Except the article also goes on to say that the votes were redistributed to George Bush and various other candidates in a way which did not change the total number of votes cast. What would be the probability of this being the result of random bit flipping?
Maybe if you had taken some time to read the release notes for the latest stable release (Debian 3.0, aka Woody), you would have noticed that 2.4.x kernel packages are available for installation. Woody was released on July 19, 2002, so a "month or so ago" you were already 2 months behind the curve. By your clock that appears to be about 8 years in tech-time, so you seem to have some catching up to do.
One of the beauties of a good packaging system is that you don't have to upgrade everything just because one component changed. Debian, through its use of package dependencies, is particularly good about telling you which set of packages need to be upgraded whenever you upgrade a package or add a new package to your system. This helps prevent random system breakage that can be caused by inadvertantly changing something that other packages rely on. This is perhaps the biggest advantage the Debian package system has over an RPM-based system.
You could also contrast this to Windows, where even minor updates to Internet Explorer require downloading an entirely new version of the whole installation package for IE. Or the need to constantly replace your version of Windows every year or two if you want to keep up with the latest incremental changes, no matter how insignificant they might be. Yet, despite this, I don't see Windows having much of a problem attracting users. I think the reason is that many Windows users never bother to change the version of OS they're running from the one that came installed with the machine. How many people do you think still run an original version of Windows 98? In being able to keep components up-to-date without unnecessarily reinstalling huge portions of the system while not breaking what works, Debian has Windows beaten hands down, and also compares very favorably with other Linux distributions based on RPMs.
What is clear from all the previous comments is that the differences between degrees has a lot to do with how individual schools define their specific missions. In general, the distinctions between science, engineering, and management is supposed to be that science is concerned more with investigating how things work and coming up with new ways to do things better, engineering is more concerned with applying known principles to solving real-world problems, and management is concerned with efficiently controlling how resources (people, equipment, capital, etc...) are applied in work within organizations. Rather than concentrate on the particular name an institution chooses to give a degree, a prospective student should check each program at a school he/she is interested in for where they place the most emphasis.
Having attended three different academic institutions over the past 24 years, and receiving both graduate and undergraduate degrees in electrical and computer engineering and computer science, I can say some things about what I've observed. One way schools can be divided is by the emphasis they place on research vs. teaching. A computer science degree from a research oriented school will tend to focus more on the science part of CS, such as theory, operating systems, compilers, etc. because they are interested in generating more graduate students to do research. A CS degree from a teaching oriented school will tend to focus more on applied subjects like programming, databases, software design, etc. because they are mostly turning out people who will immediately be looking for outside jobs. Degrees from either kind of school are fine for getting a job afterwards, since many of the same core subjects will be taught virtually everywhere and many employers won't really know the difference. However, if you plan on applying to graduate schools later for a more advanced degree, they will know which category your school fits in.
One way to divide programs within schools is by which college or major division runs the program. Some schools have CS programs originating from an engineering college or division, while others tie them into an arts and science college or division. At some schools, the CS programs have had their roots in the math department. Programs with engineering roots will generally require the student to spend more time fulfilling engineering-specific requirements such as calculus, circuit theory, physics, etc. This often doesn't leave much time for other electives. Programs with roots in arts and science will have their own sets of required courses, which may allow time for taking more business oriented electives along the way.
Computer engineering (CompE) degrees are often a hybrid program between a traditional CS program and an electrical engineering (EE) program. Whether you get more or less software vs. hardware in these programs depends a lot on which department has the most influence at a particular school. Sometimes the program is run as a joint one between two different departments, and their quality depends a lot on the amount of cooperation that exists between them. Be careful to check with other people who have gone through a particular CompE program to see if they believe the program was successful or not in bridging the two disciplines and what approach was taken.
The general rule to take from all of this is that there are no general rules differentiating the kinds of programs at different schools for CS and CompE programs. Each school is different, and you need to investigate each one thoroughly to see if going there will meet your needs.
In order to be enforceable, a contract must first have a clearly defined meaning. The term "sustained peak bandwidth" without further clarification has no unambiguous interpretation. If you're only looking at peak bandwidth, for how long must the peak value be maintained in order to reach the level of being sustained? The terms of service never defines this period.
In one sense, PC is correct in stating that customers signed up for terms of service for which they had insufficient technical understanding. No one should ever agree to pay for a service based on usage using a metric over which they have no practical control. Using the peak bandwidth metric allowed PC to increase the amount owed to them by simply serving a single page at a faster rate in any one-month period, which adds nothing to the quality of service they are providing to their customers. That would be equivalent to a gas station periodically charging double the going rate for gas because their pumps would occasionally fill up people's cars faster than normal without being asked to. Obviously, the terms of service were deliberately written to provide PC with the opportunity to collect extraordinarily high fees from customers just about any time they wanted to.
