What is the Y2K problem? Well, It's a metaphorical timebomb pre-programmed into hundreds of millions of the world's computer chips. Years ago, to conserve memory space, programmers used two numbers to record the year. For example, 87 would mean 1987. The problem is that on January 1, 2000, computers that still use a two-number year will interpret the 00 to mean the year 1900. This will cause most of the computers in the world to either shut down or generate incorrect data.
Utter chaos is what would occur if our information-dependent society lost its computers. There would be hot air balloons floating out of the storm drains, peanut butter all over the roads, Abraham Lincoln doing calisthenics on your roof, mannequins rummaging through your CD collection....quite simply, an entire culture gone higgledypiggledy.
The government's solution has been to procrastinate for ten years and then in 1999, they decided to have a few programmers begin fixing the program code. Unfortunately, it would require all the programmers in the world to work 24 hours a day for five years to rewrite all the code. And we haven't that kind of time.
But don't panic! In dire times like these, most people would run for the hills like a yak in drag. But not me. Using my superior education, a PHD in Stuffed Animal Psychology from Austin Community College, I have devised a plan that, if implemented, could avert this horrible disaster. My solution has its roots in the old adage that says that a million monkeys working at a million typewriters would eventually write a Shakespearean play. It is my hypothesis that if a hundred million sock monkeys worked on a hundred million computers, all the faulty code could be re-written before the onset of Y2K.
I have already tested my hypothesis at a small scale. On November 11, 1998, I brought five sock monkeys to the eighth floor of the Trensi Computing building. I then set each monkey in front of a computer and waited for seven hours.
The results were limited, but I would certainly not call them negative. Three of the monkeys; Bruce, Red, and Andy sat motionless in front of their computer screens for the entire seven hours as if they were inanimate. Pete, the small monkey, was lost and turned up three days later in the coffee cup of a Trensi employee. And the remaining monkey, Mr. Bowels, went crazy from staring at his computer screen and attacked my colleague. My colleague, the poor delusional fool, claims that he was not attacked and that I simply threw the monkey at him out of boredom, but that's a lie.
Some people might see my experiment as a failure, but I am still highly optimistic. I feel the experiment did not produce the expected results because of my limited number of test subjects. Surely it would work if millions of sock monkeys were involved, but a man of my meager means could never afford that many monkeys.
Therefore, I am making a formal plea to the government to bankroll my project. I will need no more than eight billion dollars, and maybe a few female androids if NASA's got any lying around. That should be enough funding for me to effectively save our society. But time is running out, so please lobby your senator or congressman to support my solution before it's too late.
But it also needs there to be a professional ethic among systems and network administrators that we will not allow the infrastructure we control to be used for this sort of thing.
I had been doing the mailings for our legitimate (customers/registrants with opt-in/opt-out ability) bulk emailings, and so I was the natural go-to guy when someone fairly high up in the company was going to buy a bunch of addresses. I said something like "Isn't that against the law?". They responded that we would be using a real return address, not like the spammers, etc. "That doesn't make it any less unsolicited," I replied. That was the last that I heard about it.
Like the friend you were talking about, the company was only resorting to this out of desperation (we had our fourth round of layoffs shortly after that, and I was one of the 50% that got the axe, although I'm fairly sure it was not in retaliation). Like the "hippocratic oath" idea you were talking about, it was the moral stance of one individual that stopped it.
I have no idea if what I did would work elsewhere, but there is a very useful nugget in here if you are in the same situation--"Isn't tat illegal?" is a response that is hard to respond to. Instead of you being the bad guy for not doing what you are asked, they are the bad guy for asking you to do something illegal. Not that it is risk-free--some people would probably happily fire you. But if they fire you for not doing something illegal you have recourse for that, too, at least in some states.
IMHO the problem is that games are useless for real facts, as your review demonstrates. You just can't create a viable structure where you can just plug in your multiple choice questions and have a fun game.
You are right about the fact that putting multiple choice questions artificially into a game is not really going to get you much. However, that is not the only way to embed knowledge aquisition capabilities into gameplay. You can do much better, you just have to be doing it for the love of the subject in the first place and not as a "well, kids like games, so I'll use a game to teach them this boring subject". That is highly unlikely to work. But if you say "good grief, this is a fascinating topic--I just need to find a way to express what is fascinating about it in a way that is accessible and interesting to kids", you have a real chance of doing something.
The rubik's cube, for example, is an abstract algebraic factoring problem. Rubik didn't know that, he was making it for the engineering challenge. But if he can make one accidentally, I'm sure that we can make them on purpose.
Have you seen the Zoombinis series? Try going to www.zoombinis.com, I think there is a sample game on it.
They aren't perfect, but they are very, very good compared to shoehorned multiple choice.
