Here are some statements with supporting compiled statistics.
The purpose of these statements is to demonstrate that the WWU CSci department is a very good department with needs within WA state. It's existence is still well within the stated purpose goals of WWU (something like "high qualtiy education","serve the needs of WA residents").
The WWU CSci department has a quality curriculum and excellent graduates.
+ accredited CSci Bachelors program from Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) .
http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx (do a search by State)
+ Among 177 graduates from scores of the ETS® Major Field Test for Computer Science between Winter 2007 and Winter 2011 (inclusive), results were:
++ Mean (average): 166.2
++ Median (middle score): 167
++ Mode (most common score): 170
++ According to http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/MFT/pdf/MFT%20PDFs%202007/ComputerScience4CMF.pdf
+++ The 90th percentile for individuals starts at 173.
56 of 177 students scored 173 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for individuals starts at 179.
31 of 177 students scored 179 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for institutions (based on mean score) starts at 164.
+ WWU Collegiate Cyber Defense team took second (a very close second) to UW (who went on to win nationals) at the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/1538/1053947/WWU-Team-Places-Second-at-4th-Annual-Pacific-Rim-Collegiate-Cyber-Defense-Competition
The WWU CSci department cost is slightly below average for an engineering department at WWU.
+ Among departments within the WWU College of Sciences and Technology, the Computer Science department uses
++ the average amount of State funds (roughly)
++ has the 2nd highest student contributions to it's cost (10%).
From page 93 of WWU OPERATING BUDGET FISCAL YEAR 2011
There is a demonstrable need for Computer Science.
+ Computer science has the highest field related employment and average salary of any degree WWU offers (after lumping education departments together).
From http://www.careers.wwu.edu/surveyapplicationX/statusdefaultXX.asp (concluded by J Anderson)
Thanks to C Reedy, J Bucher, N Fitzgerald, B Costa, JT Moon, J Anderson for statistics,
-J_Tom_Moon_79 '00-'-05
off-topic political point: I am partial to the view that the state should not be involved in education. However, state planning is the reality and I'm not debating that with this post. The fact remains, the WWU CSci department provides a very high quality education for a needed discipline (albeit, paid by WA state residents and businesses that may or may not have any interest in such a program).
The idea here being
"if we could just make super-judicial executions cleaner... then this Assassination business will be nice and tidy. No hurt feelings on both sides. It's a real win-win!"
Interventionism hasn't worked for several decades now (and has backfired catastrophically severaltimes).
I don't understand how zapping people suspected of being "bad guys" is justified.
The implicit idea in this story is those people (Pakistanis) are not Americans. So the American goverment doesn't have to follow bothersome American laws and rights. Those laws and rights only hamper real "justice".
You might think " American's will get it right, they won't zap people indiscriminantly".
But that's one reason Guantanamo is a big deal. Some people wasting their life away in that concrete jail were put there based on hearsay.
That song ought to be changed to
"And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I can watch the YouTube video of the swarm of missiles blowing some unlucky towelhead to bits in the middle of a sunny day in a city that's in a country deemed dangerous by the American military and I can feel safe knowing the American missile robot swarm is not hunting me
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave their life for the American missile robot swarm so the American military didn't get bored and turn those robot swarms on me."
I thought sustained nuclear fusion would be a really huge scientific breakthrough.
Can this replace all nuclear fission and coal power plants with a clean plentiful nuclear fusion?
Isn't this a change-life-as-we-know-it achievement? Would a local expert comment on this?
I agree.
A human created it, whether with digital tools or acoustic tools.
The idea that computer tools are incompatible with authentic artistic expression is a form of "everything was better back in the old days, the world has finally reached the point of no return; it's going crap!" simplistic thinking.
In college, I had a friend that worked at Home Depot while majoring in Economics.
He always laughed about all the customers that would complain to him about the high prices and then continue to buy stuff from Home Depot.
The obvious thought being, "if it's too expensive then don't buy it here". But the same customers kept coming back. Proving that the prices were NOT too expensive for them (not enough to make those customers seek other sellers or alternative options).
IMO, money speaks louder than words.
If people pay this much for text messages then text messages must be worth that price to them.
The proof being, people keep paying for them!
www.chessgames.com has been hosting matches against the opening moves of real historical chess matches.
You can play against chess champions of centuries past or the modern day.
(you have to pay to play against historical players, you can replay historical chess matches for free).
