For every thing, there is a season

Every time a colleague asks the question, "What the hell happened to computer science enrollment?" I answer, "These things are cyclical. CS enrollment will come back, and some other field's enrollment will drop." And, indeed, as the dot-com bust has faded in new student memories, enrollment has increased again (new enrollment was up last fall in my department and is up again (over 30%, year over year) this fall.

The title above links to a Computerworld article speculating that the current banking crisis will mean further increases in CS enrollment. That many or may not be true; I'd prefer the steady growth associated with students following their interests than the sudden boom of students chasing the latest fad. The article does at least have some entertainment value, with Carly Fiorina (of HP and now McCain/Palin campaign fame) showing her lack of insight that American workers are also HP (or any company's) customers -- no jobs for Americans mean no customers.

Then again, I understand this, but I'm not getting $42 million for any of my failed efforts.

The future of video cameras

So, we're getting ready for a trip and really don't feel like lugging our Sony mini-DV camcorder along with our digital camera. Everyone's talking about the Flip Mino, so that would be a possibility. Then again, our still camera has a movie mode, with the same resolution as the Mino (640x480), except that it has a 12X optical zoom, better optics, and a better sensor. It doesn't have much in the way of video compression capability, storing its video as MJPEG (just a sequence of JPEG compressed frames), which means that videos require 1GB per 10 minutes or so. But that's not such a big deal these days. Even though it is discontinued and Konica Minolta is no longer in the camera business, there was a firmware update that allows it to use 2GB SD cards. A quick trip to Costco, and we have enough storage for our trip.

So, it seems that we're on the threshold of major change, not just in laptop computer mass storage, but also in video cameras. For those who need more than a cell phone or Mino -- and who aren't professionals -- what's the motivation behind getting anything other than a good digital camera with video capability? Pretty much every digital camera out there supports at least 640x480, or standard definition. They certainly have the sensors to capture HD. Flash memory prices will be low enough within the next couple years that it will really not make any sense to buy a hard drive camcorder. The only remaining question will be: do you really need to shoot 10 hours of video before the next time you'll be able to dump the video to a computer or DVD burner?

Math & science: it's good for the economy

An interesting article in that well-known socialist rag, The Wall Street Journal. Math and science do matter, not just for the individuals involved, but for the US economy as a whole. And, despite decades-ago calls to improve science and math education, the US still lags other industrialized nations.

Tech companies to educators, commuters, the poor: screw you

Washington state is currently ranked 37 in college degree production, though it's in the top 10 in terms of employment of high tech workers. The Seattle area is ranked 3 in traffic congestion. Technology companies in this state complain loudly about the impact of congestion and lack of local college graduates on their companies. Bill Gates started a large foundation dedicated to solving other problems: in public health. But, when you get down to it (as you'll read by following the link above), when push comes to shove, public dollars in these companies pockets is more important to them than anything else. In this case, they're arranging things so they won't have to pay state sales tax on their equipment purchases for their server farms. To put this in perspective, the University of Washington -- a state institution -- pays sales tax on its purchases, even when using money allocated to it from state taxes. It's nice to know for whom this country is really run.

Will everyone please stop eating so damn much?

Or at least get some exercise. Or maybe it's the growth hormones in the various food we eat these days. All I know is that I went out with my family to take advantage of some after-Christmas sales, and there were literally zero men's small ski jackets out there. Even mediums were almost impossible to find. But there were an enormous number of XXL and even XXXL about. Did stores over-buy on the large sizes or under-buy the smaller ones? I asked around and, nope, that's not the case. There just are more and more people who need elephantine clothing. At least, in the US (as anyone who has traveled overseas will attest to).

Does this explain that Costco sells relaxed-fit men's jeans with 30-inch waists? I mean, who do you know with a 30-inch waist who needs relaxed fit? How big can your ass be if you have a 30-inch waist? Of course, the real reason is that they just order relaxed fit; they don't believe that there are many people out there who don't need it. This assumption, in my opinion, begins to break down at the smaller waist sizes.

OK, I'm glad I got that off my chest. It just pisses me off that buying clothing has now become an ordeal (I suppose, unless I want to pay the extortionate prices that REI charges). It didn't used to be that way...