I don't know about their ballot boxes, but I do remember that mine had shifted slightly so the arrows didn't point to the holes (despite the little red thingies to align the sheet). But that was okay, because ours only had the candidates on one side of the holes. However, I can imagine the confusion if the same thing had happened to them -- TWO holes could be associated with one name.
Seems Slashdot readers think that there are some people just too stupid to live. I'm guessing most of them work tech support and have the arrogance that's been lampooned in Saturday Night Live (with Jackie Chan and somebody else, I don't remember). Benefit of the doubt, eh?
Last time I checked, Florida doesn't represent the entire population. Gore has the slight national lead of 48,873,524 to 48,640,101
Your assessment of the whole thing as "horseshit" is correct, however. You're just wrong in that one point.
Analogies on Slashdot are stupid. ("Let's take an example..." "Your analogy is flawed! It really should be...") But I couldn't avoid this one.
Let's use a baseball game as an example. As we all know, "rebroadcast without the express written permission of Major League Baseball" is not allowed. But if I attended the game, can I make a webpage that gives a general outline of the game. Sure! I'm not "rebroadcasting" anything--I'm reporting (in my own words) on an event. You can run an event but you can't own the rights to tell people about it.
You can also report on the Olympics, can'tcha? The issue (did you read the article) is that the athletes themselves can't publish diaries. In the same way, the MLB players are likewise restricted (under contract) in what they can say/do in light of the League's best interests -- or face fines. Or at least it's this way for the NBA.
Am I the only one amused that, despite all the know-it-alls who complained in a different slashdot thread about the improper use of the phrase "steep learning curve", we have a professional writer who uses the very phrase in its common, "misused" form?
You're rather critical of bullet points on what was obviously a set of overhead projections. I'm sure he had more to say to justify his "reasoning". What was it? Beats me. All I saw were the bullets.
I suspect "your average desktop user" doesn't call tech support. Are you sampling the general population, or are you sampling the people who need help bad enough to call for it? Think about it.
... that in the ratings, which tracked music sellers near college campuses, the decline of music sales near campuses that did not ban napster was 4%. The decline of music sales near campuses that did ban napster was 7%!
What does this say? Napster helped preserve 3% of those lost record sales!!!!
Or the other interpretation would be that the campuses with bandwidth problems bad enough to necessitate banning can be tied to revenue loss. You have to remember that the study is based on 2 years of revenue, while Napster (ab)use is a fairly recent phenomenon. It could just mean that these campuses are more likely to pirate, i.e. from word of mouth or "because they did it."
There's an interpretation for everything when you do these studies, especially when you neglect variables. That's why we have the "scientific method" requiring us to try to be impartial.
That's a pretty narrow-minded view of the value of calculators in education. You might as well rant: "As an 'educational tool', pencils have about the same educational value as school prayer: namely, none."
After all, pencils are used by those little whippersnappers to write notes to their classmates, play games (war games on paper, or pencil fights), and they certainly couldn't learn how to do math by writing down the problem. It's just an impediment in the process of the children using their brains, isn't it? Our teachers ought to just sit the kids down and make them think the math without all those silly pencil distractions.
It isn't the tools that are the problem, it's how they are used. Just as a four-function calculator helps a little kid do algebra by speeding the arithmetic part so they can focus on the abstractions, a graphing calculator helps a high school or college student process more complex information by diagramming it for them. Sure, I learned how to plot an equation, but what did that do for me? In fact, you need to have some know-how to even use a graphing calculator. My mother just curses at my TI-89 because she hasn't even gone beyond Math 101.
Admittedly, I used a TI-85 in high school just as they were starting to use them, and did not have access to games until I reached college three years later, but there were even small distractions and they didn't hurt my education. I did the usual -- wrote notes, created cool graphs, and made goofy animations. But I also applied them to my homework and could process much more information. I finished two years of calculus in high school.
As for machines taking over, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. If we're getting dumber, then, well, the machines won't be programmed to be any better, will they? They process information better than humans... but they are nevertheless mimicking human logic.
Re:Laptops are only a tool to aid learning...
on
Laptops In Education
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· Score: 1
It's an endless irony that people discuss spelling and/or grammar... then spell grammar with an 'e.' Or am I missing something, am I being an ignorant American? "grammer" is certainly not in m-w.com.
There's another interesting dimension in the learning curve of Linux. Not only do you stare at a prompt wondering what to do, but when someone finally teaches you to rtfm, you're bombarded with a slew of options in the man pages, making it very difficult to find the particular behavior you _need_. (i.e. "tar xvf") Some people simply don't have the time to "grok" the whole program, like some *nix aficionados think they should.
BTW, Windoze does initially hide those "useless" system files in Explorer. It's just nice to know what's in there, so I always turn off the hidden files feature.
In Utah? What minority? Guess what? It's not even a democracy in the US. It's a representative democracy. And how do we get representatives? Majority vote. And guess which party is in the majority in virtually every voting district in Utah? There's a special breed of Republicans here: Utah Republicans. If you don't live in this state, you don't know what it means.
