i meant more traditional art... i was trying to show my parent that not much has changed in the world of painting and sculpture. movies and computer games couldn't happen back then because of the lack of the technology. i never said i don't consider carmack a great artist, he is the best video game creator (notice i did not say developer or programmer) to have ever lived.
as for the music, well, i'm kind of a music purist. if you can't get up on stage without a computer that you punch some buttons to make pre-recorded sounds, then it's not music in the pure sense. i don't consider most forms of trance or house music. acid jazz (if you're talking like miles davis' less traditional stuff or medeski martin and wood or sun ra type music) isn't anything really all that new. it's been around since the beat scene (in the 60's). also remember that new genres of music have come about, but even without carefully analyzing it, you can easily be reminded of some form of music that came along beforehand. it's all derived from something that came along beforehand, it's just a matter of how different it is. and honestly, not much is different.
i know you're going to argue about trance being so "different" and how musical it is. i never said it wasn't musical, but anyone can do it, it just depends on how well you do it. the sound is nothing new. listen to a grateful dead jam (especially their space jams). it's very similar, just played by a band. teh same thing can be said for house or other forms of techno.
the problem with modern artists, and even composers is that nothing really new has come up. no major new changes in art or music style. with mozart on that list, you can put lennon/mccartney and dylan on there as recent figures to really have a huge effect on something. those are truly great minds of the 20th century. in the world of music, nothing as important as dylan or the beatles has happened since them.
as for the world of art, well, can you say there's a recent artist who has really changed things? everything has been mostly a copy of something else. you can probably add the early 1900's as the last great stand of important art with the impressionists, but that's it.
there will be more than just actors and film people as historic icons of recent years. think outside the box...
it is similar, but the software does more than just report where it is located (assuming the gps reports back to something, which is highly unlikely, because that gives dealers the ability to spy on legit owners). if the software only reported the the users IP, a timestamp, and the product in question, then there would be much less of a problem. what the software reports that is very questionable is the username of the account that's using the pirated software. this gives the company an easier ability to break into the network since they have a valid username and can use that to guess what the username of other known employees would be. the mac address and the machine name are also questionable because they are also not necessary. really all that is needed to prove wrongdoing is what i stated above. that doesn't break privacy if the IP is public since it's known information. the product in question is necessary for the obvious reasons, and a timestamp always helps anywyas.
i also don't see how this can be legal unless it's listed in the EULA as being there, but that doesn't give them a right to send themselves the information that i said was unnecessary and could be used for wrongdoing by the publisher or any other script kiddie/hacker/cracker that gets ahold of it.
getting started is the hardest thing, but even once you start, you need the motivation to get through to the end. that was my problem, which is why i always ended up staying up late at night doing work. it had nothing to do with exercise or what i ate or drank (i rarely consumed caffeine). even if it's not a large project, but something smaller, like keeping up with the reading for the class or studying or doign the weekly/daily homework. i had no problem starting it, but finishing was rough. i actually found that the reasons for all of this was because i stayed in teh dorms all the time.
my advice... living in teh dorm can make it tough to get work done, especially when all your friends live in the same dorm. go somewhere else to get work done (library, other buildings, etc). i found that i got more reading done when i went to the library than any other time. the only time this was a problem was when i didn't get enough sleep and fell asleep doing my reading. if you have the option of doing your homework during classtime in the classroom or leaving to do it later, stay and get as much done as possible in the time you're there. also, stay away from part time jobs where you can work while you're not in the "office". that'll make it harder for you to do school work because you don't get paid for it, but you get paid for the other work.
the only other time i've ever been able to get all my work done is when my courseload was lighter (summer classes or going to school part time). but that's probably not an option.
i'm assuming you're teaching 105 or 109 (i went to uconn). in that case, i'd almost say that it's not really worth trying to use the comptuers since half your students will be hung over, drunk, or high. those classes are (as far as i'm concerned) nearly pointless. they did not help me write better (high school helped me write and i'm an excellent writer, even scientifically). the only thing i could think of is using a weblog for homework. it'd have to be protected for only that class (or at least only that class could post to it). i would say that you post the homework assignment or passage of whatever you're reading for that class as the "article" and the students reply to it with "comments" as their answers. they will all be able to view each others answers outside of class. you can even make it mandatory that they do so as it will be part of their class participation grade (and i know that counted for a fair amount in those classes since they were small). i'd leave out any sort of moderating system as grades should be anonymous and it could get ugly. or you could have other sections be the moderators, which could make it more interesting, and make sure that usernames are not known by anyone except those from the class and by you. that way no one can talk to their buddies in the other class and tell them to mod them up. and you can grade based on that. it'd be a fun idea. and in class you can have the students moderate the other sections and discuss why they're doing it that way. the only other thing i can suggest is for writing papers in word or something stupid like that, but that should be done in their own time. it could save paper in printing out drafts to be peer-reviewed.
i forgot to add that this proposed windmill farm is not something new. it's been in teh works for months now, probably longer in fact. why this is getting so much slashdot coverage now, i am not sure. i don't remember where i first heard about it, but it'd definitely been around for a while.
you actually have a great point... yes, everyone is all about saving the environment, but there are environmental impacts of building this windmill farm. it's going in the water (more wind and more space there, so that makes sense). there's a lot of habitat there that is used by commercial fisherman that will be destroyed by this windmill farm. it's not the looks that are the big issue here, it's the fact that there's some serious environmental impacts caused by this thing. it'll help the air, but kill the sea. what trade-offs are acceptable? that's what we haev to ask. the other thing is the noise pollution generated by these things. there are people that live on nantucket year-long, and during hurricane season, i'm sure the winds will pick up and those things will be unbearably loud, probably similar to living in the shadow of a major international airport, if not worse since it'll be constant, not just when a plane takes off or lands. this isn't just a fight between the rich snobs up there that don't like the way it looks and the people that want to build it. it's a fight between different environmental groups (the air people and the water people).
