"It could very well be like many other biological items... like women who spend time together tend to align their menstrual cycles... or do you think that's another 'correlation'?"
There we have actual evidence that hormones play a role. If all we had was a study showing that women who live together have closely aligned menstrual cycles, all we would have would be a correlation and no evidence of a causation. It could easily be a statistical coincidence, or it could be caused by common environmental factors. It would be irresponsible for a scientists to claim one woman's period can cause another woman's period with just that information.
"Perhaps the body takes 'fat cues' from your peer group -- if you spend a lot of time with fat people your that might trigger a biological response to store energy..."
Thats nothing but pure speculation by a/.er who obviously has no knowledge of the scientific process. And who is obviously ignorant of the study (did you RTFA?), as proximity had no impact (there is a correlation between fat friends across the country, but not fat neighbors living next door to each other). Its about the equivalent of me speculating that Lindsey Lohan (or whatever her name is) was carrying those drugs because a drug lord had kidnapped her parents and was forcing her to drive them to Portugal. In other words, your hypothesis is completely useless, and by stating it all you have done is waste precious brainpower.
The only hypothesis I've heard regarding it is that it is caused by a person's standards of what is an ideal weight being set by their friends. And thats a hypothesis. No one in the study is claiming having a fat friend causes you to be fat, because they understand the fact that correlation does not mean causation.
"but just writing it off with a sarcastic 'correlation not causation 'nuff said' post is just close minded and ignorant."
Its not "writing it off" to state that the/. headline (Study Proves Having Fat Friends Makes You Fat) is badly worded at best.
I did read the study (and saw a news report on it earlier today), and I can claim with confidence that it does not claim to prove that. Some of the researchers are hypothesizing the cause of this correlation, such as the idea that one's standards of an ideal weight are greatly influenced by one's friends (breaking news, people are affected by peer pressure, more at 11). But these studies do not prove anything, even with the liberal use of the word 'prove' that is often used when discussing science (such as in statements like 'fossils prove evolution to be true'). They merely suggest correlations, whose causes then are scientifically studied.
"Yeah, that's sure to cut you a better than fair sampling of the "youth culture.""
I'm assuming they are also taking into consideration observations of their peers. I wouldn't be surprised if email wasn't that popular with young kids, after all, how many of them even have reliable email addresses (compared to college students and office workers)? If a group of kids are all on the same social networking site and are all active users of it, it would be easier for them to use it to communicate with each other than try to remember if Susie checks her Yahoo or Gmail address more often. Where would a high school kid go to look up the email address of that cute girl who sits in the second row of algebra class ? When I was in high school (late 90's), so instead we used this old communication protocol called the "telephone" to communicate with each other.
"Now, how do I text-message "GET OFF OF MY LAWN" ? Anybody...?"
Who says the page was navigated away from? Its not unusual for users to leave a page open, and with modern 'AJAX' applications the entire app is sometimes contained in a single page. Yes closing the web application should cause the browser to reclaim that memory, but closing a normal application should cause the OS to reclaim its memory.
The problem is that many people still treat dynamic script based web applications as simple web pages. But if they have executing code, they are applications and need to deal with all the considerations applications require. Including memory management.
"The only plus for Firefox is the numerous plug-ins, but what we like to see is pluck-outs that would ensure no memory leaks and lesser footprint."
In Firefox's defense, those are not always leaks in the browser itself. Often pages will have Javascript scripts (usually written by web designers with little or no experience or education in application development, and who think memory issues only need to dealt with if you are programming in C) that themselves have memory leaks. Blaming Firefox for those would be like blaming your operating system for an application that constantly leaks memory.
People giving up TV (or just cable) and deciding they actually like its absence is nothing new and existed well before anyone could claim the Internet was killing it off.
And as for "lack of advertising bombarding" you, I'm guessing thats only because you have a good ad blocked installed in your browser. Well, if you have a PVR, you can skip ads on TV as well. And there are plenty of ads online, and as ad blockers become more and more common, advertisers are going to become more and more creative and effective in defeating them. The fact is, if you want something for free, it will most likely be supported by advertising. And while there will be a never ending cat and mouse game between consumers and advertisers on how to deliver the ads, they will continue to exist.
