I've been to a handful of science museums both here in North America and in Europe. I've rarely been as impressed as I have with my home Toronto's own Ontario Science Centre. Forget what people say about it being great mostly for kids. It's great for everyone, not everything is targeted at the younger ones. There's a significant amount of hands-on exhibits, active and animated ones, in quite a variety. I highly recommend it.
I did my undergrad in Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. I had a strong interest in architectures and compilers, but undegrad left me woefully underqualified for jobs involving either. I could have gone into the workforce, but I don't think I would have gotten a great job. After two years, I don't think I would have had the opportunities I wanted.
I did my Master's in Computer Engineering on parallel architectures and pipeline multithreading. It was a great experience, got to co-author a paper (free trip to Europe) and author another coming up soon. I learned a lot from the courses but mostly from thesis work. You get to explore a lot of interesting ideas that you may not have time for when working, but will enhance your job. And you aren't rushed as much as you might be in the workplace. A lot will depend on a thesis topic and your supervisor, though.
I finished my degree recently and am now a Java JIT compiler developer at IBM. It's a great job and I'm definitely being tapped for some of the specialized and cutting-edge knowledge I got while doing my thesis. I didn't actually apply for this job, but since there was a relationship with my research group and this department, I just got a phonecall from my current manager asking me if I would like to come in for an interview.
I slacked of a lot in my master's program, and I regret not putting more into it. However, on the other side of completion, I am definitely glad I did it. I have only been in this department a few months, but already people come to me for help with processor architecture questions. I am treated as an expert, and feel quite happy about that.
I always have a PhD in the back of my head, but I don't think it is something I really want to do. It is a much longer investment, and the return on investment is actually worse from what I hear from my PhD friends.
I am both pleased and gratified that both parties who, judging from their respective rants, are both opinionated people on the opposite sides of an important technology debate are communicating. I'm sure this has already been said, but we need more people to get off their high horses and meet in the middle like these two did. Unexpected, but very much welcome.
Multi-Core is a way to go. And its easy to write software for it.
Sure. Try it for real applications. OpenMP is great, when parallelism is possible and dependences can be removed or encapsulated.
Parallel programming is exceedingly difficult for most general purpose software. What's more, there is a plethora of much-used legacy software that needs conversion to take advantage of parallel architectures.
Even worse, a number of processor manufacturers are moving towards simplifying the cores and putting more of them on. So sequential code will run worse than before.
Don't forget to mention how friendly and welcoming Australia is to foreigners.
I was looking for a reference, and though the wikipedia entry still needs citations, I still find it funny that in an article on xenophopia Australia is used as the first example.
Arduino (and microcontroller platforms in general) and FPGAs are completely different paradigms. Though many FPGAs come with pre-configured soft processors, programming an FPGA comes down to defining a hardware level description of a design. It's all fun and games when you play with schematic design, but without Verilog or VHDL, it is a complete waste. There are decent experimentation systems that have a plethora of features, but the second-year Computer Engineering students I TA have more than enough trouble using FPGAs for simple tasks (even with usable pre-designed IP cores).
I think effectively using a microcontroller would be better suited to this age group. There are definitely levels of complexity you can add as time goes on. Many tools can allow almost drag-and-drop programmability for these devices, you will be able to use C, and when you want to learn more about processors, experience with a decent RISC assembly language will be useful if your son decides to pursue computer-related work later on in life. Combining the microcontroller with an electronics kit means even more uses it can be put to, and is a lot more fun.
(whether you write BASIC, Fortran, C, or VHDL, it's all basically the same)
Okay, C & Fortran are procedural programming languages. BASIC... well, it is a programming language, too. But how does VHDL get into this list?
Honestly, I'm currently a TA for a Computer Engineering second-year FPGA design course, and if there's one thing I've learned it is that there's probably not a whole lot worse ideas you can get into your head than to think that there's some sort of usable correlation between a programming language and an HDL.
