This question has been on my mind and it's relatively related to the topic of the article, so I'm interested to hear you folks feedback. How can we as computer scientists and IT pros be of service to society?
I've had some people tell me medical applications of CS are where it's at, others point to projects like OLPC, others say get rich and give away your money. Others still tell me to just do my work well and let the rest take care of itself. As a computer scientist, I feel like I have training and background in an area that's somewhat rare in society as a whole, and I feel like if I'm out to try to make an impact I should leverage those skills.
For instance, urban-rural digital divide. What have any of you done with regard to this? Anything in the developing world? Specifically applicable to the developing world, what's the role that technology can/should play? Where do you feel our field has the largest social impact?
PS: Yeah, I know it's youthful idealism. With all due respect, if you're just going to tell me that I'll just get slapped in the face by reality then you can save your breath; I hear that on a daily basis already.
Just out of curiousity - my understanding was that WiMAX was about 3mbps (yes bits/sec). I don't doubt the speeds you report but it struck me as odd. Does Clearwire use something besides WiMAX?
Love Portland by the way. Only been there once but loved every minute of it. Hell, I love the entire Pacific Northwest, hope I can get back up there sometime soon.
The problem of course is that until recently no one (or rather, a very small number of their customers) saw them as dumb pipes -- only with the rise of decently internet enabled phones has the idea started to occur to people in large numbers that "surprise! your phone is just like your computer". A surprisingly large number of people (in the US I think 80%+) don't use their phones for internet/data on a regular basis, so the idea that their voice bits are the same as their data bits isn't readily apparent. Mobile phone companies are kind of like the AOL-era ISPs, faced with a sudden, rapid change in the way users view their services, as well as a desire to create rich "walled garden" experiences for their subscribers. In my mind, the transition to a mobile company as a dumb pipe will happen eventually and unstoppably, it's just a matter of when.
To be fair, switching to "dumb pipe" providers is a fundamental change in their business model. While certainly not expensive enough to wholly justify their current margins, running the kind of networks these companies do is expensive, and it's a lot to ask for that kind of change to occur. Remember, it wasn't long ago that 3G was just something to rant about not having on/., and data access on phones is really just starting to take off.
Companies are coming around, I think, albeit slowly. Offering unlimited data plans is a really major step that fundamentally changes the way people use data on their phones. In time, that will become cheaper, mobile devices will become more ubiquitous and cheaper, and that's when I think you'll start to see more "dumb pipe" type plans being offerred. I don't see mobile companies and their current model completely going away for some time at least, due to the large portion of the market that still doesn't care about data. As more services are offered for mobile devices, however, I think that too will change.
Every browser has quirks. Things render differently even between Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. As long as the rendering engine's source code is different and people are running the browser on different platforms, you're going to have differences in the way that pages are rendered, and that's just a fact of life. This tool makes it easier to spot differences in the way your code renders on different browsers. I'm not sure what your sarcasm is adding (dystopian future of calculators?) but given that differences will always exist between browsers this tool seems well-designed and helpful.
Great, great, response. I know the poster is not asking whether or not he/she should do it, and I'm not really an "older" reader (currently trying not to piss my 20's away), but perhaps they'll find this useful as well.
You have a blessing in front of you in having a strong desire to do something, namely, to go to school and get your CS degree. If that's what you are passionate about right now then you need to take advantage of that energy and do it, because you'll make the most effective use of your effort by doing so. I am at a top CS program and many of my classmates are so-called "non-traditional" (read: have more life experience than your average student) students, and not only are they often the ones setting the curve, they ask the best questions, they are motivated, they take advantage of the opportunities available to them better than most, and all in all they enrich the quality of our program.
Some advice I might offer as a young student. Most of my friends who are older students tend to be a bit disconnected from the rest of the University. Don't make that mistake: as much as you might think so, you're not a graduate student, even if you're the same age as them, and your academic life does not only revolve around your department. At the very least, you'll have to fill gen ed requirements. More importantly, as an undergraduate, the university has resources that can be very helpful and enriching to your education. Make friends with some (highly motivated) younger students (even outside your dept) who tend to be more aware of these things and can help you get more connected.
You should be focused on your objective. But undergraduate college years are an excellent time to take some risks and go different directions than you may have previously seen yourself going. Do that: universities are breeding grounds for opportunity, and you might be surprised at what doors you might open for yourself by trying something new.
