They _used_ to broadcast great chunks of stuff in all sorts of different subjects on BBC2 at weekends. I picked up all sorts of information about all kinds of things watching the OU. Of course,the TV broadcasts were only one part of the courses, so I got nothing like the full OU experience out of this:-)
Italy is notionally Catholic, yes. But having spent 6 years there I would say it's much less Catholic than... well, virtually anywhere.
Italian Catholicism seems to consist of saying "Yeah, sure, your Holiness. Whatever you say." and then doing whatever you want. See "How Far Can You Go?" by David Lodge for details:-)
Re:One of the sequels was brilliant
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 1
I am inclined to agree. I thought "Ender's Game" was one of the best things I'd ever read (though there are continuity problems, e.g. why bugger colonies with no queens had papooses for carrying young in) until I read "Speaker", which made me realise that E.G. was by comparison just background material. I thought Speaker was truly wondrous. Xenocide I found a bit odd, and C.o.t.M. was deeply strange.
I don't at all like the idea of Bean pulling the strings of all three Ender children.
I initially didn't realise I'd already read some Card, namely the short story collection "Capitol" - variable but with some good stuff e.g. Abner Doon.
After "Speaker" I went and bought everything by Card I could find. Nothing has impressed me as much as the first two Ender books. I found the Harmony/Earth stuff incomprehensible. I thought Alvin started well but got lost somewhere about book 3. And the one-offs haven't made much of an impression. The Capitol / Hot Sleep / Worthing Saga stuff was well worth reading, though.
I've heard people bitch about how few males do languages at school and/or university, and how few males do ballet.
I did a language at university in my spare time (my main subject was maths). As it turned out, I was probably better at the language than I was at maths, but I didn't change subjects. I did go and live abroad for 6 years immediately after graduating, though.
Male linguists were very very rare. About the same situation as female mathematicians or computer scientists, I guess. I was sometimes the reason lecturers had to use male plurals when referring to "the students" in our group.
Would people feel any differently about a scheme to encourage male students to do languages? Actually, in the UK and USA generally everyone could do with being encouraged to do a language.
As it happens, I've also done an introductory ballet class that was run for "oldish" (teenage) male beginners in an attempt to encourage more men to do ballet. I was dreadful, but it was an interesting experience.
I'm not sure I understand the "encouragement" thing, really. I didn't need male linguists to model myself after, or anything. Almost all the good linguists I know are female. So what?
Hey, wow. I have fond memories of Might and Magic II myself. The interface was pretty grim, but I thought that as a game it was better than MM3: you had to choose your skills and items more carefully since you could only have very limited quantities of them.
Suitable for even younger users than "Omega" would be the rather impressive "Chipwits", which I remember seeing in the days of thin macs and fat macs. You programmed a little robot by plugging program modules together on a grid. Basically, you had to build a flow chart. You had about 8 grids available, and could use the 7 "extra" ones for subroutines.
It was quite impressive - the game came with a variety of maps you could program the robot to deal with. You had to teach it about food, obstacles, bombs, and so on.
Origin used to sell a game called "Omega" which was, basically, a BASIC-ified version of crobots, with rather nicer graphics, and some Origin-programmed enemies you could defeat.
You also had a limited budget with which to build your cybertank (until you got to security level 10 and had an infinite budget), forcing you to decide whether to have faster weapons, more armour, repair kits, or whatever.
It came with a library of pre-written routines to do things like follow left-hand walls, or whatever, which you could use until you wanted/needed to modify or re-implement them entirely to suit your own needs.
No connection with the roguelike game of the same name, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the Open University is well worth a look.
:-)
They _used_ to broadcast great chunks of
stuff in all sorts of different subjects
on BBC2 at weekends. I picked up all sorts
of information about all kinds of things
watching the OU. Of course,the TV broadcasts
were only one part of the courses, so I
got nothing like the full OU experience out
of this
Italy is notionally Catholic, yes. But having
:-)
spent 6 years there I would say it's much
less Catholic than... well, virtually anywhere.
