For those of you who are fluent in Klingon, there's a job in Portland waiting for you.
Best quote:
"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway. County officials said that obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter...
I encourage you to go back to that page and note all the negative numbers/percentages under profitability, management effectiveness, revenue growth, and net income.
It's kind of a pity that cheap Linux boxen are driving Sun out of the high-end server market. That was mostly what they made their money on, but now companies like IBM parading Linux have put them in a tight spot.
I never understood where Sun intended to go with Java, as a programming language doesn't seem like something you can really make a profit on. Was it their way of giving back to the software community when they were on top of their game? If they were really intent to make a profit on it, they could have made it Solaris-only (although that would have taken away its cross-platform allure) and sold it is a tool for developers to easily write software for their platform, letting it interface seamlessly with Solaris-exclusive libraries. (Sort of like how Microsoft sells Visual Studio to allow developers to develop programs in C++ that interface with the Windows libraries.)
But I have a hard time believing the end of Sun is coming soon. People have been saying the end of Apple has been coming forever, and they always seem to cling on for dear life when it matters most. Sun has some very good people working for them, and when times get tough I can only expect they'll do the same.
If you've been to the theater recently you might have seen before these short interviews before the movie with a stuntman, camera operator, or some "behind the scenes" guy explaining what he or she does in every film, and how it's their work of art. And how if you trade a movie online, or "download it with a click," you're taking that art for granted and not appreciating its beauty, which should be paid for.
First, that person should never have called all movies art. He or she obviously never saw "Ecks vs. Sever."
Second, whenever one of those trailers plays in a theater with several hundred college students inside, everyone's gut response is laughter. I think the first time I saw one of those interviews was right before Spiderman, and the whole theater was balling.
Also, as an interesting note, the original versions of those short interviews were with big-league directors and actors -- not the small guys on the set. For obvious reasons their pleas not to download movies and avoid paying for them weren't too effective on the test audience...
Also, one thing I noticed from the article:
JV: I don't want to get into the definition of morality.
So apprently, we can't get into the definition of morality, but nonetheless we're going to legislate it?
They have the Google search engine to index web pages, various offshoots to index news, images, and similar, Orkut to index people, and Gmail to index peoples' communications. Does anyone else think that Google is on the cutting edge of Computer Science research?
The Google search engine is on the cutting edge of Computer Science, no doubt. But Okrut? Isn't that just like Friendster? And Gmail? Isn't that like Hotmail, but with 1GB of storage (and true, you get to Google search your mail, and even though this search may be revolutionary, its integration isn't revolutionary).
My opinion is that Google is steering a little off course, perhaps partially to excite their IPO investors. I think they should stick to what they do best: search. Since that revolution (searching the web, images, and news so effortlessly) things haven't seemed as innovative or exciting.
Just after the PBS special was made available online, I put together a page with links to all the segments here. That way my friends who were interested could download them and watch them later.
I mean, how the hell are we going to put a man on Mars for 1 trillion dollars when it takes one hundred billion dollars alone to keep a laser on the moon from destroying Earth?
This is strange. Through the NSF, the goverment is already pouring money into Project IRIS, a collaboration of some of the best minds in true decentralized peer-to-peer architecture. It includes some of the creators of Chord (MIT), Pastry (Rice), and Kademlia (NYU) -- three of the fastest distributed hash table implementations out there (logarithmic time). So why are they investing in the Groove? Although I realize Microsoft has a well-staffed, well-funded research department (they were partly responsible for Pastry), it seems better to just pour more money into an already-going, well-researched project.
I had to do lots of Googling and hunting around on the IBM site to find drivers. The modem was recognized without a problem in 2K. Under Linux (RH9, specifically) the wireless 'just worked'.
Okay, so Windows provides drivers for some peripherals that Linux doesn't. If you experienced the scenario the original poster had, then you'd just be hunting around the IBM site for Linux drivers instead of Win2K drivers -- same scenario.
The modem required a download of the Lucent rpm and a rebuild.
See, now this is where you start to contradict your premise. I know you're technologically inclined, so a rebuild is no hassle. But you have to understand, all Joe User wants to do is click on the package EXE, or INF file to install the driver and then click "Yes" when asked to reboot. Was the rebuild a point-and-click affair? If not, Joe is already too intimidated.
Under Linux it was a simple matter of "yum -y update; reboot; yum install OpenOffice".
Yeah, see -- here's another problem. Joe's also used to a GUI. He clicks on "Windows Update" to update his system, clicks on checkboxes to select the details, etc. This command prompt stuff isn't gonna fly with him.