You know, in addition to a decent electronics lab, you could tack on a decent microcontroller. They are cheap and easy to program with USB JTAG. There are programs out there that you can use out of the box, I/O pins from the package can be used to drive components on a breadboard, and in the future there's the opportunity to program on a microcontroller, right down to a RISC assembly language.
Great idea. I don't know much about Craft, but Make always has a good breadth of ideas ranging in complexity and use. It's also a good tool for teaching the adaptability of technology and sustainability. Just don't tell them that part. As subscriptions are not monthly, committing to a project per issue is not onerous.
Nobody said they always succeed. Besides, the Middle East conflict is thought by many to be a territorial dispute that was sublimated into a religious conflict. As a religious mindset wasn't really the root cause here, I'm not sure the conflict relates to GP's comment.
Re:What the problem with Gmail?
on
Good Email For Kids?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You need to be there too if you want to make sure your kids learn the appropriate response to spam.
Ahh, the low-tech solution. Or, as I prefer to call it, good parenting.
A fair amount of the future of Solaris is tied to new Sun hardware, as far as I'm concerned. Development of an OS that can target (for finely-tuned performance) the type of multicore systems Sun is leaning towards would be very important.
This is not as big a deal with the multicore and simultaneous multithreading available in the Niagara processors, but there is a potential for Solaris to be the only (or best) choice for extracting every ounce of performance with the new Rock processor they have coming.
I was recently at a talk by Marc Tremblay of Sun about the Rock's Transactional Memory model and scout threading performance enhancements. They should provide performance benefits out of the box, but an OS tuned to use Rock's new architecture would be just as important as the processor itself in determining the future success of both.
The jokes are funnier when you've made puns on some real comments, or, god forbid, some of the actual content. Reading the drivel that's been posted on this/. article so far has wasted precious minutes of my life that I will never get back.
You are not funny, people. I can't wait until there are more comments and you drop below my threshold.
Takes notice all the way to pressuring other industries out of intelligent moves like this one. The RIAA, and groups like it are far from done trying to squeeze P2P until they can have arrested every 12-year-old who has ever traded an MP3.
The United States is having its problems. The new "power" president Bush has obtained boils down (at least domestically) to little more than a fiscal stranglehold on the country, a limitation on citizen's rights, and xenophobic-type immigration and travel policies for foreigners.
Political moves like this are inherently unstable, especially in a country like the United States. Bush's government is fiscally irresponsible. However, the true power in the country (the corporations) will lose faith in a Republican Presidency as soon as this government's economic plans start falling apart. Once that happens, he won't stand much of a chance.
Limitations on citizen's rights can only go so far. We've all heard the secret rumours of the CIA and FBI and whomever having all this information on the American people. Things like the Patriot Act and such only mean that these organizations can do more of what they ALREADY DO out in the open. Once citizen's rights are more impinged to the point that the average Joe can no longer buy his smokes and beer as easy as usual, the next election will more likely than not prove that a US government can do anything they want, as long as they don't upset the delicate retail balance on which its people are addicted.
As for immigration, North America, left to its own devices is a dwindling population of high-priced workers. As soon as employers have to start paying more when there are fewer immigrants, and consumers have to pay more as a result, that too will have to change.
As for Iraq, only the narrow-minded see it in black and white. Yes, the United States Army has done a bang-up job (bang in the negative sense), but ask yourself this: do you think the average Shiite or Kurd was panting to keep Saddam Hussein in power? He was a murderous, power-hungry dictator that raped an entire country of resources and a decent quality of life. Yes, Bush went in for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is going badly. I can't reconcile my views on the situation in Iraq, but I know doing nothing is against everything I think the West should stand for.
The attractiveness of terrorism against the West is more likely rooted in the ease in which people are recruited. Education and dogma of the Western Businessman as the enemy of the Arab, and a serious poverty problem make poor Arabs who are being kept down by their own governments and international embargoes caused by these nations problematic take on international "diplomacy" easier targets for recruitment as suicide bombers. Why not, if the leaders of these terrorists groups can promise that your family will be cared for (when you cannot)? Deal with THESE problems and we may yet get somewhere.
