Even if cows are responsible for the production of more greenhouse gases than "industrialization" and automobiles (doubtful, but I'll argue with it anyway), the fact remains that animal agriculture *is* a man-made industry - thousands of years ago, people did not have mass-production farms that we have today. Regardless whether it's industrialization, cars, or mass-production agribusiness that's causing the problem, the real source is the same: human activity.
Again, it wasn't my intention to insight a massive debate regarding the Mac's capabilities with regards to burning CD's. My intention was to prove that every platform has some problems. The fact that people are getting SO defensive about this, reverting to namecalling, saying the "IT guy has [no] clue" etc. just proves my point. If new Mac users are treated this way by people when they voice a problem or concern, why should I "join the club?" I can pop over to any of a thousand forums focused specifically on the Windows platform and obtain excellent help with the problems I encounter on that system - or even find more friendly support for problems with (gasp) Debian! People are saying "go talk to a Mac genius at a Mac store" and crap like that and that I'm the problem. The point is, if I try to burn a disc too slowly on a Mac, it should tell me that's the problem. Not produce the strange error I received.
And so, everyone attempts to justify and defend the helpless mac - it's my fault. It's the IT guy's fault. It's common sense to burn archival research data at a very high speed since that should work better than a lower speed (disregarding the prevalence of errors created in the data-set). OK, so I'm wrong and Mac is right. I still won't buy one after this experience or the dozens of others I had during my three month forced stint with a Mac which I did not elaborate on.
I was an intern for the government in a research lab - totally new to the world of the Mac. It was not my place to question long-standing policy on DVD media. I guess we all just figured that Macs are so user friendly, they would only allow a user to choose speeds compatible with the media inserted into the drive. Instead, the Mac produced an archaic error message that was less helpful than the average BSOD on a Windows machine. My fault in expecting a Mac to perform as asked or otherwise respond with a message telling me what is wrong if it is unable to comply. I guess that makes me, not the software, "retarded."
Sorry to say, but you're just the type of Mac user that keeps people who are actually interested in switching, but run into problems with their new Mac experience, from ever becoming a Mac user. It's the typical "Macs work great; say otherwise and YOU MUST BE THE PROBLEM" mentality that has always crippled Apple's campaigns to reach out to users of other platforms.
I was required to use a brand new Mac Mini (1.66GHz Core Duo with 512MB RAM) as a research scientist with a major government lab last summer during an internship. My background involves working primarily on Windows XP Pro (on my laptop) and Debian on my desktop in my former research laboratory. I found the Mac to be unimpressive compared to both of my other experiences, and personally, would not ever purchase one for myself or a member of my family.
The rationale for this is broad and based solely on my own user experiences with that machine and with my supervisor's Dual G5 Power Macintosh (with 8GB of RAM, which was nice for the 3D modeling we were performing). I'm not going to troll and say Mac is better for everyone or Windows or Debian is better for everyone, I just think that articles like this are useful for seeing what people like and dislike in an OS. There are some things I like a great deal about each OS - Debian has never... ever... crashed on me (My Mac Mini did it regularly, as did my supervisor's Mac, with the "Sorry, an error has occurred" box popping up in 5 or 6 languages on an almost daily basis) - maybe we both just had lemon hardware, though. Windows is nice because of its broad compatibility and user base for support.
Example: I was trying to burn a DVD using the Mac Mini. I was using some new Memorex 16x compatible DVD+R discs that the lab had purchased. Our lab has a policy of burning the data at a low speed - 1x or 2x - since some IT guy decided it ensures the best chance of a successful write. Anyway, I try to burn the CD using Mac OS's built in software - basically by dragging and dropping files on the DVD, then clicking the "record" button once I'm done. I set the record speed to 1x. The system hums along for about 2 minutes... then pops up with an archaic error: "There has been an error recording the disc. Code 0x981fa192." or something like that. We tried 2 other DVD+R discs. Neither worked. Searched google for the error - couldn't find it. Searched Apple's support site for the error - couldn't find it. Finally, using Yahoo and searching through the archives of a forum (forget its name at the moment) we discovered what the error means: The disc is incompatible with a 1x burn speed, you must select a speed of 2x or higher. That's simplicity for you, I guess. I have other examples of why the Mac still hasn't won me over, and I'd be happy to elaborate on them if anyone is interested. But I knew that if I just posted with a single statement on this OS in particular, people would fire back with more childish comments about "but see how bad it is on Windows or OS/2 or whatever else you want to list!?!?!?" type accusations. I'll be less verbose in talking about the problems with the other two OS's... see:
Example of how I dislike Debian: Try updating anything to the latest version. Period.
Example of how I dislike Windows: Do I really need to list all the reasons?
The point of all this is that with each iteration of the operating systems, features are added, refined, removed, and rethought based on experiences like those had by the author of this article. It's not valid for someone to sit back in their chair and say "This OS (put your favorite OS's name here) is the best one for everyone." It's like saying a particular model vehicle is most fitting for every individual. It's great to see that there is such dedication to the various camps, but I think that sometimes people need to just calm down, look at things rationally, and think about what this means as a whole for the future. It's just childish to post so many "plonk, sounds like you're describing Linux!" or "plonk, sounds like you finally saw the light and experienced the semi-religious conversion to Apple-dom," comments. Grow up, Slashdot.
I think he did answer that in the review: "Upon a successful transfer, the music is wrapped with a digital rights management (DRM) layer which will give the user a three day or three-listen license." I would imagine that this is as simple as Microsoft somehow tagging the file within the Zune's filesystem (nobody ever said its file management would follow a standard) to prohibit redistribution of the music to other devices, playing more than three times, or playing after three days. Microsoft has complete control over the platform, after all, so I would assume they went about this the "easy way" by doing something like this. It's similar to what Sony did with Minidisc recorders back in the day. Music recorded through an optical or digital source was not encoded differently on a Minidisc, but was "tagged" in the file system to prevent playback of that track through a digital output connection (to prevent redistribution of nearly-perfect digital copies from player to player to player...)
