Back in the industrial revolution, they called them Luddites, they broke the looms in the factories of the north of England because they threatened their livelihood as independant weavers.
This is different, the issue is not that the computers per se are a bad thing (most if not all correspondants to slashdot discussions are computer professionals) it is that their use in education (in junior schools) is inappropriate.
Like many of the people who have written on this article, I was lucky to have a sufficiently enlightened math teacher in junior school (actually up to age 13) we were not allowed to use calculators for any reason until it was appropriate to do so.
what is the most important thing that you learn at junior school? math? history? geography? latin? french?... none of these, but how to learn. This, together with the reading, writing and number skills which are to some extent facilitators and colatteral benefits set you up for a productive life in the future.
My real issue with the focus on the computers is that the use of computers for study is useless if you don't know how to evaluate the sources you use, focus on the job in hand (very difficult to do in some instaces) or organise information on a basic level. You need to know how to make these sorts of decisions before stepping to the keyboard.
Maybe I am a luddite - I prefer to use pen and ink to get my first draft of a document in place so that I can use my touch-typing skills to get it all down on the computer, I then edit offline on paper. It means that the iterations in producing a document are generally fewer and the text has generally been fully proofed before it goes out to its intended readership.
Computers are no panacea, I expect them to disappear from the home as monolithic items within the next five years, giving way to items which perform specific functions.
After all, who wants to spend their time farting about with a computer when there is snow to be skiied, waves to surf, lawns to mow, beer to be drunk......
Seems to me that the subterfuge in this is not really gartner, but the definition of the survey.
IIRC, it's all based on the "shipped OS" - which is defined, as you would expect, in the definition of what is being surveyed.
this, of course, leaves it wide open for interested parties to imply other parameters (since people are usually too lazy or ignorant to read and understand such terms of reference) when they commentate on the findings. Far to much of this corporate spin-doctoring going on at the moment! - after all they're not going to headline "OEMs predominantly shipping Windows in pre-installed market" - not enough spin there to stir a cup of tea.
starts off badly with the billing of nokia "branching out" (I believe that they once made auto tyres, amongst other things!), and no understanding whatsoever of the meaning of appliances for the masses. Wierd to see someone utterly blind to the dead-end that "pc"s are becoming.
Well, most home users don't really need full-blown-computers for most of their surfing &c, so why not get better web enablement for them - the linux/qt/qte model should work pretty well - especially if you chuck in a good browser.
alternately, surely there is scope for a mozilla based webtop?
I have tried the dreamcast browser - it is apalling, with a linux sitting under it its far easier to get the more interesting plugins etc. provided for users so that they just slip the relavent boot cd and run from there - get larget memory capacities in the controller memory packs, and you can even start to flash into them!.
of course, this opens up the whole terminal/.net thing again, but using a more flexible lightweight computing platform than whatever redmond are able to do.
It all depends on the data really, and having a sufficiently accurate set of clocks.
I figure that you could use NMEA streams, qualified system time (sufficiently accurate xntp supported clock)and time to & at destination. to work a 4 way "locatication".
The nmea protocol spits out all sorts of satellite specific data which will only be valid under the correct location, this could be refered to a clearing house to get a validation for a given location & its satelites (rather than have the astrometric database in the open).
This would of course link to the authenticating system's time, and the network lag involved in the transaction. (ie is the data being spoofed)
I have Lucent's Orinoco Gold working under Linux 2.2.17, uses the wvlan module. it's also 11Mb/s speed now, with a 10/100 base station.
I am also making it availible on my network for the more mobile users - who typically want to be running about having meetings while still connected.
now, if my portable's screen wasn't hooped...
generally, it seems great, just a shame that there seem to be so few snmp products kicking about under linux... (if you know some good ones, pls let me know!)
I am now waiting to get my hands onto an ipac handheld - and have gnu/icq all over the offic
However the longer it takes, the less likely that there is to be a credible software superpower to provide the competition to drive the monolith into beneficial and open competition.
I am of the opinion that the best thing that can happen to microsoft - from the point of view of their products - is to be split as Judge Jackson recommended. Then they may actually get to writing good OS software and good app software instead of blending the two into the abortion that they are producing at the moment.... not to mention providing a good platform for other software packages - so leveraging their OS.
just makes sense that way.
... oh, and re-open alcatraz for the marketting types - keep them out of the damned product!