Let's not forget all the little tweaks to the TCP/IP stack under Windows that requires, that's right, more registry hacking. Under Linux these are text files in plain English.
Look, Joe isn't even going to call a simple parameter-based setup file (like "MTU=1500", etc.) "plain english." To him it's just as unreadable as Perl. In fact, why the heck would Joe want to hack settings for the TCP/IP stack in Windows anyway? Joe doesn't even know what TCP or IP mean, and sure doesn't know what "stack" means in the CS sense.
Although this post may sound anti-Linux, trust me -- it's not. I love Linux, and I use it just as much as Windows. I'm just saying that you greatly overestimate the capabilities of the average user.
You say there is a huge population of "smart" students, but are they also motivated? Right now you say they're just getting by taking the easiest classes possible, which leads me to think that they're largely unmotivated. Thus if you tighten the curriculum, they're more likely to give up than try harder.
As someone who went through the same dumbed-down-Calculus experience with some friends...
1. If your lecture is dumbed down, read the textbook for the details 2. Read ahead 3. Talk to your professor, and ask him for a separate, more challenging curriculum 4. Go online and find more Math to learn; try some linear algebra or real analysis, for example 5. Above all, don't rest on your laurels, and don't rely on the curriculum -- I can't believe how much time I "wasted" in high school, when in retrospect I could have been using some free time to learn some really cool shit...
Tomorrow is the day! Oh boy!!! I expect that they'll flaunt this in a way to maximize earnings off the event: Most likely in a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes Superbowl Surprise fashion. You know, after ending a 3 hour Tech TV special on SCO's immense contributions to Linux, it'll start with a live shot from a helicopter following the official SCO van, driving to the residence of our lucky geek. Then, as Darl gets out of the van, it cuts to a ground shot. "Shhhhhh..." Darl says, holding his mic while walking up the sidewalk to the front door. Yes Darl, we're quiet - I'm even holding my breath I'm so excited! After they knock, the geek's mother opens the door. She's so excited, she can hardly speak - or maybe that's because the police have already knocked her out with a stun gun for her complicity? We don't pause long here though - the main event awaits. They proceed into the basement, where our humble geek is caught like a Dorrito-eating, Mountain Dew-drinking deer in headlights! Surprise! After this technologically capable man puts on some pants and washes his hands, Darl shakes the man's hand as he passes to the geek the giant check. Next, Darl gives him the giant pen, which our winner uses to write SCO a check of $699. After a quick photo-op it's over - the credits roll, the sheer abruptness with which the event has come to pass leaving you breathless.
Nerds rejoice! Tomorrow all our questions shall be answered!!!
"Deadly Shadows"? Are you kidding me? That's so lame... I bet their first subtitle was "The Phantom Meance," but that was already taken by another company who likes to butcher sequels (err, prequels).
Here's hoping it's not another DX-2.
- sm
Man, I was kinda looking forward to this: Since Bill has a stake on Comcast, maybe he could have gotten some of the rights to Disney cartoon characters, and incorporated them into Windows?
Imagine if every time an application crashed, the Rescue Rangers came and helped you restart it.
Or replacing Clippy with Donald Duck, and then buying the Donald-to-English translator for only $49.95.
Or instead of seeing that horribly drawn comic dog in the Search menu, we actually got to see an animated Pluto?
Although I've never used TeacherReviews.com, here at UCLA we have a similar service called bruinwalk.com where students can rate their professors on axes of effectiveness, difficulty, concern, availability, and give an overall rating. Almost every student here uses it to find classes with the best professors each quarter, and a good number rate their professors at the end. What's more, some professors even go online and check their ratings and reviews to figure out what they can improve upon, and what they're doing right.
Although some students leave worthless feedback, and some people use it simply to find the easiest professor, I think sites like these are needed -- after all, it's your education, and if you're a good student, you'd want to make the most of it for your money. I guess I feel you're almost entitled to it. If you don't have a good professor, then you simply aren't as motivated, skip class, slack on the homework, and come out learning very little. In some classes, books can only take your knowledge so far; from thereon, it's the professors that make the difference. So if universities are there to promote knowledge and further understanding, shouldn't sites like these be the next logical step?
As a student who's about to finish his undergraduate degree and hoping to specialize in networking in graduate school, I'd like to offer some insight...
The reason you can't find a college with a major like "network engineering" is simple -- specializations such as these are for graduate students. Undergraduates in Computer Engineering, by contrast, go through a diversified program including math, physics, chemistry, humanities, etc., in addition to the real meat of their degree: programming, architecture, networking (your interest), and many other facets of computer science.
