"Ok class, for your term papers, you have 3 months to turn in a working design for a (select which one applies to your students) working FTL drive, self replicating nanomachine, self-aware AI, generic cancer cure, flying car, functional economy. Now get to work."
I've got a class (I'm in 4th year engineering) where the assignments are mini design projects - our prof will give us a physical concept or material property and task us to design a device that will do a particular task such as detect avian flu. Other then improper collaboration (and we're allowed to work in small groups), we haven't been able to find a way to cheat.
I seem to remember some guy during the prohibition years that was arrested not for prohibition, but for not paying taxes on his illegal profits
The leader of the Marijuana Party of Canada (don't get excited, even for a fringe party, they're pretty unimportant) reportedly pays taxes on his income from selling pot.
Re:Too recent & controversial for an encyclope
on
When Wikipedia Fails
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· Score: 1
On the other hand, if you want to know the engine capacity of a 1963 Austin Mini or the number of casualties in the RAF Faulds explosion or the exact nature of the student prank involving the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge or the size of a litter of European Red Squirrels - things that I consult an encyclopedia for rather than a newspaper - then there is no other place (on the web or otherwise) to touch what Wikipedia has done.
In other words, it's a convenient place to look up easily verifiable facts.
First, you have to remember that important article are hit thousands of times by various people, and since everyone has ability to edit, problems can often be quickly cleaned up.
I agree. Whenever I hear of anything preposterous (major defacing, not just minor typos), it's generally been fixed up by the time I get there to see.
Who says the ladies will be less qualified. For all you know it'll attract 3 superior candidates.
Indeed, the article says that everybody who *applied* was male. If the ~10:1 male:female ratio in CS holds true, then they could hire 18 women and still have them be equally qualified.
Women were used in those roles because the men were considered better at killing and being killed though and in war, unsurprisingly, people have to be kill and be killed.
And because (at the time) it cost less to hire a bunch of women to do menial work.
I've heard it argued that women would be better soldiers because women (on average) have a higher pain tolerance - but men still feel the need to protect women, and letting them go to war doesn't fit with that.
Getting even more OT, there are a lot of women entering into science and tech fields, but too often it only happens when there's a dad who is in science too (or for the current generation, a granddad)...
Not necessarily... my parents have degrees in geography, I'm an engineering student.
"The music lobby group was planning a study on the Canadian music industry and was seeking $50,000 in funding from Canadian Heritage to help support the project. " I am going to freak, if I as a tax payer have to pay to fund corprate propoganda.
To be fair, the department of Canadian Heritage is supposed to give out some funding relating to Canadian culture, which Canadian music is.
I'm not trying to bash Canada's schools - they definitely have great ones, and there's no reason a Canadian citizen would have to leave the country to get a fantastic education (the same goes for European citizens). But in terms of sheer educational strength, the US is way out ahead.
The difference is that Canadian universities are much more homogeneous then US schools. From what I hear, most US universities have specialties - some are "small liberal arts schools", some specialize in engineering/technology, some have great sports teams.
In Canada, while they're certainly not identical, a social science student at a school that has a great engineering program is still going to get a decent education. While the most expensive universites certainly cost more then the cheapest ones in Canada, that's only a factor of about 2, not a factor of 5 or 6 like you'd see in the US.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that no matter where you live in Canada, the nearest major city is likely to have a completely adequate university, and going to U of T (which rated highest in Canada on the rankings posted) won't give much of an advantage. So... sure, Harvard is great for a few thousand people, but the vast majority of university students don't go there.
I don't understand why they are requiring "notebook" computers. Are they expecting people to take them to class? I've been to many college classrooms at a variety of locations. The large rooms do not have the ability to have one plug per student, and schedules can easily end up with 6 hours of classes with no time to charge. How about the library? Are there sets of plugs at every table and the spots on the floor where students currently congregate to study? Or are they just expected to have them in their dorm rooms, and want them to be "notebooks" for power savings when requiring thousands of computers be plugged in and running all the time?
My high school required laptops - all the classrooms were wired, as was the library and (from what I've heard, since I left) the lunchroom.
While they might not work in some of the lecture halls, it shouldn't be a problem wiring the library and the classrooms that 2nd years and up spend most of their time in.
Even in college it is mostly pointless - very few classes require a whole lot of note taking, and if they require so much note taking, then you're hardly likely to learn anything, and it would be better to switch class.
In Engineering, sure, probably in Science... but I had to take a few complimentary studies classes in first and second year, and they had an awful lot of writing.
If you were the first type of customer, wouldn't you be annoyed if you found out you were paying the same as the second type? Wouldn't you expect them to pay more, or perhpas face some restrictions?
Yeah, sure. With Internet connections, though, you can get either a fast connection or a slow connection - in the analogy, the first type of customer would probably get narrow pipes, and the second type would get pipes as big as he could, and pay more for them.
However, there is a fundamental difference between entertainment and education. The latter has a "higher" purpose (at least meant to have).
Another difference - in order to see a movie, you *have* to pay.
