Come on, really?
The Onion news on slashdot? Who approved this post or did I just miss some invisible winking emoticons?
And If Diebold had really f*cked it up, no one in the world would be allowed to even know about this -don't you think?
I think it doesn't make sense to teach those skills with ancient software. When the students try to put their acquired knowledge into some work on the "outside" they are likely to have more recent version and totally different environments to work in (What good is a Dreamweaver for HTML when all you do is PHP and Javascript?) Some skills are so basic that they apply to all software but most of them don't and I don't really need to know how to use 5-10 year old software techniques when none of them are used anymore. Above that Open Software is a great way to teach diversity on the fly because you can simply compare programs, show the inner workings of different desktop environments and demonstrate many features of software architecture that you could never do with closed source or license fees (Think of explaining a program by showing excerpts of the source code... where is that with proprietary products? Think of teaching students about filesystems and -browsers instead of "Click on C:"). Someone who understood using three different text editors knows how to do it, someone who used e.g. Word exclusively is screwed once they are confronted with a different system or version. Open Source lets you broaden your approach to conveying skills.
So yep, get closed source out of the school, now!
You can distribute a large team of people to work on single levels but it's really hard to have say 20 people work on a single huge level design. Have a couple of designers each contribute a few map files is easy but to coordinate lots of people working on the same files is quite complicated I would guess. Most of the games mentioned in the article (Metroid, HL2) are divided into sections that are connected creatively so the transition is not as rough from one to another but they're still done in sections.
I have a tray with a pillow attached to it (these are sold as reading pillows or something). Theres nothing more comfortable than this when you sit in a lounge chair, in bed or elsewhere because the pillow allows you to adjust the angle and stays in place at the same time providing a flat surface for your laptop. It's ~16 inches long and ~13 inches wide so ample space to fit a laptop. It has a rounded frame about a 1/8" on all sides and the disc tray still opens nicely. You can probably make one of these yourself out of some plywood, a piece of fabric and some styrofoam pellets. One that will be big enough to fit computer and mouse on it. You might want to try that. They come at about 10-15 bucks but I don't know where to get them because mine was a gift.
If I'm not completely mistaken then N20 or Nitrous Oxide a.k.a. Laughing Gas is the stuff car tuners use to punch some more horse powers out of their engines with. Isn't it highly flammable? I want to see the "Smoking Kills"/"Less-Lethal-Ammo" ad for that one!
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, really? The Onion news on slashdot? Who approved this post or did I just miss some invisible winking emoticons? And If Diebold had really f*cked it up, no one in the world would be allowed to even know about this -don't you think?
I think it doesn't make sense to teach those skills with ancient software. When the students try to put their acquired knowledge into some work on the "outside" they are likely to have more recent version and totally different environments to work in (What good is a Dreamweaver for HTML when all you do is PHP and Javascript?) Some skills are so basic that they apply to all software but most of them don't and I don't really need to know how to use 5-10 year old software techniques when none of them are used anymore. Above that Open Software is a great way to teach diversity on the fly because you can simply compare programs, show the inner workings of different desktop environments and demonstrate many features of software architecture that you could never do with closed source or license fees (Think of explaining a program by showing excerpts of the source code ... where is that with proprietary products? Think of teaching students about filesystems and -browsers instead of "Click on C:"). Someone who understood using three different text editors knows how to do it, someone who used e.g. Word exclusively is screwed once they are confronted with a different system or version. Open Source lets you broaden your approach to conveying skills.
So yep, get closed source out of the school, now!
You can distribute a large team of people to work on single levels but it's really hard to have say 20 people work on a single huge level design. Have a couple of designers each contribute a few map files is easy but to coordinate lots of people working on the same files is quite complicated I would guess. Most of the games mentioned in the article (Metroid, HL2) are divided into sections that are connected creatively so the transition is not as rough from one to another but they're still done in sections.
I just looked it up it's called a Laptray or "Knietablett" (Knee Tray).
I have a tray with a pillow attached to it (these are sold as reading pillows or something). Theres nothing more comfortable than this when you sit in a lounge chair, in bed or elsewhere because the pillow allows you to adjust the angle and stays in place at the same time providing a flat surface for your laptop. It's ~16 inches long and ~13 inches wide so ample space to fit a laptop. It has a rounded frame about a 1/8" on all sides and the disc tray still opens nicely. You can probably make one of these yourself out of some plywood, a piece of fabric and some styrofoam pellets. One that will be big enough to fit computer and mouse on it. You might want to try that. They come at about 10-15 bucks but I don't know where to get them because mine was a gift.
If I'm not completely mistaken then N20 or Nitrous Oxide a.k.a. Laughing Gas is the stuff car tuners use to punch some more horse powers out of their engines with. Isn't it highly flammable? I want to see the "Smoking Kills"/"Less-Lethal-Ammo" ad for that one!
By the way: It's Google Mail in germany too because some other company holds the rights on a "G-Mail" brand.