Comment Between this and the 'alien lifeform' debacle... (Score 1) 610
...I have to ask: doesn't NASA have anything better to do with its time (and our money)?
Comment Nice to see it revived, but... (Score 5, Interesting) 185
I wrote for BYTE back in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, if I mention that to most people, they look at me curiously -- probably get the same reaction if I told them I had published articles in Colliers.
And, no, any current incarnation won't be the same as back then, but the personal computing industry has changed massively since then; it's been through at least two crashes (1988-90 and, of course, 2000-2004), and the technology is on a whole different level now -- both the hardware and the system software is less accessible than it was back then. The real barrier, though, is the advertisers. BYTE in the mid-80s sometimes got up to 600 pages per issue total size, because there were so many advertisers willing to chase after its readers. (Cf. the 1988-90 tech crash.) Trying to create an updated version of that BYTE might be possible, but I'm not sure who would advertise in it.
Comment Re:FUD! (Score 1) 580
There are already plenty of alternatives to the Mac Apps Store: Amazon, Best Buy, Fry's, and anywhere else you can buy Mac software. As the person says, get a grip.
Submission + - Lefty activists want to manipulate search engines
bfwebster writes: Over at the Daily Kos, Chris Bowers lays out the groundwork for Grassroots SEO, with the up-front goal "to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district" via "search engine optimization". He lays out the plan, then says, "Once we get the articles we can start working to push them up search engine rankings. We need to launch the campaign early next week, so let’s gather these articles as quickly as we can."
Comment Old, discredited argument (Score 2, Interesting) 385
Variations of this argument date back at least 25 years, when it was it was seriously proposed that the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) interface being popularized by the Macintosh would mentally cripple us, and that we should all stick with command-line interfaces. No, seriously. I strongly suspect a similar argument was made when the automatic transmission was introduced in cars, or the Dewey Decimal system and card catalogs into libraries. ("You should just read all the books and know what's where!")
It was bollocks then, and it's bollocks now. These are enabling technologies -- people get more done. I have 3000 books in 17 bookshelves (the vast majority non-fiction) and have new books from Amazon arrive almost weekly; I read heavily, but I also use Google and other on-line tools heavily.
Comment Logic and reasoning (Score 1) 462
Technology changes. I should know; it's been 40 years since I wrote my first program (in high school) using a limited form of BASIC by filling in ovals on computer cards. But logic and reasoning change much more slowly and underlie all of information technology. If the kids don't understand logic and reasoning, if they can't analyze and construct it, the rest won't matter.
Submission + - HP hardware problems with Windows 7? (brucefwebster.com)
bfwebster writes: Since November of 2009, I have bought three multi-core 64-bit systems with Windows Home Premium (64-bit) preinstalled: an HP Pavilion desktop (model e9237c, bought 11/09); an HP Pavilion Entertainment laptop (model dv7, bought 03/10); and a Gateway desktop (model SX2802, bought 04/10). All three were upgraded to Windows 7 Professional at the end of May. During the time I have had these systems, I have had dozens of blue-scree-of-death (BSOD) crashes on the HP desktop; hundreds of BSODs on the HP laptop (which I suspect are related to the wireless adapter, since they mostly go away if I disable it), including multiple BSODs that occur at the log-in screen with no-one touching the laptop; and exactly zero (0) BSODs on the Gateway desktop. I am curious if others have noted similar problems on HP systems or lack thereof on Gateway systems. (Yes, I'm planning a factory restore and, if necessary, a return of the laptop; I've been on the road heavily since the end of March and haven't been able to lose use of the laptop until now.) More details here.
Comment Maybe he'll do a better job next time (Score 5, Interesting) 108
Some years ago, I acted as an expert witness in a civil case that involved forged pages inserted into the only extant signed copy of a contract. I testified on the stand at length as to all the various evidences that these specific pages had been deliberately changed and had likely been retyped and then printed: they were printed on an ink-jet printer vs. a laser printer for the original pages; there were words misspelled that had been correctly spelled in the most recent electronic version of the document; there were three lines of text completely missing on one of the altered pages, likely due to similar line endings (i.e., the typist looked at the hard copy, typed the text in, then looked back and inadvertently skipped down three lines); and so on.
