Despite a degree in Computer Science and a few years of experience managing networks of all descriptions, like all people, I still find myself stumped by the occasional yes/no question in a program. Some of the time, I try to read the associated help, if there is one. All too often, I find that the help is a slight variation of the following:
"To accept this choice, click OK. To cancel, click CANCEL".
Well fucking duh. You know what I'm talking about: For an example, enter your computer BIOS (press 'Del' on most PCs during boot), and read the "help" for any of the entries. Do you know what every single setting there means? Quickly, what's Spread Spectrum Modulation? What are its effects and side-effects? What are the potential dangers? When would you want to use it? Can you answer any of these questions by looking at a UI that is packed with acronym laden yes/no choices? Probably not. I doubt most people outside of a motherboard design company could explain in detail what every single option does.
Users aren't all stupid, even the non-computer literate ones. It's the user interface that is at fault, for not providing all of the information required to make a decision. Given sufficient information, most people can make the right decision. Given a yes/no question full of acronyms with no other information, even programmers and computer scientists can be stumped.
A great example of how effective providing information can be, think back to the original Norton Disk Doctor for DOS. The dialog boxes in that program usually had several paragraphs of text, and asked one question. The text usually explained:
What the program will do in response to every choice.
What the pros & cons are of every choice
And, if applicable, the potential risks (eg: data loss) of your choices.
Now, I clearly remember relatively computer illiterate people running that program, and making highly technical decisions without even realizing it. My father could easily decide whether he wanted to mark a sector bad, what kind of surface scan he wanted, and how he wanted to treat corrupted files.
While Windows is in general mediocre (not great, just mediocre) in its UI design, at times it has glaring flaws. My favourite examples are applications that ask for a DSN connection string. Do you know how to construct a DSN connection string by hand? I don't, and I've been programming with databases for years. However, the doubly stupid thing is that the ODBC control panel already includes a dialog box that automates the process! So why do some applications, including some written by Microsoft, still ask for a DSN string?
Command-line software (open source, or otherwise) is particularly prone to exhibit this problem, often to the same extent as the BIOS example. When executed with a "-?" option (or whatever), most programs will give a list of options, but rarely tell the user anything other than the existence of the option. This is no better than a dialog box asking a yes/no question with no further explanation.
I saw a few saplings over a year ago. They were being grown next to the ranger's office at a nearby national park, but all of them were surrounded by wire fences for protection. They look a lot like pine trees, but the needles are shorter and fatter, and the trunk and branches are covered in what looks more like densely packed and dried out needles than 'real' bark.
It is obvious even to a lay person like myself that it is a simpler, more primitive plant than modern trees.
Oh, Microsoft is all peaches and cream now, is it?
Then explain this to me, Mr. Microsoft XML Programmer: Why is it that when I open an XML Schema in XML Spy, one of the menu items is Enable Microsoft SQL Schema Extensions
Embrace and extend, isn't that the Microsoft motto?
I can relate to this with personal experience. One of my first IT contracting jobs was a two week Windows 2000 rollout at a 110 user company. My job was to pick up every desktop one by one, take it up to the IT cubicle, Ghost six of them at a time, then return the computers. I liased exlusively with the sole IT administrator there.
It was only on the second last day that someone questioned my actions. Until then, nobody thought twice about an unfamiliar person sauntering up their desk, unplugging their desktop PC, and walking off. Because the old PCs were so dusty, I wasn't even wearing my normal business attire -- instead, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
This is by no means unusual. I've been to places where the IT employees did not know which servers do what, how many servers they actually have, or what the passwords are. In a place like that, a missing server may not be noticed for days!
A lot of people here are complaining that Windows 2003 has few improvements, but as a software developer, I know that is not the case. For example, take a look at the latest Platform SDK or MSDN docs, you'll find that a lot of API improvements are listed as "Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2003 Server only".
For example, Windows XP/2003 adds enhancements to the Security API, making it easier and more efficient to check a user's access rights. (I'm referring to the Authz### series of functions)
There are also a whole slew of new command line enhacements that system administrators have been asking for. It is now possible to automate almost everything in windows through the CLI. This has not been possible before. For example, new CLI mode programs include 'reg' (for editing the registry), 'netsh' (for configuring networking), 'waitfor' (for synchronizing scripts across servers), 'diskpart' (for managing disks and volumes), and a whole bunch of others. Some of these are simply upgraded versions of existing tools in the Windows 2000 Resource kit, but it's nice to see them built-in, instead of an add-on.
