I think it's just an easy way for the HR people to say, "Yep, Sally can read, write, and do basic math. We know because she has a college degree." It's a hell of a lot easier than testing everyone who applies. Thanks to the modern public school system using "social promotion" and graduating everyone who doesn't drop out, employers have no idea who they're looking at when you walk in the door. Years ago, a high school diploma actually meant something. Nowadays, in the spirit of "inclusiveness" and self-esteem-masturbation, the standards have fallen far from where they were, say, 50 years ago. If you need proof, try reading a book written in the 1800s. The grammar and vocabulary was far more complex. What we now call "college-level reading" was 6th-grade material back then.
I don't know what you're doing to your machine but I've been running 7 for over a year and I have yet to see it crash. I used XP for about 9 years on multiple PCs and had a system lock up on me maybe two or 3 times.
Granted, while many of you claim to never (or rarely) need an optical drive nowadays, in my not-so-humble opinion, this is just another case where Apple is clueless when it comes to making PCs that people want. For all the fanboi love over the iPhone and iPad, Apple has never made much of a dent in the desktop or laptop market (convincing schools to buy them doesn't count). Lacking such a basic feature just makes them suck even more.
... or ALS is starting to get the best of his brain. Sorry, but in my opinion, he's full of crap in many ways. Everything from man-made global warming to depleting all our resources within 100 years to colonizing other planets. All nonsense.
How's that Hope 'n Change working out for ya? Oh that's right... he needs 4 more years to fix it all. Got it.
Remember that real estate bubble that kicked it all off with the "affordable housing" programs? See: Chris Dodd (D), Barney Frank (D), Bill Clinton (D).
Remember what unemployment rates were under Bush? Roughly 4-5%. A typical liberal's response is, "the economy started going to hell under Bush". That was in 2008 (his last year) in the fall (election season) when investors began to see that a Democrat (any democrat) would most certainly win and change fiscal policy for the worse. Shit REALLY hit the fan when they realized the next president would be an extremely liberal (if not downright Marxist) "community organizer"-professor-ACORN lawyer-Saul Alinsky disciple from Chicago that had absolutely no executive experience but kept company with scum like Jeremiah Wright, Billy Ayers, Tony Rezko, etc. But people were going to elect him anyway because he was "historical" (black) and they wanted "Hope!" and "Change!"
Liberals (like Nanci Pelosi) were already in control of the House and Senate. Nancy-on-steroids was on his way to the White House. Yes, investors took their money and ran. And unemployment began going up by 1/2 million jobs a month for the next 2 years.
But we're supposed to believe it's all Bush's fault. Keith Olberman said so.
The usual fix/workaround doesn't work on my Thinkpad T60. Even though I execute "pcie_aspm=force", I get this:
[ 0.000000] PCIe ASPM is forcedly enabled
but then...
[ 0.164778] ACPI FADT declares the system doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so disable it... [ 1.269089] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L0s L1
So I'm left to wonder, does the system actually support PCIe ASPM and the kernel just doesn't know it's there or is there entirely something else at fault?
Last I checked, it STILL doesn't support Flash on Android. I'd love to use it because I happen to like the synced bookmarks feature but no flash was a deal-killer. I therefore use Dolphin which works great and allows a manual bookmark sync.
Students ARE interested in stuff like science and engineering. It seems to me that part of the problem is when they start examining what they will actually do once they get the degree, the outlook doesn't appear very promising. Entry-level jobs (especially in IT) are scarce and the constant drumbeat of overseas outsourcing is driving many people to change their major to a subject where they're more likely to make a living. I'm working on a computer science/software engineering degree and I'm very nervous about what my prospects will be when I graduate with $50k in debt. My passion for the subject matter drives me though. I actually love practicing what I'm learning.
Some of them also assume that we remember everything we learned in the previous semester as if it was yesterday. Over the summer, I forgot most all of the trig identities I memorized in the spring semester because I never use them in real life. It made it especially difficult when the prof started lecturing on a topic I hadn't touched in four months with very little (if any) review. He does math stuff every day. Most people don't.
And the more a person (any person) actually uses what they learn, the greater their likelihood of retention. I took trigonometry last spring and now I'm taking pre-calc. I had to go back and review everything I had learned in trig (including re-memorizing those damned identities) because I had forgotten about half of it. Why? Because not once during the summer did I actually use anything I learned in the class. Algebra, on the other hand, is a different story. The concepts that are used repeatedly, ever semester, are the ones I remember without having to look up my notes
In my opinion, when it comes to math, it's not so important that I retain every single concept I learn, but rather, when such a problem arises later on, I recognize the problem and I have a general idea of how to solve it. If I have to look up a few formulas along the way, so be it.
As for the Khan Academy, the website has saved my ass a few times. It's one of the first places I turn when I'm struggling with something in my homework. It never has been a replacement for classroom attendance, but rather a really good supplement.
