There is a certain advantage to taking notes on paper. The attention I pay and the way I take notes when I'm using paper is markedly different then when I use a laptop. I'm usually doing it to be lazy (which may just be me), but I'm a kinesthetic (sp?) learner, which means taking notes and paying attention in that manner helps sear in the information in my brain.
It also forces you to occlude information, and consolidate, instead of simply typing nearly word for word (which is usually just by brain saying, 'I'll retake this lecture later.')
I'm just saying, like most synthetic inventions (margerine, vitamins, artificial suntanning) there are usually always drawbacks compared to the harder, "natural" method. Maybe that's just me though.
Would you hold class in the center of a crowded mall? The very nature of a college, or classroom, is a controlled environment to further learning. Controlling the student's ability to access the internet is no different than the four walls posted around them to keep them from seeing the rest of the world.
Internet access in the classroom always seemed to me like a boon from the "ignorant IT gods" of hasty wireless implementation by blithering idiots who didn't know how to make it secret and only let professors in the building have access (or smart peoplel like us.). It never made sense that it would continue long past this point, kind of like internet tax freedom or net neutrality. Once people realize its just too good to be true, they're going to stamp down it somewhere.
But no, controlling internet access in a classroom is not hand holding, its simply a common-sense measure to direct attention towards the teacher, like facing all the chairs in the same direction at the beginning of the class.
I think there should be seven stars. This is an endless debate I know--which data entry metric to choose--but seven stars seem to provide meaningful choices, whereas five limits the field too much, and 10 choices make some of them functionally meaningless.
Of course people who still decide to rate The Wedding Singer seven stars can throw the whole thing off, like on iTunes where *no* album scores under a four or a five. But that's the problem isn't it, humans are entering these things. Not only do differences in taste have to be considered, but also differences in how people view the rating scale, what their current mood while entering the information is, etc.
Perhaps more effective data can be mined form people's purchasing choices, since we know that what people say and do are often not the same. I think that's why I like Amazon's "most people who viewed this item ended up purchasing:" and then it lists the three most popular options. Their recommendations are fairly solid, if redundent, overall.
Anyway, it's hard to do anything correctly with a large number of average humans.
How are they defining this %10 improvement? How do they judge it? And how can they get it down to things like %.07. There have to be user test groups involved and I can't believe their that objective. %10 increase in rentals, in click throughs, in user agreement that the recommendations are helpful? What?
Yeah this was actually the one examples that came to mind while I was writing the original post. I couldn't formalize it well enough to post it. I was thinking about the Google bid for the 700mhz spectrum. Seriously, a *corporation* had to fight to keep the bandwidth open by guarunteeing to pay billions of dollars for that "privilege?" When the governement is trying to make money and business is watch-dogging itself then I'm not sure what we've come to.
Seems like doing The Right Thing takes a bunch of economic clought these days.
Yeah, I guess that's my point. Any stand turns into an infinite regression of sorts, or it's just a statement of strong personal preference. The amish here in America took a stand ~300 years ago saying, "technology is corrupting to our society and so we will stop developing." But they decry "technology" (which is, of course, anything discovered after you are born), when the same argument could have been applied to their "technologies" 300 years before. Nothing is objective about their statement. Each line in the sand is subjective, and if we start fighting for something, we're fighting for a larger ethical framework in some sense, which is a tenuous position to assert in this day and age. But if you're not asserting some statement of what should be, you're simply stating personal preference about the matter, which isn't quite as inspiring as a man in front of a tank, but simply a man trying to sway others in a matter of opinion.
I wonder if there will be a day when net neutrality has been usurped, despite all the protests, and we've come to accept as the status quo. And then, all of a sudden, another *unconscionable* development of corporate greed takes place, in which we have the same uproar, and the same eventual defeat. Can anyone think of examples in the past where has taken place? I'm not coming up with anything that passes a basic coherency test, but this has to be some cycle we go through on a regular basis. Do these things ever lead to positive outcomes, or are we just the man in front of the tank?
