The last mile problem consists entirely of running wires from the repeater/hub to the home. This is especially a problem with the rural areas and is very much a problem in urban areas if we're to truly go all-digital (think not just internet but TV, phone, etc. all over IP). I'll agree that in urban areas, the advantage of fiber becomes less pronounced but then again, we aren't 20th in broadband in the world because our urban cities have crappy internet.
I meant flexible as in "you can run it virtually through anything anywhere" as you really just need 2 pairs of fiber cables for a link. Copper requires much more protection against corrosion, rust, etc.
Also, you can't bend copper that much either without loss of signal integrity.
But the rest of us continue to pay taxes (and will probably pay more to make up for the lost in tax revenue)? It's constantly amazing how many people can actually argue with a straight face that the poor corporations should pay less taxes "because it's easier to make a profit" and that they, generously, will pass those profits onto you the employee. As if a corporation running business is actually more important than having employees working and consumers spending. Trickle-down economics is a load of crap our rent-a-legislators and their buddy rich folks use to convince the masses that, somehow, taxing the rich less than the middle class is actually beneficial.
Middle class spending (i.e. not being taxed to death) is what drives business and the economy. I will agree that taxing a corporate entity may not be the best solution as really, you should be taxing the shareholders. If this discourages all the traders on Wall Street they can go find other jobs just like everyone else and still pay taxes. Hell, it might leave only the prudent investors who aren't just looking to make a quick buck overnight but actually invest in businesses in the long haul behind. Then maybe we won't have this volatile gotta-raise-the-bottom-line mentality that corporate CEO's use to gain short-term profits but sacrifice any long-term business growth.
Copper is not as flexible, has shorter range, and more susceptible to noise than fiber. A copper infrastructure would require more repeaters, hubs and insulation around the entire network and it would be less reliable due to EM interference and require protection against lightning and such. Fiber has none of these problems and is advantageous in every way except (currently) cost. Plastic fiber hopes to solve this last problem.
I wonder though if this sort of technology could allow your wireless internet card to double as a wireless tv card. The same modem would take the cable data and broadcast the entire band and your computer would just sort out the data on it's end. This is already true of (many) wired services. Verizon FIOS transfers both TV data and internet over the same fiber line. It's just a matter of routing different types of data and separating the different type of frames.
I would assume that the new wireless protocol will have a standard physical and MAC layer for everything that runs across it.
This is the reason why the FCC exists and has the ability to "grant" who and what can use what spectrum. When the white space spectrum is sold, broadcasters who use it now for TV will be required by law to stop broadcasting. If Google has their way, an open standard will be developed on how to "share" this spectrum. All devices will then have to conform to this standard to use that spectrum so that they play nice with each other.
Towers that currently broadcast TV will have 2 options. Either they stop service or they start broadcasting using the new digital protocol standard. People will have to buy new antennas to receive and decode this signal for their TV. I believe the government has offered a rebate for people of low-income to get these antennas for cheap.
Really though, I don't see the need for rebates. The market will adjust. If people who watch Jerry all of a sudden can't do it anymore, they'll go out and try to buy a new antenna. They'll obviously go towards the one that's cheapest and still works and competition will drive prices down. The rebate thing reeks of "let's not piss people off" mentality but, like the rest of our rent-a-congress, fails to understand that in the long run, government interference = bad for the market.
In the case of graphics processors, this has been the trend for quite some time (and in fact, has always been the trend). Each generation of graphics processors has been made more powerful than the previous by adding more parallel pixel processors. The main clock for these chips have been kept steadily at the sub-GHz region. In fact, my old 4200 Geforce operates at 250 MHz.
It makes sense since the processing of a pixel's shading and texture data is very parallel. In theory you could have up to your resolution's number of processors (let's say 1920x1200 which means 2304000 pixels per frame to calculate). Of course, that many pixel processors would mean a severe bottleneck at the rasterize stage and I'm not sure how parallel that algorithm is. Then there's the limitations of the physics engine, etc.
