As a Canadian, I think it is hilarious that the article claims that we have "nearly American accents". There is more variety within either country than there are differences between them when it comes to how their residents speak. What exactly is this "American accent" that we so nearly mimic? A southern drawl? A Brooklyn accent? Perhaps something milder from the midwest?
I challenge the average Slashdot reader to grab a life-long resident of Alberta and Montana at random and decide who is who based not on their word choice or beliefs, but strictly their accent.
As a student who is actually in the program that the article is about, and who is likely to take this course come fall, I would like to refute the notion that U of C students don't learn C. As pointed out by others, Computer Science is not designed to "teach" languages... that is something that can be done at a technical college. But in my studies I have picked up Pascal, Scheme, C, C++, Java, Python, and assembly (PDP-11... if you'd believe it).
As for a Java or M$ bias... I have only used Java in one class (this despite James Gosling being a U of C comp sci grad!) and have only used windows boxes in one other in all three years. That you should mention the OpenBSD hackathon is also rather amusing as Theo de Raadt (founder of OpenBSD and OpenSSh) attended the U of C and still lives in Calgary.
(And am I ever glad that I'm getting a computer science degree and not doing IT.;-) )
I'm not sure why there seems to be such a mixed reaction to this news. From the talk that Lucky Green gave at Defcon X this past summer, I saw nothing but heaping stacks of badness to come from the TCPA. To quote the talk description from the Defcon website:
"This tamper-resistant Trusted Platform Module (TPM) will enable operating system and application vendors to ensure that the owner of the motherboard will never again be able to copy data which the media corporations or members of the TCPA don't wish to see copied, or to utilize the TCPA's software applications without pay."
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure that the "possibly prying" site you are referring to is:
fundrace.org
-Anon
Can you hear me now? What?
As a Canadian, I think it is hilarious that the article claims that we have "nearly American accents". There is more variety within either country than there are differences between them when it comes to how their residents speak. What exactly is this "American accent" that we so nearly mimic? A southern drawl? A Brooklyn accent? Perhaps something milder from the midwest?
I challenge the average Slashdot reader to grab a life-long resident of Alberta and Montana at random and decide who is who based not on their word choice or beliefs, but strictly their accent.
As a student who is actually in the program that the article is about, and who is likely to take this course come fall, I would like to refute the notion that U of C students don't learn C. As pointed out by others, Computer Science is not designed to "teach" languages... that is something that can be done at a technical college. But in my studies I have picked up Pascal, Scheme, C, C++, Java, Python, and assembly (PDP-11... if you'd believe it).
;-) )
As for a Java or M$ bias... I have only used Java in one class (this despite James Gosling being a U of C comp sci grad!) and have only used windows boxes in one other in all three years. That you should mention the OpenBSD hackathon is also rather amusing as Theo de Raadt (founder of OpenBSD and OpenSSh) attended the U of C and still lives in Calgary.
(And am I ever glad that I'm getting a computer science degree and not doing IT.
-surgin
"... the people cannot be trusted" and "government knows best"?
Please tell me this is satire. This is the sort of thinking that nullifies democracy. Do you really think that Dubya knows best?
I'm not sure why there seems to be such a mixed reaction to this news. From the talk that Lucky Green gave at Defcon X this past summer, I saw nothing but heaping stacks of badness to come from the TCPA. To quote the talk description from the Defcon website:
"This tamper-resistant Trusted Platform Module (TPM) will enable operating system and application vendors to ensure that the owner of the motherboard will never again be able to copy data which the media corporations or members of the TCPA don't wish to see copied, or to utilize the TCPA's software applications without pay."
Sounds like DRM to me.