he's not worried about his view of the beach, he's worried about the value of his property. because he had no house next door, just an empty lot, his property was much more valuable. with the house there now and blocking all of or even part of his view of the beach, his property decreased in value all because of teh fact that he can no longer see as much beach as he used to from his home. he can still probably walk 5 min (probably less) and get there no problem.
he has a valid argument, but he won't win. as far as buying the lot goes, he might not have had enough money to buy that lot in addition to what he already had. there's a million thinsg we don't know (was he given his land, had he been tehre for a long time before this other lot was sold?)...
there is natural birth control... the problem is the age of the people giving birth... lots of young kids are having sex and that's a huge problem now. lots of single mothers and illegitimate kids. at least in teh USA. elsewhere, artificial birth control would be fine because the people there aren't against it, they just don't have access to it easily.
people just need to stop having so much sex. and another problem is the increased number of multiple child births (twins, triplets, etc). that has been said to have to do with fertility drugs. but if people weren't so horny, this wouldn't be a problem...
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
you're assuming that people that don't continue to learn throughout their years of programming. you can't do that. even the best pianists have kept learning for more than 20 years. i know someone who has been playing for 10 years. she's going to school right now for music. she's still taking piano lessons as part of her education. her piano teacher is a phd student, still learning how to master the piano. i'd be willing to bet that this teacher has been playing for 15-20 years. even with music, you learn new ways to make your job easier and to become more skilled at it. you learn different techniques to playing the piano or any instrument at that. these new techniques are not necessarily easy to pick up so they aren't taught right away since even younger kids want to be able to play songs to say they know how to play music. those who are really interested keep up with it and learn the new techniques so they can play more difficult music and those with even further interest learn more techniques. and these new techniques will help you learn how to write music and improvise and make great music. so just playing a piano really well isn't all there is to being a great pianist. there's also the ability to understand music theory and all the other aspects of music. you train your ears to hear things so that you can make it sound better.
as for a programmer, their mind is trained to think of how to go about solving a problem. they learn new technologies to make their jobs easier, they learn new languages for different aspects of their jobs. their instrument is the computer. all they are doing is giving it instructions on how to do something. technology has not changed all that much. sure things seem very different from 10 years ago, but are they really that different? let's even say 20 years. still not all that different. programmers and other computer people just expand their knowledge to utilize their instrument more effectively and more efficiently. they do this the same way a musician expands his knowledge to utilize his instrument more effectively and more efficiently. there's more to a piano than just playing music. pianos are used to write music and make music, not just make sound. i'm not knocking your profession, i wish i knew more about music than i do. i'm just saying that your analogy is very flawed in that you don't take into consideration that these programmers learn new technologies just like you learn new techniques and theories. unless, of course, you just play music and don't worry about all the other stuff involved (arranging, transposing, composing, etc, etc, etc).
i'm sure there's something CS students learn in their classes about networking and how things work and how to write any code that they can just put together to write viruses, especially once you get past the undergraduate level. the university is showing students how to do things. i've been in many classes where the professors and ta's would say "don't try this at home" and go and do something that could prove to be dangerous. sure i wasn't a computer science major, but i took a lot of science classes. there's a lot of bio stuff that you can learn that just doesn't go well outside of the class, same with chemistry. hell, an entire building was shutdown at my college because they found anthrax there after the anthrax thing happened after 9/11. why was the anthrax in the building? it was a pathobiology building and the kid was a grad student. RESEARCH MAYBE??? anyways, schools offer and teach lots of "tools" that could be used for bad things. flight schools for instance... sure it's a bad example, but it's true. i don't think there's a problem though. in cases where it can be used to harm others in really serious ways, licenses can get revoked (like in medicine, accounting, law, teaching, and even auto mechanics). as for teaching students how to write viruses, there's no harm until they release them.
all that, in addition to the fact that the telcos make some of the biggest donations to the government (ever wonder why your choices are so limited as to who you can use for local phone service?). there's a political reason for you. the gov't isn't about to go and say "hey, let's kill all telcos, we don't need them anymore because of blah blah blah technological reasons." as soon as that happens, the parties in power lose the backing and support. even if this isn't supposed to happen, it does behind closed doors...
yeah, except that handwriting is very important. writing in cursive might not be as important, but it's still something people should learn. i don't know about the rest of you, but i still write all my little notes that i leave for people and when i take stuff down. when i take classes, i write my notes on paper rather than on a laptop. i always wrote homework down on notes. the only things i use my computer or pda for are when things need to be typed (comptuer) or when i go somewhere and need the info that's on my pda (such as suggestions as to where i should go when away or the nyc subway map etc). if kids stopped learning how to write, it'd be taking a big step backwards rather tahn forwards because that's an important form of communication.
if they want to preserve any dignity they have left, they will stick with trying to destroy the file sharing mediums and methods.
the reason they don't do this is because they were already attacked by people like slashdot (that includes the editors and posters) saying that the P2P apps aren't at fault, they are just the means, not the criminals since P2P can be used for legal purposes. so we're saying that they should be attacking the users, which they did.
another standpoint is that colleges should somehow support the students accused by the RIAA, the college student population at various colleges may begin to shrink here soon due to these nazi RIAA lawsuits.
