The Leonids happen every year, but on some years, they're brighter and fall at a greater frequency. It all depends on exactly how Earth passes through the Leonid stream from Comet Temple-Tuttle, which passes near our orbit every 33 years. However, even if the comet isn't there, its dust trails from previous orbits still are, and the big Leonid years are the years when we'll be passing through a more recent trail. Last year was supposed to be a Big Year because we passed through 2 dust trails. If this year is anything at all like last year, it should be a heck of a sight...
Now, if only there weren't that pesky nearly-full moon at the same time.
"As a new teacher, I have the crazy idea that I might be able to actually teach my students a few things that other teachers just don't seem to be able to teach."
As a new teacher, you have no idea what you're in for. I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm not saying it because I get a kick out of scaring soon-to-be teachers. I'm saying this because it's the truth. Teaching is wonderful, but very rarely a Dead Poets Society vision of inspiration, especially with elementary school students who have a hard enough time with long division. My advice to you is to wait a year before trying anything experimental. Establish yourself at the school. Make nice with the other teachers, especially those teaching the same grade as you. Get in there, and just experience what it's like to be a classroom teacher. You might decide that there just aren't enough hours in the day for your set curriculum, much less additional computer lessons. Depending on what grade you'll be teaching, you might realize that computer-based presentations and data analysis might actually be somewhat over the heads of your average elementary school students.
Once you've been in there for a little while, if you still feel that computers in the classroom is something that you want to do, you will probably need to talk to your school's principal, and maybe even your local school board. This is where your fellow grade level teachers will come in handy - see if you can all get together and do something as a unified grade level. It's one thing if one newbie teacher wants to do computer stuff. It's another if the whole grade level comes up with a curriculum and can present it realistically, with lessons and plans and everything. If you do something like this, your school district may well pay for at least some of what you'll need.
If you feel you absolutely have to do something like this right off the bat, see if you can start an after-school program. That way, the students who want to learn about computers can, and those who don't have a need at this point in their lives can concentrate on their math homework or what-have-you. Back when I was in 5th grade, there were about 10 of us who participated in an after-school BASIC programming course. Nothing against my other classmates, but this kind of thing would have been lost on them. By doing BASIC after school, our teacher had a much easier time of it, because only the kids who were really interested in it were there.
Wait a year. Make some friends. Figure out the office politics at your school (yes, there will be office politics). Find out what has been done before at your school, what has worked, what has failed. See what teaching is like WITHOUT trying to add in more material. You might figure out for yourself why other teachers just aren't able to teach additional subjects.
There's a story on Yahoo news regarding the deep linking brouhaha - it was written before the actual decision, but goes into what the big deal is. I will now deep link to it: deep linking story. Ironic, eh?
Plato - way ahead of his time
on
Space Music
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Back in the day, the ancient Greeks felt that music was closely aligned with astronomy and nature. In fact, Plato envisioned something called the "music of the spheres", which was made up of the natural harmonic tones supposedly produced by the movement of the stars and planets. Bizarre.
The school system in the county where I live implemented a huge technology program last year. They signed a deal with Apple, and now every high school and middle school student in the district has an iBook loaned to them for their years in school. It has turned out to be somewhat nightmarish. The school system was in such a rush to be the first to do a tech initiative on this scale that they didn't consider a lot of the logistic problems that would come up:
1) They didn't upgrade the network before adding 30,000 or so new people to it, which led to a lot of connection problems.
2) A lot of the teachers weren't tech-minded enough to be able to use the iBooks effectively in the classroom.
3) The students tended to use the iBooks for things like IM, IRC, and online games while in class. Some more industrious kids downloaded full-length porn movies. The amount of firewalling and filtering that the district had to put in place to counteract "unauthorized usage" is unreal.
4) Because of the pressure from the district to have paper-free classrooms, a lot of teachers had to switch to different texts solely because they were offered on CD-ROM. In most cases, the CD-ROM texts have either been not as well-written as the actual books, or are filled with errors.