Although Ironically, If I were getting a machine just for web, email and fuzzy home stuff, I'd get a nice shiny iMac (at the moment) - or wait for one of those Gateway lcd/touch/etc consoles.
If you use a server version, you already have to spend bucketloads on the damned software licenses... for each fun thing you might like to do... "client access licenses" I believe they call them. ramps the cost well beyond the $1000.
then of course there are SQL7 and other "premium" stuff.
Seems strange that he considers that MacOS - single threaded and single user (to all intents & purposes - I forget details) is an improvement on full network-based operating systems.
MacOS wasn't the invention - the GUI was, and that mostly came from Xerox Parc - almost wholesale!
"Because we don't believe in technological change (we only say we do), we accept bad computer products with a shrug.... [etc]"... Frankly, the market is not in the least ready for what it is possible to throw at it - and I am not sure that it ever will be! Computers are still in the "bigger, better, faster, more" world of the automobile. This is quite simply absurd - a clear indication that the users simply cannot absorb the product at the moment - they are too interested in the latest numbers and models.
Consider: windows 2000 - must be better than 'VCR with curses interface 1.0' - bigger number... the latter is of more use to the user - they can say anything they like, so long as it records the "**(£"&%(£%&") tv programme!
Computing only becomes really interesting as it becomes pervasive - and at this point it gets so far from the user that the network can actually take the initiative - blending what some people are doing today with the everyday operations that people consider mundane into a heady coctail of information to further the goals of domestic (or otherwise) life.
Everything that the user is doing - that is everything beyond developing the sytstems to underpin the operation - is simply a baseline interaction which is inconsequential to their real goals. Sure, the urban-fetch idea is fun, and to some extent in this semi-wired world, forward thinking - but it should not be so necessary to request the stuff, it should just happen for you - they have all your information, after all!
In summary: Computer use is fine, but the user has to understand the interface, or at least what they can do with the interface. If this does not happen, the greatest applications will fall on their face & sink into the mire. For example: Flight simulators do a great job of simulating flight operations - full force feedback, visual and aural cues - but if you can't fly you will get nothing from the cues, you simply don't understand them.
The question remains: who will write the new generations of system software for the basic systems and gadgets? the answer is probably something along the lines of "those who still can"
True, but most altimeters are calibrated on atmospheric pressure, which will alter considerably depending on your position wrt weather systems etc. Equally, Radar Altimeters are only a part of a solution, because the earth's crust has a tendancy to flex under the tectonic forces (great application for GPS, incidentally!) - if you are military, you don't want to use your radalt unless you really need it, because they use high intensity rapid sweep(IIRC) radar systems - which light up your position like a microwave xmas tree.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the industrial revolution, they called them Luddites, they broke the looms in the factories of the north of England because they threatened their livelihood as independant weavers.
... none of these, but how to learn. This, together with the reading, writing and number skills which are to some extent facilitators and colatteral benefits set you up for a productive life in the future.
This is different, the issue is not that the computers per se are a bad thing (most if not all correspondants to slashdot discussions are computer professionals) it is that their use in education (in junior schools) is inappropriate.
Like many of the people who have written on this article, I was lucky to have a sufficiently enlightened math teacher in junior school (actually up to age 13) we were not allowed to use calculators for any reason until it was appropriate to do so.
what is the most important thing that you learn at junior school? math? history? geography? latin? french?
My real issue with the focus on the computers is that the use of computers for study is useless if you don't know how to evaluate the sources you use, focus on the job in hand (very difficult to do in some instaces) or organise information on a basic level. You need to know how to make these sorts of decisions before stepping to the keyboard.
Maybe I am a luddite - I prefer to use pen and ink to get my first draft of a document in place so that I can use my touch-typing skills to get it all down on the computer, I then edit offline on paper. It means that the iterations in producing a document are generally fewer and the text has generally been fully proofed before it goes out to its intended readership.
Computers are no panacea, I expect them to disappear from the home as monolithic items within the next five years, giving way to items which perform specific functions.
After all, who wants to spend their time farting about with a computer when there is snow to be skiied, waves to surf, lawns to mow, beer to be drunk......