PC should get punished for writing a deceptive contract to take advantage of customers. The customers should also get some of the blame for failing to make sure they actually read and understood the terms of service they were agreeing to.
Such an inflexible viewpoint may seem somewhat noble on a certain level, but doesn't really allow for the kinds of evolutionary changes that must naturally occur as society adjusts to major changes. These changes can be manifested through advances in a wide range of areas, including politics, religion, and technology. There is a long history of opposing rules and regulations that do not adequately represent the needs and desires of the general populace. Mass protests against unfair or unwise laws remains a time-honored tradition as a vehicle for change.
Having said all that in general context, the specific application to your comment is that you are confusing the issues of wrongness and illegality. Theft is obviously both wrong and illegal, on that point few would disagree. Piracy as defined by the RIAA is not the same as theft, and is not so clear in the minds of many, either from a moral or legal viewpoint. And if there is a question of the morality of the regulations, there exists justification for protests against any regulations that enforce this morally flawed legal position. Some people may choose to protest in economic terms, including as you suggested not buying a product. That shouldn't exclude the legitimacy of using other methods as well. The "ripping off" of companies you complain about should be balanced against the loss of fundamental rights that are imposed on both creators and consumers of artistic material by those same companies. That is one of the natural processes by which even bad laws can eventually be changed.
I hope you are very secure in your belief that government will only be acting in the best interests of the people when practicing their surveillance of everyone's online communication. Or that every individual employed by the government will be above reproach in the performance of his or her duties. History has unfortunately shown that such absolute trust in higher authorities invariably leads to abuses of that trust.
When you weaken the rights of one select group, you can unintentionally open the door for weakening the rights of everyone. The "criminals and terrorists" of tomorrow might include more people than you've bargained for. Anyone demonstrating against government policies or practicing civil disobedience to right an injustice could be seen as engaging in activities detrimental to maintaining an orderly society. Freedom is not free, and it cannot be preserved without accepting some of its risks.
If you look at the company's site for the SafeMessage product, www.safemessage.com , you will see that messages are designed to be auto-shredding and deleting with a sender-set expiration time. In addition, the messages can be protected from copying and printing as required. It appears to be designed to make useful interception of messages difficult at each stage in the process, including protection of the message contents after delivery. This makes it more than just a form of encrypted e-mail.
Patents are intended to enable continued innovation while helping the innovators realize some financial gain from their efforts. The idea behind patents is that once the protection is officially given, details of the invention can be revealed without fear that someone else will steal the idea without paying compensation. Without the legal protection, new ideas would have to be kept as trade secrets, and noone else would get a chance to examine the ideas and build on them, thereby slowing down the rate of progress. If the protection period were so short that others could simply wait for the patent to expire and then adopt the technology without paying any royalties, there would be little incentive for anyone to patent their ideas and reveal the details, again leading to a slowdown in in the rate of innovation.
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Except the article also goes on to say that the votes were redistributed to George Bush and various other candidates in a way which did not change the total number of votes cast. What would be the probability of this being the result of random bit flipping?
One of the beauties of a good packaging system is that you don't have to upgrade everything just because one component changed. Debian, through its use of package dependencies, is particularly good about telling you which set of packages need to be upgraded whenever you upgrade a package or add a new package to your system. This helps prevent random system breakage that can be caused by inadvertantly changing something that other packages rely on. This is perhaps the biggest advantage the Debian package system has over an RPM-based system.
You could also contrast this to Windows, where even minor updates to Internet Explorer require downloading an entirely new version of the whole installation package for IE. Or the need to constantly replace your version of Windows every year or two if you want to keep up with the latest incremental changes, no matter how insignificant they might be. Yet, despite this, I don't see Windows having much of a problem attracting users. I think the reason is that many Windows users never bother to change the version of OS they're running from the one that came installed with the machine. How many people do you think still run an original version of Windows 98? In being able to keep components up-to-date without unnecessarily reinstalling huge portions of the system while not breaking what works, Debian has Windows beaten hands down, and also compares very favorably with other Linux distributions based on RPMs.