But the point is, there's always room for more pixel processors.
Just like a normal HD, there is a "wear and tear" involved with each bit. For NOR flash, the charge is literally "forced" into the floating gate by a large voltage being applied across the dielectric. This occurs for each write. The erase, as far as I'm aware, uses quantum tunneling to discharge the floating gate which is a lot less harmful, I think, than hot carrier injection.
If each time a bit is written (and it's always written only if it's to be a "0" in the NOR case) the dielectric has some measurable wear (which I think it does) then the number of writes for each bit can be determined. Knowing the scatter-write algorithm and if the algorithm doesn't use a real random seed (like system time or user input), it's possible to map these writes to what the algorithm would've written (assuming you knew the erase-over pattern as well).
That's a lot of if's. Any good "eraser" worth its salt would use a real random number (user input or system time) to generate its erase pattern. It'd then be very difficult to tell where the "old" data is and where the "new" data is.
While I agree that it will not be a purely robot vs robot war, the idea is that since robots are expendable, less collateral damage will be necessary. That is, you won't have a "shoot-and-ask-questions-later" mentality because you can afford to have some robots get blown up by the other side if it meant not shooting innocent civilians.
The robots would often have to subdue humans, of course, but this can be done through non-lethal means. What battlebots gives is the ability to selectively use non-lethal force to make your opponent surrender rather than devastating lethal force. You need not even go after the infrastructure. Send in a million battlebots. Maybe half get destroyed. The other half subdues the enemy using non-lethal force. It takes longer to sway dissenters with non-lethal force but it also helps win the conquered population over a lot better if none of them are killed and their buildings, homes and daily lives still remain the same after the conquest.
The problem, of course, comes from when the guys controlling the robots decide that they should remain in control forever.../Or the robots themselves decide to take over//But then again, we'd get hot Summer Glau robots///Welcomes hot Summer Glau overlords....
College sports are a huge waste of money, time, and effort. Dancing and philosophy are usually not required for every freshman. I don't care if you take an english class, just don't force me to take one and tell me it's for my own good. My college curriculum didn't force me to take literature courses. I don't think many do. You're usually given a set of electives you can choose from. They range all the way from Greek history to anthropology to sex ed (yes, that was an elective, giggity).
If your college made literature mandatory, I'm truly sorry.
But that would require I actually have thoughts about literature. I don't. Don't take a literature class then.... Did you honestly not expect a literature class to expect you to have thoughts on literature?
But they don't force every student into it. Read the above. I have a hard time believing your (I'm gonna assume a fairly good university) school would make a curriculum that didn't give you a choice of electives that allows you to steer clear of any literature courses.
Well history actually happened, so it's a lot more important than fiction. I think you need to re-read what I wrote. The scholarly part comes from analyzing the historical trends. E.g. Oscar Wilde lived in a time of a severely pretentious and rigid Victorian upper-class society. This has a huge influence over his writings as they almost all contain satire of said society. This also contributed to his biting cynicism about nobility, marriage, love and earnestness (The Importance of Being Ernest was actually a pun, it made fun of the superficial reasons the main characters wanted to be named "Ernest", equating this with the superficial desire of the English upper class at the time to appear "serious" (or earnest if you will) about "important affairs". This was a time when it was actually *frowned* upon to read fiction because it was deemed "trivial" and "unimportant" by the pompous and pretentious gentlemen of the time) but also his hopeless idealism of beauty in the world (the desire for a better society).
One would, of course, be required to back up all of that speculation with references, either to quotes from Wilde himself or from quotes of the text in question that made the pattern apparent.
Now that I can agree with, at least in my mind, as art for geeks. As I said at the top of this. Not everyone will like everything that is out there. Some "art" people will go on about why this artist is good in front of one of their pieces where as we'll enjoy the aesthetics of mother boards at the local computer shop talking about why it's better than the one next to it.