One thing that still irks me though is that Microsoft simply refuses to make the UI defaults reasonable. Every time I install Windows, I am forced to go through about half a dozen dialog boxes to toggle every single setting in those boxes to the exact opposite of their default values. Hiding extensions is NEVER a good thing, and it has confused everyone I have ever met. Nobody likes it, and it is one of the primary causes of the ".jpg.vbs" style viruses. Why can't Microsoft simply admit that they were wrong? Why do folders still show the Win 3.1 era large icon view, when everyone I know prefers the Detailed view? Why? Why must you hurt me Billy?
I seriously doubt anyone could use these at full-speed, because there is no tactile feelback! The whole point of touch-typing is to type by feel, not by reading the keys. Poking at the keys one at a time is possibly worse than handwriting recognition speeds, and vastly inferior to speech recognition. I pity the company that invested $20 million into this useless novelty item.
It's not a simple question to answer, because there are two distinct forms of science fiction. In my opinion, the two shouldn't even have the same name, but I guess it's too late now.
The vast majority of Science Fiction is actually drama in space. This is what Star Trek, Star Wars, and most popular SF is. SF that falls into this category is easy to spot: every alien speaks flawless American English.
Then, there is real, actual, science fiction that focuses on the science, not the drama. This variety is much less common, less popular, and most people don't like it because the parts that do not focus on the central premise are often dry and boring. Real science fiction doesn't make for good movies, so it tends to be restricted to novels. At the end of the day, gray goo can't act.
Occasionally, you get bits and pieces of real science fiction in a TV show that is usually of the drama in space variety. The Borg in Star Trek for example are sufficiently different from the prototypical humanoid alien species to be interesting in their own right, not just as token antagonists.
Re:Why I stopped playing the Sims...
on
Virtual Simerica
·
· Score: 2
Then I realized I was looking AT MY REAL LIFE through the metric of The Sims. Realizing how pathetic this was, I took said bathroom break and shower, went back to the room, and unistalled the Sims.
I now hang out with real people. When I'm not posting on slashdot anyway.
I've invested significant money some years back in a domain name so that I could give my clients and friends an easy to remember, unique email address. I consider it a significant investment, because it looks good on a CV, business card, or letterhead, is easy to remember, and it cost me time and money to establish it.
However, a number of spam companies have picked up on my email addresses at that domain, and have distributed it on a number of those unpteen-million address CDs sold to other spammers. I recieve over 100 unsolicited emails a day. Now, I try to filter them with software filters, but due to the hit-and-miss nature of heuristic filters, legitimate mail is deleted on occasion.
The way I see it, my unique and expensive email address has been devalued by these spam companies, because the whole point of buying that domain name was so that I could use it publically. If I have to keep it a secret to avoid spammers, it is worthless! I can't even use it as an example while writing this article, because it would be picked up by yet more spammers.
I wonder why nobody has tried suing along these grounds. Think about it: If some company had invested time, money, and effort into setting up a toll-free hotline for their customers and/or clients, but had the service ruined by telemarketers jamming the system with 100x more junk calls than the real calls the company recieves, the next outgoing call would be to a lawyer!
My take on the game after playing it recently:
on
Gaming Goodness
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I have tried a few dozen games of N.S. recently. I even played as a commander a few times. In my opinion, the concept is good, but the game seems incomplete and unbalanced, but I expect that that'll be fixed in upcoming versions. Some impressions:
The HUD display of the aliens really helps teamplay. I wonder why other games haven't had the same feature earlier...
The game is somewhat unbalanced. In the first few minutes on the smaller maps, aliens have a massive advantage, and can win quickly by rushing the human base.
Later in the game, the defensive structures are unbalanced. Human turrets are nearly impossible to kill for the aliens, but the alien structures fall quickly to heavy machine guns or grenade launchers.
The commander interface is a good, but they need to improve the mini-map. If it were bigger, more detailed, and showed team requests, it would make the commander's job much easier.
