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Comment Re:So, What's the *Actual* WinVista ONLY use? (Score 1) 595

by ELProphet (#25965477) Attached to: Windows Drops Below 90% Market Share

From the original data, "Windows" and "Microsoft" are synonymous, unless Windows is specified as Vista, XP, or 2000. The actual data is as follows:

Windows XP 66.31%
Windows Vista 20.45%
MacIntel 6.51%
Mac OS 2.35%
Windows 2000 1.56%
Linux 0.83%
Windows NT 0.77%
iPhone 0.37%
Windows 98 0.29%
Windows ME 0.17%
Windows CE 0.05%
Pike 0.05%
Unknown 0.05%
iPod 0.05%
Series60 0.03%
Hiptop 0.03%
PLAYSTATION 3 0.02%
PSP 0.02%
Windows 95 0.01%
SunOS 0.01%
Nintendo Wii 0.01%
Win64 0.01%
FreeBSD 0.01%
Wi 0.00%

From:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10

They claim these are actual usage statistics (presumably from net usage, so already a bit dubious regarding older systems), not sales statistics. It looks like MacOS and MacIntel are "Apple"- I'm assuming MacOS is everything not running on Intel chips, and MacIntel is the newer OSX versions. They seem to group everything "linux" as anything with the Linux kernel. Again, these are net machines, so there's no accounting for server usage. Hate to say it, but this is not the Year of the Linux Desktop. This is more likely the Year of the Apple Anti-trust Lawsuit.

Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 1) 727

by ELProphet (#25960671) Attached to: Twenty Years of Dijkstra's Cruelty

"
As a result, it tends to get waved away as "magic" or "this will be explained later" but there's so much waved away that the students get disconnected. For instance, to simply output a line to a command line in Java you're looking at
System.out.println("output");
whereas with c++ (for instance) you have
cout "output" endl;
As someone who's teaching this stuff, the second is easier to explain in detail and doesn't rely on saying "don't worry what System.out is".
"

I think both have an equal amount of hand-waving.

System is a class that contains many useful run-time features your program can use. The out property is a way to write to the console. The println method of the System.out reference is a way to write text or other objects to the standard out, with an appended new line. If it gets passed an object, it calls the object's toString method first, giving each object control over how to display itself

The is an operator that is overloaded by many classes. The cout overloads the operator to print to standard out. The cout itself requires a bit of hand waving. Also, you need to return an int from the main (Why? Don't worry, just return 0), you need to import a namespace, and you need to explain that endl is a magic (but platform independent) line terminator.

Guess what? There is no good language to teach computer science in. They all require a lot of hand-waving for the intro programmer. The college I go to is shifting very heavily to not using any language in the first semester of the CS program. It's entirely flowcharting and basic UML- design first. 2nd semester is Java, 3rd semester is Data Structures (using JCF). 4th semester is C and Assembler. Junior and Senior years are electives, including Architecture, Distributed, Networking, Graphics, OSes, and Compilers. Also required is an internship.

A great programmer doesn't give a rats ass about what language they're programming in. A great programmer will program into the language, using the language to the best of its ability. A great programmer will, however, choose languages and environments that give them their greatest desire: the ability to be lazy. Good CS programs will teach people how to program, not what to program. Good professors must find a way to present all aspects of CS in an appropriate fashion, and that does mean design first.

Comment Re:Dunno, but I'm blaming the crooks (Score 1) 96

by ELProphet (#25766909) Attached to: US State Sues Web/SEO Firm For Deceiving Mom-and-Pops

You're assuming the "wannabe crook" is actually a crook. I don't get that impression. It seems that Mom & Pop simply didn't know much about this new-fangled "Google" thing, and someone came up and said with confidence "I can make Google work for YOU!" Still not knowing about Google or the internet, Mom & Pop said "Ok, sounds good. You seem like a nice guy, and guarantee me 100% return on investment, sure I'll pay for that." Now, Crook has come close to committing fraud by mis-selling his services. Google did what Google does well- whacked the SEO (the crook). The only thing Mom & Pop should have done differently was a bit of research.
Sci-Fi

Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead At 90 538

Posted by kdawson from the pod-bay-doors-are-open dept.
Many readers are sending in word that Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka. He wrote over 100 books including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, and popularized the ideas of geosynchronous communications satellites and space elevators.
Handhelds

Nokia Unveils Shape Changing Nano-phone Concept 89

Posted by samzenpus from the can-you-bend-it-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Morph, a joint nanotechnology concept developed by Nokia Research Center and the University of Cambridge, has gone on display as part of the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The concept demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform the gadget into radically different shapes. Nokia said that elements of Morph might be integrated into handheld devices within seven years, though initially only at the high end."
Space

Computer Model Points To the Missing Matter 97

Posted by kdawson from the on-a-whim dept.
eldavojohn writes "There exists a little-known problem of missing regular matter that has perhaps been overshadowed by the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Computer models show that there should be about 40% more regular matter than we see... so where is it? From the article: 'The study indicated a significant portion of the gas is in the filaments — which connect galaxy clusters — hidden from direct observation in enormous gas clouds in intergalactic space known as the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium, or WHIM, said CU-Boulder Professor Jack Burns... The team performed one of the largest cosmological supercomputer simulations ever, cramming 2.5 percent of the visible universe inside a computer to model a region more than 1.5 billion light-years across.' This hypothesis will be investigated and hopefully proved/disproved when telescopes are completed in Chile and the Antarctic. The paper will be up for review in this week's edition of the the Astrophysical Journal."

