format. How does someone learn to do this when they're from south western Virginia and their high school is still using outdated Apples? Windows dumbfounded these people, let alone Word.
It was a running joke at Tech that if you didn't come into the CS curriculum with some programming experience, you wouldn't make it out. That's because they completely skip introduction to computers ("101 - This is a mouse") and go straight to programming. Great for some of us, horrible for others.
When the majority of your work is expected to come in some format, that format should be taught to you in your first semester. Since not everyone's first semester is the same, a single class presented when first entering college would be a good idea. Make it a 0 credit survey class or something, but still offer it so you aren't failing people for lame reasons like not knowing Word.
Addiction to playing bass and addiction to drugs are two separate and unequal things. Addiction to playing bass is a mental/emotional addiction...ie, you require it to operate normally but no physical effects (unless you count psychosomatic ones) will occur.
Drug addiction, on the other hand, creates a physical dependance that can be deadly if immediately severed...hence why there are methodone clinics and the like. Throttling back from a physical addiction is often necessary, whereas you COULD quit cold turkey from a bass addiction if you had the willpower.
The word 'addiction' is often used with drugs when there is a psychological but not physical addiction. I had plenty of friends in college who were 'addicted' to pot, ecstasy, coke or booze. All of these can be dropped instantly, without terrible physical effects, but the people typically didn't want to. We called them addicts, but they were just either weak willed or had 'addictive' personalities (easily hooked or controlled by their psyches).
How about restricting gameplay time to 8 hours a day? Or even 12, or 16. Something that forces you away from the computer (or, at least, the game) for X hours a day. Throttle back subscription fees if must, but it would be, IMHO, a hard case to make that you are going to play more than 16 hours a day of any game.
I think the solution is the opposite of what the game industry is doing: Sell me more than the disc. I want physical items that are worth more to me, such as a big thick manual, maps, posters, maybe even a player's guide, right in the same box with the shiny disc.
Perfect example...the Ultima series. I copied Ultima 6 from a buddy of mine, until I realized how much I wanted the cloth map, the Compendium, the stupid little black gem that came with it, etc. Ultima really gave you your money's worth, giving you items that made you feel like you were a part of the game.
Another form of copy protection that I actually liked was using a code wheel. I remember Bard's Tale III had one that we were able to copy, but it was a pain in the ass. You were also able to play the first level until a certain point where it would ask you about the password. Good idea from those guys.
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BS. Standards of living for the particular area you're living in should determine how much you make. I went to school in Blacksburg, I now live in NoVa. Want to know what the difference in SOL is? My $50k starting equated to $38k down there. It's all relative.
Not to mention, you should take a job you enjoy with work you're interested in and an employer you respect. I would gladly (and did) drop a couple $k off my salary to find a job that I could be happy with as opposed to hating or enduring going to work each day.
--trb
Frankly, we have no one to blame but ourselves. At some point in our history, the US as a country became very self-centered. You can argue it's always been that way, since the first white guys (technically the second, since I actually give the Norse some mad props for exploration, but they're routinely left out of American history) stepped on America's soil and proudly proclaimed "Mine!". However, it's become more obvious, IMHO, that in the last century American's are self-centered. At some point, I would have called us Family-centered or Nationalistic at worst, but many really only care about themselves. These people should not be breeding, because without devoting your time and love more to your children than yourself, you're chlidren will grow up to be as selfish as you, if not more so.
The television, video games, movies and music became an easy way for children to be entertained while affording the parents time to do what they wanted. Add technology that has shortened the time required for our daily chores, and you end up with a LOT of free time. I try to explain to my girlfriend every time she says she has no time for things that, in reality, we're overflowing with extra time, but she doesn't believe me. Compare the standard family life of a suburbanite to that of an agrarian less than two centuries ago. They spent all their time working, and it was necessary for each member of the family to pitch in and do their share. Lifestyle improvement through technology should have been a good thing because it gives us more free time, but that's only if we use the free time to better ourselves. Most people don't do that, however.
--trb
Necessary, no. But neither are computers, cars, airplanes, defibrillators, dialysis machines, etc. The human race could survive and breed just fine without all those. However, individual's lives are made better by some of these pieces of technology. There is always a balance that needs to be reached between simplicity and innovation, but in general technology allows us to advance as a race.
Before I get flamed for comparing Grand Theft Auto to a lifesaving dialysis machine, let me say that I 'blame' video games for getting me interested in technology. I became an engineer because while playing video games I would think about the mechanics behind some of the games. Clock speeds, refresh rates, timers, action order, all lead me to think logically, which is key for an engineer. Could it evolved out of something other than video games? Probably, but that was my experience. I don't think video games are always bad or always good, they're somehwere in the grey.