The ability of the commander to heal 50% of a soldier's health instantly is too powerful, because it allows the commander to turn a few soldiers into unstoppable juggernauts. It would be better if the health packs only healed a few hit points per second.
Neither side has enough weapons and upgrades to make the game interesting in the long run. I'd like to see humans with medic packs and an alien infiltrator class (like the Team Fortress Classic spy class).
The jetpack and flight controls don't suit the maps that come with the game. They cause huge bursts of movement that prevent hovering or level flight, and all the maps have ridges and beams everywhere, making the flying classes nearly useless.
I've noticed that the argument for serial over parallel is usually something along the lines of: At higher frequencies, it becomes increasingly difficult to synchronize the signal travelling down multiple parallel conductors, but this is not a problem with serial protocols, so despite having less wires, serial interfaces can be faster thanks to higher signal frequencies.
This is all fine and good, but why not just treat the wires in a parallel cable as individual serial wires? Sure, if you increase the signal frequency, it becomes next to impossible to guarantee that all the signals arrive at exactly the same time, but I don't see the need for bit-level synchronization. If each wire has its own protocol, its own synchronization, and its own buffers, then as long as there is synchronization at the packet level, there should be no need to worry about synchronizing at the bit level. This would allow both high frequencies, and lots of wires.
Microsoft will never win against Linux unless they drastically change their licensing model. Currently, a copy of Windows 2000 Professional costs AUD 685.00 here in Australia. Compare this to their server products: Windows 2000 Server costs AUD 2184.00 and Advanced Server costs a stunning AUD 7900.00. The difference in cost between the workstation and server products is an order of magnitude, but the install CDs are virtually identical except for a few marker files. They even share service packs. It's not like the Server editions have email or database functionality thrown in for free, they just costs more and have different logos.
Believe it or not, most PHBs actually believe they are getting more when they are buying Windows 2000 Server, and that's how Microsoft likes it. To be fair, it's not just Microsoft doing this kind of thing: Have any of you noticed how SMP servers always cost at least a thousand dollars more than single CPU servers or workstations? Are one extra CPU socket and a slightly different North Bridge chip a thousand dollars worth of extra hardware? I think not. Dual CPU machines are largely sold as servers, and most large OEMs have worked out that they can charge more money for server hardware, even if it is almost exactly the same as their workstation products.
Linux, and open source in general, challenges such marketing hype. There is no workstation Linux or server Linux. Any home user or small business can set up a mail or database server without having to fork over five or six digits sums for software that isn't really all that special.
I've noticed one particularly transparent piece of FUD in the propoganda released by Microsoft: They claim that Palladium will eliminate SPAM. This is totally false, it cannot possibly prevent SPAM any better than existing technological solutions. The press release doesn't give a lot of technical details, but based on the wording and the nature of DRM/Crypto technology, it seems that Palladium can do one of two things:
Automatically drop incoming mail not cryptographically signed by a user in the address book of the recipient.
Only allow mail from users in Microsoft's Passport database. Spammers are simply removed from the database, preventing them sending mail to Palladium protected machines.
The first method is similar to what ICQ-like programs do, but ICQ was not designed to facilitate one-off messages from unexpected people. For example, all businesses have to have "open" email addresses, as do a lot of other people, including students and faculty, and so forth.
The second method might seem superior at first glance, but requires perfect security in both the central database and every client machine that stores a digital ID locally. I think that that is going to be most unlikely. We all know that spammers will find it all too easy to create fake IDs, steal the IDs of innocent home users who think a firewall is a sheet of insulation used to stop a fire in a building, and generally make a mockery of Palladium.
I studied Computer Science at the University of New South Wales. The introductory computer course in first year was "Comp 1A". Instead of C, C++ or Java, we started with a language called Haskell, a pure functional language. Everything has to be an input to a function, or an output - no local variables, no assignment, no loops. The only available form of high level flow control is recursion. After a few weeks, we could write functions to solve simple problems like: Write a function that has an integer input 'n' that returns a square character array representing the image of a square with side-length 'n'. Trivial stuff, even for beginner programmers.