Now, I like computers. However, I don't think an all-encompassing program like either the above-mentioned iBook fiasco or the PDA program in the article is appropriate. If the schools want to teach kids how to use computers, that's wonderful. The place for doing that, however, shouldn't be a math class. The main focus in any academic class should be the subject, NOT the nifty gadgets the school has. Our county school district here has made it quite clear that the technology being used is FAR more important than the subjects that the students are supposed to be learning, and I have to have a problem with that.
You want to teach computer skills to students in high school? Have a computer skills class. You feel that computer skills should be as important as other main subjects like English and math? Heck, make computers a part of the main curriculum. Just leave it out of the other classes, and let those teachers teach what they need to teach without wondering if they're effectively using the district-mandated tech stuff.
I work for Circuit City's corporate offices, and there has been NO announcement regarding a phase-out of VHS. Those of us here in Richmond are typically the first to know about things like this - I knew about the appliance phase out about a week before it was announced to the public. I'd take this whole article with a LARGE grain of salt, especially since it's entirely based on an unnamed spokesperson and a store employee.
Oh well, it wouldn't be Slashdot without unverified stories getting submitted and finding their way to the front page. If it's on a website, it must be true.
The article states pretty clearly that 7 of the judges for the competition will be watching the performances live. It is only the 8th judge who will be judging the Disklavier performance. This isn't a competition where people send in an audition tape (or in this case, a floppy disk) to represent them. The performance will be LIVE for 7 of the 8 judges, so I doubt there will be any cheating.
In my mind, it isn't much different from submitting audition tapes vs. auditioning live, and audition tapes are a widely accepted practice.
First, I want to state that I was a music major in college - a music theory geek, but a music person nonetheless. Thus, you can take my experience in the world of the CS minor with a grain of salt.
We had one professor who gave out skeleton code that had, WITHOUT FAIL, at least 5 major errors per project. We had a couple of these things that wouldn't even COMPILE, much less run. I had two other classes where the professor prided himself on the fact that, because the texts were so poorly written, it was impossible to understand anything unless you went in for extra help for 2-3 hours a week. And I'm not just talking about the people who somehow get into upper level classes despite the fact that they're complete morons. EVERYONE in those classes was clueless, even the ones who came out of the womb spouting shortest path algorithms, and the professor thought it was a tremendous laugh. And my favorite part was the Networking class where we spent an inordinate amount of time learning about the ARPAnet, but didn't actually learn how to set up or maintain a network.
Now, this school obviously wasn't a CS powerhouse. However, once I started actually taking courses, I found that the prevailing opinion of the CS majors in my classes was that the department was just plain awful. So, from all of this, a simple lesson: if you can get in touch with some of the current students, do it. Ask them about the professors, the classes, the department in general, whether or not you'll learn anything that will be applicable to real world situations, etc. The admissions department will lie, the professors are certainly not going to tell you, "Oh, yes, I teach entirely from overhead transparencies, which is boring, and discourages nasty things like class discussion as a bonus," but by and large, the students will tell it like it is. Just like Dr. Phil, only less grating and self-aggrandizing.
1. Instead of hauling CD's back and forth between home, car, and work, I can make an extra copy to leave in my car if I so choose.
2. My apartment was broken into last year, and the thugs took my roommate's entire CD collection, including some albums that she will probably never be able to replace. You better believe I started making back-up copies of my CD's after that happened.
3. I've copied tracks on to my computer so I can just play them without having to get the CD out.
I, for one, actually OWN a legitimate copy of every CD I have. That doesn't mean I don't need or want an extra copy for myself. Not everyone who is against copy-protection is stealing music, which is what lovely folks like the RIAA seem to forget.
Earlier this morning I was reading this story at Yahoo. It's nice that they give a passing mention to the fact that the economy is sluggish in general these days. However, the music industry can't turn "the economy" into its number one enemy, so the article really doesn't focus on that ridiculous theory.
My favorite part of the article may be the quote from Jorgen Larsen about the possibility of more copy-protected CD's in the future: "Because of the incredibly low number of consumer complaints we've received, I would say that on most major pop releases we would put in place copy protection." Of course, he's referring to More Music from The Fast and The Furious... someone should tell the poor man that this doesn't qualify as a "major pop release."