Like I said, I'm not a Microsoft schill or anything, and don't care either way about the Zune or whether or not people will use it / like it / stroke it. I'm just interested in the technology and getting the biggest bang for my buck when I eventually purchase a music player. Competition with Apple's iPod from the Microsoft camp can only mean good things for the consumer, regardless which player they choose to purchase.
I'm not sure I would *want* to be able to purchase songs via the wifi connection on my Zune. After all; I lose it or one of my friends borrows it for a while, they could really rack up some charges on my account. Sure, you could require a password be entered on the Zune - but with what? The touch wheel? That seems pretty silly to me. Further, there is a complaint about not being able to sync to your PC via wifi. Well, since the majority of wifi networks aren't secure - or require long, difficult to enter wifi keys (again, how do you input a 128-bit, 40-character ASCII WEP key on your Zune - or worse, a WPA key at 64 characters!) Sure, you could set that up on your computer and it would program the wifi settings on the Zune during a sync, but that brings forth the question - who would want to sync via wifi? I don't know - if I'm going to be syncing my unit up, I probably just setup Zune Media Center with a few new files I downloaded... I'm at my PC anyway, what's the big deal about dropping the unit in the dock while I'm there and waiting for it to sync? Most wifi routers in use today are still 11Mbps, too - any idea how long it would take to sync a Zune with even 50 new songs via wifi? I hope you brought your AC adapter - it will be a while. It seems like people are just poking holes in this for the point of poking holes. I mean - internet browsing? Maybe if there's a demand, but already in the USA, most people have internet enabled cell phones with pretty decent screens - and very few take advantage of true internet browsing on their phones. Whatever happens when this is released will be interesting, but I just wish people would stop acting like "they could do it better" - if so, why haven't they - or Sandisk, or Samsung, or Creative...?
If the professor has a problem with people cheating on his assignments, make them harder. Simply saying "people shouldn't cheat and it's their problem if they do" isn't going to solve the problem. You can stand on your soapbox and bitch all you want about not being paid enough, having other responsibilities, etc. etc. The fact is that I've taught two C/C++ programming courses in the engineering department of a major state-run university, and I know how challenging it is to come up with fresh assignments that are difficult for students to cheat on. In the course with an enrollment of over 200 students, we had 3 professors and 12 TA's to ensure that the course ran smoothly. If the places you have been don't dedicate the resources necessary to ensure a fair, quality education for the students attending them, then perhaps they shouldn't be accreditted. Teaching should be a professor's PRIMARY job at any university, and research must come second to that. If they are interested in ONLY pursuing research, they should simply be a post-doctoral research employee in an academic laboratory, where they will not be asked to teach at all. If they don't like that idea, they should go into industry. The point is that the title of "professor" means "one who professes" - another word for explaining and teaching. If professors aren't willing to put in the time necessary, they should leave their position.
Professors aren't there to hold anyone's hand, I agree, but they are the rule of law in the higher-education classroom and should be responsible for both detecting cheating and making it as difficult as possible in order to ensure course fairness. If that means assigned seats and four versions of an exam during the same test section, so be it. If that means writing a new exam every year - GOOD - that's their JOB! If they don't like it, they need to find another line of work.
And as for professors not having to cite their sources, that is complete hogwash. Aren't students in training to BECOME the peers of their professors in many cases? At what level does one deserve the respect of not being lied to about the source of information? When they have a BS? an MS? an MD? a PhD? Who is it ok to lie to and who should one cite their sources to? Simply stating that professors are some "high and mighty" all-knowing figures who don't have to answer to their students proves that you're stuck in another century of higher education... perhaps the 19th? In this era, students often know more than the professors, and for professors to act in an irresponsible manner when instructing people who will one day be their peers - or even their superiors - is to show a complete lack of respect for academic integrity. If professors are going to bitch about people cheating, plagiarising, and the like, they should STOP DOING THE SAME THING THEMSELVES, FIRST. Plagiarism: (n) - "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." I guess I missed the part about "except when presented to those who are not one's equal or superior in age, education, or academic standing."
I never said that professors must utilize only original material, I simply said that for them to present the material of others without citing the source is just as dishonest as a student doing the same thing, yet professors are allowed to do it all the time without consequence. Very little of the material students will utilize in their careers will be created, first-hand, by their professors (unless they are pursuing a PhD, but that is another story). I simply think that professors should be held to the same standards as students when it comes to making citations. It provides a good example for students to follow and allows them the opportunity to back their lectures with facts supported by others in the field. Technically, a student who turned in a paper from a cheating website and cited that website as the source of the complete paper would not be in any academic trouble; though they likely wouldn't pass the course or receive a satisfactory grade on the paper. All I'm asking for are citations from professors, not a reinvention of the wheel - which is how many of them present their material in class. To stand there and present theories and historical information without citing a source is as deceptive as a student presenting uncited information that they did not create.
Stop putting words in my mouth; if professors are going to utilize alternative materials in order to instruct their students, they must cite those sources. Further, they need to stop re-using the exact same assignments and exams year after year in order to evaluate their students... that would eliminate the potential for "hand-me-down" cheating. If professors are too lazy to do their jobs, which includes evaluating the level of a student's knowledge of a certain subject, they need to step down from the profession. The least students should expect from those who teach them is a fair chance to prove their competency in a subject. With cheating rampant and fraternity/sorority caches of old exams and papers growing larger by the semester, it's not fair to anyone when a professor is lazy and reuses the same exam or assignment over and over again. The moral of the story: professors need to cite, just as students do, even if it is just with an additional slide at the end of the lecture saying "These sources were utilized in the development of this lecture:" and professors need to do their job by creating exams and assignments that are DIFFICULT for cheaters to beat.
