I'm not concerned that my first-grader can't do advanced stuff; I'm not a pushy parent. However, I remember what I could do in first grade and why I could do it. I don't see her receiving the same skills. Sure, she can log onto my Mac (she uses OS X, doesn't remember Classic), start her programs and such. But too much of life occurs without the aid of a computer. I really want her to grasp - and enjoy - math much more than I did.
My wife doesn't really understand why I'm getting worried about my daughter's math skills (or lack thereof). She's in first grade, and she has almost no math abilities. If you ask her to add numbers together without paper - even simple stuff - she resorts to her fingers. Her school uses something called "Saxon" math. The teachers read the math lesson off a piece of paper!
When I was in first grade, my teacher used flash cards to teach us the simple stuff: adding and subtracting numbers under 20. We later learned how to extend those skills to include more complex operations; it seems once you learn the simple stuff, you can build on it and apply it to the complex math. So, I'm starting my daughter on flash cards at home. It's not high tech, but it's effective.
I would agree that we don't need a new nobility. However, I would also argue that you have a choice: a well-educated nobility, or an adequately educated populace. If you're American, do you have confidence in our education system?
This is a noble democratic sentiment, but it's unlikely to work in practice. In general, the children of the powerful are reared with a great sense of responsibility and duty. The nobility of old enjoyed great privileges, but in times of peril, they were the first required to fight themselves or sacrifice their sons to defend the realm.
I've noticed in my life that you can always tell old money from new money. The old money families encourage their children to play active roles in society and invest their lives doing something useful that they couldn't do if they had to make a real living. The new money kids spend all their time throwing Daddy's money around so everyone will be impressed with how rich they are.
Unfortunately, the theory of perfect democracy doesn't work. Social stability requires leaders. In a perfect world, natural leaders would arise in every generation and be recognized as such by the populace. As we all know, we don't live in a perfect world. Like it or not, wealth and the power it gives automatically confers leadership status. Let's just hope those reared to assume that leadership receive the training to fulfill it.
To me, some of the Visitors in the TV series resembled Sleestaks. The producers of the series apparently borrowed whatever reptilian costumes they could find for the extras.
Sorry about that. Wow, you remember "V" the mini-series? I was a teenager when that played. Fun mini-series with a major twist for the aliens (I won't give it away).
Too bad the TV series the following fall was the pits - the aliens reminded me of some of characters from "The Land of the Lost." If you saw both, you know which ones I mean.
Anyway, to keep this on-topic, Kirk's encounter with "God" was the ultimate let-down. Only his nearly dying in the meeting saved the scene, and only because of his comment to Spock at the beginning of the film about dying alone.
No, seriously. Does anyone else remember it? Or am I the only old computer geek/college football nut around here? There's no telling how much they spent on that fiasco.
OK, so I'm ignorant of Freenet and don't know its capabilities.
However, I think you're using the wrong tool for the situation. As much as P2P networks can really help in certain circumstances, servers have their place, too. For one thing, what about security? Do you really want to manage security on numerous machines when you could easily control only a few?
You're also omitting an offsite backup - a crucial hole in the picture. There is more to backup strategies than merely replacing lost files.
Don't misunderstand me, I think you're on to something. There may be a legitimate, elegant way to implement P2P in this manner. As a long-time netadmin and sysadmin, I haven't seen it in action, and, like you, I don't have time to be the guinea pig.
Re:you know -- the current generation still rule
on
End In Sight For Alpha
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Sorry, but people didn't buy Alphas for those reasons. They didn't buy Alphas because DEC couldn't sell the devil a glass of ice water.
We still have a DEC Alpha 2100 here. Bought it in 1994. Aside from hardware maintenance, the thing never goes down. We've upgraded the hard drives and the memory, but otherwise, we've left it alone. It accomplishes the job we want it to do.
OpenVMS is stable. You can't break it. When DEC built something, they built it to run pretty near forever. That may have been their problem: no built-in obsolescence.
I'll say about the Alpha what I said a while back about Unix to a bunch of pseudo-geeks on a credit union list: If you've never used it, you wouldn't understand, and we can't explain it to you. If you want reliability, you use something that can do the job. Alphas and OpenVMS did the job.
Of course, now maybe our data processing company will get off the stick and at least do some research about offering a Unix-based platform.
We're not simply talking emotion here. Yes, I hate that Debian took the hit, but that's not the major issue with which many of us empathize.
Having been in systems administration for a while now (including in a university setting), I assure you that most of us read the story and then wondered, "wow, how would I have handled the situation?" Then, we looked around our offices and realized that if our business (or campus) suffered a fire in the computer area, we would be the ones expected to pull a miracle out of the hat.
