Gabriel: Lord, the Humans are discussing the Human Genome again.
God: Again? Let's see if they've learned anything from the last time...60,000? Now they're just guessing! "Meaningless drivel"? Who do they think they are?
Gabriel: I must admit, humans don't really seem to grasp this one yet. Look at this curious group of them over here.
God: Spaghetti coder? Security through obscurity? They're comparing me to a computer programmer? How utterly 3-dimensional of them. Haven't they heard the term, "Thinking outside the Space-Time Continium?"
Gabriel: Shall I go enlighten a few of them Lord?
God: Nah, let 'em pound that brick wall for a few more decades or so. The experience will do them some good down the road.
OMG, don't remind me. We used to get really old PB boxen in once in a while back in my CompUSSR days with that hideous "living room" interface still enabled. Click on the picture of the computer to launch Win3.1 progman.exe. Click on the picture of the stereo to launch some crappy midi player. Click on the picture of the handgun in daddy's sock drawer to end this nightmare.
Dude, that's like saying, "Your going to spend all this time and effort building this huge Widget factory, when you can just carve Widget's out yourself?". Yes, of course there is a high up-front cost, but it's made up for in the long run. Economies of Scale, hello?
Say you had a house, built 100 years ago. It's an old house of course, so there are things wrong with it, but it's upkeep by the owner has been fairly good, and major catastrophe's to the house are few and far between, so it's still livable and in good shape.
Now, say on the 100th birthday of the house, you introduce a colony of termites into the woodwork. These termites are voracious, and immediately begin breeding and chewing up the house. At first, the owner can keep up with the damage by replacing a few board here and there, but the termites keep breeding, and it soon grows beyond the owners control. When you go to inspect the house a year later, and find it's falling apart from the inside out, would you say that it's impossible to determine if the termites were the cause, that this might just be a "natural phase or cycle of the house"?
OK, the analogy isn't perfect, but you get the idea. It's irresponsible to take the opinion that just because we humans haven't been doing what we do for a very long time (comparitively), that we shouldn't worry about what we are doing.
Reader Rabbit for Linux, or whatever is required, sounds like great senior-level projects for college CS students. I'm sure some university would just love the public PR it could generate from it's students "giving back to the community" by creating educational programs of various types. Just an idea.
Your absolutely right of course, but what that means is that perhaps it's time to rethink how computers are taught to children in primary schooling.
Instead of relying on their main teacher to do it, hire one or more people who are trained specifically for teaching kids about computers and software other than Windows. Set aside some time each week in each grade for the person(s) to come in and do "computer time". A person who's only job is teaching computers to kids would have the time and expertise to teach kids about non-Windows computing is he so desired, and it was found to be beneficial.
I'm not advocating doing away with the teaching of Windows entirely, but put the burden of teaching computers on someone trained for it. Already-overworked classroom teachers may not have time to learn a lot of new software, or produce interesting hardware-related lesson plans. Hence, "computer time" more than not equals "play Oregan Trail and shut up".
The issue here is moot. Its a common name. A simple word.
To pull an example from the non-computing world, "Dodge" is a fairly common word, yet do you believe you could get away by starting a car company named "Dodger"?
The year I was a senior in high school, my school got a "network" up and running, which was basically a file server with a few wired computers in select classrooms around the building. Some IBM system, don't remember exactly what.
Anyway, the login to get on the system was an ASCII generated screen. So one day when left to our own devices in class, we whipped up a BASIC (yes, BASIC!) program to reproduce the login screen, and in theory capture someone's (read, our teachers) admin username and password. We had it set to simply redraw the screen when you hit enter to login, which made it look much like there was just a login problem of some kind.
It worked great too, right up to the time when our teacher would always reboot the computer to try and fix the "login problem". See, none of us were smart enough (or motivated enough) back then to figure out how to write BASIC variables to a permanent file. It's just as well I guess: who knows what trouble we would have gotten into with unfettered access to the power of the grades database and the typing tutor program.
Yeah, and they're probably all running around in warehouses full of crates. Or secret laboritories with rivers of lava running under metal bridges. Wait, this is a "realistic" shooter: must be acid instead of lava.