I know this is going to be hard for most/.ers to comprehend, but most computer users out there are not very interested in upgrading their computers every few years. Once its out of date, they will either live with it if they don't need a top of the line machine (I know people who are still using computers they bought 7 years ago), or just buy a new one. And the old laptop doesn't become a paperweight, it goes on ebay and is sold for $300 to another person who just wants it for email/web/schoolwork.
Yeah, its either more expensive or not as powerful as a desktop, but a laptop has a huge advantage over desktops. You don't have to be sitting at your desk to work on it. I know, the idea that sitting at your desk isn't a desirable place to be may sound like heresy to many here on/., but the fact of the matter is that most people like being able to check their email on the couch or at the coffee shop. The ability to do that makes the few hundred extra bucks they spend well worth it.
Yeah, because you never need to plug in a desktop. Oh wait...
"The need to plug in various I/O devices (hard drives, scanners, various others for various needs.).... The low quality of laptop keyboards as compared to the awesome stand-alone keyboards available. The need for mice and drawing pads. The limited screen size of a laptop (you can of course make an ultra-large screen laptop, but then it doesn't fit in your lap very well.) The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons, such as PCI bus hardware, or highly accelerated graphics engines. Room for multiple drives."
All of these can be dealt with by simply getting a docking station or port replicator for when you are working at home or in your office, and then connecting your fancy keyboard/mouse/monitor/peripherals to it. Then you can use your computer in a desk environment, but still be able to take it with you when you go out, or even use it over on the couch when you don't feel like sitting at a desk.
"The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges."
My two and a half year old work laptop still has perfectly functioning hinges. Other things have worn out (including two fans), but those hinges still work fine. And I can't think of anyone offhand who has had hinge problems. Yes, I know they won't last forever, but most people upgrade their computers every few years anyways.
I'm not a big gambler, but I'm pretty sure blackjack is almost always played with multiple decks (makes it harder to count cards), so it is possible to have two cards that are the same. The chances that those two cards would then be dealt in the same hand? Very low, but not impossible.
I also wondered why someone would do that. Legal issues if/when they get caught aside, think about how much time they wasted. At least with the old school bootleggers who sneaked camcorders into movie theaters were then selling their products, so they could claim they were acting out of greed. This guy seems to be just doing it to earn the title "Biggest Dork of the Land".
The only theory I can think of is that it was posted by an optometrist who is hoping to ruin the vision of thousands of American kids by having them read poorly reproduced copies of text on their computers. One day very soon they will all be sporting their own pairs of Harry Potter glasses.
Ok, so then all we know is that this guy is not in the US (of course we already knew that since he though the term 'university' was not used over here) ort from a part of Canada that predominately uses the term 'high school'. And actually, there are areas in the States where the term "secondary school" is used as well. So that little clue tells us nothing.
"anyone who can taste the difference between fructose and sucrose can definitely taste the difference between sugar and the artificial sweeteners"
You are talking to a guy who went through college basically living off of store brand soda and cheap frozen dinners (and not the 'good' frozen dinners either, the cheap $.99 ones). Yeah, it tasted like crap, but you get used to it.
"the sweeteners in diet soda are no better for you"
Compare the calories. A can of regular soda has around 160 calories, the same amount of diet soda usually has less than 1. If you drink two of those a day thats an extra 3 pounds a month.
" and probably worse. Aspartame has a number of questionable side effects, including being a thyroid inhibitor. The last thing you want when you're trying to lose weight is for your metabolism to run SLOWER!"
Yeah, if you binge on it. I never said give up on moderation.
"And the effect of diet soda can be quite contrary to weight loss. I know someone who gets all her soda free, so she takes what the guy gives her... which was almost always diet soda. One month all he had was regular soda, so that's what she drank. Without doing anything else different, this gal lost 30 pounds that month. Just from drinking regular soda instead of aspartame-sweetened diet soda."
No, thats not why she lost all that weight. She has a serious medical disease and needs to be treated by a doctor ASAP if she lost 30 pounds in a month without trying. Either that or you are full of it.
In other words, he is from pretty much any English speaking country other than the US or Canada. Actually, we can't even tell that, since someone from France would likely translate "enseignement secondaire" to "secondary school" before asking the question in English.