Sometime in the fourth week, our lecturer announced the eagerly anticipated first Assignment. I couldn't wait, because I expected to ace it, after all, I had years of programming experience, a huge advantage over my peers. Not so: We had to write an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program. I was stunned. I had never done anything that complex in my life, in any language, and now I was being asked to do it in a functional language! However, many people achieved recognition rates over 80%, and some people rates as high as 98%, even though most students were first-time programmers. It just goes to show what people are capable of when pushed.
The same lecturer (Andrew Taylor) later came up with a whole series of Evil assignments -- his students tell stories about them to this day. For example, our second assignment in Comp 1A was to write an AI for the card game Hearts. To mark the assignment, he wrote a system that ran submissions in randomly chosen four-player games automatically, and ranked them by total score after some number of games. Half the marks were based on the performance of your AI! He even made the ranking software available beforehand so that students could test their algorithms against each other in mini-tournaments.
I suspect that when Doom III is released, a lot of people are going to upgrade to the GeForce 5 just to be able to play the game. This has happened in the past. "New ID game? Time to upgrade..." is a line even I've repeated like a parrot myself over the past few years. However, as this cartoon points out, ID software is best at making engines, not games. Will upgrading be worth it for most people, or are they better off waiting a year or two until interesting games are released that utilize the Doom 3 engine?
Consider this: Of the three games I've played almost exclusively in recent years, all three were Half-Life mods: Counter-Strike, Day Of Defeat, and Team Fortress Classic. However, with my current GeForce 3 based video card, I get the maximum 100fps at the highest supported resolution of 1280x960. So what exactly is the point of upgrading? Even if I upgraded to be able to play Doom III, I'd play it for at most a month, then go back DoD/CS/TFC.
PS: While we're on the topic of Half-Life, does anyone know why the engine doesn't allow resolutions above 1280x960? It seems like an arbitrary limit that could be easily removed. Maybe some of the people that invest months of time into writing HL cheats should try to figure out how to remove that limit instead...
I'm currently employed at a company in Sydney that specialises in thin-client networks using Windows and Citrix. I have news for you, VNC is useless for most real-world applications. It's useful for small administrative tasks, but it's useless for more than one user. VNC is a bandwidth hog, even the improved versions like TightVNC can saturate anything less than ethernet, and it's a CPU hog too.
Windows uses the much smarter RDP protocol for thin-clients. RDP is hooked into the GDI at a low level, and transfers only the minimum information required to clients. Clients can cache images, and expose their local files and devices to the server. There are clients available for every platform imaginable.
The new Mira technology is basically a dumbed-down version of the professional thin-client stuff for home users. Some friends already have similar networks running at home, and I've experimented too. It's amazing to access your full desktop from any computer, anywhere, anytime. Over ADSL it's fast enough to do most typical office tasks like reading email or writing documents.
The Windows XP "Remote Assistance" tool uses RDP, so it can give you an idea of what Mira will be like.
But whatever technology is to take the place of the venerable MOSFET -- be it molecular structures, carbon nanotubes,
MEMS, or other next-generation technologies -- must be invented now and developed full-bore over the next decade in order to be ready in time, Buss said.
MEMS isn't an electronic system like MOSFET or CMOS, it's a method for making mechanical systems out of silicon. Oops.
While the concepts in his book certainly seem interesting in the mathematical sense, they have nothing to do with physics and science. Science revolves around experiments and facts, which Wolfram's book is lacking. There are several arguments against a "turing machine" style universe:
The best we can tell so far, time is infinitely divisible. There doesn't seem to be a fundamental quantum of time, like the clock rate of a computer.
While a grid of simple computers could accurately simulate a Newtonian universe with a few simple rules and variables, simulating a universe with both quantum mechanics and relativity is an entirely different kettle of fish. A fixed grid would be just ilke the aether -- a fixed reference frame. We now know that this is not the case in our universe.
Most existing theories assume a continuous universe with "infinite precision". That is, most theories are expressed in terms of real or complex valued differential equations, which can be simulated only to a finite precision on a computer. So far, there has been no evidence of any such error, if there were, images of distant stars and galaxies would be blurred, spectral lines spread out, etc...