When you blame it all on Bush, really you're just saying "Well, it's not my fault!". Wake up. It is all our faults.
Did you not hear all about phone systems and long-distance phone networks getting clogged with calls? If it's anything like here in Canada, when phone systems are backed up, priority can only be obtained for connections by emergency services.
On a dedicated network, using a web-based chatline is a simple (and simple is beautiful) way for the banks to conference call with the treasury and whatnot without worrying about phone problems. The whole point is that the banks are legitimately worried about becoming targets, this makes sense.
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
Ergonomics means designing equipment, or modifying a workplace to fit the workers (or users) rather than the other way around. This includes things like:
Comfortable work environments (chairs, desks, etc);
Intuitive UI design for electronic and mechanical equipment (fax machines, even things like placing a light switch by all doors rather than on an opposite wall);
Uses of products to increase efficiency. Basically letting the workplace equipment do tedious work, freeing the worker to move on to more important things (like a printer that hole punches or staples automatically).
A little bit of personal research above and beyond the stupid buzzwords people use would give a good idea as to why Apple's iPod is, in fact, much more ergonomic than most players.
A smooth, compact surface means slipping an iPod into your pocket is a lot easier than some rubber-coated monstrosity;
When you accidentally jerk the earphones out of the jack, the freakishly well-designed iPod pauses your tunes until you can get it back in;
When you plug in a set of earphones, obviously with the intent of listening to music, the iPod turns itself on (usually I'm about to run off somewhere, so the design concept here was to fit the use of an iPod better into my routine, with minimal impact);
A touch-sensetive scroll-wheel that allows scrolling at slow speed and increasing to fast speed the more you scroll (no more repetitive strain push-button motion);
Simple interface that combines a reduced number of buttons for ease of use, implementing commonly-used features like scrolling, volume control and track control on the same surface.
The list really does go on...
I really challenge anyone to give a list of reasons why some other player is superior that consists of items beyond "it's comfortable to hold in your hand." Anyone who thinks that ergonomics means how something feels in their hand really needs to think why THAT is their central criterion.
You know, I've never really understood that line... I thought a parsec was a distance. ~3.26 l.y. specifically. Wouldn't you measure the speed of a ship by the time it takes to go a set distance?
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't FOX News "reinvent" the news every day?
I've been to a handful of science museums both here in North America and in Europe. I've rarely been as impressed as I have with my home Toronto's own Ontario Science Centre. Forget what people say about it being great mostly for kids. It's great for everyone, not everything is targeted at the younger ones. There's a significant amount of hands-on exhibits, active and animated ones, in quite a variety. I highly recommend it.
I did my undergrad in Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. I had a strong interest in architectures and compilers, but undegrad left me woefully underqualified for jobs involving either. I could have gone into the workforce, but I don't think I would have gotten a great job. After two years, I don't think I would have had the opportunities I wanted.
I did my Master's in Computer Engineering on parallel architectures and pipeline multithreading. It was a great experience, got to co-author a paper (free trip to Europe) and author another coming up soon. I learned a lot from the courses but mostly from thesis work. You get to explore a lot of interesting ideas that you may not have time for when working, but will enhance your job. And you aren't rushed as much as you might be in the workplace. A lot will depend on a thesis topic and your supervisor, though.
I finished my degree recently and am now a Java JIT compiler developer at IBM. It's a great job and I'm definitely being tapped for some of the specialized and cutting-edge knowledge I got while doing my thesis. I didn't actually apply for this job, but since there was a relationship with my research group and this department, I just got a phonecall from my current manager asking me if I would like to come in for an interview.
I slacked of a lot in my master's program, and I regret not putting more into it. However, on the other side of completion, I am definitely glad I did it. I have only been in this department a few months, but already people come to me for help with processor architecture questions. I am treated as an expert, and feel quite happy about that.
I always have a PhD in the back of my head, but I don't think it is something I really want to do. It is a much longer investment, and the return on investment is actually worse from what I hear from my PhD friends.