"Secondary education" is actually a very common term used in many countries. Even here in the states (where "high school" is the more common term") most people would have an idea as to what you mean. Combined with your previous post, you clearly have an exaggerated opinion as to how unique the British educational system is.
"To put this in context, that's pretty much the equivalent for someone asking a question about kernel programming being told:
Well, I've never used C, only the Perl one. So I'll give you the advice I would give anyone I know writing a Perl script"
Which would be an acceptable response if you were asking it on a forum centered around Perl programmers. I know you Brits and Europeans hate this fact, but/. is a US-based forum and most of the people here are from this side of the pond.
"I.e. it may be good advice, but it is completely irrelevant to the question. The UK and US education systems are very difficult, especially at the university level. The US system regards university as a progression from school, and is based around teaching students. The UK system regards university students as adults who are meant to be responsible for their own learning and is based around the idea of creating an environment in which students can learn. In a UK university, it is not uncommon for students to have around 20 hours of supervised time a week (often less), and be expected to learn on their own at other times."
What is it with you Brits (I'm assuming the original submitter was British since everyone seems to be doing it, I apologize if he is not) making grossly incorrect assumptions about the US university system? First you don't think we are familiar with the term 'university', now you think our courses are entirely supervised? I have news for you, the average American student spends about 15 hours a week in a supervised classroom or lab setting (usually 5 courses at three hours a week), and thats assuming they are not doing something like an undergraduate research project or an independent study. Then we generally spend 2-3 times that time studying on our own.
Are you guys thinking of our high school system when talking about how you think our universities work?
"A US degree intends to provide a general education focussing in a specific area."
No, that actually varies greatly from program to program. Many are general, others are more specific.
"In the US, a student is offered a place at a university (typically sponsored by a specific department) and can graduate with any degree they meet the requirements for."
Again, not true. If you want to change majors or pick up an additional major, you have to re-apply to the new department. I know this as I added a second major halfway through my educational career. Depending on your new department, sometimes this is easy and just involves filling out some paperwork, other times its much more difficult and you need all sorts of approval.
Please, take some time to acquaint yourself with our university program before you try to compare it with your own. To put this in context (continuing with your C, Perl analogy), this would be like a C programmer telling a Perl programmer something like "C has many features not found in Perl, such as the ability to assign variables, write functions, and execute programs".
I suggest giving up the sugar entirely and just going for water (or diet soda if you really need something sweet). I don't want to consume the equivalent calories for half an hour on a bike each time I want something to drink. And if it does taste a little worse, well then you will end up drinking less of it, won't you.
Yes, we are all addicted to food, any one of use will literally die if we don't get enough of it. And as a result, our bodies will push us to eat more with physical sensations when it senses we have not consumed enough.
That said, you can develop a sense of willpower and limit how much you eat. Yeah, a lot of people claim they can't in order to make an excuse for themselves, and as long as they believe there is nothing they can do about it they will be unable to stop. Refraining from food when your body is used to getting whatever it wants is difficult, but not impossible. And no, I'm not a "thin bastard", in fact I'm overweight myself (though much less so compared to a year ago), and one who is likely biologically predisposed to addiction.
And as far as your last sentence goes, you need to see a therapist.
This is something that you are going to have to decide, you can't ask slashdot and get an easy answer that way. Generally speaking you are going to have the CS people telling you to take CS, and IT people telling you to take IT, which really isn't helpful. At the end of the day, you have to determine which road is the one you want to go down. If possible, you may want to take the first year without declaring a major and just explore the two options (plus anything else you think you may want to do, its perfectly possible you will decide IT isn't the path you want to go down at all, and there is nothing wrong with that).
BTW, we call them universities over here in the States as well.
Except since despite its ubiquity (and the fact that applets were one of Java's first uses), web pages are one of the rarest places to see Java apps. Most of what NoScript blocks is JavaScript, which has nothing to do with Java.
You do realize that filing a patent for something doesn't mean you are introducing it in a product. All it means is that some geek in some lab thought up the idea, told a lawyer, and they decided to file in the off chance somebody (not even necessarily MS) wants to implement it someday.
