Copyright has it's uses and serves an important function. That being said: the anti-copying measures are ineffective and just cost money and time for all involved.
The anti-piracy technology being developed today is often a significant threat to the personal integrity! To kill small bugs you can use nuclear weapons, but you kill other important lifeforms...
I think it is necessary to regulate the harvesting and use of data related to persons or equipment persons own. It isn't fair or reasonable that any company can collect personal information (adresses, shopping habits, general whereabouts etc.) and benefit from it.
This is due to privacy concerns.
First: information is dangerous.
Second: information gives power.
Third: noone want the ad buisiness to get power over all our lives.
Forth: The ad industry has a bad track record for computer security.
Example: Think what enormous amount of information is collected in various databases for one Swedish individual. Most people shop a lot using cards of different kinds. Almost everyone uses cellular phones (GSM, that is). This means that for many persons you can follow maybe 90% of the total spending and using the cellular network you can monitor the position at any time to within a hundred feet (next generation: five to ten feet).
I'm a europeean so my views are somewhat tilted in that direction. Some dislike some of the EU's newer regulations concernign personal information (the associated person must give his or her consent for the data to be legal and there are regulations for what information that may be collected by corporations (alas, states may do as they like)).
If you're interested in programming and algorithms you definitively should select CS.
Math is a very important foundation for computer science that should not be understated. So, while you propably won't need the more exotic mathematics when you solve mundane programming tasks, you'll still benefit from it intellectually.
So if you're interested in development work, I'd recommend CS. If interested in management, it is possible that IS is adequate or even better.
But my judgement is colored by the fact that I'm a master of science in CS (or a Swedish equivalent).
As a kinesis user I think they (kinesis) has made a few tradeoffs just to keepthe width down. The arrow-keys are divided so that left and right are handled by two fingers on the left hand and up/down by the corresponding fingers on the right hand. The control and movement keygroup and the numeric keypad are removed to get a narrow keyboard where you can put your mouse very close (or a touchpad in the middle of the keyboard.
With my earlier problems solved by converting to kinesis I can recommend you to test. It may or may not help as persons are individuals while keyboards are not so.
I'd think that the technological teaching is the minor problem with such an abnormal person. If able to learn electronics he ought to be able to select his own direction with some tutoring.
The moral thing, though, is that the child (prodigy or not) will grow up and to some extent be a part of normal society. This can be hard, even for a presumed normal person. So, while not hindering the learning, try bear this in mind. A genius that is asocial or strange is of little value, to himself. Originality is an asset, but not if that entails not being able to understand and somewhat identify with other persons thinking, values and problems.
Sometimes you must have a papermanual. The generic example being hardware installation and drivers for hardware. It is very hard to install a SCSI-card and it's drivers on a new computer without information on how to force [insert your favorite operating system here] to recognize the card and the disks connected to it.
Normally it is motivated to have different kinds of documentation on paper and on line (as windows help files, Acrobat PDF etc.).
The very detailed information on java classes or Office-details can be very efficient to have in a searchable index or even as context-sensitive help.
But some kinds of manuals doesn't easily convert to on-line help or documentation. It's the tutorials and the long handbooks where you can read through long sequences of text and annotated examples to get a first impression or learn things you wouldn't learn by trial and error. Of cource this can be done on line, but then you cannot read the text on the train or without a computer.
Then, it's nice with books - I like my reference litterature. Considering the state of modern GUIs it's still easier to find your way back to a snippet by flicking pages in a book than to remember the exact search you used to find it last - in a book the information has a physical location.
Swedish/Europeean conditions
on
Database Nation
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· Score: 2
The European Union has passed a law which has been implemented in some member countries (it will eventually be passed in all member countries in a form or another).
In Sweden this law means that no one, save artists, journalists and govermental agencies, may use personal information without the persons written consent. This has resulted in some problems - but the intention is quite right: it is MY information.
When first passed, this law was the topic of a quite heated debate "you can not even name a third party in a mail", but the law has not been used to this effect.
Since a long time you have had a legal right to read all stored information about yourself free of charge (of course the goverment has some exceptions to this). Most information is public though.
This doesn't mean that this is unproblematic - it is very problematic in some ways. Anyone can walk in from the street and request information from my taxation records, my school grades (this is ok), my adress, what cars I own etc... While this has advantages the end result is that it is easy to get information about just about any Swede; this doesn't to my knowledge apply to the rest of the EU.
