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Comment Re:Phd or don't bother (Score 2, Informative) 834

Computer Engineering != CS. Computer engineering is a part of EE. Here's a single example of the price difference you can see on your first job: A friend of mine and I interviewed at the same company for similar positions. He was finishing his BS in EE and I was finishing my MS in EE. My offer was 18k more than his and was for a higher-level engineering classification. Given that the company average for raises was 3.5%, he would have been making around 4.5k more than when he started in 2 years with the company and wouldn't have been bumped up to engineer 2. Or he could have spent two years to get his MS, made 18k more, and started at the "engineer 2" level. He chose to get his MS.

Most places I looked treated a MS like a BS + 3 years experience. They stated this on the job postings. But my market/industry may be different than others.

Here are some reasons to do your MS now instead of later:
1.) I would have a hard time going back to school after a long break. When you get a job, sure you're at your office for 40 hours a week but you don't have homework, class projects, or finals. Your free time is your time. Some days I like coming home, shutting down my EE side, and playing with my son. And you don't know what will happen during your break - will you get married, buy a house, or have a kid? Each one of those things is a major drain on time, energy, and money.
2.) You like your field and want to learn. There's nothing wrong with expanding your skills.
3.) You don't want to completely enter adulthood yet. Grad school is a nice way to postpone real responsibilities.

But, DO NOT DO A CLASSWORK ONLY MS. If you don't have a research project that ends in a thesis, I will put your resume on the same stack as those who only have a BS. That's the biggest thing. If you can't handle the research, just get a job. Non-thesis MS degrees are for people who are working while getting their degree. If you're young and just going to school, there's no excuse for not doing research. Getting on a funded project can be hard, though.

Comment Re:This is a very interesting project (Score 1) 234

From what I've seen, Python 3.0 is not supported by a good number of Python packages whereas Python 2.6 is which would make the "no Python 3.0 support" a minor issue for me. Python 3.0 is also not shipping as the default interpreter for Fedora, Ubunutu, or openSuSE yet so it won't really affect basic users for a while. I have also seen benchmarks (but I don't have references, so I welcome contradictions and corrections) that show that 3.0 is considerably slower than 2.6 so if the speed of Python is an issue to people they shouldn't be using 3.0 (I take issue with people who grumble about Python's execution speed anyway - if speed is that important stick to C/C++). If you have a good amount of existing Python apps that work under 2.5 getting them to work in 2.6 isn't hard. Moving to 3.0 is a much bigger step, especially if you relied on built-in modules that are either different now or removed.

I see the "no windows support" as a much bigger negative - if one of the biggest strengths of Python is cross-platform support and you need your programs to work on both Windows and Linux (as I do) that's going to be a problem and I'm only half interested (because half of my apps never leave Linux).

Comment Re:oblig (Score 1) 384

They need to add food coloring to the processed silk to turn it into jam? If the astronauts are eating worms I'm not certain they'll care what color their jam is. Or do they also mash the silkworms and then put them in a McRib mold and smother them with sauce? That's how McDonald's does it, right?

Comment Re:Backwards Compatibility (Score 1) 215

Backwards compatibility is good but it was never a part of the plan for Python 3 from the beginning - that was declared from the start and has been known for years. 2.6 and 3.0 were released close to each other. The biggest worry I have is that 3.0 is SLOWER than 2.6 in the benchmarks I have seen.
Space

Global Space Agencies Gather For Collaboration 74

UltimaGuy handed us a link to a story on the Register site, covering NASA's plan to create a collaborative space effort across the globe. Agencies from 'Italy, Japan, China, Britain, France, America, India, Korea, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Germany, Australia and the ESA' got together for the first time since the formation of the Global Explorations Strategy team last year. "This year, they met in Kyoto to discuss a draft Framework for Collaboration, which will set out how the various agencies will work together. The team has agreed that its main focus should be robotic exploration of the solar system, particularly of the moon, Mars and the near-Earth asteroids. It has also proposed a non-binding collaboration mechanism which would allow all agencies to share their plans, and look for opportunities to work together. This would also provide a route for agencies to share the data from their own missions with scientists from other agencies."
Technology

Scientists Demonstrate Thought-Controlled Computer 172

Da Massive writes with a link to ComputerWorld coverage of a unique gadget shown at this past week's CeBit show. The company g.tec was showing off a brain/computer interface (BCI) in one corner of the trade hall. The rig, once placed on your head, detects the brain's voltage fluctuations and can respond appropriately. This requires training, where "the subject responds to commands on a computer screen, thinking 'left' and 'right' when they are instructed to do so ... Another test involves looking at a series of blinking letters, and thinking of a letter when it appears." Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts. Likewise, by thinking directions you can move objects around onscreen. The article provides some background on the history of g.tec's BCI, and suggests possible uses for the technology in the near future.
The Internet

Russia's War on Piracy/Malicious Software 150

tmk writes "Russian minister Leonid Reiman has announced new legislation to fight software piracy. According to official information the share of pirated software in the Russian Federation decreased in the last years from 90 to 60 percent. Reiman dismissed as a myth the impression that many viruses originate in his country: 'Viruses are written all over the world. Russia is waging a consistent and successful war on malicious software.' Reiman calls for an international organization to fight Internet crime. Last year Russia agreed to take down Allofmp3 after the United States intervened."
Patents

Submission + - Linked List Patented in 2006

An anonymous reader writes: Congratulations are in order to Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation who, in patent #10260471 managed to invent the linked list. From the abstract, "A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes." Good-bye doubly linked list. We should also give praise to the extensive patent review performed by Cochran Freund & Young LLP.

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