"It's interesting to note that absolutely nothing has changed in the mechanics of the biology curriculum since Feynman's time."
Well, that depends on what type of biology you are studying. Many of those studying biology have to memorize anatomy because they are studying to be doctors, not scientists. A doctor can't stop in the middle of surgery and say "I forgot which bone this is, wait a second while I look it up". They do have to memorize such stuff.
On the other hand, someone studying microbiology is going to have to focus more on concepts than brute memorization.
"If CS is such a narrow speciality that it should not include anything but math, what is its use?"
First, I didn't say that. Second, as for its use, considering its employment rate I'd say its pretty useful. Despite your claims otherwise, developers of efficient and stable software is in demand, as that software can be hard to come by.
Yes, the study of CS (like virtually every other subject out there) can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach, whether its by giving the student a new perspective or by giving the student in depth knowledge of the industry or area in which their software is used. Many CS students extend their education by pursuing second majors or minors. For instance I received minors in Biology and Philosophy. And many students in other disciplines extend their educations by studying CS. However, those do not replace a foundation of mathematics, which is core to the subject. In fact, from the first paragraph of the ACM article you cite (BTW you might want to check your mailbox, that issue was from two months ago, not this month), it states "Two persistent issues have been the role of mathematics and the importance of programming in the introductory courses".
"A lawyer who does not understand accounting will soon not be one as she either goes broke quickly or becomes disbarred. She need not be an accountant, but she needs to thoroughly understand that most law is based on contracts and contracts require a method of accounting for the obligations between the parties."
Accounting is much more than just understanding basic contract law. But I see you have missed the point of the analogy. In our society we make use of specialists. Some people are trained as lawyers, others are trained as accountants. If you are in need of a an accountant, hire a freaking accountant, don't hire a lawyer and then complain they didn't spend enough time in law school learning the tax code. Thats pretty much what you are doing here. You are hiring a computer scientist when you need a HCI/usability expert, and then complaining they didn't spend enough time learning HCI.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually technically its not, as the relationship is not mutual.
"It could very well be like many other biological items... like women who spend time together tend to align their menstrual cycles... or do you think that's another 'correlation'?"
There we have actual evidence that hormones play a role. If all we had was a study showing that women who live together have closely aligned menstrual cycles, all we would have would be a correlation and no evidence of a causation. It could easily be a statistical coincidence, or it could be caused by common environmental factors. It would be irresponsible for a scientists to claim one woman's period can cause another woman's period with just that information.
"Perhaps the body takes 'fat cues' from your peer group -- if you spend a lot of time with fat people your that might trigger a biological response to store energy..."
Thats nothing but pure speculation by a /.er who obviously has no knowledge of the scientific process. And who is obviously ignorant of the study (did you RTFA?), as proximity had no impact (there is a correlation between fat friends across the country, but not fat neighbors living next door to each other). Its about the equivalent of me speculating that Lindsey Lohan (or whatever her name is) was carrying those drugs because a drug lord had kidnapped her parents and was forcing her to drive them to Portugal. In other words, your hypothesis is completely useless, and by stating it all you have done is waste precious brainpower.
The only hypothesis I've heard regarding it is that it is caused by a person's standards of what is an ideal weight being set by their friends. And thats a hypothesis. No one in the study is claiming having a fat friend causes you to be fat, because they understand the fact that correlation does not mean causation.
"but just writing it off with a sarcastic 'correlation not causation 'nuff said' post is just close minded and ignorant."
Its not "writing it off" to state that the /. headline (Study Proves Having Fat Friends Makes You Fat) is badly worded at best.
I did read the study (and saw a news report on it earlier today), and I can claim with confidence that it does not claim to prove that. Some of the researchers are hypothesizing the cause of this correlation, such as the idea that one's standards of an ideal weight are greatly influenced by one's friends (breaking news, people are affected by peer pressure, more at 11). But these studies do not prove anything, even with the liberal use of the word 'prove' that is often used when discussing science (such as in statements like 'fossils prove evolution to be true'). They merely suggest correlations, whose causes then are scientifically studied.
"Yeah, that's sure to cut you a better than fair sampling of the "youth culture.""
