I commute home from work late at night a lot (and head to work mid-day), so I get the opportunity to drive using the brakes as little as possible. The idea is to think ahead and figure out where you need to be to have the best chance of not having to slow down suddenly. I think of it as if I were having to pedal the car -- would I really want to speed up here, knowing I'm just going to have to waste that kinetic energy by braking?
I usually manage the first fifteen miles or so without touching the brakes once on the main road -- there's no acceptable way to slow down enough for the toll bridge without the brakes.
Other things I've tried:
Driving a bit more slowly (for me, this means staying within 1-2mph of the limit in most cases)
Making sure my tires are correctly inflated (you'd be surprised how low tires can be and still look okay)
Getting everything ready to go before starting the car (seatbelt, mirrors, etc)
Using the AC as little as possible (within reason) and leaving the windows up at highway speeds. I consider the vent/fan to be free.
Keeping the junk that I usually carry around out of the car. Yeah, it's useful to have a gallon of antifreeze, jumper cables, a battery charger etc -- but realistically, I'm never more than a few hundred meters from help, especially with a cell phone.
I don't have any hard data on how much this is helping -- but I do seem to go farther on a tank of gas than I used to. I generally get about 30mpg combined. ('97 Escort wagon w/automatic)
Actually, some of your students will no doubt find assembly language to be a very refreshing change of pace from more modern, OO languages. (The Java course I took left a bad taste in my mouth; one too many "GridBagArray" manipulations, and not enough number-crunching. I enjoy programming, not Graphic Arts.
I'm currently helping out with a course based around building a working Z80 computer. The programming is done in assembly and hand-assembled into machine code, to be programmed in Hex or Binary.
It's kind of fun to be able to program in *exactly* the language the computer uses, right down to the ones and zeros. I also enjoy knowing, for instance, exactly what the program will be doing 137 microseconds after a key is pressed.
If you're going to teach them Assembly, start them off programming PIC microcontrollers. The chips are inexpensive (or free if you request samples), the IDE is free from Microchip.com , and RS232-based programmers can be bought for around $20 on eBay. With 35 instructions, the 8-bit PIC core is pretty easy to understand, even for beginners to Assembly language. From there, you could transition to the 8080 or Z80 (to show the difference between RISC and CISC), and from there it's a small step to discussing the 8086 and the rest of the x86 family.
...Now if someone could only explain to me what possessed Intel to come up with the overlapping segment:address scheme. 4096 ways of addressing each byte, indeed!
I started by learning the PRINT, GOTO, LET, and FOR/NEXT commands, and learned to number lines by tens, so extra lines could be added later.
Oh, wait. "Basic" programming, not "BASIC" programming. Got it.
I would vote for (standard, nonproprietary) C or C++, since once you know that, it's a lot easier to figure out other modern languages (Java etc).
I would put off introducing pointers until they have a very good grasp of using standard variables and variable arrays, though. Then you might explain what a pointer is (using diagrams or animations), and walk them through a simple example.)
If they're not going to become programmers, FreeBASIC is a lot of fun, very easy to use, and can handle modern language structure (functions/subroutines, WHILE statements instead of GOTOs, etc.)
The people that grew up with the moon landings on TV are getting old and replaced by a generation that did not have such great role models.
Case in point? I'm 35; Apollo 17 (the last Moon shot) splashed down the day I was born. I'm old enough to run for President, and nobody has been on the moon in my lifetime. There are good, well-known science, math, and engineering role models out there (Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Burt Rutan, Bill Nye, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku etc) -- but they're nowhere near as conspicuous as famous athletes.
What would help is some good publicity for all of the cool science, math, and engineering being done. MythBusters, despite what the purists would say, has done a lot to encourage a love of science -- or at least something resembling the scientific process. Junkyard Wars, and even the various robot-battle shows help get kids (and us older kids) interested in science and technology.
How about fewer popularity-contest "reality" shows, and more technical/scientific contests? You can pump up the "cool factor" and still have quite a bit of good science content.
It was a joke. The number of 9s refers to the likelihood or unlikelihood of an event. 90% (0.9 probability) would be one nine. 99% (0.99 probability) would be two nines. A one-in-a-million chance (0.999999 probability) would be six nines etc.
Heck, they already firewall everybody -- why not just break IPs up into NATted subnets? The 10.x.x.x range should give them enough room for awhile, right?
From one consumer's perspective...
on
Bad Signs For Blu-ray
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· Score: 4, Insightful
* I don't have a HD TV, so what would be the point right now?
* It's my (probably uninformed as heck) impression that not that many movies are out on Blu-Ray. I'm more into documentaries (which would look superb in HD) -- are they available and affordable?
* The players are not cheap -- and judging from the pattern of all similar tech devices, in a year or three, they'll be under $100 or so -- and eventually be downright cheap, once the thrift stores have switched from selling VHS players to DVD players.
* Finally, I have a substantial DVD collection and am in no hurry to re-spend all that money (especially since, until I get used to HD quality, DVDs look fine to me.)
