zepol - Slashdot User

Australian-Built Hoverbike Prepares For Takeoff 200

Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 10, 2011 @04:23PM from the who-needs-a-jetpack dept.

Zothecula writes "Adventurous motorcyclists might be familiar with the thrill of getting airborne at the top of a rise, but the Hoverbike is set to take catching some air to a whole new level. With a 1170 cc 4-stroke engine delivering 80 kW driving two ducted propellers, the inventor of the Hoverbike, Chris Malloy, says with its high thrust to weight ratio, the Hoverbike should be able to reach an estimated height of more than 10,000 feet and reach an indicated airspeed of 150 knots (278 km/h or 173 mph). At the moment these are only theoretical figures as the Hoverbike hasn't been put through its paces yet, but Malloy has constructed a prototype Hoverbike and plans to conduct real world flight tests in a couple of months."

CS Profs Debate Role of Math In CS Education 583

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday March 12, 2011 @02:13PM from the can-google-find-integrals-yet dept.

theodp writes "Worried that his love-hate relationship with math might force him to give up the pursuit of computer science, CS student Dean Chen finds comfort from an unlikely source — the postings of CS professors on the SIGSE mailing list. 'I understand that discussing the role of math in CS is one of those religious war type issues,' writes Brad Vander Zanden. 'After 30 years in the field, I still fail to see how calculus and continuous math correlate with one's ability to succeed in many areas of computer science...I have seen many outstanding programmers who struggled with calculus and never really got it.' Dennis Frailey makes a distinction between CS research and applied CS: 'For too long, we have taught computer science as an academic discipline (as though all of our students will go on to get PhDs and then become CS faculty members) even though for most of us, our students are overwhelmingly seeking careers in which they apply computer science.' Frailey adds that part of the problem may be that some CS Profs — math gods that they may be — are ill-equipped to teach CS in a non-mathematical manner: 'Let's be honest about another aspect of the problem — what can the faculty teach? For a variety of reasons, a typical CS faculty consists mainly of individuals who specialize in CS as a discipline, often with strong mathematical backgrounds. How many of them could teach a good course in cloud computing or multi-core systems or software engineering or any of the many other topics that the graduates will find useful when they graduate? Are such courses always relegated to instructors or adjuncts or other non-tenure-track faculty?' So, how does this jibe with Slashdotters' experience?"

Comment Re:Range of lethality (Score 5, Informative) 204

by zepol on Sunday July 23, 2006 @08:15PM (#15767308) Attached to: Astronomers Awaiting 1a Supernova

While this doesn't directly answer your question, you might find the following interesting. Steven Dutch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay has estimated what would happen if the sun were to go supernova. Some highlights: the radiation flux on the daylight side of the earth would be the same as if our entire nuclear arsenal were to go off once per second at a distance of one kilometer. The reflected light from the full moon would be 10,000 times brighter than the sun; Venus would shine six times as intensely as the normal sun. The earth vaporize in a matter of days.

By the way, the sun will never become a supernova. The calculations are illustrative only.

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