The article itself mentioned that the kid almost had an electronics degree. I don't really see how you can get an electronics degree without already taking some programming classes and having a thorough understanding of discrete mathematics. By the time you're reaching any kind of degree, you've got to be already pretty damn knowledgeable, and you ought to already know what is interesting and what is worthless. If the kid is really all that smart, he ought to think like a 20-year-old and know what he wants to do, otherwise he just has a lot of knowledge and can score well on tests because he has an uncanny ability to map problems to appropriate solution algorithms, and then carry them out.
In any case, if the kid can learn electronics by the time he's 9, it wouldn't be too hard for him to understand at least some part of most of computer science, as well as some other fields, by the time he's, say, 15. Then he will truly be able to contribute to the field of computer science (or whatever else he decides to go into).
Just consider an ee/cs curriculum at any major school, and go with that. Those programs are heavily researched and will probably offer everything one needs to succeed.
I disagree with your point that a language implementation is worthwhile without any libraries to write with. While I agree that windowing and the like may not be the best thing to do on a cel phone, at least java.lang.* must exist, java.util.*, maybe java.text.*, hopefylly java.io.* if your celphone will receive email with tcp/ip... In any case, a blank JVM doesn't amount to anything unless it has been demonstrated to run some common java benchmarks.
In any case, maybe I *do* want to run staroffice on my phone, if the phone has a really nice speech recognition interface.
Just take him to your local book store (Borders, B&N, whatever) and plant him in the O'Reilly section, and leave him there for a couple of days. That'll be all he ever needs to know;D
Overall, though, I'd get him on the higher level programming languages like java, and stay away from assembly. Unless he wants to make video cards and then write drivers for them, which case...
The referenced whitepaper is kind of a POS. They claim that with 26 kilobytes of operating system, it's possible to implement any solution. That's fine, but where are the drivers for the video card going to come from? Where is the sound going to come from? Where will the drivers for my funky backup drive reside? They will all have to be tacked on to those 26 kilobytes of memory allocation and printing to the screen, and the result is going to be a system just as large as anything else out there, once you add all the actually useful stuff.
Besides, Java is only useful when it has some windowing libraries and the like, those still need to be built for each cel phone or whatever device that the stuff will go on. I don't think that something can really be touted as a Java implementation unless a large majority of the libs (javax.swing.*, etc) also exist.
If you can't run StarOffice on your cel phone, what good is it?
I actually got one of those cards that did that. No serial cable involved, just an ISA card that has a video-in and video-out on the back of it. You just hook it up to your VCR, hit rec. on the VCR, and hit "go" in the program that came with it, and you get a tape full of flashing white and black squares.
Naturally, I never actually used it for backup or anything, but if I remember right it was able to back up something like 10 megs a minute or so, I think, making a 120-minute tape a pretty decent size backup volume.
It was really kind of a bear to get the VCR hooked up, cause I had to hook it up to a TV, make sure it was configured right (e.g. recording was set to line-in, etc), then hook it up to the computer, but obviously there's no room on a table with a computer on it to put a VCR.
As long as one keeps a regular schedule of sleep, the time of day does not actually matter. What matters is the rotation of shifts that one takes:
As you may know, it's much easier to sleep in later and then stay up a little bit longer than to wake up early, and go to bed early. It is a long-known fact that the rotation of schedules forward instead of back (ie the worker comes in later and later for his shift, but also leaves later) minimizes inefficiency.
Even more proof that the time of day doesn't matter is that my roommate (college) is on the backwards schedule -- he comes back from class, goes to bed, wakes up around 2am, and starts studying, and he's doin' just fine. So basically as long as one can have a regular schedule that doesn't get shifted backwards (god I hate the spring time switch...), sleeping at any time of day is good enou
Actually, it has been proven by psychological studies that clinging children who desire attention and don't have good social skills (including taking responsibility for their actions, not being annoying, etc) have had a lack of strong FATHERhood, not motherhood as you are suggesting.
