I only saw it once, long ago, but as I recall, my favorite aspect of the movie was something no one's commented on yet: the plot's postmodern commentary on the process of making the movie itself.
There is a chase scene where the pursuers have a certain budget. Each time a major accident (which is an expensive special effect) happens, an expense is charged to their budget. THX needs to keep in front of them until their budget's used up.
Here's a reason to get a Computer Science degree at a good school: you can take a course on data structures taught by Chris Okasaki, the book's author. I took Advanced Data Structures from him at Columbia in 1999. Now he's at West Point.
The course was pretty mind-blowing. He knows his stuff. It was a bit freaky to watch him grading programming assignments by just reading them, not running them, and yet never missing a mistake.
I would recommend the book not just as an introduction to advanced data structures in functional languages, but as a guide to some of the more interesting data structures of the last fifteen years, regardless of implementation language.
If you're a subscriber to The Economist, you'll recall that they've been pushing "micropower" for years. In particular, see their feature from three years ago (3 August 2000): "The Dawn of Micropower".
Searching for Micropower on Google brings up many links.
As pointed out in Jane's International Defense Review a few months ago, the key point here is what happens to air defense once air assets go hypersonic. It starts looking a lot like... ballistic missile defense.
Many people, myself included, think that too much is being spent too soon on BMD, and it's certainly not ready to be deployed next year, as I think is still planned. However, you can see how tech like hypersonic drones and aircraft makes the need for advanced interception systems that much more urgent.
The only defenses against hypersonic weapons and platforms will be ballistic missile defenses. And, in accordance with the USA's $400bn defense budget, we'll be the only country with either.
I was wondering if anyone else would list this one. I bought it super cheap a couple of years ago after reading something about it online. It was the first game I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. Creepy, but with a deep story.
If the slashdot readership has any questions they'd like to ask Miguel de Icaza, we can ask the highly-moderated ones during the Q&A session and report the answers back here.
IMS, IBM's hierarchical database system, was originally developed for the Apollo space program. It is far from dead as you can read here. IMS systems are currently storing around 15000 petabytes of data, and executing 50 billion transactions/day. All stored in a hierarchical database system.
DVD's have higher density than CDs (I think) and allow dual layers. It seems like a 3" DVD would probably hold more than a full CD. Is a 3" format part of the DVD spec? It seems like you could get the best of both worlds, small media size and good capacity.
I've taught the introductory programming courses at Columbia University for both Java and C++. My feeling is that C++ is a better teaching language for CS majors. The main reasons:
As Computer Scientists, students should understand the relationship between the high-level language and low-level machine, as well as be capable of doing systems programming. Java masks the underlying hardware and is useless for systems programming.
Paradigms: Java supports exactly one programming paradigm: OOP. That's pretty sad. No support for generic programming, and even the main method and statics have to get shoved inside a class declaration. A Computer Science education should be broadening, not narrowing.
Pedagogy: Teaching Java is somewhat difficult, as understanding of OOP is needed from the beginning (or lots of "just copy this stuff and I'll explain later"). C++ allows you to start with a simple procedural subset, then start taking advantage of STL classes, and then finally show how to create your own classes.
His announced topic is "multi-paradigm programming in C++". You can read more about what he means by multi-paradigm programming on his excellent web page and FAQ
-- Phil Gross
Bjarne Stroustrup is speaking at Columbia University in New York City on Thursday, April 26th. His talk is at 7:30pm in Schermerhorn Hall. See our ACM page for details.
Admission is free and all are welcome. Pose your questions to the man himself...
The folks at Modern Humorist are going to use the money collected to buy a Weber grill for Jeff Bezos, under the assumption that he'll then invite them over for a barbeque. I gave a buck...
A number of the issues pointed out by Mr. Cornell are interconnected.
The ease-of-install issue is something that customers and end users demand. If all of Linux development were under some sort of software engineering regime, it would be identified as a needed feature and resources would be assigned to it.
However, installers are fairly dull from both a programming and computer science perspective, so we've had to depend on the commercial Linux companies (e.g. RedHat) to provide even a minimally acceptable install process.
Even with a community of thousands of contributing open-source programmers, there are some tasks no one has volunteered to do. It is my hope that as Linux continues to spread, more programmers with an interest in usability (e.g. Andy Hertzfeld of the Eazel project) or commercial programmers with experience in the various consumer pieces missing from Linux will contribute to the endeavor.
Listening to customers is important. Programmers on their own will produce products that are technically brilliant but appeal mainly to other programmers.
If the open-source world is serious about taking on Microsoft, we should refocus programmer resources away from the already-great kernel and point them at the install process and desktop, where we're weakest.
One of the BBC's on-line video reports on the eclipse featured video from Mir where you could actually see the shadow moving over the earth. I'm not sure if it's still in their web archives.
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, Unix Network Programming, and especially his TCP/IP series are all brilliant: clearly written, filled with examples, and packed with information.
My condolences to his family. Through his books he made a deep contribution to the future of the Internet.