I'd be amused if they tried copy protection on, say, the next Britney Spears endeavor... I bet they'd get a few complaints (check out some of the Amazon reviews of Fast&Furious to read some fantastic "This won't play on any of my 4 stereos" tales)
Ok, no, New Jersey isn't a corporation. However, NJN (a Jersey-based PBS station) used to play the following at the end of their broadcast day, accompanied by an appropriately inspirational video, shot circa 1982:
New Jersey, each day your beauty shines from farmland to the shore; New Jersey, in this great land there is no place that offers more. Together, we see the dreams we dare to dream all coming true - they're my dreams, too.
New Jersey, your cities help to make this nation strong and free; New Jersey, your courage comes alive in every face I see; Together, we'll face the challenge of tomorrow and today - Now we're on the way!
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty! Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key! Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be. Positively New Jersey - and...
[musical flourish with jarring key change]
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty! Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key! Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be. Positively New Jersey, Positively New Jersey, Positively New Jersey - and me.
[end]
I have this on tape and have shown it to many friends, both from New Jersey and not from New Jersey. The reaction is a mix of horror and uncontrollable bladder-bursting laughter.
Oh, and I forgot about the porn problem. This article comes from the 12/5/01 Richmond Times-Dispatch, and the link may go bad in a few days. To sum it up, it seems some of the students have started saving porn of all kinds on to the iBooks. Teachers are noticing students with erotic desktop wallpaper, students watching porn movies in class, and the tech people are finding even more stuff when the iBooks go in for servicing. It seems the parents are not thrilled about this development....
I too live in Henrico County, and have seen the school district try to implement their iBook plan. The key word is "try". I'm not a student there, so I've been getting information from the local papers and friends I have who are teachers. It sounds like a positive nightmare for education. As usual, the school administrators pushed for the iBook program to happen (the Henrico county school district is the first public school district in the US with a plan like this), but they didn't make any plans for the tremendous strain this would create on the established network. They didn't notice that many of the better textbooks do not have a software copy, so the school district has had to switch to texts that aren't as well-written, just so that they can justify the iBooks. The laptops themselves are prone to crashing, and was stated in the parent post, the students tend to use them for IM and games (go figure).
There was an article a few weeks ago in our local paper (I don't think it's archived any more, or I'd provide a link) about a small delegation of students and teachers from Maine who came down here, and sat in on a few classes at one of the counties best high schools. The point was for them to see how the iBooks were used in class, and to get an idea of how people feel about the plan. Now, the teachers in the district have basically been told "Say anything bad about it and you're fired." However, the students were VERY liberal with their complaints. Apparently, the idea of a good eduaction actually appealed to them more than being able to have instant messenger in class.
Hopefully, Maine will learn from what went wrong here. Until technology can be used effectively in the general classroom, it should probably be saved for a specialized computer class.
Re:This is the coolest governor ever
on
Technology and Society
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I live in Henrico County VA, which just struck a deal with Apple to loan every high school student in the district an iBook, and the current school year is the first year to see it implemented. It was the kind of thing where they did it because they could, not because they should. They're the first school district in the country to do this on such a large scale, and it's such a fantastic accomplishment that Steve Jobs himself came out and told everyone, "Look at how fantastic this is." The school district figured they'd get themselves some national exposure and make themselves look incredibly important. They didn't count on a few things, though.
First, they forgot that your average high school student, when given a network-equipped laptop to use in class, is probably going to use it for things like games, surfing the internet, and IM. The teachers are having tremendous difficulty maintaining classroom discipline, and are having to tell students that they're not allowed to use the iBooks. The irony is that just about every class has been redesigned to allow for CONSTANT use of the iBooks - accessing notes, lecture outlines, even textbooks online.
The teachers have been told by the school district that they aren't allowed to say anything "negative" about the program, so they're being forced to give anonymous quotes to the local papers. Some of the ones that have offered anonymous negative quotes have said that they would LOVE to say who they are, but have been told that doing so will all but guarantee their termination of employment.
The other problem is that, because they rushed into this just so they could be first, they didn't think to UPGRADE THE NETWORK. I don't know what kind of connection they have, but putting a few thousand extra people on it has led to a lot of crashing.