I'm assuming they are also taking into consideration observations of their peers. I wouldn't be surprised if email wasn't that popular with young kids, after all, how many of them even have reliable email addresses (compared to college students and office workers)? If a group of kids are all on the same social networking site and are all active users of it, it would be easier for them to use it to communicate with each other than try to remember if Susie checks her Yahoo or Gmail address more often. Where would a high school kid go to look up the email address of that cute girl who sits in the second row of algebra class ? When I was in high school (late 90's), so instead we used this old communication protocol called the "telephone" to communicate with each other.
"Now, how do I text-message "GET OFF OF MY LAWN" ? Anybody...?"
I'm guessing GOOML.
Who says the page was navigated away from? Its not unusual for users to leave a page open, and with modern 'AJAX' applications the entire app is sometimes contained in a single page. Yes closing the web application should cause the browser to reclaim that memory, but closing a normal application should cause the OS to reclaim its memory.
The problem is that many people still treat dynamic script based web applications as simple web pages. But if they have executing code, they are applications and need to deal with all the considerations applications require. Including memory management.
"The only plus for Firefox is the numerous plug-ins, but what we like to see is pluck-outs that would ensure no memory leaks and lesser footprint."
In Firefox's defense, those are not always leaks in the browser itself. Often pages will have Javascript scripts (usually written by web designers with little or no experience or education in application development, and who think memory issues only need to dealt with if you are programming in C) that themselves have memory leaks. Blaming Firefox for those would be like blaming your operating system for an application that constantly leaks memory.
People giving up TV (or just cable) and deciding they actually like its absence is nothing new and existed well before anyone could claim the Internet was killing it off.
And as for "lack of advertising bombarding" you, I'm guessing thats only because you have a good ad blocked installed in your browser. Well, if you have a PVR, you can skip ads on TV as well. And there are plenty of ads online, and as ad blockers become more and more common, advertisers are going to become more and more creative and effective in defeating them. The fact is, if you want something for free, it will most likely be supported by advertising. And while there will be a never ending cat and mouse game between consumers and advertisers on how to deliver the ads, they will continue to exist.
You need to get out more...
I know this is going to be hard for most /.ers to comprehend, but most computer users out there are not very interested in upgrading their computers every few years. Once its out of date, they will either live with it if they don't need a top of the line machine (I know people who are still using computers they bought 7 years ago), or just buy a new one. And the old laptop doesn't become a paperweight, it goes on ebay and is sold for $300 to another person who just wants it for email/web/schoolwork.
Yeah, its either more expensive or not as powerful as a desktop, but a laptop has a huge advantage over desktops. You don't have to be sitting at your desk to work on it. I know, the idea that sitting at your desk isn't a desirable place to be may sound like heresy to many here on /., but the fact of the matter is that most people like being able to check their email on the couch or at the coffee shop. The ability to do that makes the few hundred extra bucks they spend well worth it.
"The need to regularly plug in the laptop."
Yeah, because you never need to plug in a desktop. Oh wait...
"The need to plug in various I/O devices (hard drives, scanners, various others for various needs.) .... The low quality of laptop keyboards as compared to the awesome stand-alone keyboards available. The need for mice and drawing pads. The limited screen size of a laptop (you can of course make an ultra-large screen laptop, but then it doesn't fit in your lap very well.) The room inside a desktop for various hardware add-ons, such as PCI bus hardware, or highly accelerated graphics engines. Room for multiple drives."
All of these can be dealt with by simply getting a docking station or port replicator for when you are working at home or in your office, and then connecting your fancy keyboard/mouse/monitor/peripherals to it. Then you can use your computer in a desk environment, but still be able to take it with you when you go out, or even use it over on the couch when you don't feel like sitting at a desk.
"The wearing out of laptop clamshell hinges."
My two and a half year old work laptop still has perfectly functioning hinges. Other things have worn out (including two fans), but those hinges still work fine. And I can't think of anyone offhand who has had hinge problems. Yes, I know they won't last forever, but most people upgrade their computers every few years anyways.
I'm not a big gambler, but I'm pretty sure blackjack is almost always played with multiple decks (makes it harder to count cards), so it is possible to have two cards that are the same. The chances that those two cards would then be dealt in the same hand? Very low, but not impossible.