I assure you that you are wrong as to my academic honesty; One does not graduate with high honors and high distinction from one of the most challenging ENGINEERING programs in the United States by cheating his way through his classes. See, unlike the dreamy "let's learn about dead people and dead ideas" world of Liberal Arts and Sciences, engineering is a practical discipline, in which all but perhaps two of the tests I took during my four years were administered in the blue-book written format. A few of these tests were even given "open notes, open book, open calculator, but no laptops" - a true testament to my professor's confidence in his ability to write a quality exam. The result of the first such exam, in which every student brought a half-dozen texts and all of the notes and homework problem solutions provided after assignments had been turned in? A class average score below 55%. THAT is quality testing and evaluating. THAT is pushing the limits of students' abilities.
To sit back and claim that there is a double standard between presenting a lecture to a bunch of 18-22 year olds and presenting a lecture to a bunch of PhD's at a conference when it comes to citing sources is ridiculous. Professors must be held to the same standard as students. I'm not suggesting that every professor go out and write all-original material, though two of my professors did just that, but at least cite the sources you do use. After all, you aren't expecting students to travel to Greece to learn first-hand about Spartae in order to create their original material, you allow them to use someone else's thoughts and ideas, as long as they are cited. Your justification reads like that of a professor who obtained their masters or PhD through unscrupulous means since you are still trying to justify those means in your professional career. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
And as for testing - that is the core problem here. Students plagiarize during evaluations of their work. Make their evaluations too difficult to cheat on and the problem is solved. Yes, that would mean throwing out your laminated, burned-to-CD and never changed since 2001 lesson-plans and lectures. Yes, that would mean actually thinking for a change and doing your goddamned job. Yes, that would mean exercising some academic talent and pushing your own limits instead of resting on your laurels once you have your PhD. If you don't want to teach or don't feel you're capable of doing so, and would rather just do research or not have to grade papers and evaluate students using an accurate yardstick, go work in private industry or a museum (if you were one of those stupid people who decided to get a PhD in something useless like History or Philosophy). People such as you corrupt academia to a far greater extent than the 25% of the student body that cheats on your tests. Get out, and stop saying you're exempt from the rules. I wish I knew who you were so I could come attend a few of your lectures and see just how hypocritical a person you really are - and then report you to your institution's faculty academic dishonesty committee. Too bad you probably already have tenure, though - just another word for "I'm not good enough to have the fate of my job rest on the quality of my work, so I need a superficial contract to protect me and ensure that I'll be guaranteed a paycheck even if I decide to be a lazy, dishonest, hypocritical professor."
Oh, and as for that engineering class with the 55% average on the exam; of course it was curved, and I set the curve with a 98%. The test, which took three hours and involved a number of mathematical derivations and calculations, all of which had to be written out in full in order to show one's work and obtain credit on the exam, took up 10 of the 12 pages in the blue book, in my case. The professor and his two TA's graded every exam by hand since there was no other way to do it - all 150+ of the exams. And he administered FOUR exams of this type during the semester and TWO quizes of this type. All graded by hand since the problems had to be worked out by hand. That's what you should be doing instead of playing on Slashdot and insinuating that the laziness of students and not that of your own sorry ass, is the problem with the "system" today.
I'm not saying that cheating is right; in fact I think it's wrong, but society needs to accept that professors "cheat" just as regularly as students. I can't tell you the number of times I saw diagrams, figures, and tables stripped from other literature or sources, included in Powerpoint presentations prepared by professors and delivered to the class. Talk about academic dishonesty - presenting information to your students that isn't yours and not citing the source is just as bad.
Further, professors are enabling this by making assignments that people CAN cheat on. If professors would stop being so lazy by reusing exams, paper writing prompts, homework assignments, etc., and started using creativity and more in-class, blue-book style written-answer testing rather than relying on the old "ABCD, or E" Scantron multiple choice exam crutch, I think schools would see cheating levels drop, or see the cheaters fail out. While it's tough to do this when it comes to assigning a research paper, perhaps if the professor would think of a creative enough topic and assign a different topic each year, there wouldn't be such an opportunity for students to cheat. Just think, instead of writing a paper detailing the intricacies of the American Civil War in expository form, have students write the paper in narrative form as a merchant in Quebec observing the war from afar. Such an obscure paper would be easy for someone well-versed in the history presented in the class to write, but nearly impossible for someone to locate on a cheating site for duplication.
The answer: professors need to stop being so damned lazy, and then perhaps their students will follow suit.
So let's see, if you run an application as "Administrator" on a new Windows Vista machine (where users are not, by default, created as administrator accounts), that application could cause problems with the system or, if you will, "hack" the system (such an unclean word). How is this any different from sitting down at a Linux system with root access and running amok? Are root accounts inherently more secure than administrator accounts, or am I missing something here? At least on the Vista machine, a notification box may appear letting you know something is going on. See if "rm -rf/" on a Linux machine even asks you to verify your entry before it executes. Microsoft has made it clear that Vista users won't run as admins by default, so I see this as a non-issue. Why does it even qualify as "news?"
It's important to note that due to the way the human brain develops synaptic connections in the visual cortex, only humans who had sight from birth to some age beyond 3 to 5 years of age will benefit a great deal from such a procedure. While people who are blind from birth due to cataracts or other conditions obtain some visual perception when the cataract is later removed, most never develop the neural connections that allow them to identify what they're seeing. Everything from navigating around desks in a well-lit classroom to differentiating a face from a table, a television, a light bulb, or an automobile is all but impossible if the visual cortex doesn't develop properly in response to normal visual stimulus from birth. Sight is useless without the ability to percieve what one is really seeing. So while this is incredibly impressive and promising for people who had sight but lost it, don't expect that this will be a cure-all to allow people with all types of blindness to see again.
