I work for the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. We've been using swappable hard drives in one of our computer labs for about 8 months now. They were originally installed because a class needed to install and maintain windows as a project. With the swappable HD's, we could use the lab as normal and then switch to the student hard drives right before class. The swappable units appear to cause some problems though.
That lab has a much higher rate of hard drive failure, which may be caused by lack of cooling in the plastic cases.
Also, when machines are turned on or reset, they will occaisionally do nothing but spin the hard drive. No windows startup, no bios beep, nothing. Turning the power supply off and then back on again seems to fix the problem, but it still annoying (and most lab users don't know the fix for it).
Swappable hard drives are a good idea, but they may be one whose time has not yet come.
Mike
SOIS Tech Support Specialist
http://www.sois.uwm.edu
I work for the School of Information Studies at UW Milwaukee, and part of my job is to keep up the web pages for distance ed.
Currently, our system works like this:
All distance ed. classes have a homepage on our WebCT server. (Dual PIII Xeon, NT 4 - I think there's a *nix version of WebCT, but I'm not in charge of the server) Course web pages are maintained by student employees for professors who aren't that computer literate. The page gets the syllabus, list of projects, an assignment drop box, and a few discussion boards. Professors lecture to a digital camera about once a week. Those tapes are converted to.rm with RealProducer Plus(I have no idea if there's a *nix version) and uploaded to the course page. Every other week or so, each class holds a chat with live video streaming from the professors office (again RealProducer for video, WebCT chat client in Java). WebCT also has a whiteboard feature that can be used with the live chat, but no one has used it yet in my department. Assignments can be completed by either writing in a text box(like writing a/. comment) or uploading a file to the course drop box. Tests/quizzes are available in WebCT, and can have multiple choice, essay, or short answer questions. Professors can provide answers and have the tests/quizzes graded automatically(except for essays) or look at the answers and grade it themselves. Tests can be made available at any time, for as short a time period as an hour, to unlimited amount of time.
So far, this is the best system I've seen for distance ed. I've also worked on a system called Blackboard, which doesn't have as many features, but is slightly more userfriendly for designers (this system also ran on NT, not sure about hardware). I've also used, but never worked on, a system called Web Course in a Box (WCB). That system was older, uglier and most of the campus has stopped using it.
The whole CCG market is sliding. Magic isn't what it once was, and Pokemon isn't flavor of the day anymore. As a result of this WotC isn't making as much money as it was before Hasbro bought it. Hasbro told WotC it had to cut back. Right now they're selling off their 3rd string CCG, Legend of the Five Rings(Anyone got a couple million I can borrow?), which they bought not too long ago from AEG. AEG hasn't exactly had it easy either, they cancelled their flagship card game DoomTown in late November because they had lost a great deal of money on it. From what I hear, their remaining CCG, 7th Sea, is headed for the crapper too.
I'm not sure what is going to survive in this market. The market isn't saturated with crappy CCGs like it was a few years ago, but now it seems that it's not the best games that continue - its the most promoted. *cough*Windows*cough*
Okay... that's enough ranting from me this morning.
The best teachers I've had have been the ones that have fun projects or atleast let you play with the cool toys.
In high school I took 2 physics classes with Mr. Limmer. In AP we gave devoted a couple months to working on a Rube Goldberg machine that never actually got built. We also learned that VanDeGraaf(sp?) generators and Tesla coils (we had one we called "The Freshman Tamer":) were cool.
Now in college (where physics classes aren't nearly as much fun) I've turned to computer science. In Programming II, we got the most interesting project I can remember. We wrote a MUD in C++. Thanks to Dr. Boyland for a great job in that class.
My old job had a help desk address that sent a confirmation email automatically whenever it recieved an email. It also got about 7 spam messages a night. One night the server somehow got screwed up and was sending the reply email about once a minute. This continued for about 10 hours. Heh, and they thought they knew what spam was.
It's all about the design of the reactor. American reactors are designed so that if there is a problem, the control rods drop into the reactor and stop the reaction. The Russian design did something else (I don't remember exactly what), but the fact that they used graphite doesn't matter. It could also have something to do with the way the reactors were run. I remember hearing something about them running a test along the lines of "What happens when we run the reactor with no coolant". I don't remember where I heard that though, anyone else know?
My computer science class (college sophomore level) is writing a mud as a class project. Not only is it fun, but it's amazing to see how simple the code is. The idea of the project was that the professor wrote a _very_ basic mud program. Groups of students were assigned to add features like food & energy, animals, combat, a save game feature, and several others. Some friends and I have plans to keep adding stuff over semester break (month_of_no_classes++). Anyway, just thought I'd show an example of muds used in teaching. Anyone interested in looking at the source can see http://www.cs.uwm.edu/classes/cs252/homework/
The IOC has the copyright to ANY design of five interlocking rings. A few years ago they sued a company that makes a card game called Legend of the Five Rings. The card game (which is very good, go pick up some starters at your local game store) has nothing to do with the olympics. In fact its loosely based on Mirumoto Musashi's A Book of Five Rings. The company had to immediately change its packaging and now has to remove their logo from the card backs. How on earth did they get a copyright that is so vague and covers such a huge area?