this a very good point. i worked for resnet at my college and i was part of a security and policy enforcement team (ok, it was me and my supervisor). our standpoint was that when a major organization, such as the riaa or mpaa, called the school with an IP address of a computer that was hosting a ton of pirated movies or songs, we would find out who taht student was and take care of it under our own policies. we never gave the name of the student out to them. they had 24 hours to remove their files from the internet, if this didn't happen, they would lose their connection indefinitely and we would contact the dean of students, who would not only succumb to the pressure of the riaa or mpaa and give them the name, but also "prosecute" them under school "law" which would basically do everything short of throwing them out, although that is also a possibility. that's how schools should take care of things of this matter. they have a certain obligation to offer their students a certain degree of privacy. at the same time, the students with pirated music and movies (not saying that i don't have them or never did) should understand that it is possible for the riaa and mpaa to file suit against them and they can win. that's what this case shows. so if you've got them, you certainly shouldn't be offering them out to the public. keeping it private is important.
as for this case, it's against what you said they should be attacking. this kid created the means for other students to access illegal music and movies. same thing with napster. although this kid's site was just to search the windows network for any kind of file, which makes it more useful than napster. i don't agree with them going after him for the record, but they did go after the means, not the user. again, they should be going after individual people that download the pirated stuff. the reason they go after college students is because it's an easy target. many colleges do not have firewalls, so their students are right on the internet. the students learn that they have a fast connection (probably faster than they've ever seen for most of them) so they suck down as many mp3's and movies as they can. the riaa gets teh names from the college. the college does not have to give out the name as the riaa is not a legal authority. they should be telling the riaa that they will take care of the situation. that's what we did, adn it worked just fine.
the reason there is a fee is because many copyright holders won't like the fact that there is a fee, not because the government wants to make money. if the fee was higher, there would be almost no way the bill would pass. as already said, a fee that increases with time would be a pretty good idea. since the bill proposes that they would have to pay after the first 50 years and then again every 5 years after that, what should happen is the fee should increase each of those 5 years. and the longer you own the copyright, the more it costs to keep it. it would generate more revenue, but still a negligible amount, and it would slowly coax the owners into releasing their material into the public domain. the increase could be as low as $0.25 every 5 years. and depending on how many copyrights the person or company or organization has the rights to, this fee could add up to be hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. think about every song, every cd, produced each year (there are thousands and thousands more than you will ever hear or even have a chance to hear). that's a lot of money 50 years from the time of release if they choose to pay for an extension. but even though it is revenue for the federal government, i think it's worth more if the works were put in the public domain. sure, no one could claim that it's theirs to do what they want with, and there would have to be regulations as to what the public can do with these works (like not make a profit off of them, so books can be re-published, but can't be sold by the publishers for profit). this would help project gutenberg greatly, and some other similar internet projects (i think there's one for music too).
these suggestions are good, but i might go for something a little newer because you will want to be able to run the latest version of MS Office. (yes, i know, MS=bad). unless you're a computer geek, you won't really find the time to waste on an old machine, although i do know a lot of people who had really crappy old computers and managed to jam pack as much crappy software onto them to waste time. every P2P app that was available at the time, every cutesy little thing (bonzai buddy for one) that was available, every instant messenger program (yes, just about all of them, and they didn't use something to combine them all into one). no matter what, you will find a way to waste time on your computer, no matter how old, no matter what software, no matter what OS. if it's linux, you'll waste time trying to get it to work just right. if it's windows, you'll waste time with all the stuff i explained above, and you'll even find games to run on it. so there's almost no solution to this except don't bring a computer. but the catch-22 is that a lot of schools are starting to require you to purchase a laptop to their standards. so you'll have to. it's not a bad idea. if i were to go back, i'd rather have a laptop at school than the desktop i had, but at the time, i coudln't play quake2 on a laptop, so i was happy. i was also the first person in my dorm to be able to play quake2 using opengl.:)
as for getting a pda and all sorts of stuff to get you organized and take notes, you're probably better off taking notes the old fashioned way. it's easier to draw diagrams and have them fit in with the notes where they belong. a pda would be useful for planning out when you need to do everything, but unless you actually use it, it's worthless. i got one thinking that i would organize my life, but it didn't happen.
the key to college is to have all the distractions but to use them sparingly.:) you'll want the video games and stuff to get out your frustrations with class. there's nothing like fragging a bunch of people you don't know but pretending they're your professors.
oh, and the lighter mentioned above could lead to some more... how do i say this... interesting distractions.;) i know it did for me, but that also required the purchase of some other devices.:) but it certainly helped me get my work done and allowed me to concentrate better. i've never gotten homework done so quickly, or played a better game of pool.
the problem with his idea is that horses and donkey's don't mate naturally. you're missing the whole definition of species. 2 animals are the same species if they mate and produce viable offspring in nature. that's the kicker. if it's not done in nature, it doesn't count. there are many animals closely related enough to produce viable offspring, but they don't for various reasons. one of those reasons is geography. they are never with each other in nature, and if they were put together, they would still not mate because of slight differences in behavior and looks. experiments done in labs like this don't count for determining taxonomy.
i majored in evolutionary bio, but we only got as far as discussing the definition of species. we never discussed how the genus of an animal is determined. although his definition seems logical, it's not the method used by scientists that study this. it might be one test, but it's not the sole reason for assigning a genus.
then there's the moral and ethical implications of mating a chimp and a human. say it does produce an offspring. what do you do with that? is it an apeman? how will it fit into society?
