Sony has increased bit density of tape to 148GB per square inch up from the previous record fo 29.5GB. That is about 6 Blu-ray DVDs per square inch. A single tape cassette can hold 185TB.
Tape storage will still be a niche because access is slow and non-sequential access is death. Read more here.
Collecting cow farts in a backpack. No this article is not from the Onion. Researchers propose to fit a backpack on cow and insert a tube into its, … <ahem>, “digestive tract.”
After the incredulity and laughter, we had two thoughts: (1) What will PETA do when it hears about this? and (2) Is it cost effective? We will have to wait on the answer to (1). But we can get some idea about (2).
A cow produces 300 liters of methane per day. According to this government site, the residential price for natural gas on 14 Feb 2014 was $9.76 per 1,000 cubic feet. Finally, there are approximately 28.3 liters per cubic foot.
300 liters / day X 1 cubic foot / 28.3 liters = 10.6 cubic feet / day
10.6 cubic feet / day X $10 / 1000 cubic feet = $0.10 / day
The gross return is one thin dime per cow per day: . Unfortunately, the cost of harvesting this valuable natural resource is much greater. No wonder “Pablo Sorondo, INTA’s press officer, says the project isn’t ongoing.”
From this, we learn of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has a report out evaluating the best public universities in the States. Among other problems the report looks into the following: watering down curriculum, grade inflation, and cost control. Unsurprising (to us at least) it gives failing grades in all areas to most schools and some areas to all schools. That is not a single public university in the States maintained academic standards and grade value while controlling costs.
An example of the depths to which some have fallen is Indiana University actually offers a course titled “The Cultural Politics of Lady Gaga” in which the most common grade is an “A+.” It is likely the course does more harm than good. But no doubt the grade is counterfeit, which adversely effects the whole grade ecosystem. It is akin to printing dollar bills in your basement.
The post cited above, concludes with the following dismal assessment.
But too many schools are still trapped in old mindsets, increasing tuition and competing for reputation. They fixate on the U.S. News rankings, which purport to tell the public which schools are “best.” But is the best school the one with the most prestige and highest incoming SAT scores? Or is it the one that fulfills its mission to taxpayers by providing a high-quality education without breaking their budgets?
This disturbing chart comes from Peter Thiel.
Cost vs. benefit of college education
There are many ways to interpret these data. However, there is no disputing that the ROI on secondary education is going down.
Erik Meijer, a prominent language designer, has a thought-provoking article in ACM Queue. His thesis is that a language cannot be partially functional: “The slightest implicit imperative effect erases all the benefits of purity.” He calls this the curse of the “excluded middle.” One must either (a) except that programming is about mutating state or (b) “abolish[…] all implicit imperative effects and mak[e] them fully explicit in the type system.” He makes a strong case but I need to noodle on it before I will claim it as mine.
The article is good for introducing the issues. Such as the inherent disconnect between the static program and the runtime environment that arises with lazy or deferred execution.