If I look outside my window and observe reality in its full high-definion glory, am I consuming data?
If not, what if I set up a camera outside my home and watch the video feed on my televion?
How do you yell at the kids on your lawn if you aren't sitting on your porch?
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Whenever I was in physics class and we got a number like this, we threw it out because someone must have done the math incorrectly.
My father teaches a college course using Alice. It's sort of a programming for non-computer-science majors class. I've sat down with him a couple of times and played with the program. I suspect that for someone who doesn't have any programming experience Alice is really fun (creating movies, making things move onscreen), but for someone with any experience its all just a hassle. Too many mouse clicks and drags are needed to get simple things done, and sometimes the natural-language style of the program isn't as natural-language as you want it to be.
But if it's a free program it can't hurt to try it out yourself.
The computer is to the information industry roughly what the central power station is to the electrical industry. -- Peter Drucker