Not letting him think about technology would be the logical next step, followed by the ruling that "technology" is everything outside of an empty room.
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I work for the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. We've been using swappable hard drives in one of our computer labs for about 8 months now. They were originally installed because a class needed to install and maintain windows as a project. With the swappable HD's, we could use the lab as normal and then switch to the student hard drives right before class. The swappable units appear to cause some problems though.
That lab has a much higher rate of hard drive failure, which may be caused by lack of cooling in the plastic cases.
Also, when machines are turned on or reset, they will occaisionally do nothing but spin the hard drive. No windows startup, no bios beep, nothing. Turning the power supply off and then back on again seems to fix the problem, but it still annoying (and most lab users don't know the fix for it).
Swappable hard drives are a good idea, but they may be one whose time has not yet come.
Mike
SOIS Tech Support Specialist
http://www.sois.uwm.edu
Currently, our system works like this:
All distance ed. classes have a homepage on our WebCT server. (Dual PIII Xeon, NT 4 - I think there's a *nix version of WebCT, but I'm not in charge of the server) Course web pages are maintained by student employees for professors who aren't that computer literate. The page gets the syllabus, list of projects, an assignment drop box, and a few discussion boards. Professors lecture to a digital camera about once a week. Those tapes are converted to
So far, this is the best system I've seen for distance ed. I've also worked on a system called Blackboard, which doesn't have as many features, but is slightly more userfriendly for designers (this system also ran on NT, not sure about hardware). I've also used, but never worked on, a system called Web Course in a Box (WCB). That system was older, uglier and most of the campus has stopped using it.
For some examples of distance ed classes:
WebCT: http://www.sois.uwm.edu:8900
Blackboard: http://blackboard.imt.uwm.edu
WCB: http://www.uwm.edu/wcb.uwm
Mike Karasch
School of Information Studies
I'm not sure what is going to survive in this market. The market isn't saturated with crappy CCGs like it was a few years ago, but now it seems that it's not the best games that continue - its the most promoted. *cough*Windows*cough*
Okay... that's enough ranting from me this morning.
In high school I took 2 physics classes with Mr. Limmer. In AP we gave devoted a couple months to working on a Rube Goldberg machine that never actually got built. We also learned that VanDeGraaf(sp?) generators and Tesla coils (we had one we called "The Freshman Tamer" :) were cool.
Now in college (where physics classes aren't nearly as much fun) I've turned to computer science. In Programming II, we got the most interesting project I can remember. We wrote a MUD in C++. Thanks to Dr. Boyland for a great job in that class.
My old job had a help desk address that sent a confirmation email automatically whenever it recieved an email. It also got about 7 spam messages a night. One night the server somehow got screwed up and was sending the reply email about once a minute. This continued for about 10 hours. Heh, and they thought they knew what spam was.
It's all about the design of the reactor. American reactors are designed so that if there is a problem, the control rods drop into the reactor and stop the reaction. The Russian design did something else (I don't remember exactly what), but the fact that they used graphite doesn't matter. It could also have something to do with the way the reactors were run. I remember hearing something about them running a test along the lines of "What happens when we run the reactor with no coolant". I don't remember where I heard that though, anyone else know?
Just think how fast Windows will crash now.
My computer science class (college sophomore level) is writing a mud as a class project. Not only is it fun, but it's amazing to see how simple the code is. The idea of the project was that the professor wrote a _very_ basic mud program. Groups of students were assigned to add features like food & energy, animals, combat, a save game feature, and several others. Some friends and I have plans to keep adding stuff over semester break (month_of_no_classes++). Anyway, just thought I'd show an example of muds used in teaching. Anyone interested in looking at the source can see http://www.cs.uwm.edu/classes/cs252/homework/
I work tech support and thought it was strange that I have 9 supervisors. Guess it's not that weird.
The IOC has the copyright to ANY design of five interlocking rings. A few years ago they sued a company that makes a card game called Legend of the Five Rings. The card game (which is very good, go pick up some starters at your local game store) has nothing to do with the olympics. In fact its loosely based on Mirumoto Musashi's A Book of Five Rings. The company had to immediately change its packaging and now has to remove their logo from the card backs. How on earth did they get a copyright that is so vague and covers such a huge area?
Not letting him think about technology would be the logical next step, followed by the ruling that "technology" is everything outside of an empty room.