Frankly, if you can't handle CS1 without hand-holding, maybe you're just not cut out for Computer Science. I've found that professors are much happier to take extra time on concepts once you get into the later undergrad material and grad school research-oriented topic - the hard stuff - but have little patience for introductory courses.

After all, why should a professor dumb down a relatively easy course for 200 students when he or she could accelerate it for 100 students? Prove your ability on the easy stuff and the professor will spend more time on you when you get to the difficult stuff.

Does having a tiny bit of old smallpox in a vial somewhere give you a significant advantage in making large quantities of vaccine for new mutated smallpox?

According to TFS the US is ordering 14 million smallpox vaccine doses and I don't think they're relying on the current smallpox vials to make them. It seems to me that we could kill off smallpox but still be ready to produce vaccines if a new strain broke out.

Frankly, I think the odds and resulting damage of some nation hiding weaponized smallpox all these years and intentionally releasing it are overshadowed by the odds and damage of the US accidentally releasing or losing the stored vials. Autoclave the thing and call it a day.

It seems to me that the real research question is "how can one stranger teach another stranger a natural language using a less powerful shared language?" For instance, how can I teach you English when the only language we share is basic gestures?

Some theoretical work on communicating the rules of complicated languages using very limited languages would be interesting. The fact that they used robots is hardly important; anybody can stick a speech synthesizer and speech recognition on a PC and call it a day. The underlying problem is the same.

When I hear "Robots used in [10-years-out research topic x]" I think "If they were serious about research topic x they'd be working theoretically - they're nowhere near ready to start worrying about implementations!"

Maybe that's unfair, but it seems that there's a world of cool theory to be explored on this topic, and unless they plan on having the robots do the work, I don't see many breakthroughs coming from the authors.

I don't know if it's still the case, but when it first came out there was a bug with Linux ext3 filesystems (actually more of a ext3 bug or design decision conflict with Firefox) that imposed 10-20 second lock-ups every few minutes. After a few days of that Firefox was replaced with something a little more lightweight in general. Sometimes I just want to browse the web - when my netbook is being made unusable by the web browser, I've got a problem!

Very true, but prospective customers don't want to hear the details. AT&T can come back with a line of commercials advertising how their 3G is faster than Verizon's 3G and bam - competition. The point is that the Verizon ads aren't unfairly damaging or misleading and there's plenty of room for rebuttal by AT&T.

I see these ads a lot; they run often during college football games here in Florida. I have AT&T on a non-3G phone so it doesn't really apply to me, but if I were in the market for a 3G phone I'd definitely want to follow-up on those ads.

I don't think they're misleading - they say "if you want to know why your friend's 3G coverage is so spotty" (or something along those lines, with 3G mentioned every time) and the examples given are all 3G-specific (high-bandwidth applications). Besides, who advertises about the breadth of their 2G service these days? It's very clear that it's talking about 3G.

So did you believe the magician's claim that he has supernatural powers, too? If an old man with a stick and a talent for miming can fool you into thinking that dead wood can turn "into a straining, curving, living thing" and detect water, I've got a card trick to show you.

I've located the source of the problem, highlighted above.

And if you legally have a song you ought to be able to listen to it as many times as you please. And if you legally have a movie you ought to be able to watch it in every room in the house. And if you legally have a video game you ought to be able to use it on as many computers as you wish.

Media companies feel that since media has no inherent usage limitations (transportation, duplication, accessibility, etc.) they've got to limit it purposefully. It's scary (and I'm not saying that facetiously) for someone who grew up when a product had a serial number, an owner, a size, a weight, to suddenly be in charge of selling an ephemeral product with nothing but a production cost that must be somehow recouped.

Wait until the kids that grew up with broadband are old enough to approach venture capitalists, to lobby congress, to go to court. Then we'll see some change.

I too gave up cable for precisely this reason: Cox wouldn't give me a box with working Firewire (despite angry phone calls to managers citing the FCC regulation that requires it here in the States). After a few weeks I decided that the cost of pursuing it further up the ladder and the cost of the service in the first place wasn't worth the quality of service, so I cut the cord.

I replaced my cable subscription with broadcast HD (for sports, particularly the home team) and a two-at-a-time Netflix subscription, which worked out quite well.

Anyway, for some people television is as important a media as the Internet is for us here on Slashdot. There's certainly a lot more intelligent material on the Internet than on television, but face it, most people aren't using the Internet for that anyway. Television is a good way to turn your brain off and relax, which, in moderation, can be a good thing.