Especially with first and second year classes, nobody's going to notice if a random person walks in and sits through the lecture. Hell, the prof would probably be pleased that somebody wants to listen to what he has to say.
With a movie, people check tickets.
Re:Why is everyone so impressed with Google Maps?
on
Satellite Easter Eggs
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· Score: 1
Because Google allows me to see *my* neighbourhood, in Canada.
Assuming that you're correct and man cannot damage the earth to the point of it being uninhabitable, there are certainly plenty of other ways for us to not survive here that the article specifically mentions.
With the resources that it would take to build a self-sustaining colony somewhere else (we'd have to either terraform Mars, or go to a whole other solar system, which isn't cheap) we could probably (I'm not a NASA engineer yet) build a network of satellites to all but remove the threat of an asteroid, diffuse all the nuclear weapons, and build infrastructure to keep the whole population (even those in less developed countries) safe against the weather.
And I hope you're not talking about the sun dying - that'll take billions of years and we'd have to be a lot farther away then Mars to be safe.
What's sad is the John family had an accessable cell phone, but when the daughter couldn't get through via internet phone, she was paniced enough she ran next door to a neigbor's phone instead of using it.
While Vonage should certainly take steps here, there are no steps at their end that will guarentee good results in an emergency situation.
She wasn't paniced enough that she couldn't call 911 at all. If she'd been expecting that her VOIP service wouldn't work, or that she should use the cell phone, she probably would have remembered.
That's why it's good to practice things like what to do in an emergency.
Wait - where is that? It's not on my standard 103-key.
Take a piece of paper about the same size as one of the keys on your keyboard. Write "any" on it. Tape it to a key that you don't use very often.
You now have an "any" key.:p
Professionaly, the word 'engineer' has a precise legal definition, and calling yourself one when you are not is illegal.
In Texas at least it is quite legal, as determined by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers.
Not in Ontario. To call yourself an engineer, you can either
a) Maintain an engine
b) Have a degree in engineering (and do a few other things) and become a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
However, if you graduate with a degree in Software Engineering (something my university offers), you can become a member of the PEO.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ok class, for your term papers, you have 3 months to turn in a working design for a (select which one applies to your students) working FTL drive, self replicating nanomachine, self-aware AI, generic cancer cure, flying car, functional economy. Now get to work."
I've got a class (I'm in 4th year engineering) where the assignments are mini design projects - our prof will give us a physical concept or material property and task us to design a device that will do a particular task such as detect avian flu. Other then improper collaboration (and we're allowed to work in small groups), we haven't been able to find a way to cheat.
I seem to remember some guy during the prohibition years that was arrested not for prohibition, but for not paying taxes on his illegal profits
The leader of the Marijuana Party of Canada (don't get excited, even for a fringe party, they're pretty unimportant) reportedly pays taxes on his income from selling pot.
On the other hand, if you want to know the engine capacity of a 1963 Austin Mini or the number of casualties in the RAF Faulds explosion or the exact nature of the student prank involving the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge or the size of a litter of European Red Squirrels - things that I consult an encyclopedia for rather than a newspaper - then there is no other place (on the web or otherwise) to touch what Wikipedia has done.
In other words, it's a convenient place to look up easily verifiable facts.
First, you have to remember that important article are hit thousands of times by various people, and since everyone has ability to edit, problems can often be quickly cleaned up.
I agree. Whenever I hear of anything preposterous (major defacing, not just minor typos), it's generally been fixed up by the time I get there to see.
Who says the ladies will be less qualified. For all you know it'll attract 3 superior candidates.
Indeed, the article says that everybody who *applied* was male. If the ~10:1 male:female ratio in CS holds true, then they could hire 18 women and still have them be equally qualified.
Women were used in those roles because the men were considered better at killing and being killed though and in war, unsurprisingly, people have to be kill and be killed.
And because (at the time) it cost less to hire a bunch of women to do menial work.
I've heard it argued that women would be better soldiers because women (on average) have a higher pain tolerance - but men still feel the need to protect women, and letting them go to war doesn't fit with that.
Getting even more OT, there are a lot of women entering into science and tech fields, but too often it only happens when there's a dad who is in science too (or for the current generation, a granddad)...
Not necessarily... my parents have degrees in geography, I'm an engineering student.
"The music lobby group was planning a study on the Canadian music industry and was seeking $50,000 in funding from Canadian Heritage to help support the project. " I am going to freak, if I as a tax payer have to pay to fund corprate propoganda.
To be fair, the department of Canadian Heritage is supposed to give out some funding relating to Canadian culture, which Canadian music is.
The NDP are not corrupt. Maybe if people would stop voting for the lesser of 2 evils something good would actually happen in this country
It's hard to do corrupt things if you've never been in power.
I apologize, but I enjoyed the fact that "least" was in all caps.
You must have missed the word "western nation". We're not comparing the US with Zimbabwe or Bangladesh, we're comparing it with Canada or the UK.