The author's point is that this is the way "game generation" kids learn, so if we have content which we want them to pick up, we should use the format they have been trained to learn in.
He isn't suggesting that we train them to learn that way. He is saying that they learn that way, whether we like it or not, and so the best way to teach them is that way.
some time before 2010, the market will have been reduced to a single programmer. he will threaten to quit unless he gets help, so they will re-hire the last guy they had laid off, doubling the number of tech workers.
NEWSROOMS ALL OVER THE WORLD-- journalists came to consensus today that the war plan that none of them have seen is definitely different from what is happening, and in a big way. "They way didn't plan on this!", many were heard to say, and others were seen writing that down attributing it to "a source"
A CNN column calls Iraqi resistance "spontaneous":
However, Song pointed out there were similarities between Mao's teachings about "whole-people warfare" and the way the Iraq people had quite spontaneously used different strategies including guerrilla tactics and suicide raids to counter "U.S. invaders."
"You know," the reporter said in defense of the characterization, "'spontaneous' as in 'I spontaneously decided not to throw down my weapons as previously planned because they shot my nine year old cousin and threatened to kill more of my family'".
He was not able to explain here why he failed to remember that the main reason things are going slower is most likely due to further terrorism by death squads, the use of human shields, and American forces' unwillingness to plow ahead when Saddam's thugs are putting civilian in the line of fire:
Other analysts have dug into Mao's classic texts to explain why the allied forces have been bogged down by Iraqi militiamen and citizen-turned-fighters on their way to Baghdad.
I like how, right after Iraqi officials state that the taxi incident was an officially sanctioned suicide attack and that there would be more on the way, they get all incensed about US troops shooting into a van after it failed to stop as it approached a checkpoint and was instructed to stop, failed to stop after a warning shot, and failed to stop after a shot into the engine. That, you see, is an atrocity, and it's the US' fault.
In fact, any report of civilian casualties that is not reported with suspicion that it might have been intentionally inflicted by the Iraqi regime is laughable.
Me? I don't have to go outside of the war coverage--I got plenty of laughs right there.
I am hesitant -- but Esho is not. Like many exiles, he wants Saddam out and if it means a U.S. attack, then so be it. When I point out that many members of his extended family could die, he says, "We are dying anyway."
well, I just heard on the radio that one of the guys that went in as a peace protestor (human shield group, I think) referred to being "shocked back to his senses" once he started talking to the people. I believe he said he had someone on tape that said he would commit suicide if the bombing _didn't_ start soon, because he could not continue living under Saddam. I also saw video of people dancing while marines tore down the Lenin-esque pictures of Hussein in some southern Iraqi city.
In addition to that, it is my impression that Iraqis living outside of Iraq (where they are free to speak their mind) are very much in favor of getting rid of Hussein, even if it means war.
I readily grant that it is a nontrivial task to figure out what Iraqis think. I believe that I recall one person saying that there was some trepidation relating to the fact that Hussein had already killed pretty much everyone that he considered a threat, and the new leadership might therefore be worse. I can't recall if that individual was Iraqi or not.
I am not too terribly convinced by what journalists in Baghdad might hear from those with whom they are allowed to speak (and those who are willing to speak to them, for that matter).
But regardless of how difficult it is to get this opinion unvarnished, I maintain that it is the one that is most important, and I still think that the burden of proof is on the anti-war movement to show that they are actually proposing a course that is best for, and in line with the wishes of, the Iraqi people.
...is one that we hear very infrequently. It's that of the Iraqis who suffer under the regime. If they are pro-war, the world should be, too. Obviously you can't poll in Iraq very easily, but, still, I think figuring out what they would prefer has largely been ignored at least by the anti-war side.
I worked in NCSA's education group as an REU intern. One day they trucked us across the parking lot to see a demo of this newfangled thing. My thoughts?
"So what? I can already get all that with ftp, gopher, veronica, etc.":)
Yes, that's really what I thought. I guess I wouldn't make much of a VC bird dog.
The most credible source at that story was the only remaining IBM guy that worked at the office in question, who said that all he knew was that they were helping the government trains run. There was much huffing and puffing and "that gives us the final proof", but never was the final proof mentioned, just a lot of the context and possibility. It looks to me like some people are claiming that there is new evidence linking IBM to direct involvement, but no one in that story seemed to be able to describe what that evdence was, but rather to simply assert that it now existed.
If you want to know who else helped slaughter Jews, don't forget to look at
If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second - because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people.
Slashdot Mirror
Courtesy of the Internet Wayback Machine, at:
n key.com/y2k.html
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012061147/sock-mo
What is the Y2K problem? Well, It's a metaphorical timebomb pre-programmed into hundreds of millions of the world's computer chips. Years ago, to conserve memory space, programmers used two numbers to record the year. For example, 87 would mean 1987. The problem is that on January 1, 2000, computers that still use a two-number year will interpret the 00 to mean the year 1900. This will cause most of the computers in the world to either shut down or generate incorrect data.