AOL already took down his page for the day because he used up his allotted bandwidth already. guess his ideas won't spread as quickly as he thought. stupid slashdot effect. my guess is only a few hundred people (maybe not even that many) will get to see the page each day before the allowed bandwidth is used.
you don't have to be a creationist to be against genetic engineering. it's one thing to mess with genes to help find cures for diseases, but to change genes and remove some can be just plain dangerous. the same reasons for this have been made for not killing off things like small pox. you never know what good might come of something bad. evolution is a funny thing. it can go in either direction (good or bad). there is never "de-evolution" as many people on slashdot seem to believe. generally speaking, evolution makes a species stronger. by forcing it to happen, we don't know what might occur. it happens because of natural changes in the environment. if we change something and then some natural change occurs that requires what we just changed to be back the way it was, what happens? genetic engineering could have just caused the extinction of the human race.
it is those reasons that i am against doing anything with gene sequences except looking at them to make better medicine. medicine that won't completely remove the gene, but rather counteract against what the gene does.
Undersigned Affiant, Who After Being Duly Sworn By Me, On Oath, Makes The Following Statement:
I have good reason to believe and do believe that McConaughey, Matthew W/M (11-4-69)
On or About The 25th Day of October 1999, In the incorporated limits of the city of Austin, County of Travis and the State of Texas, did then and there commit the offense of:
Resisting Transportation - Class A
My belief of the foregoing statemetn is based upon personal knowledge. On 10-25-99 at about 2:37am I was dispatched to a DOC - Noise call at 2002 Meadowbrook Dr (final location was actually 2004 Meadowbrook Dr.) I had officer G. Stephenson #4071 riding with me. We were both wearing standard issue APD uniform with our badges prominently displayed.
On arrival to the location I could easily hear very loud music coming from 2004 Meadowbrook Dr. There was no apparent front door to the residence, but there was a path leading to a wrought iron gate on the south side of the residence. As we got closer to the house I could hear music along with what sounded like bongo drums and someone clapping with the music. We went throught the unlocked wrought iron gate looking for a door. After this gate there was a small set of steps that led to a door that was dark (no porch light and no light coming from inside.) There was also a half-wall on the left side of teh area and a wooden gate on the right side. I looked over the half-wall and could see a room on the other side. Through the window and the door was open(there was a screen door that was closed over teh doorway) I could see a nude, white male dancing and playing bongo drums. I decided to try to make contact with the subject to get him to turn down the radio and stop playing the drums. I went through the second gate (which was unlocked also) and approached the door. As I approached I could see that there was another white male in the room. He was dancing and clapping his hands to the music. The music was so loud that I knew they would not hear me if I knocked or hollered at them. I flashed my flashlight back and forth across the room about 8 to 10 times to try to get their attention. They did not notice the flashing light. From the door I could see what I recognized to be a marijuana bong sitting on the coffee table. It was filled with water and had black residue in the bowl. I then decided to make entry to the residence to get the music turned off and to identify the residents. I checked the screen door to see if it was unlocked. It was. I opened the screen door and started to enter the house. I could immediately smell a faint odor of marijuana. I stepped into the room. The naked subject saw me after I was already inside and he turned off the radio. He began yelling at us. He said, "You can't be in here! Get the Fuck out of the house! Why are you here?" The other subject was also yelling similar phrases. I told them that we had a complaint about the loud music.
I could tell that both subject were very intoxicated. They both had very slurred speach. They swayed while standing still. There was a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from both of them. While onscene I observed that they both had glassy and very bloodshot eyes.
At this point I was acting as if I had not seen teh paraphernalia in order to try to gain their cooperation with the DOC-Noise complaint. I asked who lives at the house and was met with more profanity. I asked for the subjects' identification. The nude subject yelled, "You're violating our rights! You can't come in my house like this!" I said, "I just need to see some ID from ya'll." Both subjects continued yelling phrases similar to those above. The subject nearest to me was moving around alot. He was stepping back adn forth and looking around. Due to the low light conditions (low lights and candles) I could not see very well around the entire room. There were shelves, tables, couches, a bed, and the drums that could all easily conceal any possible weapons. I decided taht du
128k is not fast. i have ADSL here and although the downstream is very quick (1.5 Mbps), the upstream is capped at 128kbps. so if i do any serious uploading that maxes out my upstream limit, it severely affects my downstream to the point that my downstream is slower than 56k. that really pissed me off when i realized the case. luckily i'm the only person on my home network that does any serious uploading, so i can cap my upload rates to leave some room for web browsing. i'd like to switch to cable now, but i don't think the others would be willing to do that. i also can't find much info on what the speeds are capped at for the cable company's internet service.
i agree... it's all what printer you get. you can get the cheap lexmark (and even some canons are cheap) or you can spend a little more and get something higher quality. i have an HP deskjet 722c. it's great except that there is significant dust buildup on the rollers. it's also really slow and that gets annoying too when i'm trying to print out a lot of stuff (especially in color). if i do get a new printer, it will probably be another HP, probably one of the higher end HP ink jet printers (color lasers are just too expensive still). the ink may cost a lot, but it does last me a pretty long time and i do a fair amount of printing (at least with black for resumes and cover letters).
because if you think about it, plants do all sorts of things at certain times of the day and season. trees lose their leaves in autumn, i'm sure there's more to that than just the weather changing, because i know that even if the weather changes early, trees don't lose their leaves earlier, they just don't get the pretty foliage that people like to see. also, during the course of the day, certain flowers will open and close depending on sunlight. i've seen flowers open when it's not particularly sunny. this also has to do with something on time. and of course, we all know that plants "move" to the sun. they grow in the direction of the most light. i'd be willing to bet this biological clock isn't necessarily "set" right away as it is in animals, but it probably has to do with the environment the plant is in.