That's just completely ignorant. Out of a few million people in Utah, the number of polygamists is in about 5 digits IIRC. I live in Utah. I've never met a polygamist. I've had a coke a day before. Iced tea comes out of our vending machines, and can be ordered in a restaurant. In fact, the same goes for coffee. My family has some pretty strong LDS members, and yet they drink coffee. You can easily get alcohol in Utah, there are just some odd restrictions on where you may drink it. The only reason it looks like a theocracy is because there's a 60-70% Mormon population (ever hear the term "majority rules"?). And there are also deeply religious members of OTHER religions in Utah who contribute to our weird laws. I hate our one-party legislature, but I deal with it because it's the way things go with majority voters. This post was completely invalid, and should not have been moderated up past my threshold.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems Slashdot readers think that there are some people just too stupid to live. I'm guessing most of them work tech support and have the arrogance that's been lampooned in Saturday Night Live (with Jackie Chan and somebody else, I don't remember). Benefit of the doubt, eh?
Last time I checked, Florida doesn't represent the entire population. Gore has the slight national lead of 48,873,524 to 48,640,101 Your assessment of the whole thing as "horseshit" is correct, however. You're just wrong in that one point.
Let's use a baseball game as an example. As we all know, "rebroadcast without the express written permission of Major League Baseball" is not allowed. But if I attended the game, can I make a webpage that gives a general outline of the game. Sure! I'm not "rebroadcasting" anything--I'm reporting (in my own words) on an event. You can run an event but you can't own the rights to tell people about it.
You can also report on the Olympics, can'tcha? The issue (did you read the article) is that the athletes themselves can't publish diaries. In the same way, the MLB players are likewise restricted (under contract) in what they can say/do in light of the League's best interests -- or face fines. Or at least it's this way for the NBA.
Am I the only one amused that, despite all the know-it-alls who complained in a different slashdot thread about the improper use of the phrase "steep learning curve", we have a professional writer who uses the very phrase in its common, "misused" form?
You're rather critical of bullet points on what was obviously a set of overhead projections. I'm sure he had more to say to justify his "reasoning". What was it? Beats me. All I saw were the bullets.
Over-generalized statements are stupid. :)
What does this say? Napster helped preserve 3% of those lost record sales!!!!
Or the other interpretation would be that the campuses with bandwidth problems bad enough to necessitate banning can be tied to revenue loss. You have to remember that the study is based on 2 years of revenue, while Napster (ab)use is a fairly recent phenomenon. It could just mean that these campuses are more likely to pirate, i.e. from word of mouth or "because they did it."
There's an interpretation for everything when you do these studies, especially when you neglect variables. That's why we have the "scientific method" requiring us to try to be impartial.
After all, pencils are used by those little whippersnappers to write notes to their classmates, play games (war games on paper, or pencil fights), and they certainly couldn't learn how to do math by writing down the problem. It's just an impediment in the process of the children using their brains, isn't it? Our teachers ought to just sit the kids down and make them think the math without all those silly pencil distractions.
It isn't the tools that are the problem, it's how they are used. Just as a four-function calculator helps a little kid do algebra by speeding the arithmetic part so they can focus on the abstractions, a graphing calculator helps a high school or college student process more complex information by diagramming it for them. Sure, I learned how to plot an equation, but what did that do for me? In fact, you need to have some know-how to even use a graphing calculator. My mother just curses at my TI-89 because she hasn't even gone beyond Math 101.
Admittedly, I used a TI-85 in high school just as they were starting to use them, and did not have access to games until I reached college three years later, but there were even small distractions and they didn't hurt my education. I did the usual -- wrote notes, created cool graphs, and made goofy animations. But I also applied them to my homework and could process much more information. I finished two years of calculus in high school.
As for machines taking over, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. If we're getting dumber, then, well, the machines won't be programmed to be any better, will they? They process information better than humans... but they are nevertheless mimicking human logic.
It's an endless irony that people discuss spelling and/or grammar... then spell grammar with an 'e.' Or am I missing something, am I being an ignorant American? "grammer" is certainly not in m-w.com.
BTW, Windoze does initially hide those "useless" system files in Explorer. It's just nice to know what's in there, so I always turn off the hidden files feature.
In Utah? What minority? Guess what? It's not even a democracy in the US. It's a representative democracy. And how do we get representatives? Majority vote. And guess which party is in the majority in virtually every voting district in Utah? There's a special breed of Republicans here: Utah Republicans. If you don't live in this state, you don't know what it means.
That's just completely ignorant. Out of a few million people in Utah, the number of polygamists is in about 5 digits IIRC. I live in Utah. I've never met a polygamist. I've had a coke a day before. Iced tea comes out of our vending machines, and can be ordered in a restaurant. In fact, the same goes for coffee. My family has some pretty strong LDS members, and yet they drink coffee. You can easily get alcohol in Utah, there are just some odd restrictions on where you may drink it. The only reason it looks like a theocracy is because there's a 60-70% Mormon population (ever hear the term "majority rules"?). And there are also deeply religious members of OTHER religions in Utah who contribute to our weird laws. I hate our one-party legislature, but I deal with it because it's the way things go with majority voters. This post was completely invalid, and should not have been moderated up past my threshold.