I think they've upped it from something like 100,000 writes, to 1,000,000 writes. But still, certain operations (like using junk mail filtering in Portable Thunderbird, according to its keeper, John Haller), can involve thousands of writes per operation. That stat seems dubious, but I'm not an expert in solid-state memory. http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_thunderb ird/
What I'd like to see is a utility that tracks the writes to your flash drives, and reports how many are (probably) left.
Other versions of Darwin will run on that Dell. I'm not familiar with OS X innards, but couldn't someone figure out how to replace the handshake-enabled Darwin with the Dell-friendly bits?
I'm willing to bet that most everyone who dropped out of college after the first year will wish, within the following ten years, that they had stuck with it.
It took me about 25 years to finally feel like I was ready to finish college. My only regret is that now I'm a 45-year-old college student. If only I could put this brain back in that 20-year-old body.
That's actually a pretty good answer for 99.9% of the population, actually. What's your beef with it?
No it's not. The one-way firewall doesn't prevent spyware that slips through from connecting out. And ActiveX makes it easier for malware to dupe the average Wal-Mart computer buyer into loading it. The latest build of Longhorn maintains the status quo remains unchanged for both of these. Hey, let's install an IE toolbar.
Thank you everyone who commented, especially those with CS minors (or those fingering them). This is exactly the kind of reality check I needed. I'm still going to forge ahead with the minor, but not out of the hope that it will land me a job (though it was heartening to hear that it may have made the difference in getting a couple of people jobs).
The HCI tangent really interests me, and I googled upon the HCI Bibliography:
On the other hand, if you don't go ahead and get the minor in computer science, what do you answer when someone asks "so, you claim to be really interested in computers... why didn't you take more computer science courses at university?"
I hate those kinds of questions, which might be one reason why the credential (no matter how modest) of a minor is attractive.
More like three semesters left without the CS minor, four semesters with. I'll be one of those five-year people either way (except that I spread it out over almost thirty years).
I just took a Computer Science class that used Moodle. It was mostly great, and more useful than the average college class web page, but I did encounter a few problems:
Grades--you can see your grades any time, but only if all assignments and tests happen through Moodle. Our exams and final didn't, and because they were curved in addition, nobody knew where they really stood in the class until it was over.
More grades--a couple of times, Moodle didn't like a perfectly correct answer to a quiz question and graded it wrong. The TA was unable to override Moodle's grading, either because she couldn't figure it out, or because it's not possible (the latter, according to her). This made the grade listing even less useful.
Lastly, by the end of the fifteenth week, every time you visited the Moodle, you had a lot of scrolling to do to get to the current assignment. Maybe this is something a better-informed designer could have overcome.
I'm not arguing anything other than the fact that x percent (maybe it's.5 percent, maybe not) of the people we jail are innocent. I certainly don't think that means we should stop putting people in jail, or that the other 99.5% don't belong there.
What it does mean is that we can't just think, "it doesn't matter what rights we take away from prisoners--they're criminals who gave up their rights and deserve whatever they get." Perhaps.5% of them are innocent people who are getting what they don't deserve. With 2,131,180 people in state, federal, or local jails as of June 2004 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm), that.5% translates to 10,655 people--no big deal, a vanishing statistic. Unless you're one of them.
Granted, RFID is probably not high on the list of issues that worry them.
Incidentally, see if you can find any research citing the actual percentages of wrongly convicted people. It's something that ought to be statistically estimated. I can't find anything and that makes me think that it's because the percentage is extremely low.
Slashdot Mirror
Techcrunch is way ahead of us on this Flickr-of meme:
o f-video/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/11/06/the-flickrs-
...until the last item on the list. Coldplay. Yawn.
I think they've upped it from something like 100,000 writes, to 1,000,000 writes. But still, certain operations (like using junk mail filtering in Portable Thunderbird, according to its keeper, John Haller), can involve thousands of writes per operation. That stat seems dubious, but I'm not an expert in solid-state memory. http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_thunderb ird/
What I'd like to see is a utility that tracks the writes to your flash drives, and reports how many are (probably) left.
yeah, but my liver's not doing that well.
badda bing! Now just turn that into a live CD...
