I dunno which school you mean, but at UIUC they have a big warehouse in Orchard Downs area where they keep all the surplus (also includes desks, chairs, book-cases) until it goes to the state. This is just for internal UIUC use and you require a Surplus Redistribution Form signed by your buildings facility manager. That sounds like a handful, but it's actually pretty easy to get. You are on good terms with your facility manager right?
In your specific situation I would go talk to the department office and find out who the manager in charge of surplus disposal for the computer switchover, they might be able to help you as well.
In addition, you can get some really sweet nuke-proof desks and stuff to really geek out your office.
From UIUC:
SURPLUS REDISTRIBUTION
Surplus equipment and furniture are available from the UIUC Surplus Redistribution Facility, located in the Horticulture Field Lab Annex at 1707 S. Orchard Drive.
The $30M number is bogus, it includes a lot of other stuff.
This whole article is sourced from a blog called "Dead Men Working" which is focused on venting the frustrations diplomatic foreign service officers about their problems with getting security clearance from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security; coincidentally the group alleged to have lost the laptops. So take the article with a grain of salt.
Also, the blog reported yesterday that the laptops were all found and accounted for. So, really, nothing to see here.
It doesn't do that. The grid is a way more powerful source than your generator. What really happens is that you're generator (or whathaveyou) will get jerked forcefully into phase with the grid. This will reduce the lifetime of your generator by damaging it's bearings. The out of phase connection in the original post was almost certainly not the cause of the building getting shut down. The fact is that synchronization of +/- 25-45 degrees is all that's required for most applications.
"Enterprise computing needs reliability- that's why so much time is spent on disaster recovery, creating redundancies, etc. FOSS doesn't bring any reliability to the table, whether the Stallmanistas want to hear that or not."
This is also so much BS. Pidgeon is so much more stable and reliable than AIM or MSN even integrates well with my mac. Plus I don't have to deal with tons of ad-ware crap or worry that I will accidentally agree to installing mal-ware in the license.
Which non-FOSS general purpose software are you purporting to be a model of reliability?
I was at a pretty good nerd party last weekend.
It had three rooms and a porch. First room had a keg and a bar (pretty much a given). Second room had a Wii with rockband and a bunch of couches for overservers. Third room had a DJ playing loud rap music for some drunkin bump and grind.
The porch was for the philosophy majors to smoke cigarettes and bitch about how boring the math majors were.
YMMV. I had fun though
While you may be giving up some programmability and flexibility, if you're going to be doing lots of complex calculation a dedicated calculating device is worth the cost. The buttons work fast, they *almost* never crash, you know its almost always going to work, you don't have to waste time switching modes or finding programs.
The buttons on the 89 are way better. The buttons on the old HP-48G were better, but HP cheaped out on the GX.
Some people are recommending using a scientific calculator. I wouldn't. The 89's let you see the inputs and the result simultaneously. I constantly reuse equations so this is invaluable for me. Also, you can double check to make sure your inputs were correct.
For graphing beyond what you need for basic calc and physics, a laptop will be better, but toughing out using the tiny screen is worth it at exam time when you're needing to work fast and they won't let you use a laptop.
I see alot of people whining about automatic grading or how this guy is trying to avoid work. It doesn't sound like he's trying to avoid work at all! An automated testing script can be very beneficial to the students because it defines the assignment very strictly and will save them time and effort re-writing the front end of their program and focus on the real core concepts. Besides, with these huge classes that intro courses tend to have, the automated system will save him time organizing and, hopefully, give him more time providing constructive feedback.
Source grading can suck worse and be less informative. One professor I knew of at a top 10 academic institution would only accept hand-written source code (!) and would mark one point off for every mistake you made starting from a start score of 100. Forgot a semi-colon at the end of a line, minus one point. Off by one error in a loop, minus one point. Papers came back literally illegable and scores ranged from 100 to negative 100 depending on his mood. Who the heck gives negative scores?!? It made determining grades at the end of the year impossible for the students and -1 marks were not accompanied with any helpful annotation so the only choice was to go in and ask what was wrong. Needless to say a guy who grades like that was not a pleasure to deal with in person.