It's called DISCIPLINE - a concept lost on the current generation. My parents took the belt to my hind end a few times as a kid and I turned out OK. Hell, it even worked. Many a time, the mere thought of it prevented me from giving into some temptation or another as a child. As the old saying does, "spoil the rod
I buy only mp3 for this very reason. Once I have it, it's MINE. Just like the CD, cassette, or record I used to buy. I can play it on whatever player I want: car stereo, computer, whatever. That's the way music purchasing has always been... until DRM came on the scene.
I personally thank Amazon for their mp3 music store. They made it worthwhile for the artists to make tracks available in mp3 so Amazon gets all my music $.
I quit using them long ago after they made news headlines. There are plenty of other places to go. It's kinda like the "war on drugs". For every dealer you bust, a new one emerges.
Since when is alienating your customer base a sound marketing decision? All they had to do was give users a choice. Don't like Unity? Give the option to turn it off and provide a decent Gnome. But no, Shuttleworth tells his customers to stick it.
But that's fine with me. It's probably the best thing to ever happen to KDE and Xfce and I likely would have never tried Xfce had it not been for Unity.
While it's true that tablets are starting to find some market share, they will never replace the desktop and the desktop still needs a good OS. Ubuntu may not be as good as Windows (it never has been) but just as they're getting close, the cut themselves off at the knees. Not smart. But not to worry! Microsoft is about to give it's customer base the middle finger too if they insist on forcing Metro on the desktop. At least Window 7 is still good for at least the next 8-9 years.
What I'd like to see is Google make a desktop Linix distro that really gives Windows a run for it's money. They've got the talent and the experience with Linux to make it happen.
"And what the hell is it with things needing to be changed for change sake? I recall most of my friends rebuilding their webpage from the ground up every 6 months, just so that it would be new."
I don't know about your friends but I often wonder how much of it has to do with job security. If you build a great widget that works well and people love, what are you going to do when you run out of new customers? Recycle the old ones! The good companies innovate, come out with new features that makes them WANT to upgrade. Everyone else just redesigns the whole thing and hope people will say "ooo! ahh! neeewww!!!" Just look at Hollywood. Movies are nothing but remakes anymore. They haven't had a new idea in years.
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I think it's just an easy way for the HR people to say, "Yep, Sally can read, write, and do basic math. We know because she has a college degree." It's a hell of a lot easier than testing everyone who applies. Thanks to the modern public school system using "social promotion" and graduating everyone who doesn't drop out, employers have no idea who they're looking at when you walk in the door. Years ago, a high school diploma actually meant something. Nowadays, in the spirit of "inclusiveness" and self-esteem-masturbation, the standards have fallen far from where they were, say, 50 years ago. If you need proof, try reading a book written in the 1800s. The grammar and vocabulary was far more complex. What we now call "college-level reading" was 6th-grade material back then.
That's because no one else will hire them.
Destroy the drives. Be rid of that evidence! Obama's up for re-election and he needs your help.
I don't know what you're doing to your machine but I've been running 7 for over a year and I have yet to see it crash. I used XP for about 9 years on multiple PCs and had a system lock up on me maybe two or 3 times.
You should see what they pay for gasoline.
Javascript != Java. "Javascript" is just a naming rip-off. So what's the big deal?
The C# compiler was written in C++. Again, two different animals.
Granted, while many of you claim to never (or rarely) need an optical drive nowadays, in my not-so-humble opinion, this is just another case where Apple is clueless when it comes to making PCs that people want. For all the fanboi love over the iPhone and iPad, Apple has never made much of a dent in the desktop or laptop market (convincing schools to buy them doesn't count). Lacking such a basic feature just makes them suck even more.
Apple = over-priced, status-symbol garbage.
... or ALS is starting to get the best of his brain. Sorry, but in my opinion, he's full of crap in many ways. Everything from man-made global warming to depleting all our resources within 100 years to colonizing other planets. All nonsense.
How's that Hope 'n Change working out for ya? Oh that's right... he needs 4 more years to fix it all. Got it.
Remember that real estate bubble that kicked it all off with the "affordable housing" programs? See: Chris Dodd (D), Barney Frank (D), Bill Clinton (D).
Remember what unemployment rates were under Bush? Roughly 4-5%. A typical liberal's response is, "the economy started going to hell under Bush". That was in 2008 (his last year) in the fall (election season) when investors began to see that a Democrat (any democrat) would most certainly win and change fiscal policy for the worse. Shit REALLY hit the fan when they realized the next president would be an extremely liberal (if not downright Marxist) "community organizer"-professor-ACORN lawyer-Saul Alinsky disciple from Chicago that had absolutely no executive experience but kept company with scum like Jeremiah Wright, Billy Ayers, Tony Rezko, etc. But people were going to elect him anyway because he was "historical" (black) and they wanted "Hope!" and "Change!"
Liberals (like Nanci Pelosi) were already in control of the House and Senate. Nancy-on-steroids was on his way to the White House. Yes, investors took their money and ran. And unemployment began going up by 1/2 million jobs a month for the next 2 years.
