Explaining the CS Decline

It appears that fruit flies have overrun my apartment. On Thursday, there just a few. On Friday, there were enough to warrant calling our management. On Saturday, I had to visit them, and found out that pest control comes on Wednesday (ugh). Today, my bathroom mirror is littered with at least 30-40 of them (plus 10-20 that I murdered), and I'm pretty pissed because they're everywhere. I've set some cider vinegar traps, and boy do I hope they work. Anyway, just had to get that off my chest. IBM has an interview about an initiative to try and bring students back to Computer Science, which has been losing students almost as fast as I've been gaining flies since the dot com bust. Why is that, you may ask? Is it because of outsourcing? I was actually on the edge of cursing out an older gentleman at some "party" my parents dragged me to for saying I wouldn't have a job when I graduated because they were all going abroad. There are jobs left and right! You have to compete for the good ones, yes, but they're plentiful now. I think it's the perception that's killing the field. When I tell people I'm CS, a common reaction is that I must be smart because they can't sit at a computer all day long. However, that's not what the job is like! It's very people-oriented, and often times you have to work on a team. I would almost say it's a disadvantage if you're the aloof kind and unwilling to change. I think that people who should be geared towards CS fall victim to these perceptions, or may think that they're not smart enough. However, programmers aren't born smart, they just learn how to think, which is what I think the point is of college. When it comes down to it, I'm not going to remember five years down the line what all the semantics of Java are, but I will remember how I went about solving some pretty tough problems, and I will remember how I was able to prove things correct. I think that anyone who enjoys math and/or science is a good candidate for CS and is capable of doing it.

As you can imagine, Boot Camp is still setting the computer world ablaze. Reviews are everywhere with claims that it's not perfect, but it gets the job done and its a whole lot prettier than that hack discovered a few weeks ago. Microsoft is shedding tears of joy that they can sell Windows XP to more people, and I'm sure that they encouraged Apple to make their machines compatible with Windows. Robert Cringely weighed in on it a little, but was more focused on why Vista was delayed. His claim is that it's the OEMs needed more time for testing it out, and I think he's absolutely right. Microsoft indirectly said this, and it makes perfect sense, but M$ should've moved up their production cycle to be ready in June/July rather than November if they wanted a release before Christmas. And if you didn't have enough Apple news yet, check out this picture from the construction of their new cube in New York. All I have left for you are lists. If you have any mp3 player other than an iPod, you'll want to read this article for the skinny on all the big players in legal music downloads. If you like taking videos, then DVguru has you covered with a roundup of all the biggest online services for video storage. I've only used Ourmedia so far, but I think I'm going to switch to Videoegg because it sounds like just what I need. Lastly, all the hottest Firefox extensions are listed here, so be sure to check them out.

It wasn't a big surprise that Ice Age: The Meltdown remained at the top again with $34.5 million, but I was pretty sad with how poorly Lucky Number Slevin did because it looks so cool, but got meh reviews. Thank You For Smoking did quite well with $2.4 million, and that's just in 300 theaters. I definitely want to see that one. Starz had a little featurette recently about Silent Hill floating around the Net. I haven't watched the whole thing, but what I saw of it so far looks really awesome and this may be the best video game movie ever (or so I hope, at least). Lastly, AICN nabbed an interview with Sir Ben Kingsley, and it's just cool because he's such a great actor. He was in Lucky Number Slevin, in case you didn't know.

While writing this post, I actually decided to upload some videos of my brother's pup, Fredericka, to Videoegg. Here's my favorite one:

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Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Buck::Dollar


2. Harry::, Dirty


3. Play::Now (Seinfeld reference)


4. Monstrosity::Frankenstein


5. Nightclub::Bar


6. Missing::Child


7. Sprout::Bean


8. Flavor::Starburst


9. Identity::Crisis


10. Saucy::Barbecue Sauce