First let me make it clear that I don't equate computer science with programming. Most programming is not very elegant and typically it has to be done by a deadline. To me computer science is more about algorithms. A programmer will work on writing a thousand lines of code, whereas a computer scientist will focus on 30 lines within the same time frame. Whereas the programmer writes things to work, the computer scientist makes things work a lot more efficiently. Programmers are engineers that take the tools that the computer scientists develop and apply them.

So if you're taking about computer science, in my mind, you're talking about algorithm development. That being the case, I generally start my classes off by doing binary sort and search routines. If you have 3 20 minute sessions, I would use the first to have the kids figure out how to figure out if a number is in the list. Most people come up with a bubble sort routine. Second, show how binary search is much more efficient and have the kids start thinking about how to sort a list effectively. And for the last session show them merge sort and show how it works. As an application it helps to instruct my students about why algorithms and by extention computer science is important and it gives them an activity to participate in which tends to make learning more interesting and practical. You won't cover a big expanse of material, but it generally gives a good feel for a) how useful computer science is b) that figuring out algorithms are tricky and c) that it takes a lot of work. I'm not sure if you could cram everything into 60 minutes, in general it takes me about 5 hours with college students, but perhaps that will give you something to work from. The important thing for me is getting them to the merge sort algorithm, but without a reason for why you would want to sort information that could be difficult. You might just show them binary search by bringing a telephone book in and asking them if fred jones is listed and explain why searching sequentially is a bad idea. Then launch straight into figuring out how merge sort works.

I agree, they are raising their prices based on a perceived crisis. But under our economic system, price for goods is not tied to cost of production or supply, but by what the greatest net income can be received. Capitalism assumes that everyone is fully informed regarding all issues, since people are limited in time and information, it's not quite a perfect system. The store owners are just using the news that hard drive manufacturing has been hurt to artificially raise their prices. We'll see how it works out. Since not all wholesalers are raising their prices, shopping around will still get a decent price and willing people to sell the stock they have on-hand. I can't imagine the floods have already reached the supply chain, especially for drive manufactures not located in the flooding so the raise in pricing is strictly artificial trying to capitalize on a perceived shortage rather than an actual one.

Is it good or bad that the dozen or so books I found, I've previously read? Strangely, none of my favorite science-fiction and fantasy books were the books I was presented with. The choices seem to be fairly limited and don't seem to be really selective. Perhaps it's time to work up an application that will help to better track books based on the old animals or twenty questions format. Shouldn't take too long to implement.

Where does it say that he is acting "butthurt?" So he took down his website/information... Not a big deal since the information was licensed so that others could put up their own copies of that information. As far as I know he isn't threatening anyone and frankly having a website requires a certain amount of maintenance even if it's just a static website. I've had several of them over the years and have taken them down just because I don't want to continue to monitor them weekly or monthly to insure someone hasn't defaced them, uploaded a trojan, etc, etc.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and not assume that he got upset and took his toys home with him, but even if that were the case, since he provided the information under an open license in the first place he still is a huge leap ahead of the MAFIAA in my mind.

Regardless of whether the guy is in the right or wrong, half if not more of the reason super heroes wear masks is so that they can protect their identity so that they aren't liable for the things they do, ie cops as well as "bad guys." I mean in the comic books, don't heroes cause wholesale destruction of property? If everyone knew who they were they would be sued to the point that they couldn't afford any of their toys and what's a superhero without toys. The most important difference of course, is that with super powers they can get away from pesky police, lawyers, etc and don't have to stick around and be accountable, get arrested, respond to court summons.

Dealing with whether he is right or wrong is a different matter of course. Vigilante justice is seldom good as the punishment doesn't necessarily fit the crime and the potential for abuse is fairly high. I suppose the primary problem is having a police system that isn't accountable to the public who they are supposed to be serving. Unfortunately, the police respond to politicians who themselves are not accountable to the public and so there are problems with the system. One thing to keep in mind though, when we hear about people being jailed for video taping police and abuses of police power, they tend to be the exception rather than the rule and so are newsworthy. Most police departments are probably fairly run, but it's the bad apples that get press time. The bad part about that though is that a few bad apples can spoil the rest of the barrel, if abuses go unchecked and others see no response then they are more likely to start abusing authority as well.

All that deep packet inspection means is that you have to create another protocol to transfer information that they are either unfamiliar with or that they classify as something else.

Generally open source software are scratch projects, ie I have an itch so I scratch it. If something isn't maintained, it either works well enough as it is or isn't used. If you want to keep work going on it and are not a programmer you have 3 real solutions, ie pay to have it worked on, try to interest others in working on it by advertising via websites(slashdot / freshmeat / sourceforge / github /etc), personal emails to people that might want to work on it, or any other means of communication, eg attend a local Lug, etc, the last option of course is to learn how to program and scratch the itch yourself.

The biggest issue is the license the software is released under. If GPL, just fork the code and get to work. If under a more restrictive license your hands are pretty much tied. Proprietary software dies quite frequently, opensource might get mothballed for years and then get pulled back out when someone has an itch to scratch.

No reason to even look at this since there is absolutely no proof that this works because it's "Secret!!!!"

Why would you want to waste slashdot readers time by doing a question and answer with someone that has a magic spell to create energy, but of course no one can verify it.

Ummm, so does that mean they shut down their internet entirely? Port 80 is simple enough to use or even daresay a little perl script using email, yeah the latency sucks, but still works. Getting past port blocking is pretty simple.

Hmmm, sending traffic through stenography via email attachments would be interesting. Wonder how long it would take to code that up.

I don't really care about how and item looks as long as it does the job I need it to do. As far as the i(x), the equipment is too expensive for what it does. My netbook was cheaper, has far more memory. My phone can make phone calls, I really don't care beyond that. My electronic recorder has a 2GiB ssd drive in it, sure it's ancient, but it records and plays mp3's which is my primary purpose and cost $50 when the i(whatever) came out at $200+

Sure Apple may be at the forefront of designer designs, but really what new technical designs have they produced that would actually make me want to overpay for their products? I just don't see any advantage. I guess to me, I more closely associate myself with Woz than I ever did to Jobs or Gates. I'm an engineer Jim, not a marketing shrill.

My 4 dollar tablet will be released soon!!!!!

* Retail version will sell for $5495.99, but as the first "Real" $4.00 tablet you should order a lot of them.

I'm a nerd. Not a geek. What the heck do I know of popular culture? Furthermore, using words like all or every is certain to bring about people that point out your error. Don't tell me how to think, there is nothing wrong with the way I think. I'll miss him far less than Gary Gygax, Benjamin Franklin, etc, etc, etc. Frankly I don't care. People die life goes on, Apple is a cult culture and has little to do with most of the nerds here imho.

Frankly, the Raspberry PI looks like a decent system that after adding monitor, keyboard, and various other usb items would make a great computer system for under $200. I plan to pick up several of these when they come on the market and it doesn't appear that they are vapourware like many items from other companies in the past.

Let's try ocean, perhaps I can't misspell that.