I don't want to get all philosophical here or anything, but I really do hope this means the beginning of a new space race. People may be posting replies on here in their usual cynical tone about whether or not the moon has atmosphere, the typical slashdot genital-size war, I guess you could say, but I feel a lot of hope from an article like this.
Some of the greatest modern advancements in technology came out of the Russian Space Program and NASA during the 1960's and 1970's. Since that point, it seems as though the world has lost contact with the idea that the universe is a lot larger than our little planet. Space "exploration" has become less about discovery and more about putting billion-dollar communication and military platforms into orbit. John F. Kennedy's call for America to land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth provided a shot in the arm for the fields of science and engineering, the likes of which have not been seen again in our nation. It is time to re-focus on the big picture, and I think that perhaps the best way to go about doing that is to begin a project that will combine the efforts of people from nations near and far with the end goal not of destruction or wealth, but of exploration and improvement of the human condition for all.
It seems like the thrashing of engineering programs isn't isolated to areas hit by the hurricanes. Here in Iowa, The University of Iowa has approved an additional "fee" for juniors and seniors in engineering of $500 per student. With an engineering program that's much smaller than Iowa State University's program, this is yet another factor that I think will negatively impact this U of Iowa's engineering student recruiting efforts. The full deal about the fee can be found here.
The university's opinion is that engineering students require a greater amount of staff attention and information technology resources (something for which engineers already paid a $70 annual fee). I feel this is just another slap in the face to another engineering program. Already our nation is falling behind other countries in terms of the number of students graduated annually in the fields of engineering and the hard sciences. Now we're given yet another obstacle, this time financial, which I think will further discourage students from pursuing degrees in engineering. Engineering has some of the most difficult and rigorous coursework of any area of study, and now students at U of Iowa are expected to pay more for the pleasure of having to deal with weekly all-nighters, homework that never quits, and projects with impossible due dates. And as for why the increase is just for juniors and seniors? Simple, smaller class sizes in upper-level studies increases the relative amount spent on teaching each student in the smaller class. I say it's just for those years because once students have committed two years to a university, transferring becomes very difficult and the students have no choice but pay the fee and continue at their present institution.
So like I said in the title, I would suggest getting out of that sinking ship down in Tulane, but be sure before you move that you are going to be attending a university that respects its engineering program at least as much as its liberal arts and sciences program. If you can't find a place that's better that you can easily transfer into, then you may actually want to stay. Better the devil you know, right?
When Compaq reverse engineered the IBM ROM's (I think that was what happened), they had a lot to gain from doing so and thus invested a lot of money and resources in it. Why invest so much money in reverse engineering an old Nintendo, though, when in order to make up the R&D costs you would likely have to charge more than double what people on eBay charge for used, authentic units? I just don't think the market exists to warrant this type of investment.
The patents on the physical, hardware components of the Nintendo may have expired, but the code programmed into the various ROM's both in the console and in games is protected by international copyright. Those copyrights won't expire within most of our lifetimes, so I think it's safe to say that the "true" NES is protected. Whether or not the hardware could successfully be reverse engineered to yield the secrets of the system's operation for later use with completely new software remains to be seen. Still, though, if any of the original NES's code were reused or even used as an example for a new OS for the NES, Nintendo would have a good argument against whoever was duplicating their systems with regard to copyright rules.
I think this article might be using the term "engineer" a bit too loosely. I doubt any company would hire an engineer - an actual person with a Professional Engineer's License - to work on these systems. A more appropriate term might be "technician," which usually refers to someone who is trained to repair and work with a single type of technology. Engineers, on the other hand, are usually trained to work with a large variety of technologies and usually work on either (A) Research and development, (B) Manufacturing, or (C) Failure analysis and redesign.
I guess using the term "engineer" sounds better though since it tends to scare the corporate fat-cats away from a technology because of the implied additional cost from hiring an engineer as compared to a technician.
"Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh"
That's strange... Hollywood actors / actresses seem to have both shared values (a love of money / entertainment) and shared personalities (general arrogance and a belief of personal entitlement). It makes me wonder why it seems like none of their relationships last longer than the milk in my refrigerator.
While the premise is flawed and I agree with most posters on here, the least the people passing these laws could do is ensure the money derived from their enforcement is used to prevent teen violence through education and after school programs. It's inevitable that the laws will get passed; the least we can do is hope for them to do some good in troubled communities through alternative ways (since I know banning sales of certain video games to minors really won't do much in the way of improving things.)
Again, I say... there are a large number of places in the country where similar high-sensitivity experiments are carried out on a regular basis. Apparently MIT's people were just a bit too uppity to ask help from the hundreds of people who already had the solution to a problem that took them a year to resolve.
The quality of the "research" coming out of MIT seems to be slipping a bit. It's common knowledge to those who work with EEG devices and other electronics that work in the pico, nano, and micro volt ranges that background noise is the biggest problem to getting useful data. Why it's taken an MIT researcher until 2005 to uncover the same principles that have been known to the rest of the scientific community for 7 decades is a bit confounding. Next thing you know, they'll be releasing a report entitled: "Microwave ovens may interfere with television antenna reception." How groundbreaking.
They can put these things up there, but how will they really be powered? 15kW of energy is a lot to expect from any sort of battery system, unless the weapon can only be used once... Next they'll want to strap a nuclear reactor on the fighter planes to power the next version of the laser (150kW). And if they do have a way to power this for multiple shots, why isn't that same energy storage technology being used in my damn car so I don't have to pay $3 a gallon to fill up the tank?
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Even if cows are responsible for the production of more greenhouse gases than "industrialization" and automobiles (doubtful, but I'll argue with it anyway), the fact remains that animal agriculture *is* a man-made industry - thousands of years ago, people did not have mass-production farms that we have today. Regardless whether it's industrialization, cars, or mass-production agribusiness that's causing the problem, the real source is the same: human activity.