Do I personally believe that there is a difference between what is ART and what isn't... Of course I do, but as we've proved (to death) it's all in how it's viewed and my view my be different than yours. If art to you is a well put together garden, a piece by H.R.Giger, or even a well crafted D&D character more power to you. But, please, don't take anything away from the men and women who make their livings creating their artistic expressions for others to enjoy. "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless."
Then what are they being? The next closest thing I can come up with is craftsmen at that point. They are using their talents in a craft make money. Then so would people in IT, we aren't programmer and admins, we're craftsmen. Craftsmen I suppose would be the best term. A thing to note about IT people. In my job, there are often times when I have to write little programs here and there but it's never more than just because I need a piece of code to do something. I know people who do it full time whether it be in IT or software engineering. There are some who do it because it's a good job and they do what they need to do to make the thing work. Then there are those who are real nerds about coding. They will spend hours on fully functional code just to make it elegant to please themselves. They are artists at that point. It need not be a guy painting or someone on a macbook in a coffee shop. Anytime anyone does something just for the hell of it because it tickles their inner nerd, they are an artist. Anytime they're not, they're being a laborer.
It's not a profession as much as a way of life. It takes artists to model movie sets and any form of entertainment. Just like acting. Is acting or being in a band or singing a profession? It's a fine line. It's a honed skill. Something that takes many years working. A 5-year old putting lego's together in a way that pleases him/her is just as much of an artist in my eye as a 20-year old set designer veteran. The point is the intent. If a set designer goes out of his way to make something that is, in his eyes, perfect. Even if, in utilitarian terms, the director, the audience and the movie studio would be just as happy with less, he is being an artist.
So no, I don't think it's about skill or way of life or anything other than the fact that you have an inner child that beckons you to do something just because you like it and for no other reason whatsoever. Be creative. Make a pretty garden. Build a model ship. Conjure up an elegant equation. Design an elegant and efficient circuit (when you're not required to for work). Think of a mathematical proof for an already proven theorem because you think the existing proof isn't elegant. Write an essay that you can talk about for hours about all the clever little literary devices you used. Make a character on Second Life. Anything you do that is totally useless but you will dote on for hours like total nerd is art.
I know many artists that create works they know they have to sell in order to eat Then they are not being artists when they create it.
will make works that appeal to the audience while still maintaining their integrity as an artist That is a contradiction in concepts.
some of the time they will be thinking of what will sell and, in the case of commissioned work, what the client wants to see Then what they create during those times is not art, it's product.
If it's all pointless fun, then why do they teach it in school? I would like to hear your opinion on professional sports, dancing, philosophy and pretty much all the other "useless" courses being taught at universities. Not everything needs to have utilitarian value to be a part of academia.
If there is no right or wrong, why did I pull straight Ds through HS and college english? I believe I covered this when I mentioned writing skills and composition.
How is it possible to make plausible coherent arguments about a completely arbitrary imaginary universe? Rene Descartes would like to have a word with you. Start with premise A (imaginary universe), assume it were true, see if what you claim makes any sense. If it does, you get points.
Actually, more important than that is whether you actually put your thoughts down on paper in a way that's easy to read and understand. Again, over-glorified writing class.
Literature as fluff entertainment is fine, I said as much already. But we don't watch Seinfeld in High School. Some people see it as a scholarly pursuit and want to force it down the throat of every kid. There are many universities that offer courses where you sit around and watch Family Guy. But universities feel that less popular and less modern forms of entertainment (literature) deserves equal attention and offers courses to expose students to them. It's still entertainment. The scholarly pursuit is in knowing the little details behind them and/or knowing about more of them. Think of it as a history/anthropology class but dedicated to fictional stories. I suppose you think history shouldn't be taught either.