I definitely think that there's a time and a place for technology in schools. By all means, teach them how to do things like use a word processor and a spreadsheet, things that will help them later on. I think there is also such a thing as overdoing it, and this is what people need to be careful of.
I realize that I'm about to get myself modded down to about -20. That said, I have to point out that they did write most of the material on Celebrity. I was a music major, and I happen to love them - not because I have some sort of religious experience when I listen to them, but because the music is fun. I still love classical music, and I have my list of Bands I Like That Nobody Else Has Heard Of, but sometimes, I just want to listen to something that's cheesy and doesn't take itself seriously. I have to love any group that has a song about cybersex.
Also, they put on a heck of a live show - and I do mean LIVE. Believe me, there are plenty of wrong notes that wouldn't be there if they weren't singing live.
I had no trouble at all getting MP3's off of Celebrity. It's kind of hard to believe that a record company would try this with an album this widely distributed, especially one with a primary fan base of teens who are quite familiar with the Napster way of life. I would have pictured it with a country album, which might appeal to a less tech-savvy demographic. Of course, with the Universal deal a few days ago, I have a feeling "fair use" is about to go right out the window. The second I get a cd that won't play in my computer, I'll be taking it back for a refund.
Want a truly horrible experience? Read "Congo".
Better yet, see the movie. Years later, I still can't believe I paid perfectly good money to see it. It was a matinee, so it was cheaper, but still not worth it. Poorly crafted creature effects, including bloodthirsty hippos... I seem to recall thinking the part with the eyeball was cool, but I had no use for the movie beyond that.
A friend of mine (a horribly misguided friend) uses MSN dial-up access... stays away from MSN Explorer, thankfully, but the damage is already done. Anyway, in accordance with their spam policy, MSN now blocks access to all SMTP servers except for smtp.email.msn.com or whatever it is, so now anyone using MSN dial-up can't send mail through their own mail servers. I personally think that they should prove that a person is a spammer before restricting their access like that, but Microsoft and I tend to not always agree on things. I just think it's kind of funny, seeing that Hotmail is one of the most easily accessible spam account providers...
Music legends Don Henley and Alanis Morrisette urged more online freedoms that strengthen ties between artists and fans rather than enrich the coffers of giant record labels.
It looks like they wouldn't refer to it as stolen music after all.
Well, no one has ever met my hamster. I call her "Zippy." Her day consists of sleeping and eating. If truly inspired, she runs on her hamster wheel for 10 minutes, and then returns to sleeping and eating.
The question is not how many hamsters would it take, but rather, how would you motivate the hamsters to work, given their rather lethargic nature? I can see my hamster getting worked up about it for about 2 minutes, if a yogurt drop or other tasty treat were involved. Beyond that, best of luck.
Forgive my grammatically horrendous sentence structure. I should have said "It goes on to say that people will pay $.25 for each download, WHICH will only be available on one's hard drive for 48 hours, at which point the person has to pay again." I didn't mean to imply that the PEOPLE are, in fact, on hard drives. I can hear my high school English teachers crying.
I work for Circuit City in Richmond, and as a corporate employee, I have access to the company's internal news site. It's usually a bunch of reports about a new store or corporate earnings. Today I was greeted with a stock of April Fools stories, and one definitely takes the cake:
Napster Adopts Divx Encryption System
In a move that shocked everyone in the music and electronics industries, Napster announced today that it has arranged to purchase the multi-layered encryption technology behind Divx, the now-defunct pay-per-play DVD platform from electronics retailer Circuit City. "We've been aware of the Divx technology for quite a while," said Hank Barry, chief executive. "But it wasn't until fairly recently that we knew how it could help solve [Napster's] copyright infringement issues."
It goes on to say that people will pay $.25 for each download and will only be available on your hard drive for 48 hours, at which point you pay again. I especially like the part where it says that when you sign up, you'll be sent a "coin recognition box" that connects to your USB port, thus requiring you to pay cash: "It even takes Canadian coins."
I hear you there. I moved to VA from NJ a few years ago, and I continue to find myself a bit frightened by people here, particularly politicians. It is nice to see that there might be some folks in Congress who are actually trying to make things better for those of us who have to live with their laws.