Again, it wasn't my intention to insight a massive debate regarding the Mac's capabilities with regards to burning CD's. My intention was to prove that every platform has some problems. The fact that people are getting SO defensive about this, reverting to namecalling, saying the "IT guy has [no] clue" etc. just proves my point. If new Mac users are treated this way by people when they voice a problem or concern, why should I "join the club?" I can pop over to any of a thousand forums focused specifically on the Windows platform and obtain excellent help with the problems I encounter on that system - or even find more friendly support for problems with (gasp) Debian! People are saying "go talk to a Mac genius at a Mac store" and crap like that and that I'm the problem. The point is, if I try to burn a disc too slowly on a Mac, it should tell me that's the problem. Not produce the strange error I received.
And so, everyone attempts to justify and defend the helpless mac - it's my fault. It's the IT guy's fault. It's common sense to burn archival research data at a very high speed since that should work better than a lower speed (disregarding the prevalence of errors created in the data-set). OK, so I'm wrong and Mac is right. I still won't buy one after this experience or the dozens of others I had during my three month forced stint with a Mac which I did not elaborate on.
I was an intern for the government in a research lab - totally new to the world of the Mac. It was not my place to question long-standing policy on DVD media. I guess we all just figured that Macs are so user friendly, they would only allow a user to choose speeds compatible with the media inserted into the drive. Instead, the Mac produced an archaic error message that was less helpful than the average BSOD on a Windows machine. My fault in expecting a Mac to perform as asked or otherwise respond with a message telling me what is wrong if it is unable to comply. I guess that makes me, not the software, "retarded."
Sorry to say, but you're just the type of Mac user that keeps people who are actually interested in switching, but run into problems with their new Mac experience, from ever becoming a Mac user. It's the typical "Macs work great; say otherwise and YOU MUST BE THE PROBLEM" mentality that has always crippled Apple's campaigns to reach out to users of other platforms.
I was required to use a brand new Mac Mini (1.66GHz Core Duo with 512MB RAM) as a research scientist with a major government lab last summer during an internship. My background involves working primarily on Windows XP Pro (on my laptop) and Debian on my desktop in my former research laboratory. I found the Mac to be unimpressive compared to both of my other experiences, and personally, would not ever purchase one for myself or a member of my family.
The rationale for this is broad and based solely on my own user experiences with that machine and with my supervisor's Dual G5 Power Macintosh (with 8GB of RAM, which was nice for the 3D modeling we were performing). I'm not going to troll and say Mac is better for everyone or Windows or Debian is better for everyone, I just think that articles like this are useful for seeing what people like and dislike in an OS. There are some things I like a great deal about each OS - Debian has never... ever... crashed on me (My Mac Mini did it regularly, as did my supervisor's Mac, with the "Sorry, an error has occurred" box popping up in 5 or 6 languages on an almost daily basis) - maybe we both just had lemon hardware, though. Windows is nice because of its broad compatibility and user base for support.
Example: I was trying to burn a DVD using the Mac Mini. I was using some new Memorex 16x compatible DVD+R discs that the lab had purchased. Our lab has a policy of burning the data at a low speed - 1x or 2x - since some IT guy decided it ensures the best chance of a successful write. Anyway, I try to burn the CD using Mac OS's built in software - basically by dragging and dropping files on the DVD, then clicking the "record" button once I'm done. I set the record speed to 1x. The system hums along for about 2 minutes... then pops up with an archaic error: "There has been an error recording the disc. Code 0x981fa192." or something like that. We tried 2 other DVD+R discs. Neither worked. Searched google for the error - couldn't find it. Searched Apple's support site for the error - couldn't find it. Finally, using Yahoo and searching through the archives of a forum (forget its name at the moment) we discovered what the error means: The disc is incompatible with a 1x burn speed, you must select a speed of 2x or higher. That's simplicity for you, I guess. I have other examples of why the Mac still hasn't won me over, and I'd be happy to elaborate on them if anyone is interested. But I knew that if I just posted with a single statement on this OS in particular, people would fire back with more childish comments about "but see how bad it is on Windows or OS/2 or whatever else you want to list!?!?!?" type accusations. I'll be less verbose in talking about the problems with the other two OS's... see:
Example of how I dislike Debian: Try updating anything to the latest version. Period.
Example of how I dislike Windows: Do I really need to list all the reasons?
The point of all this is that with each iteration of the operating systems, features are added, refined, removed, and rethought based on experiences like those had by the author of this article. It's not valid for someone to sit back in their chair and say "This OS (put your favorite OS's name here) is the best one for everyone." It's like saying a particular model vehicle is most fitting for every individual. It's great to see that there is such dedication to the various camps, but I think that sometimes people need to just calm down, look at things rationally, and think about what this means as a whole for the future. It's just childish to post so many "plonk, sounds like you're describing Linux!" or "plonk, sounds like you finally saw the light and experienced the semi-religious conversion to Apple-dom," comments. Grow up, Slashdot.
I think he did answer that in the review: "Upon a successful transfer, the music is wrapped with a digital rights management (DRM) layer which will give the user a three day or three-listen license." I would imagine that this is as simple as Microsoft somehow tagging the file within the Zune's filesystem (nobody ever said its file management would follow a standard) to prohibit redistribution of the music to other devices, playing more than three times, or playing after three days. Microsoft has complete control over the platform, after all, so I would assume they went about this the "easy way" by doing something like this. It's similar to what Sony did with Minidisc recorders back in the day. Music recorded through an optical or digital source was not encoded differently on a Minidisc, but was "tagged" in the file system to prevent playback of that track through a digital output connection (to prevent redistribution of nearly-perfect digital copies from player to player to player...)
