What I am saying is that computers can be used to enhance the enjoyment one might receive out of mathematics. ..
This is, indeed, one of the things that computers are great at, particularly when one is working with solids, and even more particularly when working with solids in more than three dimensions.
I'll never forget the first time I saw a six dimensional "cube" rotating on a computer monitor (especially as monitors were still somewhat rare in that day. As a physics senior I was still stuck with an IBM Selectric as my I/O device)
Aha! You sir, are a special case. The normal rules don't always apply to special cases. It's often hard enough to get college freshman majoring in physics to do integrals.
I have seen countless cases of classmates in physics who have no idea what they're doing but can write down the examples that the teacher gives without fail.
This is what we call "Bad Teaching." It's likely the teacher didn't understand the subject either.
. ..it's hard to claim that writing out things helps you work better than using calculators and computers.
Actually, there's a body of work in psychology that supports the claim. Again, exceptional cases may well be, well, exceptional.
I wouldn't recommend software at all. I would recommend something we call "pencil and paper." Learning mathematics (and reading music, and a number of other such undertakings) is as much a mechanical skill as an intellectual one and the quickest way to the brain is through the fingers.
Do you think a flat 2d interface will still be the best?
Back in the day when we reprogramed computers with a soldering iron the advantage of being able to see a full page of printed data was obvious. It is still obvious.
Back in that day, did we build bar charts out a wooden blocks in 3D, or did a picture on a piece of paper already tell us everything we needed to know?
So my answer to your question is "Yes."
The only way to make the future happen, is to do it today.
But be very, very careful what you do today. You might be forced to live with it.
. ..and it's easy to not realize that what is basic stuff for you, what you can do without thinking, is nearly magic for the average user.
Actually, being keenly aware of this is a good part of my stock in trade as a self employed educator. I have perspective in bucketloads and a knack for explaining things in simple terms, as well as an awareness that my job is to impart my knowledge to them, and not to show off my own. This of course also means that I'm keenly aware that part of my job is to put myself out of business as quickly as possible, since the primary knowledge skill to be taught is how to acquire knowledge without reliance upon a teacher.
I also get a certain amount of work from the other end of the spectrum as a "magician," but I always explain that magic is an illusion, as every ethical magician should.
I'm still somewhat at a loss, however, why the possession of advanced professional archana, to the point where I can often appear to do magic from the perspective of other IT professionals, makes me a luddite.
The primary difference between myself and the stage illusionist is that my archana is not secret, and I'm perfectly willing to explain, to anyone, just what went into the illusion so that they can repeat it themselves.
Although there may be a fee for my time.
As a professional invested with deep juju, however, I am also aware that the act of clicking on an icon is also a trick with some underlying deep juju to make it look easy. It's a very complicated mechincal trick, like making Diamondhead disappear. Once set up, anyone can do it, but it takes a professional to set it up and I can appreciate the work that that professional put into it.
Thus I am not at all averse to teaching people who I know are never, ever going to spend years learning slight of hand to work as mechanics. It's the right thing for them to do. To rely on personal skills that they do not, and never will, have, is to guaruntee trouble.
And where they make my life easier I'm perfectly willing to use mechanical illusions as well. But machines require maintenance, and machines are limited by their design and construction, and machines fail, and when they do if you don't have a deep understanding of the principle of the machine, well, you're stuck there looking at it all stupid like, like you see people by the side of the road looking under the hood of their car that no longer runs, or at their malware infested Windows desktop that will no longer run.
Possessing advanced professional skills is not at all the same thing as being Luddite.
Now, as it happens, I am an actuall hand knitter and spinner, so the Luddite comparison isn't entirely metaphorical in my case, but. ..as someone with some expert skills in that department I recognize those skills as being something of an affectation. The knitting machine is a wonderful device, and fuck all if I'd want to sit around all day cranking out cheap K-Mart sweaters by hand in order to make a living if I knew there was a machine that could replace me.
The thing is, the best knitters and spinners (of which I am not a member) can still turn out superior product to the machines, albiet at handmade prices. These people are true craftsmen, and not simply bad machines.
And as E.F. Schumacher suggested it is the craftsman who is the only one who is in the position to determine what is a tool that aids his job and what is a tool that aids the people who sell the tools.
grep and mutt are the tools of a craftsman when used appropriately by a craftsman. They are neither obsolete nor obsolescent and have not been superceded in their function by graphical tools, anymore so than the power planer has made the violin makers hand scraper obsolete.
(This analogy is flawed, because in most cases it is actually grep that is the power planer and the graphical tools that are the home owners "t
Those aspects of other cultures that became a part of American culture were brought here by immigrants from long ago. ..
Well, if you consider the introduction of the Christmas tree in the early 20th century long ago, I guess.
I guess we're considered exotic or something. Fancy that.
An expert is an ordinary man away from home. Brought a college girl over from Prague once, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
All she kept saying driving away from JFK was "Oooooooo, it's so pretty."
You understand that we're talking about Queens here.
For better or worse, we as a nation, are really just not interested in what other societies have to offer, from a pop-culture standpoint.
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.
In the 60's it was Carnaby street mod. Yeah, baby!
