I went "paperless" taking two graduate mechanical engineering classes this semester, using Note Taker HD on the iPad. It takes some getting used to, but once you figure out the workflow issues (Good Reader and Drop Box are a must), it is incredibly convenient. I evaluated 8 or 9 different iPad note taker apps, and at the time (August 2011), the only one that could do everything I wanted (easy PDF import for annotations, zoom feature, ability to draw shapes, easy export) was Note Taker HD.
You will also NEED a stylus. Controlling a tablet UI is fine with your fingers - writing text and drawing diagrams for an hour during a class with your fingers just doesn't cut it. I love my Wacom stylus for iPad, though I have actually worn through it in just 3 months. You will probably need to try several (I tried 3 different ones) before you find the one that is right for you.
The issue is not just if it is good for reading PDFs - you also need to be able to organize the papers, create citations, make notes (and organize them), and most importantly, actually get the PDFs of the academic papers to begin with. The difficulty of this last one varies by field - some fields (e.g., mathematics) have a more-or-less central place to get stuff (if you are affiliated with a university with subscription access). Others require you to get papers from multiple different online sources, which can be a huge pain.
I spent a lot of time on this and the only good solution I've found is the Papers application on the Mac + the purpose-built Papers Touch reader application on the iPad. This combination addresses all of those needs in a way that is tailored specifically for someone doing research who needs to review current scientific papers. In addition to being a graduate student myself, I'm the computer support guy in one of the largest departments at a major research university. For some of my users the functionality in this combination is enough to justify the purchase of a Mac laptop + iPad just for this purpose.
While not perfect (having to have a Mac makes it a lot less than perfect if you don't use a Mac already, or don't have budget from your institution to support a purchase), it is the best end-to-end solution out there that I've found.
Wireless will NEVER replace wired networks completely. Because wireless is a shared medium (think "hub"), there is finite bandwidth available within a given volume of space (defined by signal strength and other factors). If you have a combination of node density and bandwidth needs that exceed what wireless can provide, you have to go with wired networks. Wired networks go over a non-shared medium (think "switch"), so you can scale the bandwidth in high-density environments.
Do I think wired networks will become less and less the norm? Yes. Do I think wired networks will go away completely? No way in hell.
Or, for $3500, you can get a dual quad-core Xeon machine (8 cores total) with 8GB of ECC memory in a rack enclosure from Dell (PE2950) for... let's see... $3,513.20.
I'm sure that the Dell machine will significantly out-perform their stated configuration. It won't even be close. Oh, and you don't have to build it yourself. And it even has support!
As a system administrator in an academic environment, just the thought of having a bunch of researchers with this frankenstein creation in their offices makes me physically ill.
Get this one:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?produc tId=2102913
It has a VERY good "manual". Actually, there are two - one focused on digital, one on analog. This is the kit that started me on a long journey from "I don't know what a resistor is" to taking graduate classes in electrical engineering.
You will also want to get Horowitz and Hill's "The Art of Electronics". If you have any interest at all in learning about circuits, you'll want that book.
The basic structure of EVE closely resembles to the old text-based game Trade Wars, and to an even greater extent the "newer" web-based space trading/combat games such as Space Merchant (sadly no longer available) and the many Space Merchant clones. I'd be interested to know how much the developers played these games prior to writing EVE, and how they influenced the early development of the game.
Two reasons:
a) The services to which they are comparing Google Scholar are extremely expensive. It is like comparing free TV to a movie you pay see in the theater, and getting all bent out of shape because TV has commercials and isn't in widescreen. Well, duh.
b) The reviewer is obviously biased. This is not a review, it is marketing for the other services that are "superior" to Google Scholar. You can see this kind of stuff on pretty much any product site. But that other crap isn't on the front page of/. being touted as a "review".
The U.S. military (through DARPA and other agencies) has been funding research on micro-UAVs for years. Not too hard to think about what they would be good for if you change your mindset to try to solve the "problem" of being able to kill people more effectively.