Like I said, I'm not a Microsoft schill or anything, and don't care either way about the Zune or whether or not people will use it / like it / stroke it. I'm just interested in the technology and getting the biggest bang for my buck when I eventually purchase a music player. Competition with Apple's iPod from the Microsoft camp can only mean good things for the consumer, regardless which player they choose to purchase.
I'm not sure I would *want* to be able to purchase songs via the wifi connection on my Zune. After all; I lose it or one of my friends borrows it for a while, they could really rack up some charges on my account. Sure, you could require a password be entered on the Zune - but with what? The touch wheel? That seems pretty silly to me. Further, there is a complaint about not being able to sync to your PC via wifi. Well, since the majority of wifi networks aren't secure - or require long, difficult to enter wifi keys (again, how do you input a 128-bit, 40-character ASCII WEP key on your Zune - or worse, a WPA key at 64 characters!) Sure, you could set that up on your computer and it would program the wifi settings on the Zune during a sync, but that brings forth the question - who would want to sync via wifi? I don't know - if I'm going to be syncing my unit up, I probably just setup Zune Media Center with a few new files I downloaded... I'm at my PC anyway, what's the big deal about dropping the unit in the dock while I'm there and waiting for it to sync? Most wifi routers in use today are still 11Mbps, too - any idea how long it would take to sync a Zune with even 50 new songs via wifi? I hope you brought your AC adapter - it will be a while. It seems like people are just poking holes in this for the point of poking holes. I mean - internet browsing? Maybe if there's a demand, but already in the USA, most people have internet enabled cell phones with pretty decent screens - and very few take advantage of true internet browsing on their phones. Whatever happens when this is released will be interesting, but I just wish people would stop acting like "they could do it better" - if so, why haven't they - or Sandisk, or Samsung, or Creative...?
If the professor has a problem with people cheating on his assignments, make them harder. Simply saying "people shouldn't cheat and it's their problem if they do" isn't going to solve the problem. You can stand on your soapbox and bitch all you want about not being paid enough, having other responsibilities, etc. etc. The fact is that I've taught two C/C++ programming courses in the engineering department of a major state-run university, and I know how challenging it is to come up with fresh assignments that are difficult for students to cheat on. In the course with an enrollment of over 200 students, we had 3 professors and 12 TA's to ensure that the course ran smoothly. If the places you have been don't dedicate the resources necessary to ensure a fair, quality education for the students attending them, then perhaps they shouldn't be accreditted. Teaching should be a professor's PRIMARY job at any university, and research must come second to that. If they are interested in ONLY pursuing research, they should simply be a post-doctoral research employee in an academic laboratory, where they will not be asked to teach at all. If they don't like that idea, they should go into industry. The point is that the title of "professor" means "one who professes" - another word for explaining and teaching. If professors aren't willing to put in the time necessary, they should leave their position.
Professors aren't there to hold anyone's hand, I agree, but they are the rule of law in the higher-education classroom and should be responsible for both detecting cheating and making it as difficult as possible in order to ensure course fairness. If that means assigned seats and four versions of an exam during the same test section, so be it. If that means writing a new exam every year - GOOD - that's their JOB! If they don't like it, they need to find another line of work.
And as for professors not having to cite their sources, that is complete hogwash. Aren't students in training to BECOME the peers of their professors in many cases? At what level does one deserve the respect of not being lied to about the source of information? When they have a BS? an MS? an MD? a PhD? Who is it ok to lie to and who should one cite their sources to? Simply stating that professors are some "high and mighty" all-knowing figures who don't have to answer to their students proves that you're stuck in another century of higher education... perhaps the 19th? In this era, students often know more than the professors, and for professors to act in an irresponsible manner when instructing people who will one day be their peers - or even their superiors - is to show a complete lack of respect for academic integrity. If professors are going to bitch about people cheating, plagiarising, and the like, they should STOP DOING THE SAME THING THEMSELVES, FIRST. Plagiarism: (n) - "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." I guess I missed the part about "except when presented to those who are not one's equal or superior in age, education, or academic standing."
I never said that professors must utilize only original material, I simply said that for them to present the material of others without citing the source is just as dishonest as a student doing the same thing, yet professors are allowed to do it all the time without consequence. Very little of the material students will utilize in their careers will be created, first-hand, by their professors (unless they are pursuing a PhD, but that is another story). I simply think that professors should be held to the same standards as students when it comes to making citations. It provides a good example for students to follow and allows them the opportunity to back their lectures with facts supported by others in the field. Technically, a student who turned in a paper from a cheating website and cited that website as the source of the complete paper would not be in any academic trouble; though they likely wouldn't pass the course or receive a satisfactory grade on the paper. All I'm asking for are citations from professors, not a reinvention of the wheel - which is how many of them present their material in class. To stand there and present theories and historical information without citing a source is as deceptive as a student presenting uncited information that they did not create.
Stop putting words in my mouth; if professors are going to utilize alternative materials in order to instruct their students, they must cite those sources. Further, they need to stop re-using the exact same assignments and exams year after year in order to evaluate their students... that would eliminate the potential for "hand-me-down" cheating. If professors are too lazy to do their jobs, which includes evaluating the level of a student's knowledge of a certain subject, they need to step down from the profession. The least students should expect from those who teach them is a fair chance to prove their competency in a subject. With cheating rampant and fraternity/sorority caches of old exams and papers growing larger by the semester, it's not fair to anyone when a professor is lazy and reuses the same exam or assignment over and over again. The moral of the story: professors need to cite, just as students do, even if it is just with an additional slide at the end of the lecture saying "These sources were utilized in the development of this lecture:" and professors need to do their job by creating exams and assignments that are DIFFICULT for cheaters to beat.