I work at a business now that talks big about disaster recovery but won't ever spend the money for us to go offsite and test it. I've often half-jokingly said that our disaster recovery plan is putting a geek on a plane to our offsite location with two things: the latest backup tapes, and a blank checkbook. My fellow geek and I are going to try again soon to convince them to let us test the system. I hope we get to test the plan before we have to implement it.
That's what is so big about this story. Many of us old timers have either been there or have had to imagine being there.
I suppose you would discount physicist John Polkinghorne, a member of the Royal Society. He was also President of Queen's College at Cambridge prior to his retirement - and oh, by the way, he's an Anglican priest.
I know the common belief around here is that Christians consist only of fundamentalists who use Scripture as their sole source of knowledge, but really, some of us are quite conversant in scientific fields (not to mention some of us are true geeks who know that real OS's end in *nix;-) ). Modern science began in Christianity because only Christians believe in a rational God who maintains order in the universe.
You should read some of Polkinghorne's books. You can find his info here.
Very practical definitions, examples, and procedures. I'm still scratching the surface of SQL, so I haven't found anything yet these sources can't handle.
Buying education version when not a student isn't always pirating. I can buy software at my alma mater's bookstore because I'm an alumnus and an active member of the Alumni Association.
Of course, I'm also a student again, just at another university. I suppose that means I qualify for the student discount anyway.
I can't believe this - my 3rd post to/. in one day. Must be a slow Monday...
Back in 1994, I attended a demo of the newest Apple hardware: the PowerMac 6100, 7100, and 8100. Those PowerPC 601 processors just blew me away!:-)
As part of the demo, the Apple guys showed us a video of upcoming technology, including a computer that folded like a book. The computer used an "avatar" that the user controlled by speaking naturally, as if to a person.
The Apple guys then asked us what was the missing link preventing anyone from producing the contraption. The answer: "folding glass." Of course, we know now (and probably did then, just we didn't want to admit it) that the CPU's and graphics processors of the time would have choked on the OS needed to pull off the magic.
...because american people are more 'tv-articulate'
I don't know I would take this as a compliment. Maybe I'm just getting older, but I find that many Americans today have a short attention span, sometimes too short to understand a complete explanation of whatever is happening. I find myself forced to condense complex problems into sound-bites just so users can follow the process.
Too bad life doesn't always apply itself to bite-sized answers....
Ditto here. I was using a Beige G3 running OS X when the cable guy showed up. He called me at work to find out how to set the network settings. I told him to just write down whatever settings he wanted to set and leave the paper there. After he hung up the phone, my wife overheard him say something about "now that's a true geek." Apparently he didn't get to deal with many people that knew much about computers.
Actually, I didn't have to set anything. The Ethernet port was already set to use DHCP, so I plugged in a DNS server and BAM! Instant online!
The great thing about the cable guy was that he moved my cable connection to another wall for me. Saved me a lot of trouble.
I'm running an eMac on the connection now, so even if the cable guy had installed anything on the G3, it's history anyway.
Sorry, but Outlook on Mac runs only in Classic mode. I've been looking for Microsoft to release an OS X version (or build Exchange support into Entourage) for a while now.
I wonder if anyone has tried to port Ximian Evolution to OS X?
Fact: in 1900, if you wanted to see the President, an appointment was nice, but not necessary.
Yesterday, I heard on NPR that the Secret Service is closing more streets around the White House for "security reasons." I had one thought: "Yep, here we go, building our own Forbidden City."
Jerry Pournelle is fond of saying, "but we were born free." There has been much debate of late on his site about the current situation in the U.S., most of it revolving around the "Republic vs. Empire" issue. The U.S. may have been born a Republic, but the 20th century taught us that our security can't depend on two oceans. Unfortunately, if the oceans couldn't protect us, the next option was to expand our influence overseas so the fight would remain away from home.
11 September showed us we can't keep the fight from here without extreme measures. Personally, I don't think the "extreme measures" are worth the cost of personal liberty, but hey, I'm just a poor seminary student and computer geek.
I will say this, though; the EU may create their own Internet, but before long, the same forces wreaking havoc here - bureaucracy and corporatism - will wreak havoc there. Like it or not, we're all connected now, and the havoc is becoming increasingly difficult to isolate.
Slashdot Mirror
Great comment.
I'm not concerned that my first-grader can't do advanced stuff; I'm not a pushy parent. However, I remember what I could do in first grade and why I could do it. I don't see her receiving the same skills. Sure, she can log onto my Mac (she uses OS X, doesn't remember Classic), start her programs and such. But too much of life occurs without the aid of a computer. I really want her to grasp - and enjoy - math much more than I did.
Thanks for the suggestion. We'll try it.