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I went "paperless" taking two graduate mechanical engineering classes this semester, using Note Taker HD on the iPad. It takes some getting used to, but once you figure out the workflow issues (Good Reader and Drop Box are a must), it is incredibly convenient. I evaluated 8 or 9 different iPad note taker apps, and at the time (August 2011), the only one that could do everything I wanted (easy PDF import for annotations, zoom feature, ability to draw shapes, easy export) was Note Taker HD. You will also NEED a stylus. Controlling a tablet UI is fine with your fingers - writing text and drawing diagrams for an hour during a class with your fingers just doesn't cut it. I love my Wacom stylus for iPad, though I have actually worn through it in just 3 months. You will probably need to try several (I tried 3 different ones) before you find the one that is right for you.
The issue is not just if it is good for reading PDFs - you also need to be able to organize the papers, create citations, make notes (and organize them), and most importantly, actually get the PDFs of the academic papers to begin with. The difficulty of this last one varies by field - some fields (e.g., mathematics) have a more-or-less central place to get stuff (if you are affiliated with a university with subscription access). Others require you to get papers from multiple different online sources, which can be a huge pain. I spent a lot of time on this and the only good solution I've found is the Papers application on the Mac + the purpose-built Papers Touch reader application on the iPad. This combination addresses all of those needs in a way that is tailored specifically for someone doing research who needs to review current scientific papers. In addition to being a graduate student myself, I'm the computer support guy in one of the largest departments at a major research university. For some of my users the functionality in this combination is enough to justify the purchase of a Mac laptop + iPad just for this purpose. While not perfect (having to have a Mac makes it a lot less than perfect if you don't use a Mac already, or don't have budget from your institution to support a purchase), it is the best end-to-end solution out there that I've found.
Wireless will NEVER replace wired networks completely. Because wireless is a shared medium (think "hub"), there is finite bandwidth available within a given volume of space (defined by signal strength and other factors). If you have a combination of node density and bandwidth needs that exceed what wireless can provide, you have to go with wired networks. Wired networks go over a non-shared medium (think "switch"), so you can scale the bandwidth in high-density environments. Do I think wired networks will become less and less the norm? Yes. Do I think wired networks will go away completely? No way in hell.
Or, for $3500, you can get a dual quad-core Xeon machine (8 cores total) with 8GB of ECC memory in a rack enclosure from Dell (PE2950) for... let's see... $3,513.20. I'm sure that the Dell machine will significantly out-perform their stated configuration. It won't even be close. Oh, and you don't have to build it yourself. And it even has support! As a system administrator in an academic environment, just the thought of having a bunch of researchers with this frankenstein creation in their offices makes me physically ill.
Get this one: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?produc tId=2102913
It has a VERY good "manual". Actually, there are two - one focused on digital, one on analog. This is the kit that started me on a long journey from "I don't know what a resistor is" to taking graduate classes in electrical engineering.
You will also want to get Horowitz and Hill's "The Art of Electronics". If you have any interest at all in learning about circuits, you'll want that book.
The basic structure of EVE closely resembles to the old text-based game Trade Wars, and to an even greater extent the "newer" web-based space trading/combat games such as Space Merchant (sadly no longer available) and the many Space Merchant clones. I'd be interested to know how much the developers played these games prior to writing EVE, and how they influenced the early development of the game.
Two reasons: a) The services to which they are comparing Google Scholar are extremely expensive. It is like comparing free TV to a movie you pay see in the theater, and getting all bent out of shape because TV has commercials and isn't in widescreen. Well, duh. b) The reviewer is obviously biased. This is not a review, it is marketing for the other services that are "superior" to Google Scholar. You can see this kind of stuff on pretty much any product site. But that other crap isn't on the front page of /. being touted as a "review".
The U.S. military (through DARPA and other agencies) has been funding research on micro-UAVs for years. Not too hard to think about what they would be good for if you change your mindset to try to solve the "problem" of being able to kill people more effectively.
s p62.html
Some interesting links:
Pretty scary justification for "why bother": http://www.darpa.mil/tto/mav/mav_auvsi.html
For those that don't know, an "ACD" is a program where they actually build a working weapons system out of the technology: http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/mavact.html
This is one of my favorate MAV's: http://www.aerovironment.com/news/news-archive/wa
A general links page that shows the amount of research being done in this area: http://www.casde.iitb.ac.in/IMSL/amitay.html
FAS collects a ton of information about U.S. military programs and systems: http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/mav.htm