I'm wondering just which company's servers (ie Sun or MS or blue..) will actually serve the website. It would be funny to see how they would determine this type of thing. Obviously each company would be falling all over themselves to donate hardware and software, so it would come down to what they think will accomplish the job best...
the big strength of java is not only in its large set of libraries. The real power of java is that it's got C++-like syntax but with garbage collection. Never having to worry about memory deallocation is a big deal and it helps in rapid application development.
The problem with writing on a computer instead of typing on one is that of input speed. I can type almost at speaking speed, but I doubt that many people can do that without extensive use of short-hand. This is exactly why electronic-notepad-type computers (one panel, say 7x10 inches, with most of it being a touch-sensitive screen and maybe a spot to put the stylus) will never catch on -- I for one can take notes much faster on a keyoard than I can on paper, and I assume this is true for almost anyone who can type decently, just because making one letter on a keyboard involves exactly one motion with one finger. However, writing with a hand involves several motions with the whole wrist. Don't get me wrong, having a palm-pilot is great for quick notes-to-self and maybe keeping your passwords, but if something without a keyboard tries to become as functional as an operating system, it will most definitely not be better than a VAIO laptop. I think the days of Star Trek-style PADDs are very far off.
The keyboard is the wrong place to put a device to be written on. That device needs to go on top of the LCD display where the writing being done is very directly placed where it belongs, instead of having to look one place and wave your hand around in the other. Besides, how are you gonna hit ctrl-alt-delete or ctrl-alt-escape or whatever the die-now key combination is for a mac without a keyboard? Shit breaks, and cycling the power is very often not necessary
When I lived in Russia, my grandfather had a converted car. Under the steering wheel somewhere there was a switch to go from regular gasoline to natural gas (or whatever gas it was). It could even switch while running. This is really old technology and I have no idea why more people aren't using this
The argument could be making that linking with intent to pirate is what is done by some kid who links to the latest Puff Daddy release from his web page. A search engine, however, usually does not discriminate between different types of content -- that's why search engine providers will not be sued.
Let's think of this as a murder investigation... I know that you intend to kill a hypothetical erson named Bob. If I tell you where Bob is because I want you to kill him and I know that telling you where he is will make this happen, am I partly responsible for Bob's subsequent death from being stabbed with an unusually sharp umbrella? Whatever the precedent is there, the same should apply to linking -- the linker knows something illegal is going to happen as a result of his linking, and should be punished appropriately. Besides, why not just use napster?
Microsoft doesn't have to support java on Windows. Sun is doing a very decent job of that. I wouldn't be worried about windows support either -- as far as I know they are making those releases available sooner than ones even for Solaris.
Unless I am wrong, it provides easy internationalization -- probably something along the lines of having a string ID instead of a string, and that string ID pointing at different strings depending on what human language you wanted that string to appear in.. but that's just a guess.
Sun will never give up control of Java -- it is their baby. Given that, I do not believe that transferring control to a separate entity will help in any way. Right now java is progressing nicely. 1.3 runs faster than 1.2, and hopefully 1.4 will be even faster. I think that any kind of change to the development process would be detrimental. That aside, I just wish you could overload operators...
It's scheduled to come out of vaporware this week. I don't know if it will or not, but the Mambo-X seems like a good bet -- it's actually a portable CD player that plays mp3's off a CD-R/RW.
Linking directly to a zip is no problem, because if you wave your mouse over the link, you see the URL at the bottom. The real problem, I believe, is linking to another's frame, such that all the site's identification is lost. It's not linking that's the problem, it's direct usage (of frames, tables, images, what have you) that is the problem. I'm sure Ticketmaster would not have done squat if tickets.com said "Buy these here" and linked to somewhere deep in their hierarchy. It's all about attempts at misrepresentation. Linking to a zip does not misrepresent like that, although apparently linking to warez/mp3s is illegal, or soemthing.