Slashdot Mirror
i meant more traditional art... i was trying to show my parent that not much has changed in the world of painting and sculpture. movies and computer games couldn't happen back then because of the lack of the technology. i never said i don't consider carmack a great artist, he is the best video game creator (notice i did not say developer or programmer) to have ever lived.
as for the music, well, i'm kind of a music purist. if you can't get up on stage without a computer that you punch some buttons to make pre-recorded sounds, then it's not music in the pure sense. i don't consider most forms of trance or house music. acid jazz (if you're talking like miles davis' less traditional stuff or medeski martin and wood or sun ra type music) isn't anything really all that new. it's been around since the beat scene (in the 60's). also remember that new genres of music have come about, but even without carefully analyzing it, you can easily be reminded of some form of music that came along beforehand. it's all derived from something that came along beforehand, it's just a matter of how different it is. and honestly, not much is different.
i know you're going to argue about trance being so "different" and how musical it is. i never said it wasn't musical, but anyone can do it, it just depends on how well you do it. the sound is nothing new. listen to a grateful dead jam (especially their space jams). it's very similar, just played by a band. teh same thing can be said for house or other forms of techno.
the problem with modern artists, and even composers is that nothing really new has come up. no major new changes in art or music style. with mozart on that list, you can put lennon/mccartney and dylan on there as recent figures to really have a huge effect on something. those are truly great minds of the 20th century. in the world of music, nothing as important as dylan or the beatles has happened since them.
as for the world of art, well, can you say there's a recent artist who has really changed things? everything has been mostly a copy of something else. you can probably add the early 1900's as the last great stand of important art with the impressionists, but that's it.
there will be more than just actors and film people as historic icons of recent years. think outside the box...
this person was the most famous geek...
it is similar, but the software does more than just report where it is located (assuming the gps reports back to something, which is highly unlikely, because that gives dealers the ability to spy on legit owners). if the software only reported the the users IP, a timestamp, and the product in question, then there would be much less of a problem. what the software reports that is very questionable is the username of the account that's using the pirated software. this gives the company an easier ability to break into the network since they have a valid username and can use that to guess what the username of other known employees would be. the mac address and the machine name are also questionable because they are also not necessary. really all that is needed to prove wrongdoing is what i stated above. that doesn't break privacy if the IP is public since it's known information. the product in question is necessary for the obvious reasons, and a timestamp always helps anywyas.
i also don't see how this can be legal unless it's listed in the EULA as being there, but that doesn't give them a right to send themselves the information that i said was unnecessary and could be used for wrongdoing by the publisher or any other script kiddie/hacker/cracker that gets ahold of it.
getting started is the hardest thing, but even once you start, you need the motivation to get through to the end. that was my problem, which is why i always ended up staying up late at night doing work. it had nothing to do with exercise or what i ate or drank (i rarely consumed caffeine). even if it's not a large project, but something smaller, like keeping up with the reading for the class or studying or doign the weekly/daily homework. i had no problem starting it, but finishing was rough. i actually found that the reasons for all of this was because i stayed in teh dorms all the time.
my advice... living in teh dorm can make it tough to get work done, especially when all your friends live in the same dorm. go somewhere else to get work done (library, other buildings, etc). i found that i got more reading done when i went to the library than any other time. the only time this was a problem was when i didn't get enough sleep and fell asleep doing my reading. if you have the option of doing your homework during classtime in the classroom or leaving to do it later, stay and get as much done as possible in the time you're there. also, stay away from part time jobs where you can work while you're not in the "office". that'll make it harder for you to do school work because you don't get paid for it, but you get paid for the other work.
the only other time i've ever been able to get all my work done is when my courseload was lighter (summer classes or going to school part time). but that's probably not an option.
i'm assuming you're teaching 105 or 109 (i went to uconn). in that case, i'd almost say that it's not really worth trying to use the comptuers since half your students will be hung over, drunk, or high. those classes are (as far as i'm concerned) nearly pointless. they did not help me write better (high school helped me write and i'm an excellent writer, even scientifically). the only thing i could think of is using a weblog for homework. it'd have to be protected for only that class (or at least only that class could post to it). i would say that you post the homework assignment or passage of whatever you're reading for that class as the "article" and the students reply to it with "comments" as their answers. they will all be able to view each others answers outside of class. you can even make it mandatory that they do so as it will be part of their class participation grade (and i know that counted for a fair amount in those classes since they were small). i'd leave out any sort of moderating system as grades should be anonymous and it could get ugly. or you could have other sections be the moderators, which could make it more interesting, and make sure that usernames are not known by anyone except those from the class and by you. that way no one can talk to their buddies in the other class and tell them to mod them up. and you can grade based on that. it'd be a fun idea. and in class you can have the students moderate the other sections and discuss why they're doing it that way. the only other thing i can suggest is for writing papers in word or something stupid like that, but that should be done in their own time. it could save paper in printing out drafts to be peer-reviewed.
i forgot to add that this proposed windmill farm is not something new. it's been in teh works for months now, probably longer in fact. why this is getting so much slashdot coverage now, i am not sure. i don't remember where i first heard about it, but it'd definitely been around for a while.
you actually have a great point... yes, everyone is all about saving the environment, but there are environmental impacts of building this windmill farm. it's going in the water (more wind and more space there, so that makes sense). there's a lot of habitat there that is used by commercial fisherman that will be destroyed by this windmill farm. it's not the looks that are the big issue here, it's the fact that there's some serious environmental impacts caused by this thing. it'll help the air, but kill the sea. what trade-offs are acceptable? that's what we haev to ask. the other thing is the noise pollution generated by these things. there are people that live on nantucket year-long, and during hurricane season, i'm sure the winds will pick up and those things will be unbearably loud, probably similar to living in the shadow of a major international airport, if not worse since it'll be constant, not just when a plane takes off or lands. this isn't just a fight between the rich snobs up there that don't like the way it looks and the people that want to build it. it's a fight between different environmental groups (the air people and the water people).