--trb
Banning violent video game sales to minors imposes on a parent's right to choose what's best for their kids.
How so? If a parent wants their kid exposed to something, they'll buy it for them. This is to prevent the use of inappropriate material by kids without their parent's permission or knowledge. If a parent thinks an R rated movie is appropriate for their kid, they'll rent/buy it for them, but the kid can't do it themselves. Likewise, if a parent thinks a kid is ready for pornography, they can buy that for them. We only make items illegal that have physical reprecussions associated with them...namely drugs and alcohol.
I think your argument is flawed, a parent still has all his/her rights in this matter, it's the kids whose rights are being infringed. Since kids don't have all the same rights as adults anyway, I don't see the issue.
--trb
Depends on the game...my favorite on PartyPoker is 7 card stud, but any stud type game (hold 'em, for instance) diminishes the chance of figuring out who has the 'good' hand since a hand can go from crappy great when the last card is revealed and, subsequently, the last betting round is held. More than once have I gone from having only a pair of 2's and losing to having three of a kind and winning. I've also experienced the opposite.
Even draw games disadvantage playing multiple hands, other than increasing your odds to win by having multiple plays per round. More hands may mean more wins, but it will also cost you more in blind bets, antes and opening rounds.
--trb
--trb
Specifically, whoever paid for the accounts is the owner. Assuming that the company is paying you to host the site/mail accounts, they own them all and 'sublet' the accounts to their employees. Once that employee has vacated, the account is yours again.
--trb
OCR aside (you're right, it's far more advanced than most of the 'captchas' I've seen), this would be easy to do. Follow:
1) Person comes to sign up for porn
2) Porn site requests the captcha from the free email provider
3) Porn site presents the captcha to the user
4) User types in the string
5) Porn site presents the string to the free email provider.
6) If email provider accepts, good to go. If not, throw back exception to the user. Goto step 3.
No sessions are being expired here, you have your basic man in the middle attack.
--trb
I'll agree, we hear a bit about rape, but you can find examples of death on nearly every television channel, any day of the week. Rape is still a taboo subject in our society, though I agree with you that both the act and the lie are disgusting acts.
--trb
What makes the simulated shooting down of 30 innocent people in a video game more socially acceptable?
Basically, we as a society are desensitized to seeing acted out death; that is to say, watching someone die but they don't really die. Movies, tv shows, games, etc, all show people dying in front of us, but we know they aren't really dead...it's just a virtual world or the person is acting.
Sexual crimes, on the other hand, we have not been desensitized to. American society is becoming less sensitive to sex (see Britney, Christina and half the women falling out of their dresses on the Golden Globes), but we aren't comfortable with sex to the point that we'll expose people to it and say "That's alright, it's just fake".
In addition, rape and pedophilia are most definitely considered 'icky'. We don't like seeing, hearing or talking about them. Death is more okay, mostly because it happens in legitimate forms all the time ("Grandpa died of old age yesterday"..."Fluffy died from being hit by that car"). Sexual assault doesn't have to happen, death does, so it doesn't take the same toll on our psyches.
--trb
I dunno, I've never slaughtered 10's of people walking the streets of my town, but I'm relatively sure I could cap 1 person, leaving everyone else screaming and frantic, jump in my car and drive without being immediately caught by the police and thrown in jail.
Remember...the main character of GTAIII is an escaped felon who is already 'on the run' from the police. He is hiding in warehouses and back alleys with no permanent address or identification. He also doesn't need to eat, present paperwork anywhere or otherwise associate with society. The game hints at the fact that not only is crime rampant in Liberty City, but the police force is corrupt (hence the easily accessible 'bribes' found throughout the game).
The police are ridiculously easy to get away from, but that is due to Rockstar following the first rule of game making...'Anything that makes the game less fun rather than more fun to play is bad'. If the police instantly caught you, or continued looking for you after you escaped, the game would suck. If you want real life, go live it. This is an escape from the real world.
As to attacking women on the street...nothing makes attacking a woman easier than attacking a guy. There are equal numbers of women/men walking around the streets. In fact, I can't think of a single mission off the top of my head where you're instructed to go kill a women (I'm about 2/3 of the way through the game). All the missions I've come upon you are supposed to kill men.