Well, several sites, such as PA, Goats, and a bunch of the Keenspot comics have had Amazon and Paypal donate links on their site for the past couple months. Minimum is $1 I think. It worked very well the first month, but has since tapered off sharply for all the sites.
If there was a way to get the price down to 10 cents, more people might use it. At that point, though, you run the risk of alienating people by nickle-and-diminig them to do death. Most people are not going to want to pay 10 cents 3-5 times a week for a web comic. The price really isn't the issue, it's just the inconvienience.
I've often thought perhaps web comics should take a lesson from pr0n sites, and band together to create a similar system. Pay one "ComicCheck" fee for 3-6 months access, and you get free access to all the sites in the ring.
I'm as big a PA supporter as the next guy, but I do think that Tyco was out of line with the rant in question in this case. That being said, one can certainly understand the frustration on all sides.
Outfits like PA, PVP, Goats, Sinfest, Sluggy, and all the other biggies are right now producing content that is miles beyond anything your likely to see in the newspaper or most magazines. Yet guys like Jim Davis and Scot Adams are lighting their fires with $100 bills, while guys like Tycho are living month-to-month. To be honest, I don't see this changing, either, until a good number of the online artists decide to band together, and form some sort of collective, for lack of a better term.
Let's face it, people are not going to pay for something they can get for free somewhere else. People have their favorites of course, but if the average consumer is suddenly faced with the prospect of paying for PA, they'll likely drop it from their bookmarks, and go read PVP, or MegaTokyo, or whatever sites still offer free content. Only if the strips band together, and all (or most) start offering their content for a price, is the consumer going to be forced to make a choice: pay for online comics or not.
Sure they'll loose some readers permanently that way, but that'll happen no matter what system you choose.
Darn right he'd been all over it, and rightly so. Personally I'd find the idea of naked DoD employees running around in Invisible Trenchcoats quite disturbing.
You know, all Microsoft bashing aside, I'm beginning to believe that Gates and Co really don't understand this whole Open Source movement. I mean, there's fud and then there's FUD, and of course it's in his interest to say stuff like this, but statements like that have got to make even novice computer users say, "WTF are you smoking Bill?"
Is it possible that after so many years of bending the industry to his will, Gates is incapable of seeing the true benefits of Open Source, those beyond "Free as in Beer" anyway?
Wait a minute...Are you suggesting that bigger/faster/more powerful may not necessarily make it better? Or that spending thousands of dollars more for a minimal upgrade may not be worth it?
Don't forget the 50 or some times the HoloDeck tried to take over or destroy the ship. My blind grandmother could have overridden the so-called Safety Protocols in that damn thing.
Seems to me that most "discoveries" in medicine nowadays (at least in America) follow a similar pattern:
- Medical journal makes announcement of new breakthrough treatment/drug/cause/prevention technique. Rest of medical community hails this as a major breakthrough.
- American public spends billions of dollars, either their own or their insurance companies, on said breakthrough.
- Fast forward 2-3 years, when another medical journal reports findings that are the exact opposite of what the original journal found.
- Repeat until public is paranoid of everything, and quite willing to pay any amount of money to cure the "affliction of the month".
Wow, that's cynical even for me. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of doctors, researchers, etc out there doing some great work. Mostly I blame the media I guess (yeah, there's an easy target). Every disease is a death sentence, every cure a life saver on the 10:00 news.
Whatever you decide to do, try to run your ideas by the students teacher(s) first. The teachers will know better than anyone what holds these students interest and what does not. They'll be able to tell you whether you need lots of pretty pictures/graphics, or can delve into some more advanced, less flashy topics.
Slashdot Mirror
Meanwhile, in the afterlife...
Gabriel: Lord, the Humans are discussing the Human Genome again.
God: Again? Let's see if they've learned anything from the last time...60,000? Now they're just guessing! "Meaningless drivel"? Who do they think they are?
Gabriel: I must admit, humans don't really seem to grasp this one yet. Look at this curious group of them over here.