The problem with your estimate of the damage caused by a strangelet to a human being is that it is based on theories that only apply to projectiles made of normal matter. Strangelets are both extremely dense, and charged. To a strangelet, a human being would present a target as insubstantial as the foam in you bathtub is to you. However, any charged particles (electrons or protons) orbiting the strangelet would be stripped off, which would result in a huge potential difference between the strangelet and most of your body. In other words, you'll get electrocuted, and your body will be ripped apart by the rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields.
The big bang is not an explosion with a epicenter -- a common misconception perpetuated by the popular media. It started everywhere, and the results of the explosion are going outwards from every point. The diagrams at the Cosmology FAQ help:
Never use vector! It's a horrible specialization and is not even a container. Very, very bad.
Why? It IS a container, and IMNSHO it's the single most useful class in the entire library! With it, you'll never have to allocate your own array again.
Slashdot Mirror
"To accept this choice, click OK. To cancel, click CANCEL".
Well fucking duh. You know what I'm talking about: For an example, enter your computer BIOS (press 'Del' on most PCs during boot), and read the "help" for any of the entries. Do you know what every single setting there means? Quickly, what's Spread Spectrum Modulation? What are its effects and side-effects? What are the potential dangers? When would you want to use it? Can you answer any of these questions by looking at a UI that is packed with acronym laden yes/no choices? Probably not. I doubt most people outside of a motherboard design company could explain in detail what every single option does.
Users aren't all stupid, even the non-computer literate ones. It's the user interface that is at fault, for not providing all of the information required to make a decision. Given sufficient information, most people can make the right decision. Given a yes/no question full of acronyms with no other information, even programmers and computer scientists can be stumped.
A great example of how effective providing information can be, think back to the original Norton Disk Doctor for DOS. The dialog boxes in that program usually had several paragraphs of text, and asked one question. The text usually explained:
Now, I clearly remember relatively computer illiterate people running that program, and making highly technical decisions without even realizing it. My father could easily decide whether he wanted to mark a sector bad, what kind of surface scan he wanted, and how he wanted to treat corrupted files.
While Windows is in general mediocre (not great, just mediocre) in its UI design, at times it has glaring flaws. My favourite examples are applications that ask for a DSN connection string. Do you know how to construct a DSN connection string by hand? I don't, and I've been programming with databases for years. However, the doubly stupid thing is that the ODBC control panel already includes a dialog box that automates the process! So why do some applications, including some written by Microsoft, still ask for a DSN string?
Command-line software (open source, or otherwise) is particularly prone to exhibit this problem, often to the same extent as the BIOS example. When executed with a "-?" option (or whatever), most programs will give a list of options, but rarely tell the user anything other than the existence of the option. This is no better than a dialog box asking a yes/no question with no further explanation.
Full resolution JPG (3498 samples x 3851 lines)
It is obvious even to a lay person like myself that it is a simpler, more primitive plant than modern trees.
Oh, Microsoft is all peaches and cream now, is it?
Then explain this to me, Mr. Microsoft XML Programmer: Why is it that when I open an XML Schema in XML Spy, one of the menu items is Enable Microsoft SQL Schema Extensions
Embrace and extend, isn't that the Microsoft motto?
It was only on the second last day that someone questioned my actions. Until then, nobody thought twice about an unfamiliar person sauntering up their desk, unplugging their desktop PC, and walking off. Because the old PCs were so dusty, I wasn't even wearing my normal business attire -- instead, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
This is by no means unusual. I've been to places where the IT employees did not know which servers do what, how many servers they actually have, or what the passwords are. In a place like that, a missing server may not be noticed for days!
Direct link to the full-resolution JPEG. (~4.9MB)
/ a/formats/full_jpg.jpg
http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2003/15/images
A lot of people here are complaining that Windows 2003 has few improvements, but as a software developer, I know that is not the case. For example, take a look at the latest Platform SDK or MSDN docs, you'll find that a lot of API improvements are listed as "Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2003 Server only".