--trb
Okay, I'm currently playing through GTAIII for the first time, and I can (as most of us can) that you kill, maim and pillage many, many more guys than chicks. I don't think I've come across a single mission, as a matter of fact, where you were supposed to kill a chick. Yeah, you can grab a hooker, go somewhere private, watch the car bounce (while you two sit in the front seats, not moving), and afterwards beat the hell out of her, but that's the limit so far for violence towards women. Every OTHER missions is "go kill this guy that's been following/dealing/stealing/snitching on me". In all fairness, this game is much more geared towards killing men.
--trb
SDL is a GREAT graphics library that is cross platform and easy to use. Simply amazing what you can do with it, and how easily. There are libraries out there for TTF support, along with networking and multi-threading. Really, everything you need for a simple 2D graphics game.
Project 1: Make a puzzle game, maybe one of those image sliding things where you divide an image up into a 5x5 set of tiles, mix them up, remove one and you have to shuffle things. Additions to this would be to make the tiles 'animate' (slide, as opposed to just move), let the user choose an image, record high scores/times. Advanced stuff would be to make it a client/server program and have two players compete with each other for fastest times. Add chat features so they can talk before/after matches.
These are all basics, but they're really, REALLY hard to learn at first when you've never done anything and the concepts are foreign. My first client/server game took me months to debug and get working right, and that was an 'eat the apple' type of game.
--trb
Welcome to college. I swear, I could never figure out why I wanted to play a game where only when I screwed up or got screwed was I allowed to drink. But damn it, being president was worth it!!
These days (I'm 3 years out, dating a 4th year in college), I'll play, but I rarely drink when I'm supposed to...beer is too good to guzzle. I realized about my junior year that I just really liked playing cards *and* drinking beer and asshole was the perfect combination. Now, you start playing drinking strip poker, and dude I'm there.
--trb
What worked with my girlfriend are two diametrically opposed games, IMHO...Grand Theft Auto III and Morrowind. She loves both of these games. I bought her a copy of Morrowind and a better graphics card so she can play in her free time, and we play GTA together quite often, taking turns after each mission.
With Morrowind, I'm pretty convinced it's the open storyline along with how tangible the entire world is. She's like a 5 year old (or an engineer?) sometimes, she wants to play with every little button and device she can find.
GTA is just get away fun...where else can you drive realistic cars at breakneck speeds and cap people without worry?
--trb
Well, as other posts have noted, if /. has been approached, and a gag order been put in place, then Taco can't you ("I can not divulge..."). However, if it hasn't happened, he should be able to tell you that it has never happened. So it's more a boolean thing rather than a number-of-times thing.
--trb
Next, you should never rely on JavaScript to do your form validation
Right and wrong. You can/should use JS to provide feedback to the client if they entered something blaringly incorrect (ie, left the last name field blank, formatted a date wrong, etc). You should, however, *always* assume the input coming to your back end is fiddled with and trying to break your system, so still have all input checking on the backend as well. Client side input validation is good because it gives immediate response to the client, helps to decrease your server's load and shortens the overall time needed to input data by informing the client of errors before submitting. While not a problem on your LAN, clients over dialup can take seconds if not longer to submit a single form, let alone page after page of them. Knowing that a date has to be in a certain format or that 5 fields are required before submitting shortens their time considerably.
--trb
I'm thinking build a couple of MAME cabinets as well. They don't have to be as grandiose or custom as some people (namely myself) have built, but a monitor with a *good* joystick interface and a quarter drop should be there. Nothing like getting the kids' parents in there at the same time, and the quarters DO add up in no time. MAME ROMs can be bought, legally, on the web.
--trb
3 words...read only memory.
Agreed...teaching any one operating system is pointless. Have an Operating Systems class that teaches what an OS does. Spend a week at the end saying "Now, Windows incorporated network this-and-that along with GUI that-and-this while Debian/RedHat/SUSE does this...".
Really, if a software package is used as anything, it should be a teaching aid that furthers your understanding of some theory. It should not be in the title of a course because software changes so often. Except vi, but having a course on that would confuse most and inflame the emacs zealots.
--trb
Yeah, this is practically a Management Information Systems (MIS) program that's a little heavy on the networking side. MIS is typically taught out of the business school and became popular during the dot-com boom for people who wanted to make money and realized that having computer programming knowledge was a good way to do it</opinion>. I had a roommate and a work partner who both did this, and neither were terribly competant in CS...they just didn't know the theory. They were missing the love for CS that a lot of us have, and only saw CS as a way to make $.
--trb
This isn't a CS curriculum, it's a trade school curriculum. Here's why:
/. can tell you that once you pick up the fundamentals of programming (which, fyi, takes years to come to grips with and more years to master), switching languages is as easy as learning syntax and a little about the internals of the language. C -> C++ -> Java -> Pascal -> Perl -> VB...all have the same fundamentals.