Now you might think that because of this well-rounded approach, you'll only take one class on computer networking. This is not true. Some universities offer more than one undergraduate class in computer networking. At the university I attend, there is a "general" networking class, but there is also a class and lab devoted entirely to the physical layer, and within a year a class on peer-to-peer technologies might be incorporated. Also, the CS department will typically allow you as an undergraduate to petition to take graduate-level computer CS classes, including any networking ones you might find. And if you can't even do that, don't sweat it -- a single professor specializing in networking at a university might have multiple projects available for undergraduates to work on. Earnestly, this is the best way to get your feet wet on the Internet2 and other networking-related projects that interest you. Through meeting with a professor, I'm now working on a peer-to-peer (Pastry DHT based) client that will, perhaps, see the light of day on PlanetLab, followed by a general release.
Another reason to not shy away from the "general" CS degree is that you might find something along this track that is more interesting than networking. Besides spending my time on that peer-to-peer project, I'm also volunteering on a project in the EE department developing software for Lego robots. Sure, I'm little more than a code monkey over there, but it's interesting to hang around the lab and learn of new things and new technologies. I've also done work in the physics lab, programmed in the Geology department (writing Matlab programs to simulate earthquakes and analyze seismographic data), and done technical support for campus computer users in my almost-four years here. If you go looking, you'll find a myriad of cool things at your university -- perhaps cooler than networking.
Slashdot Mirror
For those of you who are fluent in Klingon, there's a job in Portland waiting for you.
Best quote:
"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway. County officials said that obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter...
- sm
"The Stata Center... is composed of The William H. Gates Building and the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Building."
Looking at the GIF slideshow here, it appears that Bill's building has already crashed.
Suprised? No. Amused? Yes.
- sm
I encourage you to go back to that page and note all the negative numbers/percentages under profitability, management effectiveness, revenue growth, and net income.
It's kind of a pity that cheap Linux boxen are driving Sun out of the high-end server market. That was mostly what they made their money on, but now companies like IBM parading Linux have put them in a tight spot.
I never understood where Sun intended to go with Java, as a programming language doesn't seem like something you can really make a profit on. Was it their way of giving back to the software community when they were on top of their game? If they were really intent to make a profit on it, they could have made it Solaris-only (although that would have taken away its cross-platform allure) and sold it is a tool for developers to easily write software for their platform, letting it interface seamlessly with Solaris-exclusive libraries. (Sort of like how Microsoft sells Visual Studio to allow developers to develop programs in C++ that interface with the Windows libraries.)
But I have a hard time believing the end of Sun is coming soon. People have been saying the end of Apple has been coming forever, and they always seem to cling on for dear life when it matters most. Sun has some very good people working for them, and when times get tough I can only expect they'll do the same.
- sm
"Non-pronouncable" abbreviations, such as SMTP and FBI, are initialisms.
;)
"Pronouncable" abbreviations, such as NASA and FUBAR, are acronyms.
And if I remember it correctly, that was the gospel, straight from my Linguistics 10 professor's mouth
XML is an initialism. XAML, although it looks like an initialism at first, is actually an acronym (pronounced "Zammel").
- shadowmatter
Oops -- haha, good call. If I could mod you up as funny, I would. However...
But still, no one takes them seriously.
If you've been to the theater recently you might have seen before these short interviews before the movie with a stuntman, camera operator, or some "behind the scenes" guy explaining what he or she does in every film, and how it's their work of art. And how if you trade a movie online, or "download it with a click," you're taking that art for granted and not appreciating its beauty, which should be paid for.
First, that person should never have called all movies art. He or she obviously never saw "Ecks vs. Sever."
Second, whenever one of those trailers plays in a theater with several hundred college students inside, everyone's gut response is laughter. I think the first time I saw one of those interviews was right before Spiderman, and the whole theater was balling.
Also, as an interesting note, the original versions of those short interviews were with big-league directors and actors -- not the small guys on the set. For obvious reasons their pleas not to download movies and avoid paying for them weren't too effective on the test audience...
Also, one thing I noticed from the article:
JV: I don't want to get into the definition of morality.
So apprently, we can't get into the definition of morality, but nonetheless we're going to legislate it?
- sm
The picture is included with the article. See it here. Finally, a Darth Vader costume with some facial hair!
- sm
Google now has all sorts of information on hand.
Does this not concern people?
They have the Google search engine to index web pages, various offshoots to index news, images, and similar, Orkut to index people, and Gmail to index peoples' communications. Does anyone else think that Google is on the cutting edge of Computer Science research?