Seriously. It will save the costs of powering them. Our networking research lab is in desperate need of modern machines -- it's hard to get funding these days to update our equipment. The other groups in our CS department could really make use of it as well... I could even arrange pickup/delivery (we're on the US east coast). Contact me if you're interested.
Was it a microUSB port you saw? That is what my LG phone has for connecting to my computer and charging. It's definitely not non-standard, although it was the first device I got that used the micro.
To be fair some are harder to see than others; I had to try a couple times for this one. I was showing the circle and dot one to a friend and I had to coach him through part of it; he saw it eventually but I don't think he got how intently he needed to stare at the red dot. I don't doubt some illusions don't affect some people though.
I'm not sure if that was directed at me but I definitely agree with you that 1549 was a freak accident. Nothing you can do about something like what happened there besides make sure your pilots are trained to perform as admirably as the captain did in this instance.
Even though/. was down, I still managed to not get any work done. Maybe it had something to do with the fact I kept rechecking to see if it were back up. Or maybe I should just stop blaming my laziness on external factors and just admit it is a personal problem: I would still find ways to not do work even without Slashdot!:P
Out of curiosity has anyone ever actually seen a "Starter" version of Windows in use? I don't think I ever have. I wonder what portion of users actually use that version. That's not, of course, any justification -- I still think this is a really shitty move.
From my perusal of TFA, I think the passwords were actually hashed in the DB, but the guy who cracked the site broke them: http://hackedphpbb.blogspot.com/
The response from phpBB.com seemed to indicate that the only passwords that were cracked were from those accounts that had been created in an older system, and had not logged in under the newer system. Given the large number of spam accounts on that site, I wonder if the majority of those cracked, not recently logged in accounts were spam accounts, and as such if the passwords are not representative of the userbase at large: http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=29973
While they raise a couple interesting points, my first impression is that they broadly generalize from a small sample set. Specifically, they only look at about 10 Java projects (including Tomcat, Hibernate, and JBoss), and proceed to conclude that the open source community is unresponsive to security threats. Conspicuously absent are any Linux distributions (let alone any *BSD... they have obviously never heard of OpenBSD), OpenOffice, or any tools likely to make it into desktop use for the UK government.
Oh, and the solution to all this apparently is to rely on their company's security auditing services to make sure that your company doesn't have "hidden security holes".... Riiiight....
Is there a problem with Microsoft using BSD code in their proprietary products? The developers clearly understood that was a potential outcome when they placed their code under a BSD license. As a result, they probably don't mind
That said, would it be nice to have seen MS contribute some code back? Yes, but that was not required by the license so there is no problem. That is the whole point of the BSD-style licenses: you can take my code and do whatever you want with it; you are under no further obligation to me.
Try https://www.forge.mil/ . Once you get past the invalid certificate (allegedly because the DoD CA isn't included with most browsers) you'll get an SSL error.
I think it is more that the company is ok with people using what works for them. Obviously if you are a developer you are going to need to know how to use Windows to do development, because, well, Microsoft makes stuff for Windows (and many people quite like that development environment, anyway). But as far as the laptop that you carry around to meetings, no one but the most asinine manager would get on your case about it. That doesn't mean you won't get a jab or two from your co-workers of course.
The thing about Microsoft is, it is a big company made up of smart people who really want to make good products. People are extremely willing to dogfood other products internally. But it's ludicrous to think they would tell people that they can't use some other platform, as long as it works. I mean seriously, would you want to work somewhere that told you, "You have to use OSX, we don't allow anyone to use any other operating system?" I certainly wouldn't; that's shallow and would hurt productivity for those who prefer alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
This question has been on my mind and it's relatively related to the topic of the article, so I'm interested to hear you folks feedback. How can we as computer scientists and IT pros be of service to society?
I've had some people tell me medical applications of CS are where it's at, others point to projects like OLPC, others say get rich and give away your money. Others still tell me to just do my work well and let the rest take care of itself. As a computer scientist, I feel like I have training and background in an area that's somewhat rare in society as a whole, and I feel like if I'm out to try to make an impact I should leverage those skills.
For instance, urban-rural digital divide. What have any of you done with regard to this? Anything in the developing world? Specifically applicable to the developing world, what's the role that technology can/should play? Where do you feel our field has the largest social impact?
PS: Yeah, I know it's youthful idealism. With all due respect, if you're just going to tell me that I'll just get slapped in the face by reality then you can save your breath; I hear that on a daily basis already.