Yeah, yeah. If you want to drag your files kicking and screaming into the 1990s, you could go with an HP Jornada. They boot nearly instantly and run Windows CE. The keyboard's way too small, but otherwise they're cute.
DOS Edit does a good job at basic text editing -- and on any reasonably modern laptop, DOS should boot amazingly quickly.
If that's not fast enough for you, a TRS-80 Model 100 might do. They boot nearly instantly and have a built-in text editor. (The 32K max memory capacity might be a bit limiting, though.)
So why use the cloud? Keep all your important data on devices that you physically control, and encrypt anything you consider sensitive.
That said, I do like the lock-on-public-storage-space analogy the GP invokes, especially since our government seems to increasingly have a hard time remembering what the Constitution is.
Other than convenience, are there real reasons to use/trust cloud computing -- that is, to trust offsite storage with critical information?
Portal is just cool (never mind that it completely breaks conservation of energy). If more "difficult" concepts could be explained as well as in Portal ("speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"), I think a lot more people would find science not only accessible, but fun.
In other words, yes -- they could have their cake and eat it too! (sorry, couldn't resist.)
Re:We need to go in the other direction
on
Chrome Vs. IE 8
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· Score: 1
Kids these days. Back in my day, we not only didn't have no fancy ^W, we had to toggle in those ^Hs in binary.
(In other words, good point. Ya learn something every day. Thanks.)
We need to go in the other direction
on
Chrome Vs. IE 8
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· Score: 0, Troll
IE6 and even Firefox are already huge. I definitely plan to stick to Firefox. First of all, if it ain't broke, why break it?
...and I like Google -- and I really wanted to like Chrome, as well (after all, competition is good). But viewing the bite-size videos (how about a single overview, rather than having to keep clicking for a snippet on each feature?), I didn't see anything useful -- only a lot of integration with Google Search. Guys, I already have Google as my start page. I don't need a toolbar, custom browser, or especially any spyware^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsearch application to snoop through^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hindex my hard drive. Do no evil? Well, maybe. But their brand of "good" has rather long tentacles these days.
I guess it's this newfangled "cloud computing" thing. I'm condemning myself to the old-curmudgeon category by saying this, but they can have my local apps when they pry them from my cold dead hard drive. I'd rather build a computer from scratch and write my own apps in machine code than trust "the cloud" to keep my information safe and secure.
Slashdot Mirror
...EX-TER-MI-NATE!!!
I usually manage the first fifteen miles or so without touching the brakes once on the main road -- there's no acceptable way to slow down enough for the toll bridge without the brakes.
Other things I've tried:
I don't have any hard data on how much this is helping -- but I do seem to go farther on a tank of gas than I used to. I generally get about 30mpg combined. ('97 Escort wagon w/automatic)
Actually, some of your students will no doubt find assembly language to be a very refreshing change of pace from more modern, OO languages. (The Java course I took left a bad taste in my mouth; one too many "GridBagArray" manipulations, and not enough number-crunching. I enjoy programming, not Graphic Arts.
...Now if someone could only explain to me what possessed Intel to come up with the overlapping segment:address scheme. 4096 ways of addressing each byte, indeed!
I'm currently helping out with a course based around building a working Z80 computer. The programming is done in assembly and hand-assembled into machine code, to be programmed in Hex or Binary.
It's kind of fun to be able to program in *exactly* the language the computer uses, right down to the ones and zeros. I also enjoy knowing, for instance, exactly what the program will be doing 137 microseconds after a key is pressed.
If you're going to teach them Assembly, start them off programming PIC microcontrollers. The chips are inexpensive (or free if you request samples), the IDE is free from Microchip.com , and RS232-based programmers can be bought for around $20 on eBay. With 35 instructions, the 8-bit PIC core is pretty easy to understand, even for beginners to Assembly language. From there, you could transition to the 8080 or Z80 (to show the difference between RISC and CISC), and from there it's a small step to discussing the 8086 and the rest of the x86 family.
I started by learning the PRINT, GOTO, LET, and FOR/NEXT commands, and learned to number lines by tens, so extra lines could be added later.
Oh, wait. "Basic" programming, not "BASIC" programming. Got it.
I would vote for (standard, nonproprietary) C or C++, since once you know that, it's a lot easier to figure out other modern languages (Java etc).
I would put off introducing pointers until they have a very good grasp of using standard variables and variable arrays, though. Then you might explain what a pointer is (using diagrams or animations), and walk them through a simple example.)
If they're not going to become programmers, FreeBASIC is a lot of fun, very easy to use, and can handle modern language structure (functions/subroutines, WHILE statements instead of GOTOs, etc.)
The people that grew up with the moon landings on TV are getting old and replaced by a generation that did not have such great role models.
Case in point? I'm 35; Apollo 17 (the last Moon shot) splashed down the day I was born. I'm old enough to run for President, and nobody has been on the moon in my lifetime. There are good, well-known science, math, and engineering role models out there (Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Burt Rutan, Bill Nye, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku etc) -- but they're nowhere near as conspicuous as famous athletes.