he's not worried about his view of the beach, he's worried about the value of his property. because he had no house next door, just an empty lot, his property was much more valuable. with the house there now and blocking all of or even part of his view of the beach, his property decreased in value all because of teh fact that he can no longer see as much beach as he used to from his home. he can still probably walk 5 min (probably less) and get there no problem.
he has a valid argument, but he won't win. as far as buying the lot goes, he might not have had enough money to buy that lot in addition to what he already had. there's a million thinsg we don't know (was he given his land, had he been tehre for a long time before this other lot was sold?)...
there is natural birth control... the problem is the age of the people giving birth... lots of young kids are having sex and that's a huge problem now. lots of single mothers and illegitimate kids. at least in teh USA. elsewhere, artificial birth control would be fine because the people there aren't against it, they just don't have access to it easily.
people just need to stop having so much sex. and another problem is the increased number of multiple child births (twins, triplets, etc). that has been said to have to do with fertility drugs. but if people weren't so horny, this wouldn't be a problem...
you're assuming that people that don't continue to learn throughout their years of programming. you can't do that. even the best pianists have kept learning for more than 20 years. i know someone who has been playing for 10 years. she's going to school right now for music. she's still taking piano lessons as part of her education. her piano teacher is a phd student, still learning how to master the piano. i'd be willing to bet that this teacher has been playing for 15-20 years. even with music, you learn new ways to make your job easier and to become more skilled at it. you learn different techniques to playing the piano or any instrument at that. these new techniques are not necessarily easy to pick up so they aren't taught right away since even younger kids want to be able to play songs to say they know how to play music. those who are really interested keep up with it and learn the new techniques so they can play more difficult music and those with even further interest learn more techniques. and these new techniques will help you learn how to write music and improvise and make great music. so just playing a piano really well isn't all there is to being a great pianist. there's also the ability to understand music theory and all the other aspects of music. you train your ears to hear things so that you can make it sound better.
as for a programmer, their mind is trained to think of how to go about solving a problem. they learn new technologies to make their jobs easier, they learn new languages for different aspects of their jobs. their instrument is the computer. all they are doing is giving it instructions on how to do something. technology has not changed all that much. sure things seem very different from 10 years ago, but are they really that different? let's even say 20 years. still not all that different. programmers and other computer people just expand their knowledge to utilize their instrument more effectively and more efficiently. they do this the same way a musician expands his knowledge to utilize his instrument more effectively and more efficiently. there's more to a piano than just playing music. pianos are used to write music and make music, not just make sound. i'm not knocking your profession, i wish i knew more about music than i do. i'm just saying that your analogy is very flawed in that you don't take into consideration that these programmers learn new technologies just like you learn new techniques and theories. unless, of course, you just play music and don't worry about all the other stuff involved (arranging, transposing, composing, etc, etc, etc).
i'm sure there's something CS students learn in their classes about networking and how things work and how to write any code that they can just put together to write viruses, especially once you get past the undergraduate level. the university is showing students how to do things. i've been in many classes where the professors and ta's would say "don't try this at home" and go and do something that could prove to be dangerous. sure i wasn't a computer science major, but i took a lot of science classes. there's a lot of bio stuff that you can learn that just doesn't go well outside of the class, same with chemistry. hell, an entire building was shutdown at my college because they found anthrax there after the anthrax thing happened after 9/11. why was the anthrax in the building? it was a pathobiology building and the kid was a grad student. RESEARCH MAYBE??? anyways, schools offer and teach lots of "tools" that could be used for bad things. flight schools for instance... sure it's a bad example, but it's true. i don't think there's a problem though. in cases where it can be used to harm others in really serious ways, licenses can get revoked (like in medicine, accounting, law, teaching, and even auto mechanics). as for teaching students how to write viruses, there's no harm until they release them.
all that, in addition to the fact that the telcos make some of the biggest donations to the government (ever wonder why your choices are so limited as to who you can use for local phone service?). there's a political reason for you. the gov't isn't about to go and say "hey, let's kill all telcos, we don't need them anymore because of blah blah blah technological reasons." as soon as that happens, the parties in power lose the backing and support. even if this isn't supposed to happen, it does behind closed doors...
yeah, except that handwriting is very important. writing in cursive might not be as important, but it's still something people should learn. i don't know about the rest of you, but i still write all my little notes that i leave for people and when i take stuff down. when i take classes, i write my notes on paper rather than on a laptop. i always wrote homework down on notes. the only things i use my computer or pda for are when things need to be typed (comptuer) or when i go somewhere and need the info that's on my pda (such as suggestions as to where i should go when away or the nyc subway map etc). if kids stopped learning how to write, it'd be taking a big step backwards rather tahn forwards because that's an important form of communication.
if they want to preserve any dignity they have left, they will stick with trying to destroy the file sharing mediums and methods.
the reason they don't do this is because they were already attacked by people like slashdot (that includes the editors and posters) saying that the P2P apps aren't at fault, they are just the means, not the criminals since P2P can be used for legal purposes. so we're saying that they should be attacking the users, which they did.
another standpoint is that colleges should somehow support the students accused by the RIAA, the college student population at various colleges may begin to shrink here soon due to these nazi RIAA lawsuits.