The Google search engine is on the cutting edge of Computer Science, no doubt. But Okrut? Isn't that just like Friendster? And Gmail? Isn't that like Hotmail, but with 1GB of storage (and true, you get to Google search your mail, and even though this search may be revolutionary, its integration isn't revolutionary).
My opinion is that Google is steering a little off course, perhaps partially to excite their IPO investors. I think they should stick to what they do best: search. Since that revolution (searching the web, images, and news so effortlessly) things haven't seemed as innovative or exciting.
- sm
it just makes logical sense to keep everything related to an application together in a logical unit
On Windows, it's called "C:\" -- but how it organizes the files within that unit is anybody's guess.
- sm
Just after the PBS special was made available online, I put together a page with links to all the segments here. That way my friends who were interested could download them and watch them later.
- sm
I mean, how the hell are we going to put a man on Mars for 1 trillion dollars when it takes one hundred billion dollars alone to keep a laser on the moon from destroying Earth?
Really people, think it through.
- sm
2. Identity theft. You can register yourself as Bill Gates, with BG's photo, on Friendster. Chances are, you'll get away with it.
;)
Not true
- shadowmatter
Details can also be found here, including the credit card number and Bill's hard-to-guess password.
(But don't get too excited, the card expired long ago.)
- shadowmatter
How can I play a game when I'm blind?
YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
... then I next read "Net..." in the response, and my mind automatically filled in the rest:
Netcraft confirms this.
Oi, too much Slashdot for one day.
- sm
This is strange. Through the NSF, the goverment is already pouring money into Project IRIS, a collaboration of some of the best minds in true decentralized peer-to-peer architecture. It includes some of the creators of Chord (MIT), Pastry (Rice), and Kademlia (NYU) -- three of the fastest distributed hash table implementations out there (logarithmic time). So why are they investing in the Groove? Although I realize Microsoft has a well-staffed, well-funded research department (they were partly responsible for Pastry), it seems better to just pour more money into an already-going, well-researched project.
- shadowmatter
I assume this is your premise.
Okay, so Windows provides drivers for some peripherals that Linux doesn't. If you experienced the scenario the original poster had, then you'd just be hunting around the IBM site for Linux drivers instead of Win2K drivers -- same scenario.
See, now this is where you start to contradict your premise. I know you're technologically inclined, so a rebuild is no hassle. But you have to understand, all Joe User wants to do is click on the package EXE, or INF file to install the driver and then click "Yes" when asked to reboot. Was the rebuild a point-and-click affair? If not, Joe is already too intimidated.
Yeah, see -- here's another problem. Joe's also used to a GUI. He clicks on "Windows Update" to update his system, clicks on checkboxes to select the details, etc. This command prompt stuff isn't gonna fly with him.
Look, Joe isn't even going to call a simple parameter-based setup file (like "MTU=1500", etc.) "plain english." To him it's just as unreadable as Perl. In fact, why the heck would Joe want to hack settings for the TCP/IP stack in Windows anyway? Joe doesn't even know what TCP or IP mean, and sure doesn't know what "stack" means in the CS sense.
Although this post may sound anti-Linux, trust me -- it's not. I love Linux, and I use it just as much as Windows. I'm just saying that you greatly overestimate the capabilities of the average user.
- sm
You say there is a huge population of "smart" students, but are they also motivated? Right now you say they're just getting by taking the easiest classes possible, which leads me to think that they're largely unmotivated. Thus if you tighten the curriculum, they're more likely to give up than try harder.
As someone who went through the same dumbed-down-Calculus experience with some friends...
1. If your lecture is dumbed down, read the textbook for the details
2. Read ahead
3. Talk to your professor, and ask him for a separate, more challenging curriculum
4. Go online and find more Math to learn; try some linear algebra or real analysis, for example
5. Above all, don't rest on your laurels, and don't rely on the curriculum -- I can't believe how much time I "wasted" in high school, when in retrospect I could have been using some free time to learn some really cool shit...
- shadowmatter
Ghandi said:
an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
Scr1ptK1di3X says:
0n3 DDoS 4 4n0th3r DDoS 0wnz 4ll th3 h0l3 int4rw3b!!!1
What a great idea.
- sm
And their bibliography was not alphabetized! I'm going to have to deduct points...
