Explain please how a drill press is not secure.

Let's see...

1) flashy: not really
2) secure: definitely, no hard disk has ever been physically reconstructed that had holes in the platters. Short of a scanning electron microscope, you're not reconstructing that data
3) available: go to home depot
4) price: yes, more expensive than running dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/olddisk, but cheaper than an industrial-grade shredder and of course cheaper than any commercial "enterprise" data removing software. I think drill presses can be had for around $200.

I've never had to learn or use assembly (though I wouldn't mind trying).

What I want to say is that you may gain a similar knowledge by working with microcontrollers and low-resource embedded platforms. When every byte of memory and every instruction cycle counts, you will start to think about algorithm efficiency and other tradeoffs that simply don't matter on an enormous 16-core Xenon workstation with 32 GB of ram. And then, of course, this does lead to better code on those big desktop machines. Those optimizations do add up in larger programs.

As for the overall OP's topic, yes, it is a problem that CS grads are "only" working in Java. So they're learning about program flow control and algorithms. But a mathematician can do that. The CS grads that learn programming at a lower level really do have an edge over those that are just point-n-click-n-type java programmers.

To me, and I'm an EE, knowledge of the above resource-limited systems, linux, and C has taken me a long way. It has enabled me to work on just about anything.

Your post is not clear on what you mean by "without a firewall". There are so many places in a typical setup where a firewall could be placed, and yes, it is safe to leave them out in some situations.

For example, your store has a firewall at the internet connection and everything inside is a private ip address. The cash registers run on their own network, firewall'd away from the other computers in the store, with rules to allow for outgoing credit card authorizations and that sort of thing. Does each cash register need a firewall? Probably not, and it might even be a significant expense to maintain updated rules every time the network needs to be reconfigured.

So yeah, it depends on the entire configuration. The tone of your post suggests that the situation is not good though, and of course, it's a lot easier to argue for a firewall these days than against one.

So then add a short USB cable. If you're building something for production, then make a custom board. Beagle Bone is a fine product to have fun with.

Also, look at the beagle bone. These are about $50 and they come with analog i/o and digital i/o, but unlike a micro controller, they run a full operating system (linux). Lots of fun!

What about smokers who abstain from smoking during pregnancy but otherwise chain smoke through life?

Capacitive screens work fine with standard lab gloves. We have two types of gloves here in the lab, and both work good with iPhones and iPads.

Having said that, if you have gloves on, you probably shouldn't be contaminating the phone and/or your finger tips.

And then hire some cisco-approved "experts" to recommend you the latest configuratable ipv6 fancy-pants 100Gig routers for each classroom. They will give fancy "the future is here" 3D presentations to the principal and board, and make sure you loose every last dime that could have purchased time with real educators and industry experts to actually help educate.

You can "enterprise-deploy" iOS devices and then sign your own apps. That's what large institutions do.

The real question, android fanboys, is, WHY A FREAKING TABLET AT ALL?

Well, just sayin', maybe kids would be naturally curious about other things too?

Like, I dunno, science and math? Reading interesting books? Dropping eggs off the side of a building in various contraptions? Shooting rubber bands in a contest? Observing the weather each day? Planting stuff? Estimating quantities of items? Playing musical instruments? Drawing? Making things out of scraps of material? Exploring mathematics without a calculator and a test?

Oh, right, this stuff isn't digital, doesn't cost enough money, and requires additional effort form the teacher other than watching kids play on ipads while they play on facebook themselves.

And now they want to become an ISP? Hmm...

Teach kids stuff: fail
Deploy iPads: fail ...
Become ISP? FAIL

Why does it have to be a tablet? How about hiring a scientist or an engineer to come to each class room for a few hours a week. Guarantee you'd get your mileage there.

Given how these will be used, I doubt there will be much difference except for the cost. Either way it is a complete waste.

You've got this exactly correct. Educate. Don't waste our money, time, and most importantly, our students' childhood on a "device."

I guarantee you that if I were educating students with a chalkboard I could do better than a moron with the latest iPad. Or google tablet or whatever.

Let's get better teachers and better materials, not more technology.

"Oh, but our kids won't learn how to use Office XYZ and Windows F" Big deal. They can pick that up pretty quick any time. Let's get them THINKING and LEARNING first.

I hear that system is a real POS.

It's not an edge case. The random number generator should not be seeded only by a PID.

Hello Theo, the 1970s called, they want their random number generator back...