The comment above makes some really good points, I'll skip the obvious arts student jokes (I actually took several arts subsids with my CS degree so I can't really see the fuss).
The most important thing about getting a degree is why you want it, I also ended up going to university 'by default'. I actually had a job that I'd started whilst I was at school doing software for a telco. I was quite happy to stay there, make money, get my own place, start climbing the greasy pole - but it was my boss who really pushed me into going. Luckily, I had a really cool tutor at uni who managed to convince me that it was more about learning interesting things than passing exams. It really depends on what you want to get out of it.
Maybe a good question is why did you drop out twice through lack of interest - do you really just want the piece of paper at the end that says 'look, I stuck it out for three years and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt'. I can understand that, I dropped out in my second year (come on, dot.com boom time, everyone was having money thrown at them, and besides we had a product...). I came back and finished off because I wanted that piece of paper, so what if it just entitles you to flip slightly more interesting burgers? It was something that I'd given up on and that stung, it bit me in the ass until I went back and finished it. That can be a really good motivator.
But then in the end, I stuck it out because I was enjoying what I was learning, instead of taking the courses that I'd get good scores on because I knew them or they were easy (who doesn't take databases in their third year?) I took the courses that I found more gripping, like quantum computation and advanced language engineering, I may have got a crap score on the harder courses but I learnt a hell of a lot from them that I use most days.
The real question is what is your motivation to go back?
Your installation of FurnitureXP has detected a reconfiguration of your system indicating that you are not licensed to view your tv from this position, please phone M$ support on 1-800...
Your first mistake is assuming that the quoted 11Mbs is the actual data-throughput. It isn't, because of the protocol overhead you lose 50% of the quoted bandwidth straight away. As the bandwidth is split into discrete amounts depending on your reception, you actually get 500kb,1Mb,1.5 Mb or 5.5Mb and unfortunately you really need to be in ideal line-of-sight for 5.5Mb.
Secondly, you assume that these huge numbers of people are all within range, of what? There are no good scalable peer-to-peer routing algorithms for mobile networks. The best ones in the literature all use a form of random flood filling of the network so on a city sized scale that's going to break badly. If you have base-stations everywhere then you need almost as much infrastructure as a 3G network. Add to that the really bad urban-canyoning and reflection problems and you end needing a basestation in nearly *every* starbucks;)
We're actually in the process of rolling out a free 802.11 network over Bristol. Even though the project is funded the hassles of sorting out planning permission for aerials and putting in backbone means that after a year we've only just starting rolling with 3 aerials installed over a tourist area so that we can start doing demos.
Don't get me started on the other 802.11 limitations, it was designed for sitting browsing the web in the back-garden. It has latency and broadcast issues that make it unsuitable for streaming real-time video and audio, bad routing, IP hand-over issues and a pile of problems. People just look at the raw bandwidth figure and start creaming themselves over 55Mb bandwidth appearing everywhere but unfortunately the inherent problems with 802.11 mean that it isn't really as good as it sounds.
This sounds like quite a cool application, linking together the IM networks doesn't really give them more than a radio, but pluging it into their databases could be interesting. Especially if the edge devices know whereabouts they are; message for backup to the closest 10 units, run stolen car checks automatically (hook up a front end that pulls plates out of a video feed), or even, when you spot one message a uniform car in the direction that the cars going. It would be quite cool for managing evacuations as well, real time stats about people getting out could organise escape routes to avoid congestion amongst other things..
So when can I get a scanner for the car that checks there aren't any speed checks coming up...
These extensions seem to solve the security holes in 802.11 but does anyone here (Slashdot audience reading an 802.11 story seems a good place to ask) know of any fixes or rival standards that allow reasonable streaming of information? 802.11's delivery model breaks down when you try to stream real-time media (we're trying audio/video) to 802.11 receivers. Basically the beacon system introduces too much latency and the broadcast bandwidth cap means that you can't use all of the available bandwidth.
Everybody has jumped in so far with the impracticalities of eye-tracking but if you actually read the site, the main use of Dasher is through a mouse or pen, the eyetracking is there specifically for special needs (at 20 words per minute its slower as well but better than nothing if you are disabled). I can't play the demo video (nice one fellow./ers) but it looks like the guy is stabbing the space bar to select what he is looking at getting over the problems that everyones spotted so far about attention control
Slashdot Mirror
The comment above makes some really good points, I'll skip the obvious arts student jokes (I actually took several arts subsids with my CS degree so I can't really see the fuss).