In the 90's it was Aussie chic and puttin' another shrimp on the barbie, mate.
America has always looked outside for cultural fads, we just like to pretend we don't, because it shakes the great myth of America as the great independent. We Americanize things, then pretend they were really all ours in the first place. In a way very much like Japan.
I am already familiar with this reference, as well as a number of others.
Perhaps you enjoy using yours the most arcane way. Most of people don't.
I enjoy getting my work done the way I want it to be when finished, and the fuck over with as quickly as possible. Given certain ideal conditions I'll refuse to do any work at all and as far as I'm concerned the Luddites were morons, as anyone who is famliar with my posting history can attest.
Frankly, I advise you to quit your job and find something useful to do instead.
The majority of people who work in IT, by the way, are Luddites protecting their jobs and resisting any and all technological change that might threaten their position.
They often employ the dodge of obfuscating obsolescent technologies with new skins and technobabble to make it look like they are progressively adopting new technologies, when in fact they are often simply readopting technologies that were considered obsolete 40 and 50 years ago.
However, what I object to is the mindset that says that just because someone does not want to adapt a new way of doing things (eg being able to format email) that no-one else should be able to either.
I'm afraid I haven't noted anything of the sort here, nor do I see where an accusation of ludditism for using grep addresses the issue, particularly when the most common Linux enviroments at the moment are KDE and GNOME, the majority of whose users never drop to command line.
Slashdot Mirror
What I am saying is that computers can be used to enhance the enjoyment one might receive out of mathematics. . .
This is, indeed, one of the things that computers are great at, particularly when one is working with solids, and even more particularly when working with solids in more than three dimensions.
I'll never forget the first time I saw a six dimensional "cube" rotating on a computer monitor (especially as monitors were still somewhat rare in that day. As a physics senior I was still stuck with an IBM Selectric as my I/O device)
KFG
I was learning calculus on my own. . .
.it's hard to claim that writing out things helps you work better than using calculators and computers.
Aha! You sir, are a special case. The normal rules don't always apply to special cases. It's often hard enough to get college freshman majoring in physics to do integrals.
I have seen countless cases of classmates in physics who have no idea what they're doing but can write down the examples that the teacher gives without fail.
This is what we call "Bad Teaching." It's likely the teacher didn't understand the subject either.
. .
Actually, there's a body of work in psychology that supports the claim. Again, exceptional cases may well be, well, exceptional.
KFG
I wouldn't recommend software at all. I would recommend something we call "pencil and paper." Learning mathematics (and reading music, and a number of other such undertakings) is as much a mechanical skill as an intellectual one and the quickest way to the brain is through the fingers.
Come back when they're in college and ask again.
KFG
Well, for my part I'm peferctly willing to offend anyone who buys this particular product. I might well even point and giggle a bit:
Retro cable in a briefcase
KFG
Which comes first or last is only a matter of perception. It doesn't matter either way.
We haaaaaave a winner!
KFG
Do you think a flat 2d interface will still be the best?
Back in the day when we reprogramed computers with a soldering iron the advantage of being able to see a full page of printed data was obvious. It is still obvious.
Back in that day, did we build bar charts out a wooden blocks in 3D, or did a picture on a piece of paper already tell us everything we needed to know?
So my answer to your question is "Yes."
The only way to make the future happen, is to do it today.
But be very, very careful what you do today. You might be forced to live with it.
KFG
Congratulations, you made it to -1, funny
Well, you have to admit that that is quite an accomplishment. I don't think I've ever quite pulled it off myself.
. . . it say's "I'm Modding you down, just because"
And I take it you have a problem with that? Jeez, some people just have no sense of no sense of humor.
KFG
Knoppix rides again.
KFG
Nah, simply using your own bloody spreadsheet would be "tampering with evidence."
Removing the spyware would be "obstruction of justice.
KFG
Don't worry, a perusal of my posting history will reveal I suffer from the same problem. As they say, it takes one to know one. :)
KFG
. . .and it's easy to not realize that what is basic stuff for you, what you can do without thinking, is nearly magic for the average user.
.as someone with some expert skills in that department I recognize those skills as being something of an affectation. The knitting machine is a wonderful device, and fuck all if I'd want to sit around all day cranking out cheap K-Mart sweaters by hand in order to make a living if I knew there was a machine that could replace me.
Actually, being keenly aware of this is a good part of my stock in trade as a self employed educator. I have perspective in bucketloads and a knack for explaining things in simple terms, as well as an awareness that my job is to impart my knowledge to them, and not to show off my own. This of course also means that I'm keenly aware that part of my job is to put myself out of business as quickly as possible, since the primary knowledge skill to be taught is how to acquire knowledge without reliance upon a teacher.
I also get a certain amount of work from the other end of the spectrum as a "magician," but I always explain that magic is an illusion, as every ethical magician should.
I'm still somewhat at a loss, however, why the possession of advanced professional archana, to the point where I can often appear to do magic from the perspective of other IT professionals, makes me a luddite.
The primary difference between myself and the stage illusionist is that my archana is not secret, and I'm perfectly willing to explain, to anyone, just what went into the illusion so that they can repeat it themselves.