I remember once in college, we were reading a story named A&P, set in a grocery store. The prof asked us to write a paragraph on why the author named it A&P. How the hell are we supposed to know, I wondered. So he pulls some shit out of his ass about A&P standing for Atlantic and Pacific and this having connotations of universality etc, etc. So I asked how he knew that A&P wasn't just the author's favorite grocery store. What evidence is there that the choice of title wasn't completely arbitrary? Well, absolutely none as it turns out. That's not scholarship, that's bullshit. If he had no historical and/or literary evidence then yes, it was just pulled out of his ass. But anecdotal examples aside, the scholarly part *does* come from match historical patterns with the literature at hand.
I always thought that it was all in the eyes of the painter/creator. If he/she makes something he/she likes and finds pretty/witty/pleasurable then that's really all there is to it now isn't it?
If he/she created it to sell regardless of whether he/she admires it, then it's utilitarian.
If the author hides their point behind multiple levels of symbolism such that it's impossible to tell what the author really meant, and people can spend entire careers arguing over what the work really means, then that's not ok. Why not? I suppose you think the ending to Pan's Labyrinth wasn't "ok" because the director intentionally left the choice of whether the whole thing was a fantasy or reality open and up for interpretation by the audience. Arts are, first and foremost, supposed to be entertaining. And literary analysis, even if there wasn't a point and/or the point is hidden, is very entertaining to some.
As far as I can tell with most great literature, the whole point is to argue about what the point in fact is, which is nothing more than pointless intellectual masturbation. GASP! You mean to tell me that they, somehow, serve some purpose of pleasure with no utilitarian benefit?! ZOMG the damn hippies!!
I tried really hard during HS and college to understand the method behind the madness of literature interpretation. You're trying too hard. As an engineering student, it took me a while to get used to the idea that there wasn't a "moment of epiphany" for literature classes. There is no magical conclusion that is right or wrong. It's just an exercise in mental masturbation. Those things are graded based on writing skills and being able to present plausible arguments in a coherent manner, not on whether or not you interpreted "correctly" because more often than not, there is no correct interpretation.
Like an episode of Family Guy or Seinfeld, don't try to read too much into it. It's just a bit of fun.
I happen to hate fiction. It just seems to be an utter waste of time, and I'm especially confused by those who spend time arguing about the meaning of a work of literature. It's all made up anyway! If the author really wanted to communicate a point he'd write an essay. I'm curious as to your thoughts on South Park, Schindler's list, anything John Lennon and just about every other form of "made up" stuff that was a vehicle for political and social commentary.
To quote John Lennon, time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
For those who will be dealing with low-level programming (and certainly every college will have plenty of courses to teach them), there is a curriculum to teach it to you. But, and as one of my professors stressed, computer *science* is a *science*. The ability to debug pointers is hardly the de-facto starting point of computer science. Linked lists, stacks, queues, etc. are. And you can teach that in any language and really, it's better to start with Java (or some other language with a GC) and just require students not use the API data structures.
You then get into all sorts of nice things like theory of automation, neural-p systems, algorithm scaling, etc. *NONE* of which requires intimate knowledge of low-level programming.
If one chooses to go the route of programming, by all means, most CS programs offer that tree of study. But the idea that somehow, those skills are the "core" of CS is very narrow.
Focus of the eye is a function of the shape of your eye. Since this thing is grooved (I would imagine each person has their own prescription to have these made), and let's imagine the display LED's project light according to its shape, it would be perfectly focused because the image would be shaped and formed to your eye.
The reason that you need to "focus" when viewing normal objects is because they are not shaped and do not reflect light, that conform to the shape of your eye.
It wouldn't need to. The reason that focus is necessary is because the direction of incoming light rays are not aimed at the focal point for our light receptors. A display that is curved (and with LED's that emit light in the direction towards the natural center of the eye) would be a naturally focused image. In fact, one simply can't help *but* to focus on it.
It's actually quite noticeable in single-color gradients. For instance, dark blue to light blue. Remember that 6-bits only offers 64 discrete color levels.