Utter chaos is what would occur if our information-dependent society lost its computers. There would be hot air balloons floating out of the storm drains, peanut butter all over the roads, Abraham Lincoln doing calisthenics on your roof, mannequins rummaging through your CD collection....quite simply, an entire culture gone higgledypiggledy.
The government's solution has been to procrastinate for ten years and then in 1999, they decided to have a few programmers begin fixing the program code. Unfortunately, it would require all the programmers in the world to work 24 hours a day for five years to rewrite all the code. And we haven't that kind of time.
But don't panic! In dire times like these, most people would run for the hills like a yak in drag. But not me. Using my superior education, a PHD in Stuffed Animal Psychology from Austin Community College, I have devised a plan that, if implemented, could avert this horrible disaster.
My solution has its roots in the old adage that says that a million monkeys working at a million typewriters would eventually write a Shakespearean play. It is my hypothesis that if a hundred million sock monkeys worked on a hundred million computers, all the faulty code could be re-written before the onset of Y2K.
I have already tested my hypothesis at a small scale. On November 11, 1998, I brought five sock monkeys to the eighth floor of the Trensi Computing building. I then set each monkey in front of a computer and waited for seven hours.
The results were limited, but I would certainly not call them negative. Three of the monkeys; Bruce, Red, and Andy sat motionless in front of their computer screens for the entire seven hours as if they were inanimate. Pete, the small monkey, was lost and turned up three days later in the coffee cup of a Trensi employee. And the remaining monkey, Mr. Bowels, went crazy from staring at his computer screen and attacked my colleague. My colleague, the poor delusional fool, claims that he was not attacked and that I simply threw the monkey at him out of boredom, but that's a lie.
Some people might see my experiment as a failure, but I am still highly optimistic. I feel the experiment did not produce the expected results because of my limited number of test subjects. Surely it would work if millions of sock monkeys were involved, but a man of my meager means could never afford that many monkeys.
Therefore, I am making a formal plea to the government to bankroll my project. I will need no more than eight billion dollars, and maybe a few female androids if NASA's got any lying around. That should be enough funding for me to effectively save our society. But time is running out, so please lobby your senator or congressman to support my solution before it's too late.
I had been doing the mailings for our legitimate (customers/registrants with opt-in/opt-out ability) bulk emailings, and so I was the natural go-to guy when someone fairly high up in the company was going to buy a bunch of addresses. I said something like "Isn't that against the law?". They responded that we would be using a real return address, not like the spammers, etc. "That doesn't make it any less unsolicited," I replied. That was the last that I heard about it.
Like the friend you were talking about, the company was only resorting to this out of desperation (we had our fourth round of layoffs shortly after that, and I was one of the 50% that got the axe, although I'm fairly sure it was not in retaliation). Like the "hippocratic oath" idea you were talking about, it was the moral stance of one individual that stopped it.
I have no idea if what I did would work elsewhere, but there is a very useful nugget in here if you are in the same situation--"Isn't tat illegal?" is a response that is hard to respond to. Instead of you being the bad guy for not doing what you are asked, they are the bad guy for asking you to do something illegal. Not that it is risk-free--some people would probably happily fire you. But if they fire you for not doing something illegal you have recourse for that, too, at least in some states.
It's not redundant, it's the first post.
The Sam's club in Cary, NC has led lights that will clip to a book. I'm not terribly impressed with mine, ymmv.
offtopic? It's the perfect solution to his problem.
...Disney! :)
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/press/content/presscen tre/releases/2003/05/PR03049.asp
I don't get it, why ask him this? (sorry if I'm just slow)
No, "loosing" your music was when you put them on the p2p network...
You are right about the fact that putting multiple choice questions artificially into a game is not really going to get you much. However, that is not the only way to embed knowledge aquisition capabilities into gameplay. You can do much better, you just have to be doing it for the love of the subject in the first place and not as a "well, kids like games, so I'll use a game to teach them this boring subject". That is highly unlikely to work. But if you say "good grief, this is a fascinating topic--I just need to find a way to express what is fascinating about it in a way that is accessible and interesting to kids", you have a real chance of doing something.
The rubik's cube, for example, is an abstract algebraic factoring problem. Rubik didn't know that, he was making it for the engineering challenge. But if he can make one accidentally, I'm sure that we can make them on purpose.
Have you seen the Zoombinis series? Try going to www.zoombinis.com, I think there is a sample game on it.
They aren't perfect, but they are very, very good compared to shoehorned multiple choice.