I got mine on a band tour bus going to beautiful King of Prussia PA. We were passing part of the 5-6 hour ride watching "Grease," and when skanky Cha Cha DiGregorio came on screen, I was the only one who could remember her name. That was four years ago, and the name has stuck big time. A couple of my friends' parents call me chacha (or the shorter version, 'chach'), instead of Jen, which is my more official name. Heck, it even got back to some of my college professors, who also started referring to me as chacha in class. I'm pretty sure I have friends who don't know my real name... anyway, when I got into IRC a couple of years ago, it was a pretty easy choice for me.
Slashdot Mirror
The Leonids happen every year, but on some years, they're brighter and fall at a greater frequency. It all depends on exactly how Earth passes through the Leonid stream from Comet Temple-Tuttle, which passes near our orbit every 33 years. However, even if the comet isn't there, its dust trails from previous orbits still are, and the big Leonid years are the years when we'll be passing through a more recent trail. Last year was supposed to be a Big Year because we passed through 2 dust trails. If this year is anything at all like last year, it should be a heck of a sight...
Now, if only there weren't that pesky nearly-full moon at the same time.
"As a new teacher, I have the crazy idea that I might be able to actually teach my students a few things that other teachers just don't seem to be able to teach."
As a new teacher, you have no idea what you're in for. I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm not saying it because I get a kick out of scaring soon-to-be teachers. I'm saying this because it's the truth. Teaching is wonderful, but very rarely a Dead Poets Society vision of inspiration, especially with elementary school students who have a hard enough time with long division. My advice to you is to wait a year before trying anything experimental. Establish yourself at the school. Make nice with the other teachers, especially those teaching the same grade as you. Get in there, and just experience what it's like to be a classroom teacher. You might decide that there just aren't enough hours in the day for your set curriculum, much less additional computer lessons. Depending on what grade you'll be teaching, you might realize that computer-based presentations and data analysis might actually be somewhat over the heads of your average elementary school students.
Once you've been in there for a little while, if you still feel that computers in the classroom is something that you want to do, you will probably need to talk to your school's principal, and maybe even your local school board. This is where your fellow grade level teachers will come in handy - see if you can all get together and do something as a unified grade level. It's one thing if one newbie teacher wants to do computer stuff. It's another if the whole grade level comes up with a curriculum and can present it realistically, with lessons and plans and everything. If you do something like this, your school district may well pay for at least some of what you'll need.
If you feel you absolutely have to do something like this right off the bat, see if you can start an after-school program. That way, the students who want to learn about computers can, and those who don't have a need at this point in their lives can concentrate on their math homework or what-have-you. Back when I was in 5th grade, there were about 10 of us who participated in an after-school BASIC programming course. Nothing against my other classmates, but this kind of thing would have been lost on them. By doing BASIC after school, our teacher had a much easier time of it, because only the kids who were really interested in it were there.
Wait a year. Make some friends. Figure out the office politics at your school (yes, there will be office politics). Find out what has been done before at your school, what has worked, what has failed. See what teaching is like WITHOUT trying to add in more material. You might figure out for yourself why other teachers just aren't able to teach additional subjects.
There's a story on Yahoo news regarding the deep linking brouhaha - it was written before the actual decision, but goes into what the big deal is. I will now deep link to it: deep linking story. Ironic, eh?
Back in the day, the ancient Greeks felt that music was closely aligned with astronomy and nature. In fact, Plato envisioned something called the "music of the spheres", which was made up of the natural harmonic tones supposedly produced by the movement of the stars and planets. Bizarre.
So, were the bums running Linux or something?
I can't entirely figure out what this has to do with nerd/geek/tech stuff...
The school system in the county where I live implemented a huge technology program last year. They signed a deal with Apple, and now every high school and middle school student in the district has an iBook loaned to them for their years in school. It has turned out to be somewhat nightmarish. The school system was in such a rush to be the first to do a tech initiative on this scale that they didn't consider a lot of the logistic problems that would come up:
1) They didn't upgrade the network before adding 30,000 or so new people to it, which led to a lot of connection problems.