Other versions of Darwin will run on that Dell. I'm not familiar with OS X innards, but couldn't someone figure out how to replace the handshake-enabled Darwin with the Dell-friendly bits?
I'm willing to bet that most everyone who dropped out of college after the first year will wish, within the following ten years, that they had stuck with it.
It took me about 25 years to finally feel like I was ready to finish college. My only regret is that now I'm a 45-year-old college student. If only I could put this brain back in that 20-year-old body.
Funny, I took it as a fist in the air:
"Politics is really gay [so get used to it]," or
"Politics is really gay [and we vote]."
damn...editing...preview...mmphmm
That's actually a pretty good answer for 99.9% of the population, actually. What's your beef with it?
No it's not. The one-way firewall doesn't prevent spyware that slips through from connecting out. And ActiveX makes it easier for malware to dupe the average Wal-Mart computer buyer into loading it. The latest build of Longhorn maintains the status quo remains unchanged for both of these. Hey, let's install an IE toolbar.
Thank you everyone who commented, especially those with CS minors (or those fingering them). This is exactly the kind of reality check I needed. I'm still going to forge ahead with the minor, but not out of the hope that it will land me a job (though it was heartening to hear that it may have made the difference in getting a couple of people jobs).
The HCI tangent really interests me, and I googled upon the HCI Bibliography:
http://www.hcibib.org/
That's enough to keep me busy for a while. Maybe in a couple of years I'll be asking the same question about the CS Master's.
On the other hand, if you don't go ahead and get the minor in computer science, what do you answer when someone asks "so, you claim to be really interested in computers... why didn't you take more computer science courses at university?"
I hate those kinds of questions, which might be one reason why the credential (no matter how modest) of a minor is attractive.
For a few dollars more, you can learn about C++
They teach C++ in the first semester these days (by the end...to be continued in CS2...).
More like three semesters left without the CS minor, four semesters with. I'll be one of those five-year people either way (except that I spread it out over almost thirty years).
A minor in CS is worth more the a degree in Pysch.
Money's not the most important thing, but that's good information, thanks.
You might as well have majored in dance.
I could still switch to a music major and start earning really big bucks. But I want to graduate before I'm 50.
I just took a Computer Science class that used Moodle. It was mostly great, and more useful than the average college class web page, but I did encounter a few problems:
Grades--you can see your grades any time, but only if all assignments and tests happen through Moodle. Our exams and final didn't, and because they were curved in addition, nobody knew where they really stood in the class until it was over.
More grades--a couple of times, Moodle didn't like a perfectly correct answer to a quiz question and graded it wrong. The TA was unable to override Moodle's grading, either because she couldn't figure it out, or because it's not possible (the latter, according to her). This made the grade listing even less useful.
Lastly, by the end of the fifteenth week, every time you visited the Moodle, you had a lot of scrolling to do to get to the current assignment. Maybe this is something a better-informed designer could have overcome.
I'm not arguing anything other than the fact that x percent (maybe it's .5 percent, maybe not) of the people we jail are innocent. I certainly don't think that means we should stop putting people in jail, or that the other 99.5% don't belong there.
.5% of them are innocent people who are getting what they don't deserve. With 2,131,180 people in state, federal, or local jails as of June 2004 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm), that .5% translates to 10,655 people--no big deal, a vanishing statistic. Unless you're one of them.
Granted, RFID is probably not high on the list of issues that worry them.
What it does mean is that we can't just think, "it doesn't matter what rights we take away from prisoners--they're criminals who gave up their rights and deserve whatever they get." Perhaps
Incidentally, see if you can find any research citing the actual percentages of wrongly convicted people. It's something that ought to be statistically estimated. I can't find anything and that makes me think that it's because the percentage is extremely low.
.5%: _ br16.htm
These guys say
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume8/j8_3
prisoners gave up many of their rights when they commited a crime against society - theft - murder - etc.
That assumes that the various criminal justice systems in the land incarcerate only the guilty.
I guess that makes it "platform-free."
Um, the Mac.
And if $20 is too much, you can go open source: http://typefaster.sourceforge.net/
PC World gives FF a best buy [sic] in its Feb. issue, for example.
9 4,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,1187