What would help is some good publicity for all of the cool science, math, and engineering being done. MythBusters, despite what the purists would say, has done a lot to encourage a love of science -- or at least something resembling the scientific process. Junkyard Wars, and even the various robot-battle shows help get kids (and us older kids) interested in science and technology.
How about fewer popularity-contest "reality" shows, and more technical/scientific contests? You can pump up the "cool factor" and still have quite a bit of good science content.
So, the choices we get to vote on are chosen in advance by people with little understanding of the complexity of the issues involved?
Somehow this seems strangely familiar...
the short answer to this is to look at your swap partition as your extended virtual memory.
Seymour Cray said it best: "Memory is like an orgasm -- it's a lot better if you don't have to fake it."
"...four major Websites susceptible to the silent-but-deadly cross-site request forgery attack..."
I knew something smelled funny...
It was a joke. The number of 9s refers to the likelihood or unlikelihood of an event. 90% (0.9 probability) would be one nine. 99% (0.99 probability) would be two nines. A one-in-a-million chance (0.999999 probability) would be six nines etc.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics...
Check out the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. Definitely pixelated -- but the cars just outside the circle are quite visible.
...Not that Mr. Cheney is the secretive sort. Perish the thought!
OK, I officially feel old. I mean yeah, CDs are very 1980s (I'm thinking about migrating my mp3 collection to Ogg Vorbis someday), but still...
... Google searches for YOU!
Heck, they already firewall everybody -- why not just break IPs up into NATted subnets? The 10.x.x.x range should give them enough room for awhile, right?
* I don't have a HD TV, so what would be the point right now?
* It's my (probably uninformed as heck) impression that not that many movies are out on Blu-Ray. I'm more into documentaries (which would look superb in HD) -- are they available and affordable?
* The players are not cheap -- and judging from the pattern of all similar tech devices, in a year or three, they'll be under $100 or so -- and eventually be downright cheap, once the thrift stores have switched from selling VHS players to DVD players.
* Finally, I have a substantial DVD collection and am in no hurry to re-spend all that money (especially since, until I get used to HD quality, DVDs look fine to me.)
Yeah, yeah. If you want to drag your files kicking and screaming into the 1990s, you could go with an HP Jornada. They boot nearly instantly and run Windows CE. The keyboard's way too small, but otherwise they're cute.
DOS Edit does a good job at basic text editing -- and on any reasonably modern laptop, DOS should boot amazingly quickly.
If that's not fast enough for you, a TRS-80 Model 100 might do. They boot nearly instantly and have a built-in text editor. (The 32K max memory capacity might be a bit limiting, though.)
Back up everything and hide the media somewhere. If they subpoena it, deny everything.
I'd probably do something like this -- assuming I ever back up my data. Which, as far as you know, I don't.
So why use the cloud? Keep all your important data on devices that you physically control, and encrypt anything you consider sensitive.
That said, I do like the lock-on-public-storage-space analogy the GP invokes, especially since our government seems to increasingly have a hard time remembering what the Constitution is.
Other than convenience, are there real reasons to use/trust cloud computing -- that is, to trust offsite storage with critical information?
Portal is just cool (never mind that it completely breaks conservation of energy). If more "difficult" concepts could be explained as well as in Portal ("speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"), I think a lot more people would find science not only accessible, but fun.
In other words, yes -- they could have their cake and eat it too! (sorry, couldn't resist.)
I haven't played Star Control.
Dude -- do so. It's a classic for a reason!
Kids these days. Back in my day, we not only didn't have no fancy ^W, we had to toggle in those ^Hs in binary.
(In other words, good point. Ya learn something every day. Thanks.)
IE6 and even Firefox are already huge. I definitely plan to stick to Firefox. First of all, if it ain't broke, why break it?
...and I like Google -- and I really wanted to like Chrome, as well (after all, competition is good). But viewing the bite-size videos (how about a single overview, rather than having to keep clicking for a snippet on each feature?), I didn't see anything useful -- only a lot of integration with Google Search. Guys, I already have Google as my start page. I don't need a toolbar, custom browser, or especially any spyware^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsearch application to snoop through^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hindex my hard drive. Do no evil? Well, maybe. But their brand of "good" has rather long tentacles these days.
...and you kids stay the heck off my lawn, too.
I guess it's this newfangled "cloud computing" thing. I'm condemning myself to the old-curmudgeon category by saying this, but they can have my local apps when they pry them from my cold dead hard drive. I'd rather build a computer from scratch and write my own apps in machine code than trust "the cloud" to keep my information safe and secure.
If it can be played, it can be copied.
If nothing else, write your own video and audio drivers that "displays" the movie to a file.
I've actually had USB drives survive the washer-and-dryer bit. Not that I'd recommend it, but it's not necessarily fatal.
Here I thought they were gonna start a robotics-component market. What's this "handheld phone" business?