After I had testified, I was excused from the courtroom along with the alleged forger so that the lawyers could argue some motions before the judge. Out in the hallway, the alleged forger turned to me and said, "Your testimony was very interesting; I learned a lot." I thought, "Oh, great. Now he'll know what to avoid in the future."
Comment Replace "computer" with "TV"... (Score 4, Insightful) 305
...and ask yourself if you'd be surprised by these results. Most home computers (like TVs) are entertainment devices that are occasionally educational, rather than educational devices that are occasionally entertaining.
Beyond that, fundamental education (language, math, reasoning, general and specific knowledge) is hard and involves study, memorization, drill, and test. People have been hoping for 40 years or so that computers would somehow magically make that go away. Or to paraphrase South Park:
1) Computers in classrooms and homes
2) ?
3) Smart, well-educated kids!
Sorry, doesn't work that way.
Comment I never worried much about it (Score 1) 684
It's been nearly 25 years since I taught CS (BYU, 1985-87), and I taught at the peak of CS enrollment, so I had large (200+ students) "Intro to Programming" courses; also, these same classes counted as general education. I'm sure a lot of 'sharing' went on as far as the programming assignments went, but I was never concerned, because (a) that's true in real-life programming as well, and (b) it wasn't going to help them (and actually hurt them) when it came to tests. As a side note, enrollment demand was so high at that time that if you wanted to be a CS major, you had to complete this class, apply to the CS department, and be accepted as a CS major. Ah, those were the days.
The other classes I taught (assembly language, data structures, computer and society) were for CS majors only. The first two required programming, and again I wasn't concerned due to the same programming vs. test performance check. I also wasn't concerned because I knew (from personal experience) how tough the upper-division classes were (compiler design, OS implementation, comparative languages, not to mention the lower-division 'algorithms' class taught using Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental Algorithms"), and I knew that if someone cheated their way through the earlier classes, they would crash and burn eventually.
Submission + - Does cheap technology undermine this court ruling? (volokh.com)
bfwebster writes: Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who focuses on legal issues regarding information technology (I own a copy of his book "Computer Crime Law") raises an interesting issue about a 2001 Supreme Court decision (Kyllo v. United States) that prohibited police from using a thermal imaging device on a private home without a warrant. (The police were trying to detect excess heat coming from the roof of a garage, as an indication of lamps being used to grow marijuana inside.) The Court made its decision back in 2001 because thermal imaging devices were "not in general use" and therefore represented a technology that required a warrant. However, Kerr points out that anyone can now buy such thermal imaging devices for $50 to $150 from Amazon, and that they're advertised as a means of detecting thermal leakage from your home. In light of that, Kerr asks, is the Supreme Court's ruling still sound?
Submission + - An analytical critique of the Sessions paper (brucefwebster.com)
bfwebster writes: Roger Sessions released a white paper in which he claims that annual IT failure costs amount to $6.2 trillion. However, his reading of information sources and his resulting estimates are profoundly flawed. For starters, he misreads the US Federal Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Analytical Perspective document from which he extrapolates so much and ends up nearly an order of magnitude off in his estimate of the percentage of the US Federal IT budget that is "at risk" (his term, not the government's). Likewise, his estimate of a 65% failure rate for government IT projects is not supported anywhere in the document he cites and is, in fact, contradicted by it. The flaws in his extrapolation from the US Federal Government to the rest of the world merely compound the errors.
EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
Comment So, how about those Saints? (Score 0, Offtopic) 560
Kicked New England's butt, they did.
Submission + - Google autosuggest blocking 'climategate'
bfwebster writes: Despite the fact that a Google search on 'climategate' now yields over 10 million hits, the Google autosuggest feature appears to be deliberately ignoring 'climategate'. If you type 'climategate' in, letter by letter, you never get it as a suggestion, even when you've typed in 'climategat' (or, for that matter, 'climategate'). What you get instead is "climate guatemala". Bing, by contrast, autosuggests 'climategate' as soon as you type in 'cli'.