For example, Windows XP/2003 adds enhancements to the Security API, making it easier and more efficient to check a user's access rights. (I'm referring to the Authz### series of functions)
There are also a whole slew of new command line enhacements that system administrators have been asking for. It is now possible to automate almost everything in windows through the CLI. This has not been possible before. For example, new CLI mode programs include 'reg' (for editing the registry), 'netsh' (for configuring networking), 'waitfor' (for synchronizing scripts across servers), 'diskpart' (for managing disks and volumes), and a whole bunch of others. Some of these are simply upgraded versions of existing tools in the Windows 2000 Resource kit, but it's nice to see them built-in, instead of an add-on.
One thing that still irks me though is that Microsoft simply refuses to make the UI defaults reasonable. Every time I install Windows, I am forced to go through about half a dozen dialog boxes to toggle every single setting in those boxes to the exact opposite of their default values. Hiding extensions is NEVER a good thing, and it has confused everyone I have ever met. Nobody likes it, and it is one of the primary causes of the ".jpg.vbs" style viruses. Why can't Microsoft simply admit that they were wrong? Why do folders still show the Win 3.1 era large icon view, when everyone I know prefers the Detailed view? Why? Why must you hurt me Billy?
A list of all CLI commands available in Windows 2003
An example of the new Security API functions in XP/2003
I seriously doubt anyone could use these at full-speed, because there is no tactile feelback! The whole point of touch-typing is to type by feel, not by reading the keys. Poking at the keys one at a time is possibly worse than handwriting recognition speeds, and vastly inferior to speech recognition. I pity the company that invested $20 million into this useless novelty item.
The vast majority of Science Fiction is actually drama in space. This is what Star Trek, Star Wars, and most popular SF is. SF that falls into this category is easy to spot: every alien speaks flawless American English.
Then, there is real, actual, science fiction that focuses on the science, not the drama. This variety is much less common, less popular, and most people don't like it because the parts that do not focus on the central premise are often dry and boring. Real science fiction doesn't make for good movies, so it tends to be restricted to novels. At the end of the day, gray goo can't act.
Occasionally, you get bits and pieces of real science fiction in a TV show that is usually of the drama in space variety. The Borg in Star Trek for example are sufficiently different from the prototypical humanoid alien species to be interesting in their own right, not just as token antagonists.
Why, is your Karma meter low? 8)
I've invested significant money some years back in a domain name so that I could give my clients and friends an easy to remember, unique email address. I consider it a significant investment, because it looks good on a CV, business card, or letterhead, is easy to remember, and it cost me time and money to establish it.
However, a number of spam companies have picked up on my email addresses at that domain, and have distributed it on a number of those unpteen-million address CDs sold to other spammers. I recieve over 100 unsolicited emails a day. Now, I try to filter them with software filters, but due to the hit-and-miss nature of heuristic filters, legitimate mail is deleted on occasion.
The way I see it, my unique and expensive email address has been devalued by these spam companies, because the whole point of buying that domain name was so that I could use it publically. If I have to keep it a secret to avoid spammers, it is worthless! I can't even use it as an example while writing this article, because it would be picked up by yet more spammers.
I wonder why nobody has tried suing along these grounds. Think about it: If some company had invested time, money, and effort into setting up a toll-free hotline for their customers and/or clients, but had the service ruined by telemarketers jamming the system with 100x more junk calls than the real calls the company recieves, the next outgoing call would be to a lawyer!
This is all fine and good, but why not just treat the wires in a parallel cable as individual serial wires? Sure, if you increase the signal frequency, it becomes next to impossible to guarantee that all the signals arrive at exactly the same time, but I don't see the need for bit-level synchronization. If each wire has its own protocol, its own synchronization, and its own buffers, then as long as there is synchronization at the packet level, there should be no need to worry about synchronizing at the bit level. This would allow both high frequencies, and lots of wires.
Microsoft will never win against Linux unless they drastically change their licensing model. Currently, a copy of Windows 2000 Professional costs AUD 685.00 here in Australia. Compare this to their server products: Windows 2000 Server costs AUD 2184.00 and Advanced Server costs a stunning AUD 7900.00. The difference in cost between the workstation and server products is an order of magnitude, but the install CDs are virtually identical except for a few marker files. They even share service packs. It's not like the Server editions have email or database functionality thrown in for free, they just costs more and have different logos.