Slashdot Mirror
The last mile problem consists entirely of running wires from the repeater/hub to the home. This is especially a problem with the rural areas and is very much a problem in urban areas if we're to truly go all-digital (think not just internet but TV, phone, etc. all over IP). I'll agree that in urban areas, the advantage of fiber becomes less pronounced but then again, we aren't 20th in broadband in the world because our urban cities have crappy internet.
I meant flexible as in "you can run it virtually through anything anywhere" as you really just need 2 pairs of fiber cables for a link. Copper requires much more protection against corrosion, rust, etc.
Also, you can't bend copper that much either without loss of signal integrity.
But the rest of us continue to pay taxes (and will probably pay more to make up for the lost in tax revenue)? It's constantly amazing how many people can actually argue with a straight face that the poor corporations should pay less taxes "because it's easier to make a profit" and that they, generously, will pass those profits onto you the employee. As if a corporation running business is actually more important than having employees working and consumers spending. Trickle-down economics is a load of crap our rent-a-legislators and their buddy rich folks use to convince the masses that, somehow, taxing the rich less than the middle class is actually beneficial.
Middle class spending (i.e. not being taxed to death) is what drives business and the economy. I will agree that taxing a corporate entity may not be the best solution as really, you should be taxing the shareholders. If this discourages all the traders on Wall Street they can go find other jobs just like everyone else and still pay taxes. Hell, it might leave only the prudent investors who aren't just looking to make a quick buck overnight but actually invest in businesses in the long haul behind. Then maybe we won't have this volatile gotta-raise-the-bottom-line mentality that corporate CEO's use to gain short-term profits but sacrifice any long-term business growth.
Copper is not as flexible, has shorter range, and more susceptible to noise than fiber. A copper infrastructure would require more repeaters, hubs and insulation around the entire network and it would be less reliable due to EM interference and require protection against lightning and such. Fiber has none of these problems and is advantageous in every way except (currently) cost. Plastic fiber hopes to solve this last problem.
Because the vast majority of the US population values their daily Jerry Springer more than their daily /. article.
I would assume that the new wireless protocol will have a standard physical and MAC layer for everything that runs across it.
This is the reason why the FCC exists and has the ability to "grant" who and what can use what spectrum. When the white space spectrum is sold, broadcasters who use it now for TV will be required by law to stop broadcasting. If Google has their way, an open standard will be developed on how to "share" this spectrum. All devices will then have to conform to this standard to use that spectrum so that they play nice with each other.
Towers that currently broadcast TV will have 2 options. Either they stop service or they start broadcasting using the new digital protocol standard. People will have to buy new antennas to receive and decode this signal for their TV. I believe the government has offered a rebate for people of low-income to get these antennas for cheap.
Really though, I don't see the need for rebates. The market will adjust. If people who watch Jerry all of a sudden can't do it anymore, they'll go out and try to buy a new antenna. They'll obviously go towards the one that's cheapest and still works and competition will drive prices down. The rebate thing reeks of "let's not piss people off" mentality but, like the rest of our rent-a-congress, fails to understand that in the long run, government interference = bad for the market.
In the case of graphics processors, this has been the trend for quite some time (and in fact, has always been the trend). Each generation of graphics processors has been made more powerful than the previous by adding more parallel pixel processors. The main clock for these chips have been kept steadily at the sub-GHz region. In fact, my old 4200 Geforce operates at 250 MHz.
It makes sense since the processing of a pixel's shading and texture data is very parallel. In theory you could have up to your resolution's number of processors (let's say 1920x1200 which means 2304000 pixels per frame to calculate). Of course, that many pixel processors would mean a severe bottleneck at the rasterize stage and I'm not sure how parallel that algorithm is. Then there's the limitations of the physics engine, etc.
But the point is, there's always room for more pixel processors.