I assure you that you are wrong as to my academic honesty; One does not graduate with high honors and high distinction from one of the most challenging ENGINEERING programs in the United States by cheating his way through his classes. See, unlike the dreamy "let's learn about dead people and dead ideas" world of Liberal Arts and Sciences, engineering is a practical discipline, in which all but perhaps two of the tests I took during my four years were administered in the blue-book written format. A few of these tests were even given "open notes, open book, open calculator, but no laptops" - a true testament to my professor's confidence in his ability to write a quality exam. The result of the first such exam, in which every student brought a half-dozen texts and all of the notes and homework problem solutions provided after assignments had been turned in? A class average score below 55%. THAT is quality testing and evaluating. THAT is pushing the limits of students' abilities.
To sit back and claim that there is a double standard between presenting a lecture to a bunch of 18-22 year olds and presenting a lecture to a bunch of PhD's at a conference when it comes to citing sources is ridiculous. Professors must be held to the same standard as students. I'm not suggesting that every professor go out and write all-original material, though two of my professors did just that, but at least cite the sources you do use. After all, you aren't expecting students to travel to Greece to learn first-hand about Spartae in order to create their original material, you allow them to use someone else's thoughts and ideas, as long as they are cited. Your justification reads like that of a professor who obtained their masters or PhD through unscrupulous means since you are still trying to justify those means in your professional career. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
And as for testing - that is the core problem here. Students plagiarize during evaluations of their work. Make their evaluations too difficult to cheat on and the problem is solved. Yes, that would mean throwing out your laminated, burned-to-CD and never changed since 2001 lesson-plans and lectures. Yes, that would mean actually thinking for a change and doing your goddamned job. Yes, that would mean exercising some academic talent and pushing your own limits instead of resting on your laurels once you have your PhD. If you don't want to teach or don't feel you're capable of doing so, and would rather just do research or not have to grade papers and evaluate students using an accurate yardstick, go work in private industry or a museum (if you were one of those stupid people who decided to get a PhD in something useless like History or Philosophy). People such as you corrupt academia to a far greater extent than the 25% of the student body that cheats on your tests. Get out, and stop saying you're exempt from the rules. I wish I knew who you were so I could come attend a few of your lectures and see just how hypocritical a person you really are - and then report you to your institution's faculty academic dishonesty committee. Too bad you probably already have tenure, though - just another word for "I'm not good enough to have the fate of my job rest on the quality of my work, so I need a superficial contract to protect me and ensure that I'll be guaranteed a paycheck even if I decide to be a lazy, dishonest, hypocritical professor."
Oh, and as for that engineering class with the 55% average on the exam; of course it was curved, and I set the curve with a 98%. The test, which took three hours and involved a number of mathematical derivations and calculations, all of which had to be written out in full in order to show one's work and obtain credit on the exam, took up 10 of the 12 pages in the blue book, in my case. The professor and his two TA's graded every exam by hand since there was no other way to do it - all 150+ of the exams. And he administered FOUR exams of this type during the semester and TWO quizes of this type. All graded by hand since the problems had to be worked out by hand. That's what you should be doing instead of playing on Slashdot and insinuating that the laziness of students and not that of your own sorry ass, is the problem with the "system" today.
I'm not saying that cheating is right; in fact I think it's wrong, but society needs to accept that professors "cheat" just as regularly as students. I can't tell you the number of times I saw diagrams, figures, and tables stripped from other literature or sources, included in Powerpoint presentations prepared by professors and delivered to the class. Talk about academic dishonesty - presenting information to your students that isn't yours and not citing the source is just as bad.
Further, professors are enabling this by making assignments that people CAN cheat on. If professors would stop being so lazy by reusing exams, paper writing prompts, homework assignments, etc., and started using creativity and more in-class, blue-book style written-answer testing rather than relying on the old "ABCD, or E" Scantron multiple choice exam crutch, I think schools would see cheating levels drop, or see the cheaters fail out. While it's tough to do this when it comes to assigning a research paper, perhaps if the professor would think of a creative enough topic and assign a different topic each year, there wouldn't be such an opportunity for students to cheat. Just think, instead of writing a paper detailing the intricacies of the American Civil War in expository form, have students write the paper in narrative form as a merchant in Quebec observing the war from afar. Such an obscure paper would be easy for someone well-versed in the history presented in the class to write, but nearly impossible for someone to locate on a cheating site for duplication.
The answer: professors need to stop being so damned lazy, and then perhaps their students will follow suit.
What respect the author must have for Mr. Van Allen... he can't even spell his name right.
So let's see, if you run an application as "Administrator" on a new Windows Vista machine (where users are not, by default, created as administrator accounts), that application could cause problems with the system or, if you will, "hack" the system (such an unclean word). How is this any different from sitting down at a Linux system with root access and running amok? Are root accounts inherently more secure than administrator accounts, or am I missing something here? At least on the Vista machine, a notification box may appear letting you know something is going on. See if "rm -rf /" on a Linux machine even asks you to verify your entry before it executes. Microsoft has made it clear that Vista users won't run as admins by default, so I see this as a non-issue. Why does it even qualify as "news?"
It's important to note that due to the way the human brain develops synaptic connections in the visual cortex, only humans who had sight from birth to some age beyond 3 to 5 years of age will benefit a great deal from such a procedure. While people who are blind from birth due to cataracts or other conditions obtain some visual perception when the cataract is later removed, most never develop the neural connections that allow them to identify what they're seeing. Everything from navigating around desks in a well-lit classroom to differentiating a face from a table, a television, a light bulb, or an automobile is all but impossible if the visual cortex doesn't develop properly in response to normal visual stimulus from birth. Sight is useless without the ability to percieve what one is really seeing. So while this is incredibly impressive and promising for people who had sight but lost it, don't expect that this will be a cure-all to allow people with all types of blindness to see again.
