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Education

Submission + - Programming, puzzles and problem solving - free open online course 1

dncsky1530 writes: UNSW professor Richard Buckland, lecturer of the famous Computing 1 course on YouTube, is now running a large scale open online Computer Science course for the world. UNSW Computing 1 — PuzzleQuest and the Art of Programming starts off with microprocessors and works it way through C with interactive activities while taking students on an adventure of hacking, cracking and problem solving. It's based around a three month long PuzzleQuest with grand and suspiciously unspecified prizes as well as fame and glory for the intrepid. The next class starts December 3rd 2012.
Education

Submission + - Richard Buckland's UNSW Computing 1 - PuzzleQuest and the Art of Programming

dncsky1530 writes: UNSW professor Richard Buckland, lecturer of the famous Computing 1 course on YouTube, is now running a large scale open online Computer Science course for the world. UNSW Computing 1 — PuzzleQuest and the Art of Programming starts off with microprocessors and works it way through C with interactive activities while taking students on an adventure of hacking, cracking and problem solving. It's based around a three month long PuzzleQuest with grand and suspiciously unspecified prizes as well as fame and glory for the intrepid. Join a global community of learners and help people you've never met in this one of a kind online course on openlearning.com.

Comment Re:Wow. (Score 3, Insightful) 150

Yea I don't know what is going on today but the quality of many of these summaries has been awful. This one tops it off with numerous mistakes in the title alone.

I'm also not sure what Roblimo's problem with Atlassian or proprietary software is; from my experience Atlassian produces fairly good software and charges far less than competitors.

Also, how about linking to the actual press release or a news story that contains more than commentary?

Comment Re:Thought Question (Score 1) 184

This suggestion has come up a few times now for different countries: China, Australia, Pakistan and probably many others. There looks to be a trend around the world of governments and media companies taking aim at Google for a wide range of things. What it really comes down to is that Google provides the ability for almost anyone around the world to find just about anything. This makes information easily accessible and threatens the artificial barriers to knowledge and 'fair use'. Google is the largest search engine and has the most at stake so it is the obvious target. I would compare this lawsuit to suing the yellow page because they list a shop that has a collection of real and pirated DVDs - I wonder if they've tried that yet?

Comment Re:As a former Apple Premium Reseller employee (Score 5, Informative) 412

I also used to work for an Apple premium reseller and there was never any such policy, as the article states. Further they have mentioned that JB HiFi might be doing this to increase their accessory attachement rate in hopes of being allocated more iPads.

It is true that Apple collects statistics on accessory attachement rates however that is only for Apple accessories. In some cases resellers may have to purchase a certain percentage of Apple accessories along with their purchase of the iPads. But that percentage (in the past) has never been very high and always seemed to be along the lines of how many accessories were sold anyway.

JB HiFi had better be careful though because Apple has very strict agreements for resellers and certainly wouldn't appreciate the negative press or customer experience over this. Retail sales staff are usually paid on commission and margins on Apple hardware is very slim so a few accessories could easily double gross profit from an iPad sale (and the salesperson's cut).

Comment Implications on China (Score 5, Insightful) 288

This could be an interesting development for Google's efforts in China. If the traffic between google and the client is encrypted then the firewall of China *shouldn't* be able to analyse the search results coming back. The only option for China might be to block Google SSL completely but that might be a bit too risky politically.

Comment Re:So... (Score 4, Interesting) 647

This is only the latest in a string of censorship proposals that the government claims are targeted towards protecting people from child pornography.

As the article says, if child porn is the issue then why not just limit it to that? The same question has been asked about the proposed internet filter, which the government also claims is for protecting people from child porn but has been extended to cover all refused classification material.

Just as filtering the internet as has been proposed isn't really feasible (at least with little impact on speed), I highly doubt customs agents would or can search the tons of laptops and phones coming into Australia. All it would take is one person with 10GB of porn to keep them busy for a couple hours.

Comment Re:One of these words does not belong (Score 1) 61

After reading the article and going through the pictures I was quite surprised how mundane a lot of the technologies are. The tablet table or whatever it's called has been showcased by Microsoft for years but they've yet to produce a competitor OS to the iPhone or Andriod. I noticed an ad for the Kin next to the article Another big ticket item seemed to be the photo stitching for images - which reminds me of the software that my Canon camera came with 5 years ago. This might work better but it is five years on and I'm sure Canon has improved on this as well.

Comment What about doing it for charity? (Score 1) 68

I know it's easy to motivate people by the prospect of making a dollar or two however the money would have a greater impact to a charity.

We've created a team to win this prize and we need your help. However we don't offer a dollar or two, just that you get a say in which charity the prize money will go too.

Find us on facebook!

Comment Re:Or (Score 1) 237

Please. I know plenty of people who only smoke after a night of drinking. Do the cigarettes own them?

That would depend how often they have a night of drinking and if it is regularly they could end up being addicted to smoking. At any rate, a night of drinking and smoking wouldn't be good for anyone's health.

Comment Re:Or (Score 4, Insightful) 237

While willpower alone could and should make someone stop smoking, unfortunately not everyone is able to muster that willpower. There are a wide range of reasons people have trouble quitting (on top of the fact it's physically addictive), maybe they have smoked to a long long time or they are very stressed. I'm sure many of these people know it's bad for them and many smokers I've talked to say they want to quit but just can't. I think this vaccine is a brilliant step forward and it will give many life long smokers a second chance to quit. I'm sure there are many people to really have tried everything to quit and hopefully this vaccine will be the last thing they have to try.

Comment Unhackable like the Australian Porn Filter? (Score 4, Insightful) 501

Setting aside the fact that I don't think giving students laptops is the most efficient use of resources (smaller class sizes, more funding for teachers, arts and science programs etc would be better)... I can't help but wonder if this will be as unhackable as $84 million porn filter released a couple years ago.

Comment Re:You wouldn't need a heater... (Score 4, Interesting) 213

Funny as it may be, the parent as a point, with the worlds store of oil depleading, and the ozone layer getting worse by the day, projects like this aren't helping the problem. This may only be one case, however many more people keep old, old computers running for no reason, using up alot of electricity that doesn't need to be used.

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