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Comment High Schools can't teach CS (Score 1) 222

This entire discussion is based on the premise that an actual computer science course can be taught at a High School. While there are a few exceptions, 99% of high schools are simply incapable of teaching computer science. State and local school boards, administrators, department heads, and teachers simply do not understand what computer science is, and are incapable of designing and implementing any substantive curriculum. I'm not saying that they are stupid, they just don't get it. They also can't attract the kind of people who do understand it.

I'm not saying this to be cynical, I'm saying we need to be realistic, and stop implementing programs just to make ourselves feel better. Calling a class Computer Science and actually teaching it are two very different things.

Comment Re:Ok, really? (Score 1) 1376

The US governmental system is organized in such a way that third (or fourth or fifth, etc.) parties can't become viable. If we had a parliamentary system that allowed for coalition governments, then it would be, but the US has always (except for some brief transition periods while one of the two parties was dying) had two dominant parties, although those parties have changed over time.

Comment Re:You mean... (Score 1) 420

By having you set up an admin account, Mac OS would be defeating the purpose of using sudo. Every account is a normal account. Your fear is based on "the number of unnecessary admin accounts being used" while at the same time you admit that there are no admin accounts.

Apple knew that users would ignore the advice "not to run as admin" and so didn't even allow for the option. Instead they actually designed their OS (or rather, used a pre-existing OS model) so that you can actually use the computer as a user. A novel idea.

Comment Re:You mean... (Score 2, Interesting) 420

The user doesn't have different permissions between the command-line and the GUI. In both circumstances, when something is done that needs super-user privileges, the user is prompted for their password by sudo.

The only difference between the GUI and the CLI is that with the GUI you don't have to manually run sudo. You automatically get a pretty little window asking for your password. With the CLI, you need to run the program with sudo manually.

Comment A simulated solutiion (Score 1) 465

If you really want to have the kids 50 years from now be able to experience what computing is like today, maybe the best thing to do would be to just keep the computer and monitor enclosures. Then, keep a copy of the hard drive contents yourself, backing them up and maintaining them yourself, and in 50 years, go back to the school. You could install a display inside the monitor case, use computer innards of the time, and then use an emulator to basically simulate the whole experience.

It's not a perfect solution, and doesn't cover certain things like an authentic input device (mouse, keyboard), etc., but to me it would seem to be more important for them to experience a close simulation than for everything to be completely authentic.

It would mean keeping the files from corrupting over the years, etc., so more work for you, but it would take care of the hardware failure issues.

Comment Re:just sad (Score 1) 479

Even if the coupons were "paid for" by the proceeds from the bandwidth sale, that is still money that we could have put towards other things, thereby needing less tax dollars.

This is just another example of how with government regulation and socialism no one wins. Oh, except for the bureaucracy of course.

Sci-Fi

Ricardo Montalban Dead At 88 280

DesScorp writes "Ricardo Montalban, immortalized as Khan in the Star Trek franchise, is dead at age 88, passing at his Los Angeles home. Montalban had a long and successful career on television and film. The voice of Rich Corinthian Leather is silenced, but we still have the memories."
Google

Google Router Rumors 267

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new rumor that Google is developing its own router. The company won't comment on the story, but it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android. If Larry Ellison can go halvsies with HP on a server, then Eric Schmidt should certainly be able to make Cisco nervous."
Data Storage

Why Mirroring Is Not a Backup Solution 711

Craig writes "Journalspace.com has fallen and can't get up. The post on their site describes how their entire database was overwritten through either some inconceivable OS or application bug, or more likely a malicious act. Regardless of how the data was lost, their undoing appears to have been that they treated drive mirroring as a backup and have now paid the ultimate price for not having point-in-time backups of the data that was their business." The site had been in business since 2002 and had an Alexa page rank of 106,881. Quantcast said they had 14,000 monthly visitors recently. No word on how many thousands of bloggers' entire output has evaporated.
Novell

Boycott Novell Protesters Manhandled In India 360

James Mathew writes "This is an interesting story from Kerala, India, where the ruling Communist Party organized a national conference in its efforts to hijack the Free Software Movement, which has enviable roots in the state. They got Novell to sponsor it. On the second day of the conference, a few free software activists who displayed posters against Novell were manhandled by the organizers and police — typical of what is expected from them. Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones. Still they couldn't delete all. Here is another blow-by-blow account."

Comment Where are you planning on working? (Score 4, Insightful) 1021

It seems to me that if you are planning on working in the United States, your time would be better spent focusing on your Computer studies. Most foreign engineers here speak English.

IF, however, you were planning on going abroad, then speaking the local language would get you a lot of "street cred" that you would otherwise be lacking.

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