this a very good point. i worked for resnet at my college and i was part of a security and policy enforcement team (ok, it was me and my supervisor). our standpoint was that when a major organization, such as the riaa or mpaa, called the school with an IP address of a computer that was hosting a ton of pirated movies or songs, we would find out who taht student was and take care of it under our own policies. we never gave the name of the student out to them. they had 24 hours to remove their files from the internet, if this didn't happen, they would lose their connection indefinitely and we would contact the dean of students, who would not only succumb to the pressure of the riaa or mpaa and give them the name, but also "prosecute" them under school "law" which would basically do everything short of throwing them out, although that is also a possibility. that's how schools should take care of things of this matter. they have a certain obligation to offer their students a certain degree of privacy. at the same time, the students with pirated music and movies (not saying that i don't have them or never did) should understand that it is possible for the riaa and mpaa to file suit against them and they can win. that's what this case shows. so if you've got them, you certainly shouldn't be offering them out to the public. keeping it private is important.
as for this case, it's against what you said they should be attacking. this kid created the means for other students to access illegal music and movies. same thing with napster. although this kid's site was just to search the windows network for any kind of file, which makes it more useful than napster. i don't agree with them going after him for the record, but they did go after the means, not the user. again, they should be going after individual people that download the pirated stuff. the reason they go after college students is because it's an easy target. many colleges do not have firewalls, so their students are right on the internet. the students learn that they have a fast connection (probably faster than they've ever seen for most of them) so they suck down as many mp3's and movies as they can. the riaa gets teh names from the college. the college does not have to give out the name as the riaa is not a legal authority. they should be telling the riaa that they will take care of the situation. that's what we did, adn it worked just fine.
the reason there is a fee is because many copyright holders won't like the fact that there is a fee, not because the government wants to make money. if the fee was higher, there would be almost no way the bill would pass. as already said, a fee that increases with time would be a pretty good idea. since the bill proposes that they would have to pay after the first 50 years and then again every 5 years after that, what should happen is the fee should increase each of those 5 years. and the longer you own the copyright, the more it costs to keep it. it would generate more revenue, but still a negligible amount, and it would slowly coax the owners into releasing their material into the public domain. the increase could be as low as $0.25 every 5 years. and depending on how many copyrights the person or company or organization has the rights to, this fee could add up to be hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. think about every song, every cd, produced each year (there are thousands and thousands more than you will ever hear or even have a chance to hear). that's a lot of money 50 years from the time of release if they choose to pay for an extension. but even though it is revenue for the federal government, i think it's worth more if the works were put in the public domain. sure, no one could claim that it's theirs to do what they want with, and there would have to be regulations as to what the public can do with these works (like not make a profit off of them, so books can be re-published, but can't be sold by the publishers for profit). this would help project gutenberg greatly, and some other similar internet projects (i think there's one for music too).
these suggestions are good, but i might go for something a little newer because you will want to be able to run the latest version of MS Office. (yes, i know, MS=bad). unless you're a computer geek, you won't really find the time to waste on an old machine, although i do know a lot of people who had really crappy old computers and managed to jam pack as much crappy software onto them to waste time. every P2P app that was available at the time, every cutesy little thing (bonzai buddy for one) that was available, every instant messenger program (yes, just about all of them, and they didn't use something to combine them all into one). no matter what, you will find a way to waste time on your computer, no matter how old, no matter what software, no matter what OS. if it's linux, you'll waste time trying to get it to work just right. if it's windows, you'll waste time with all the stuff i explained above, and you'll even find games to run on it. so there's almost no solution to this except don't bring a computer. but the catch-22 is that a lot of schools are starting to require you to purchase a laptop to their standards. so you'll have to. it's not a bad idea. if i were to go back, i'd rather have a laptop at school than the desktop i had, but at the time, i coudln't play quake2 on a laptop, so i was happy. i was also the first person in my dorm to be able to play quake2 using opengl. :)
:) you'll want the video games and stuff to get out your frustrations with class. there's nothing like fragging a bunch of people you don't know but pretending they're your professors.
;) i know it did for me, but that also required the purchase of some other devices. :) but it certainly helped me get my work done and allowed me to concentrate better. i've never gotten homework done so quickly, or played a better game of pool.
as for getting a pda and all sorts of stuff to get you organized and take notes, you're probably better off taking notes the old fashioned way. it's easier to draw diagrams and have them fit in with the notes where they belong. a pda would be useful for planning out when you need to do everything, but unless you actually use it, it's worthless. i got one thinking that i would organize my life, but it didn't happen.
the key to college is to have all the distractions but to use them sparingly.
oh, and the lighter mentioned above could lead to some more... how do i say this... interesting distractions.
the problem with his idea is that horses and donkey's don't mate naturally. you're missing the whole definition of species. 2 animals are the same species if they mate and produce viable offspring in nature. that's the kicker. if it's not done in nature, it doesn't count. there are many animals closely related enough to produce viable offspring, but they don't for various reasons. one of those reasons is geography. they are never with each other in nature, and if they were put together, they would still not mate because of slight differences in behavior and looks. experiments done in labs like this don't count for determining taxonomy.
i majored in evolutionary bio, but we only got as far as discussing the definition of species. we never discussed how the genus of an animal is determined. although his definition seems logical, it's not the method used by scientists that study this. it might be one test, but it's not the sole reason for assigning a genus.
then there's the moral and ethical implications of mating a chimp and a human. say it does produce an offspring. what do you do with that? is it an apeman? how will it fit into society?