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The article itself mentioned that the kid almost had an electronics degree. I don't really see how you can get an electronics degree without already taking some programming classes and having a thorough understanding of discrete mathematics. By the time you're reaching any kind of degree, you've got to be already pretty damn knowledgeable, and you ought to already know what is interesting and what is worthless. If the kid is really all that smart, he ought to think like a 20-year-old and know what he wants to do, otherwise he just has a lot of knowledge and can score well on tests because he has an uncanny ability to map problems to appropriate solution algorithms, and then carry them out.
In any case, if the kid can learn electronics by the time he's 9, it wouldn't be too hard for him to understand at least some part of most of computer science, as well as some other fields, by the time he's, say, 15. Then he will truly be able to contribute to the field of computer science (or whatever else he decides to go into).
Just consider an ee/cs curriculum at any major school, and go with that. Those programs are heavily researched and will probably offer everything one needs to succeed.
I disagree with your point that a language implementation is worthwhile without any libraries to write with. While I agree that windowing and the like may not be the best thing to do on a cel phone, at least java.lang.* must exist, java.util.*, maybe java.text.*, hopefylly java.io.* if your celphone will receive email with tcp/ip... In any case, a blank JVM doesn't amount to anything unless it has been demonstrated to run some common java benchmarks.
In any case, maybe I *do* want to run staroffice on my phone, if the phone has a really nice speech recognition interface.
And lighten up on the buzzwords.
Just take him to your local book store (Borders, B&N, whatever) and plant him in the O'Reilly section, and leave him there for a couple of days. That'll be all he ever needs to know ;D
Overall, though, I'd get him on the higher level programming languages like java, and stay away from assembly. Unless he wants to make video cards and then write drivers for them, which case...
The referenced whitepaper is kind of a POS. They claim that with 26 kilobytes of operating system, it's possible to implement any solution. That's fine, but where are the drivers for the video card going to come from? Where is the sound going to come from? Where will the drivers for my funky backup drive reside? They will all have to be tacked on to those 26 kilobytes of memory allocation and printing to the screen, and the result is going to be a system just as large as anything else out there, once you add all the actually useful stuff. Besides, Java is only useful when it has some windowing libraries and the like, those still need to be built for each cel phone or whatever device that the stuff will go on. I don't think that something can really be touted as a Java implementation unless a large majority of the libs (javax.swing.*, etc) also exist. If you can't run StarOffice on your cel phone, what good is it?
I actually got one of those cards that did that. No serial cable involved, just an ISA card that has a video-in and video-out on the back of it. You just hook it up to your VCR, hit rec. on the VCR, and hit "go" in the program that came with it, and you get a tape full of flashing white and black squares.
Naturally, I never actually used it for backup or anything, but if I remember right it was able to back up something like 10 megs a minute or so, I think, making a 120-minute tape a pretty decent size backup volume.
It was really kind of a bear to get the VCR hooked up, cause I had to hook it up to a TV, make sure it was configured right (e.g. recording was set to line-in, etc), then hook it up to the computer, but obviously there's no room on a table with a computer on it to put a VCR.
It's no wonder those things never took off.
As long as one keeps a regular schedule of sleep, the time of day does not actually matter. What matters is the rotation of shifts that one takes:
As you may know, it's much easier to sleep in later and then stay up a little bit longer than to wake up early, and go to bed early. It is a long-known fact that the rotation of schedules forward instead of back (ie the worker comes in later and later for his shift, but also leaves later) minimizes inefficiency.
Even more proof that the time of day doesn't matter is that my roommate (college) is on the backwards schedule -- he comes back from class, goes to bed, wakes up around 2am, and starts studying, and he's doin' just fine. So basically as long as one can have a regular schedule that doesn't get shifted backwards (god I hate the spring time switch...), sleeping at any time of day is good enou
and Eddie Bauer already has an Explorer...
Actually, it has been proven by psychological studies that clinging children who desire attention and don't have good social skills (including taking responsibility for their actions, not being annoying, etc) have had a lack of strong FATHERhood, not motherhood as you are suggesting.
I'm wondering just which company's servers (ie Sun or MS or blue..) will actually serve the website. It would be funny to see how they would determine this type of thing. Obviously each company would be falling all over themselves to donate hardware and software, so it would come down to what they think will accomplish the job best...