I believe that the recent book The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley by Po Bronson includes the tale of a entrepreneur who sells dope to fund his Internet start-up.
What a failure of imagination. Clearly the cash flow a young company needs is best provided by running an adult-content site on the side.
Slashdot Mirror
I only saw it once, long ago, but as I recall, my favorite aspect of the movie was something no one's commented on yet: the plot's postmodern commentary on the process of making the movie itself.
There is a chase scene where the pursuers have a certain budget. Each time a major accident (which is an expensive special effect) happens, an expense is charged to their budget. THX needs to keep in front of them until their budget's used up.
The course was pretty mind-blowing. He knows his stuff. It was a bit freaky to watch him grading programming assignments by just reading them, not running them, and yet never missing a mistake.
I would recommend the book not just as an introduction to advanced data structures in functional languages, but as a guide to some of the more interesting data structures of the last fifteen years, regardless of implementation language.
-- Phil Gross
Searching for Micropower on Google brings up many links.
As pointed out in Jane's International Defense Review a few months ago, the key point here is what happens to air defense once air assets go hypersonic. It starts looking a lot like... ballistic missile defense.
Many people, myself included, think that too much is being spent too soon on BMD, and it's certainly not ready to be deployed next year, as I think is still planned. However, you can see how tech like hypersonic drones and aircraft makes the need for advanced interception systems that much more urgent.
The only defenses against hypersonic weapons and platforms will be ballistic missile defenses. And, in accordance with the USA's $400bn defense budget, we'll be the only country with either.
I was wondering if anyone else would list this one. I bought it super cheap a couple of years ago after reading something about it online. It was the first game I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. Creepy, but with a deep story.
If the slashdot readership has any questions they'd like to ask Miguel de Icaza, we can ask the highly-moderated ones during the Q&A session and report the answers back here.
Phil Gross, Columbia ACM
IMS, IBM's hierarchical database system, was originally developed for the Apollo space program. It is far from dead as you can read here. IMS systems are currently storing around 15000 petabytes of data, and executing 50 billion transactions/day. All stored in a hierarchical database system.
that was quick. images live on CNN. Cruise missiles, apparently.
US-speak for "we would like you had over Mr. Bin Laden please. Like, now."
DVD's have higher density than CDs (I think) and allow dual layers. It seems like a 3" DVD would probably hold more than a full CD. Is a 3" format part of the DVD spec? It seems like you could get the best of both worlds, small media size and good capacity.
- As Computer Scientists, students should understand the relationship between the high-level language and low-level machine, as well as be capable of doing systems programming. Java masks the underlying hardware and is useless for systems programming.
- Paradigms: Java supports exactly one programming paradigm: OOP. That's pretty sad. No support for generic programming, and even the main method and statics have to get shoved inside a class declaration. A Computer Science education should be broadening, not narrowing.
- Pedagogy: Teaching Java is somewhat difficult, as understanding of OOP is needed from the beginning (or lots of "just copy this stuff and I'll explain later"). C++ allows you to start with a simple procedural subset, then start taking advantage of STL classes, and then finally show how to create your own classes.
My two cents.His announced topic is "multi-paradigm programming in C++". You can read more about what he means by multi-paradigm programming on his excellent web page and FAQ -- Phil Gross
Admission is free and all are welcome. Pose your questions to the man himself...
The folks at Modern Humorist are going to use the money collected to buy a Weber grill for Jeff Bezos, under the assumption that he'll then invite them over for a barbeque. I gave a buck...
Gore has retracted his concession speech. Vote difference in Florida may be less than 1000. See The Miami Herald and CNN.
The ease-of-install issue is something that customers and end users demand. If all of Linux development were under some sort of software engineering regime, it would be identified as a needed feature and resources would be assigned to it.
However, installers are fairly dull from both a programming and computer science perspective, so we've had to depend on the commercial Linux companies (e.g. RedHat) to provide even a minimally acceptable install process.
Even with a community of thousands of contributing open-source programmers, there are some tasks no one has volunteered to do. It is my hope that as Linux continues to spread, more programmers with an interest in usability (e.g. Andy Hertzfeld of the Eazel project) or commercial programmers with experience in the various consumer pieces missing from Linux will contribute to the endeavor.
Listening to customers is important. Programmers on their own will produce products that are technically brilliant but appeal mainly to other programmers.
If the open-source world is serious about taking on Microsoft, we should refocus programmer resources away from the already-great kernel and point them at the install process and desktop, where we're weakest.
One of the BBC's on-line video reports on the eclipse featured video from Mir where you could actually see the shadow moving over the earth. I'm not sure if it's still in their web archives.
My condolences to his family. Through his books he made a deep contribution to the future of the Internet.
What a failure of imagination. Clearly the cash flow a young company needs is best provided by running an adult-content site on the side.
Behold the New Economy in all its majestic glory.
http://finger.planetqu ake.com/plan.asp?userid=ridah&id=12643