Just out of curiousity - my understanding was that WiMAX was about 3mbps (yes bits/sec). I don't doubt the speeds you report but it struck me as odd. Does Clearwire use something besides WiMAX?
Love Portland by the way. Only been there once but loved every minute of it. Hell, I love the entire Pacific Northwest, hope I can get back up there sometime soon.
Or they can just come back in a couple days and do it again, hassle avoided.
The problem of course is that until recently no one (or rather, a very small number of their customers) saw them as dumb pipes -- only with the rise of decently internet enabled phones has the idea started to occur to people in large numbers that "surprise! your phone is just like your computer". A surprisingly large number of people (in the US I think 80%+) don't use their phones for internet/data on a regular basis, so the idea that their voice bits are the same as their data bits isn't readily apparent. Mobile phone companies are kind of like the AOL-era ISPs, faced with a sudden, rapid change in the way users view their services, as well as a desire to create rich "walled garden" experiences for their subscribers. In my mind, the transition to a mobile company as a dumb pipe will happen eventually and unstoppably, it's just a matter of when.
To be fair, switching to "dumb pipe" providers is a fundamental change in their business model. While certainly not expensive enough to wholly justify their current margins, running the kind of networks these companies do is expensive, and it's a lot to ask for that kind of change to occur. Remember, it wasn't long ago that 3G was just something to rant about not having on /., and data access on phones is really just starting to take off.
Companies are coming around, I think, albeit slowly. Offering unlimited data plans is a really major step that fundamentally changes the way people use data on their phones. In time, that will become cheaper, mobile devices will become more ubiquitous and cheaper, and that's when I think you'll start to see more "dumb pipe" type plans being offerred. I don't see mobile companies and their current model completely going away for some time at least, due to the large portion of the market that still doesn't care about data. As more services are offered for mobile devices, however, I think that too will change.
Yeah, I suppose... when I made the comment it was modded "insightful" rather than "funny" so I guess I read it in a bit of a different light.
Every browser has quirks. Things render differently even between Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. As long as the rendering engine's source code is different and people are running the browser on different platforms, you're going to have differences in the way that pages are rendered, and that's just a fact of life. This tool makes it easier to spot differences in the way your code renders on different browsers. I'm not sure what your sarcasm is adding (dystopian future of calculators?) but given that differences will always exist between browsers this tool seems well-designed and helpful.
Great, great, response. I know the poster is not asking whether or not he/she should do it, and I'm not really an "older" reader (currently trying not to piss my 20's away), but perhaps they'll find this useful as well.
You have a blessing in front of you in having a strong desire to do something, namely, to go to school and get your CS degree. If that's what you are passionate about right now then you need to take advantage of that energy and do it, because you'll make the most effective use of your effort by doing so. I am at a top CS program and many of my classmates are so-called "non-traditional" (read: have more life experience than your average student) students, and not only are they often the ones setting the curve, they ask the best questions, they are motivated, they take advantage of the opportunities available to them better than most, and all in all they enrich the quality of our program.
Some advice I might offer as a young student. Most of my friends who are older students tend to be a bit disconnected from the rest of the University. Don't make that mistake: as much as you might think so, you're not a graduate student, even if you're the same age as them, and your academic life does not only revolve around your department. At the very least, you'll have to fill gen ed requirements. More importantly, as an undergraduate, the university has resources that can be very helpful and enriching to your education. Make friends with some (highly motivated) younger students (even outside your dept) who tend to be more aware of these things and can help you get more connected.
You should be focused on your objective. But undergraduate college years are an excellent time to take some risks and go different directions than you may have previously seen yourself going. Do that: universities are breeding grounds for opportunity, and you might be surprised at what doors you might open for yourself by trying something new.
Good luck!
Did you look at the screen shot in the article? It actually doesn't look half bad.
Seriously. It will save the costs of powering them. Our networking research lab is in desperate need of modern machines -- it's hard to get funding these days to update our equipment. The other groups in our CS department could really make use of it as well... I could even arrange pickup/delivery (we're on the US east coast). Contact me if you're interested.
Was it a microUSB port you saw? That is what my LG phone has for connecting to my computer and charging. It's definitely not non-standard, although it was the first device I got that used the micro.
To be fair some are harder to see than others; I had to try a couple times for this one. I was showing the circle and dot one to a friend and I had to coach him through part of it; he saw it eventually but I don't think he got how intently he needed to stare at the red dot. I don't doubt some illusions don't affect some people though.
