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The Mindset of the Incoming College Freshmen
Beloit College has come out with its annual Mindset List of what the incoming class (of 2013) has always known and has never known. "For these students, ... the Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables. They have never used a card catalog to find a book. ... Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible. ... Rap music has always been mainstream. ... Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled. ... Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code."
'The European Union has always existed'.
...I just told my Electronics 1001 students about the tube testers they used to have at Seven-Eleven. I'll have a 12AU6 and a Slurpee, please. rj
While most of the items on the list are true, some are off the mark as far as I'm concerned. "#64. CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging" Personally, I see more and more CDs sold in cardboard rather than plastic these days. "#51. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations" Classic Rock Stations? I usually listen to the CBC (Talk Radio) or classic rock, and I've never heard Britney Spears on a rock station.
I find it hard to believe that there aren't still a lot of school libraries out there that still use card catalogues. But what do I know.
I think there's at least a 10-year delay between birth and awareness of international politics; the first UK PM I remember John Major
I do remember the excitement we all felt when Salsa was officially the fastest-growing condiment in North America. Heady days, those.
This is interesting. Wiki tells me the first web pages went up in December 1990. Those early days of the web have really moved into the realm of history, albeit recent history.
I don't recall it ever being socially unaccebtable, though I do know it was considered - and is, if you ask me - a stupid thing to do, up there with jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
Since when is RSVP out of our lexicon? I never got that memo.
Well, the European Community has existed since the 50s; this one's more of a technicality.
And Tianammen Square happened before they were born! Yikes.
I imagine this has been true since the 60s, at least.
As opposed to what? The GNP?
And I bet there's someone on Slashdot who cares! :)
I don't think there were any flat-screen TVs in 1991 - unless you count those flat-glass CRTs, which don't really count.
Hah! I doubt that happens very often.
Quayle had power? Biden has power?
That only became blase in the late 90s, as far as I'm concerned
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Why would that put us in any kind of trouble? Is it particularly important to know that some countries on the equator are cold? How is that relevant to anything? This list looks to me like an entertainment piece, reminding people of rapid culture changes in the US or the world. It doesn't exist to show us that we have a failing education system.
Soon they will also be people who only remember when Fermat's Last Theorem was a solved problem, not one of the great mysteries told to young kids interested in mathematics. I've worked for a few years teaching number theory to highschool students and it came as a shock when I realized that I was teaching some students who had actually been born after Andrew Wiles had proved Fermat's Last Theorem. The proof of FLT was one of the defining moments in my mathematical childhold. And in a year or two, those kids will in college. There really isn't any simple problem that has the same wonderful history to rope kids into doing math by looking really easy and yet having such a convoluted and romantic history. Even the oldest two unsolved problems in mathematics (whether there are any odd perfect numbers and whether there are infinitely many even perfect numbers) don't have the same sort of romance to them: No one ever claimed they had a beautiful proof of these. Ok, someone now go ahead and mark this an off-topic ramble by an old-codger...
"There have always been flat screen televisions"
"Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister"
These statements are not a function of one's age, nor are they true as is. Is the author trying to say that we've got a group passing through that is so self-centered that they refuse to acknowledge any event prior to their birth? I was born in the 80s, but I know it's false to say "Winston Churchill has always been a former prime minister" or "CRT screens have always existed".
But why point out just the local generation gap? Why didn't the author include "The US has always been a country" or "There has always been written language"? How about "Earth has always had approximately 24 hour rotations" or "The atmosphere has always been about 20% oxygen"?
Then at the top are lines like "Members of the class of 2013 won't be surprised when they can charge a latte on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen.".... nor should anyone who has recently left the cave. Hell, the first guy I knew that got an eReader was in his 60s. You're not excused from observing your surroundings just because you've made it to (or past) middle-aged.
I'm writing this article off as a failed attempt at promoting ageism.
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
As a upcoming freshmen let me make a few points. 3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables. Shrek came out in 2001. I remember part of the first 11 years of my life. Including the Jolly Green Giant (not much but enough to never call Shrek the green giant). 4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book. My first Elementary School had one, so did the public library back then. 8. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible. That's pretty regional, it is only in the last few years they have caught on where I live 19. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P. Send a Reply/Confirmation? 21. Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled. ??? 27. Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap. Not in my school(s). 44. There have always been flat screen televisions. Maybe, but how many people had them earlier in the 90's (my childhood). 51. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations. She didn't really become popular till the late 90s. How'd she get on classics for my entire life when she didn't start until halfway through it? 53. Someone has always been asking: "Was Iraq worth a war?" They're gonna be asking that a long time. 54. Most communities have always had a mega-church. I let this slide because they used "most".
I can think of several reasons why knowing some tropical regions are cold matters. For one, look at geopolitics:
South America - the left edge is where most of the mountains are, often leaving no more than narrow strips before you get to the seacoast. Peru and Argentina are both colder on average than is generally assumed by North Americans. So, is coca a tropical plant? Or is that just another assumption that follows from the first one? 'No one could grow coca in the Rocky mountains - it has to be imported from tropical countries like Columbia. We can win the war on drugs by fighting it there.'
Afghanistan - same situation, lots of areas above 10,000 feet mean it's colder than most people here assume. When they hear the stories about the Taliban or Al Quaida hiding in caves in the mountains, they believe them uncriticially, but the real situation involves many regions with incredibly dangerous winters, sometimes altitiudes and temperature combinations where most people cannot adapt, but simply weaken and die from long term exposure, and vast distances that must be crossed to to bring in water. There are serious reasons to doubt that many people can lay up in most of that terrain long term. There are places no one is desperate enough to try and farm, and anybody up that way is on the lam from someone. Either the government as a whole knows this and could narrow its searches for people such as Osama considerably, or they aren't listening to their geography experts at the CIA.
Who is John Cabal?
For the first time reading Slashdot, a comment has made we want to take a radioactive shower and wash that concept out of my mind.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Don't get me wrong - I've been a Slayer fan since the 80's, but to say that they have more musical ability than pretty much everything on the radio is just plain wrong. They have written some fantastic stuff and have the ability to play fast, but both Kerry and Jeff get sloppy when they play fast. Tom plays simple bass lines and doesn't get too complicated with the vocals. Dave is a fantastic drummer though.
If you want to compare musical ability of metal players with what you hear on the radio, there are thousands of better choices.
Oh - and to get back to the great grandparent, I don't think the article said that all of this generation listen to rap. Even the quote in the summary says, "Rap music has always been mainstream." You can't deny that for kids going into college this year.
Addlepated - punk & metal
Although certainly the original reason for ++ was so that a very stupid compiler could still produce the optimal code, it also serves some purposes that are important:
(complicated_expression)++ is much easier to read than complicate_expression = complicated_expression+1. In the second case it is often difficult to tell that it is the same variable. The only "modern" way to express this is with references, such as reference a = reference(complicated_expression); a = a+1.
Also postfix ++ returns the previous value, this is often very useful, though confusing. It can be worked around again with a temporary variable.
And that's why a lot of new albums are sold in printed cardboard cases. The cardboard provides a skeleton that is more durable than a jewel case, and I think theyn add a little plastic to the mix to make it impressively flexible. The industry is starting to like these for other reasons too: for one, printed cardboard is less expensive than clear (i.e. "virgin") plastic.
There are lots of variations on the design too - you can have pure reinforced cardboard sleeves, or you can combine a cardboard shell glued to a plastic disc holder. These cardboard shells also make it much easier to fit multiple discs in the standard jewel case footprint, which makes the logistics of shipping a double-album (or a bonus DVD) much simpler.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.