I am both pleased and gratified that both parties who, judging from their respective rants, are both opinionated people on the opposite sides of an important technology debate are communicating. I'm sure this has already been said, but we need more people to get off their high horses and meet in the middle like these two did. Unexpected, but very much welcome.
Multi-Core is a way to go. And its easy to write software for it.
Sure. Try it for real applications. OpenMP is great, when parallelism is possible and dependences can be removed or encapsulated.
Parallel programming is exceedingly difficult for most general purpose software. What's more, there is a plethora of much-used legacy software that needs conversion to take advantage of parallel architectures.
Even worse, a number of processor manufacturers are moving towards simplifying the cores and putting more of them on. So sequential code will run worse than before.
>a sacrificial offering by terminating the "rouge" employee.
I imagine there would be a number of red faces in the company.
Not for long.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
Ah, War Games was so much fun.
Don't forget to mention how friendly and welcoming Australia is to foreigners.
I was looking for a reference, and though the wikipedia entry still needs citations, I still find it funny that in an article on xenophopia Australia is used as the first example.
Arduino (and microcontroller platforms in general) and FPGAs are completely different paradigms. Though many FPGAs come with pre-configured soft processors, programming an FPGA comes down to defining a hardware level description of a design. It's all fun and games when you play with schematic design, but without Verilog or VHDL, it is a complete waste. There are decent experimentation systems that have a plethora of features, but the second-year Computer Engineering students I TA have more than enough trouble using FPGAs for simple tasks (even with usable pre-designed IP cores).
I think effectively using a microcontroller would be better suited to this age group. There are definitely levels of complexity you can add as time goes on. Many tools can allow almost drag-and-drop programmability for these devices, you will be able to use C, and when you want to learn more about processors, experience with a decent RISC assembly language will be useful if your son decides to pursue computer-related work later on in life. Combining the microcontroller with an electronics kit means even more uses it can be put to, and is a lot more fun.
(whether you write BASIC, Fortran, C, or VHDL, it's all basically the same)
Okay, C & Fortran are procedural programming languages. BASIC... well, it is a programming language, too. But how does VHDL get into this list?
Honestly, I'm currently a TA for a Computer Engineering second-year FPGA design course, and if there's one thing I've learned it is that there's probably not a whole lot worse ideas you can get into your head than to think that there's some sort of usable correlation between a programming language and an HDL.
You know, in addition to a decent electronics lab, you could tack on a decent microcontroller. They are cheap and easy to program with USB JTAG. There are programs out there that you can use out of the box, I/O pins from the package can be used to drive components on a breadboard, and in the future there's the opportunity to program on a microcontroller, right down to a RISC assembly language.
Great idea. I don't know much about Craft, but Make always has a good breadth of ideas ranging in complexity and use. It's also a good tool for teaching the adaptability of technology and sustainability. Just don't tell them that part. As subscriptions are not monthly, committing to a project per issue is not onerous.
I think you'll find your fair share of stupidity among all religions -- indeed, among all peoples.
No truer statement has ever been made.
Nobody said they always succeed. Besides, the Middle East conflict is thought by many to be a territorial dispute that was sublimated into a religious conflict. As a religious mindset wasn't really the root cause here, I'm not sure the conflict relates to GP's comment.
You need to be there too if you want to make sure your kids learn the appropriate response to spam.
Ahh, the low-tech solution. Or, as I prefer to call it, good parenting.
Bravo.
A fair amount of the future of Solaris is tied to new Sun hardware, as far as I'm concerned. Development of an OS that can target (for finely-tuned performance) the type of multicore systems Sun is leaning towards would be very important.
This is not as big a deal with the multicore and simultaneous multithreading available in the Niagara processors, but there is a potential for Solaris to be the only (or best) choice for extracting every ounce of performance with the new Rock processor they have coming.
I was recently at a talk by Marc Tremblay of Sun about the Rock's Transactional Memory model and scout threading performance enhancements. They should provide performance benefits out of the box, but an OS tuned to use Rock's new architecture would be just as important as the processor itself in determining the future success of both.
That's not grammar, that's spelling.