IIRC, it's all based on the "shipped OS" - which is defined, as you would expect, in the definition of what is being surveyed.
this, of course, leaves it wide open for interested parties to imply other parameters (since people are usually too lazy or ignorant to read and understand such terms of reference) when they commentate on the findings. Far to much of this corporate spin-doctoring going on at the moment! - after all they're not going to headline "OEMs predominantly shipping Windows in pre-installed market" - not enough spin there to stir a cup of tea.
starts off badly with the billing of nokia "branching out" (I believe that they once made auto tyres, amongst other things!), and no understanding whatsoever of the meaning of appliances for the masses. Wierd to see someone utterly blind to the dead-end that "pc"s are becoming.
alternately, surely there is scope for a mozilla based webtop?
I have tried the dreamcast browser - it is apalling, with a linux sitting under it its far easier to get the more interesting plugins etc. provided for users so that they just slip the relavent boot cd and run from there - get larget memory capacities in the controller memory packs, and you can even start to flash into them!.
of course, this opens up the whole terminal/.net thing again, but using a more flexible lightweight computing platform than whatever redmond are able to do.
I figure that you could use NMEA streams, qualified system time (sufficiently accurate xntp supported clock)and time to & at destination. to work a 4 way "locatication".
The nmea protocol spits out all sorts of satellite specific data which will only be valid under the correct location, this could be refered to a clearing house to get a validation for a given location & its satelites (rather than have the astrometric database in the open).
This would of course link to the authenticating system's time, and the network lag involved in the transaction. (ie is the data being spoofed)
I am also making it availible on my network for the more mobile users - who typically want to be running about having meetings while still connected.
now, if my portable's screen wasn't hooped...
generally, it seems great, just a shame that there seem to be so few snmp products kicking about under linux... (if you know some good ones, pls let me know!)
I am now waiting to get my hands onto an ipac handheld - and have gnu/icq all over the offic
I am of the opinion that the best thing that can happen to microsoft - from the point of view of their products - is to be split as Judge Jackson recommended. Then they may actually get to writing good OS software and good app software instead of blending the two into the abortion that they are producing at the moment.... not to mention providing a good platform for other software packages - so leveraging their OS.
just makes sense that way.
[roll on mozilla!]
If you use a server version, you already have to spend bucketloads on the damned software licenses... for each fun thing you might like to do... "client access licenses" I believe they call them. ramps the cost well beyond the $1000.
then of course there are SQL7 and other "premium" stuff.
MacOS wasn't the invention - the GUI was, and that mostly came from Xerox Parc - almost wholesale!
"Because we don't believe in technological change (we only say we do), we accept bad computer products with a shrug.... [etc]" ... Frankly, the market is not in the least ready for what it is possible to throw at it - and I am not sure that it ever will be! Computers are still in the "bigger, better, faster, more" world of the automobile. This is quite simply absurd - a clear indication that the users simply cannot absorb the product at the moment - they are too interested in the latest numbers and models.
Consider: windows 2000 - must be better than 'VCR with curses interface 1.0' - bigger number... the latter is of more use to the user - they can say anything they like, so long as it records the "**(£"&%(£%&") tv programme!
Computing only becomes really interesting as it becomes pervasive - and at this point it gets so far from the user that the network can actually take the initiative - blending what some people are doing today with the everyday operations that people consider mundane into a heady coctail of information to further the goals of domestic (or otherwise) life.
Everything that the user is doing - that is everything beyond developing the sytstems to underpin the operation - is simply a baseline interaction which is inconsequential to their real goals. Sure, the urban-fetch idea is fun, and to some extent in this semi-wired world, forward thinking - but it should not be so necessary to request the stuff, it should just happen for you - they have all your information, after all!
In summary:
Computer use is fine, but the user has to understand the interface, or at least what they can do with the interface. If this does not happen, the greatest applications will fall on their face & sink into the mire.
For example: Flight simulators do a great job of simulating flight operations - full force feedback, visual and aural cues - but if you can't fly you will get nothing from the cues, you simply don't understand them.
The question remains:
who will write the new generations of system software for the basic systems and gadgets?
the answer is probably something along the lines of "those who still can"
True, but most altimeters are calibrated on atmospheric pressure, which will alter considerably depending on your position wrt weather systems etc. Equally, Radar Altimeters are only a part of a solution, because the earth's crust has a tendancy to flex under the tectonic forces (great application for GPS, incidentally!) - if you are military, you don't want to use your radalt unless you really need it, because they use high intensity rapid sweep(IIRC) radar systems - which light up your position like a microwave xmas tree.