AOL already took down his page for the day because he used up his allotted bandwidth already. guess his ideas won't spread as quickly as he thought. stupid slashdot effect. my guess is only a few hundred people (maybe not even that many) will get to see the page each day before the allowed bandwidth is used.
you saw t-shirts? i just saw the hypnotic flashing dots... and then it repeated what it was saying before... anything is possible i guess ;)
you don't have to be a creationist to be against genetic engineering. it's one thing to mess with genes to help find cures for diseases, but to change genes and remove some can be just plain dangerous. the same reasons for this have been made for not killing off things like small pox. you never know what good might come of something bad. evolution is a funny thing. it can go in either direction (good or bad). there is never "de-evolution" as many people on slashdot seem to believe. generally speaking, evolution makes a species stronger. by forcing it to happen, we don't know what might occur. it happens because of natural changes in the environment. if we change something and then some natural change occurs that requires what we just changed to be back the way it was, what happens? genetic engineering could have just caused the extinction of the human race.
it is those reasons that i am against doing anything with gene sequences except looking at them to make better medicine. medicine that won't completely remove the gene, but rather counteract against what the gene does.
Undersigned Affiant, Who After Being Duly Sworn By Me, On Oath, Makes The Following Statement:
I have good reason to believe and do believe that McConaughey, Matthew W/M (11-4-69)
On or About The 25th Day of October 1999, In the incorporated limits of the city of Austin, County of Travis and the State of Texas, did then and there commit the offense of:
Resisting Transportation - Class A
My belief of the foregoing statemetn is based upon personal knowledge. On 10-25-99 at about 2:37am I was dispatched to a DOC - Noise call at 2002 Meadowbrook Dr (final location was actually 2004 Meadowbrook Dr.) I had officer G. Stephenson #4071 riding with me. We were both wearing standard issue APD uniform with our badges prominently displayed.
On arrival to the location I could easily hear very loud music coming from 2004 Meadowbrook Dr. There was no apparent front door to the residence, but there was a path leading to a wrought iron gate on the south side of the residence. As we got closer to the house I could hear music along with what sounded like bongo drums and someone clapping with the music. We went throught the unlocked wrought iron gate looking for a door. After this gate there was a small set of steps that led to a door that was dark (no porch light and no light coming from inside.) There was also a half-wall on the left side of teh area and a wooden gate on the right side. I looked over the half-wall and could see a room on the other side. Through the window and the door was open(there was a screen door that was closed over teh doorway) I could see a nude, white male dancing and playing bongo drums. I decided to try to make contact with the subject to get him to turn down the radio and stop playing the drums. I went through the second gate (which was unlocked also) and approached the door. As I approached I could see that there was another white male in the room. He was dancing and clapping his hands to the music. The music was so loud that I knew they would not hear me if I knocked or hollered at them. I flashed my flashlight back and forth across the room about 8 to 10 times to try to get their attention. They did not notice the flashing light. From the door I could see what I recognized to be a marijuana bong sitting on the coffee table. It was filled with water and had black residue in the bowl. I then decided to make entry to the residence to get the music turned off and to identify the residents. I checked the screen door to see if it was unlocked. It was. I opened the screen door and started to enter the house. I could immediately smell a faint odor of marijuana. I stepped into the room. The naked subject saw me after I was already inside and he turned off the radio. He began yelling at us. He said, "You can't be in here! Get the Fuck out of the house! Why are you here?" The other subject was also yelling similar phrases. I told them that we had a complaint about the loud music.
I could tell that both subject were very intoxicated. They both had very slurred speach. They swayed while standing still. There was a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from both of them. While onscene I observed that they both had glassy and very bloodshot eyes.
At this point I was acting as if I had not seen teh paraphernalia in order to try to gain their cooperation with the DOC-Noise complaint. I asked who lives at the house and was met with more profanity. I asked for the subjects' identification. The nude subject yelled, "You're violating our rights! You can't come in my house like this!" I said, "I just need to see some ID from ya'll." Both subjects continued yelling phrases similar to those above. The subject nearest to me was moving around alot. He was stepping back adn forth and looking around. Due to the low light conditions (low lights and candles) I could not see very well around the entire room. There were shelves, tables, couches, a bed, and the drums that could all easily conceal any possible weapons. I decided taht du
128k is not fast. i have ADSL here and although the downstream is very quick (1.5 Mbps), the upstream is capped at 128kbps. so if i do any serious uploading that maxes out my upstream limit, it severely affects my downstream to the point that my downstream is slower than 56k. that really pissed me off when i realized the case. luckily i'm the only person on my home network that does any serious uploading, so i can cap my upload rates to leave some room for web browsing. i'd like to switch to cable now, but i don't think the others would be willing to do that. i also can't find much info on what the speeds are capped at for the cable company's internet service.
i agree... it's all what printer you get. you can get the cheap lexmark (and even some canons are cheap) or you can spend a little more and get something higher quality. i have an HP deskjet 722c. it's great except that there is significant dust buildup on the rollers. it's also really slow and that gets annoying too when i'm trying to print out a lot of stuff (especially in color). if i do get a new printer, it will probably be another HP, probably one of the higher end HP ink jet printers (color lasers are just too expensive still). the ink may cost a lot, but it does last me a pretty long time and i do a fair amount of printing (at least with black for resumes and cover letters).
because if you think about it, plants do all sorts of things at certain times of the day and season. trees lose their leaves in autumn, i'm sure there's more to that than just the weather changing, because i know that even if the weather changes early, trees don't lose their leaves earlier, they just don't get the pretty foliage that people like to see. also, during the course of the day, certain flowers will open and close depending on sunlight. i've seen flowers open when it's not particularly sunny. this also has to do with something on time. and of course, we all know that plants "move" to the sun. they grow in the direction of the most light. i'd be willing to bet this biological clock isn't necessarily "set" right away as it is in animals, but it probably has to do with the environment the plant is in.