Just like a normal HD, there is a "wear and tear" involved with each bit. For NOR flash, the charge is literally "forced" into the floating gate by a large voltage being applied across the dielectric. This occurs for each write. The erase, as far as I'm aware, uses quantum tunneling to discharge the floating gate which is a lot less harmful, I think, than hot carrier injection.
If each time a bit is written (and it's always written only if it's to be a "0" in the NOR case) the dielectric has some measurable wear (which I think it does) then the number of writes for each bit can be determined. Knowing the scatter-write algorithm and if the algorithm doesn't use a real random seed (like system time or user input), it's possible to map these writes to what the algorithm would've written (assuming you knew the erase-over pattern as well).
That's a lot of if's. Any good "eraser" worth its salt would use a real random number (user input or system time) to generate its erase pattern. It'd then be very difficult to tell where the "old" data is and where the "new" data is.
While I agree that it will not be a purely robot vs robot war, the idea is that since robots are expendable, less collateral damage will be necessary. That is, you won't have a "shoot-and-ask-questions-later" mentality because you can afford to have some robots get blown up by the other side if it meant not shooting innocent civilians.
/Or the robots themselves decide to take over //But then again, we'd get hot Summer Glau robots ///Welcomes hot Summer Glau overlords....
The robots would often have to subdue humans, of course, but this can be done through non-lethal means. What battlebots gives is the ability to selectively use non-lethal force to make your opponent surrender rather than devastating lethal force. You need not even go after the infrastructure. Send in a million battlebots. Maybe half get destroyed. The other half subdues the enemy using non-lethal force. It takes longer to sway dissenters with non-lethal force but it also helps win the conquered population over a lot better if none of them are killed and their buildings, homes and daily lives still remain the same after the conquest.
The problem, of course, comes from when the guys controlling the robots decide that they should remain in control forever...
If your college made literature mandatory, I'm truly sorry. But that would require I actually have thoughts about literature. I don't. Don't take a literature class then....
Did you honestly not expect a literature class to expect you to have thoughts on literature? But they don't force every student into it. Read the above. I have a hard time believing your (I'm gonna assume a fairly good university) school would make a curriculum that didn't give you a choice of electives that allows you to steer clear of any literature courses. Well history actually happened, so it's a lot more important than fiction. I think you need to re-read what I wrote. The scholarly part comes from analyzing the historical trends. E.g. Oscar Wilde lived in a time of a severely pretentious and rigid Victorian upper-class society. This has a huge influence over his writings as they almost all contain satire of said society. This also contributed to his biting cynicism about nobility, marriage, love and earnestness (The Importance of Being Ernest was actually a pun, it made fun of the superficial reasons the main characters wanted to be named "Ernest", equating this with the superficial desire of the English upper class at the time to appear "serious" (or earnest if you will) about "important affairs". This was a time when it was actually *frowned* upon to read fiction because it was deemed "trivial" and "unimportant" by the pompous and pretentious gentlemen of the time) but also his hopeless idealism of beauty in the world (the desire for a better society).
One would, of course, be required to back up all of that speculation with references, either to quotes from Wilde himself or from quotes of the text in question that made the pattern apparent.
Now that I can agree with, at least in my mind, as art for geeks. As I said at the top of this. Not everyone will like everything that is out there. Some "art" people will go on about why this artist is good in front of one of their pieces where as we'll enjoy the aesthetics of mother boards at the local computer shop talking about why it's better than the one next to it.
Do I personally believe that there is a difference between what is ART and what isn't... Of course I do, but as we've proved (to death) it's all in how it's viewed and my view my be different than yours. If art to you is a well put together garden, a piece by H.R.Giger, or even a well crafted D&D character more power to you. But, please, don't take anything away from the men and women who make their livings creating their artistic expressions for others to enjoy. "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he
does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless
thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless."