My work here is done.
the big strength of java is not only in its large set of libraries. The real power of java is that it's got C++-like syntax but with garbage collection. Never having to worry about memory deallocation is a big deal and it helps in rapid application development.
Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things...
Really, though, I'd love to be able to play Quake3 in my bathtub!
The problem with writing on a computer instead of typing on one is that of input speed. I can type almost at speaking speed, but I doubt that many people can do that without extensive use of short-hand. This is exactly why electronic-notepad-type computers (one panel, say 7x10 inches, with most of it being a touch-sensitive screen and maybe a spot to put the stylus) will never catch on -- I for one can take notes much faster on a keyoard than I can on paper, and I assume this is true for almost anyone who can type decently, just because making one letter on a keyboard involves exactly one motion with one finger. However, writing with a hand involves several motions with the whole wrist.
Don't get me wrong, having a palm-pilot is great for quick notes-to-self and maybe keeping your passwords, but if something without a keyboard tries to become as functional as an operating system, it will most definitely not be better than a VAIO laptop.
I think the days of Star Trek-style PADDs are very far off.
The keyboard is the wrong place to put a device to be written on. That device needs to go on top of the LCD display where the writing being done is very directly placed where it belongs, instead of having to look one place and wave your hand around in the other. Besides, how are you gonna hit ctrl-alt-delete or ctrl-alt-escape or whatever the die-now key combination is for a mac without a keyboard? Shit breaks, and cycling the power is very often not necessary
When I lived in Russia, my grandfather had a converted car. Under the steering wheel somewhere there was a switch to go from regular gasoline to natural gas (or whatever gas it was). It could even switch while running. This is really old technology and I have no idea why more people aren't using this
The argument could be making that linking with intent to pirate is what is done by some kid who links to the latest Puff Daddy release from his web page. A search engine, however, usually does not discriminate between different types of content -- that's why search engine providers will not be sued.
Let's think of this as a murder investigation...
I know that you intend to kill a hypothetical erson named Bob. If I tell you where Bob is because I want you to kill him and I know that telling you where he is will make this happen, am I partly responsible for Bob's subsequent death from being stabbed with an unusually sharp umbrella? Whatever the precedent is there, the same should apply to linking -- the linker knows something illegal is going to happen as a result of his linking, and should be punished appropriately.
Besides, why not just use napster?
Microsoft doesn't have to support java on Windows. Sun is doing a very decent job of that. I wouldn't be worried about windows support either -- as far as I know they are making those releases available sooner than ones even for Solaris.
Incidentally, that's how the first C++ compilers worked -- they'd translate it into C first.
Unless I am wrong, it provides easy internationalization -- probably something along the lines of having a string ID instead of a string, and that string ID pointing at different strings depending on what human language you wanted that string to appear in.. but that's just a guess.
Sun will never give up control of Java -- it is their baby. Given that, I do not believe that transferring control to a separate entity will help in any way. Right now java is progressing nicely. 1.3 runs faster than 1.2, and hopefully 1.4 will be even faster. I think that any kind of change to the development process would be detrimental.
That aside, I just wish you could overload operators...
Holy shit, that lasagna bit was funny :)
It's scheduled to come out of vaporware this week. I don't know if it will or not, but the Mambo-X seems like a good bet -- it's actually a portable CD player that plays mp3's off a CD-R/RW.
Linking directly to a zip is no problem, because if you wave your mouse over the link, you see the URL at the bottom. The real problem, I believe, is linking to another's frame, such that all the site's identification is lost. It's not linking that's the problem, it's direct usage (of frames, tables, images, what have you) that is the problem.
I'm sure Ticketmaster would not have done squat if tickets.com said "Buy these here" and linked to somewhere deep in their hierarchy. It's all about attempts at misrepresentation. Linking to a zip does not misrepresent like that, although apparently linking to warez/mp3s is illegal, or soemthing.
I feel a slashdot poll coming up: How many of you would rather be in jail with a computer, or out of jail without one?