First off, don't have speicifics! College should make you learn to think, not make you learn what to think. It's trite, but it's true...the best curriculums expose you to new thought processes, new types of systems and new algorithms.
Why are you taking three semesters of 3 different databases? Have one course: Relational Databases, and take a week to explain the difference between the three. You aren't trying to get someone their certification before graduation.
Where's your fundamental coursework? Data objects? Operating systems? Comparitive languages? Learning how to write hello world? You need these courses as the backbone. Anyone on
Two semesters of Exchange? Why? Very few people actually need to know the inner workings, and buying a book for $50 is tons cheaper than two semesters. Teach this through network theory and protocols.
Historical courses...a history of software, hardware changes/design, the 'family tree' of langagues...these help students to flesh out why the smartest people in our field made the choices (some good, some bad) that they did. There were good reasons for creating what seem like God awful languages ((((Lisp/Scheme?)))) as well as needs that lead to developments like Perl and relational databases. Having a professor over the age of 50 who remembers the days before relational databases is a must...someone who worked on a team to write their own would be even better.
I liked the network theory portions of your curriculum, but there's way too much. A semester (maybe two) on the history of networking, TCP/IP and other protocols (why doesn't anyone use Token Ring anymore?), along with basic, cross platform client/server networking in C (if you can write it in C, you can do it in any other language IMHO). Don't have an entire semester of routers, it's just not worth it.
In general, the best curriculums require overviews and offer electives in specifics, typically available starting your junior year (after you've gotten your feet wet). As much as possible, stay away from specific, commercial technologies. Even though Cisco is the leader in routing, teach what routing is without using the name 'Cisco'. If the student is smart, they'll be able to recognize what Cisco did well and why becaues they have the theory to back it up.
--trb
I think you're missing the point of the class.
More than likely, the class is to help people with average or below average computer skills to survive in an institution of higher education. For instance...lot's of people came to my school, majored in Computer Science/Engineering, and had never written a line of code in their lives. Many had never, or very seldom, used a word processor or more commonly they hadn't used presentation (PP) or spreadsheet (Excel) apps. Every paper and most of the homework was required to be typed up or presented in an attractive, business like format. How does someone learn to do this when they're from south western Virginia and their high school is still using outdated Apples? Windows dumbfounded these people, let alone Word.
It was a running joke at Tech that if you didn't come into the CS curriculum with some programming experience, you wouldn't make it out. That's because they completely skip introduction to computers ("101 - This is a mouse") and go straight to programming. Great for some of us, horrible for others.
When the majority of your work is expected to come in some format, that format should be taught to you in your first semester. Since not everyone's first semester is the same, a single class presented when first entering college would be a good idea. Make it a 0 credit survey class or something, but still offer it so you aren't failing people for lame reasons like not knowing Word.
--trb
Addiction to playing bass and addiction to drugs are two separate and unequal things. Addiction to playing bass is a mental/emotional addiction...ie, you require it to operate normally but no physical effects (unless you count psychosomatic ones) will occur.
Drug addiction, on the other hand, creates a physical dependance that can be deadly if immediately severed...hence why there are methodone clinics and the like. Throttling back from a physical addiction is often necessary, whereas you COULD quit cold turkey from a bass addiction if you had the willpower.
The word 'addiction' is often used with drugs when there is a psychological but not physical addiction. I had plenty of friends in college who were 'addicted' to pot, ecstasy, coke or booze. All of these can be dropped instantly, without terrible physical effects, but the people typically didn't want to. We called them addicts, but they were just either weak willed or had 'addictive' personalities (easily hooked or controlled by their psyches).
--trb
How about restricting gameplay time to 8 hours a day? Or even 12, or 16. Something that forces you away from the computer (or, at least, the game) for X hours a day. Throttle back subscription fees if must, but it would be, IMHO, a hard case to make that you are going to play more than 16 hours a day of any game.
--trb
I think the solution is the opposite of what the game industry is doing: Sell me more than the disc. I want physical items that are worth more to me, such as a big thick manual, maps, posters, maybe even a player's guide, right in the same box with the shiny disc.
Perfect example...the Ultima series. I copied Ultima 6 from a buddy of mine, until I realized how much I wanted the cloth map, the Compendium, the stupid little black gem that came with it, etc. Ultima really gave you your money's worth, giving you items that made you feel like you were a part of the game.
Another form of copy protection that I actually liked was using a code wheel. I remember Bard's Tale III had one that we were able to copy, but it was a pain in the ass. You were also able to play the first level until a certain point where it would ask you about the password. Good idea from those guys.
--trb