I also wondered why someone would do that. Legal issues if/when they get caught aside, think about how much time they wasted. At least with the old school bootleggers who sneaked camcorders into movie theaters were then selling their products, so they could claim they were acting out of greed. This guy seems to be just doing it to earn the title "Biggest Dork of the Land".
The only theory I can think of is that it was posted by an optometrist who is hoping to ruin the vision of thousands of American kids by having them read poorly reproduced copies of text on their computers. One day very soon they will all be sporting their own pairs of Harry Potter glasses.
Ok, so then all we know is that this guy is not in the US (of course we already knew that since he though the term 'university' was not used over here) ort from a part of Canada that predominately uses the term 'high school'. And actually, there are areas in the States where the term "secondary school" is used as well. So that little clue tells us nothing.
"anyone who can taste the difference between fructose and sucrose can definitely taste the difference between sugar and the artificial sweeteners"
You are talking to a guy who went through college basically living off of store brand soda and cheap frozen dinners (and not the 'good' frozen dinners either, the cheap $.99 ones). Yeah, it tasted like crap, but you get used to it.
"the sweeteners in diet soda are no better for you"
Compare the calories. A can of regular soda has around 160 calories, the same amount of diet soda usually has less than 1. If you drink two of those a day thats an extra 3 pounds a month.
" and probably worse. Aspartame has a number of questionable side effects, including being a thyroid inhibitor. The last thing you want when you're trying to lose weight is for your metabolism to run SLOWER!"
Yeah, if you binge on it. I never said give up on moderation.
"And the effect of diet soda can be quite contrary to weight loss. I know someone who gets all her soda free, so she takes what the guy gives her... which was almost always diet soda. One month all he had was regular soda, so that's what she drank. Without doing anything else different, this gal lost 30 pounds that month. Just from drinking regular soda instead of aspartame-sweetened diet soda."
No, thats not why she lost all that weight. She has a serious medical disease and needs to be treated by a doctor ASAP if she lost 30 pounds in a month without trying. Either that or you are full of it.
In other words, he is from pretty much any English speaking country other than the US or Canada. Actually, we can't even tell that, since someone from France would likely translate "enseignement secondaire" to "secondary school" before asking the question in English.
"Secondary education" is actually a very common term used in many countries. Even here in the states (where "high school" is the more common term") most people would have an idea as to what you mean. Combined with your previous post, you clearly have an exaggerated opinion as to how unique the British educational system is.
"To put this in context, that's pretty much the equivalent for someone asking a question about kernel programming being told:
Well, I've never used C, only the Perl one. So I'll give you the advice I would give anyone I know writing a Perl script"
Which would be an acceptable response if you were asking it on a forum centered around Perl programmers. I know you Brits and Europeans hate this fact, but /. is a US-based forum and most of the people here are from this side of the pond.
"I.e. it may be good advice, but it is completely irrelevant to the question. The UK and US education systems are very difficult, especially at the university level. The US system regards university as a progression from school, and is based around teaching students. The UK system regards university students as adults who are meant to be responsible for their own learning and is based around the idea of creating an environment in which students can learn. In a UK university, it is not uncommon for students to have around 20 hours of supervised time a week (often less), and be expected to learn on their own at other times."
What is it with you Brits (I'm assuming the original submitter was British since everyone seems to be doing it, I apologize if he is not) making grossly incorrect assumptions about the US university system? First you don't think we are familiar with the term 'university', now you think our courses are entirely supervised? I have news for you, the average American student spends about 15 hours a week in a supervised classroom or lab setting (usually 5 courses at three hours a week), and thats assuming they are not doing something like an undergraduate research project or an independent study. Then we generally spend 2-3 times that time studying on our own.
Are you guys thinking of our high school system when talking about how you think our universities work?
"A US degree intends to provide a general education focussing in a specific area."
No, that actually varies greatly from program to program. Many are general, others are more specific.
"In the US, a student is offered a place at a university (typically sponsored by a specific department) and can graduate with any degree they meet the requirements for."
Again, not true. If you want to change majors or pick up an additional major, you have to re-apply to the new department. I know this as I added a second major halfway through my educational career. Depending on your new department, sometimes this is easy and just involves filling out some paperwork, other times its much more difficult and you need all sorts of approval.