The most important thing about getting a degree is why you want it, I also ended up going to university 'by default'. I actually had a job that I'd started whilst I was at school doing software for a telco. I was quite happy to stay there, make money, get my own place, start climbing the greasy pole - but it was my boss who really pushed me into going. Luckily, I had a really cool tutor at uni who managed to convince me that it was more about learning interesting things than passing exams. It really depends on what you want to get out of it.
Maybe a good question is why did you drop out twice through lack of interest - do you really just want the piece of paper at the end that says 'look, I stuck it out for three years and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt'. I can understand that, I dropped out in my second year (come on, dot.com boom time, everyone was having money thrown at them, and besides we had a product ...). I came back and finished off because I wanted that piece of paper, so what if it just entitles you to flip slightly more interesting burgers? It was something that I'd given up on and that stung, it bit me in the ass until I went back and finished it. That can be a really good motivator.
But then in the end, I stuck it out because I was enjoying what I was learning, instead of taking the courses that I'd get good scores on because I knew them or they were easy (who doesn't take databases in their third year?) I took the courses that I found more gripping, like quantum computation and advanced language engineering, I may have got a crap score on the harder courses but I learnt a hell of a lot from them that I use most days.
The real question is what is your motivation to go back?
Your installation of FurnitureXP has detected a reconfiguration of your system indicating that you are not licensed to view your tv from this position, please phone M$ support on 1-800...
No it isn't.
;)
Your first mistake is assuming that the quoted 11Mbs is the actual data-throughput. It isn't, because of the protocol overhead you lose 50% of the quoted bandwidth straight away. As the bandwidth is split into discrete amounts depending on your reception, you actually get 500kb,1Mb,1.5 Mb or 5.5Mb and unfortunately you really need to be in ideal line-of-sight for 5.5Mb.
Secondly, you assume that these huge numbers of people are all within range, of what? There are no good scalable peer-to-peer routing algorithms for mobile networks. The best ones in the literature all use a form of random flood filling of the network so on a city sized scale that's going to break badly. If you have base-stations everywhere then you need almost as much infrastructure as a 3G network. Add to that the really bad urban-canyoning and reflection problems and you end needing a basestation in nearly *every* starbucks
We're actually in the process of rolling out a free 802.11 network over Bristol. Even though the project is funded the hassles of sorting out planning permission for aerials and putting in backbone means that after a year we've only just starting rolling with 3 aerials installed over a tourist area so that we can start doing demos.
Don't get me started on the other 802.11 limitations, it was designed for sitting browsing the web in the back-garden. It has latency and broadcast issues that make it unsuitable for streaming real-time video and audio, bad routing, IP hand-over issues and a pile of problems. People just look at the raw bandwidth figure and start creaming themselves over 55Mb bandwidth appearing everywhere but unfortunately the inherent problems with 802.11 mean that it isn't really as good as it sounds.
This sounds like quite a cool application, linking together the IM networks doesn't really give them more than a radio, but pluging it into their databases could be interesting. Especially if the edge devices know whereabouts they are; message for backup to the closest 10 units, run stolen car checks automatically (hook up a front end that pulls plates out of a video feed), or even, when you spot one message a uniform car in the direction that the cars going. It would be quite cool for managing evacuations as well, real time stats about people getting out could organise escape routes to avoid congestion amongst other things..
So when can I get a scanner for the car that checks there aren't any speed checks coming up...
These extensions seem to solve the security holes in 802.11 but does anyone here (Slashdot audience reading an 802.11 story seems a good place to ask) know of any fixes or rival standards that allow reasonable streaming of information? 802.11's delivery model breaks down when you try to stream real-time media (we're trying audio/video) to 802.11 receivers. Basically the beacon system introduces too much latency and the broadcast bandwidth cap means that you can't use all of the available bandwidth.
Everybody has jumped in so far with the impracticalities of eye-tracking but if you actually read the site, the main use of Dasher is through a mouse or pen, the eyetracking is there specifically for special needs (at 20 words per minute its slower as well but better than nothing if you are disabled). I can't play the demo video (nice one fellow ./ers) but it looks like the guy is stabbing the space bar to select what he is looking at getting over the problems that everyones spotted so far about attention control