There's a difference between being able to read cursive (i.e. "joined up" in Commonwealth English) handwriting and actually being able to write it yourself. Besides which, even *my* joined-up handwriting isn't the same style as some of the more elaborate "copperplate" styles favoured in the past.

And while we're talking about it, the headline "Finland dumps handwriting"- which the original story used and Slashdot copied- is misleading anyway. From the article itself, it's joined-up writing that's being dumped, not writing altogether. The latter would be far more serious- IMHO kids should learn to write, but joined-up? Well, it makes me slightly uncomfortable to think of ditching it, but then *I* remember how little I actually write these days. (*) As long as they can at least write half-competently, that's the main thing.

FWIW, I certainly think that kids should be being taught basic typing skills, and if you're going to explicitly teach it anyway, it makes sense to go with touch typing. I'd been using computers for around 15 years before I learned to touch type in the late 90s, and that only happened because I explicitly learned to do so. I'd got pretty good at "hunt and peck" (**), but I would never have picked up touch typing skills from that alone.

I used Mavis Beacon, and to be honest, it didn't take *that* long to become good enough that I switched completely to touch-typing. I'm pretty sure that most kids could pick it up as fast, so it shouldn't waste too much schooltime anyway, even if typing (say) became obsolete in fifteen years time.

"Texting" skills, OTOH... stupid waste of time. Smacks of a slightly out-of-touch and conservative middle-aged person having belatedly caught up with this new "texting" fad and mistaking it for an important skill. Even if old-style (numeric keypad) texting needed a bit of practice to learn, it's not something that kids needed to be- or should have been- taught. More importantly, that typing style is being quickly rendered obsolete by the move to smartphones that use virtual QWERTY keyboards instead.

(*) And how rubbish it is often when I do- mainly because the speed of typing has made me impatient with writing speed- even though rushing it doesn't speed things up that much. If I actually make an effort to write, I'm still as neat as I ever was.

(**) My classmates were quite impressed with my typing speed, but this was back in the late 80s/early 90s when computers hadn't permeated everyday life as much, and most domestic use by non-geeks was for games or very basic use that didn't need much typing skill. (I was a geek, of course!)

I can't get to the paper, but it doesn't actually say anywhere that the girls were uniformly better. All subjects improved their understanding of computation, but the girls as a group did significantly better.

Also, when you look at more interesting and original, less copy-pasty games, female developers and designers seem to be more common than in the industry overall.

That's essentially what I was implying by the first of those two options.

The problem is that- depending upon the contract- the smaller company being screwed over is now in a position where they *can't* pull out of the contract because their large customer has them over a barrel. They've expanded and/or dedicated significant resources to supplying and pleasing that customer they thought would be a cash cow- possibly dropping other markets- and if the large company was to terminate the contract as threatened, they'd then have a massive production operation to fund with no-one to buy the end result.

It's either that quick death, or the slow death of having your margins ruthlessly squeezed beyond a sustainable point.

From another letter in the comments section of that article (from "Mugs"):-

This was behaviour I was already familiar with relating to Wal-Mart, but it shows you it happened even back then. You can bet your life that in every case, the large customer knew exactly how this was going to play out in advance.

See this:- The Wal-Mart you don't know
And this:- The Man Who Said "No" to Wal-Mart

He didn't say that anywhere. His problem was solely about whether particular energy uses had been included or not, and whether those *should* count towards the claim made.

You're entitled to agree or disagree with him on that- and I'm not saying I entirely agree- but he didn't say anything about being opposed to Scotland getting its energy from renewables, and it's pretty unreasonable to put words in his mouth on that count.

The Register ran an opinion piece when the details on this story were first appearing a couple of weeks back. It noted an almost unbelievable point others have commented on elsewhere in this thread:-

Something the author describes as "sheer lunacy". Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. Oddly, the "struck blind" explanation isn't as improbable going by a comment in the letters section (from "Edwin"):-

I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get a BD burner soon, does anybody here have exp with using BD for storage? How are they holding up?

I have two BD-R drives. Much like with DVDs, I use a good quality media: pretty much all of the good DVD brands also make good BD-Rs, e.g. Verbatim. I store the discs in a cool, dry place away from sunlight (disc binders). After about four years I have had no problems reading any disc I have burned.

Blu-ray discs have two advantages over DVD. First is size: a single layer disc holds 25 GB, or approximately three times as much as a dual layer DVD. Dual layer discs hold 50 GB, or approximately six times as much as a dual layer DVD. This drastically reduces both the annoyance of burning (sitting at the computer swapping discs) as well as the amount of physical space required.

The second advantage, which I wish applied to other media as well, is the scratch-resistant coating. Due to the much tighter storage density as well as the thinner layer of plastic required to get the laser closer to the data surface, a scratch is more serious for a Blu-ray. To help with this, they use a much more durable plastic that does not scratch easily unless you are deliberately gouging the surface.

For commercial use, go with tape. For home use, I love my BD-R. A 50 GB BD-R disc holds plenty of data for a home user, is durable, and can last years under residential conditions.

I was one of the original Kickstarter funders.

I threw my money into the pot because I got so much fun and game play out of the original Elite. Basically I thought David Braben and his team had already earned it. Am I disappointed that there's no single player offline? Yes, I am. My home internet connection has a long ping time (it's via satellite) so multiplayer combat was never going to work for me. It may be, for that reason, the game won't work at all - FOR ME. But I'm not making a fuss.

Basically if you back a kickstarter you're taking a risk. This kickstarter has enabled an amazing game to be built, and lots of people will get a huge amount of fun out of it; as far as I'm concerned, my money's well spent.

Why does this make me imagine the voice of the teenage son Steve from "American Dad"?

Also, obligatory paraphrasing here:-

Ian Publisher: Sweden is gonna give the game an "R" rating... because they have decided that it is sexist.

Nigel G Amergate: Well, so what? What's wrong with bein' sexy? I mean there's no...

Ian Publisher: Sex-IST!

Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? (from 1982, but still relevant today), and The diamond myth,

How should one go about getting a job programming a large supercomputer?

Become a researcher in a field that makes use of lots of computing power, then specialize in the math modeling and simulation subfields. Surprisingly often it's quite easy to get time on a system if you apply as a post-doc or even a grad student. Becoming part of a research group that develops simulation tools for others to use can be an especially good way.

Or, get an advanced degree in numerical analysis or similar and get hired by a manufacturer or an organization that builds or runs supercomputers. On one hand that'd give you a much more permanent job, and you'd be mostly doing coding, not working on your research; on the other hand it's probably a lot harder to get.

But ultimately, why would you want this? They're not especially magical machines. Especially today, when they're usually Linux based, and the system developers do all they can to make it look and act like a regular Linux system.

If you want to experience what it's like, try this: Install a 4-5 year old version of Red Hat on a workstation. Install OpenMP and OpenMPI, and make sure all your code uses either or both. Install an oddball C/C++ compiler. Access your workstation only via SSH, not directly. And add a job queue system that will semi-randomly let your app run after anything from a few seconds to several hours.