Having attended three different academic institutions over the past 24 years, and receiving both graduate and undergraduate degrees in electrical and computer engineering and computer science, I can say some things about what I've observed. One way schools can be divided is by the emphasis they place on research vs. teaching. A computer science degree from a research oriented school will tend to focus more on the science part of CS, such as theory, operating systems, compilers, etc. because they are interested in generating more graduate students to do research. A CS degree from a teaching oriented school will tend to focus more on applied subjects like programming, databases, software design, etc. because they are mostly turning out people who will immediately be looking for outside jobs. Degrees from either kind of school are fine for getting a job afterwards, since many of the same core subjects will be taught virtually everywhere and many employers won't really know the difference. However, if you plan on applying to graduate schools later for a more advanced degree, they will know which category your school fits in.
One way to divide programs within schools is by which college or major division runs the program. Some schools have CS programs originating from an engineering college or division, while others tie them into an arts and science college or division. At some schools, the CS programs have had their roots in the math department. Programs with engineering roots will generally require the student to spend more time fulfilling engineering-specific requirements such as calculus, circuit theory, physics, etc. This often doesn't leave much time for other electives. Programs with roots in arts and science will have their own sets of required courses, which may allow time for taking more business oriented electives along the way.
Computer engineering (CompE) degrees are often a hybrid program between a traditional CS program and an electrical engineering (EE) program. Whether you get more or less software vs. hardware in these programs depends a lot on which department has the most influence at a particular school. Sometimes the program is run as a joint one between two different departments, and their quality depends a lot on the amount of cooperation that exists between them. Be careful to check with other people who have gone through a particular CompE program to see if they believe the program was successful or not in bridging the two disciplines and what approach was taken.
The general rule to take from all of this is that there are no general rules differentiating the kinds of programs at different schools for CS and CompE programs. Each school is different, and you need to investigate each one thoroughly to see if going there will meet your needs.
In case anyone wants to actually read the patent before commenting about it, you can view the text at NetZero patent.
In one sense, PC is correct in stating that customers signed up for terms of service for which they had insufficient technical understanding. No one should ever agree to pay for a service based on usage using a metric over which they have no practical control. Using the peak bandwidth metric allowed PC to increase the amount owed to them by simply serving a single page at a faster rate in any one-month period, which adds nothing to the quality of service they are providing to their customers. That would be equivalent to a gas station periodically charging double the going rate for gas because their pumps would occasionally fill up people's cars faster than normal without being asked to. Obviously, the terms of service were deliberately written to provide PC with the opportunity to collect extraordinarily high fees from customers just about any time they wanted to.
PC should get punished for writing a deceptive contract to take advantage of customers. The customers should also get some of the blame for failing to make sure they actually read and understood the terms of service they were agreeing to.
Having said all that in general context, the specific application to your comment is that you are confusing the issues of wrongness and illegality. Theft is obviously both wrong and illegal, on that point few would disagree. Piracy as defined by the RIAA is not the same as theft, and is not so clear in the minds of many, either from a moral or legal viewpoint. And if there is a question of the morality of the regulations, there exists justification for protests against any regulations that enforce this morally flawed legal position. Some people may choose to protest in economic terms, including as you suggested not buying a product. That shouldn't exclude the legitimacy of using other methods as well. The "ripping off" of companies you complain about should be balanced against the loss of fundamental rights that are imposed on both creators and consumers of artistic material by those same companies. That is one of the natural processes by which even bad laws can eventually be changed.
When you weaken the rights of one select group, you can unintentionally open the door for weakening the rights of everyone. The "criminals and terrorists" of tomorrow might include more people than you've bargained for. Anyone demonstrating against government policies or practicing civil disobedience to right an injustice could be seen as engaging in activities detrimental to maintaining an orderly society. Freedom is not free, and it cannot be preserved without accepting some of its risks.
If you look at the company's site for the SafeMessage product, www.safemessage.com , you will see that messages are designed to be auto-shredding and deleting with a sender-set expiration time. In addition, the messages can be protected from copying and printing as required. It appears to be designed to make useful interception of messages difficult at each stage in the process, including protection of the message contents after delivery. This makes it more than just a form of encrypted e-mail.
Patents are intended to enable continued innovation while helping the innovators realize some financial gain from their efforts. The idea behind patents is that once the protection is officially given, details of the invention can be revealed without fear that someone else will steal the idea without paying compensation. Without the legal protection, new ideas would have to be kept as trade secrets, and noone else would get a chance to examine the ideas and build on them, thereby slowing down the rate of progress. If the protection period were so short that others could simply wait for the patent to expire and then adopt the technology without paying any royalties, there would be little incentive for anyone to patent their ideas and reveal the details, again leading to a slowdown in in the rate of innovation.