Believe it or not, most PHBs actually believe they are getting more when they are buying Windows 2000 Server, and that's how Microsoft likes it. To be fair, it's not just Microsoft doing this kind of thing: Have any of you noticed how SMP servers always cost at least a thousand dollars more than single CPU servers or workstations? Are one extra CPU socket and a slightly different North Bridge chip a thousand dollars worth of extra hardware? I think not. Dual CPU machines are largely sold as servers, and most large OEMs have worked out that they can charge more money for server hardware, even if it is almost exactly the same as their workstation products.
Linux, and open source in general, challenges such marketing hype. There is no workstation Linux or server Linux. Any home user or small business can set up a mail or database server without having to fork over five or six digits sums for software that isn't really all that special.
The first method is similar to what ICQ-like programs do, but ICQ was not designed to facilitate one-off messages from unexpected people. For example, all businesses have to have "open" email addresses, as do a lot of other people, including students and faculty, and so forth.
The second method might seem superior at first glance, but requires perfect security in both the central database and every client machine that stores a digital ID locally. I think that that is going to be most unlikely. We all know that spammers will find it all too easy to create fake IDs, steal the IDs of innocent home users who think a firewall is a sheet of insulation used to stop a fire in a building, and generally make a mockery of Palladium.
Sometime in the fourth week, our lecturer announced the eagerly anticipated first Assignment. I couldn't wait, because I expected to ace it, after all, I had years of programming experience, a huge advantage over my peers. Not so: We had to write an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program. I was stunned. I had never done anything that complex in my life, in any language, and now I was being asked to do it in a functional language! However, many people achieved recognition rates over 80%, and some people rates as high as 98%, even though most students were first-time programmers. It just goes to show what people are capable of when pushed.
The same lecturer (Andrew Taylor) later came up with a whole series of Evil assignments -- his students tell stories about them to this day. For example, our second assignment in Comp 1A was to write an AI for the card game Hearts. To mark the assignment, he wrote a system that ran submissions in randomly chosen four-player games automatically, and ranked them by total score after some number of games. Half the marks were based on the performance of your AI! He even made the ranking software available beforehand so that students could test their algorithms against each other in mini-tournaments.
Consider this: Of the three games I've played almost exclusively in recent years, all three were Half-Life mods: Counter-Strike, Day Of Defeat, and Team Fortress Classic. However, with my current GeForce 3 based video card, I get the maximum 100fps at the highest supported resolution of 1280x960. So what exactly is the point of upgrading? Even if I upgraded to be able to play Doom III, I'd play it for at most a month, then go back DoD/CS/TFC.
PS: While we're on the topic of Half-Life, does anyone know why the engine doesn't allow resolutions above 1280x960? It seems like an arbitrary limit that could be easily removed. Maybe some of the people that invest months of time into writing HL cheats should try to figure out how to remove that limit instead...
Windows uses the much smarter RDP protocol for thin-clients. RDP is hooked into the GDI at a low level, and transfers only the minimum information required to clients. Clients can cache images, and expose their local files and devices to the server. There are clients available for every platform imaginable.
The new Mira technology is basically a dumbed-down version of the professional thin-client stuff for home users. Some friends already have similar networks running at home, and I've experimented too. It's amazing to access your full desktop from any computer, anywhere, anytime. Over ADSL it's fast enough to do most typical office tasks like reading email or writing documents.
The Windows XP "Remote Assistance" tool uses RDP, so it can give you an idea of what Mira will be like.
MEMS isn't an electronic system like MOSFET or CMOS, it's a method for making mechanical systems out of silicon. Oops.
The problem with your estimate of the damage caused by a strangelet to a human being is that it is based on theories that only apply to projectiles made of normal matter. Strangelets are both extremely dense, and charged. To a strangelet, a human being would present a target as insubstantial as the foam in you bathtub is to you. However, any charged particles (electrons or protons) orbiting the strangelet would be stripped off, which would result in a huge potential difference between the strangelet and most of your body. In other words, you'll get electrocuted, and your body will be ripped apart by the rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields.
The big bang is not an explosion with a epicenter -- a common misconception perpetuated by the popular media. It started everywhere, and the results of the explosion are going outwards from every point. The diagrams at the Cosmology FAQ help:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/nocenter.html