I think this is an awesome idea for games.
Of course, the constraint is a limited number of games where this is applicable (for example, it wouldn't make any sense to play against the replayed opening moves of a Halo 3 match...)
Carl Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" series is so visually beautiful, poetically narrated, and well paced that I think even a 7 year old would like it.
Sagan provides excellent narration over insightful visual presentations of his ideas. And he has a calm, rational and personable demeanor that is almost soothing (somewhat Bob Ross like). It's easy to end up watching most of the series in 2 or 3 sittings.
Carl Sagan has an exploratory and curious thinking style with which he patiently narrates and so the viewer naturally follows him along his trail of reasoning. And the visual presentation of ideas is insightful (watch for the DNA building scene).
Kids won't understand the entire show and I think that's fine, it's a big subject to perfectly understand in one sitting. If your kid really enjoys it, she'll want to watch it over and over again, thus will retain more with those repeated viewings.
Cosmos would be my first choice for a mature yet kid-friendly presentation on the origins of life.
-J_Tom_Moon_79
Thanks for the reply DocRuby. (by "poster" I meant ScuttleMonkey).
I myself thought the WS article a thought provoking 3rd party persepective on the Net Neutrality debate. However, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, rather I like the new point of view. It is important to consider.
I think if you read WS without an eye toward propaganda and eye toward different points of view, you may find they have some very intelligent opinions that are probably in line with your own values. Not everything, just a few things here and there. Yes, it also has a big dose of Republican party cheerleading, too. However, I've never encountered a political rag that doesn't favor some political party or cause.
A major slashdot poster not only read, but linked to, something outside the accepted sphere of influence! (I think this is a good thing). I give you credit for linking to a thought-provoking article in the Republican zine "The Weekly Standard".
The important parts are from minute 39 to minute 52.
I thought this was a good interview and wanted to pass it along. The interview answers the basic question of how climate change is predicted to happen (happening). In other words, the science of climate change and not the politics.
Slashdot Mirror
Here are some statements with supporting compiled statistics.
The purpose of these statements is to demonstrate that the WWU CSci department is a very good department with needs within WA state. It's existence is still well within the stated purpose goals of WWU (something like "high qualtiy education","serve the needs of WA residents").
The WWU CSci department has a quality curriculum and excellent graduates.
+ accredited CSci Bachelors program from Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) . http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx (do a search by State)
+ Among 177 graduates from scores of the ETS® Major Field Test for Computer Science between Winter 2007 and Winter 2011 (inclusive), results were:
++ Mean (average): 166.2
++ Median (middle score): 167
++ Mode (most common score): 170
++ According to http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/MFT/pdf/MFT%20PDFs%202007/ComputerScience4CMF.pdf
+++ The 90th percentile for individuals starts at 173.
56 of 177 students scored 173 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for individuals starts at 179.
31 of 177 students scored 179 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for institutions (based on mean score) starts at 164.
+ WWU Collegiate Cyber Defense team took second (a very close second) to UW (who went on to win nationals) at the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition
https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/1538/1053947/WWU-Team-Places-Second-at-4th-Annual-Pacific-Rim-Collegiate-Cyber-Defense-Competition
The WWU CSci department cost is slightly below average for an engineering department at WWU.
+ Among departments within the WWU College of Sciences and Technology, the Computer Science department uses
++ the average amount of State funds (roughly)
++ has the 2nd highest student contributions to it's cost (10%).
From page 93 of WWU OPERATING BUDGET FISCAL YEAR 2011
There is a demonstrable need for Computer Science.
+ Computer science has the highest field related employment and average salary of any degree WWU offers (after lumping education departments together).
From http://www.careers.wwu.edu/surveyapplicationX/statusdefaultXX.asp (concluded by J Anderson)
Thanks to C Reedy, J Bucher, N Fitzgerald, B Costa, JT Moon, J Anderson for statistics,
-J_Tom_Moon_79 '00-'-05
off-topic political point: I am partial to the view that the state should not be involved in education. However, state planning is the reality and I'm not debating that with this post. The fact remains, the WWU CSci department provides a very high quality education for a needed discipline (albeit, paid by WA state residents and businesses that may or may not have any interest in such a program).
The idea here being
"if we could just make super-judicial executions cleaner... then this Assassination business will be nice and tidy. No hurt feelings on both sides. It's a real win-win!"
Interventionism hasn't worked for several decades now (and has backfired catastrophically several times).