God: Spaghetti coder? Security through obscurity? They're comparing me to a computer programmer? How utterly 3-dimensional of them. Haven't they heard the term, "Thinking outside the Space-Time Continium?"
Gabriel: Shall I go enlighten a few of them Lord?
God: Nah, let 'em pound that brick wall for a few more decades or so. The experience will do them some good down the road.
OMG, don't remind me. We used to get really old PB boxen in once in a while back in my CompUSSR days with that hideous "living room" interface still enabled. Click on the picture of the computer to launch Win3.1 progman.exe. Click on the picture of the stereo to launch some crappy midi player. Click on the picture of the handgun in daddy's sock drawer to end this nightmare.
I didn't get convicted for murder today, can I have cookie too?
Careful, day's not over yet.
Does that mean that Natalie was naked and radioactive?
*Sorry, couldn't resist*
Dude, that's like saying, "Your going to spend all this time and effort building this huge Widget factory, when you can just carve Widget's out yourself?". Yes, of course there is a high up-front cost, but it's made up for in the long run. Economies of Scale, hello?
Say you had a house, built 100 years ago. It's an old house of course, so there are things wrong with it, but it's upkeep by the owner has been fairly good, and major catastrophe's to the house are few and far between, so it's still livable and in good shape.
Now, say on the 100th birthday of the house, you introduce a colony of termites into the woodwork. These termites are voracious, and immediately begin breeding and chewing up the house. At first, the owner can keep up with the damage by replacing a few board here and there, but the termites keep breeding, and it soon grows beyond the owners control. When you go to inspect the house a year later, and find it's falling apart from the inside out, would you say that it's impossible to determine if the termites were the cause, that this might just be a "natural phase or cycle of the house"?
OK, the analogy isn't perfect, but you get the idea. It's irresponsible to take the opinion that just because we humans haven't been doing what we do for a very long time (comparitively), that we shouldn't worry about what we are doing.
Reader Rabbit for Linux, or whatever is required, sounds like great senior-level projects for college CS students. I'm sure some university would just love the public PR it could generate from it's students "giving back to the community" by creating educational programs of various types. Just an idea.
Your absolutely right of course, but what that means is that perhaps it's time to rethink how computers are taught to children in primary schooling.
Instead of relying on their main teacher to do it, hire one or more people who are trained specifically for teaching kids about computers and software other than Windows. Set aside some time each week in each grade for the person(s) to come in and do "computer time". A person who's only job is teaching computers to kids would have the time and expertise to teach kids about non-Windows computing is he so desired, and it was found to be beneficial.
I'm not advocating doing away with the teaching of Windows entirely, but put the burden of teaching computers on someone trained for it. Already-overworked classroom teachers may not have time to learn a lot of new software, or produce interesting hardware-related lesson plans. Hence, "computer time" more than not equals "play Oregan Trail and shut up".
The issue here is moot. Its a common name. A simple word.
To pull an example from the non-computing world, "Dodge" is a fairly common word, yet do you believe you could get away by starting a car company named "Dodger"?
The year I was a senior in high school, my school got a "network" up and running, which was basically a file server with a few wired computers in select classrooms around the building. Some IBM system, don't remember exactly what.
Anyway, the login to get on the system was an ASCII generated screen. So one day when left to our own devices in class, we whipped up a BASIC (yes, BASIC!) program to reproduce the login screen, and in theory capture someone's (read, our teachers) admin username and password. We had it set to simply redraw the screen when you hit enter to login, which made it look much like there was just a login problem of some kind.
It worked great too, right up to the time when our teacher would always reboot the computer to try and fix the "login problem". See, none of us were smart enough (or motivated enough) back then to figure out how to write BASIC variables to a permanent file. It's just as well I guess: who knows what trouble we would have gotten into with unfettered access to the power of the grades database and the typing tutor program.
Well, they death's of famous people always come in three's...
Yeah, and they're probably all running around in warehouses full of crates. Or secret laboritories with rivers of lava running under metal bridges. Wait, this is a "realistic" shooter: must be acid instead of lava.
