coolvenk - Slashdot User

Submission + - University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department (forbes.com) 2

Submitted by DustyShadow on Sunday April 22, 2012 @05:51PM

DustyShadow writes: The University of Florida announced this past week that it was dropping its computer science department, which will allow it to save about $1.7 million. The school is eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely, and moving the tattered remnants into other departments. Students at UF have already organized protests, and have created a website dedicated to saving the CS department. Several distinguished computer scientists have written to the president of UF to express their concerns, in very blunt terms. Prof. Zvi Galil, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech, is “amazed, shocked, and angered.” Prof. S.N. Maheshwari, former Dean of Engineering at IIT Delhi, calls this move “outrageously wrong.” Computer scientist Carl de Boor, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and winner of the 2003 National Medal of Science, asked the UF president “What were you thinking?”

Comment Re:That quote has a sequel (Score 1) 345

by coolvenk on Sunday October 31, 2010 @09:37PM (#34084612) Attached to: Texas Supreme Court Cites Mr. Spock

But the judiciary has a rule: Even-numbered Star Trek movies have greater legal authority than odd-numbed ones.

That is an odd rule !

Comment Re:hmm... (Score 1) 105

by coolvenk on Tuesday October 05, 2010 @02:03PM (#33796968) Attached to: Analyzing CAPTCHAs

.
However, there are still difficult-for-computer-but-easy-on-humans tasks that can be done. I'm surprised no one's yet hooked a way into the Amazon Mechanical Turk or the like. Perhaps a simple one can be where you show a panoramic view along a busy street. Then you ask the question "What is the name of the store at number 763?" Or "What is the street number of ZZZ Supermarkets along this street?". "There is a large group of friends gathered near XXX store. How many people are in the group?"
Or simpler ones - if your forum or other thing is about a specific topic, ask a question about that topic. Or even self-referential ones. "What of the following will an art thief steal? A) Mona Lisa, B) Big screen HDTV, C) Cellphone, D) Money".
Might as well advance the state of things like image recognition and natural language queries while we're at it.

Coz with the alternatives you propose a human has to first figure out the correct answer to compare against the user's response in a CAPTcha challenge. If they had an algorithm to figure it out, the attacker would use it too. And, millions of CAPTCHAs are served everyday, so they have to be automated.

Comment Study CS, Teach yourself IT (Score 1) 380

by coolvenk on Sunday July 15, 2007 @03:33PM (#19869715) Attached to: Computer Science or Info Tech?

It is quite easy, so with some motivation and some half-decent books you could teach yourslef the classic IT stuff. CS is more enlightening and harder, and a good teacher is invaluable. With this strategy, if you get interested in the sciency aspects, grad school is a real option. If the IT stuff excites you more, you become a technician with an unbeatable background.

I actually took the opposite route. I majored in IT, but got interested in CS towards the end. I ended up teaching myself a lot of core CS, towards the end, and I am in grad school now. mY advice to you is in hindsight, of course.

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