But we're supposed to believe it's all Bush's fault. Keith Olberman said so.
They're called Obama voters.
The usual fix/workaround doesn't work on my Thinkpad T60. Even though I execute "pcie_aspm=force", I get this:
[ 0.000000] PCIe ASPM is forcedly enabled
but then...
[ 0.164778] ACPI FADT declares the system doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so disable it ...
[ 1.269089] e1000e 0000:02:00.0: Disabling ASPM L0s L1
So I'm left to wonder, does the system actually support PCIe ASPM and the kernel just doesn't know it's there or is there entirely something else at fault?
Some of the companies that are most innovative are doing everything they can to stifle innovation.
Last I checked, it STILL doesn't support Flash on Android. I'd love to use it because I happen to like the synced bookmarks feature but no flash was a deal-killer. I therefore use Dolphin which works great and allows a manual bookmark sync.
Students ARE interested in stuff like science and engineering. It seems to me that part of the problem is when they start examining what they will actually do once they get the degree, the outlook doesn't appear very promising. Entry-level jobs (especially in IT) are scarce and the constant drumbeat of overseas outsourcing is driving many people to change their major to a subject where they're more likely to make a living. I'm working on a computer science/software engineering degree and I'm very nervous about what my prospects will be when I graduate with $50k in debt. My passion for the subject matter drives me though. I actually love practicing what I'm learning.
Some of them also assume that we remember everything we learned in the previous semester as if it was yesterday. Over the summer, I forgot most all of the trig identities I memorized in the spring semester because I never use them in real life. It made it especially difficult when the prof started lecturing on a topic I hadn't touched in four months with very little (if any) review. He does math stuff every day. Most people don't.
And the more a person (any person) actually uses what they learn, the greater their likelihood of retention. I took trigonometry last spring and now I'm taking pre-calc. I had to go back and review everything I had learned in trig (including re-memorizing those damned identities) because I had forgotten about half of it. Why? Because not once during the summer did I actually use anything I learned in the class. Algebra, on the other hand, is a different story. The concepts that are used repeatedly, ever semester, are the ones I remember without having to look up my notes
In my opinion, when it comes to math, it's not so important that I retain every single concept I learn, but rather, when such a problem arises later on, I recognize the problem and I have a general idea of how to solve it. If I have to look up a few formulas along the way, so be it.
As for the Khan Academy, the website has saved my ass a few times. It's one of the first places I turn when I'm struggling with something in my homework. It never has been a replacement for classroom attendance, but rather a really good supplement.
It's called DISCIPLINE - a concept lost on the current generation. My parents took the belt to my hind end a few times as a kid and I turned out OK. Hell, it even worked. Many a time, the mere thought of it prevented me from giving into some temptation or another as a child. As the old saying does, "spoil the rod
AMEN.
Where's that mod point when I actually need it?
I buy only mp3 for this very reason. Once I have it, it's MINE. Just like the CD, cassette, or record I used to buy. I can play it on whatever player I want: car stereo, computer, whatever. That's the way music purchasing has always been... until DRM came on the scene.
I personally thank Amazon for their mp3 music store. They made it worthwhile for the artists to make tracks available in mp3 so Amazon gets all my music $.
I quit using them long ago after they made news headlines. There are plenty of other places to go. It's kinda like the "war on drugs". For every dealer you bust, a new one emerges.
Is that you, Mr. Shuttleworth?
Install Xubuntu instead. Seriously, it's awesome.
Which reminds me of something I mentioned the other day. Google needs to build a kick-ass Linux distro for the desktop.
Since when is alienating your customer base a sound marketing decision? All they had to do was give users a choice. Don't like Unity? Give the option to turn it off and provide a decent Gnome. But no, Shuttleworth tells his customers to stick it.
But that's fine with me. It's probably the best thing to ever happen to KDE and Xfce and I likely would have never tried Xfce had it not been for Unity.
While it's true that tablets are starting to find some market share, they will never replace the desktop and the desktop still needs a good OS. Ubuntu may not be as good as Windows (it never has been) but just as they're getting close, the cut themselves off at the knees. Not smart. But not to worry! Microsoft is about to give it's customer base the middle finger too if they insist on forcing Metro on the desktop. At least Window 7 is still good for at least the next 8-9 years.
What I'd like to see is Google make a desktop Linix distro that really gives Windows a run for it's money. They've got the talent and the experience with Linux to make it happen.
"And what the hell is it with things needing to be changed for change sake? I recall most of my friends rebuilding their webpage from the ground up every 6 months, just so that it would be new."
I don't know about your friends but I often wonder how much of it has to do with job security. If you build a great widget that works well and people love, what are you going to do when you run out of new customers? Recycle the old ones! The good companies innovate, come out with new features that makes them WANT to upgrade. Everyone else just redesigns the whole thing and hope people will say "ooo! ahh! neeewww!!!" Just look at Hollywood. Movies are nothing but remakes anymore. They haven't had a new idea in years.