Invisible Unmanned Aircraft 241

Posted by kdawson from the what's-that-noise? dept.
MattSparkes writes, "A Minnesota company, VeraTech, has applied for a patent on an unmanned drone that is nearly invisible to the naked eye. The Phantom Sentinel takes advantage of the phenomenon where fast moving objects appear as only a blur, so it fades out of view once it speeds up. This is achieved by rotating the entire craft. The center of gravity is in open air between two of the blade-like wings. There are some videos of a prototype in action on the VeraTech site." The company says you could get usable video of the terrain by processing the images from a spinning camera. One version of the drone is small enough to launch by throwing it like a boomerang. And it folds for travel.

Student Suspended Over IM Icon 652

Posted by Zonk from the lol-omg dept.
Chris Reimer writes "C|Net News.com is reporting that a 15-year-old student lost a lawsuit over having an instant messenger icon that represented a death threat against an English teacher on his personal computer that another student reported to school authorities. From the article: 'His parents sued, claiming that the icon was protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, that the school district failed to train staff in proper threat assessment and that the school board violated state law in not following proper procedures. [The judge] Mordue rejected the free-speech claims.'"

What Do Geek Squad Technicians Actually Do? 1065

Posted by Cliff from the are-they-worthy-of-the-name dept.
Zenitram asks: "I am a lead technician at a company that repairs computers for various vendors. Many of our systems are from Best Buy's Geek Squad. Based on the systems Geek Squad sends us, it makes me wonder what, if anything, do they actually do? We get systems that have issues that we simply shouldn't have to work on, like: installing device drivers, OS reloads, and reseting CRUs (Customer Removable Units). Additionally, we get systems that are misdiagnosed such as: bad hard drive when a system has faulty RAM; no POST when it simply won't boot into Windows; or no boot when it won't power on at all. So, what is the scope of technical repair that Geek Squad techs do?"

Final Fantasy vs. Oblivion 141

Posted by Zonk from the ready-fight dept.
An anonymous reader writes "bit-tech has up a short comparison between Final Fantasy VII and Oblivion. While Oblivion is touted as the latest and greatest PC-based RPG, Final Fantasy VII is held in the minds of many gamers as the best RPG of all time. From the article: 'At the time of its release, nearly ten years ago, FFVII received rave reviews from the press and the public, and it has a claim to being the best loved Final Fantasy game ... In a Top 100 Games of all time, it would be up there in the single digits. It is, by all accounts, Sergeant Pepper-Citizen Kane great. If something is great, it should be great whenever you pick it up -- buy a fresh copy of Pepper or Kane now and they'll still blow you away: they were great in '67 and '41, and they're great now. Is the same true of FFVII?'"

Planets Without Stars or Mini-Solar Systems? 149

Posted by timothy from the ronin-played-by-planet-di-niro dept.
iamlucky13 writes "An article today on space.com discusses the discovery of 6 objects by the European Southern Observatory in Chile that are smaller than typical brown dwarfs, larger than Jupiter, and not orbiting any stars. The objects are surrounded by disks of gas and dust possibly similar to the early solar system. In addition to presenting astronomers with a new group of objects to study, the finding also deepens the debate over what makes a planet. The scientists responsible for the discovery sidestep the question by calling them 'Planetary Mass Objects,' or planemos."

Why Web 2.0 Will End Your Privacy 233

Posted by timothy from the hot-local-girls-want-to-meet-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This is a pretty good insight into some of the dangers of social networking and website customisation -- marketing and loss of privacy. When marketeers know who your friends are and what you are all into, it makes their advertising a lot more effective. From the article: "Why are the companies worth so much money? Why is MySpace worth over half a billion dollars without a proper revenue model? Why is Digg allegedly pitched at over $20m (at the last count) without any idea of where money is going to be pulled from? The answer is - data. Information. Marketing. Every detail about you and me. That is where the money is."

Another Robotic Vehicle to Help Soldiers 154

Posted by Zonk from the johnny-five-is-alive dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "There are many teams of U.S. scientists working on robots able to find improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq before they can kill American soldiers. Today, let's look at an effort going on at Florida State University (FSU) to build unmanned ground vehicles that could save soldiers' lives. The researchers are creating complex algorithms to control these robots who will have to integrate many different factors such as the type of ground surface or obstacles that might block the vehicle's path. Some of these robots, which also could be used for civilian missions, are currently being tested at FSU. Read more for additional references and pictures of these robots which will have to navigate among dense obstacles."

The Potential of Science With the Cell Processor 176

Posted by Zonk from the making-a-station-play dept.
prostoalex writes "High Performance Computing Newswire is running an article on a paper by computer scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They have evaluated the processor's performance in running several scientific application kernels, then compared this performance against other processor architectures. The full paper is available from Computer Science department at Berkeley."

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