The author's point is that this is the way "game generation" kids learn, so if we have content which we want them to pick up, we should use the format they have been trained to learn in.
He isn't suggesting that we train them to learn that way. He is saying that they learn that way, whether we like it or not, and so the best way to teach them is that way.
You're right, but "pass mustard" is _much_ funnier, if you've ever cared for a newborn.
The guy that talked to Deep Throat during the Nixon administration never outed him. I think you could trust him with your story.
nested blockquotes?
...it was revealed that they got their information about the timing of the supernova from a man who is currently in custody of the SEC.
some time before 2010, the market will have been reduced to a single programmer. he will threaten to quit unless he gets help, so they will re-hire the last guy they had laid off, doubling the number of tech workers.
journalists came to consensus today that the war plan that none of them have seen is definitely different from what is happening, and in a big way. "They way didn't plan on this!", many were heard to say, and others were seen writing that down attributing it to "a source"
A CNN column calls Iraqi resistance "spontaneous":
"You know," the reporter said in defense of the characterization, "'spontaneous' as in 'I spontaneously decided not to throw down my weapons as previously planned because they shot my nine year old cousin and threatened to kill more of my family'".
He was not able to explain here why he failed to remember that the main reason things are going slower is most likely due to further terrorism by death squads, the use of human shields, and American forces' unwillingness to plow ahead when Saddam's thugs are putting civilian in the line of fire:
I like how, right after Iraqi officials state that the taxi incident was an officially sanctioned suicide attack and that there would be more on the way, they get all incensed about US troops shooting into a van after it failed to stop as it approached a checkpoint and was instructed to stop, failed to stop after a warning shot, and failed to stop after a shot into the engine. That, you see, is an atrocity, and it's the US' fault.
In fact, any report of civilian casualties that is not reported with suspicion that it might have been intentionally inflicted by the Iraqi regime is laughable.
Me? I don't have to go outside of the war coverage--I got plenty of laughs right there.
from
. html :
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/iraq2003/lyden91
I am hesitant -- but Esho is not. Like many exiles, he wants Saddam out and if it means a U.S. attack, then so be it. When I point out that many members of his extended family could die, he says, "We are dying anyway."
well, I just heard on the radio that one of the guys that went in as a peace protestor (human shield group, I think) referred to being "shocked back to his senses" once he started talking to the people. I believe he said he had someone on tape that said he would commit suicide if the bombing _didn't_ start soon, because he could not continue living under Saddam. I also saw video of people dancing while marines tore down the Lenin-esque pictures of Hussein in some southern Iraqi city.
In addition to that, it is my impression that Iraqis living outside of Iraq (where they are free to speak their mind) are very much in favor of getting rid of Hussein, even if it means war.
I readily grant that it is a nontrivial task to figure out what Iraqis think. I believe that I recall one person saying that there was some trepidation relating to the fact that Hussein had already killed pretty much everyone that he considered a threat, and the new leadership might therefore be worse. I can't recall if that individual was Iraqi or not.
I am not too terribly convinced by what journalists in Baghdad might hear from those with whom they are allowed to speak (and those who are willing to speak to them, for that matter).
But regardless of how difficult it is to get this opinion unvarnished, I maintain that it is the one that is most important, and I still think that the burden of proof is on the anti-war movement to show that they are actually proposing a course that is best for, and in line with the wishes of, the Iraqi people.
...is one that we hear very infrequently. It's that of the Iraqis who suffer under the regime. If they are pro-war, the world should be, too. Obviously you can't poll in Iraq very easily, but, still, I think figuring out what they would prefer has largely been ignored at least by the anti-war side.
I worked in NCSA's education group as an REU intern. One day they trucked us across the parking lot to see a demo of this newfangled thing. My thoughts?
:)
"So what? I can already get all that with ftp, gopher, veronica, etc."
Yes, that's really what I thought. I guess I wouldn't make much of a VC bird dog.
...why yes, those _are_ Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing
...that you shall never see
a l2 .html
A lovely poem about PIII's
sorry, couldn't resist
http://archive.salon.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10ch
The most credible source at that story was the only remaining IBM guy that worked at the office in question, who said that all he knew was that they were helping the government trains run. There was much huffing and puffing and "that gives us the final proof", but never was the final proof mentioned, just a lot of the context and possibility. It looks to me like some people are claiming that there is new evidence linking IBM to direct involvement, but no one in that story seemed to be able to describe what that evdence was, but rather to simply assert that it now existed.
If you want to know who else helped slaughter Jews, don't forget to look at
the (Zionist) Jews themselves.
From that link:
If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second - because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people.
Scary. And if you like conspiracy theory, see:
this author's story
indeed! whatever else we do with the analogy, hail the bicycle!