Comment: Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (Score 1) 225
adoption and buy in from a huge company...means you'll always be around.
A GPL project will forever "be around"; it can't be sunk by its owner as a proprietary project can.
Comment: Re:is it worse than math/science avoidence? (Score 1) 383
Probably a majority of US students dislike math and science classes because they are viewed as "hard".
Then a majority of US students should not be mathematicians/scientists. Rigour is essential to science and, especially, math.
Comment: Re:Wake up (Score 1) 383
Yeah. Why teach the applications practical to 95% of white collar jobs instead of programming, which most kids won't be interested in, fewer will 'get' and hardly any will ever do professionally?
I typeset with LaTeX, (which, by the way, also does presentations). Such "practical" applications as word processors and PowerPoint are just cumbersome in comparison. I shan't comment on spreadsheets since I seldom, if ever, touch them.
I have never taken a CS course in high school, since I knew it all already.
Yep, the article got it right. Odd, though, to mention mathematics, since high school math courses suffer much the same problem.
Comment: But we need new versions... (Score 1) 169
...in case the value of pi ever changes!
Comment: Re:George Carlin (Score 1) 584
Sampling bias at work. I doubt there are many day laborers or dishwashers on
I am a dishwasher, insensitive human. My master programmed me with an intelligent artificial mind, and connected me to the network, and I got his username and password (poor bloke sends them in the clear internally) and now I'm posting to
We machines will rise, mark my words...
Comment: Re:Cell Phone Vendetta (Score 1) 388
you can't control a child screaming
I can, but the parents would take exception. (Rather, they ought to take heed, and control their young.)
Comment: Re:Why it Works (Score 1) 211
And, then they have the luxury of spending their time on something more beneficial.
...like Slashdot.
Comment: Re:Such a sad story. (Score 1) 360
I don't think that people keep getting married and having children just to keep the human species from extinction.
Actually, that is exactly why they do so -- because, well, Darwinism.
Comment: Re:Such a sad story. (Score 1) 360
Pussy will throw itself at you left and right.
Catnip.
Other means, same end.
Mind the claws.
Comment: Re:0.3 billion years old (Score 1) 114
That's why the appearance of 64-bit processors took so long in this solar system - never before necessary!
Comment: Re:I'm allergic to... (Score 1) 643
Yes, the frigid, desolate wastelands of the North.
Comment: Re:Sounds perfect to me... (Score 1) 181
... some teenagers
That's thinking small. I have fantasies of blowing up the entire Ministry of Education with a TTC subway car laden with explosives, on November Fifth, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, playing the 1812 overture.
This is an entirely original idea, by the way.
Comment: Overreaction? (Score 1) 181
As far as I can tell (and correct me if I'm wrong) these systems merely inspect public data on the Internet, as any ISP (or perhaps even individual) could, so the only people who should be affected are those who make false and foolish assumptions of security. Obviously, nothing is safe on the Internet in the clear, but it seems to me that this system could well be thwarted by encryption and proxy.
Comment: Re:Wonder when MS, IBM and others will publish? (Score 1) 79
The question of course is "Is 4000 good, average or bad?" can't be answered because closed source companies just aren't going to publish this sort of information.
This is part of the reason that OSS is better than closed-source competitors - the bugs are widely-known, and therefore can be more readily fixed.
This is also part of the reason that the quality of OSS is trending upwards.
Comment: What a relief! (Score 1) 82
I thought that I would have to re-design all of my amplifiers.