- sm
Tomorrow is the day! Oh boy!!! I expect that they'll flaunt this in a way to maximize earnings off the event: Most likely in a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes Superbowl Surprise fashion. You know, after ending a 3 hour Tech TV special on SCO's immense contributions to Linux, it'll start with a live shot from a helicopter following the official SCO van, driving to the residence of our lucky geek. Then, as Darl gets out of the van, it cuts to a ground shot. "Shhhhhh..." Darl says, holding his mic while walking up the sidewalk to the front door. Yes Darl, we're quiet - I'm even holding my breath I'm so excited! After they knock, the geek's mother opens the door. She's so excited, she can hardly speak - or maybe that's because the police have already knocked her out with a stun gun for her complicity? We don't pause long here though - the main event awaits. They proceed into the basement, where our humble geek is caught like a Dorrito-eating, Mountain Dew-drinking deer in headlights! Surprise! After this technologically capable man puts on some pants and washes his hands, Darl shakes the man's hand as he passes to the geek the giant check. Next, Darl gives him the giant pen, which our winner uses to write SCO a check of $699. After a quick photo-op it's over - the credits roll, the sheer abruptness with which the event has come to pass leaving you breathless.
Nerds rejoice! Tomorrow all our questions shall be answered!!!
-sm
"Deadly Shadows"? Are you kidding me? That's so lame... I bet their first subtitle was "The Phantom Meance," but that was already taken by another company who likes to butcher sequels (err, prequels). Here's hoping it's not another DX-2. - sm
Man, I was kinda looking forward to this: Since Bill has a stake on Comcast, maybe he could have gotten some of the rights to Disney cartoon characters, and incorporated them into Windows?
Imagine if every time an application crashed, the Rescue Rangers came and helped you restart it.
Or replacing Clippy with Donald Duck, and then buying the Donald-to-English translator for only $49.95.
Or instead of seeing that horribly drawn comic dog in the Search menu, we actually got to see an animated Pluto?
What has microsoft actually created that anyone is intested in?
Clippy?
- sm
Although I've never used TeacherReviews.com, here at UCLA we have a similar service called bruinwalk.com where students can rate their professors on axes of effectiveness, difficulty, concern, availability, and give an overall rating. Almost every student here uses it to find classes with the best professors each quarter, and a good number rate their professors at the end. What's more, some professors even go online and check their ratings and reviews to figure out what they can improve upon, and what they're doing right.
Although some students leave worthless feedback, and some people use it simply to find the easiest professor, I think sites like these are needed -- after all, it's your education, and if you're a good student, you'd want to make the most of it for your money. I guess I feel you're almost entitled to it. If you don't have a good professor, then you simply aren't as motivated, skip class, slack on the homework, and come out learning very little. In some classes, books can only take your knowledge so far; from thereon, it's the professors that make the difference. So if universities are there to promote knowledge and further understanding, shouldn't sites like these be the next logical step?
- shadowmatter
As a student who's about to finish his undergraduate degree and hoping to specialize in networking in graduate school, I'd like to offer some insight...
The reason you can't find a college with a major like "network engineering" is simple -- specializations such as these are for graduate students. Undergraduates in Computer Engineering, by contrast, go through a diversified program including math, physics, chemistry, humanities, etc., in addition to the real meat of their degree: programming, architecture, networking (your interest), and many other facets of computer science.
Now you might think that because of this well-rounded approach, you'll only take one class on computer networking. This is not true. Some universities offer more than one undergraduate class in computer networking. At the university I attend, there is a "general" networking class, but there is also a class and lab devoted entirely to the physical layer, and within a year a class on peer-to-peer technologies might be incorporated. Also, the CS department will typically allow you as an undergraduate to petition to take graduate-level computer CS classes, including any networking ones you might find. And if you can't even do that, don't sweat it -- a single professor specializing in networking at a university might have multiple projects available for undergraduates to work on. Earnestly, this is the best way to get your feet wet on the Internet2 and other networking-related projects that interest you. Through meeting with a professor, I'm now working on a peer-to-peer (Pastry DHT based) client that will, perhaps, see the light of day on PlanetLab, followed by a general release.
Another reason to not shy away from the "general" CS degree is that you might find something along this track that is more interesting than networking. Besides spending my time on that peer-to-peer project, I'm also volunteering on a project in the EE department developing software for Lego robots. Sure, I'm little more than a code monkey over there, but it's interesting to hang around the lab and learn of new things and new technologies. I've also done work in the physics lab, programmed in the Geology department (writing Matlab programs to simulate earthquakes and analyze seismographic data), and done technical support for campus computer users in my almost-four years here. If you go looking, you'll find a myriad of cool things at your university -- perhaps cooler than networking.
Best of luck in your searches,
shadowmatter