If your real field is machine learning, it won't matter if the dept. is Biology or CS as long as you publish in machine learning conferences and journals (NIPS, ICML, Neural Computation, JMLR). When you're done, you should be able to get a postdoc/faculty/research lab position strictly based on your machine learning credentials because this is a hot area right now. OTOH, if you didn't actually work in machine learning but instead applied machine learning ideas in biology, then it is possible that you'll only get a job within biology. If this is the case and you want to switch to more standard CS/CE, do a postdoc for a year or two in the field of your choice.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia maintains legacy dumbphone support (on Symbian) for a while until the developing nations can be switched to smartphones (or when low end smartphones can run Windows Mobile 7 which should happen in a few years). On the other hand, I think MeeGo on smartphones is cooked since Microsoft is no Amigo (when it comes to linux + Qt). As others have speculated, this is very bad news for the Trolls since they will probably be turned into zombies. I would not be surprised to see Intel buy the Qt division and pursue MeeGo for in vehicle infotainment which is where MeeGo got its first win (via the GenIVI alliance).

This ex-Nokia executive's blog makes for interesting reading.

I have an Indian background and have long given up trying to argue against astrology with Indian friends and family who are into it. This got me thinking about culture wars and whether or not the modernity versus tradition battle manifests itself as a different culture war in each culture. I wonder if a list could be worked out for different cultures. Came up with three examples so far.

US: science versus ID/creationism
Turkey: secular people versus Islamists locked in a battle for power
India: science versus astrology/homeopathy/
The rest?

Western Europe seems to be an exception.

"I'm curious: is that teacher still working?"

Yes. This is because she's considered a good teacher in everything else and it's very, very difficult to get good school teachers these days.

When I discussed this issue with some of the other teachers, the general sense is that they feel intimidated/threatened. There's a weird combination of victimhood and strident aggression that's very hard to confront. My sense is that most teachers back away and try and defuse the issue. For instance, one school teacher now has every student submit ten arguments for and against evolution.

My wife is a middle/high school teacher and is teaching evolution in 8th grade as we speak. The other day, a student confronted her in class and said, "You may have come from a monkey but I certainly didn't." This is a charter school here in Gainesville, FL (where we also try burning Qurans every once in a while).

You would think that the situation is better in a magnet school. Nope. In one of the magnet schools here, the teacher flat out refused to teach evolution claiming that it went against her beliefs.

Now this is interesting. Currently, on my work PC, linux/X11 seems to be a bit slower (KDE 4 especially, GNOME a bit less and definitely not Enlightenment) than Windows XP. Will this move bring the response *feel* of the linux desktop (in Unity on Ubuntu) to be on par with XP? While there are many anecdotal complaints all over the web regarding the intrinsic slowness of X, this seems to be disproven by my Enlightenment 0.16 experience.

Android is quite likely the biggest winner over the next few years. What I'm personally watching for is what RIM does. While RIM has the corporate market, they've been trying to break out of that. I'd expect the major battles to be between Android, RIM and Windows 7 Phone.

Yes, I'm watching RIM and Android carefully as well. Currently, I get crappy EDGE service at home (in Gainesville, FL) and have to resort to UMA (WiFi-based cell service) on T-Mobile in order to make/receive calls. Since Android should support SIP natively (eventually), there ought to be a Google Voice/SIP combination that replicates my UMA/Blackberry experience. Unfortunately, it looks like things will go backward for a bit before moving forward as T-Mobile plans to deprecate UMA and does not offer it on Android. It also does not look like Google Voice/SIP on Android is ready for prime time at present.