> the average viewer does not look at what os people on tv are using
True...what they *do* look at is the big shiny apple with the bite taken out of it. As others have pointed out, 99% of the featured computers you see in the media are macs. But no one recognized them because of their software, it's all in the casing. Unless some company can make linux boxes (and I do mean the actual boxes) that look that distinctive, it won't make a bit of difference to joe average if it's running OS X or WinME or Enlightenment.
This is related to something more general that I was thinking about.
When you're searching the Internet for information, most of what you get back is totally useless. Either that, or you get so much that you don't even know where to start. For example, I wanted to find some species information about pigeons a couple of weeks ago (don't ask); if you just type 'pigeons' into google, all sorts of things come up. But it still took me ages to find what I needed specifically.
So what does this have to do with the topic? What allowed me to (eventually) find what I was looking for was manual filtering. I had to know that racing pigeons weren't what I wanted, that articles on baby pigeons weren't relevant, etc etc. A lot of this filtering process is just what you get with experience, but a lot has to do with what you learn formally in one place or another. This is something that needs to be much more direct than what current educational software is capable of. If we install computers in schools from kindergarten up, I'm concerned that these skills won't be properly developed. Why bother thinking about what you *really* want to search for when you can just go through a list of 100 articles? *Something* has to be in there.
I'm not saying that computers have no place in school. But I do agree with these researchers that they should only be necessary after a few years.
Maybe the problem with getting women into IT is the perception that anyone working in the field has to be a 'geek'? Just because you work with computers, doesn't mean you have to eat sleep and breathe computer (although it helps:).
It doesn't seem to be computers-as-technology that keeps women away; I think it's presenting computers as-a-life-choice that's the problem.
> I usually think of civil disobedience whenever > people are willing to risk being beaten, > imprisoned, burned at the stake, etc. for > cherished religious and political liberties.
Right, and the fact that you *can* be beaten etc. implies a lack of anonymity. If you want to stand up for your rights, you have to take responsibility for your actions.
With Napster, you've got people claiming that they're fighting the man and his Unjust Laws while at the same time not wanting anyone to know who they are. Maybe it's a form of protest, I don't know, but it's *not* civil disobedience. Whether the copyright laws are really unjust are not...we'll find out soon enough.
Slashdot Mirror
> the average viewer does not look at what os people on tv are using
True...what they *do* look at is the big shiny apple with the bite taken out of it. As others have pointed out, 99% of the featured computers you see in the media are macs. But no one recognized them because of their software, it's all in the casing. Unless some company can make linux boxes (and I do mean the actual boxes) that look that distinctive, it won't make a bit of difference to joe average if it's running OS X or WinME or Enlightenment.
--mulch
This is related to something more general that I was thinking about.
When you're searching the Internet for information, most of what you get back is totally useless. Either that, or you get so much that you don't even know where to start. For example, I wanted to find some species information about pigeons a couple of weeks ago (don't ask); if you just type 'pigeons' into google, all sorts of things come up. But it still took me ages to find what I needed specifically.
So what does this have to do with the topic? What allowed me to (eventually) find what I was looking for was manual filtering. I had to know that racing pigeons weren't what I wanted, that articles on baby pigeons weren't relevant, etc etc. A lot of this filtering process is just what you get with experience, but a lot has to do with what you learn formally in one place or another. This is something that needs to be much more direct than what current educational software is capable of. If we install computers in schools from kindergarten up, I'm concerned that these skills won't be properly developed. Why bother thinking about what you *really* want to search for when you can just go through a list of 100 articles? *Something* has to be in there.
I'm not saying that computers have no place in school. But I do agree with these researchers that they should only be necessary after a few years.
--mulch
--mulch
Maybe the problem with getting women into IT is the perception that anyone working in the field has to be a 'geek'? Just because you work with computers, doesn't mean you have to eat sleep and breathe computer (although it helps :).
It doesn't seem to be computers-as-technology that keeps women away; I think it's presenting computers as-a-life-choice that's the problem.
--mulch
--mulch
> I usually think of civil disobedience whenever
> people are willing to risk being beaten,
> imprisoned, burned at the stake, etc. for
> cherished religious and political liberties.
Right, and the fact that you *can* be beaten etc. implies a lack of anonymity. If you want to stand up for your rights, you have to take responsibility for your actions.
With Napster, you've got people claiming that they're fighting the man and his Unjust Laws while at the same time not wanting anyone to know who they are. Maybe it's a form of protest, I don't know, but it's *not* civil disobedience. Whether the copyright laws are really unjust are not...we'll find out soon enough.
--mulch
--mulch