2) A lot of the teachers weren't tech-minded enough to be able to use the iBooks effectively in the classroom.
3) The students tended to use the iBooks for things like IM, IRC, and online games while in class. Some more industrious kids downloaded full-length porn movies. The amount of firewalling and filtering that the district had to put in place to counteract "unauthorized usage" is unreal.
4) Because of the pressure from the district to have paper-free classrooms, a lot of teachers had to switch to different texts solely because they were offered on CD-ROM. In most cases, the CD-ROM texts have either been not as well-written as the actual books, or are filled with errors.
Now, I like computers. However, I don't think an all-encompassing program like either the above-mentioned iBook fiasco or the PDA program in the article is appropriate. If the schools want to teach kids how to use computers, that's wonderful. The place for doing that, however, shouldn't be a math class. The main focus in any academic class should be the subject, NOT the nifty gadgets the school has. Our county school district here has made it quite clear that the technology being used is FAR more important than the subjects that the students are supposed to be learning, and I have to have a problem with that.
You want to teach computer skills to students in high school? Have a computer skills class. You feel that computer skills should be as important as other main subjects like English and math? Heck, make computers a part of the main curriculum. Just leave it out of the other classes, and let those teachers teach what they need to teach without wondering if they're effectively using the district-mandated tech stuff.
Well, yeah. OBVIOUSLY the scientists strive to emulate BattleBots, or maybe Robot Wars (take your pick).
We can only hope the lab has buzz saws and a spike strip...
I work for Circuit City's corporate offices, and there has been NO announcement regarding a phase-out of VHS. Those of us here in Richmond are typically the first to know about things like this - I knew about the appliance phase out about a week before it was announced to the public. I'd take this whole article with a LARGE grain of salt, especially since it's entirely based on an unnamed spokesperson and a store employee.
Oh well, it wouldn't be Slashdot without unverified stories getting submitted and finding their way to the front page. If it's on a website, it must be true.
The article states pretty clearly that 7 of the judges for the competition will be watching the performances live. It is only the 8th judge who will be judging the Disklavier performance. This isn't a competition where people send in an audition tape (or in this case, a floppy disk) to represent them. The performance will be LIVE for 7 of the 8 judges, so I doubt there will be any cheating.
In my mind, it isn't much different from submitting audition tapes vs. auditioning live, and audition tapes are a widely accepted practice.
We had one professor who gave out skeleton code that had, WITHOUT FAIL, at least 5 major errors per project. We had a couple of these things that wouldn't even COMPILE, much less run. I had two other classes where the professor prided himself on the fact that, because the texts were so poorly written, it was impossible to understand anything unless you went in for extra help for 2-3 hours a week. And I'm not just talking about the people who somehow get into upper level classes despite the fact that they're complete morons. EVERYONE in those classes was clueless, even the ones who came out of the womb spouting shortest path algorithms, and the professor thought it was a tremendous laugh. And my favorite part was the Networking class where we spent an inordinate amount of time learning about the ARPAnet, but didn't actually learn how to set up or maintain a network.
Now, this school obviously wasn't a CS powerhouse. However, once I started actually taking courses, I found that the prevailing opinion of the CS majors in my classes was that the department was just plain awful. So, from all of this, a simple lesson: if you can get in touch with some of the current students, do it. Ask them about the professors, the classes, the department in general, whether or not you'll learn anything that will be applicable to real world situations, etc. The admissions department will lie, the professors are certainly not going to tell you, "Oh, yes, I teach entirely from overhead transparencies, which is boring, and discourages nasty things like class discussion as a bonus," but by and large, the students will tell it like it is. Just like Dr. Phil, only less grating and self-aggrandizing.
1. Instead of hauling CD's back and forth between home, car, and work, I can make an extra copy to leave in my car if I so choose.
2. My apartment was broken into last year, and the thugs took my roommate's entire CD collection, including some albums that she will probably never be able to replace. You better believe I started making back-up copies of my CD's after that happened.
3. I've copied tracks on to my computer so I can just play them without having to get the CD out.
I, for one, actually OWN a legitimate copy of every CD I have. That doesn't mean I don't need or want an extra copy for myself. Not everyone who is against copy-protection is stealing music, which is what lovely folks like the RIAA seem to forget.