Slashdot Mirror
Copyright has it's uses and serves an important function. That being said: the anti-copying measures are ineffective and just cost money and time for all involved.
The anti-piracy technology being developed today is often a significant threat to the personal integrity! To kill small bugs you can use nuclear weapons, but you kill other important lifeforms...
I think it is necessary to regulate the harvesting and use of data related to persons or equipment persons own. It isn't fair or reasonable that any company can collect personal information (adresses, shopping habits, general whereabouts etc.) and benefit from it.
This is due to privacy concerns.
First: information is dangerous.
Second: information gives power.
Third: noone want the ad buisiness to get power over all our lives.
Forth: The ad industry has a bad track record for computer security.
Example: Think what enormous amount of information is collected in various databases for one Swedish individual. Most people shop a lot using cards of different kinds. Almost everyone uses cellular phones (GSM, that is). This means that for many persons you can follow maybe 90% of the total spending and using the cellular network you can monitor the position at any time to within a hundred feet (next generation: five to ten feet).
I'm a europeean so my views are somewhat tilted in that direction. Some dislike some of the EU's newer regulations concernign personal information (the associated person must give his or her consent for the data to be legal and there are regulations for what information that may be collected by corporations (alas, states may do as they like)).
If you're interested in programming and algorithms you definitively should select CS.
Math is a very important foundation for computer science that should not be understated. So, while you propably won't need the more exotic mathematics when you solve mundane programming tasks, you'll still benefit from it intellectually.
So if you're interested in development work, I'd recommend CS. If interested in management, it is possible that IS is adequate or even better.
But my judgement is colored by the fact that I'm a master of science in CS (or a Swedish equivalent).
As a kinesis user I think they (kinesis) has made a few tradeoffs just to keepthe width down. The arrow-keys are divided so that left and right are handled by two fingers on the left hand and up/down by the corresponding fingers on the right hand. The control and movement keygroup and the numeric keypad are removed to get a narrow keyboard where you can put your mouse very close (or a touchpad in the middle of the keyboard.
With my earlier problems solved by converting to kinesis I can recommend you to test. It may or may not help as persons are individuals while keyboards are not so.
I'd think that the technological teaching is the minor problem with such an abnormal person. If able to learn electronics he ought to be able to select his own direction with some tutoring.
The moral thing, though, is that the child (prodigy or not) will grow up and to some extent be a part of normal society. This can be hard, even for a presumed normal person. So, while not hindering the learning, try bear this in mind. A genius that is asocial or strange is of little value, to himself. Originality is an asset, but not if that entails not being able to understand and somewhat identify with other persons thinking, values and problems.
Values is the important thing here, IMHO.
Sometimes you must have a papermanual. The generic example being hardware installation and drivers for hardware. It is very hard to install a SCSI-card and it's drivers on a new computer without information on how to force [insert your favorite operating system here] to recognize the card and the disks connected to it.
Normally it is motivated to have different kinds of documentation on paper and on line (as windows help files, Acrobat PDF etc.).
The very detailed information on java classes or Office-details can be very efficient to have in a searchable index or even as context-sensitive help.
But some kinds of manuals doesn't easily convert to on-line help or documentation. It's the tutorials and the long handbooks where you can read through long sequences of text and annotated examples to get a first impression or learn things you wouldn't learn by trial and error. Of cource this can be done on line, but then you cannot read the text on the train or without a computer.
Then, it's nice with books - I like my reference litterature. Considering the state of modern GUIs it's still easier to find your way back to a snippet by flicking pages in a book than to remember the exact search you used to find it last - in a book the information has a physical location.
In Sweden this law means that no one, save artists, journalists and govermental agencies, may use personal information without the persons written consent. This has resulted in some problems - but the intention is quite right: it is MY information.
When first passed, this law was the topic of a quite heated debate "you can not even name a third party in a mail", but the law has not been used to this effect.
Since a long time you have had a legal right to read all stored information about yourself free of charge (of course the goverment has some exceptions to this). Most information is public though.
This doesn't mean that this is unproblematic - it is very problematic in some ways. Anyone can walk in from the street and request information from my taxation records, my school grades (this is ok), my adress, what cars I own etc... While this has advantages the end result is that it is easy to get information about just about any Swede; this doesn't to my knowledge apply to the rest of the EU.
IANAL :-)