I don't understand how zapping people suspected of being "bad guys" is justified.
The implicit idea in this story is those people (Pakistanis) are not Americans. So the American goverment doesn't have to follow bothersome American laws and rights. Those laws and rights only hamper real "justice".
You might think " American's will get it right, they won't zap people indiscriminantly".
But that's one reason Guantanamo is a big deal. Some people wasting their life away in that concrete jail were put there based on hearsay.
That song ought to be changed to
"And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I can watch the YouTube video of the swarm of missiles blowing some unlucky towelhead to bits in the middle of a sunny day in a city that's in a country deemed dangerous by the American military and I can feel safe knowing the American missile robot swarm is not hunting me
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave their life for the American missile robot swarm so the American military didn't get bored and turn those robot swarms on me."
I thought sustained nuclear fusion would be a really huge scientific breakthrough.
Can this replace all nuclear fission and coal power plants with a clean plentiful nuclear fusion?
Isn't this a change-life-as-we-know-it achievement?
Would a local expert comment on this?
but its still authentic music.
I agree.
A human created it, whether with digital tools or acoustic tools.
The idea that computer tools are incompatible with authentic artistic expression is a form of "everything was better back in the old days, the world has finally reached the point of no return; it's going crap!" simplistic thinking.
-J_Tom_Moon_79
I want to chime in with maxume (above).
In college, I had a friend that worked at Home Depot while majoring in Economics.
He always laughed about all the customers that would complain to him about the high prices and then continue to buy stuff from Home Depot. The obvious thought being, "if it's too expensive then don't buy it here". But the same customers kept coming back. Proving that the prices were NOT too expensive for them (not enough to make those customers seek other sellers or alternative options).
IMO, money speaks louder than words.
If people pay this much for text messages then text messages must be worth that price to them.
The proof being, people keep paying for them!
-J_Tom_Moon_79
www.chessgames.com has been hosting matches against the opening moves of real historical chess matches.
You can play against chess champions of centuries past or the modern day. (you have to pay to play against historical players, you can replay historical chess matches for free).
I think this is an awesome idea for games.
Of course, the constraint is a limited number of games where this is applicable (for example, it wouldn't make any sense to play against the replayed opening moves of a Halo 3 match...)
-J_Tom_Moon_79
Carl Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" series is so visually beautiful, poetically narrated, and well paced that I think even a 7 year old would like it.
Sagan provides excellent narration over insightful visual presentations of his ideas. And he has a calm, rational and personable demeanor that is almost soothing (somewhat Bob Ross like). It's easy to end up watching most of the series in 2 or 3 sittings.
Carl Sagan has an exploratory and curious thinking style with which he patiently narrates and so the viewer naturally follows him along his trail of reasoning. And the visual presentation of ideas is insightful (watch for the DNA building scene).
Kids won't understand the entire show and I think that's fine, it's a big subject to perfectly understand in one sitting. If your kid really enjoys it, she'll want to watch it over and over again, thus will retain more with those repeated viewings.
Cosmos would be my first choice for a mature yet kid-friendly presentation on the origins of life.
-J_Tom_Moon_79
Why did you exclude Ron Paul?
Slashdot you totally failed on this. WTF were you thinking?
Right on, dada21!
Thanks for the reply DocRuby. (by "poster" I meant ScuttleMonkey).
I myself thought the WS article a thought provoking 3rd party persepective on the Net Neutrality debate.
However, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, rather I like the new point of view. It is important to consider.
I think if you read WS without an eye toward propaganda and eye toward different points of view, you may find they have some very intelligent opinions that are probably in line with your own values. Not everything, just a few things here and there.
Yes, it also has a big dose of Republican party cheerleading, too. However, I've never encountered a political rag that doesn't favor some political party or cause.
-J Tom Moon
A major slashdot poster not only read, but linked to, something outside the accepted sphere of influence! (I think this is a good thing).
I give you credit for linking to a thought-provoking article in the Republican zine "The Weekly Standard".
-J Tom Moon
Listen to this:
http://kuow.org/m3u/weekday-b20060323.m3u
from here:
http://kuow.org/weekday.asp?Archive=03-23#10
The important parts are from minute 39 to minute 52.
I thought this was a good interview and wanted to pass it along.
The interview answers the basic question of how climate change is predicted to happen (happening). In other words, the science of climate change and not the politics.
-J Tom Moon