Well, several sites, such as PA, Goats, and a bunch of the Keenspot comics have had Amazon and Paypal donate links on their site for the past couple months. Minimum is $1 I think. It worked very well the first month, but has since tapered off sharply for all the sites.
If there was a way to get the price down to 10 cents, more people might use it. At that point, though, you run the risk of alienating people by nickle-and-diminig them to do death. Most people are not going to want to pay 10 cents 3-5 times a week for a web comic. The price really isn't the issue, it's just the inconvienience.
I've often thought perhaps web comics should take a lesson from pr0n sites, and band together to create a similar system. Pay one "ComicCheck" fee for 3-6 months access, and you get free access to all the sites in the ring.
I'm as big a PA supporter as the next guy, but I do think that Tyco was out of line with the rant in question in this case. That being said, one can certainly understand the frustration on all sides.
Outfits like PA, PVP, Goats, Sinfest, Sluggy, and all the other biggies are right now producing content that is miles beyond anything your likely to see in the newspaper or most magazines. Yet guys like Jim Davis and Scot Adams are lighting their fires with $100 bills, while guys like Tycho are living month-to-month. To be honest, I don't see this changing, either, until a good number of the online artists decide to band together, and form some sort of collective, for lack of a better term.
Let's face it, people are not going to pay for something they can get for free somewhere else. People have their favorites of course, but if the average consumer is suddenly faced with the prospect of paying for PA, they'll likely drop it from their bookmarks, and go read PVP, or MegaTokyo, or whatever sites still offer free content. Only if the strips band together, and all (or most) start offering their content for a price, is the consumer going to be forced to make a choice: pay for online comics or not.
Sure they'll loose some readers permanently that way, but that'll happen no matter what system you choose.
Darn right he'd been all over it, and rightly so. Personally I'd find the idea of naked DoD employees running around in Invisible Trenchcoats quite disturbing.
YOU BUMBLING TWITS!
Oh, sorry, this is abuse. Arguments are down the hall.
Read the article before you post
I tried, but it didn't have any cool pictures or java games, so I lost interest.
Forget about PortableMonopoly. If you bastards bring down Penny Arcade, I shall be forced to thrash you all using my Mantis Technique, Wang Fu style.
You know, all Microsoft bashing aside, I'm beginning to believe that Gates and Co really don't understand this whole Open Source movement. I mean, there's fud and then there's FUD, and of course it's in his interest to say stuff like this, but statements like that have got to make even novice computer users say, "WTF are you smoking Bill?"
Is it possible that after so many years of bending the industry to his will, Gates is incapable of seeing the true benefits of Open Source, those beyond "Free as in Beer" anyway?
...But I wanted a peanut!
Right. It's 1" bigger. So it's obviously better.
:)
Wait a minute...Are you suggesting that bigger/faster/more powerful may not necessarily make it better? Or that spending thousands of dollars more for a minimal upgrade may not be worth it?
What kind of geek are you?
Don't forget the 50 or some times the HoloDeck tried to take over or destroy the ship. My blind grandmother could have overridden the so-called Safety Protocols in that damn thing.
Seems to me that most "discoveries" in medicine nowadays (at least in America) follow a similar pattern:
- Medical journal makes announcement of new breakthrough treatment/drug/cause/prevention technique. Rest of medical community hails this as a major breakthrough.
- American public spends billions of dollars, either their own or their insurance companies, on said breakthrough.
- Fast forward 2-3 years, when another medical journal reports findings that are the exact opposite of what the original journal found.
- Repeat until public is paranoid of everything, and quite willing to pay any amount of money to cure the "affliction of the month".
Wow, that's cynical even for me. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of doctors, researchers, etc out there doing some great work. Mostly I blame the media I guess (yeah, there's an easy target). Every disease is a death sentence, every cure a life saver on the 10:00 news.
Whatever you decide to do, try to run your ideas by the students teacher(s) first. The teachers will know better than anyone what holds these students interest and what does not. They'll be able to tell you whether you need lots of pretty pictures/graphics, or can delve into some more advanced, less flashy topics.
Making fun of an Ask Slashdot by suggesting the poster is too lazy to find the answers for himself: How Original.