I agree with this view. Being one of those "hometown hero" techies, I see the sluggishness of both the corporate offices I've worked in and my own parents to move from "what works" to "what works best." I have some more geeky friends who have sold their girlfriends and even a few unsuspecting bystanders on the virtues of Ubuntu or some other distro, but it's hardly going to penetrate into the enclave of workstation hell or any other large business model anytime soon, let alone the home living room.
Plus, doesn't this just make sense? From bleeding edge to common usage there is a trend, and a time span. Why do we, those who repute ourselves as being fairly up-to-date, malign "sluggishness" of big business, when it would be like asking the titantic to steer like a surfboard to behave like we do. We can ride the crest of technology, they have to stay in deep water.
Should business have adopted linux a long time ago? No doubt, but only in the same way that most superior technologies are slighted in deference to tradition and apathy. Why doesn't the US use metric yet? or why don't we all type in Dvorak? I guess I share the frustation, but unless there's some conspiracy going that actively opposes the adoption of Linux or other alternate M$ technologies, I'm not sure what's news about this.
People will be listening to pop music in 8 years, even though we all know its terrible, middle-of-the-road, mediocre crap. It fits waiting rooms because it challenges nobody. In the same way, Windows fits the office space, and the home desktop..02
At college I used to play Doom 3 with all the lights out and the speakers cranked up loud. Three or four guys from the hall would come and watch, cinema style. They would scream and I would scream; sometimes we'd spook each other and sometimes we'd all jump at the sight of something new on the screen. That was a 10 times better way to play that video game than any other scenario I can imagine.
What we decide to love, we love. It's amazing that what I assume is an undeniable good can so easily be reversed and I feel the same feeling of undeniable goodness.
Perspective is reality--long live widest FOV.
While I posted a lengthy comment on a different tack (pandering to the American values of personal responsibility and individualism), this is the other side of the argument which I consider completely valid. American children are the rich aristocracy of the world, raised to believe they are entitled to everything and will always have all they have. Of course until they realize that their slack existence in high school has bumped them down a pay-grade or two from their dad's job which they used to laugh and ridicule while listening to Modest Mouse and The Atari's.
The question comes down to: teach people to lead themselves, or teach them to be lead by others. Do you motivate by state control/imposed systems, or by a sense of self-worth and personal responsibility which sparks creative action into the economy and world culture? I think the second one, some other think the first.
This is a coping mechanism because personal responsibility and direction are on the decline. Kids no longer see their opportunity, value, and pleasure in life coming from education and the potential it offers. Look at YouTube comments and myspace pages: they learned all they need to know about being cool and having fun by the time they were thirteen. All they're waiting to do is grow up, drive, smoke, and get DUIs; they're set for life!
So, of course kids are setting no productive future for their own lives--and see no reason to--and of course the school system is going to step in an impose some "career traintracks" on the kids who don't know how to drive their own cars of personal responsibility. It's a horrible because it's damage control.
There are more enjoyable and fulfilling things to do, but children have no vision that maybe more satisfaction comes through educationally-based accomplishments, rather than laziness and cheating, dropping out and drinking. I think most people here on slashdot, or who have done something productive with their lives [note, two separate groups.:).] found this out at some point in lives.
A hard day's work can bring more satisfaction than browsing Facebook or posting on myspace, but "skills" like math, kernel compiling, or even YouTube movie *posting*, instead of watching... well, these things take *work*, and meanwhile their friends are out having a "good time" and ridiculing them for daring to assert that there might be a better way to pass the time than wasting it.
If a decision you make is trying to "keep kids in school," that's the intellectual version of building prison walls. Show kids that school is a playground, and I bet they'll stick around of their own free will, and maybe start using it a little more.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a certain advantage to taking notes on paper. The attention I pay and the way I take notes when I'm using paper is markedly different then when I use a laptop. I'm usually doing it to be lazy (which may just be me), but I'm a kinesthetic (sp?) learner, which means taking notes and paying attention in that manner helps sear in the information in my brain. It also forces you to occlude information, and consolidate, instead of simply typing nearly word for word (which is usually just by brain saying, 'I'll retake this lecture later.') I'm just saying, like most synthetic inventions (margerine, vitamins, artificial suntanning) there are usually always drawbacks compared to the harder, "natural" method. Maybe that's just me though.
