WTF is a "gigafactory?"

This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Yes, I am aware of them, and they have their own brand of cliches.

I just enjoy the perspective that Slashdot readers provide because it is insightful yet different enough from the hackneyed responses I see elsewhere.

And besides, we both value different things from the insights, because I enjoy the insights here for the unique perspective rather than the value. I am less interested in right vs. wrong and more interested in new ways to look at an old problem, and new factors and interesting tidbits to consider.

I come to Slashdot for a certain type of view point, and sometimes, I am indeed interested in what Slashdotters have to say on topics of political and economic interest.

In that sense, I am often delighted when Slashdot carries such articles because it gives me an opportunity to understand a particular issue in a new light.

The signal to noise ratio here is significantly better than, say, CNN (i.e., imagine siphoning through thousands of comments on R vs. D debates). In contrast, I find that there is more rational discussion, and new insights here on Slashdot than elsewhere. Obviously, YMMV.

I think his objection is to the cost of Sandvines or the like to filter and monitor that amount of band with. Wouldn't be surprised if this was just a card played in negotiations with a hardware vendor.

No, they are just pissed at having to buy new Sandvines and support contracts to filter traffic. Trust me, they ain't cheap.

Also, this is not tangible personal property. It is a bunch of electrons.

Are you serious? Are you that much of an idiot?

There is a reason there is *intellectual* property law.

Property laws exist immaterial of what form the property takes -- trademarks and patents are all nothing more than ideas in our heads put to paper, and they are protected for a reason.

I can see this reasoning on another site, but I'd think the readers of Slashdot would have an understanding of what digital property entails.

Not near as old but my packet station running on a Leading Edge XT and a Motorola Syntor still works.

73 de w7com

User port on the SX-64, eh? Be careful not to short the 9VAC pins and blow the fuse INSIDE the transformer that has a lower rating than the one on the case. If you do, you can unwrap the tape around the xformer and solder a wire across the diode sized fuse in there.

I had an EPROM burner for the 64 and edited the font 2716 so that I could actually tell the difference between 6,8,and 0. That JVC screen was nice but the default Commodore font sucked.

My other mod was to replace the keyboard cable with a six foot flat ribbon cable. My eyes were so much better back in the 80s.

It's the Brotherhood of God's People that I fear the most. Just last month they topped 512k members.

Seen that too, and the guy found the pipe. This was on an Indian rez and a tribal utility worker. Not that I go for that stuff but it was an impressive display of what the subconscious can do.

I wouldn't call it wild speculation. I'd call that a likely scenario.

We're just a screen saver.

You simply don't have any clue. You can't relate do doing any kind of hard time.

Yes I can. I did about the same amount for stealing long distance calling from Sprint using a C64.

I would characterize those areas as IT and software engineering, and not necessarily Computer Science.

I would perhaps state that some areas of computing (e.g., systems design, architecture) are better grouped under software engineering, given their nature.

I almost feel that there needs a distinction between software engineering and computer science. To paraphrase David Parnas, computer science studies the properties of computation in general while software engineering is the design of specific computations to achieve practical goals.

Muddling the two disciplines causes heartache because you have people who are great at designing software, but cannot grok advanced math; and on the other hand, you potentially limit your solutions to what's within the realm of current applicability, without exploring other possibilities (e..g, reinventing new algorithms for quantum computation).

I would add a nuance to your point and state that real world experience matters in IT, but not in CS.

Computer Science is more about algorithms, systems architecture, and a lot of math. I did very little programming when I did CS in grad school and a whole lot of pretty awesome math (computational complexity, graphics, optimizations etc). Not sure about undergrad, since I did ECE, which, once again, was a whole lot of math (DSP, control systems, engineering electromagnetics, circuit theory, VLSI etc).

In any event, real-world relevance is more important to IT than it is to CS. I would say that it is however somewhat important in engineering, which, once again, is a professional degree.