The jokes are funnier when you've made puns on some real comments, or, god forbid, some of the actual content. Reading the drivel that's been posted on this /. article so far has wasted precious minutes of my life that I will never get back.
You are not funny, people. I can't wait until there are more comments and you drop below my threshold.
Takes notice all the way to pressuring other industries out of intelligent moves like this one. The RIAA, and groups like it are far from done trying to squeeze P2P until they can have arrested every 12-year-old who has ever traded an MP3.
Oh, they'll take notice alright.
The United States is having its problems. The new "power" president Bush has obtained boils down (at least domestically) to little more than a fiscal stranglehold on the country, a limitation on citizen's rights, and xenophobic-type immigration and travel policies for foreigners.
Political moves like this are inherently unstable, especially in a country like the United States. Bush's government is fiscally irresponsible. However, the true power in the country (the corporations) will lose faith in a Republican Presidency as soon as this government's economic plans start falling apart. Once that happens, he won't stand much of a chance.
Limitations on citizen's rights can only go so far. We've all heard the secret rumours of the CIA and FBI and whomever having all this information on the American people. Things like the Patriot Act and such only mean that these organizations can do more of what they ALREADY DO out in the open. Once citizen's rights are more impinged to the point that the average Joe can no longer buy his smokes and beer as easy as usual, the next election will more likely than not prove that a US government can do anything they want, as long as they don't upset the delicate retail balance on which its people are addicted.
As for immigration, North America, left to its own devices is a dwindling population of high-priced workers. As soon as employers have to start paying more when there are fewer immigrants, and consumers have to pay more as a result, that too will have to change.
As for Iraq, only the narrow-minded see it in black and white. Yes, the United States Army has done a bang-up job (bang in the negative sense), but ask yourself this: do you think the average Shiite or Kurd was panting to keep Saddam Hussein in power? He was a murderous, power-hungry dictator that raped an entire country of resources and a decent quality of life. Yes, Bush went in for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is going badly. I can't reconcile my views on the situation in Iraq, but I know doing nothing is against everything I think the West should stand for.
The attractiveness of terrorism against the West is more likely rooted in the ease in which people are recruited. Education and dogma of the Western Businessman as the enemy of the Arab, and a serious poverty problem make poor Arabs who are being kept down by their own governments and international embargoes caused by these nations problematic take on international "diplomacy" easier targets for recruitment as suicide bombers. Why not, if the leaders of these terrorists groups can promise that your family will be cared for (when you cannot)? Deal with THESE problems and we may yet get somewhere.
When you blame it all on Bush, really you're just saying "Well, it's not my fault!". Wake up. It is all our faults.
Wow.
Dude.
RTFA, it's the second word.
Did you not hear all about phone systems and long-distance phone networks getting clogged with calls? If it's anything like here in Canada, when phone systems are backed up, priority can only be obtained for connections by emergency services. On a dedicated network, using a web-based chatline is a simple (and simple is beautiful) way for the banks to conference call with the treasury and whatnot without worrying about phone problems. The whole point is that the banks are legitimately worried about becoming targets, this makes sense.
Ergonomics means designing equipment, or modifying a workplace to fit the workers (or users) rather than the other way around. This includes things like:
- Comfortable work environments (chairs, desks, etc);
- Intuitive UI design for electronic and mechanical equipment (fax machines, even things like placing a light switch by all doors rather than on an opposite wall);
- Uses of products to increase efficiency. Basically letting the workplace equipment do tedious work, freeing the worker to move on to more important things (like a printer that hole punches or staples automatically).
A little bit of personal research above and beyond the stupid buzzwords people use would give a good idea as to why Apple's iPod is, in fact, much more ergonomic than most players.I really challenge anyone to give a list of reasons why some other player is superior that consists of items beyond "it's comfortable to hold in your hand." Anyone who thinks that ergonomics means how something feels in their hand really needs to think why THAT is their central criterion.
You know, I've never really understood that line... I thought a parsec was a distance. ~3.26 l.y. specifically. Wouldn't you measure the speed of a ship by the time it takes to go a set distance?