On the other hand, I've had automated grading systems which were like a dream. The instructor provides a skeleton which will compile within the grading framework but fail all the unit tests. As you work you fill in and extend dummy functions which were placed to make sure the assignment would work with the grading scripts. We could compile and recieve automated scoring from our accounts so that there were no nasty suprises after turn in. Finally, each assignment was returned to us with a detailed scoring from the automated script, which often included more detailed tests, followed by notes from the TA explaining what we did wrong if we missed points, issues with style, etc...
So to summarize:
1. If you make a script, make sure the students can test compile and provide some basic sanity checking tests.
2. You still gotta mark up the code so that the students can really learn something.
3. No crazy negative scoring!!!
So, I'm not meaning to troll, but a likely implementation is some sort of signing of the code that would be allowed to run and someone would have to hold the private keys. Is this against the terms of GPL 3? Would this be effectively like a DRM technology? My understanding of GPL 3 is mainly based on the threads on linux-kernel where Linus explains why he thinks that GPL 3 would be bad for linux.
It would be interesting to see if one could have a slightly more flexible system where I could allow sign the code I allow as a method of virus prevention.
Usually Ask Slashdots are pretty OT but I find this one fascinating.
Irrelevant, Schools have a long standing right to control what students do at school. Schools are considered to be acting "In Loco Parentis" (sp) which is a fancy way of saying that they are acting as the students parents. Schools can no more infringe on a students constitutional rights than a parent can.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno which school you mean, but at UIUC they have a big warehouse in Orchard Downs area where they keep all the surplus (also includes desks, chairs, book-cases) until it goes to the state. This is just for internal UIUC use and you require a Surplus Redistribution Form signed by your buildings facility manager. That sounds like a handful, but it's actually pretty easy to get. You are on good terms with your facility manager right?
In your specific situation I would go talk to the department office and find out who the manager in charge of surplus disposal for the computer switchover, they might be able to help you as well.
In addition, you can get some really sweet nuke-proof desks and stuff to really geek out your office.
From UIUC:
SURPLUS REDISTRIBUTION
Surplus equipment and furniture are available from the UIUC Surplus Redistribution Facility, located in the Horticulture Field Lab Annex at 1707 S. Orchard Drive.
Just the drive (got an old AT style PC) here: Ebay!
The $30M number is bogus, it includes a lot of other stuff.
This whole article is sourced from a blog called "Dead Men Working" which is focused on venting the frustrations diplomatic foreign service officers about their problems with getting security clearance from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security; coincidentally the group alleged to have lost the laptops. So take the article with a grain of salt.
Also, the blog reported yesterday that the laptops were all found and accounted for. So, really, nothing to see here.
The "Dead Men Working" blog is really interesting reading though. http://www.deadmenworking.blogspot.com/
It doesn't do that. The grid is a way more powerful source than your generator. What really happens is that you're generator (or whathaveyou) will get jerked forcefully into phase with the grid. This will reduce the lifetime of your generator by damaging it's bearings. The out of phase connection in the original post was almost certainly not the cause of the building getting shut down. The fact is that synchronization of +/- 25-45 degrees is all that's required for most applications.
"Enterprise computing needs reliability- that's why so much time is spent on disaster recovery, creating redundancies, etc. FOSS doesn't bring any reliability to the table, whether the Stallmanistas want to hear that or not." This is also so much BS. Pidgeon is so much more stable and reliable than AIM or MSN even integrates well with my mac. Plus I don't have to deal with tons of ad-ware crap or worry that I will accidentally agree to installing mal-ware in the license. Which non-FOSS general purpose software are you purporting to be a model of reliability?