Italian Catholicism seems to consist of saying
"Yeah, sure, your Holiness. Whatever you say."
and then doing whatever you want. See "How
Far Can You Go?" by David Lodge for details
I am inclined to agree. I thought "Ender's Game"
was one of the best things I'd ever read
(though there are continuity problems, e.g.
why bugger colonies with no queens had papooses
for carrying young in) until I read "Speaker",
which made me realise that E.G. was by comparison
just background material. I thought Speaker was
truly wondrous. Xenocide I found a bit odd,
and C.o.t.M. was deeply strange.
I don't at all like the idea of Bean pulling
the strings of all three Ender children.
I initially didn't realise I'd already read
some Card, namely the short story collection
"Capitol" - variable but with some good stuff
e.g. Abner Doon.
After "Speaker" I went and bought everything
by Card I could find. Nothing has impressed
me as much as the first two Ender books.
I found the Harmony/Earth stuff incomprehensible.
I thought Alvin started well but got lost
somewhere about book 3. And the one-offs
haven't made much of an impression. The
Capitol / Hot Sleep / Worthing Saga stuff
was well worth reading, though.
I've heard people bitch about how few males
do languages at school and/or university,
and how few males do ballet.
I did a language at university in my spare
time (my main subject was maths). As it
turned out, I was probably better at the language
than I was at maths, but I didn't change
subjects. I did go and live abroad for 6 years
immediately after graduating, though.
Male linguists were very very rare. About
the same situation as female mathematicians
or computer scientists, I guess. I was sometimes
the reason lecturers had to use male plurals
when referring to "the students" in our group.
Would people feel any differently about a scheme
to encourage male students to do languages?
Actually, in the UK and USA generally everyone
could do with being encouraged to do a language.
As it happens, I've also done an introductory
ballet class that was run for "oldish" (teenage)
male beginners in an attempt to encourage more
men to do ballet. I was dreadful, but it was
an interesting experience.
I'm not sure I understand the "encouragement"
thing, really. I didn't need male linguists
to model myself after, or anything. Almost
all the good linguists I know are female.
So what?
No idea, sorry.
:-(.
I have the Amiga version. It still works,
unlike MM3, which crashes during loading
on my KS 3.1 68060 machine
Sadly, Dungeon Master and Captive don't
work either. Aaaarrrgghhh.
Hey, wow. I have fond memories of Might and Magic II myself. The interface was pretty grim, but
I thought that as a game it was better than MM3:
you had to choose your skills and items more
carefully since you could only have very
limited quantities of them.
Still not as wondrous as Dungeon Master, though.
The last version of WorkBench that produced "Guru Mediation" errors
rather than the later (boring) Software Errors, was Workbench 1.3.
It's not impossible to believe that there were still 1.3 systems
around being used for Cable TV / Hotel Info sorts of things a few
years ago.
Quite a lot of old software didn't like workbench 2 or later.
Yep, I ordered this months ago too.
I was wondering what had happened.
Suitable for even younger users than "Omega" would be the
rather impressive "Chipwits", which I remember seeing in the
days of thin macs and fat macs. You programmed a little robot
by plugging program modules together on a grid. Basically,
you had to build a flow chart. You had about 8 grids available,
and could use the 7 "extra" ones for subroutines.
It was quite impressive - the game came with a variety of maps
you could program the robot to deal with. You had to teach it
about food, obstacles, bombs, and so on.
Origin used to sell a game called "Omega" which was, basically, a
BASIC-ified version of crobots, with rather nicer graphics, and
some Origin-programmed enemies you could defeat.
You also had a limited budget with which to build your cybertank
(until you got to security level 10 and had an infinite budget),
forcing you to decide whether to have faster weapons,
more armour, repair kits, or whatever.
It came with a library of pre-written routines to do things like
follow left-hand walls, or whatever, which you could use
until you wanted/needed to modify or re-implement them entirely
to suit your own needs.
No connection with the roguelike game of the same name, of course.
There's crobots itself, of course.
But they're not as cute as wombats!
http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/wombats.html