I don't want to get all philosophical here or anything, but I really do hope this means the beginning of a new space race. People may be posting replies on here in their usual cynical tone about whether or not the moon has atmosphere, the typical slashdot genital-size war, I guess you could say, but I feel a lot of hope from an article like this.
Some of the greatest modern advancements in technology came out of the Russian Space Program and NASA during the 1960's and 1970's. Since that point, it seems as though the world has lost contact with the idea that the universe is a lot larger than our little planet. Space "exploration" has become less about discovery and more about putting billion-dollar communication and military platforms into orbit. John F. Kennedy's call for America to land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth provided a shot in the arm for the fields of science and engineering, the likes of which have not been seen again in our nation. It is time to re-focus on the big picture, and I think that perhaps the best way to go about doing that is to begin a project that will combine the efforts of people from nations near and far with the end goal not of destruction or wealth, but of exploration and improvement of the human condition for all.
It seems like the thrashing of engineering programs isn't isolated to areas hit by the hurricanes. Here in Iowa, The University of Iowa has approved an additional "fee" for juniors and seniors in engineering of $500 per student. With an engineering program that's much smaller than Iowa State University's program, this is yet another factor that I think will negatively impact this U of Iowa's engineering student recruiting efforts. The full deal about the fee can be found here.
The university's opinion is that engineering students require a greater amount of staff attention and information technology resources (something for which engineers already paid a $70 annual fee). I feel this is just another slap in the face to another engineering program. Already our nation is falling behind other countries in terms of the number of students graduated annually in the fields of engineering and the hard sciences. Now we're given yet another obstacle, this time financial, which I think will further discourage students from pursuing degrees in engineering. Engineering has some of the most difficult and rigorous coursework of any area of study, and now students at U of Iowa are expected to pay more for the pleasure of having to deal with weekly all-nighters, homework that never quits, and projects with impossible due dates. And as for why the increase is just for juniors and seniors? Simple, smaller class sizes in upper-level studies increases the relative amount spent on teaching each student in the smaller class. I say it's just for those years because once students have committed two years to a university, transferring becomes very difficult and the students have no choice but pay the fee and continue at their present institution.
So like I said in the title, I would suggest getting out of that sinking ship down in Tulane, but be sure before you move that you are going to be attending a university that respects its engineering program at least as much as its liberal arts and sciences program. If you can't find a place that's better that you can easily transfer into, then you may actually want to stay. Better the devil you know, right?
I've confirmed; this page loads fine in Opera 8.5 on my system too.
Version 8.5
Build 7700
Platform Win32
System Windows 2000
Java: Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.5
XHTML+Voice Plug-in: not loaded
Vulcanos do exist... But only on the planet Vulcan. Live long and prosper.
When Compaq reverse engineered the IBM ROM's (I think that was what happened), they had a lot to gain from doing so and thus invested a lot of money and resources in it. Why invest so much money in reverse engineering an old Nintendo, though, when in order to make up the R&D costs you would likely have to charge more than double what people on eBay charge for used, authentic units? I just don't think the market exists to warrant this type of investment.
The patents on the physical, hardware components of the Nintendo may have expired, but the code programmed into the various ROM's both in the console and in games is protected by international copyright. Those copyrights won't expire within most of our lifetimes, so I think it's safe to say that the "true" NES is protected. Whether or not the hardware could successfully be reverse engineered to yield the secrets of the system's operation for later use with completely new software remains to be seen. Still, though, if any of the original NES's code were reused or even used as an example for a new OS for the NES, Nintendo would have a good argument against whoever was duplicating their systems with regard to copyright rules.
I think this article might be using the term "engineer" a bit too loosely. I doubt any company would hire an engineer - an actual person with a Professional Engineer's License - to work on these systems. A more appropriate term might be "technician," which usually refers to someone who is trained to repair and work with a single type of technology. Engineers, on the other hand, are usually trained to work with a large variety of technologies and usually work on either (A) Research and development, (B) Manufacturing, or (C) Failure analysis and redesign.
I guess using the term "engineer" sounds better though since it tends to scare the corporate fat-cats away from a technology because of the implied additional cost from hiring an engineer as compared to a technician.
"Most people fall in love because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their personalities mesh"
That's strange... Hollywood actors / actresses seem to have both shared values (a love of money / entertainment) and shared personalities (general arrogance and a belief of personal entitlement). It makes me wonder why it seems like none of their relationships last longer than the milk in my refrigerator.
While the premise is flawed and I agree with most posters on here, the least the people passing these laws could do is ensure the money derived from their enforcement is used to prevent teen violence through education and after school programs. It's inevitable that the laws will get passed; the least we can do is hope for them to do some good in troubled communities through alternative ways (since I know banning sales of certain video games to minors really won't do much in the way of improving things.)
Again, I say... there are a large number of places in the country where similar high-sensitivity experiments are carried out on a regular basis. Apparently MIT's people were just a bit too uppity to ask help from the hundreds of people who already had the solution to a problem that took them a year to resolve.
The quality of the "research" coming out of MIT seems to be slipping a bit. It's common knowledge to those who work with EEG devices and other electronics that work in the pico, nano, and micro volt ranges that background noise is the biggest problem to getting useful data. Why it's taken an MIT researcher until 2005 to uncover the same principles that have been known to the rest of the scientific community for 7 decades is a bit confounding. Next thing you know, they'll be releasing a report entitled: "Microwave ovens may interfere with television antenna reception." How groundbreaking.
They can put these things up there, but how will they really be powered? 15kW of energy is a lot to expect from any sort of battery system, unless the weapon can only be used once... Next they'll want to strap a nuclear reactor on the fighter planes to power the next version of the laser (150kW). And if they do have a way to power this for multiple shots, why isn't that same energy storage technology being used in my damn car so I don't have to pay $3 a gallon to fill up the tank?