My favorite part of the article may be the quote from Jorgen Larsen about the possibility of more copy-protected CD's in the future: "Because of the incredibly low number of consumer complaints we've received, I would say that on most major pop releases we would put in place copy protection." Of course, he's referring to More Music from The Fast and The Furious... someone should tell the poor man that this doesn't qualify as a "major pop release."
I'd be amused if they tried copy protection on, say, the next Britney Spears endeavor... I bet they'd get a few complaints (check out some of the Amazon reviews of Fast&Furious to read some fantastic "This won't play on any of my 4 stereos" tales)
Ok, no, New Jersey isn't a corporation. However, NJN (a Jersey-based PBS station) used to play the following at the end of their broadcast day, accompanied by an appropriately inspirational video, shot circa 1982:
New Jersey, each day your beauty shines from farmland to the shore;
New Jersey, in this great land there is no place that offers more.
Together, we see the dreams we dare to dream all coming true -
they're my dreams, too.
New Jersey, your cities help to make this nation strong and free;
New Jersey, your courage comes alive in every face I see;
Together, we'll face the challenge of tomorrow and today -
Now we're on the way!
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty!
Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key!
Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be.
Positively New Jersey - and...
[musical flourish with jarring key change]
Positively New Jersey, you stand for liberty!
Positively New Jersey, your people hold the key!
Our spirit makes us everything a state could hope to be.
Positively New Jersey,
Positively New Jersey,
Positively New Jersey - and me.
[end]
I have this on tape and have shown it to many friends, both from New Jersey and not from New Jersey. The reaction is a mix of horror and uncontrollable bladder-bursting laughter.
And no, I am not making this up.
Oh, and I forgot about the porn problem. This article comes from the 12/5/01 Richmond Times-Dispatch, and the link may go bad in a few days. To sum it up, it seems some of the students have started saving porn of all kinds on to the iBooks. Teachers are noticing students with erotic desktop wallpaper, students watching porn movies in class, and the tech people are finding even more stuff when the iBooks go in for servicing. It seems the parents are not thrilled about this development....
I too live in Henrico County, and have seen the school district try to implement their iBook plan. The key word is "try". I'm not a student there, so I've been getting information from the local papers and friends I have who are teachers. It sounds like a positive nightmare for education. As usual, the school administrators pushed for the iBook program to happen (the Henrico county school district is the first public school district in the US with a plan like this), but they didn't make any plans for the tremendous strain this would create on the established network. They didn't notice that many of the better textbooks do not have a software copy, so the school district has had to switch to texts that aren't as well-written, just so that they can justify the iBooks. The laptops themselves are prone to crashing, and was stated in the parent post, the students tend to use them for IM and games (go figure).
There was an article a few weeks ago in our local paper (I don't think it's archived any more, or I'd provide a link) about a small delegation of students and teachers from Maine who came down here, and sat in on a few classes at one of the counties best high schools. The point was for them to see how the iBooks were used in class, and to get an idea of how people feel about the plan. Now, the teachers in the district have basically been told "Say anything bad about it and you're fired." However, the students were VERY liberal with their complaints. Apparently, the idea of a good eduaction actually appealed to them more than being able to have instant messenger in class.
Hopefully, Maine will learn from what went wrong here. Until technology can be used effectively in the general classroom, it should probably be saved for a specialized computer class.
First, they forgot that your average high school student, when given a network-equipped laptop to use in class, is probably going to use it for things like games, surfing the internet, and IM. The teachers are having tremendous difficulty maintaining classroom discipline, and are having to tell students that they're not allowed to use the iBooks. The irony is that just about every class has been redesigned to allow for CONSTANT use of the iBooks - accessing notes, lecture outlines, even textbooks online.
The teachers have been told by the school district that they aren't allowed to say anything "negative" about the program, so they're being forced to give anonymous quotes to the local papers. Some of the ones that have offered anonymous negative quotes have said that they would LOVE to say who they are, but have been told that doing so will all but guarantee their termination of employment.