Internet access in the classroom always seemed to me like a boon from the "ignorant IT gods" of hasty wireless implementation by blithering idiots who didn't know how to make it secret and only let professors in the building have access (or smart peoplel like us.). It never made sense that it would continue long past this point, kind of like internet tax freedom or net neutrality. Once people realize its just too good to be true, they're going to stamp down it somewhere.
But no, controlling internet access in a classroom is not hand holding, its simply a common-sense measure to direct attention towards the teacher, like facing all the chairs in the same direction at the beginning of the class.
University of Pheonix follows suit.
So this is just the coffee version of newer Krispy Kreme stores? I'm excited. I'd love to go visit.
Ahh. Thank you. For reference, root mean squared error.
Of course people who still decide to rate The Wedding Singer seven stars can throw the whole thing off, like on iTunes where *no* album scores under a four or a five. But that's the problem isn't it, humans are entering these things. Not only do differences in taste have to be considered, but also differences in how people view the rating scale, what their current mood while entering the information is, etc.
Perhaps more effective data can be mined form people's purchasing choices, since we know that what people say and do are often not the same. I think that's why I like Amazon's "most people who viewed this item ended up purchasing:" and then it lists the three most popular options. Their recommendations are fairly solid, if redundent, overall.
Anyway, it's hard to do anything correctly with a large number of average humans.
How are they defining this %10 improvement? How do they judge it? And how can they get it down to things like %.07. There have to be user test groups involved and I can't believe their that objective. %10 increase in rentals, in click throughs, in user agreement that the recommendations are helpful? What?
Agreed. More people would RTFA and then create meaningful dicussion if it was actually worth it to RTFA. Thank you /.
Yeah this was actually the one examples that came to mind while I was writing the original post. I couldn't formalize it well enough to post it. I was thinking about the Google bid for the 700mhz spectrum. Seriously, a *corporation* had to fight to keep the bandwidth open by guarunteeing to pay billions of dollars for that "privilege?" When the governement is trying to make money and business is watch-dogging itself then I'm not sure what we've come to. Seems like doing The Right Thing takes a bunch of economic clought these days.
I guess the author of TFA didn't read /. today. Otherwise he would have known to black-out and not just blur those images.
credit: this comment from the SSN leak article earlier today.
Yeah, I guess that's my point. Any stand turns into an infinite regression of sorts, or it's just a statement of strong personal preference. The amish here in America took a stand ~300 years ago saying, "technology is corrupting to our society and so we will stop developing." But they decry "technology" (which is, of course, anything discovered after you are born), when the same argument could have been applied to their "technologies" 300 years before. Nothing is objective about their statement. Each line in the sand is subjective, and if we start fighting for something, we're fighting for a larger ethical framework in some sense, which is a tenuous position to assert in this day and age. But if you're not asserting some statement of what should be, you're simply stating personal preference about the matter, which isn't quite as inspiring as a man in front of a tank, but simply a man trying to sway others in a matter of opinion.
I wonder if there will be a day when net neutrality has been usurped, despite all the protests, and we've come to accept as the status quo. And then, all of a sudden, another *unconscionable* development of corporate greed takes place, in which we have the same uproar, and the same eventual defeat. Can anyone think of examples in the past where has taken place? I'm not coming up with anything that passes a basic coherency test, but this has to be some cycle we go through on a regular basis. Do these things ever lead to positive outcomes, or are we just the man in front of the tank?
The Empire is going to be pissed.
... i thought this story's title read, "the return of ABBA."
*snaps fingers*, man, i thought this was going to be the year!