I'm not trying to bash Canada's schools - they definitely have great ones, and there's no reason a Canadian citizen would have to leave the country to get a fantastic education (the same goes for European citizens). But in terms of sheer educational strength, the US is way out ahead.
The difference is that Canadian universities are much more homogeneous then US schools. From what I hear, most US universities have specialties - some are "small liberal arts schools", some specialize in engineering/technology, some have great sports teams.
In Canada, while they're certainly not identical, a social science student at a school that has a great engineering program is still going to get a decent education. While the most expensive universites certainly cost more then the cheapest ones in Canada, that's only a factor of about 2, not a factor of 5 or 6 like you'd see in the US.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that no matter where you live in Canada, the nearest major city is likely to have a completely adequate university, and going to U of T (which rated highest in Canada on the rankings posted) won't give much of an advantage. So... sure, Harvard is great for a few thousand people, but the vast majority of university students don't go there.
Do you see the .org in slashdot.org? It's called the World Wide Web for a reason, jackass.
It's still an American site.
I don't understand why they are requiring "notebook" computers. Are they expecting people to take them to class? I've been to many college classrooms at a variety of locations. The large rooms do not have the ability to have one plug per student, and schedules can easily end up with 6 hours of classes with no time to charge. How about the library? Are there sets of plugs at every table and the spots on the floor where students currently congregate to study? Or are they just expected to have them in their dorm rooms, and want them to be "notebooks" for power savings when requiring thousands of computers be plugged in and running all the time?
My high school required laptops - all the classrooms were wired, as was the library and (from what I've heard, since I left) the lunchroom.
While they might not work in some of the lecture halls, it shouldn't be a problem wiring the library and the classrooms that 2nd years and up spend most of their time in.
Even in college it is mostly pointless - very few classes require a whole lot of note taking, and if they require so much note taking, then you're hardly likely to learn anything, and it would be better to switch class.
In Engineering, sure, probably in Science... but I had to take a few complimentary studies classes in first and second year, and they had an awful lot of writing.
If you were the first type of customer, wouldn't you be annoyed if you found out you were paying the same as the second type? Wouldn't you expect them to pay more, or perhpas face some restrictions?
Yeah, sure. With Internet connections, though, you can get either a fast connection or a slow connection - in the analogy, the first type of customer would probably get narrow pipes, and the second type would get pipes as big as he could, and pay more for them.
However, there is a fundamental difference between entertainment and education. The latter has a "higher" purpose (at least meant to have).
Another difference - in order to see a movie, you *have* to pay.
Especially with first and second year classes, nobody's going to notice if a random person walks in and sits through the lecture. Hell, the prof would probably be pleased that somebody wants to listen to what he has to say.
With a movie, people check tickets.
Because Google allows me to see *my* neighbourhood, in Canada.
Assuming that you're correct and man cannot damage the earth to the point of it being uninhabitable, there are certainly plenty of other ways for us to not survive here that the article specifically mentions.
With the resources that it would take to build a self-sustaining colony somewhere else (we'd have to either terraform Mars, or go to a whole other solar system, which isn't cheap) we could probably (I'm not a NASA engineer yet) build a network of satellites to all but remove the threat of an asteroid, diffuse all the nuclear weapons, and build infrastructure to keep the whole population (even those in less developed countries) safe against the weather.
And I hope you're not talking about the sun dying - that'll take billions of years and we'd have to be a lot farther away then Mars to be safe.
I see .biz/.info in spam all the time.
What are you doing *reading* spam?
Most people just delete it...
In Canada, the 1$ bills have been taken out of circulation probably over a decade ago, and the 2$ bills were replaced maybe in '98-'99...
A bit earlier then that... 1995 or so.
I saw someone ahead of me try and pay part of their bill with a 50 cent piece, and the cashier handed it back saying "We don't take Canadian money".
:p
We don't even have 50 cent pieces up here...
What's sad is the John family had an accessable cell phone, but when the daughter couldn't get through via internet phone, she was paniced enough she ran next door to a neigbor's phone instead of using it.
While Vonage should certainly take steps here, there are no steps at their end that will guarentee good results in an emergency situation.
She wasn't paniced enough that she couldn't call 911 at all. If she'd been expecting that her VOIP service wouldn't work, or that she should use the cell phone, she probably would have remembered.
That's why it's good to practice things like what to do in an emergency.
Wait - where is that? It's not on my standard 103-key.
:p
Take a piece of paper about the same size as one of the keys on your keyboard. Write "any" on it. Tape it to a key that you don't use very often.
You now have an "any" key.
Sure, we might not recognise life if we find it. But we know DNA-based life works - why not look for it?
I've heard speculation that the first microbes might have come to Earth from Mars - if so, it would likely be somewhat similar to life here.
Professionaly, the word 'engineer' has a precise legal definition, and calling yourself one when you are not is illegal.
In Texas at least it is quite legal, as determined by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers.
Not in Ontario. To call yourself an engineer, you can either
a) Maintain an engine b) Have a degree in engineering (and do a few other things) and become a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
However, if you graduate with a degree in Software Engineering (something my university offers), you can become a member of the PEO.