My wife doesn't really understand why I'm getting worried about my daughter's math skills (or lack thereof). She's in first grade, and she has almost no math abilities. If you ask her to add numbers together without paper - even simple stuff - she resorts to her fingers. Her school uses something called "Saxon" math. The teachers read the math lesson off a piece of paper!
When I was in first grade, my teacher used flash cards to teach us the simple stuff: adding and subtracting numbers under 20. We later learned how to extend those skills to include more complex operations; it seems once you learn the simple stuff, you can build on it and apply it to the complex math. So, I'm starting my daughter on flash cards at home. It's not high tech, but it's effective.
Finally - a story that matches your sig.
I would agree that we don't need a new nobility. However, I would also argue that you have a choice: a well-educated nobility, or an adequately educated populace. If you're American, do you have confidence in our education system?
Disclaimer: IWNBR (I was not born rich).
This is a noble democratic sentiment, but it's unlikely to work in practice. In general, the children of the powerful are reared with a great sense of responsibility and duty. The nobility of old enjoyed great privileges, but in times of peril, they were the first required to fight themselves or sacrifice their sons to defend the realm.
I've noticed in my life that you can always tell old money from new money. The old money families encourage their children to play active roles in society and invest their lives doing something useful that they couldn't do if they had to make a real living. The new money kids spend all their time throwing Daddy's money around so everyone will be impressed with how rich they are.
Unfortunately, the theory of perfect democracy doesn't work. Social stability requires leaders. In a perfect world, natural leaders would arise in every generation and be recognized as such by the populace. As we all know, we don't live in a perfect world. Like it or not, wealth and the power it gives automatically confers leadership status. Let's just hope those reared to assume that leadership receive the training to fulfill it.
Massively off-topic, but here goes:
Land of the Lost
V Series
To me, some of the Visitors in the TV series resembled Sleestaks. The producers of the series apparently borrowed whatever reptilian costumes they could find for the extras.
Sorry about that. Wow, you remember "V" the mini-series? I was a teenager when that played. Fun mini-series with a major twist for the aliens (I won't give it away).
Too bad the TV series the following fall was the pits - the aliens reminded me of some of characters from "The Land of the Lost." If you saw both, you know which ones I mean.
Anyway, to keep this on-topic, Kirk's encounter with "God" was the ultimate let-down. Only his nearly dying in the meeting saved the scene, and only because of his comment to Spock at the beginning of the film about dying alone.
I saw V once. The memory still haunts me.
One response: The OS/2 Fiesta Bowl.
No, seriously. Does anyone else remember it? Or am I the only old computer geek/college football nut around here? There's no telling how much they spent on that fiasco.
OK, so I'm ignorant of Freenet and don't know its capabilities.
However, I think you're using the wrong tool for the situation. As much as P2P networks can really help in certain circumstances, servers have their place, too. For one thing, what about security? Do you really want to manage security on numerous machines when you could easily control only a few?
You're also omitting an offsite backup - a crucial hole in the picture. There is more to backup strategies than merely replacing lost files.
Don't misunderstand me, I think you're on to something. There may be a legitimate, elegant way to implement P2P in this manner. As a long-time netadmin and sysadmin, I haven't seen it in action, and, like you, I don't have time to be the guinea pig.
Sorry, but people didn't buy Alphas for those reasons. They didn't buy Alphas because DEC couldn't sell the devil a glass of ice water.
We still have a DEC Alpha 2100 here. Bought it in 1994. Aside from hardware maintenance, the thing never goes down. We've upgraded the hard drives and the memory, but otherwise, we've left it alone. It accomplishes the job we want it to do.
OpenVMS is stable. You can't break it. When DEC built something, they built it to run pretty near forever. That may have been their problem: no built-in obsolescence.
I'll say about the Alpha what I said a while back about Unix to a bunch of pseudo-geeks on a credit union list: If you've never used it, you wouldn't understand, and we can't explain it to you. If you want reliability, you use something that can do the job. Alphas and OpenVMS did the job.
Of course, now maybe our data processing company will get off the stick and at least do some research about offering a Unix-based platform.
Bad omen. Here in the South, "hey y'all, watch this!" are often the last words you hear.
We're not simply talking emotion here. Yes, I hate that Debian took the hit, but that's not the major issue with which many of us empathize.
Having been in systems administration for a while now (including in a university setting), I assure you that most of us read the story and then wondered, "wow, how would I have handled the situation?" Then, we looked around our offices and realized that if our business (or campus) suffered a fire in the computer area, we would be the ones expected to pull a miracle out of the hat.
I work at a business now that talks big about disaster recovery but won't ever spend the money for us to go offsite and test it. I've often half-jokingly said that our disaster recovery plan is putting a geek on a plane to our offsite location with two things: the latest backup tapes, and a blank checkbook. My fellow geek and I are going to try again soon to convince them to let us test the system. I hope we get to test the plan before we have to implement it.