I was at a pretty good nerd party last weekend. It had three rooms and a porch. First room had a keg and a bar (pretty much a given). Second room had a Wii with rockband and a bunch of couches for overservers. Third room had a DJ playing loud rap music for some drunkin bump and grind. The porch was for the philosophy majors to smoke cigarettes and bitch about how boring the math majors were. YMMV. I had fun though
Since when did slashdot become a corporate mouthpiece?
Could this article have added anything to a serious discussion of technology?
Maybe somebody can tell me. Until then I'm a bit disappointed. This really doesn't deserve to be on the front page. --Peter
While you may be giving up some programmability and flexibility, if you're going to be doing lots of complex calculation a dedicated calculating device is worth the cost. The buttons work fast, they *almost* never crash, you know its almost always going to work, you don't have to waste time switching modes or finding programs. The buttons on the 89 are way better. The buttons on the old HP-48G were better, but HP cheaped out on the GX. Some people are recommending using a scientific calculator. I wouldn't. The 89's let you see the inputs and the result simultaneously. I constantly reuse equations so this is invaluable for me. Also, you can double check to make sure your inputs were correct. For graphing beyond what you need for basic calc and physics, a laptop will be better, but toughing out using the tiny screen is worth it at exam time when you're needing to work fast and they won't let you use a laptop.
Hardly the point. They need to finish their investigation. Give them a break.
I see alot of people whining about automatic grading or how this guy is trying to avoid work. It doesn't sound like he's trying to avoid work at all! An automated testing script can be very beneficial to the students because it defines the assignment very strictly and will save them time and effort re-writing the front end of their program and focus on the real core concepts. Besides, with these huge classes that intro courses tend to have, the automated system will save him time organizing and, hopefully, give him more time providing constructive feedback. Source grading can suck worse and be less informative. One professor I knew of at a top 10 academic institution would only accept hand-written source code (!) and would mark one point off for every mistake you made starting from a start score of 100. Forgot a semi-colon at the end of a line, minus one point. Off by one error in a loop, minus one point. Papers came back literally illegable and scores ranged from 100 to negative 100 depending on his mood. Who the heck gives negative scores?!? It made determining grades at the end of the year impossible for the students and -1 marks were not accompanied with any helpful annotation so the only choice was to go in and ask what was wrong. Needless to say a guy who grades like that was not a pleasure to deal with in person. On the other hand, I've had automated grading systems which were like a dream. The instructor provides a skeleton which will compile within the grading framework but fail all the unit tests. As you work you fill in and extend dummy functions which were placed to make sure the assignment would work with the grading scripts. We could compile and recieve automated scoring from our accounts so that there were no nasty suprises after turn in. Finally, each assignment was returned to us with a detailed scoring from the automated script, which often included more detailed tests, followed by notes from the TA explaining what we did wrong if we missed points, issues with style, etc... So to summarize: 1. If you make a script, make sure the students can test compile and provide some basic sanity checking tests. 2. You still gotta mark up the code so that the students can really learn something. 3. No crazy negative scoring!!!
So, I'm not meaning to troll, but a likely implementation is some sort of signing of the code that would be allowed to run and someone would have to hold the private keys. Is this against the terms of GPL 3? Would this be effectively like a DRM technology? My understanding of GPL 3 is mainly based on the threads on linux-kernel where Linus explains why he thinks that GPL 3 would be bad for linux. It would be interesting to see if one could have a slightly more flexible system where I could allow sign the code I allow as a method of virus prevention. Usually Ask Slashdots are pretty OT but I find this one fascinating.
Ironic that I feel lame linking wikipedia for a school report and she's citing this garbage for a news report with national coverage.
Irrelevant, Schools have a long standing right to control what students do at school. Schools are considered to be acting "In Loco Parentis" (sp) which is a fancy way of saying that they are acting as the students parents. Schools can no more infringe on a students constitutional rights than a parent can.