Please, take some time to acquaint yourself with our university program before you try to compare it with your own. To put this in context (continuing with your C, Perl analogy), this would be like a C programmer telling a Perl programmer something like "C has many features not found in Perl, such as the ability to assign variables, write functions, and execute programs".
I suggest giving up the sugar entirely and just going for water (or diet soda if you really need something sweet). I don't want to consume the equivalent calories for half an hour on a bike each time I want something to drink. And if it does taste a little worse, well then you will end up drinking less of it, won't you.
Yes, we are all addicted to food, any one of use will literally die if we don't get enough of it. And as a result, our bodies will push us to eat more with physical sensations when it senses we have not consumed enough.
That said, you can develop a sense of willpower and limit how much you eat. Yeah, a lot of people claim they can't in order to make an excuse for themselves, and as long as they believe there is nothing they can do about it they will be unable to stop. Refraining from food when your body is used to getting whatever it wants is difficult, but not impossible. And no, I'm not a "thin bastard", in fact I'm overweight myself (though much less so compared to a year ago), and one who is likely biologically predisposed to addiction.
And as far as your last sentence goes, you need to see a therapist.
I'm putting my bet on "Sitting on the couch all day watching TV".
This is something that you are going to have to decide, you can't ask slashdot and get an easy answer that way. Generally speaking you are going to have the CS people telling you to take CS, and IT people telling you to take IT, which really isn't helpful. At the end of the day, you have to determine which road is the one you want to go down. If possible, you may want to take the first year without declaring a major and just explore the two options (plus anything else you think you may want to do, its perfectly possible you will decide IT isn't the path you want to go down at all, and there is nothing wrong with that).
BTW, we call them universities over here in the States as well.
Except since despite its ubiquity (and the fact that applets were one of Java's first uses), web pages are one of the rarest places to see Java apps. Most of what NoScript blocks is JavaScript, which has nothing to do with Java.
You do realize that filing a patent for something doesn't mean you are introducing it in a product. All it means is that some geek in some lab thought up the idea, told a lawyer, and they decided to file in the off chance somebody (not even necessarily MS) wants to implement it someday.
"It's interesting to note that absolutely nothing has changed in the mechanics of the biology curriculum since Feynman's time."
Well, that depends on what type of biology you are studying. Many of those studying biology have to memorize anatomy because they are studying to be doctors, not scientists. A doctor can't stop in the middle of surgery and say "I forgot which bone this is, wait a second while I look it up". They do have to memorize such stuff.
On the other hand, someone studying microbiology is going to have to focus more on concepts than brute memorization.
"If CS is such a narrow speciality that it should not include anything but math, what is its use?"
First, I didn't say that. Second, as for its use, considering its employment rate I'd say its pretty useful. Despite your claims otherwise, developers of efficient and stable software is in demand, as that software can be hard to come by.
Yes, the study of CS (like virtually every other subject out there) can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach, whether its by giving the student a new perspective or by giving the student in depth knowledge of the industry or area in which their software is used. Many CS students extend their education by pursuing second majors or minors. For instance I received minors in Biology and Philosophy. And many students in other disciplines extend their educations by studying CS. However, those do not replace a foundation of mathematics, which is core to the subject. In fact, from the first paragraph of the ACM article you cite (BTW you might want to check your mailbox, that issue was from two months ago, not this month), it states "Two persistent issues have been the role of mathematics and the importance of programming in the introductory courses".
"A lawyer who does not understand accounting will soon not be one as she either goes broke quickly or becomes disbarred. She need not be an accountant, but she needs to thoroughly understand that most law is based on contracts and contracts require a method of accounting for the obligations between the parties."
Accounting is much more than just understanding basic contract law. But I see you have missed the point of the analogy. In our society we make use of specialists. Some people are trained as lawyers, others are trained as accountants. If you are in need of a an accountant, hire a freaking accountant, don't hire a lawyer and then complain they didn't spend enough time in law school learning the tax code. Thats pretty much what you are doing here. You are hiring a computer scientist when you need a HCI/usability expert, and then complaining they didn't spend enough time learning HCI.