Although there may be a fee for my time.
As a professional invested with deep juju, however, I am also aware that the act of clicking on an icon is also a trick with some underlying deep juju to make it look easy. It's a very complicated mechincal trick, like making Diamondhead disappear. Once set up, anyone can do it, but it takes a professional to set it up and I can appreciate the work that that professional put into it.
Thus I am not at all averse to teaching people who I know are never, ever going to spend years learning slight of hand to work as mechanics. It's the right thing for them to do. To rely on personal skills that they do not, and never will, have, is to guaruntee trouble.
And where they make my life easier I'm perfectly willing to use mechanical illusions as well. But machines require maintenance, and machines are limited by their design and construction, and machines fail, and when they do if you don't have a deep understanding of the principle of the machine, well, you're stuck there looking at it all stupid like, like you see people by the side of the road looking under the hood of their car that no longer runs, or at their malware infested Windows desktop that will no longer run.
Possessing advanced professional skills is not at all the same thing as being Luddite.
Now, as it happens, I am an actuall hand knitter and spinner, so the Luddite comparison isn't entirely metaphorical in my case, but. .
The thing is, the best knitters and spinners (of which I am not a member) can still turn out superior product to the machines, albiet at handmade prices. These people are true craftsmen, and not simply bad machines.
And as E.F. Schumacher suggested it is the craftsman who is the only one who is in the position to determine what is a tool that aids his job and what is a tool that aids the people who sell the tools.
grep and mutt are the tools of a craftsman when used appropriately by a craftsman. They are neither obsolete nor obsolescent and have not been superceded in their function by graphical tools, anymore so than the power planer has made the violin makers hand scraper obsolete.
(This analogy is flawed, because in most cases it is actually grep that is the power planer and the graphical tools that are the home owners "t
Rotterdam, not Rotterdam Junction.
:)
I gotta watch myself on this here intarweb thingy. Who knew there would be an Amsterican on Slashdot.
(Not that I haven't dropped enough clues already over the years that a mad stalker could probably figure out where my house was within a block or two)
KFG
. . .unless policies prohibit running executables not signed by IT.
.corporations generally prohibit their employees from installing software.
I rather thought that's what "sysadmin-imposed policies" was refering to, as per this quote from the article:
. .
KFG
Ya I'm a girl - do you have a problem with it, bub?
I don't know. Let's have a look at your code.
KFG
You just came here from a [i]vBulletin[/i]forum, didn't you? :)
KFG
I was talking about gzip.
KFG
Like gzip?
gzip file format definition
KFG
. . .it's just a standard for encoding. . .
Which, when stored in binary form, happens to be the definition for file format
KFG
Those aspects of other cultures that became a part of American culture were brought here by immigrants from long ago. . .
Well, if you consider the introduction of the Christmas tree in the early 20th century long ago, I guess.
I guess we're considered exotic or something. Fancy that.
An expert is an ordinary man away from home. Brought a college girl over from Prague once, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
All she kept saying driving away from JFK was "Oooooooo, it's so pretty."
You understand that we're talking about Queens here.
For better or worse, we as a nation, are really just not interested in what other societies have to offer, from a pop-culture standpoint.
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.
In the 60's it was Carnaby street mod. Yeah, baby!
In the 90's it was Aussie chic and puttin' another shrimp on the barbie, mate.
America has always looked outside for cultural fads, we just like to pretend we don't, because it shakes the great myth of America as the great independent. We Americanize things, then pretend they were really all ours in the first place. In a way very much like Japan.
KFG
New Holland.
KFG
... we have never had any interest in copying you.
Then why is the town on one side of me Amsterdam, on the other side Rotterdam, and one of the best locally produced cheeses a Gouda, hmmmmmmm?
You might even want to look into the whole St. Nick thing with the red suit and all.
It's Dutch.
KFG
...and not paying attention to driving?
And this would be different. . . how, exactly?
KFG
Did you just brag about making fun of a guy in a forum?
No. I didn't say a thing about how his mother dresses him.
KFG
I am already familiar with this reference, as well as a number of others.
Perhaps you enjoy using yours the most arcane way. Most of people don't.
I enjoy getting my work done the way I want it to be when finished, and the fuck over with as quickly as possible. Given certain ideal conditions I'll refuse to do any work at all and as far as I'm concerned the Luddites were morons, as anyone who is famliar with my posting history can attest.
Frankly, I advise you to quit your job and find something useful to do instead.
The majority of people who work in IT, by the way, are Luddites protecting their jobs and resisting any and all technological change that might threaten their position.
They often employ the dodge of obfuscating obsolescent technologies with new skins and technobabble to make it look like they are progressively adopting new technologies, when in fact they are often simply readopting technologies that were considered obsolete 40 and 50 years ago.
But at least them make 'em look shiney.
KFG
However, what I object to is the mindset that says that just because someone does not want to adapt a new way of doing things (eg being able to format email) that no-one else should be able to either.
I'm afraid I haven't noted anything of the sort here, nor do I see where an accusation of ludditism for using grep addresses the issue, particularly when the most common Linux enviroments at the moment are KDE and GNOME, the majority of whose users never drop to command line.
KFG