I agree with this view. Being one of those "hometown hero" techies, I see the sluggishness of both the corporate offices I've worked in and my own parents to move from "what works" to "what works best." I have some more geeky friends who have sold their girlfriends and even a few unsuspecting bystanders on the virtues of Ubuntu or some other distro, but it's hardly going to penetrate into the enclave of workstation hell or any other large business model anytime soon, let alone the home living room.
.02
Plus, doesn't this just make sense? From bleeding edge to common usage there is a trend, and a time span. Why do we, those who repute ourselves as being fairly up-to-date, malign "sluggishness" of big business, when it would be like asking the titantic to steer like a surfboard to behave like we do. We can ride the crest of technology, they have to stay in deep water.
Should business have adopted linux a long time ago? No doubt, but only in the same way that most superior technologies are slighted in deference to tradition and apathy. Why doesn't the US use metric yet? or why don't we all type in Dvorak? I guess I share the frustation, but unless there's some conspiracy going that actively opposes the adoption of Linux or other alternate M$ technologies, I'm not sure what's news about this.
People will be listening to pop music in 8 years, even though we all know its terrible, middle-of-the-road, mediocre crap. It fits waiting rooms because it challenges nobody. In the same way, Windows fits the office space, and the home desktop.
no one wants to play with small iron.
At college I used to play Doom 3 with all the lights out and the speakers cranked up loud. Three or four guys from the hall would come and watch, cinema style. They would scream and I would scream; sometimes we'd spook each other and sometimes we'd all jump at the sight of something new on the screen. That was a 10 times better way to play that video game than any other scenario I can imagine.
This all runs on mac. .mac in fact, since it's separated from the internet. Point and click people. Point and click!
What we decide to love, we love. It's amazing that what I assume is an undeniable good can so easily be reversed and I feel the same feeling of undeniable goodness. Perspective is reality--long live widest FOV.
This was going to be my direct reply to the TUNE comment. Right on.
Yeah, what next? Microsoft changes their ticker to SUCK?
Does that make these connections of high speed for students of apathy?
While I posted a lengthy comment on a different tack (pandering to the American values of personal responsibility and individualism), this is the other side of the argument which I consider completely valid. American children are the rich aristocracy of the world, raised to believe they are entitled to everything and will always have all they have. Of course until they realize that their slack existence in high school has bumped them down a pay-grade or two from their dad's job which they used to laugh and ridicule while listening to Modest Mouse and The Atari's. The question comes down to: teach people to lead themselves, or teach them to be lead by others. Do you motivate by state control/imposed systems, or by a sense of self-worth and personal responsibility which sparks creative action into the economy and world culture? I think the second one, some other think the first.
This is a coping mechanism because personal responsibility and direction are on the decline. Kids no longer see their opportunity, value, and pleasure in life coming from education and the potential it offers. Look at YouTube comments and myspace pages: they learned all they need to know about being cool and having fun by the time they were thirteen. All they're waiting to do is grow up, drive, smoke, and get DUIs; they're set for life!
:).] found this out at some point in lives.
So, of course kids are setting no productive future for their own lives--and see no reason to--and of course the school system is going to step in an impose some "career traintracks" on the kids who don't know how to drive their own cars of personal responsibility. It's a horrible because it's damage control.
There are more enjoyable and fulfilling things to do, but children have no vision that maybe more satisfaction comes through educationally-based accomplishments, rather than laziness and cheating, dropping out and drinking. I think most people here on slashdot, or who have done something productive with their lives [note, two separate groups.
A hard day's work can bring more satisfaction than browsing Facebook or posting on myspace, but "skills" like math, kernel compiling, or even YouTube movie *posting*, instead of watching... well, these things take *work*, and meanwhile their friends are out having a "good time" and ridiculing them for daring to assert that there might be a better way to pass the time than wasting it.
If a decision you make is trying to "keep kids in school," that's the intellectual version of building prison walls. Show kids that school is a playground, and I bet they'll stick around of their own free will, and maybe start using it a little more.
This entire thread of replies is exactly why Linux is superior to Microsoft.