That's what is so big about this story. Many of us old timers have either been there or have had to imagine being there.
They don't. I've never done it before, and I had forgotten that by posting my moderations were wiped out.
My mistake. Next time I post to something like this, I'll break another cardinal rule and do it AC.
OK, so I'm breaking my cardinal rule and replying to a comment I modded.
Hilarious. I remove my own Sn cranium covering in deference to your wit.
I'd mod you up again, but drat, I'm out of points now.
I suppose you would discount physicist John Polkinghorne, a member of the Royal Society. He was also President of Queen's College at Cambridge prior to his retirement - and oh, by the way, he's an Anglican priest.
;-) ). Modern science began in Christianity because only Christians believe in a rational God who maintains order in the universe.
I know the common belief around here is that Christians consist only of fundamentalists who use Scripture as their sole source of knowledge, but really, some of us are quite conversant in scientific fields (not to mention some of us are true geeks who know that real OS's end in *nix
You should read some of Polkinghorne's books. You can find his info here.
If you need to expand your SQL to include PostgreSQL, try:
PostgreSQL: Introduction and Concepts by Bruce Momjian
Practical PostgreSQL, by Command Prompt, Inc. written by John Worsley and Joshua Drake of Command Prompt, Inc.
Very practical definitions, examples, and procedures. I'm still scratching the surface of SQL, so I haven't found anything yet these sources can't handle.
I've also found the Usenet Posgres groups useful.
Buying education version when not a student isn't always pirating. I can buy software at my alma mater's bookstore because I'm an alumnus and an active member of the Alumni Association.
Of course, I'm also a student again, just at another university. I suppose that means I qualify for the student discount anyway.
I can't believe this - my 3rd post to /. in one day. Must be a slow Monday...
:-)
Back in 1994, I attended a demo of the newest Apple hardware: the PowerMac 6100, 7100, and 8100. Those PowerPC 601 processors just blew me away!
As part of the demo, the Apple guys showed us a video of upcoming technology, including a computer that folded like a book. The computer used an "avatar" that the user controlled by speaking naturally, as if to a person.
The Apple guys then asked us what was the missing link preventing anyone from producing the contraption. The answer: "folding glass." Of course, we know now (and probably did then, just we didn't want to admit it) that the CPU's and graphics processors of the time would have choked on the OS needed to pull off the magic.
...because american people are more 'tv-articulate'
I don't know I would take this as a compliment. Maybe I'm just getting older, but I find that many Americans today have a short attention span, sometimes too short to understand a complete explanation of whatever is happening. I find myself forced to condense complex problems into sound-bites just so users can follow the process.
Too bad life doesn't always apply itself to bite-sized answers....
Ditto here. I was using a Beige G3 running OS X when the cable guy showed up. He called me at work to find out how to set the network settings. I told him to just write down whatever settings he wanted to set and leave the paper there. After he hung up the phone, my wife overheard him say something about "now that's a true geek." Apparently he didn't get to deal with many people that knew much about computers.
Actually, I didn't have to set anything. The Ethernet port was already set to use DHCP, so I plugged in a DNS server and BAM! Instant online!
The great thing about the cable guy was that he moved my cable connection to another wall for me. Saved me a lot of trouble.
I'm running an eMac on the connection now, so even if the cable guy had installed anything on the G3, it's history anyway.
Sorry, but Outlook on Mac runs only in Classic mode. I've been looking for Microsoft to release an OS X version (or build Exchange support into Entourage) for a while now.
I wonder if anyone has tried to port Ximian Evolution to OS X?
I thought the name was Planet Mongo.
Is Flash Gordon reading this?
Fact: in 1900, if you wanted to see the President, an appointment was nice, but not necessary.
Yesterday, I heard on NPR that the Secret Service is closing more streets around the White House for "security reasons." I had one thought: "Yep, here we go, building our own Forbidden City."
Jerry Pournelle is fond of saying, "but we were born free." There has been much debate of late on his site about the current situation in the U.S., most of it revolving around the "Republic vs. Empire" issue. The U.S. may have been born a Republic, but the 20th century taught us that our security can't depend on two oceans. Unfortunately, if the oceans couldn't protect us, the next option was to expand our influence overseas so the fight would remain away from home.
11 September showed us we can't keep the fight from here without extreme measures. Personally, I don't think the "extreme measures" are worth the cost of personal liberty, but hey, I'm just a poor seminary student and computer geek.
I will say this, though; the EU may create their own Internet, but before long, the same forces wreaking havoc here - bureaucracy and corporatism - will wreak havoc there. Like it or not, we're all connected now, and the havoc is becoming increasingly difficult to isolate.