The other problem is that, because they rushed into this just so they could be first, they didn't think to UPGRADE THE NETWORK. I don't know what kind of connection they have, but putting a few thousand extra people on it has led to a lot of crashing.
I definitely think that there's a time and a place for technology in schools. By all means, teach them how to do things like use a word processor and a spreadsheet, things that will help them later on. I think there is also such a thing as overdoing it, and this is what people need to be careful of.
I realize that I'm about to get myself modded down to about -20. That said, I have to point out that they did write most of the material on Celebrity. I was a music major, and I happen to love them - not because I have some sort of religious experience when I listen to them, but because the music is fun. I still love classical music, and I have my list of Bands I Like That Nobody Else Has Heard Of, but sometimes, I just want to listen to something that's cheesy and doesn't take itself seriously. I have to love any group that has a song about cybersex.
Also, they put on a heck of a live show - and I do mean LIVE. Believe me, there are plenty of wrong notes that wouldn't be there if they weren't singing live.
I had no trouble at all getting MP3's off of Celebrity. It's kind of hard to believe that a record company would try this with an album this widely distributed, especially one with a primary fan base of teens who are quite familiar with the Napster way of life. I would have pictured it with a country album, which might appeal to a less tech-savvy demographic. Of course, with the Universal deal a few days ago, I have a feeling "fair use" is about to go right out the window. The second I get a cd that won't play in my computer, I'll be taking it back for a refund.
Want a truly horrible experience? Read "Congo".
Better yet, see the movie. Years later, I still can't believe I paid perfectly good money to see it. It was a matinee, so it was cheaper, but still not worth it. Poorly crafted creature effects, including bloodthirsty hippos... I seem to recall thinking the part with the eyeball was cool, but I had no use for the movie beyond that.
A friend of mine (a horribly misguided friend) uses MSN dial-up access... stays away from MSN Explorer, thankfully, but the damage is already done. Anyway, in accordance with their spam policy, MSN now blocks access to all SMTP servers except for smtp.email.msn.com or whatever it is, so now anyone using MSN dial-up can't send mail through their own mail servers. I personally think that they should prove that a person is a spammer before restricting their access like that, but Microsoft and I tend to not always agree on things. I just think it's kind of funny, seeing that Hotmail is one of the most easily accessible spam account providers...
It looks like they wouldn't refer to it as stolen music after all.
Well, no one has ever met my hamster. I call her "Zippy." Her day consists of sleeping and eating. If truly inspired, she runs on her hamster wheel for 10 minutes, and then returns to sleeping and eating.
The question is not how many hamsters would it take, but rather, how would you motivate the hamsters to work, given their rather lethargic nature? I can see my hamster getting worked up about it for about 2 minutes, if a yogurt drop or other tasty treat were involved. Beyond that, best of luck.
Darn antisocial rodent.
Forgive my grammatically horrendous sentence structure. I should have said "It goes on to say that people will pay $.25 for each download, WHICH will only be available on one's hard drive for 48 hours, at which point the person has to pay again." I didn't mean to imply that the PEOPLE are, in fact, on hard drives. I can hear my high school English teachers crying.
It goes on to say that people will pay $.25 for each download and will only be available on your hard drive for 48 hours, at which point you pay again. I especially like the part where it says that when you sign up, you'll be sent a "coin recognition box" that connects to your USB port, thus requiring you to pay cash: "It even takes Canadian coins."
I had a pretty good chuckle.
I hear you there. I moved to VA from NJ a few years ago, and I continue to find myself a bit frightened by people here, particularly politicians. It is nice to see that there might be some folks in Congress who are actually trying to make things better for those of us who have to live with their laws.
I got mine on a band tour bus going to beautiful King of Prussia PA. We were passing part of the 5-6 hour ride watching "Grease," and when skanky Cha Cha DiGregorio came on screen, I was the only one who could remember her name. That was four years ago, and the name has stuck big time. A couple of my friends' parents call me chacha (or the shorter version, 'chach'), instead of Jen, which is my more official name. Heck, it even got back to some of my college professors, who also started referring to me as chacha in class. I'm pretty sure I have friends who don't know my real name... anyway, when I got into IRC a couple of years ago, it was a pretty easy choice for me.