Anyway, my contribution to this thread: http://allpsych.com/opticalillusions/images/jesus.jpg
Stare at that for thirty seconds or so then look at a blank wall and blink a couple times.
Because some mods obviously didn't get it that was an April Fools Joke from 2007.
I'm not sure if that was directed at me but I definitely agree with you that 1549 was a freak accident. Nothing you can do about something like what happened there besides make sure your pilots are trained to perform as admirably as the captain did in this instance.
I read recently an article about how they actually use falcons at JFK to prevent bird strikes.
This seems to be about that, though I'm not sure if it was the article I saw: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/02/01/2009-02-01_untitled__falcon01m.html
Even though /. was down, I still managed to not get any work done. Maybe it had something to do with the fact I kept rechecking to see if it were back up. Or maybe I should just stop blaming my laziness on external factors and just admit it is a personal problem: I would still find ways to not do work even without Slashdot! :P
Out of curiosity has anyone ever actually seen a "Starter" version of Windows in use? I don't think I ever have. I wonder what portion of users actually use that version. That's not, of course, any justification -- I still think this is a really shitty move.
From my perusal of TFA, I think the passwords were actually hashed in the DB, but the guy who cracked the site broke them: http://hackedphpbb.blogspot.com/
The response from phpBB.com seemed to indicate that the only passwords that were cracked were from those accounts that had been created in an older system, and had not logged in under the newer system. Given the large number of spam accounts on that site, I wonder if the majority of those cracked, not recently logged in accounts were spam accounts, and as such if the passwords are not representative of the userbase at large: http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=29973
As someone who has never played EVE before, I found this recording that explains what happened to be interesting. http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/0902/mittani.mp3 (fyi: mildly nsfw)
My first instinct is to laugh at all this, but it is amazing how seriously so many people take this. The internet never ceases to amaze me.
A link to the company's study: http://www.fortify.com/servlet/download/user/OpenSource_Security_WP_V5.pdf
While they raise a couple interesting points, my first impression is that they broadly generalize from a small sample set. Specifically, they only look at about 10 Java projects (including Tomcat, Hibernate, and JBoss), and proceed to conclude that the open source community is unresponsive to security threats. Conspicuously absent are any Linux distributions (let alone any *BSD... they have obviously never heard of OpenBSD), OpenOffice, or any tools likely to make it into desktop use for the UK government.
Oh, and the solution to all this apparently is to rely on their company's security auditing services to make sure that your company doesn't have "hidden security holes".... Riiiight....
Is there a problem with Microsoft using BSD code in their proprietary products? The developers clearly understood that was a potential outcome when they placed their code under a BSD license. As a result, they probably don't mind
That said, would it be nice to have seen MS contribute some code back? Yes, but that was not required by the license so there is no problem. That is the whole point of the BSD-style licenses: you can take my code and do whatever you want with it; you are under no further obligation to me.
The Economist this week has an interesting article on subsidized broadband and its economic impact:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13024563
I do not necessarily agree or disagree with the opinions presented within the article; I just think it is an interesting and timely take on the topic.
Try https://www.forge.mil/ . Once you get past the invalid certificate (allegedly because the DoD CA isn't included with most browsers) you'll get an SSL error.
# Little laptop takes 15 seconds to boot from grub. Which is about half the speed of Ubuntu/Fedora/OpenSUSE
Do you mean that Ubuntu/Fedora/OpenSUSE boot in 30 seconds, or in 7.5? I think I know the answer, but I just want to be sure.
Extend that: everyone is entitled to an opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
I think it is more that the company is ok with people using what works for them. Obviously if you are a developer you are going to need to know how to use Windows to do development, because, well, Microsoft makes stuff for Windows (and many people quite like that development environment, anyway). But as far as the laptop that you carry around to meetings, no one but the most asinine manager would get on your case about it. That doesn't mean you won't get a jab or two from your co-workers of course.
The thing about Microsoft is, it is a big company made up of smart people who really want to make good products. People are extremely willing to dogfood other products internally. But it's ludicrous to think they would tell people that they can't use some other platform, as long as it works. I mean seriously, would you want to work somewhere that told you, "You have to use OSX, we don't allow anyone to use any other operating system?" I certainly wouldn't; that's shallow and would hurt productivity for those who prefer alternatives.