And had no problem using my salvaged laptop running Ubuntu. (Should anybody disbelieve, I still have my email account from the institution.) I think the comments about total illteracy only partially address the issue. Her complaint is no different from "My dog ate my homework" or, "My printer broke." To put it succinctly - "Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance." I transferred to a four year university, and I hear the same crap, people blaming technology for their lack of foresight.
With a couple of game pads and any computer you can play just about the entire library of any classic system. I'm still addcited to some of the old SNES titles - Mario World, F-Zero, Starfox and Mario Kart. Seek and ye shall find.
Just link off to their work. Slate magazine did a three part piece on how our culture has gone from skeptical to paranoid to essentially delusional about science in general. From the article; "The success of these programs shows how the public's understanding of science has devolved into a perverse worship of uncertainty, a fanatical devotion to the god of the gaps." It works for evolution, global warming, tobacco/cancer links, etc.
I left college for about a decade, and in that time, the rise of Wiki and other, far more dubious intenet sources, has done surprisingly little to change how research skills are taught. It used to be "Find it in print." Now it is "find it somewhere other than Wikipedia." As far as I can tell, Wikipedia bashing from the ivory tower is a poor and easy substitute for doing a good job educating students about how to do quality research, and why it matters. Wikipedia can be integrated responsibly provided knowledge seekers are vigilant, as they should be with any source. The fight over Wikipedia has become a proxy battle between the democratization of information and the entrenched authorities on knowledge. Instead of spending so much time and effort in attempting to destroy the reputation of Wikipedia, perhaps the public would be better served by these same authorities making a case for critical thinking skills. The dangers of a poor understanding of credibililty have far more dangerous implications than the professor's grasping analogy; WMD, Saddam Hussein planned 9-11, Yellowcake Uranium, "We do not torture," and just about anything aired on Faux News.
As an aside, I wrote a "well researched" paper for a 'No Wikipedia' professor that detailed the global benefits of the undeniable US victory in Vietnam. When he declared the factual foundation of the paper pure crap, I pointed out that it was researched and cited meticulously, and as per his rules (no Wikipedia) the research was considered sound. It was quite cathartic.
Slashdot Mirror
And had no problem using my salvaged laptop running Ubuntu. (Should anybody disbelieve, I still have my email account from the institution.) I think the comments about total illteracy only partially address the issue. Her complaint is no different from "My dog ate my homework" or, "My printer broke." To put it succinctly - "Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance." I transferred to a four year university, and I hear the same crap, people blaming technology for their lack of foresight.
With a couple of game pads and any computer you can play just about the entire library of any classic system. I'm still addcited to some of the old SNES titles - Mario World, F-Zero, Starfox and Mario Kart. Seek and ye shall find.
Just link off to their work. Slate magazine did a three part piece on how our culture has gone from skeptical to paranoid to essentially delusional about science in general.
From the article;
"The success of these programs shows how the public's understanding of science has devolved into a perverse worship of uncertainty, a fanatical devotion to the god of the gaps."
It works for evolution, global warming, tobacco/cancer links, etc.
I left college for about a decade, and in that time, the rise of Wiki and other, far more dubious intenet sources, has done surprisingly little to change how research skills are taught. It used to be "Find it in print." Now it is "find it somewhere other than Wikipedia." As far as I can tell, Wikipedia bashing from the ivory tower is a poor and easy substitute for doing a good job educating students about how to do quality research, and why it matters. Wikipedia can be integrated responsibly provided knowledge seekers are vigilant, as they should be with any source.
The fight over Wikipedia has become a proxy battle between the democratization of information and the entrenched authorities on knowledge. Instead of spending so much time and effort in attempting to destroy the reputation of Wikipedia, perhaps the public would be better served by these same authorities making a case for critical thinking skills. The dangers of a poor understanding of credibililty have far more dangerous implications than the professor's grasping analogy; WMD, Saddam Hussein planned 9-11, Yellowcake Uranium, "We do not torture," and just about anything aired on Faux News.
As an aside, I wrote a "well researched" paper for a 'No Wikipedia' professor that detailed the global benefits of the undeniable US victory in Vietnam. When he declared the factual foundation of the paper pure crap, I pointed out that it was researched and cited meticulously, and as per his rules (no Wikipedia) the research was considered sound. It was quite cathartic.