My guess is that, like the FCC, the relevant Canadian authorities have little care about this particular issue. Cable companies in the states don't blink when you cite the FCC. Everyone but a single tech at Cox claimed straight-faced that the FCC mandated no such thing. Either they haven't heard of it before, have never had anyone complain before, or simply hoped I'd go away.

(Incidentally, I made it very clear to the manager of the local Cox management why I was disconnecting my service and why I would encourage others to do the same. He didn't seem fazed and I never got any offers for reduced cost service.)

You could easily write that as: "If you have musical tastes that aren't the same as the majority, too bad." But that's pretty much expected, right? Imagine liking orchestral music when big band took off. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "crap". A lot of people like Miley Cyrus and don't care if it's not skillfully performed music. Radio, like any limited-spectrum broadcast medium, caters to the majority.

If dislike in radio genres was substantial enough to impact the music industry's bottom line (via "switchers" to streaming media) the radio stations would adjust accordingly.

I think what is increasing demand in streaming media is availability, ease of use, and cost. The state of streaming "Internet radio" 10 years ago was pitiful. Since then we have standardized technologies, better quality, and (however grudgingly) music label support. Along with reasonable costs (free in many cases!), increased access to high-bandwidth Internet connections, and more legitimacy in not owning physical albums, tapes, CDs, etc. streaming becomes a viable media delivery method.

The great thing about science is that the OP doesn't need to be convincing. Anyone can look at the data and reach a conclusion.

In case you don't want to become an expert in the field, however, and are willing to accept an overwhelming majority of existing experts, you would find that "97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures." (from the OP's link).

Perhaps if you didn't accept that poll, you might find that "Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; and 84% believe global climate change poses a moderate to very great danger.". And so on.

Personally I don't get it. Why is it so hard to accept? Reliance on academic authories has its pitfalls of course, but a certain point you need the humility to accept that there is no debate over this particular point among experts.

It reminds me of the "debate" over whether or not 0.999... = 1. Non-mathematicians will swear up and down that it can't be. They'll pull out everything they've got, but at the end of the day, just because you don't understand it doesn't make it so. Read with a careful eye, but c'mon, the cause of the current change in global mean temperatures is no longer a debate.

I stand corrected!

Not available for desktop PCs? What exactly is the difference between a laptop and a desktop running Windows, except for form factor?

This is an incredibly stupid decision for Verizon to make, and for Boingo to go along with. Bad business sense.

Level heads, people, level heads. This is a report from the AP; neither Verizon nor Boingo have commented on the mechanics of the service.

Verizon has little incentive to refuse access to portable devices or Macs or anybody else for that matter. They're probably not into Windows evangelism nor do they really benefit from offering a "free" service that nobody can use (roll out costs will trump usage costs for the near term and if the service isn't used it won't attract more customers anyway). Finally, Verizon is a major phone company and knows as well as anyone that mobility is the present and future. They're not going to ignore that segment.

Similarly, Boingo, whose whole business is providing easy-to-use wireless access, would suffer from word-of-mouth. Furthermore, as other posters have commented, Boingo already has applications for many platforms, including most smart phones.

Therefore I find it hard to believe that Verizon, with Boingo's consent as business partner is allowing only Windows XP and Vista to access their new hotspots. I'll wait until Verizon and/or Boingo make an official announcement before getting the ol' pitchfork out the closet.

I think Microsoft's new campaign of "personalization" is worthwhile, especially as a way to counter the "hipness" of Apple. With Apple you get popularity, but there's no uniqueness. Microsoft gave up on popularity, hipness after the failed Bill Gates/Seinfeld "quirky" commercials. Uniqueness and customization is a good strategy, I think. The "I'm a PC" commercials pushed it and the stores, as per the article, are making it a big focus.

I don't really have any need to buy Microsoft products, but it's certainly interesting. It's new at least, and I think it has a shot at succeeding. Plus, having real people to talk to is a step towards making it easier to use a valid, purchased product than a pirated product, which is step 1 in fighting piracy (the real way).

I don't know... an unethical service, an unscrupulous company, a management with the lack of business sense to realize this is a public relations disaster, a fiscally untenable platform, and (possibly) opens them up to legal action... I'd call that crazy.

Sure, the technology works, but the whole idea is preposterous. Who transcribes the workers' voice mail? Or is voice mail transcription reserved for the upper class? Surely it's not such an elite service to warrant that treatment, which indicates that something went wrong in the management's thinking.