-- To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm staying, haven't been told yet. I'm assuming Manhattan or somewhere very close as that's where our office is.

-- I like running, cycling, tennis. I'm into CS and technology so those kind of events/meetups/hackathons (I know that depends on date, so I'll be there mid August till end of September - 6 weeks).

-- My budget can be adjusted, but ~$600 a week for now (to spend on exploration. Living is covered.). I don't mind spending if it's on what I'm enjoying or if I'm "exploring".

-- I'm not the biggest foodie but I appreciate good food. Will probably eat out 2-3 dinners a week, so I might as well go to good places as opposed to winging it every night.

Thanks :-)

That's definitely a thorough way of approaching this but from an examination point of view, bear in mind that there are 98 other marks to be answered.

I think my objection is mainly due to the unscientific nature of the question. A question like this that is looking at the goals of the OS is very objective and has a clear answer. I would expect a question to be worded like this in a Philosophy, Law etc. exam (like the link posted by you). In my opinion, there are some questions, even in CS, that can be open-ended and be very interesting to attempt but this certainly isn't one.

But people make technical design decisions in operating systems based on trying to make the operating system as conceptually simple as possible, which is what he means by beautiful, which I hope you would know from reading the literature.

I would relish this essay question - I would have written about the history of Unix, the evolution towards Plan 9 and why it failed. These are important issues in CS, and if you are ignorant of them you are likely to repeat them. Your professor is testing that you have understood these lessons from history.

I think you need to retract your implication that it's somehow an inherently bad or embarrassing choice for a question.

All you have left is that you are fundamentally opposed to any philosophical, historical or human factor thinking in CS, and I don't think that's a supportable position.

Those are interesting points and luckily I am aware of them. I quite like the angle at which you're looking at this; it made me think again.

We should be very very thankful for these questions. They differentiate the people that have really read around and understand what it is that we're doing in CS, and those that have just been to the lectures.

slightly off topic, but there are a number of people who'd be inclined to say that very few observations, if any at all, are objective.