- Oscar Wilde
So no, I don't think it's about skill or way of life or anything other than the fact that you have an inner child that beckons you to do something just because you like it and for no other reason whatsoever. Be creative. Make a pretty garden. Build a model ship. Conjure up an elegant equation. Design an elegant and efficient circuit (when you're not required to for work). Think of a mathematical proof for an already proven theorem because you think the existing proof isn't elegant. Write an essay that you can talk about for hours about all the clever little literary devices you used. Make a character on Second Life. Anything you do that is totally useless but you will dote on for hours like total nerd is art.
Actually, more important than that is whether you actually put your thoughts down on paper in a way that's easy to read and understand. Again, over-glorified writing class. Literature as fluff entertainment is fine, I said as much already. But we don't watch Seinfeld in High School. Some people see it as a scholarly pursuit and want to force it down the throat of every kid. There are many universities that offer courses where you sit around and watch Family Guy. But universities feel that less popular and less modern forms of entertainment (literature) deserves equal attention and offers courses to expose students to them. It's still entertainment. The scholarly pursuit is in knowing the little details behind them and/or knowing about more of them. Think of it as a history/anthropology class but dedicated to fictional stories. I suppose you think history shouldn't be taught either. I remember once in college, we were reading a story named A&P, set in a grocery store. The prof asked us to write a paragraph on why the author named it A&P. How the hell are we supposed to know, I wondered. So he pulls some shit out of his ass about A&P standing for Atlantic and Pacific and this having connotations of universality etc, etc. So I asked how he knew that A&P wasn't just the author's favorite grocery store. What evidence is there that the choice of title wasn't completely arbitrary? Well, absolutely none as it turns out. That's not scholarship, that's bullshit. If he had no historical and/or literary evidence then yes, it was just pulled out of his ass. But anecdotal examples aside, the scholarly part *does* come from match historical patterns with the literature at hand.
I always thought that it was all in the eyes of the painter/creator. If he/she makes something he/she likes and finds pretty/witty/pleasurable then that's really all there is to it now isn't it?
If he/she created it to sell regardless of whether he/she admires it, then it's utilitarian.
"The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless."
If you're doing it for the hell of it because it makes you happy, it's art.
Like an episode of Family Guy or Seinfeld, don't try to read too much into it. It's just a bit of fun.
To quote John Lennon, time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
For those who will be dealing with low-level programming (and certainly every college will have plenty of courses to teach them), there is a curriculum to teach it to you. But, and as one of my professors stressed, computer *science* is a *science*. The ability to debug pointers is hardly the de-facto starting point of computer science. Linked lists, stacks, queues, etc. are. And you can teach that in any language and really, it's better to start with Java (or some other language with a GC) and just require students not use the API data structures.
You then get into all sorts of nice things like theory of automation, neural-p systems, algorithm scaling, etc. *NONE* of which requires intimate knowledge of low-level programming.
If one chooses to go the route of programming, by all means, most CS programs offer that tree of study. But the idea that somehow, those skills are the "core" of CS is very narrow.
Focus of the eye is a function of the shape of your eye. Since this thing is grooved (I would imagine each person has their own prescription to have these made), and let's imagine the display LED's project light according to its shape, it would be perfectly focused because the image would be shaped and formed to your eye.
The reason that you need to "focus" when viewing normal objects is because they are not shaped and do not reflect light, that conform to the shape of your eye.
That explains how contact lenses are able to focus otherwise unfocused images to our eyes then.
It really depends on how low-power the devices are. If they can run in the order of uwatts then any small amount of power would do.
It wouldn't need to. The reason that focus is necessary is because the direction of incoming light rays are not aimed at the focal point for our light receptors. A display that is curved (and with LED's that emit light in the direction towards the natural center of the eye) would be a naturally focused image. In fact, one simply can't help *but* to focus on it.
It's actually quite noticeable in single-color gradients. For instance, dark blue to light blue. Remember that 6-bits only offers 64 discrete color levels.